iii iii!M Ill 1 ill! liiill 1 rfiS'OLOGIOJLL BR 270 .S6 1885 Smith, Philip, 1817-1885. The history of the Christia church during the middle THE POPE IN PROCESSION. The Student's Ecclesiastical History Part II. THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH DURING THE MIDDLE AGES WITH A SUMMARY OF THE REFORMATION CENTURIES XI. TO XVI. y By PHILIP SMITH, B.A. AUTHOR OF THE "STUDENT'S OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY" AND THE "STUDENT'S NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY" WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1885 THE STUDENT'S SERIES. 12mo, Ci.oth, uniform in style. MANUAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. By Philip Smith. Two Parts. Illustrated. SKEAT'S ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY. $1 25. THE STUDENT'S CLASSICAL DICTION- ARY. Illustrated. $1 25. ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST. By Philip Smith. Illustrated. $1 25. HISTORY OF GREECE. By Dr. William Smith. Illustrated. $1 25. COX'S GENERAL HISTORY OF GREECE. With Maps. $1 25. LIDDELL 'S HISTORY OF ROME. Illustra- ted. $1 25. MERIV ALE'S GENERAL HISTORY OF ROME. 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With Eleven Maps. 75 cents. Pphlisued »y HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. E3T Any of the above bookt tent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United Stale) or Canada, on receipt of the price. PREFACE. The present Work forms the continuation and conclusion of the Author's " History of the Christian Church during the First Ten Centuries." The Preface to that Yolume set forth the need of such a Manual, not only for the Theological Student, but also for every reader of Civil History, which becomes more closely connected with Ecclesiastical History as we ad- vance into the Middle Ages ; while the great severance of a large part of Western Christendom from Home marks the epoch at which the general history of the Church branches out into that of the several nations. The limit thus prescribed by the nature of the subject corresponds to that which has been found practicable in the execution of the work ; for the Author is not ashamed to confess that he had to learn the magnitude of his task in its performance — " Experto disces quam gravis iste labor " — and the book was not written in the order of its final arrangement. The History of the Medieval Church— or rather that well-defined part of it which begins from the darkness of the Tenth Century— is a subject large enough in itself, and a complete History of the Reformation is one of equal magnitude ; but the ultimate issue of the former vi PREFACE. can only be seen by a glance at least, comprehensive how- ever brief, over the latter ; and this has been attempted in the present Volume. Apart from all questions of opinion about the true Catholic Church, which belong to polemical Theology, the external union of Western Christianity under the twofold headship of the Roman See and the Empire supplies a well-defined historical chain, which is here followed in the first two Books, from the deaths of the Emperor Otho III. and Pope Sylvester II. (a.d. 1002-3) to the Reformation, at the epoch marked by the coronation of Charles Y. in the same year as the Diet and great Protestant Confession of Augsburg (1530) and the death of Pope Clement VII. (1534), which is also the epoch of England's severance from Rome. Then, taking up what Mosheim long since defined as the Internal History of the Church, the attempt is made to exhibit, in successive Books, the Constitution, Worship, and most distinctive Doctrines of the Roman Catholic system ; the progress and decline of Monasticism, including the wondrous phenomenon of the Mendicant Orders, the standing militia of Rome, till their corruptions became a chief cause of the revolt from her authority; the great intellectual movement of Scholasticism and the Universities ; and the rebellion of opinion and conscience against authority, which — justly or unjustly — was stig- matized as Heresy. This subject leads, by a natural transition, to the great movement of Reformation, begin- ning with Wyclif and Hus, and culminating in the religious revolution of the Sixteenth Century ; the last wide period being only sketched in outline. With regard to the authorities on which the Work is founded, the avowal made in the Preface to the former Volume is still more applicable to the vast, literature of the Medieval Church. Though the subject has formed one of his special studies, the Author does not claim to have founded the present Manual on the life-long labour of original research ; but to have used the best Histories PREFACE. vii accessible, with such, reference to primary authorities as was possible. The works chiefly used are constantly indicated by references, and quotations are freely made where they seemed to give the best expression of the subject. Special acknowledgment is due to the thesaurus of extracts from original authorities, collected with equal industry and judgment by Gieseler in the Notes to his History,1 which were also freely drawn on by Canon Robertson, to whose work the Author's acknowledgment is now mingled with regret for his loss (he died on the 8th of July, 1882, in his 70th year). Another tribute of mingled gratitude and regret is due to Archbishop Trench, on his retirement from the see of Dublin, for the spirited and devout portraiture of the period in his Lectures on Medieval Church History ;2 and great help has been derived from the late Archdeacon Hardwick's two excellent Manuals of Church History during the Middle Ages and the Reformation, edited by the present Bishop of Chester (Dr. Stubbs) ; and also from Mr. Pryce's Essay, which has become a standard work, on the Holy Roman Empire. Of Dean Milman's History of Latin Christianity, and the works of Hallam, it is almost superfluous to sj)eak. Constant use has been made of the German Church Histories of Guerike, Niedner, Kurz, and Hase. Some important authorities for special parts of the work are acknowledged in their place ; but a tribute of admiration must here be paid to the labours of the late Professor Brewer and Dr. Shirley on the Franciscans and the Schoolmen, and particularly Roger Bacon and Wyclif. The avowal made in the Author's former Preface of his attempt to preserve historical impartiality, but not in a spirit of indifference, becomes the more necessary from 1 The references are to Mr. Hull's Translation in Clark's Foreign Theological Library. 2 Another light of the Irish Church, the late Bishop Fitzgerald, has left behind the Lectures delivered in Trinity College, Dublin, which it is hoped will soon be published. They are full of instruction and suggestion. Vin PREFACE. the nature of the questions at issue throughout the Middle Ages, especially between the Church of Rome and those who regard it as essentially a corrupted form of Christianity. On all such matters the object aimed at has been to state the plain historic truth, without exaggerating or glozing over the conclusions to which it leads. Luther's Cell in the Augustinian Convent at Erfurt. Noah's Ark, as a Symbol of Salvation in the Church by Bapti From the Catacombs. CONTENTS. BOOK I. CLIMAX OF THE EMPIEE AND THE PAPACY AND THEIR CONFLICT FOR SUPREMACY. Centuries XI.-XIII. CHAPTER I. PAGE SUPREMACY OF THE EMPIRE AND REFORM OF THE PAPACY, UNDER HENRY II., CONRAD II., AND HENRY III. a.d. 1002-1056 1 CHAPTER II. SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND (GREGORY VII.) AND HIS CONTEST WITH HENRY IV. ABOUT INVESTI- TURES, a.d. 1057-1085 10 CHAPTER III. THE CRUSADES AND THE PAPACY: WITH THE SEQUEL OF THE DISPUTE OX INVESTITURES. From the Death of Gregory VII. to thk Concordat op Worms and the Death of the Emperor Henry V. a.d. 1085 1125 J4 II— A 2 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN AND THE PAPACY. PAGE From the Election of Pope Honorius II. and the Emperor LOTHAIR II. TO THE DEATHS OF THE EMPEROR HENRY VI. and Pope Celestine III. a.d. 1124-1198 40 CHAPTER. V. CLIMAX OF THE PAPACY: AND FALL OF THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. From the Election of Innocent III. to the Deaths of Conrad IV. and Innocent IV. a.d. 1198-1254 61 CHAPTER VI. END OF THE PAPAL SUPKEMACY. From the Election of Alexander IV. to the Deaths of Boniface VIII. and Benedict XL a.d. 1254-1304 .. .. 81 BOOK II. THE DEGEADATION AND OUTWAED EEVIVAL OF THE PAPACY. Centuries XIV.-XVI. CHAPTER VII. THE "BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY."— PART I. CLEMENT V. AND JOHN XXII. a.d. 1305-1334 103 CHAPTER VIII. THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY— PART II. From Benedict XII. to Gregory XI. a.d. 1334-1378. Including the Tribuneship of Rtenzi at Rome .. 119 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT PAPAL SCHISM.-PART I. PAGE To thr Council op Pisa and the Death of Alexander V. a.d. 1378-1410 136 CHAPTER X. THE GREAT PAPAL SCHISM —PART II. The Council of Constance and End of the Schism. a.d. 1410 to 1418 149 CHAPTER XI. PAPACY OF MARTIN V. AND EUGENIUS IV. The Council of Basle : to its Virtual End. a.d. 1418-1443 . 168 CHAPTER XII. THE COUNCIL OF FERRARA AND FLORENCE. The XVIIth (Ecumenical of the Romans. End of the Council of Basle, a.d. 1438 to 1447 .. ..' 185 CHAPTER XIII. OUTWARD REVIVAL OF THE PAPACY. Age of the Renaissance. Nicolas V. Calixtus III. Pius II. Paul II. a.d. 1447-1471 196 CHAPTER XIV. THE PAPACY IN THE AGE OF THE RENAISSANCE. Sixtus IV. Innocent VIII. Alexander VI. Pius III. a.d. 1471-1503 214 CHAPTER XV. THE PAPACY IN THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION. Julius II. Leo X. Clement VII. To the Epoch of the Coronation of Charles V. a.d. 1503-1530 233 xii CONTENTS. BOOK III. THE CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, AND DOCTEINES OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH. Centuries XI.-XVI. CHAPTER XVI. PAGE THE PAPACY, HIERARCHY, AND CLERGY 255 CHAPTER XVII. MINISTRATIONS OF THE CHURCH. Centuries XI.-XVI. 271 CHAPTER XVIII. SAINT- WORSHIP AND MARIOLATRY. HYMNOLOGY AND SACRED ART 294 CHAPTER XIX. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Lanfranc and Berengar— Doctrine of Transubstantiation . . 310 BOOK IV. THE MONASTIC ORDERS AND MENDICANT FRIARS. CHAPTER XX. REFORMED AND NEW MONASTIC ORDERS 328 CHAPTER XXI. THE MILITARY AND MINOR MONASTIC ORDERS .. 351 CHAPTER XXII. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. ST. DOMINIC AND THE PREACHING FRIARS, a.d. 1170, et seq 368 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER XXIII. PAGE THE MENDICANT FRIAKS -continued. ST. FRANCIS AND HIS ORDER, a.d. 1182-1226 381 CHAPTER XXIV. PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCANS, a.d. 1226-1256 .. 399 CHAPTER XXV. LATER HISTORY OF THE MENDICANT ORDERS ..415 BOOK V. ECCLESIASTICAL LEARNING, THE UNIVERSITIES, AND SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY. Centuries XI.-XV. CHAPTER XXVI. RETROSPECT OF CENTURIES VI.-X 438 CHAPTER XXVII. RISE OF SCHOLASTIC DIVINITY. From Lanfranc and Berengar to Anselm — Second Half of Cent. XI 451 CHAPTER XXVIII. FIRST AGE OF SCHOLASTICISM. Realism and Nominalism: Roscellin, Abelard, and St. Ber- nard. The Victorines and Peter Lombard. First Half of Cent. XII 464 CHAPTER XXIX. SECOND AGE OF SCHOLASTICISM. The Universities and the Schoolmen. — Cent. XII., XIII. .. 486 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXX. PAGE SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY— continued. THE FRIARS AND THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. St. Bonaventcra, St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus. a.d. 1221 4308 501 CHAPTER XXXI. THE GREATEST OF THE SCHOOLMEN. Roger. Bacon. From about 1214 to after 1292 a.d 525 CHAPTER XXXII. LAST AGE OF SCHOLASTICISM. William of Ockham and the Later Schoolmen. From the End of Cent. XIII. to the End of Cent. XV 543 CHAPTER XXXIII. MYSTICAL THEOLOGY AND THE MYSTICS. Centuries XIV. and XV 554 BOOK VI. SECTS AND HERESIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER XXXI V. ORIGIN OF THE MEDIEVAL SECTS. Retrospect. — Centuries VII.-XII 576 CHAPTER XXXV. THE MANICHEAN SECTS: Cathari, Albigenses, etc. — Centuries XII., XIII 585 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE WALDENSES, OR POOR MEN OF LYON. Centuries XII.-XV 595 CONTENTS. xv CHAPTER XXXVII. PAGE THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE, a.d. 1198-1229 .. ..607 CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE INQUISITION: from a.d. 1229 621 BOOK VII. THE REFORMATION AND ITS PRECURSORS. CHAPTER XXXIX. WYCLIF AND THE LOLLARDS, a.d. 1324 (?)-1384, et seq. 629 CHAPTER XL. JOHN HUS, JEROME OF PRAGUE, AND THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT IN BOHEMIA. From the Fourteenth Century to the Peace of Westphalia (a.d. 1648) 650 CHAPTER XLI. SUMMARY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. Century XVI 681 The Pope's Chair at the Council of Constance. Christ and the Doctors. The figure brlow is supposed to represent the Firmament. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Pope in Procession Frontispiece A Gem, with Christian Symbols Title The Twelve Apostles on Thrones, with Our Lord in the centre . . . . v Luther's Cell in the Augustinian Convent at Erfurt viii Noah's Ark, as a Symbol of Salvation in the Church by Baptism .. ix The Pope's Chair at the Council of Constance xv Christ and the Doctors xvi Susannah and the Elders allegorized as a type of the Church : a Sheep between two wild beasts xvii Coin of Charles the Great xviii Vestibule of the Abbey of Lorsch, near Darmstadt xl The Walls of Rome. The Ostian Gate 1 Rome 10 Ancient Chalices, formerly at Monza 23 Jerusalem 24 Shrine of the "Three Kings," Cologne Cathedral 40 The Iron Crown of Lombardy, at Monza Cathedral , BO Apse of the Apostles' Church at Cologne 61 Basilica of the Lateran, (San Giovanni in Laterano) 81 The Lord with SS. Peter and Paul. An ancient Glass Medallion, found in the Catacombs, and preserved in the Vatican 102 Avignon; with the Broken Bridge over the Rhone 103 Palace of the Popes at Avignon 119 The Castle of St. Angelo (Mausoleum of Hadrian) 136 Hall of the Kaufhaus, in which the Council of Constance was held .. 149 Medal of Martin V. From the British Museum 167 Medal of Pope Eugenius IV 1(58 Florence 185 Medal of John Palseologus. II., by Pisani. (Reverse.) 195 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xvii PAGE Interior of St. Peter's, at Rome 196 Medal of Cosmo de' Medici 213 Bronze Statue of St. Peter, in St. Peter's, at Rome 214 The Pope in Procession 233 Durham Cathedral 255 Shrine of St. heboid, at Nuremberg 270 Cologne Cathedral 271 St. Peter Fishing. (From the Calixtine Catacomb) 293 The Virgin Enthroned 294 Abbey of Corbey, in Westphalia 310 Archbishop celebrating Mass "before the Table " 327 The Abbey of Clugny, in Burgundy 328 IXQTC and Anchor. (A Gem from Martigny) 350 The Temple, Paris 351 Monks. — Devotion and Labour. One at prayer and two basket-m;iking 367 Interior of Cordova Cathedral 368 St. Francis in Glory. From the Fresco by Giotto, on the Vault of the Lower Church of St. Francis at Assisi 381 Assi&i : showing the Churches of St. Francis .. 399 Christ the Good Shopherd, with subjects from the Old Testament. An archaic bronze Medallion, found in the Catacombs at Rome . . 414 Franciscan Friar and Trinitarian Monk 415 Tomb of the Venerable Bede : in the Galilee of Durham Cathedral .. 438 Tomb of Charles the Great, at Aix-la-Chapelle 451 Vezelay — where St. Bernard preached the Second Crusade .. .. 464 Interior of Notre Dame, Paris 486 The Great, Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino 501 Merton College, Oxford .. 525 The Kbnigsstuhl at Rhense on the Rhine 543 Strassburg 554 Interior of the Court of a Greek Monastery. ' A monk is calling the Congregation to prayers by beating a board called a Simaodro, which is used instead of bells 576 Albi 585 Church of St. Ainay, Lyon 595 Gateway of Carcassonne 607 The Three Children in the Fiery Furnace 620 Prison of the Inquisition at Cordova 621 Preaching at Paul's Cross 629 Old Town-hall (Rathhaus) at Prague 650 Council of Trent. From a photograph of an old picture which used to hang in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Trent .. .. 681 Castle of the Wartburg in Thuringia, where Luther made his trans- lation of the Bible 690 Susannah and the Elders allegorized as a type of the Church : a Sheep between two wild beasts. From a bas-relief. Coin of Charles the Gnat CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS AND PERSONS.1 RETROSPECT OF IMPORTANT POINTS REFERRED TO IN CENTURIES VI. -X. A.D. PAGE 524. Boethius the last Classical Latin Writer 440 Decay of Learning ; but preserved by the Church 441 600. The Epoch from which the Middle Ages begin 440 Ecclesiastical Schools. Gregory the Great 442 630. Schools of King Sigbert and Bishop Felix in East Anglia . . 443 653. Constantine founds the Paulician Heresy in Armenia .. .. 579 668. Archbishop Theodore. Greek Learning in England . . . . 443 Learning flourishing in Northumbria 444 684. Benedict Biscop's Abbeys of Wearmouth and Jarrow . . . . 445 The Venerable Bede (ob. 735). His knowledge of Greek .. 445 690. Burning of Panlicians by Justinian II 579 735. Archbishop Egbert (ob. 766); the Schools of York .. .. 445 766. Alcuin (6. 735, d. 804) ; teacher of Charles the Great 445-6 800 f. The Cathedral and Conventual Schools of Charles .. ..446 811. Capitularies of Charles on Church-building 306 813. Council of Mainz. Feast of the Assumption 295 i Note.— This is intended not merely as a Chronological Table complete in itself, but a gathering up into consecutive order of the items which our arrangement by subjects lias necessarily dispersed through the book. Beyond the limits of the text (Centuries XI.-XVI.) various items incidentally referred to are inserted boih at the beginning and the end of the Table. What relates to the conversion of the nations of Northern Europe (in Centuries XI.-XIV.) has already been given In our First Volume. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xix A.D. PAGE 871. Destruction of the Paulician stronghold Tephrica 580 General Intellectual State of Europe in 9th and 10th Centuries 447 880 (circ.). Death of John Scotus Hrigena 448-450 912. Berno founds the Benedictine Order of Glugny 332 960. Witikund OF Corvey against Monastic Reform 335 969 f. Pauliciaiis in Thrace, &c. : spread to Europe 580 Oriental Origin of Western Manicheaa Sects 578-580 980. Avicenna, Arab commentator on Aristotle (06. 1037).. 458-9 999. Sylvester II., P. (Gerbert), brings Arab Learning from Spain 458 1000. General Expectation of the Millennium 306 ELEVENTH CENTURA 1002. Death of the Emperor Otho III 2 Henry II. (of Bavaria) King of the Romans 2 1003. Death of Pope Sylvester II. (Gerbert). His Learning .. .. 448 John XVII. (Sicco) and John XVIII. (Fanassi) Popes .. .. 3 n. Sergius IV. (Bocca di Porco) Pope 3 n. 1004. Leutheric, Archbishop of Sens, on the Eucharist 313 1005. Nilus the Younger, hermit in Calabria (ob.) 333 1012. Benedict VIII. (John), Pope : Gregory, Antipope .. .. 3 1017. Manichean Heretics in Aquitaine .. 581 1018. Romuald founds the Order of Camaldoli 334 1022. Heretics burnt at Orleans, Toulouse, &c 581 1024. John XIX. (Romano) Pope, Senator of Rome 3 Conrad the Salic (Franconian) : cr. Emperor 1027 . . . . 3, 4 1025. Eucharistic Miracles 311 n. 1030. St. Catharine of Alexandria, a fictitious Saint 292 1033. Benedict IX. (Terfilacto) Pope (deposed 1046) 4 Expectations of the Millennium 306 1038. Earliest known Regular Canons of Cathedrals 343 1039. Henry III. the Black {Franconian) : cr. Emperor 1046 . . . . 4 Gttalbert founds the Order of Vallombrosa 334 1044. Heretics burnt at Monteforte near Turin 581 Wazo, Bishop of Liege, against persecution (ob. 1048) .. .. 581 1044-5. SYLVESTER III. and G REGORY T7. Antipopes (deposed 1046) 4 1046. Clement II. (Suidger) Pope : Synod of Sutri 4 1048. Dam asus II. (Poppo) Pope for 20 days 5 St. Leo IX. (Bruno) Pope: Rise of Hildebrand 5-7 Hospital of St. John at Jerusalem (cf. 1095) 352 1049. Hugh, Abbot of Clugny 342-3 Dispute of Berengar of Tours (6. 1000, d. 1088) and Lan- franc OF Bec (b. 1005) on the Eucharist 314 f. 1050. Synods of Home and Vercelli against Berengar 316 Use of Dialectics in the controversy 323,461 XX CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.U. PAGE Origin and Meaning of SCHOLASTICISM \ . 452-3 1053-4. Final Schism of the Eastern and Western Churches .. ..8,9 1054. Victor II. (Gebhard) Pope 9 Council of Tours about Berengar 317 1056. HENRY IV. (Franconian) : cr. Emperor 1084 9 1057-8. STEPHEN IX. (Frederick of Lorraine) Pope 11 1058. Decay of Cathedral and Monastic Schools 491 1058-9. Besedict X. (John) Antipope 11 1059. Nicolas II. (Gerard) Pope. He makes the College of Cardinals electors of the Pope .. .. 11 Treaty with Robert Guiscard, founder of the Norman power in South Italy 13 Resistance to the Pope in Germany 13,15 Berengar's enforced confession at Rome 318 1061. Alexander II. (Anselmo da Baggio) Pope 14 E.ONORIUS Antipope to 1069 „ .. .. 14 1066 f. William the Conqueror : his ecclesiastical policy .. .. 35 1068. Hanno, Archbishop of Cologne, Monastic Reformer 335 1069. Congregation of Hirschau founded by the Abbot William .. 336 1070. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury 35 1072. Peter Damiani (St.) ob. : promotes Mariolatry 14, 282, 296, 321 n. His complaint of secular learning 457 1073 f. Guitmund on the Eucharist 319 St. Gregory" VII. (Hildebrand) Pope. His "Dictate " .. .. 15 1074. Synod of Borne, against simony anil clerical marriage .. .. 16 Stephen of Tigerno founds the Order of Grammont .. 336-7 1075. Decree against Investitures 17 Council of Poitiers against Berengar 317 1076. Henry IV. excommunicated 19 1077. His abject submission at Canossa 20 Rudolf of Swabia, Anti-King in Germany (killed 1080) .. .. 21 1078. ANBELM (St.) Abbot of Bee (6. 1033, d. 1109): founder of the Scholastic Theology .. ., 37,461-3 1079. Council of Borne against Berengar 322 1080. Henry IV. again excommunicated 21 CLEMENT III. (Guibert) Imperialist Antipope, to 1100.. .. 22 Plenary Indulgence to the supporters of Rudolf 283 1084. Henry IV. takes Rome and is crowned by Clement 22 Alliance of Gregory with Robert Guiscard and the Eastern Emperor Alexius Comnenus 22-3 Bruno of Cologne founds the Carthusian Order .. .. 338-9 1085. Death of Gregory VI] 23 1086. Victor III. (Desiderio) Pope 25 1088. Urban II. (Otho, a Frenchman) Pope. Conflicts in Rome .. 25 1092 f. Roscellin {Nominal tat) opposed to Anselm 465-7 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxi A.D. PAGE 1093. Conrad, son of Henry IV., Anti-King in Italy 37 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury 37 1095. His quarrel with William Rufus about Investiture 37 Council of Clermont. First Crusade 26 Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony founded 352 1098. Archbishop Anslem at the Synod of Bari 38 Robert of Champagne founds the Cistercian Order 341 1099 Capture of Jerusalem. Godfrey of Bouillon, King .. .. 27 Paschal II. (Rainer) Pope 28 Order of Hospital Brethren of St. John founded (cf. 1118) .. 353 1100. Robert of Arbrissel founds the Order of Fontevraud .. .. 339 Council of Poitiers : fictitious Relics 291 William of Champeaux {Realist), teacher at Paris . . . . 467 Afterwards founder of the Victor ine Mystical Scholasticism . . 479 Peter Abelard {Nominalist, b. 1079) rival of William .. 467-8 Abelard attacks Indulgences 285 1100 f. England resists legatine authority 32,39 TWELFTH CENTURY. 1101 f. The Heretics Eon, Tanchelm, and Peter of Bruis .. 582-3 1102. Henry IV. again excommunicated 28 1103. Civil War in Germany. Henry deposed (06. 1106) 29 1106. Agreement of Anselm with Henry 1 39 Henry V. {Franconian) : cr. Emperor 1111 29 1107. Contest about Investitures renewed 30 1109. Death of Anselm of Canterbury 39 1111. Henry in Italy. The Pope imprisoned 30 1112. Paschal revokes his agreement with Henry 31 1113 f. The Cistercian "daughter societies" founded 342 1115. Bernard, St. {b. 1091), Abbot of Clairvaux 44 1116. Alexius Comnenus and the Paulicians in Thrace 582 1116 f. Henry of Lausanne : the Henrician heresy 584 1117. Anselm of Laon (o'>.), biblical theologian 468 1118. Abelard and Heloisa 469 Gelasius II. (John Gaetano) Pope 31 Gregory VIII. (Burdinus) Antipope to 1121 31 Military Order of the Temple founded 355 The Hospitallers of St. John become Military 353 1119. CalixtusII. (Guy of Dauphiny) Pope 32 Council of Reims. Henry V. excommunicated 32 Conference of Gisors between Henry I. and the Pope . . . . 33 1119. Religious and Ecclesiastical State of Languedoc 588 Council of Toulouse against Heresy 589 1120. Abelard's Jnt> oduction to Theology 470 xxii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. a.d. PAGE 1120. Norbert founds the Prsemonstratensian Order .. ..^ .. 345 1121. Council of Soissons against Abelard 47/ 1122. Abel ard founds the monastery Paraclete 471-2 Norbert and Bernard against Abelard 472 Concordat of Worms about Investitures 34 1123. First Lateran Council (the Ninth (Ecumenical) 34 1124. Honorius II. (Lambert) Pope .. 43 First mention of Seven Sacraments 275 n. Guiberti, Abbot of Nogent, on false relics and saints .. .. 291 1125. Ivo OF Chartres (ob.) : Canons Regular of St. Augustine . . 343 Bernard on Monastic Corruptions 348-9 Abelard, Abbot of St. Gildas in Brittany 473 History of his Misfortunes. Correspondence with Heloisa . . 473 Emperor Henry V. ob. End of the Franconiin Line .. .. 34 Lothair II. (of Saxony): cr. Emperor, 1137 43, 46 Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny 45, 348 1128. The Statutes of the Templars by Bernard 356 1130. Innocent II. (Gregory), Pope 43 ANACLETUS II. (Peter Leonis) Antipope to 1138 43 1131 (or 1148). Order of Sempringham founded by Gilbert .. ..341 1134. Abelard's teaching at Paris. His Sic et \on .. .. 474-5 1138. Conrad III. (The Swabian or Hohenstaufrn Line) 46 Contest with Henry of Bavaria and Saxony 46 Origin of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions 46 1139. Second Lateran Council (the Tenth (Ecumenical) .. .. 47 Condemnation of Arnold of Brescia 47 Edict against Heresy in Languedoc 589 1140. Abelard condemned by the Council of Sens (ob. 1142) .. 476-7 1141. Robert Pulleyn (ob. circ. 1150), writer of Sentences .. 482-3 Hugo of St. Victor, Mystical Scholastic (ob.) 480 1143. Republican Revolt at Rome 47 Celestine II. (Guy de Castro) Pope 47 1144. Lucius II. (Gerard Caccianimico) Pope 48 Church of St. Denys at Paris, : Pointed Architecture .. .. 308 1145. Eugenius III. (Bernard) Pope 48 1146. St. Bernard against puttiog Heretics to Death 587 1147. Gilbert de la Porree opposed to Bernard (ob. 1151) .. .. 478 The Second Crusade preached by St. Bernard 48 Albi, the seat of the Albigensian Heresy 584, 586 1 147 f. Prophecies of St. Hildegard (6. 1098) and St. Elizabeth 584 n. 1148. Council of Reims against Heresy 589 1149. St. Bernard's work De Consideration e 48 n. (probably earlier) Averrhoes (06. 1198) of Cordova, Arab com- mentator on Aristotle 459 Vacarius teaches Civil Law at Oxford 490 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxiii A.D. PAG E 1150. Peter Lombard, "Master of Sentences " at Paris (ob. 1164).. 483 1152. Frederick I. Barbarossa (Hohenstaufen) : cr. Emperor 1155 49 St. Bernard on Papal Legates 261 „ on the Mediation of the Virgin 298 „ Definition of a Sacrament 324 1153; Death of St. Bernard 48 Anastasius IV. (Conrad) Pope 50 1158 (about). The Decretum Gratiani 485 1153. Alliance of Barbarossa with the Emperor Manuel Comnenus 49 1154. Barbarossa in Lombardy 50 Adrian IV. (Nicolas Breakspear) the only English Pope . . 50 The Hundred Years' Conflict with the Empire begins .. 50-1 John of Salisbury, friend of Adrian IV. (ob. 1180) .. 480-1 „ on Papal corruptions and Archdeacons .. 261 „ on Ancient Learning and the Schoolmen .. 481 1155. Execution of Arnold of Brescia 50 1156. The Carmelite Order founded by Berthold 364 Stephen, Abbot of Obaize (ob. 1159), resists an Indulgence .. 284 1158. Order of Calatrava founded 363 Frederick in Italy. Assembly at Roncaglia 52 Privileges granted to the University of Bologna 457 1159. Alexander III. (Roland) Pope 52 Victor IV. (Octavian) Antipope to 1164 52 1160. Imperialist Council at Pavia 53 Punishment of Heretics (Publicani) in England 587 1161. Flight of Alexander III. to France 53 Knights of St. James of the Sword founded 363 1162. Council of Tours for Alexander 54 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 54 Knights of Evora, or Order of Avis, founded 363 1163. Council of Tours against Heresy 589 1164. Council of Clarendon. Exile of Becket 54 PASCHAL III. (Guy of Crema) Antipope to 1168 54 1165. Alexander III. returns to Rome 54 1166. The Greek Emperor Manuel proposes a reunion 54 1167. Barbarossa takes Rome, but retreats 55 The Lombard League against the Emperor 55 Catharist Council near Toulouse, under their " Pope " . . . . 589 1168. CALIXTUS III. (John of Struma) Antipope to 1178 . ..55 1170. Murder of Thomas Becket. Penance of Henry II., 1178 .. 55 Peter Waldo founds the Poor Men of Lyon ( Waldenses) 596 f. Power of Canonization vested in the Pope 260 St. Dominic (Domingo Guzman) born 371 (circ.) Richard of St. Victor (ob.) 480 Walter of St. Victor opposes the Scholastics 480 xxiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. a.d. . page 1176. Defeat of Frederick by the Lombards at Legnano 56 Order of Alcantara founded 363 1177. The Emperor reconciled to the Pope at Venice 56 First Cistercian Mission against Heresy in Languedoc .. 589, 590 1178. Alexander's triumphant return to Rome 56 INNOCENT III. Anti pope to 1180 57 Hospital Brethren of Montpellier founded by GuiDO .. .. 352 1179. Third Lateran Council (the Eleventh (Ecumenical) .. .. 57 Decree on (University)* Teaching at Paris 489 Decree on behalf of Cathedral Schools 491 Decree against Pluralities . . 268 Crusade against Heretics in Languedoc 57,591 Various names and tenets of the Cathari, Albigenses, &c. 586, 591, f. Waldensian Deputies at the Council 600 1180. Pkter of Blois on Confession and Penance 276 1180 f. Origin of the Beguines and Beghards 436 1181. Lucius III. (Ubaldo Allocingoli) Pope 57 1182. Belethus, Ritualist writer 303 St. Francis of Assisi, born 382 1183. Peace of Constance between Emperor and Lombards .. .. 57 1184. Council of Verona against heretical Sects 601,623 The Reichsfest of Frederick Barbarossa at Mainz 57 1185. Urban III. (Humbert Crivelli) Pope 58 Fame of the Schools of Oxford 491 1187. Gregory VIII. (Albert di Morra) Pope, Oct. 20-Dec. 17 .. 59 Clement III. (Paul Scolaro) Pope 59 Jerusalem taken by Saladin 59 1188. The Third Crusade; led by Barbarossa (1189) 59 1190. Frederick Barbarossa drowned in Cilicia 59 Henry VI. (ffohenstaufen) : cr. Emperor 1191 159 1191. The Order of Teutonic Knights founded by Henry of Walpot 362 Celestine III. (Hyacinth Bubona) Pope 59 1192 (cir.) Adam of St. Victor, Liturgical poet (ob.) .. .. 305 n. 1194. Henry VI. conquers Naples and Sicily 59 Council of Verona condemns the Waldenses 601 Wide Diffusion of the Waldenses 601 Raymund VI., Count of Toulouse, excommunicated .. .. 609 1195. Fourth Crusade under Henry VI 60 n. 1196. Peter II. King of Arragon 609 I'm DEBICE II. (Henry's infant son) elected King of the Romans 60 1197. but on the death of his father excluded by the 60 rival elections of Philip II. (Swabiari), and Otho IV. (Saxon) 65 1 The C ) are a reminder thai the name is not yet used, but in reality Universities rose In the twelfth century or <;irlirr (see p. 487 f). CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxv AJ>- PAGE 1198. Innocent III. (Lothair of Segni) Pope .. 65 His Reforms. Climax of the Papacy 65 71 Frederick, King of Sicily, under the Pope's protection . . . . 64 Civil War in Germany. Innocent supports Otho 65 Order of Trinitarians or Mathurins founded 365 The Waldenses in Piedmont 601 1198 f. The Jus Exuviarum renounced in Germany 265-6 1199. Innocent proclaims the Fifth Crusade 68 Heresy in Italy put down by the Pope 608 Heresy in Languedoc : Mission of Cistercians 609-16 Innocent III. on the Waldenses and Scripture 602 1200. Paulus Presbyter on the Remission of Sins 285 n. Aristotle's Philosophical works brought into Europe in the latter part of the twelfth century. The Dialectic works known much earlier 459,460 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 1201. Charter of John to the University of Oxford (cf. 1149) .. 490 Royal Grant to the University {Studium Generale) of Paris . . 490 Order of the Humiliati sanctioned by Innocent III 365 1202. Abbot St. Joachim of Fiore (06.): his Prophecies 420 1203. The Crusaders take Constantinople 68 1204. Latin Kingdom there till 1261 ' 68 Heresies of David of Dinant and Amalric of Bena . . . . 492 Peter of Castelnau and Arnold in Languedoc .. .. 379, 610 1204 f. Hospitals of the Holy Ghost 352 1205. Diego, Bishop of Osma, and Dominic in Languedoc .. 372 1208. Murder of Peter of Castklnau imputed to Raymond .. ..61 Philip II. murdered, Otho IV. cr. Emperor (1220) 67 A Crusade against Languedoc; Simon de Montfort .. 611, 613 1209. Capture and Massacre of Beziers and Carcassonne .. .. 614-5 Submission and Penance of Raymond 614 Female Schools founded by Dominic 375 Council of Paris condemns the Physics of Aristotle ; also the books of Amalric of Bena and David of Dinant 491-2 and n. 1210. Attempt to reconcile the Waldenses 610 Otho excommunicated by the Pope 66 1212. Frederick II. {Hohenstaufen) recalled to Germany : (cr. 1220) 67 The Moors defeated at Navas de Tolosa in Spain 68 St. Francis founds his Order of Minor Brethren 385 Sisterhood of St. Clare 387 1213. John of England becomes the Pope's vassal 67 Homage of various states to Innocent III 68 II— B xxvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. a.d. v page 1213. Peter II. of Arragon defeated and slain at Muret .. .. 617 1214. Otho defeated at Bouvines. (Dies 1218) 67 Roger Bacon, Franciscan Schoolman, born (ob. after 1292) 526 f. 1214-5. Conquest of Languedoc by the Crusaders 617 1215. Fourth Later an Council (the Twelfth (Ecumenical) .. .. 70 Decrees for Transubstantiation and Auricular Confession Til ', 325 „ against Episcopal power of Indulgence 288 n. Condemns the Cathari, Waldenses, and other heretics .. .. 623 Proclaims Crusade against the Albigenses 71 Decrees published in the Pope's name 259 n. Forbids new religious Orders 350 Innocent sanctions the Franciscans and Dominicans 71 First General Chapter of the Minorites (Franciscans) .. .. 388 First use of the name of the University of Paris 490 Aristotle prohibited by the Papal Legate at Paris . . . . 493 1216. Honorius III. (Cencio Savelli) Pope 72 The Dominican Order of Preachers sanctioned 375 1217. Revolt of Languedoc. Death of De Montfort (1218) .. ..619 Unsuccessful Sixth Crusade to Egypt 72 1219. St. Francis goes to Egypt 388 FraDciscan Martyrs in Morocco 388 1220. Brethren of the Warfare of Jesus Christ 364 Henry, son of Frederick, elected King of the Romans .. .. 72 First Dominican Chapter 377 1220-3. Agreements between the Emperor and Pope 72 1221. Death of St. Dominic (canonized 1233) 378-9 The Third Order (Terliarii) of St. Francis 392 1222. Council of Oxford on Feasts of the Virgin 301 n. 1223. The University of Cambridge 490 1223 (or 1224). Charter of Honorius to the Minor Brethren .. .. 389 1224. Arrival of the Franciscans in England 389 Their School at Oxford, Robert Grosseteste reader 390 w., 494 The Stigmata of St. Francis. His death (1226) .. .. 393-5 1225 f. Adam Marsh (Ada de Maiisco) Francn. Prior at Oxford 407, 495 122(3. Louis IX. (St.) King of France 85 1227. Gkegory IX. (Ugolino de Segni) Pope 73 Begins the long strife with Frederick II 73 The Crusade. Excommunication of the Emperor 74 Cjesarius of Heisterbach on Miracles and Visions .. . . 293 1228. Albertus Magnus at Paris (6. 1193, d. 1280) 497-500 University of Paris suspended (restored in 1231) .. .. 498-9 1228-9. Frederick in Palestine : King of Jerusalem 75 1229. End of the War. Penance of Raymond VII 620 Sequel of the history of Languedoc 620 n. Council of Toulouse against Heresy 622 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxvii A.I>. PAGE 1229. The Scriptures forbidden to the Laity 622 First Origin of the Inquisition 623 1230. Frederick's return and agreement with Gregory 75 1231. Frederick's ecclesiastical laws. The Code of Melfi 75 His Laws against Heresy 75 624 Elias, successor of St. Francis : deposed 1239 411-413 Bull of Gregory X. on Aristotle 493 Albert the Great at Cologne (Bp. of Ratisbon 1260-3) .. .. 499 1232. Conradof Marburg, preacher and Inquisitor (k. 1233) 557, 625-6 1233. The Inquisition entrusted to the Dominicans 374, 380 Order of Servites of the Blessed Virgin 434 1234. Crusade against the Stedingcrs in Frisia 626 n. Raymund Pennaforti: the Decretals of Gregory IX. .. 76, 485 The Emperor's son Henry rebels in Italy : dies 1242 .. 76-7 Council of Tarraco forbids vernacular SS. to the clergy .. 622 n. 1235. Council of Bordeaux forbids Infant Communion 325 Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (pb. 1253).. .. 407, 495 1237. Frederick's son Conrad IV. elected King of the Romans .. 77 1238. The Carmelite Order come to Europe 434 1239. Frederick again excommunicated 77 1241. Celestine IV. Pope, Oct. 26-Nov. 17, not consecrated .. .. 78 The Holy See vacant till' June 26, 1243 78 1243. Innocent IV. (Sinibald Fiesco) Pope 78 The Quarrel with the Emperor continued 78 Matthew Paris on the Mendicant Friars 380 1244. Jerusalem taken by the Chorasmians 86 1245. Alexander Hales, Franciscan Schoolman (06.) .. .. 496-7 The Franciscan rule relaxed by Innocent IV 413 Rise of the Zealots of the Order or Fraticelli 426 1245. First Council of Lyox (the Thirteenth (Ecumenical) .. .. 79 Decrees Frederick's deposition. War in Italy 79 1246-7. Henry of Thuringia and William of Holland Anti-kings .. 79 1247 f. Berthold, Franciscan preacher in Germany (06. 1272) 289, 557 1248-54. The Seventh Crusade. Louis IX. in Egypt 86 1249. William, Bishop of Paris, on Absolution 281 1250. Death of Frederick II. The Great Interregnum is dated by some from this year to the election of Rudolf of Hapsburg (1271); by others only from 1254 to 1256 79, 80 Robert of Sorbonne founds the famous Theol. School at Paris 506 1250-4. Conrad II., the last of the Hohenstaufen 80 1251. Contest of the University of Paris with the Friars 507 First Crusade of the Pastoureaux Ill w. 1254. Introduction to the " Everlasting Gospel" 423 f Bull of Innocent IV. about the Friars 507 Alexander IV. (Reinaldo di Segni, a Franciscan) Pope.. .. 82 xxvm CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. PAGE 1254. Alexander IV. 's Bulls in favour of the Mendicants .. ,\ .. 507 1255. Council of Bordeaux ; fictitious relics 291 1256. John of Parma, Franciscan General, resigned 414 St. Bonaventura (p. 1221, d. 1274), General .. .. 416, 497, 502 William of St. Amour On the Perils, &c. (ph. 1270) .. 508-9 Condemnation of the Everla sling Gospel 510 Order of the Augustinian Eremites 434 1257. Richard, Earl of Cornwall jRival Kings of thef to 1271 .. 82 Alfonso X. of Castile ) Romans \ to 1273 .. 82 St. Thomas Aquinas (b. 1226, 6b. 1274) Doctor at Paris 503 f. 1258. Manfred King of. Sicily, to 1266 83-4 1260. Supposed Apocalyptic Epoch 421, f. 1261. Council of Mainz against Quxst iaries 289 n. Urban IV. (James Pantaleon, a Frenchman) Pope . . . . 83 The Eastern Empire recovered by Michael VIII. Pal^eologus 90 Spurious Catena of Greek Fathers imposed on Thos. Aquinas . . 520 1263. Crusade against Manfred for Charles of Anjou 84 1264. Festival of Corpus Christi 327 1265. Clement IV. (Guy Foulquois, a Frenchman) Pope 84 Papal claim to dispose of vacant benefices 263 1266. Charles of Anjou cr. King of Sicily 84 1266-7. Roger Bacon's Op. Majus, Minus, and Tertium .. .. 529 f. 1268. Enterprize and execution of Conradin 84-5 Death of Clement IV. Papal Vacancy to 1271 85 1269. Pragmatic Sanction of Louis IX. 87 1270. Eighth and Last Crusade. Louis IX. d. at Carthage .. .. 88 Philip III. {le Hardi) King of France, to 1285 88 1270-2. Edward of England in Palestine. End of the Crusades.. 88 1271. Roger Bacon's Compendium of Philosophy 536 Gregory X. (Theobald Visdomini) Pope 89 1272. Edward I. King of Englaud .. 95 1273. Rudolf I. of Hapsburg, King of the Romans 89 1274. Second Council of Lyon (the Fourteenth (Ecumenical) .. 89 The Four Orders of Mendicant Friars 434 New rule for Papal Elections. The Conclave of Cardinals .. 91 Fruitless reconciliation with the Greeks 91 Deaths of Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas .. .. 502,511 1274? William of Ockham born (06. 1343 or 1347) 545 1275. Papal Territories and Claims confirmed by Rudolf 92 1276. Innocent V. (Peter de Tarentaise) Pope, Jan.-June .. .. 92 Adrian V. (Ottobone di Fresco) Pope, July-August .. .. 92 John XXI. (Ioao Pedro, a Portuguese) Pope 92 1277. Nicolas III. (John Orsini, a Franciscan) Pope 92 Franciscan Indulgence of.the Portiunculit 4is 1278. Rudolf I. (Emperor), master of Bohemia . . .. ■. .. .. 652 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XXIX A.D. PAGE 1278 f. Jerome of Ascoli, Francn. Gen., afterwards P. Nicolas IV. 427 1279. Bull Exiit, relaxing the Franciscan Rule 427 Peter John Olivi (6. 1247, ob. 1297) 427-30 1281. Martin IV. (Simon de Brie, a Frenchman) Pope 93 1282. Massacre at Palermo, the " Sicilian Vespers" 93 Sicily conquered by Peter III. of Arragon 93 Naples still held by the house of Anjou 93 1285. HONORIUS IV. (James Savelli; Pope 93 Philip IV. (the Fair) King of France 95 1287. Raymund Lully (b, 1235, ob. 1315) 552-3 1288. Nicolas IV. (Jerome of Ascoli, Franciscan General) Pope .. 93 1291. Fall of Acre. End of Christian Kingdom in Palestine 93,354,361 1291 f. NlCOLAUS DE Lyra (Franciscan), Biblical expositor .. .. 551 1292. Adolf (of Nassau) King of the Romans .. _ 95 Jacobus de Voragine (6.) : the Golden Legend .. . . 292 n. Roger Bacon's Compendium of Theology, &c 536-7 1292-4. Papal Vacancy for more than two years 93 1294. Celestine V. (Peter Murrone, a hermit) Pope, abdicated .. 93 His order of the Celestine Eremites 427 Boniface VIII. (Benedict Gaetano) Pope 94 1296. His conflict with England and France. The Bull Clericis Laicos 95 The poet Dante jl. (b. 1265, d. 1321) 95 n. 1296. William Durandus, Bp. of Mende (ob.) 292 n., 303 1298. Albert I. (of Hapsburg) King of the Romans 95 The Decretals of Boniface VIII 485 1299 f. Contest of England with the Pope about Scotland .. ..96 f. 1300. The first great Papal Jubilee. Indulgences 96,288 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 1301. Four Bulls against Philip of France 97 1302. Answei's of the States-General 98 The Bull Unam Sanctam : climax of Papal claims 99 1303. Assault on Boniface. His death 10o Benedict XI. (Mcolas Bocasi) Pope 101 Turning-point in the state of the Papacy 104 1304. Henry Eckiiart, Dominican Mystic (pb. 1330) .. .. 558-9 1305. Clement V. (Bertram! le Got, a Gascon) 105 Removes Irom Lyon to Avignon 106 1305-1378. Period of the " Babylonian Captivity " .. .. 106 f. 1305 f. Exactions of the Popes at Avignon 263 System of Papal Reservations or Provisions 263 1308. Henkit YII. (of Luxemburg) : cr. Emperor 1312 107 John Duns SCOTUS, Franciscan Schoolman (ob.) .. .. 522-3 Long Conflict of Thomists and Scotists .. .. .. .* .. 524 xxx CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. PAGE 1309. The Knights Hospitallers at Rhodes v .. 354 1309 f. Brotherhoods of Practical Benevolence : Fratres Cellitx, Lollards, Brethren of the Common Life 569-70 1310. Henry VII.'s son John K. of Bohemia : killed at Crecy, 1346 125, 652 (circ.) Brethren of the Free Spirit in Alsace 437, 557 1311. Council of Vienxe (the Fifteent h (Ecumenical) 108 Durantis, Bishop of Mende, on Councils 109 1312. Abolition of the Order of the Temple 108,361-2 1313. Matthew Visconti, Captain-General of Milan 112 1314. Death of Clement V. Papal Vacancy for ttxo years 110 Louis IV. (of Bavaria) : cr. Emperor 1328 112 Frederick (of Austria), rival king to 1325 112 1316. John XXII. (James of Cahors, a Gascon) Pope 110 Contest of the Pope with Louis 113 1316 f. John claims the Reservation of all benefices 263 Persecution of the Franciscan Zealots 430-1 Suspension of Nicolas lll.'s Bull Quis exiit 431-2 1317. Philip Y.(le Long) King of France 110 Persecution of Magicians, Lepers, and Jews 110-11 Second Crusade of the Pastoureaux Ill 1322. William of Ockham, Provincial Minister for England.. .. 546 Renewed and long contest of Nominalism and Realism . . . . 548 Franciscan General Chapter at Perugia 432 1324. Victory of Louis at Mukk lorf 113 His Excommunication. The Long Lnterdict of Germany .. 114, 556 1324? Assumed date of John Wyclif's birth 634 1325. Alliance of the Austrian party with Louis 114 1326. Wm. Durandus, Bp. of Meaux, on the Sacraments and SS. 544-5 1327. Louis in Italy. Council at Trent against John XXII 115 John Buridan, disciple of Ockham, at Paris 548 n. Walter Burley, Realist, at Oxford 548 n. 1328. Nicolas V. imperialist Antipope to 1329 116 Assembly of Pisa against John XXII 117 Philip VI. (of I 'alois) King of France .. 117 Thomas Bradwardine, Oxford Schoolman (ob. 1349) .. .. 524 1329. Flight of Ockham and Michael di Cesena to Louis IV. 432, 546-7 Works of Ockham and John of Jaudun on the Empire and Papacy 113 n.. 547 i:'.29-30. Retreat of Louis. End of Lmperial power in Italy .. ..117 1331. John XXII. on the Beatific Vision: charged with heresy .. 118 Nicolas of Basle (burnt 1393) : the Friends of God .. 559-561 1334. Benedict XII. (James Fournier), a reforming Pope .. .. 120 1336. Opposes Philip, who prevents a reconciliation with Louis 120-1 1338. Electoral Union at Rhense 121-2 Controversy of William of Ockham and the Papalists .. .. 122 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxxi A'D' PAGE 1338. Edward III., imperial vicar : deserted by Louis 122 1340. John Tauler, Preacher and Mystic (6. 1290, ob. 1361) .. 561-4 1340 f. Revival of Republican spirit at Rome 127 f. 1341. Petrarch (6. 1304, ob. 1374) crowned at the Capitol .. ..128 1342. Clement VI. (Peter Roger) Pope 123 Missions inviting his return to Rome 123 Climax of Profligacy at Avignon 123 1343. Clement's Bull against Louis 124 1344. Prague made an independent Archbishopric 652 1345. Disputed succession in Naples 124-5 1346. Charles IV. (of Luxemburg) King of Bohemia 652 1347. Charles IV. King of the Romans : cr. Emperor 1355 .. 125, 652 1347-8. Nicolas Rienzi, Tribune of Rome 129-30 Plague of the Black Death 130,556 Conduct of the Friars and John Tauler 131,563 The fanatical Flagellants 132 1348. University of Prague founded by Charles IV 653 Joanna of Naples sells A vignon to the Pope 126 1348-9. Gunther of Schwarzburg Anti-King 126 1350. The Second great Papal Jubilee 132 John II. King of France .. 132 1351. Statute of Edward III. against Papal Provisions .. 140 n., 264 1352. Rienzi imprisoned at Avignon 130 Innocent VI. (Stephen Aubert) Pope 130 1353. Cardinal Giles Albornoz reconquers the Papal States .. .. 132 1353-4. Rienzi's mission to Rome, and murder 133 1356. The Golden Bull of Charles IV 133 1361. Wyclif, Master of Baliol College, Oxford 634 Resigned for the rectory of Fylingham 634 1362. Urban V. (William de Grimoard), reforming Pope 133 1363. Wyclif takes his Doctor's Degree 635 His " bundles of tares " gathered up by the Friars . . . . 631, 635 1364. Free Companies in Italy. Treaty with Bernabo Visconti .. 134 1365. Suso, Dominican Mystic (06. set. 70) 564 Urban V. demands tribute from England 637 1366. Refusal of the Tribute supported by Wyclif 97,637 His Theory of Dominion. First Epoch of English Reformation 638 1367. Urban returns to Rome ; and reo ives the 134 1368. submission of the Greek Emperor John Pal^eologus 1 134 Wyclif Rector of Ludgershall. His Poor Priests . . . . 634, 640 1369. Conrad of Waldhausen, Bohemian reformer (06.) .. .. 654 John Hus of Husinetz born 656 1370. Urban's return to Avignon, and death 134 The enthusiasts St. Bridget and two St. Catherines .. 134-5 Gregory XL (Peter Roger) Pope .. ..135 xxxii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. „ PAGE 1371. Wyclif iu the contest about taxing the Clergy 642 1374. Milicz, Bohemian reformer (ob.) 654-5 Wyclif, Rector of Lutterworth 634 Goes to Bruges for negociations with Gregory XL .. .. 6+2 1376. The Good Parliament. Death of the Black Prince .. ..642 1377. John of Gaunt, William of Wykeham, and Wyclif.. .. 642 Wyclif cited before the Bishop of London at St. Paul's.. .. 643 Papal Bulls against Wyclif and Oxford 643 Richard II. King of England 138 n. Wyclif's State Paper for Richard II 644 The Pope returns to Rome; and dies (1378) 135 End of the Babylonian Captivity 135 1378-1417. The Great Papal Schism of Forty Years1 .. ..137 1378. Urban VI. (Bartholomew Prignano) elected Pope at Rome .. 137 A number of the cardinals secede and elect Clement VII. (Robert de Geneve), who retires to Avignon (ob. 1394) .. 138 Wenceslaus (of Luxemburg and Bohemia) King of the Romans, deposed 1400 138 n., 658 Wyclif before Archbishop Sudbury at Lambeth 645 1379. Jerome of Prague born 659 1380. Charles VI. (Le Bien-Aime) King of France 138 n. 1380 f. Wyclif's Translation of the Bible 646 1381. Effect of Cade's Insurrection on Wyclif 645 Archbishop Courtenay hostile to Wyclif 645 Wyclif's Doctrine of the Eucharist 646 Proceedings against Wyclif at Oxford 647 Anne of Bohemia, queen of Richard II 656 Her Bible in three Languages 656-7 John Ruysbroek, Mystic (ob. set. 88) 565 1382. The " Earthquake Council " at London 647 Wvclif's retirement at Lutterworth 647 His Trialogus, &c, and English Tracts 648 1384. Wyclif cited to Rome: his Death (Dec. 3 1) 648-9 Gerard Groot, founder of Brethren of the Common Life (ob.) 572 1385. New forms of Papal exaction 14<» 1386. Florentius Radevvini, founds Canons of Windesheim (o&. 1400; 572 1387. Sigismund (of Luxemburg), King of Hungary 658 University of Paris for the Immaculate Conception 304 1389. Boniface IX. (Peter Tomacelli) Pope at Rome (ob. 1404) . . 140 1389 and 1393. Richard II.'s Statutes of Praemunire 140 1390 and 1400. The two Jubilees of Boniface IX 141 1391. Wyclif's (scholastic) works known at Prague 657 John DE Huesden, prior of Windesheim to 1424 .. .. 366, 572 i Note.— On the question of Pope or Antipope during the Schism, see p. 138 n. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxxiii AD' PAGE 1393. Mathias of J a now, Bohemian reformer (06.) 655-6 Nicolaus de Clamengis, Rector of Univ. of Paris . . 140 568 n. 1394. Efforts in France to heal the Schism 141 BENEDICT XIII. (Peter de Luna) Pope at Avignon, dej>. 1417 142 1395. Attempts to induce both Popes to resign 140 The Visconti made Dukes of Milan U2 1395-1409. Dominicans expelled from University of Paris ;;79 1396. Peter d'Ailly (ob. 1425) 140, 567-8 n. 1398. The French declare against Benedict 142 1399. Richard II. deposed : Henry IV. King of England . . .. 142,649 1400. Statute (2 Hen. IV. c. 15) for the burning of Heretics .. ..'649 Rupert (Count Palatine) King of the Romans 142 1400 f. Persecution of the Lollards in England 649 n. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 1401 (dr.). The Noble Lesson of the Waldenses 598 606 1401. Hus's first work on the Sacrament of the Altar 661 1402. Wyclif's theological works brought to Prague 660 1402. John Hus preacher at Bethlehem Chapel 658 1403. Zbynek Zajitz, Archbishop of Prague 662 1404. Innocent VII. (Cosmato Migliorati) Pope at Rome (ob. 1406) 143 1405. Jerome of Prague at Paris, Cologne, aDd Heidelberg .. .. 660 1406. Gregory XII. (Angelo Corario) Pope at Rome (abd. 1415) .. 143 1407. Murder of Duke of Orleans. (Case of Jean Petit) 144, 161, 165 1408. Demand for a Council. John Charlier Gerson 144 Meeting of seceding Cardinals of both Popes 144 1408-9. The petty councils (Conciliabules) of the two Popes .. .. 145 1409. Council of Pisa (not recognized as (Ecumenical) . . 146 and n. Principle of Reform "in Head and Members" 146 Decree of deposition against both Popes 146 Election of Alexandeh V. (Peter Philargi, a Greek) .. .. 147 Three rival Popes : the Church, before bivira, now trivira 147 n. Alexander's favour to the Mendicants 148 His Bull against Wyclifs works and Hus 664 Secession of Germans from the University of Prague . . . . 663 1410. John XXIII. (Balthasar Cossa) elected Pope at Bologna ' . . 148 His contest with Ladislaus of Naples 151 Wyclifs works burnt at Prague 665 Sentence in their favour at Bologna 633 SlGlSMUND (of Luxemburg and Hungary) cr. Emperor 1433 .. 152 JOBST (of Moracia) rival King (ob. 1411) 152 1412. Bull for Indulgence burnt at Prague 666 1 On the legitimacy of Alexander V. and John XXIII., see 148 n. II— B 2 xxxiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. PAGE 1412. John Hus in exile from Prague " .. 667 1413. His Be Ecclesia and Bohemian works 667-8 John Hus excommunicated 154 1414-18. Council of Constance (the Sixteenth (Ecumenical).. 153, 155 The leaders : Card. Zabarella, D'Ailly, Gerson, Hallam 156 Reluctant presence of John XXIII 154-5 Arrival, reception, and arrest of Hus 155, 157, 670 Arrival of Sigismund : Sermon of D'Ailly 158-9 1415. Sigismund's safe-conduct to Hus, and perfidy 160,669 Trial and martyrdom of Hus 160, 670, f. Deposition of John XXIIL, Gregory XII., and Benedict XIII. 161-2 1416. Trial and burning of Jerome of Prague 160, 674, f. 1417. Election of Pope Martin V. (Otho of Colonna) 163 Exile of Gerson (06. 1429) 164 and n. His Mystical Theology 566-7 Order of St. Justina sanctioned 367 1418. The Council dissolved: reform postponed to another .. .. 167 Papal Abuses restored. High claims of Martin .. .. 164,168 Concordats with separate states 169 1418 f. Religious War in Bohemia. Calixtines and Taborites .. 678 f. 1420. Crusade and defeat of Sigismund ; John Ziska (pb. 1424) .. 679 1422. Charles VII. (the Victorious) King of France 170 Siege of Constantinople by Amurath II. Truce . . . . 170 n, 1423. Papal Councils of Pavia and Siena 170 1424. Council summoned to Basle after seven years 179 1427. Crusade of Cardinal Beaufort in Bohemia 679 1428. Burning of Wyclif s bones 649 1430 (cir). Raymund of Sabunde : Natural Theology 568 1431. Eugenius IV. (Gabriel Condolmieri) Pope 171 Bohemian Crusade. Cesarini defeated at Tauss .. 171-2, 672 Council of Basle. (In part, Seventeenth (Ecumenical) 173, 184 n. Its Beputations. Cardinals Cesarini and Nicolas Cusanus 173-4 1432. Decrees of Constance renewed. Opposition of the Pope .. 174-5 Decree for the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin .. 304 n. 1431-3. Sigismund in Italy and at Basle 175-6 1433. The Council's Agreement (Compactata) with the Bohemians .. 679 1434. The Taborites crushed by the Calixtines 679 Eugenius driven from Rome, till 1443 177 1435-40. Government and fate of John Vitelleschi 177 1435 f. Reforming Decrees of the Council 178 1436. Sigismund received as King of Bohemia (ob. 1437) 679 1437. Scheme of reconciliation with the Greeks 186 1438. Final Breach between Pope and Council 178 Papal Council at Ferrara (afterwards at Florence) 178 New Leaders at Basle : Cardinal Louis, Bishop of Aries . . . . 179 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxxv A D PAGE 1438. ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini (6. 1405) afterwards Pius II. 179-80 Albert II. (of Hapsburg) l King of the Romans .. .. 181. 680 Germany neutral between Pope and Council 181 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourgcs; the Gallican liberties .. .. 181 The Emperor John Pal^eologus II. comes to Italy 187 1439. Felix V. (Amadeus, Duke of Savoy) Antipope elected at Basle 182 Council of Florence (the Seventeenth (Ecumenical) 184 n., 187 Agreement with the Greeks : the " Definition" .. .. 187-9 1440. Frederick III. elected : cr. Emperor 1451 183 Laurenttus Valla (b. 1406, d. 1465) 204 1442. Invention of Printing 204 1443. Council at Rome. Orientals received 189 Virtual end of the Council of Basle 184 1444. Crusade in Turkey. Fatal battle of Varna 190 1445. Mission of jEneas Sylvius from Frederick to Rome . . . . 191 144 6. Diet of Frankfort agrees to his terms 192 1447. Consent and death of Eugenics IV 193 Nicolas V. (Thomas of Sarzana) Pope 193,198 1448. Concordat of Aschaffenburg 193 1449. Submission of Felix. End of the Council of Basle .. .. 193-4 Results of the three great reforming Councils 194-5 Virtual end of the Middle Age of the Church 195 Climax of Latin Christianity and Epoch of the " Renaissance " 197 1450. Splendour and Profit of the Jubilee 199 Discontent provoked by the sale of Indulgences .. .. 199 n. Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, monastic reformer in Germany .. 367 1450 f. The Moravian Brethren 680 1452. Last Coronation of an Emperor at Rome 201 Amurath II. renews the siege of Constantinople 190 The Greeks reject the Agreement with Rome 190 1453. Fall of Constantinople and the old Roman Empire . . 202 Its results in the diffusion of Greek learning 203 Conspiracy and execution of Porcaro 201 1455. Death of Nicolas V. Character of his Pontificate . . . . 202-3 His patronage of Letters and Art 203 Restorations and new buildings at Rome 204 f. Design of St. Peter's and the Vatican 204-5 Other works throughout Italy 205 Printing perfected by John Gutenberg 204 1455. Calixtus III. (Alphonso Borgia, Spaniard) Pope 206 Crusade against the Turks. John Capistrano 206 i All the succeeding Emperors were of the house of Hapsburg, except Charles VII. (Bavarian) and Francis I. of Lorraine, whose marriage with Maria Theresa made him head of the new line of Hapsburg-Lorraine. xxxvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. PAGE 1455. John Huniades repulses Mahomet II. from Belgrade .^ .. 207 1456. The Germaaia of .Eneas Sylvius 207 The Pope's Nepotism . the Borgias and " Catalans " . . . . 207 1458-71 George Podiebrad King of Bohemia 680 1458, Pius II. (.Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini) Pope 208 1459. His crusading zeal. Congress of Mantua 209,210 New Orders of religious Knighthood for the Crusade .. 240, 367 1461. His papal policy. Bull of Retractation (1463) 210 Louis XL King of France 211 Attempt to repeal the Pragmatic Sanction 211 Progress of the Turks. Thomas Palseologus at Rome .. .. 211 1462. Pius II. annuls the Compactata of Basle 679 n. 1464. Pius starts for the Crusade : dies at Ancona 212 Paul II. (Peter Barbo) Pope : his works at Rome 212 Paganism mixed with the revival of letters 212 College of Abbreviators. Persecution of Platina 213 1467. Printing first used at Rome 213 1469. Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent) ruler of Florence .. 217 Marriage of Ferdinand of Arragon to Isabella of Castile .. 627 1471. Regular Canons of St. Agnes at Zwoll 572 Thomas a Kempis ob. (b. 1380). The De fmitatione Christi 574-5 Moral Degradation of the Papacy 215 Sixtus IV. (Francis della Rovere) Pope 216 The Pope's nephews, Julian, Peter, and Jerome 217 1473. Contest of Realists and Nominalists at Paris 549 n. 1474. Bulls on behalf of the Mendicants 379 1475. Jubilee. Works at Rome 217 John of Goch, German reformer (ob.) 683 1478. Conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence .. .. 21'8 1479. Bull of Sixtus IV. for the Spanish Inquisition 627 John Busch, Monastic Reformer (ob.) 366 n. 1480-1. The Turks take Otranto : their surrender 218 1481. John of Wesel, German reformer (<>b.) 683 1482. The Pope's quarrels with Venice and Naples 218-9 St. Francis of Paola. founds Order of Minims (ob. 1507) .. 433 1483. Deaths of Sixtus IV., Louis XL, and Edward IV 219, 683 Charles VIII. (l'Affable) King of France 219 Birth of Martin Luther (November 10) 219,683 Thomas of Torquemada Inquisitor-General in Spain .. .. 627 1484. Innocent VIII. (John Baptist Cibo) Pope 219 His gross profligacy, corruption, and venality 219 Birth of the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli 686 1489. Papal alliance with Florence. John de' Medici a cardinal .. 220 Jtntrigue with Sultan Bajazeft. Prince Djem (killed 1495) .. 220 John Wessel, German reformer (d>.) 682 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxxvii A'D- PAGE 1491. Jerome Savonarola (6. 1452) prior of St.. Mark's, at Florence 226 1492. Savonarola at the death-bed of Lorenzo de' Medici 227 Discovery of A merica by Columbus 226 n. Conquest of Granada from the Moors 220 Alexander VI. (Roderigo Borgia) Pope 221 His sons John and Caesar, and daughter Lucrezia . . . . 222 1493. Maximilian I. (styled Emperor Elect x) 222,237 1494. Charles VIII. invades Italy : retires in 1495 223 The Medici expelled : power of Savonarola at Florence .. .. 227 1495. Gabriel Biel (Nominalist) the last great Schoolman .. .. 549 1496-7. Reformation at Florence. Sacrifices of Vanities 228 Affairs of Naples. ^ Schemes of the Pope 223 1497. Murder of John Borgia by his brother Caesar 224 Order of St. Bernard founded 367 1498. Martyrdom of Savonarola 229 230 Niccolo Machiavelli, Secretary (b. l-'69, d. 1527) .. 230-1 n. Louis XII. (of Valois- Orleans) King of France 224 His alliance with the Pope and Cassar Borgia 224-5 1499. Louis conquers the duchy of Milan 225 Schemes and Progress of Caesar Borgia 225 1500. The Jubilee. Caesar's triumph 225 Corruption, Disorder, and Terror at Rome 225-6 Feb. 24. Birth of Charles of Austria and Spain (aft. Charles V.) . . 231 Treaty of Granadx for the partition of Naples 231 SIXTEENTH AND FOLLOWING CENTURIES. 1503. Battle of the Garigliano. Spanish Conquest of Naples 231 and n. Pius III. (Francis Piccolomini) Pope, Sept. 22-Oct. 18 .. .. 232 Julius II. (Julian della Rovere) a warrior Pope 235 1504-6. He recovers the papal territory in the Romagna 236 1507. Death of Caesar Borgia in Spain 236 n. 1508. League of Cambray against Venice 237 1509. Henry VIII. King of England 237 and n. John Calvin born 687 1510. The Venetians submit to the Pope 237 Breach of the Pope with France. Assembly at Orleans . . . . 238 The Gravamina of Germany 238 1511. Julius at the siege of Mirandola 239 Schismatic Council of Pisa and Milan, to 1512 239 Holy League of the Pope, Spain, and Venice, against the French 239 1512. Victory and death of Gaston de Foix at Ferrara 240 i The title borne by all his successors, except Charles V., who was crowned Emperor at Bologna. xxxvm CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. PAGE 1512 Cardinal John de' Medici taken prisoner v .. 240 The Emperor joins the League 240 The French driven out of Milan 240 Fifth Lateran Council (the Eighteenth (Ecumenical) . . . . 241 Jacques Lefevke, leader of French Reformation .. .. 687 n. 1513. Leo X. (John de' Medici) Pope. His Character .. .. 241-4 Affairs of Italy, Fiance, and Germany 244 Restoration of a general peace 245 1515. Francis I. King of France 245 Invades Italy : his victory at Marignano 245 Concordat of Bologna. Pragmatic Sanction annulled 245-6, 266 1516. Charles I. King of Spain : his vast Dominions 246 Conspiracy and execution of Cardinal Petrucci 243 Luther reads the Greek Testament of Erasmus 684 1517. Last Session of the Fifth Lateran Council 247 Cardinal Ximenes, ob 628 n. Indulgence for St. Peter's preached by Tetzel 247, 684 Luther's Ninety-five Theses at Wittenberg 247, 684 1518-19. His Disputations. Philip Melanchthon (6. 1497) .. .. 685 1519. Election of Charles V. (cr. Emperor at Bologna, 1530).. .. 248 Ulrich Zwingli (b. 1484) preaches at Zurich 686 1520. Relations' of Charles, Francis, and Henry 249 Luther burns the Bull of Excommunication 249,685 His three Primary Works 685 1521. Diet of Worms. Ban against Luther 249,685 Luther at the Wartburg. Translation of the Bible .. .. 685 War between Charles and Francis in Lombardy and Navarre .. 249 Ignatius Loyola wounded at Pampeluna 249, 688 Death of Leo X 249 The Turks take Belgrade, and Rhodes (1522) .. .. 253 n., 354 Henry VIII. " Defender of the Faith " 249 n. 1522. Adrian VI. (Adrian Florent) a reforming Pope 250 An Infallible Pope denies Papal Infallibility 250 The Reformation in Basle 687 1523. Clement VII. (Julius de' Medici) Pope 251 1524. Erasmus separates from Luther (06. 1536) 687 n. 1525. Francis I. taken prisoner at Pavia 251 Treaty of Madrid forced upon him 251 John the Constant, Elector of Saxony (ob. 1532) .. .. 686 n. 1526. First Diet of Spires : a compromise 685 1527. League of Pope, France, Venice, and Florence, against Charles 252 Sack of Rome by the Imperialists 252 Ferdinand I. King of Bohemia 680 1528. Lautrec in Italy. The Pope set free 252 The French repulsed from Naples 253 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxxix A.O. PAGE 1529. Peace of Cambray 253 Second Diet of Spires. The name of Protestants 686 The Turks repulsed from Vienna 253 n. 1530. Charles V. crowned by Clement at Bologna 253 The Diet and Confession of Augsburg 25+, 686 1531. Protestant League of Schmalkald 686 Death of Zwingli. Peace of Cappel 686 1532. Religious Peace of Nuremberg 686 John Frederick (the Magnanimous) Elector of Saxony .. 686 1533. Marr. of Catherine de' Medici to Henry (afterwards II.) 253 n. The Knights Hospitallers at Malta (till 1798) 354 1534. Death of Clement VII 253 n. The English Church severed from Rome 253 n. Luther's Translation of the Bible finished 685 Calvin at Basle. His Institutes 687 Paul III. (Alexander Farnese) Pope 270, 688 1538. Calvin expelled from Geneva (returns 1541) 688 Paul III.'s Commission De Emendanda Ecclesia 270 15)0. Society of Jesus sanctioned by the Pope 681 1541. The Interim of Ratisbon 688 1542. Xavier, Jesuit Missionary to India (06. 1552) .. .. .. 689 Bull of Paul III. for the Inquisition 628 1545-63. Council of Trent (the Nineteenth (Ecumenical) . . . . 689 1546. Death of Martin Luther 689 1546-7. Schmalkaldic War. Battle of Miihlberg 689 1553. Servetus burnt at Geneva 688 n. 1555. Religious Peace of Augsburg 690 1555-6. Abdication of Charles V 690 n. 1556. Philip II. King of Spain. Persecution in the Netherlands 690 n. 1558. Ferdinand I. Emperor 680 Elizabeth Q. of England. Statute 2 Hen. IV. c. 15 repealed. 15n9. Bull of Paul IV. confirming the Inquisition 628 1564. Maximilian II. Emperor 680 1566. Constitution of Pius V. for the Inquisition 628 1572. Massacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris. 1576. Rudolf II. Emperor 680 1589. Henry IV. King of France 687 n. 1598. Edict of Nantes. (Revoked 1685) 687 n. 1609. Royal Charter in Bohemia 680 1611. Matthias Emperor 680 1617. Ferdinand II. King of Bohemia (Emperor 1619) 680 1618-48. The Thirty Years' War 680,690 1619-20. Frederick, Elector Palatine, " winter King" of Bohemia 680 1620. Bohemia finally subjected to Austria 680 1648. Peace of Westphalia 254,680,690 xl CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.1-. PAGE 1677. Writ Ve Hwetico Comburendo abolished by 2 Chas. II. c. 9." 1685. Edict of Nantes revoked by Louis XIV 687 The Waldenses expelled from Piedmont. 1805. Death of the last Grand Master of the Hospitallers 354- 1806. Abdication of Francis II. End of the Holy Roman Empire. 1820. The Spanish Inquisition abolished 627 n. 1854. Pus IX. decrees the Immaculate Conception 305 1870. End of the Pope's temporal power. 1870-1. Council of the Vatican (the Taentieth (Ecumenical) . . j 259 1871. The Pope's Infallibility decreed / 305 n. 1879. Leo XIII. Pope. Encyclical on St. Thomas Aquinas .. .. 513 1884. „ Encyclical on Franciscan Tertiaries .. .. 393 1883. Aor. 10. Quatercentenary of Luther's birth 632 1884. Dec. 31. Quincentenary of Wycltf's death 632 i£L__r— '^'^ Vestibule of the Abbey of Lorsch, near Darmstadt. Of the time of Charles the Great. LIST OF POPES AND EMPERORS. The Names in [ ] are those of Antipopes and Rival Emperors. The term " Emperor "' is used for convenience, but those who were not crowned at Rome are marked with **. From the Beginning of the 11th Century. Popes. To From Emperoks. To A.D. A.D. Saxon Line. A.D. Sylvester II John XVII. Jan. la-Dec. 7 1003 1003 983 1002 OthoIIl 1002 Henry II. B.iv. (the Saint). 1024 JohnXVlII 1009 10i4 (Crowned Empiror.) Sergius IV 1012 Benedict VIII 1024 [Gregory] Jan. Dec. 1012 Franconian Line. John Xi\ 1033 1024 1027 Con radii, the Salic (Crowned Emperor.-) 1039 Benedict IX 1046 1039 Henry III. the Black 1056 [Sylvester III.] 1046 1046 (Crowned Emperor.) Gregory VI 1046 Clement II 10-17 Damasus 11 11)48 Leo IX 1054 Victor II 1057 1056 Henry IV 1106 Stephen IX 1058 1084 (Crowned Emperor; dep.) [Benedict X.] 1059 Nicolas II 1061 Alexander II 1073 [Honorius II.] 1069 Rivals with Henry I V. Gregory VII 1085 1077 [Rudolf of Swabia.] [Clement III.] 1100 1081 [Hermann of Luxemburg.] Victor 111 1087 Urban 11 1099 1093 [Conrad of Franconia.] Paschal II 1118 [Theodoric] 1102 [Albert.] 1105 [Sylvester IV.] . . 1111 1106 Henry V 1125 Gelasius 11 1119 1111 (Crowned Emperor.) [Gregory VIII.] . . 1121 CalixtusII 1124 [Celestine.] Honorius 11 1130 1125 Lotliairll. (or III.).. .. 1137 Innocent II 1143 1137 (Ciowned Emperor.) [Anacletus II] 1138 Lint of Hohtnstaufen. [Victor.] 1138 *Conrad ill 1152 Celestine II 1144 (Never crowned at Rome.) Lucius 11 1145 Eugenius III 1153 1152 Fr< derick 1 . Barbarossa . . 1190 Anastasius IV 1154 1155 (Crowned Emperor) Adrian IV 1159 Alexander II I 1181 [Victor IV.] 1164 [Paschal III.] 1168 [CalixtuslII] 1178 [Innocent III] 1180 Lucius III 1185 Urban III 1187 Gregory VIII 1187 xlii LIST OF POPES AND EMPERORS. Popes. Clement III. Celestine III. Innocent III. Honorius III. Gregory IX Celestine IV The Holy See vacant Innocent IV Alexander IV Urban IV Clement IV Vacancy Gregory X Innocent V I Adrian V. July 11-Aug. 5. John XXI Nicolas III Martin IV Honorius IV Nicolas lv' Vacancy Celestine V. Boniface VIII Benedict XI To a.d. 1191 1198 1216 1227 1241 I 1241 j 1243 i 1254 I 1261 I 1264 1268 ' 1271 I 1276 I 1276 I 1276 j 1277 I 1280 ! 1285 I 1287 1292 1294 1294 1303 1304 From A.D. 1190 1191 1197 1197 1209 1212 1220 1246 1247 1250 1254 1257 1273 1292 1298 Emperors. Henry VI . (Crowned Emperor.) [*Philip II.] Otho IV. (Saxon) .. . (Crowned Emperor.) Frederick II. Hohenstfn. (Crowned Emperor). [Henry of Thuringia] . [William of Holland] . *ConradIV Interregnum [Richard of Cornwall] . [Alfonso of Castile] . . . *RudolfI (Hapsburg) . * Adolf (Nassau) deposed. . killed * Albert I. (Hapsburg) . . To A.D. 1197 1208 1218 1250 1247 1247 1254 1271 1271 1273 1291 1298 1299 1308 The Babylonian Captivity at Avignon. Clement V. ... Vacancy John XXII [Nicolas V.] . . Benedict XII Clement VI Innocent VI. . . . f Urban V Gregory XI Returns to Rome. 1314 1308 1316 1312 1314 1334 1328 1329 1314 1342 1346 1352 1347 1362 1355 1370 1349 1378 1 Henry VII. (Luxemburg) (Crowned Emperor.) Louis IV. (Bavaria) (Crowned by the Antipope) [Frederick of Austria] [Charles IV. of Luxembg.] Charles I V. acknowledged (Crowned Emperor) [Giinther of Schwarzburg] 1378 The Great Papal Schism. 1378 i Urban VI. (Rome) . . . 1378 Clement VII. (Avignon) 1389 Boniface IX, (Rome) 1394 Benedict XIII. (Av ) dep died Innocent VII. (Rome ) . Gregory XII. ( Ro.) resig Alexander V. (Pisa) John XXIII. (Pisa).. (Deposed) End of >'«e Schism. 1389 1378 1394 1404 1400 1417 14241 1406 1415 1410 1410 1411 1415 1433 1417 1410 *Wenceslaus (of Luxem burg) deposed. ♦Rupert (Palatine) . . Sigismund (of Luxemburg) (Re-elected.) (Crowned Kmperor.) [Jobst, of Moravia] i Clement VIII. and Benedict XIV. : rival elections by the followers of Benedict XIII. in Spain (1424-1429). LIST OF POPES AND EMPERORS. xliii From Popes. To From Emperors. To A.D. A.D. A D. House if Hapsburg.*- | A.D. 1417 Martin V 1431 1438 ♦Albert II ! 1439 1431 Eugenius IV 1447 1440 Frederick III 1493 1439 [Felix V. (Basle) ] . . . 1449 1447 Nicolas V 1455 1452 / ast Coronation at Home. j 1455 Calixtus III 1458 i 1458 Pius II 1464 1464 Paul II 1471 1471 Sixtus IV 1484 1484 Innocent VIII 1492 1493 ♦Maximilian 1 i 1519 1492 Alexander VI 1503 1508 (Emperor Elect.) 1503 Pius III 1503 1503 Julius II 1513 15)3 LeoX 1521 1519 Charles V., abdicated 1556 1522 Adrian VI 1523 1530 * Crowned at Bologna.) died 1558 1523 Clement VII 1534 1534 Paul III 1549 1550 Julius III 1555 1555 Marcelltis II. (An. 9-30) 1555 1555 Paul IV. .. ... .. .. 1559 1558 ♦Ferdinand I 1564 1559 Pius IV 1565 1564 ♦Maximilian II 1576 1566 Pius V 1572 1572 Gregory XIII 1585 1576 ♦Rudolf II 1612 1582 Reformation of Calendar 1585 Sixtus V 1590 1590 Urban VII. (Sept. 15-27) 1590 1590 Gregory XIV 1591 1591 Innocent IX 1591 1592 Clement VIII 1605 1605 Leo XI. (April 1-27) 1605 1612 •Matthias 1619 1K05 Paul V 1621 1619 ♦Ferdinand II 1637 1621 Gregory XV 1623 1623 Urban VIII 1644 1637 ♦Ferdinand III 1658 1644 Innocent X 1655 1655 Alexander VII 1667 1658 ♦Leopold I 1705 1667 Clement IX. .T .. .. 1669 1670 Clement X 1676 1676 Innocent XI 1689 1689 Alexander VIII 1691 1691 Innocent XII 1700 1705 ♦Joseph I 1711 1700 Clement XII 1721 1711 ♦Charles VI 174?. 1721 Innocent XIII 1724 1724 Benedict XIII 1730 1730 Clement XII 1740 1742 ♦Charles VII. of Bavaria. 1745 1740 Benedict XIV 1758 1745 ♦Francis I. of Lorraine. 1765 1758 Clement XIII 1769 1765 (H. of Hapsburg- Lorraine.) ♦Joseph 11 1790 1769 Clement XIV 1774 1775 Pius VI. d. pris. in France 1799 1790 ♦Leopold II 1792 1800 Pius VII. (Rome united with France, 1809-14). 1823 1823 Leo XII 1829 1792 "Francis II 1806 1829 Pius VIII 1830 1806 (Abdicated.) 1831 Gregory XVI 1846 End of the Holy Roman 1846 Pius IX 1878 Empire. 1878 Leo XIII. Mem.' •All subsequent Emperors were of the House of Hapsburg, except Charles VII. and Francis I. LIST OF (ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. A.D. PAGE 325. I. The First of Nicea Vol. I. 255 381. II. The First of Constantinople „ 273 431. III. The Council of Ephesus „ 353 451. IV. The Council of Chalcedon „ 359 553. V. The Second of Constantinople „ 373 680. VI. The Third of Constantinople „ 377 787. VII. The Second of Nicea „ 537 Note. — These Seven are recognized alike by the Greek and Roman Churches. 869. VIII. (Roman) Fourth of Constantinople . . . . „ 546 879. VIII. (Greek) Fourth of Constantinople . . . . „ 517 Note. — The following are of the Soman Catholic Church : 1123. IX. First Lateran Council Vol.11. 34 1139. X. Second Lateran Council „ 47 1179. XL Third Lateran Council „ 57 1215. XII. Fourth Lateran Council ,, 70 1245. XIII. First Council of Lyon „ 79 1274. XIV. Second Council of Lyon „ 91 1311. XV. Council of Vienne „ 108 1409. [Council of Pisa: not recognized by best authorities] „ 146 1414-18. XVI. Council of Constance „ 153 XVII. Council of Basle-Ferrari-Florence, viz. .. „ 184 n. 1431 f. „ Basle (recognized in part) ,, 173 1438-9. „ Ferrara, removed to Florence Vol. II. 178, 187 1512-17. XVIII. Fifth Lateran Council Vol.11. 241 1545-63. XIX. Council of Trent „ 689 1870-1. XX. Council of the Vatican Vol. II. 259, 305 rWTr: ' The Walls of Rome. The Ostian Gate. BOOK I. CLIMAX OF THE EMPIKE AND THE PAPACY AND THEIE CONFLICT FOE SUPBEMACY. Centuries XL — XIII. chapter I. SUPREMACY OF THE EMPIRE AND REFORM OF THE PAPACY, UNDER HENRY II., CON HAD II., AND HENRY III. A.D. 1002—1056. § 1. The Papacy, redeemed from degradation, aims at Supremacy. § 2. Henry II., King of the Germans— State of Italy and the Papacy — Pope Benedict VIII. crowns Henry Emperor. § 3. Pope John XIX. and the Emperor Conrad II., the Franconian — Pope Benedict IX. § 4. King Henry III. — Contest for the Papacy — Simony at Rome — Synod of Sutri — Abdication of Gregory VI. — Pope Clement II. crowns Henry III. Emperor. § 5. Sudden deaths of Clement II. and Dam ASUS II. — The Emperor appoints Bruno Pope — Intervention of Hildebrand. § 6. The clerical party of Reform — They aim at papal supremacy — Life, Principles, 2 THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY. Chap. I. and Character of Hildebrand. § 7. Contest about the imperial nomi- nation and confirmation of the Popes — Interview of Hildebrand and Bruno — Bruno's consecration as Leo IX. § 8. His Journeys and Synods — Councils of Rheims and Mainz — Leo's personal jurisdiction — Admission of papal assumptions. § 9. Leo IX. and the Normans in Italy — Capture of the Pope in battle, and treaty with the Normans — Death of Leo. § 10. Final Schism of the Greek and Latin Churches. § 11. Hildebrand declines the Papacy — Election of Gebhard as Pope Victor II. — Deaths of Henry III. and Victor. § 1. Like most schemes of human wisdom and policy, the reform of the Papacy by the great German emperors had effects very different from their fair designs and hopes. The ideal of a " holy alliance " between the supreme civil and ecclesiastical powers, for the re- generation of the world, was above the reach of human nature ; and the practical question soon became, which of these powers should subdue the other to its supremacy. The Church in general, and the Papacy in particular, raised from the degradation into which it had sunk in the tenth century, with an awakened feeling of its high calling and duties, had also a revived sense of privilege and ambition. The subjection of the Church to the Empire seemed a danger only to be escaped by the subjection of the Empire to the Church. The victory was won by the power which the spiritual authority had over the minds of men, and by the energy and resolution of such Popes as Hildebrand and Innocent III., aided by the monastic orders and the standing army of mendicant friars. The Crusades too, while keeping religious enthusiasm at a high pitch of exaltation, occupied the attention and exhausted the strength of the European princes. But the victory of the Papacy was purchased at the heavy cost of discovering that the imperial power had been its best ally. The Pope had conquered the Emperor only to become subservient to the policy of France, and to prepare the way for the humiliation of the " Babylonian Exile." § 2. On the death of Otho III., Henry,1 duke of Bavaria, sur- named the Pjous, was elected King of the Germans through the in- fluence of Archbishop Willigis (1002). Henry, who had been destined for the clerical office, was remarkably devout, but none the less vigo- rous in civil administration and in his efforts to reform the Church. It was ten years, however, before his power was established in Italy,2 1 He is called in history Henry II., which was his style as King of the Germans; but he was the first emperor of his name, for Henry the Fowler was not emperor. 2 From this time forward the sovereign of Germany was elected at once in that character and as King of the Romans, with a title to the imperial dignity, involving (though by no clear claim of right) the sovereignty of Italy, which ere long became but nominal. (As to this last point, see A.D. 1002 f. THE STATE OF ITALY. 3 where the nobles had set up Ardoin (or Harduin) as king at Pavia, while the republican party was revived at Rome under John, a member of the Crescentian family, and three successive popes owed their election to his influence.1 On the death of the last of these, the election of Gregory as his successor was disputed by the Tusculan party, who were strong enough to establish Benedict VIII. (1012-1014) on the papal throne. Gregory repaired for aid to Henry, who had just put down Ardoin; but Henry, on his arrival at Rome, declared for Benedict, who crowned him Emperor. The schemes of both for the reformation of the Church had to be postponed for more pressing occupations, and the energy of Benedict was spent in conflicts with the Greeks, who still ruled in Southern Italy and threatened to win back Home for the Eastern Empire, and with the Saracens, who were extending their power from Sicily into Italy. It was during the papacy of Benedict that the first bands of Normans established themselves in Southern Italy, after giving their aid against the Greeks and Saracens. § 3. On the death of Benedict VII 1. (1024), the Tusculan party purchased the votes of the Romans for his brother, Romanus, a lay- man, who took the name of John XIX. (1024-1033). A few months later, the death of Henry II. ended the Saxon imperial line, and the crown of Germany was conferred on the first of the Franconian dynasty, Conrad II. (1024-1039), whose surname of " the Salic " declared his origin from the noblest race of the Franks, and who proved himself a worthy successor of Charles the Great.2 In 1026 Bryce, Holy Hon, an Empire, pp. 149-150, 6th ed. 1876.) Preceding Emperors were (before coronation) kings of the Franks, or of the Eastern Franks, or of the Franks and Saxons, or of the Germans {lentonicorum, very rarely Geimanorum. The title Rex Germanice was first used by Maximilian I. in 1508). Henry II. and his successors asserted their claims to the sovereignty of Rome by tailing themselves A'inr Aujustus. (Bryce, Note C, p. 452.) 1 John XVII. (1003; John XVIII. (1003-1009); and Sergius IV. (1009-1012). Gregory is not reckoned among the Popes. 2 Conrad was also connected with the Saxon line by his descent from a daughter of Otho the Great. Franconia was now the name of the eastern or Teutonic part of the old Frank kingdom (Francia Orientalis), to distinguish it from the western part, now called simply Francia. With reference both to Conrad's origin and character, it was said that his throne stood on the steps of Charles : — " Sella Chuonradi habet ascensoria Caroli," or, inverse — "Chuonradus Caroli premit ascensoria regis." (Wippo, Vita Chuonradi, c. 6, quoted by Robertson, vol. ii. p. 442.) 4 THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY. Chap. I. he was crowned King of Italy at Milan, and in the ful lowing year he received the imperial crown at Home, our King Canute being present at the ceremony. Conrad vindicated his authority over the highest ecclesiastics by imprisoning Heribert of Milan, when, presuming on his former services, the archbishop added to his misgovernment insolence towards the Emperor. But, in the contest which ensued, Conrad demeaned himself by an alliance with the dissolute Pope Benedict IX. (1033-1048), whom, while a mere boy of ten or twelve, the Tusculan party had raised to the chair of St. Peter, as successor to his cousin John XIX.1 § 4. In 1039 Conrad was succeeded by his son Henry III. (1039- 1056), who raised the German kingdom and the Holy Empire to the climax of its power, and was a vigorous reformer of the Church. His intervention was called for at Rome by the rival pretensions of three Popes, all of them the creatures of simony, and each holding one of the principal churches of the city. " Benedict IX. was sup- ported by the Tusculan party, and Sylvester 111. by a rival faction of nobles, while John Gratian, who had assumed the name of (J re- gory 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 pievailed."2 Gregory VI., in whom the hopes of the reforming party were centred, met Henry III. on his entrance into Italy, and by his desire convened a synod at Sutri (Dec. 1046). This assembly set aside the claims of Benedict and Sylvester ; and then proceeded to enquire into the election of Gregory himself. The worthy man, convinced that he had erred in purchasing his election, stripped off his robes in presence of the council ; and a German, nominated by Henry, Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, was elected at Rome on Christ- mas Eve as Pope Clement II. (1046-47). On Christmas Day, he placed the imperial crown on Henry's head ; and the Romans, in their joy for the restoration of order, conferred on Henry the here- ditary patriciate,3 with the right of nomination to the papal chair, and bound themselves by an oath not to consecrate a Pope without tli.' Emperor's consent. No Emperor was ever so absolute at Rome as Henry, and under his rule the Romans were obliged to elect a succession of pious and reforming German Popes. § 5. Clement had only time to begin the work of reformation by 1 His own name was Theophylact. 2 Robertson, History of the Christum Church, vol. ii. p. 445 ; where the reader will find the complicated details of the elevation of these rival Popes, and tin conflict between their parties. Henry constantly wore the green mantle and circlet of gold, which were the insignia of the Patrician of Rome. A.D. 1048. HENRY III. MAKES BRUNO POPE. 5 holding a council against simony, when he died within ten months from his election (1047). Henry had returned to Germany, carrying with him the deposed Pope Gregory. The Tusculan party ventured on the restoration of Benedict IX. ; but he was compelled to fly at the approach of the Emperor's nominee, the German Damasds II., with a powerful escort. The death of the new Pope on the twentieth day from his installation (1048), following on the sudden end of Clement's pontificate, raised suspicions of foul play by the anti-German party. The choice of the Emperor now fell on his cousin Bruno, bishop of Toul, who was famed "for piety, learning, prudence, charity, and humility; he was laborious in his duties, an eloquent preacher, and a skilful musician."1 Notwithstanding his hesitation to accept the dignity, and without waiting for the form of election by the Roman clergy and people, Bruno was invested with the papal insignia at a Diet held at Worms, in presence of the Roman envoys; and he set out for Borne in full state. But at Besancon he was met by Hugh, abbot of Clugny, who was accompanied by the monk Hildebrand, and the rtnown of that great name may be said to date from the epoch of this interview. § 6. We have thus far seen the course of ecclesiastical and papal reform directed by the imperial head of the ideal Christian State. But there was a party within the Church, which laboured for deeper reform and aimed at a higher ideal of spiritual power, and only accepted the aid of princes till that power could be raised above all secular authority. "To the connection of the Church with the State, to the feudal obligations of the prelates, they traced the grievous scandals which had long disgraced the hierarchy — the rude and secular habits of the bishops, their fighting and hunting, their unseemly pomp and luxury, their attempts to render ecclesiastical preferments hereditary in their own families. And what if the empire were to achieve such an entire control over the Papacy and the Church as Henry appeared to be gaining? What would be the effect of such power when transferred from the noble, conscientious, and religious Emperor, to a successor of different character? The Church must not depend on the personal qualities of a prince ; it must be snided by other hands, and under a higher influence; national churches, bound up with and subject to the State, were unequal to the task of reformation, which must proceed, not from the State, but from the hierarchy, from the papacy, from heaven through Christ's vicegerent, the successor of St. Peter; to him alone on earth it must be subject, and for this purpose all power must be 1 Robertson, vol. ii p. 552. II— C 6 THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY. Chap. I. centred in the papacy."1 The strongholds of this reforming party were the cloisters recently founded for the purpose of reviving strict monasticism, especially those of Clugny and Camaldoli ;2 and their whole spirit was centred in the enthusiastic but deeply politic reso- lution of Hildebrand, the Italian monk, who began the conflict of life and death between the Papacy and the German Emperors. Born between 1010 and 1020, the son of a carpenter, at the old Etruscan city of Suana (now Sovana), he was trained for the priest- hood by his uncle, the abbot of St. Mary's on the Aventine. His rigid views of the monastic life led him across the Alps to join the society of Clugny, where the abbot is said to have applied to him the prophecy, " He shall be great in the sight of the Highest." After visiting the court of Henry III., Hildebrand returned to Rome, and became chaplain to his former preceptor, Gregory VI., on whose deposition he retired again to his cell at Clugny, whence he now came forth to be the guiding and animating spirit of the reformation which was based on the supremacy of the Church over the State, of the Papacy above the Empire. It has been well said that Hilde- brand " was not the inventor nor the first propounder of these doctrines ; but he teas the first who dared to apply them to the world as he found it. His was that rarest and grandest of gifts, an intel- lectual courage and power of imaginative belief which, when it has convinced itself of aught, accepts it fully with all its consequences, and shrinks not from acting at once upon it — a perilous gift, as the melancholy end of his own career proved, for men were found less ready than he had thought them to follow out with unswerving consistency like his the principles which all acknowledged. But it was the very suddenness and boldness of his policy that secured the ultimate triumph of his cause, awing men's minds and making that seem realized which had been till then a vague theory."3 § 7. The chief practical point, on which the contest between the civil and ecclesiastical powers turned, was the right of the Emperor to nominate the Popes and to confirm their election.4 In the present case, Henry and the Diet of Worms had gone so far as to invest Bruno with the papal insignia, which indeed he had only accepted on the condition that he should be duly elected at Borne. But, on the remonstrances of Hildebrand against his accepting from the Emperor the dignity to which he could only be raised by the free election of the Romans, Bruno laid aside all outward marks of his 1 Robertson, vol. ii. p. 551 ; who cites Voigt's Hildebrand, 8, 9, and Re- musat's St. Ansehne, 186. 2 Concerning these new orders, see below. Chap. XX. 3 Bryce, The Holy Rom in Empire, pp. 160, 161. 4 On the mode of election itself, see Part I. Chaps VII. § 6, and below, Chap. II. § 2. A.D. 1048 f. REFORMS OF LEO IX. 7 office for the dress of a pilgrim, and entering Rome barefoot, in company with Hildebrand, he was received with enthusiasm, and was elected Pope by the style of Leo IX. (1048-1054). Hildebrand, whom he ordained a sub-deacon and made his treasurer, was the chief director of his policy; and Italian influence was strengthened by the ascetic enthusiast, Peter Damiani, the vehement opponent of simony and " nicolaitanism," and the zealous votary of flagella- tion and other superstitions of the age.1 Damiani was the tool of Hildebrand, whom he calls his " hostile friend " and " saintly £atan." § 8. Leo IX. addressed himself vigorously to carry on the work of reformation by his own presence and by frequent councils in various parts of the Empire. One of the most important of these was held at Rheims (1049), where the French bishops and abbots, who were among the most corrupt in Christendom, were required to take an oath that they had not obtained their benefices by simony ; and several of them were excommunicated. The Council acknowledged the Bishop of Rome as Apostolic Pontiff and Primate of the whole Church, and recognized the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals as the law of the Church. In the same year Leo held another council at Mainz in presence of the Emperor. This personal assertion of his authority had a wonderful effect in crushing the rising tendency to dispute the advancing claims of Rome. Leo entered kingdoms and princi- palities without asking pea-mission of their sovereigns ; summoned councils, in which he not only sat as judge, but himself originated proceedings and conducted them according to no forms but his own pleasure; treated the dignitaries of each national church as respon- sible to himself, forced them to accuse or excuse themselves on oath, and pronounced a summary judgment on every offender. " Yet startling as were the novelties of such proceedings, Leo was able to venture on them with safety, for the popular feeling was with him and supported him in all his aggressions on the authority of princes or of bishops. Hi-s presence was welcomed everywhere as that of a higher power come to redress the grievances under which men had long been groaning ; there was no disposition to question his pretensions on account of their novelty ; rather this novelty gave them a charm, because the deliverance which he offered had not before been dreamed of. And the manner in which his judgments were conducted was skilfully calculated to disarm opposition. What- ever there might be of a new kind in it, the trial was before synods, the old legitimate tribunal ; bishops were afraid to protest, lest they should be considered guilty ; and while the process for the discovery of guilt was unusually severe, it was in the execution tempered with an appearance of mildness which took off much from its 1 For the life and character of Damiani, see Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 555 f. 8 THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY Chap. I. seventy. Offenders were allowed to state circumstances" in extenua- tion of their guilt, and their excuses were readily admitted. The lenity shown to one induced others to submit, and thus the Pope's assumptions were allowed to pass without objection."1 § 9. The NTorman adventurers, who had established themselves in Southern Italy at the expense both of the Greeks and Saracens, and had now conquered Apulia (1040-1013),2 proved troublesome and dangerous neighbours to the Holy See, invading the patrimony of St. Peter and threatening Rome itself. To seek the Emperor's aid against them, Leo IX. crossed the Alps for the third time (1052). But his appeal was frustrated through the influence of Bishop Geb- hard, the imperial chancellor, and he only obtained a body of 700 German adventurers. With these and the Italians who nocked to his standard, the Pope, who had hitherto exerted himself to put down the military spirit among the churchmen of France and Germany, advanced to battle agarn a Christian enemy, and, being defeated at Civitella, became a prisoner to the Normans (1053). But this disaster led to a new alliance, on which the Papacy could rely in its contest with the Empire. The Norman victors implored the pardon of the Holy Father, who was glad to grant the terms he had before refused, that they should hold their present and future conquests in Italy and Sicily under the Pope, who claimed the right to those territories as included in the donation of Constantine. In consequence of this Treaty, the Two Sicilies remained a fief of the Holy ^ee till their recent absorption in the new kingdom of Italy. Leo, after being kept in honourable captivity at Benevento for nine months, was permitted to return to Rome, to die before the altar of St. Peter (April, 1054). § 10. Just before his death, the schism between Rome and Con- stantinople was made, complete and final. The interest of the Greek Emperors in Southern Italy had disposed them to cultivate the goodwill of the Popes ; and the Emperor Basil II. had lately proposed to John XVIII. a reconciliation on the basis of allowing the title of Universal Bishop to both patriarchs ; but the Italian bishops protested vehemently against the compromise. Leo IX. had laboured to heal the schism and to unite the forces of both Emperors against the Normans ; but the threatened loss of Southern Italy seems rather to have roused the zeal of the Greeks against all the Latins. The patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, joined the metropolitan of Bulgaria, Leo, archbishop of Achrida, in a letter to the bishop of Trani, in Apulia, denouncing the heresies of the Latin Church, and especially the use of unleavened bread in the 1 Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 564, 565. 2 For the history of the Normans in Italy and Sicily, see the Student's Gibbon, chap. xxxi. pp. 520, foil. A.D. 1056-7. DEATH OF HENRY 111. AND VICTOR II. 9 Eucharist ; and the patriarch closed the Latin churches and mona- steries at Constantinople (1053). The captive Pope wrote a letter of remonstrance to the patriarch, and at the beginning of 1054 he sent three legates to the Emperor Constantine X. Monomachus. A controversy ensued between Humbert, the chief of the papal legates, and the Studite monk, Nicetas, in which the Emperor took the side of Humbert. But the patriarch Michael refused not only agreement, but even discussion ; and the legates, after laying a sentence of excommunication against him on the high altar of St. Sophia, took their departure from Constantinople Further attempts at reconciliation were made in vain by the Emperor and the moderate party among the Greeks, and soon afterwards by Pope Stephen IX.,1 and the schism remains open to the present day. § 11. The dying words of Leo IX., and the wishes of the Roman clergy and people, summoned Hildebrand to assume the power which he really directed. But he saw that the Papacy was not yet strong enough to oppose a powerful emperor like Henry III., nor even to dispense with his support. With profound policy he preferred the elevation of another German, and that the very man whose influence had opposed Leo IX. Hildebrand himself headed an embassy from the Romans to the Emperor, requesting him to nominate a Pope, as none among themselves was worthy of the office ; and, in suggesting the Chancellor Gebhard, he trusted that Henry's ablest counsellor, hitherto an opponent of the Cluniac party, would be transformed into the spirit of his new dignity. When Hildebrand's persistence had not only overborne the reluctance of Henry, who in vain sug- gested other names, but had brought him to press the appointment on his unwilling chancellor, Gebhard at length yielded, with the ominous words, " So be it! I give myself body and soul to St. Peter, but only on the condition that you give him back what is his" (1055). A great victory was won when Henry not only consented to that formal election at Rome, in which he had tacitly acquiesced in the case of Bruno, but promised the restoration of the Patrimony of St. Peter in its full extent, and in performing his promise he also con- ferred on the Pope the administration of all Italy. The year after the installation, Gebhard, now Victor II., was invited by Henry to Germany, and was present when the great Emperor died, in his fortieth year, commending his infant son Henry IV. (1056-1106) to the Pope's care, and bidding his widow Amies to be guided by his ancient counsellor's advice. The power of the Empire and of the Papacy seemed to be united in the see of St. Peter, when Victor himself died in the following year (1057). 1 Frederick of Lorraine, who was one of Leo IX.'s envoys to Constan- tinople. Rome. CHAPTER II. SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND (GREGORY VII.) AND HIS CONTEST WITH HENRY IV. ABOUT INVESTI- TURES. a.d. 1057—1085. 1. Infancy of Henry IV. and Regency of his mother Agnes. Popes Stephen IX. and Benedict X. — Election of Nicolas II. — Beginning of Hildebrand's Supremacy. § 2. Regulation of Papal Elections by the College of Cardinals — The Emperor's right only saved in name. § 3. Relations of the Empire and Papacy at this crisis — Lofty claims of Hilde- brand's party — Aid sought from the Normans — Treaty with Robert Guiscard. § 4. German Council against Nicolas — His death — Double Papal Election — Alexander II. and the Antipope Honorius II. § 5. Revolution in Germany — Abduction of Henry IV. by Archbishop Hanno — Synod of Osbor — Deposition and death of Honorius. § 6. Germany under Hanno and Adalbert — Henry IV. cited to Rome — Death of Alex- ander II. § 7. Hildebrand becomes Pope Gregory VII. — His lofty claims embodied in the "Dictate." § 8. Reformation of simony. ;ind enforcement of clerical celibacy —Discords between clergy and people — Gregory VII. and Henry IV. § 9. Gregory's decree against Inves- titures— State of the question — Consequences of the Papal claim. § 10. Outrage of Cencius on Gregory. § 11. Revolt of the Saxons — The Pope cites the Emperor to Rome — Gregory deposed by the A.D. 1057. THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 11 Synods of Worms and Piacenza. § 12. Excommunication of Henry — Diet of Tribur : Henry conditionally deposed. § 13. Henry goes to Italy — His humiliation and interview with Gregory at Canossa — Hard terms of absolution. § 14. Rudolf elected King — Civil War and Victory of Henry. § 15. Second excommunication of Henry — Guibert made Antipope as Clement III. § 16. Henry enters Italy, takes Rome, and is crowned Emperor by Clement. § 17. Rome retaken and sacked by Guiscard — Gregory VII. retires to Salerno — His death. § 1. The change from the rule of Henry III. to the government of a woman, as guardian for a child of seven, encouraged the cardinals to choose Frederick of Lorraine, abbot of Monte Cassino, as Pope Stephen IX.1 (1057-58). The great schemes attributed to this haughty and ambitious pontiff were cut short by his death, while Hildebrand was absent on a mission to reconcile the Empress- Regent to his election. The Tusculan party seized the opportunity to set up once more a member of the Crescentian family, John, bishop of Velletri, by the title of Benedict X. (1058-59) ; but the cardinals withdrew from the city to Siena ; and Hildebrand secured both the Empress's nomination and their election of Gerard, bishop of Florence, and a Burgundian by birth, as Nicolas II. (1059- 1061). Benedict, condemned and excommunicated by a council, fled from Rome, but presently returned and submitted to Nicolas. From this time may be dated the full ascendancy of Hildebrand as the soul of the papal Curia. § 2. Up to this time the Emperor had still the right both of nomi- nating a candidate for the vacant chair and of confirming the election, and the Pope was his acknowledged subject. But now the first de- cisive step towards freeing the Papacy from dependence on the Empire was taken by the appointment of a permanent body of electors to St. Peter's chair, who were possessed of high dignity and authority. Hitherto the election of the Pope, as of bishops in general, had been made by the clergy and people ; and this right, which had been exercised in a manner both uncertain and often tumultuous, was not formally annulled, but was so modified as to place the election virtually in the hands of the august body since known as the College of Cardinals. This famous title, like so many others, had a simple and com- paratively humble origin.2 As, from the etymological sense of the word,3 anything principal and fixed is called cardinal — such as 1 Or Stephen X., according to the reckoning noticed in vol. i. p. 522. 2 " Nomen vetus, nova est dignitas, purpura recentior," say the Bene- dictine editors of St. Gregory the Great (Ad Epist. i. 15). See the Article Cardinal in the Diet, of Christian Antiqq. 3 Cardo, the " hinge," on which the door turns and is supported. 12 SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND. Chap. II. cardinal numbers, points of the compass, virtues, and, in. ecclesias- tical usage, the cardinal altar and mass — so the permanent and chief holders of benefices and officers in churches were called cardinal bishops, presbyters, and deacons, as opposed to those who held tem- porary, movable, or subordinate appointments. The title, -whose origiu is very ancient, is frequently used in this sense by Gregory the Great. At Rome, especially, it was applied from an early age to the per- manent priests and deacons of the twenty-five or twenty-eight parish churches, or of the seven regions of the city. The title of cardinal-bishojys was given later (probably not till the time now spoken of) to the seven bishops of the Pope's own immediate pro- vince, who assisted him in his functions, and officiated in turn at the altar of St. Peter's — those, namely, of Ostia, Porto, !St. Rufina, Albano, Sabina, Tusculum, and Prameste. These bishops, with the cardinal priests of the city,1 were now formed into a College for the election of all future popes; but in such a manner that the initiative was given to the seven cardinal-bishops. They were first to consult about the election, and then to call in the cardinals of lower rank ; and the choice thus made was to be ratified by the assent of the rest of the clergy and the people. The time had not come for the Emperor's right of confirmation to be openly renounced ; but it was recognized in terms little short of the mockery of formal respect, and reasserting the papal claim to grant the imperial dignity, " saving the due honour and reverence of our beloved son, Henry, who at present is accounted King, and hereafter will, it is hoped, if God permit, be Emperor,2 as we have already granted to him, and of his successors icho shall have person- ally obtained tliis privilege from the Apostolic >See." § 3. This bold assertion calls us to pause and notice the relations of the Papacy to the Empire on the eve of the coming conflict. "The attitude of the Roman Church to the imperial power at Henry III.'s death was externally respectful. The right of a German 1 " Although the term cardinal was applied to Roman deacons, there were as yet no members of the electoral college below the order of priest ; but afterwards, on the complaint of the deacons and lower clergy that they were excluded, some deacons were added to the body. The steps are uncertain ; but it is supposed that the College of Cardinals was thus arranged by Alexander III. (See Mosheim, ii. 331-34.) The whole number was fifty-three, until Sixtus V., in 1586, fixed it at seventy (Walter, 29.0-1). See lists of the churches from which the cardinals took their titles at various times in Ciacon, vol. i. pp. 117-120." (Robertson, vol. ii. p. 584.) 2 Henry IV. is here recognized as K'in'j of the Romans. (See Chap. I. § 2, note.) He did nut become Emperor till the twenty-eighth year of his reign, when he was crowned by the Antipope Clement (10X4). A.D. 1059. TREATY WITH ROBERT GUISCARD. 13 King to the crown of the city was undoubted, and the Pope was his lawful subject. Hitherto the initiative in reform had come from the civil magistrate. But the secret of the pontiff's strength lay in this : he, and he alone, could confer the crown, and had, therefore, the light of imposing conditions on its recipient. Frequent in- terregna had weakened the claim of the Transalpine monarch, and prevented his power from taking firm root ; his title was never by law hereditary : the Holy Church had before sought, and might again seek, a defender elsewhere. And since the need of snch defence had originated this transference of the Empire from the Greeks to the Franks, since to render it was the Emperor's chief function, it was surely the Pope's duty, as well as his right, to see that the candidate was caj able of fulfilling his task, to degrade him if he rejected or misperformed it."1 If these lofty claims were to be more than an idle boast, a new helper must be found against the Emperor, who, rejected as a pro- tector, must soon be reckoned with as an enemy ; and the needed force was at hand in the now established power of the Normans. After the council at Rome, Nicolas went into Southern Italy, and held a council at Melfi to denounce certain Greek customs of the clergy in those parts, especially the liberty of marriage (1059). This gave him the opportunity of making a treaty with the Norman chieftain, Robert Guiscard (i.e. the Wise or Crafty)? to whom the Pope renewed the grant of such territories in Italy and Sicily as he now held or might conquer from the Saracens and Greeks, by the title of " Robert, by the grace of God and of St. Peter, Duke of Apulia and of Calabria, and, with the help of both, hereafter to be of Sicily." The Norman duke engaged to hold his territories as a fief of St. Peter, paying an annual quit-rent ; to be the faithful defender of his lord the Pope against all men; and especially to support the new order of the papal elections. All the churches in his dominions were to be subject to the Pope. Nicolas also secured the support of Richard, the chief of the Normans who had been long established at Aversa, by creating him Prince of Capua. In the next and following years, the conquest of Sicily by Roger, the brother of Guiscard, won back another province to the see of Rome. § 4. Meanwhile the proceedings of Nicolas roused in Germany a vehement opposition, headed by Hanno, archbishop of Cologne. At Easter, 1061, the Empress Agnes convened a council of German bishops, which excommunicated the Pope and annulled his or- dinances. Nicolas, who was already ill, received the sentence of his 1 Bryce, Holy lio'nan Empire, pp. 157-8. 2 For the history of Robert Guiscard and his brothers, the sons of Tancred of Hauteville, see the Student's Gibbon, chap. xxxi. §§ 6, foil. II— C 2 14 SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND. Chap. 11. countrymen with signs of the deepest grief, and died immediately afterwards (July 1061). A fierce contest broke out for the succession to the papal chair. The Tusculan and imperial parties combined in "opposition to Hilde- brand, and sent an embassy to offer Henry the Patriciate and Empire. Hildebrand, learning that this embassy was well received by the Empress, while his own envoys were kept waiting for an audience, bribed the Prince of Capua to come to Rome, where Anselm, bishop of Lucca, was elected by the cardinals as Alex- ander II. (106L-73), and was enthroned by night, after a bloody conflict between the Norman troops and the imperialists (Oct. 1). Thereupon the diet and council, which the Empress was holding at Basle, with the concurrence of some Lombard bishops, headed by the Chancellor Guibert,1 annulled the decree of Nicolas concerning papal elections, and elected Cadalous, bishop of Parma, as Pope Honorius II. (October 28).2 The war between the supporters of the two Popes in the neighbourhood of Rome was stopped by the armed mediation of Godfrey, Count of Tuscany, the ally of Hildebrand. Cadalous and Anselm engaged to retire to their respective bishop- rics, till the question between them should be decided by the Empress. But all was changed by a new crisis in Germany. § 5. A large party of the German princes, who resented their subjection to Henry III. and the firm and upright administration of his widow Agnes, laid a plot to obtain possession of the person of Henry IV., who was now twelve years old. Archbishop Hanno, while feasting with the young King on an island of the Rhine, near the present town of Kaiserswerth, tempted Henry on board of a richly-equipped vessel, which carried him to Cologne ; and a decree was published, vesting the administration in the archbishop of the province where the King should be at any time resident. To support the power thus seized, Hanuo deserted the party of the Antipope, and formed a league with Alexander and Hildebrand. A synod held at Osbor (Augsburg) acknowledged Alexander and excommunicated Honorius (1062). The Antipope, however, gained possession of the Leonine city, and was enthroned at St. Peter's ; but, after being besieged for two years in the Castle of St. Angelo by a Norman force, he fled to his bishopric of Parma, and died there in 1072. § 6. After the revolution at the German court, the Empress Agnes, having been brought by Peter Damiani to repent of her resistance to the Holy See, became a nun in a Roman convent. 1 Guibert had been the leader of the Imperialist party in the Roman Council of 1059. 2 In the Papal Annals, Honorius is treated as an Antipope. A.D. 1073. HILDEBRAND BECOMES POPE GREGORY VII. 15 Henry IV. was brought up in such a manner as to spoil his natural good qualities, and to develop his faults by frivolous pursuits and the indulgence of his passions. Hanno, unable to overcome the young King's dislike of him, committed his education to Adalbert, arch- bishop of Bremen, a prelate whose many noble qualities were marred by haughtiness, ambition, and ostentation, and a strange mixture of affability and angry temper. Under these two prelates Germany, both in State and Church, became a prey to misgovernment and disorder, rapacity and corruption, which grew worse when Adalbert supplanted Hanno as minister of the young King, who, at the age of fifteen, was declared able to govern without a regent (1065). It belongs to civil history to relate the alternate rise and fall of the rival prelates, till Adalbert died in March L072, and Hanno retired at the end of the same year. Freed from these able though unscrupulous ministers, Henry gave the reins to his licentiousness and misgovernment, till many of his subjects, driven to the verge of rebellion, carried their complaints to the Holy See. After calling the chief prelates of Germany to answer before him for their misrule, especially in the permission of flagrant simony, Alexander ventured on the unpre- cedented assumption of citing Henry to Rome ; but, before the mandate could be delivered, the Pope died (April 21, 1073). § 7. The signal thus given for the long-impending conflict at length called the great champion of Rome to his true place. The appointed pause of three days before the election of a new Pope was broken, at the funeral of Alexander, by the cries of the clergy and people for Hildebrand ; and the cardinals, having retired for a short time, presented him to the acclamations of the people. As if to intimate his resolve to resume the work and spirit of his friend and preceptor Gratian, Hildebrand chose the title of Gregory VII. (1073-1085).1 With consummate prudence, he asked for the royal confirmation ;2 and, the envoys sent by Henry having reported that they found no informality in the election, Gregory was consecrated on St. Peter's Day (June 29, 1073). In devoting himself to the reformation of the Church, Gregory plainly declared, as the essential condition of the work, her inde- pendence of all secular control, and her sovereignty over all worldly powers. With equal plainness, he asserted a despotic power for the Papacy over the rest of the Church.3 In the " Dictate," which gives 1 The choice of this title was also a declaration that he I'egarded Gre- gory VI, as a legitimate Pope. (See above, p. 4.) 2 This was the last occasion on which such confirmation was asked for a papal election. 3 Canon Robertson (vol. ii. pp. 610-11) sums up the principles of his 16 SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND. Chap. II. a fair summary of Gregory's principles, it is laid down that "the ]{oman pontiff alone is universal bishop ; that his name is the only one of its kind in the world. To him alone it belongs to depose or to reconcile bishops ; and he may depose them in their absence, and without the concurrence of a synod. He alone is entitled to frame new laws for the Church — to divide, unite, or translate bishoprics. He alone may use the ensigns of empire ; all princes are bound to kiss his feet ; he has the right to de- pose emperors, and to absolve subjects from their allegiance. His power supersedes the diocesan authority of bishops. He may revise all judgments, and from his sentence there is no appeal. All appeals to him must be respected, and to him the greater causes of every Church must be referred. With his leave, inferiors may accuse their superiors. No Council may be styled General without his command. The Roman Church never has erred, and, as Scripture testifies, never will err. The Pope is above all judgment, and by the merits of St. Peter is undoubtedly rendered holy." The claim, that all kingdoms are held as fiefs of St. Peter, was not only laid down by Gregory as a general principle, but was asserted in his direct dealings with all the states of Christendom. § 8. Gregory's chief efforts for the reformation of the Church were directed against simony and the marriage of the clergy. A synod held in Lent, 1074, debarred those guilty of such practices from all functions in the Church, and charged the laity to refuse their ministrations. The enforcement of clerical celibacy raised a commotion through Germany and France ; but Gregory sent out legates to execute the new decrees ; and they were supported by the monks, who inveighed against the disobedient clergy. The laity were not only released from obedience to the bishops and clergy who opposed the decrees, but were enjoined by Gregory to prevent their ministrations, " even by force if necessary." An excuse was thus given for acts of outrage against the clergy and profanation of religious ordinances ; and the contempt of the clergy thus generated contributed greatly to the increase of anti-hierarchical and heretical sects.1 In his dealings with the Empire, Gregory began with remarkable moderation. '1 he disorders and discontent caused by the mis- system as " embodied in a set of propositions known as his Dictate, which, though not drawn up by himself, contains nothing but what may be paral- leled either from his writings or his actions. These maxims are far in ad- vance of the forged decretals." The propositions of the Dictate are generally believed to belong to Gregory's own time. Gieseler observes as to their form, that they look like the headings of a set of canons passed at some synod under Gregory. l Robertson, vol. ii. p. 619. A.D. 1075. PAPAL DECREE ON INVESTITURES. 17 government of Henry seemed to give an opportunity for friendly intervention, which the difficulties of the young King disposed him to accept. When his mother Agnes came to Nuremberg with four bishops on an embassy from Gregory, Henry did penance, and received absolution for his sins against the Church, and promised to aid the Pope in suppressing simony (1074). Gregory, while return- ing his thanks, announced the project of a Crusade, which he himself was to lead, while Henry was to watch over the Church. But all hope of friendly relations was destroyed by a new blow which the Pope aimed at the whole existing system of secular authority. § 9. At his second Lenten synod (1075) Gregory issued a decree that no ecclesiastic should take investiture from lay hands, on pain of deposition ; and that any lay potentate who should confer inves- titure should be placed under the ban of the Church. The custom of investiture? that is, of putting ecclesiastics in possession of their temporalities by a symbolical act performed by the sovereign, was peculiar to the West, where its origin was later than the ninth century, and it seems to have been not fully established till the end of the tenth. Under the feudal system, the custom formed an important bond between the sovereign and the clerical holders of fiefs, to whom it secured their lord's protection, while it assured him of their submission as his liege vassals. But the line of demarcation between the appointment to the spiritual office and the investiture with temporalities was less clear in practice than in theory. The right of investiture might be so used as to secure the power of nomination ; and, by withholding it, the sovereign might annul a canonical elect;on. Nay, the very form of investiture seemed to imply a claim on the sovereign's part to confer the spiritual office ; for the symbols which he delivered to the bishop were the ring — the figure of spiritual marriage with his Church — and the pastoral staff (the crook or crosier), the emblem of pastoral authority over the flock. To the obvious argument that, if bishops and abbots were to hold property, they ought, like other holders, to be subject to its feudal obligations, the advocates of ecclesiastical independence re- plied, l- that the temporalities were annexed to the spiritual office, as the body to the soul ; that, if laymen could not confer the spiritualities, they ousht not to meddle with trie disposal of their appendages, but that these should be conferred by the Pope or the 1 Twestitura, from vestire, " to put into possession." The word is ex- clusively ecclesiastical, in the sense defined above. The earlier and more general term for the form of giving position, in the case both of lay and clerical holders, was traditio. The attempt to trace investiture to the time of Charles the Great, and to make it a privilege conferred on the Emperor by Adrian I., is contradicted by the silence of the Capitularies. (See Diet, of Christian Antiqq., Art. Investiture.) 18 SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND. Chap. II. Metropolitan, as an assurance to the receivers that their tempo- ralities were given by God." Herein lay the whole practical issue of the dispute. The abolition of investitures meant nothing less than the transfer of the feudal allegiance of all ecclesiastics (for the lower clergy and monks depended on the bishops and abbots, as the lesser vassals on the greater) from the sovereign to the Pope. There could be no longer any treason against the crown, nor any feudal obedience to any lord except the supreme bishop. § 10. With his usual policy, Gregory took no hasty steps to enforce the decrees against investiture ; and at the end of the year a strange incident befel him. As he was celebrating a midnight ma>s on Christmas Eve, Cencius, the leader of the anti-reforming party among the Roman nobles, broke into the church at the head of an armed band, cutting down many of the worshippers ; and the Pope, beaten and wounded in the head by a sword, was dragged from the altar and carried off to a tower, with the intention of taking him away from the city as a prisoner. But the people of Rome rose in the night, and forced Cencius to set Gregory at liberty; his popu- larity was redoubled, and the shame of the sacrilegious outrage was imputed to the Imperial party, just at the time when the relations between the Emperor and the Pope had reached a crisis. § 11, The misgovernment of Henry had driven his Saxon sub- jects to open revolt; and both parties had appealed to the Pope. Gregory, still intent on gaining his ends by friendly influence, had congratulated Henry on a victory gained over the Saxons in June 1075 ; but his advice to use that success well had been utterly disregarded. Shortly before the outrage of Cencius, Gregory had replied to an embassy from Henry by sending legates with a letter, greeting the King with " Health and benediction — if, however, he obey the Apostolic See o.s a Christum kin;/ ought." The obedience thus required had respect to Henry's conduct in holding intercourse with excommunicate persons, and investing several bishops. With his usual study of moderation, at least in form, the Pope offered to listen to any reasonable accommodation on the question of investi- tures. Henry had already been privately warned that his rejection of the Pope's demands would be followed by excommunication ; but he replied by an indignant refusal ; and the envoys cited him to appear at Rome at the ensuing Lenten synod (January 107G). The King's anger was now inflamed to the utmost, and his indignation was shared by the German bishops and abbots whom he convened at Worms (January 24). On the ground of simony, magic, and other incredible charges — supported by letters, in the name of Roman cardinals, which appear to have been forged — the Council pronounced the deposition of Gregory, to whom Henry A.D. 1076. HENRY IV. EXCOMMUNICATED. 19 announced the sentence in a letter addressed, " To Hildebrand, not now Apostolic Pontiff, but a false monk." He also wrote to the Romans, bidding them to thrust out " the monk Hildebrand," by- force, if he should resist, and to receive a new Pope from the King. This letter charged Hildebrand with attempting to rob Henry of his Italian kingdom and of his rights in the appointment to the Papacy, and with determined designs against the King's crown and life. Another, from the bishops to their " brother Hildebrand," accused him of throwing the Church into confusion. " His begin- ning had been bad ; his progress worse ; he had been guilty of cruelty and pride; he had attempted to deprive the bishops of the power committed to them by God ; and had given up everything to the fury of the multitude." * After adding other charges, the bishops solemnly renounced their obedience to Gregory ; and the same renunciation was made by a synod of Lombard bishops at Piacenza, which confirmed the decree of Worms. § 12. At the Lenten Synod at Rome (February 21-22, 1076) the decrees of the two councils and the King's letter were answered by a sentence of excommunication and deposition against Henry, who replied from Utrecht by pronouncing a ban against the Pope. But, as to the power of enforcing the sentences, their natural position was inverted ; the subjects whose support the King should have commanded became the ministers of the Pope. Bishops who had taken part in the council of Worms went to Rome to seek absolu- tion ; and when the disaffected Saxons applied to the Pope, they were exhorted to choose another King The same threat was formally announced as the resolution of an assembly of the German princes, prelates, and nobles, at Tribur ;2 and Henry's abject offers of amendment could only procure the alternative of a reference of all questions in dispute to the Pope, who was invited to attend a diet at Augsburg next Candlemas. Henry's continuance on the throne was made conditional on his obtaining papal absolution before a year and a day had elapsed from his excommunication, in which case the German nobility would attend him to Rome for his coronation as Emperor, and help him to win back Italy from the Normans. Meanwhile he was to live as a private person at Spires. § 13. Dreading the effect of Gregory's presence in Germany, Henry crossed the Alps in the depth of a severe winter, with his wife and child and the scantiest attendance, and was received with enthusiasm by the Lombards. Gregory had already set out for 1 Robertson, vol. ii. p. 625. 2 Tribur (Trebur) on the east side of the Rhine, south of Mainz, was one of the old election fields of the Germans. Henry IV was now at Oppen- heim, on the other side of the Rhine. 20 SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND. Chap. II. Germany, in company with his devoted supporter, Matilda, Coun- tess of Tuscany, called the " Great Counte ss " from her immense wealth and commanding talents.1 On hearing that Henry had reached Vercelli, with a train growing as he advanced, the Pope withdrew to Canossa, a strong castle in the Apennines, belonging to Matilda. Here he was joined by some of his most eminent adherents, as well as by several bishops of Henry's party, who came to make their submission, and were put to severe penance before they received absolution. Henry, on arriving before Canossa, prevailed on Matilda, and other persons of high influence, to mediate for him with the Pope, who required, as a proof of the King's penitence, the sur- render of his royal insignia, with a confession that for his offences he was unworthy to reign. When the importunity of the envoys at length obtained Gregory's consent to a personal interview, Henry was kept waiting for three days in a court of the castle, alone, barefooted, in the coarse woollen garment of a penitent, ex- posed from morning to night to the winter's cold of that mountain region, till, as Gregory himself relates,2 all within the castle cried out against his harshness, as being nut the severity of an apostle, but barbarous and tyrannical cruelty. On the fourth day Henry, having persuaded the Countess Matilda and Hugh, abbot of Clugny, to be his sureties, was admitted to the presence of Gregory. ** Numb with cold, bareheaded and barefooted, the King, a man of tall and remarkably noble person, prostrated himself with a pro- fusion of tears, and then stood submissive before the Pope, whose small and slight form was now withered with austerities and bent with age. Even Gregory's sternness was moved, and he too shed tears."3 Put he showed no relenting in the terms of absolution which he imposed. Henry's conduct was to be tried before a diet of the German princes under the Pope's presidency ; his kingdom was to depend on the sentence given according to the laws of the Church ; and he was for the future to yield implicit obedience to the Holy See (January 1077). Gregory cleared himself of the charges made against him by an 1 Matilda was the daughter and heiress of Boniface, Count of Tuscany, and Beatrice, a cousin of the Emperor Henry III. She had been lately left a widow, and sole mistress of her enormous wealth, by the deaths of her husband, the younger Godfrey of Lorraine, and of her mother. In spite of the scan lal raised by the Pope's enemies, there is no reason to question the purity of her enthusiasm for Gregory, and for the ecclesiastical principles with which he had imbued her mind. During Gregory's residence at Canossa, Matilda bequeathed her vast inheritance to the See of Rome ; but the donation was only partially carried into effect. 3 Epist. iv. 12. 3 Robertson, vol. ii. p. 63? A.D. 1077. CIVIL WAR IN GERMANY. 21 oath taken upon the eucharistic bread. "Here," said lie, "is the Lord's body ; may this either clear me from all suspicion if I am innocent, or, if guilty, may God strike me with sudden death !" — an awful and convincing ordeal to the bystanders; but from which Henry, in his turn, recoiled with terror, pleading the absence of his accusers, and preferring a trial by the diet. § 14. Gregory is said to have replied to the remonstrances of the Saxons at Henry's absolution, "Be not uneasy, for I will send him back to you more culpable than ever ;" and its effect was to widen the breach with his German subjects, who complained that Henry had broken faith with them by his journey into Italy, and were jealous of his reception by the Italians. A diet held at Forchheim. in Franconia, where legates attended from the Pope,1 elected a new king in the person of Henry's brother-in-law, Budolf, duke of Swabia, who was crowned at Mainz by the primate Siegfried (March 1077). But the deposition of the rightful king by the princes, and his humiliation by the arrogance of the Italian Pope, awoke a strong reaction in Henry's favour ; and most of the bishops and towns took his part against the nobles. We must leave to secular history the account of the three years' civil war, which was ended by the victory of Henry and the death of his rival on the banks of the Elster (October 1080). § 15. The Pope, having tried to keep his favourite attitude of a mediator during the conflict, had taken a decided course just in time to incur the conqueror's implacable resentment. At the Lenten Synod following a victory won by Rudolf at Fladenheim (Jan. 1080), he renewed the sentence against Henry in terms most re- markable for their assertion of his claims to supreme sovereignty — nay, to universal ownership — for the See of Pome : " Come, now I beseech you, O most holy and blessed Fathers and princes, Peter and Paul,2 that all the world may understand and know that if ye are able to bind and to loose in heaven, ye are likewise able on earth, according to the merits of each man, to give and to take away empires, kingdom*, princedoms, marquisates, duchies, countships, and the possessions of all men. For if ye judge spiritual things, what must we believe to be your power over worldly things ? and if 1 Gregory, whose profound policy foresaw the reactionary effect of this extreme step, excused his own attendance on the ground that Henry would not grant him a safe-conduct, and instructed his legates to endeavour to postpone the new election till he should be able to attend, but not To risk the consequences of direct opposition to it. 2 Both sentences of excommunication were in the form of an address to the two Apostles. Let it be remembered that the doctrines thus affirmed in the eleventh century have been declared of infallible authority in the nineteenth bv the Vatican Council. 22 SUPREMACY OF HILDEBRAND. Chap. II. ye judge the angels, who rule over all proud princes, what can ye not do to their slaves ?" But Gregory proved himself unable to " bind on earth" the fate of the King, on whose death or utter defeat within the year he ventured to stake his credibility. When, on the contrary, that fate befel the rival King Rudolf, Gregory, in the spirit of an am- biguous Delphic oracle rather than of an infallible Vicar of Christ, is said to have declared that he had rightly prophesied the death of the pretended king. Meanwhile, Henry had felt himself strong enough to meet this seeond deposition by an equally decisive stroke. A synod convened at Mainz, and adjourned to Brixen for the attendance of the Lom- bard bishops, who had been Henry's most stedfast friends, elected the great leader of the Lombard party, Guibert, now archbishop of Ravenna, as Pope Clement III. (1080-1100).1 § 16. After his victory over Rudolf, Henry offered peace to the Saxons, but they refused to treat without the Pope, and set up a new king, Hermann, to whom Gregory sent a form of oath which would have reduced the kingdom and empire to a fief of the Church. While abating nothing of his sovereign claims, Gregory relaxed his reforming zeal in order to win support from various countries against the march of Henry into Italy. But he found no sure ally except the Countess Matilda, who put her wealth and forces at his disposal. In this extremity he turned again to the Normans, and released Robert Guiscard from a ban laid on him for invading the patrimony of St. Peter. The entreaties of his friends, that he would make peace with the King, were all in vain ; and even after Henry had entered Italy, Gregory wrote, " If we would comply with his impiety, never has any one of our predecessors received such ample and devoted service as he is ready to pay us, but we would rather die than yield." 2 He still maintained his resolution when, after a tedious siege of three years, Henry had won the Leonine city; and in a last council he anathematized the King, just before the Romans capitulated on March 21st, 1084. On Easter Day, Henry IV. at length received the imperial crown from the Antipope Clement, who had been en- throned on Palm Sunday. § 17. But the triumph of Henry and Clement at Rome was short. Gregory held out in the castle of St. Angelo, awaiting the promised aid of the Normans, whose expulsion from Italy was one object of Henry's expedition. To this end he had made an alliance with the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118) ; while Robert 1 He is only reckoned as an Antipope; but he maintained himself against four successive Popes, keeping many adherents till the day of his death. 7 L'pist. ix. 11, April 28th, 1081. A.D. 1085. DEATH OF GREGORY VII. 23 Guiscard, on the other hand, had engaged in an expedition into Northern Greece.1 Henry had already sent away most of his forces, when he received news that Guiscard was on his march from Salerno at the head of 6000 horse and 30,000 foot. The Emperor retreated ; and the Normans gained an easy entrance into the city, which, after three days' sack and pillage, was set on fire to avenge a rising of the exasperated people (May-June 1084). The liberated Pope, unable to bear the spectacle of such ruin or the reproaches of the people, retired with his Norman allies to Salerno, whence he renewed his excommunication of the Emperor and the Antipope; and he still excepted them when, feeling the approach of death, he absolved all others whom he had anathematized.2 He expired amidst, the raging of a fearful tempest, after leaving this last testimony to the sincerity of his motives : " I have loved righteous- ness and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile " (May 25th, 1085). This assumption, habitual to Gregory and to most other popes, of language that belongs only to Him whose human nature is glorified by His deity, reveals far better than any elaborate analysis of cha- racter and motives the fundamental fault of Gregory's career, and of the principles to which he sacrificed all other claims of right and goodness. 1 See the Student's Gibbon, chap. xxxi. § 10. 2 Such is the statement of Gregory's friends ; but the imperialist writers say that he absolved all, acknowledged that he had sinned greatly in his office, and sent his confessor to request Henry's forgiveness. For the authorities on either side, see Robertson (vol. ii. p. 647, note), who observes that Gregory's dying words, " which have been interpreted as a reproach against Providence, may perhaps rather imply a claim to the beatitude of the persecuted." Ancient Chalices, formerly at Monza. From a Painting in the Cathedral Library. Jerusalem. CHAPTER III. THE CRUSADES AND THE PAPACY: WITH THE SEQUEL OF THE DISPUTE ON INVESTITURES. FROM THE DEATFI OF GREGORY VII. TO THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS AND THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR HENRY V. A.D. 1085 — 11l'5. § 1. Election and Character of Urban II. § 2. His relations with Henry IV. — Progress of the conflict in Germany — Conrad made King of Italy. § 3. The First Crusade adds to the power of Urban — Council of Cler- mont— Philip I. of France — Results of the Crusades in favour of the Clergy and Papacy. § 4. Recovery of Rome from the Antipope — Cap- ture of Jerusalem — Death of Urban — His arrangement with the Normans in Sicily, called the Sic Hi m Monarch)/. § 5. Paschal II. Pope — Deaths of Guibert (Clement III.) and Conrad — New excommunication of Henry IV. § »3. His good government and efforts for peace — Henry made prisoner by his son, who is crowned Henry V. — Death and Cha- racter of Henry IV. § 7. The contest renewed between Henry V. and the Pope — Henry enters Italy, and accepts a compromise, which fails — Imprisonment of the Pope and Cardinals — Enforced treaty, and corona- tion of Henry as Emperor. § 8. Paschal is compelled to condemn the treaty and to excommunicate the Emperor. § 9. Henry again at Rome — Flight and Death of Paschal — Elections of ( J flash s II. and the Anti- pope Gregory VIII. — Expulsion and Death of Gelasius, and election of Calixtus II. in France. § 10. Council of Rheims and renewed excom- munication of Henry V. § 11. Questions between England and the A.D. 1088. URBAN II. AND CLEMENT III. 25 Papacy — Resistance to Legates — Sees of Canterbury and York — Inter- view of Calixtus with Henry I. at Gisors— Calixtus at Rome— Punish- ment of the Ant i pope. § 12. Civil War in Germany — The Dispute on Investitures ended by the Concordat of Worms — First General Council of Lateran (Ninth (Ecumenical Council of the Romans) — Death of Henry V. § 13. Ecclesiastical affairs of England — Supremacy maintained by William I., independently of Rome. § 14. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury — His reforms, and support of the King's policy — William and Gregory VII. § 15. Rapacity and Tyranny of William Rufus — Seizure of vacant bishoprics and abbacies. § 16. Anselm made Primate — His Life and Character. § 17. Differences between Anselm and Rufus — The pall brought from Pope Urban. § 18. Renewed disputes — Anselm goes to Rome — Death of William Rufus. § 19. Anselm recalled by Henry I. — He refuses Investiture and Homage — His second exile. § 20. Agreement about Investiture and Homage — Return and Death of Aaselm — Council of Westminster — Celibacy of the Clergy enforced. § 1. At the death of Gregory VIL, his party held the ascendancy in Italy, supported by the Normans and the Countess Matilda, while the great cities showed a growing desire to make the Papacy the rallying point for their claims of independence against the Empire. It is not worth while to pursue the confused details of the disputes among the party of Hildebrand in professing to carry out his dying wishes, or the short papacy of his successor, Victor III. (1086-87), preceded and followed by long vacancies, till Otho, bishop of Ostia, was elected by a council at Terracina as Urban II. (1088-1099). A Frenchman of noble family, educated at Rheinis under Bruno, the famous founder of the Carthusians, he became a monk of Clugny, whence he was sent to Rome in 1076, as one of a body of monks whose services were desired by Gregory, and he was there advanced to the bishopric of Ostia. Such a training made him a devoted adherent of the Cluniac party and of the principles of Hildebrand, who had named Otho among those most worthy to succeed him ; and, with equal firmness and activity, Urban surpassed his master in artfulness and caution. § 2. Rome was now in the hands of Clement -,1 and the partisans of Pope and Antipope carried on fierce and cruel conflicts both in the 1 The following epigrams cleverly described the positions of the rival Popes : — " Clem. Diceris Urbanus, cum sis projectus ab urbe ; Vel muta nomen, vel regrediaris ad urbem. " Urb. Nomen habes Clemens, sed clemens non potes esse, Cum tibi solvendi sit tradita nulla potestas." (Gerh. Syntagma, 17, Pairolog., cxciv. ; quoted by Robertson, vol. ii. p. 669.) 26 THE CRUSADES AND THE PAPACY". Chap. III. capital and other cities of Italy. In Germany Henry put an end to the civil war this year, and expelled the hostile bishops from their sees, so that only four were left who acknowledged Urban. On the other hand, Clement was driven out of Rome by the citizens (1089) ; and a negociation was opened between Urban and Henry on the basis of their mutual acknowledgment as Pope and Em- peror ; but it was defeated by the imperialist bishops, who feared that they might be made victims of the peace. It is needless here to dwell on the progress of the conflict between the papal and imperial parties during the next few years, including the Countess Matilda's marriage to the young Welf, son of the Duke of Bavaria, and Henry's troubles with his second wife, Adelaide of Russia, and with his rebellious son Conrad, whom the Lombards and papalists set up as King of Italy ; nor need we repeat the story of the first Crusade, which is related in all the civil histories.1 § 3. The enterprise, to which Peter the Hermit incited Europe by his tale of the sufferings of the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land from the Seljuk Turks, who had lately conquered Asia Minor and Palestine, gave the one great opportunity for realizing the idea of the Holy Roman Empire in the union of Christendom, roused to the defence of the faith at the call and blessing of the Pope, and led by the Emperor to its achievement. But at this crisis the civil head of Christendom was an excommunicated prince, with a disputed title conferred only by an Antipope : he was distracted by domestic troubles, and weakened by rebellion. The crusading enthusiasm, which " Henry III. might have used to win back a supremacy hardly inferior to that which had belonged to the first Carolingians, . . . turned wholly against the opponent of ecclesiastical claims, and was made to work the will of the Holy See, which had blessed and organized the project."2 As the sole head of this great movement, animating and directing the princes and chivalry of Europe, Urban was raised above both the temporal power and the Antipope, while the appeal for his help from Alexius Comnenus, so lately banded with Henry against Gregory, seemed to invite him to the high destiny of reuniting the Eastern with the Western Church. It was significant of his in- creased strength that the great council of Piacenza,3 at which the Pope proposed the holy war, and the much greater council of Cler- mont in Auvergne,4 at which the Crusade was adopt ml with the 1 For the foundation of the Seljukian kingdom of Sown (1074), the cap- ture of Jerusalem by the Turks (1076), and the history of the Crusades, see the Sttulent's Gihbon, chaps, xxxii. and xxxiii. 2 Bryce, p. 164. 3 March 1095. 4 November 1095. A.D. 1099. DEATH OF URBAN II. 27 enthusiastic war-cry, "God wills it!" — both pronounced new con- demnations of the Antipope and the Emperor, and excommunicated another disobedient king, Philip I. of France, for his adultery with Bertrada.1 The assured ascendancy added to the Pope, as director of the united enterprise of Western Christendom, was afterwards still further en- hanced when, in the Second Crusade, sovereign princes were sent forth to fulfil their religious vows, to which the Pope had the power of holding them. The preaching of a Crusade gave a new pretext for the interference of legates and the exaction of contributions, especially from ecclesiastical bodies, whose property was thus brought more or less under papal control. In the East, the lands won from the infidels were added to the Latin Church and to the papal claim of sovereignty ; but this course, combined with the double dealing of the Byzantine Empire and the violence of the Crusaders towards the Greeks, made the desired reunion of the two churches more than ever hopeless. The increased power of the Popes was shared by the clergy, who found in the Crusaders' vow a new hold on the conscience of nobles and people. They remained a permanent body amidst the changes caused by absence and death ; and, while their contributions to the cause affected only their annual income, they added greatly to their wealth by purchasing the estates sold at a depreciated value to equip the nobles and their followers.2 Nor were the political changes produced by the Crusades, and the impulse which they gave to commerce, learning, the spirit of chivalry, and freedom 01 thought, without great indirect influence upon the Church. The direct result of the first Crusade for Christianity in the East was the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, and of the Latin patriarchates of that city and of Antioch. § 4. Urban 's last year was crowned by the complete recovery ot Pome from the Antipope Clement, and by the capture of Jerusalem (July 15th, 1099); but his own death followed in a fortnight, un- cheered by the news of the great success (July 29th). It remains to notice the important arrangement which he made for the Church re-established in Sicily by Count Roger's conquest of the island from the Saracens. Always careful to preserve the goodwill of his Norman allies, when the great count complained oi the subjection of the Church in Sicily to the bishop of Trani as legate, Urban, at a council at Salerno, made the ordinance known as " the Sicilian Monarchy," vesting the exercise of the ecclesias- 1 Philip's quarrels with Gregory VII., Urban II.. and Paschal II. belong rather to the history of France than to that of the Church. 2 Robertson,'vol. ii. pp. 699-701. 28 REBELLION OF HENRY V. Chap. III. tical supremacy in the civil power, and appointing Roger and his successors perpetual legates of the Roman See.1 § 5. Uiban was succeeded by another member of the Cluniac party, a Tuscan named Rainier, who, like his predecessor, had been sent from the monastery of Clugny to Rome to serve under Gregory VII., at the age of twenty. He took the title of Paschal II. (1099-1118). In the following year (September 1100), death re- moved his rival, Guibert (Clement 111.), a man whose noble qualities and great abilities might have adorned the papal chair, into the dis- puted possession of which he was thrust against his will. Next year, death relieved Henry also from the rivalry of his son Conrad in Italy ; while in Germany, since his return in 1096, he had won back much of his people's esteem, and his supremacy was generally acknowledged, even by many bishops of the papal party. Thus the twelfth century seemed to open with new opportunities for reconciliation ; and the Emperor proposed to cross the Alps and submit all differences to a Council. But it seems that the German bishops dissuaded him from the double risk of leaving Germany and trusting himself in Italy to the papal party, now elated with the success of the Crusade; and his failure to appear furnished the ground for a new excommunication by Paschal (March 1102). § 6. Henry, however, persevered in his desire for peace, and at the Christmas diet at Mainz he announced his resolution of abdi- cating in favour of his son Henry (now twenty-one years old),2 and devoting himself to the Crusade, as soon as he could obtain a recon- ciliation with the Pope. The " peace of God," which he proclaimed for four years, seemed to open a new era of happiness for Germany ; but the sources of discord were too deeply seated to be healed by words. The turbulent nobles, who longed for the renewal of war and plunder, were the natural allies of those papal claims which depressed the power of their sovereign. A large party of the clergy, and especially the monks, found the principles of Hildebrand suited to their interests as well as their spiritual pride, or in many cases were moved by a purer enthusiasm of duty to God rather than man. These passions were brought to a terrible focus, and both Em- peror and Empire were plunged back into a sea of misery, by the rebellion of the prince who had been held forth as the hope of a 1 The contrast between the policy adopted on the vital principle at stake, when the Empire was to be humbled, and when the Normans were to be conciliated, is naively exposed by Baronius, when he uses it as an argu- ment against the genuineness of this decree. "How is it to be supposed that Urban could have granted to Roger such powers, when, by granting but a small part of them to Henry,- he might have prevented so much misery?" On this question see further in Robertson, vol. ii. p. 702. 2 Henry V. was born in 1081. A.D. 1106. DEATH OF HENRY IV. 29 new age. The noble youths, his comrades, were naturally ready, and were encouraged by the Emperor's enemies, to foster the son's discontent at any position short of equality with his father on the throne.1 But young Henry declared, with characteristic hypocrisy, that he had no wish to reign, but only to bring about the con- version of his father, whom, as an excommunicated person, he could not in conscience obey : and his own share in the excom- munication was removed by the Pope, whose counsel he sought as soon as he broke into open rebellion (December 1101). The Em- peror's paternal fondness led him to place himself in the hands of his son at Coblenz (December 1105); whence, with a perfidious show of affection, young Henry carried his father up the Rhine to a prison, where the harshest treatment broke his already humbled spirit ; and he resigned his crowns, with abject entreaties for the absolution which the papal legate still found excuses for postponing. Henry V. was crowned " King of the Romans " at Mainz, at Epiphany, 1106; 2 but the deposed Emperor escaped, and seemed in a fair way to regain the crown, when he died at Liege on the 7th of August, sending his ring and sword to his son, with a fruitless request for an amnesty to his adherents. His faults had been many; but his better qualities brought upon him much of the opposition and trouble that embittered the fifty years' reign which he had begun as a child of seven. "It was his fate," says William of Malmesbury, " that whosoever took up arms against him regarded himself as a champion of religion." The common people and the poor, to whom he had always shown kindness, honoured with a saintly reverence the remains which his enemies disinterred from his tomb at Liege and kept for five years in an unconsecrated vault at Spires, where Henry had wished to be buried in the cathedral raised by himself. It was not till August 1111 that Henry V., having ob- tained a reluctant consent from the humiliated Pope, interred his father's body in the cathedral with a funeral of unexampled splendour. § 7. During those five years, Paschal II. had in his turn been made the victim of the craft and perfidy which he had encouraged in Henry V. against his father. Trusting to the King's professions of obedience, the Pope renewed the decrees against investiture at a council at Guastalla (October 1106). He was on his way to spend the Christmas with Henry at Augsburg, when news reached him 1 The association of a son iu the kingdom, nominally of the Romans, really of Germany, during his father's life, was now common, as a means of securing the succession, which fell to him on his father's death, with- out a new election, involving also the claim to the Empire. (See Bryce, A pp. C, p. 45<5-7.) Both Henry III. and Henry IV. had been crowned during the lifetime of their fathers. - He reigned hetween nineteen and twenty years, to May 1120. II— D 30 CONTEST ABOUT INVESTITURES. Chap. Ill which raised his suspicions, and he turned aside to France to seek support from King Philip I. At a conference at Chalons-on-the- Marne (April 1107), the German envoys demanded the acknow- ledgment of the right of investiture, which Henry had already put in force; and, on the Pope's refusal, they declared that the question must be decided at Rome, and by the sword. Three years later Henry crossed the Alps; and Paschal, unable to obtain help from his Norman allies, offered a remarkable compro- mjse — that, if Henry would relinquish investiture, the Church should give up the property on which the claim was founded, namely, all the endowments and secular privileges conferred upon bishops and abbots by his predecessors since Charles the Great. " The Pope expressed an opinion that, as the corruptions of the clergy had chiefly arisen from the secular business in which those privileges had involved them, they would, if relieved of them, be able to perform their spiritual duties better ; while he trusted for their maintenance to the tithes, with the oblations of the faithful, and such possessions as they had acquired from private bounty or by purchase." l The needful consent of the clergy was so unlikely, as to have thrown doubts on the sincerity both of the Pope's offer and of its acceptance by Henry on the condition that it should be ratified by the bishops and the Church. Henry at all events contrived to secure all the advantage of the impossibility of its performance. On his arrival at Rome (Feb. 12th, 11 1 1), where the agreement was to be confirmed and he was to receive the imperial crown, he publicly declared in St. Peter's that it was not his wish to take away from the clergy any gifts made by his predecessors. This threw all the odium upon the Pope, who was attacked at once by the German and Lombard bishops, and by the nobles who held ecclesiastical fiefs. Henry demanded his immediate coronation, as the execution of the agreement had become impossible ; and when the Pope did not at once comply, he was seized and imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, with several of the cardinals, while fearful riots broke out in Rome against the Germans, and the royal troops devastated the country all around. It was not till after two months that Paschal yielded to the entreaties of the cardinals and the distress of the Romans He was released on swearing:, together with thirteen cardinals, to allow in- vestiture by the symbols of the ring and staff after a free election, never to trouble the King either on this subject or for his late treatment of him, and never to excommunicate him ; and he was 1 Robertson, vol. ii. n. 741. A.D. 1111. HENRY V. CROWNED EMPEROR. 31 reluctantly compelled to place a copy of this agreement in Henry's hands when he crowned him at St. Peter's (April 13th). The Pope and Emperor ratified their treaty by a solemn oath upon the Eucharist, and the Scotch historian, David,1 who was Henry's chaplain, compares his master's treatment of the Pope to Jacob's importunity when he wrestled with the angel at Peniel, and said, " I will not let thee £0, except thou bless me." (Gen. xxxii. 26.) § 8. It was not likely that the treaty thus extorted should be lasting, though Paschal attempted to he faithful to his engagements, against the clamour of the Hildebrandine party, headed by Bruno, abbot of Monte Cassino, whom he regarded as a dangerous rival. At the Lateran Synod of 11 L2, he was compelled to condemn the agreement, as having been made under constraint ; and soon afterwards he was artfully drawn into a more decided step. Guy, archbishop of Vienne, in Henry's kingdom of Burgundy, held a council which not only repeated the Lateran condemnation of the compact, but pro- nounced investiture a heresy, and excommunicated Henry for his outrages against the Pope. The decree was sent to Paschal, with a threat of renouncing obedience to him if he refused to confirm it, and the Pope saved his conscience by the plea that this indirect act was no violation of his oath. § 9. Meanwhile the proceedings of Henry towards the German Church had given the grossest provocation, and had thrown Germany back into civil war. In 111') he again crossed the Alps to take possession of the inheritance of the Countess Matilda, in disregard of her donation to the papal see. On his way to Pome he made vain attempts to negociate with Paschal, who fled to Monte Cassino ; and when Henry departed, after Easter (1117), the Romans, who had a quarrel of their own with the Pope, refused him admission, and he died in the castle of St. Angelo (Jan. 21st, 1118). The cardinals elected one of their own number, John of Gaeta, as Pope Ge- lasius II. (1118-1119) ; but, before his consecration, Henry re- turned to Rome, and used his prerogative to confirm the election by the ] eople of Burdinus, archbishop of Braga, as the Antipope Gregory VIII. After much trouble, and even personal violence, from the turbulent factions of Rome, Gelasius retired to France and died at Clugny (Jan. 29, 1119). The five cardinals who had accom- panied him chose as his successor the anti-imperialist champion Guy, archbishop of Vienne, who, after much reluctance on his own 1 David, a Scot by birth, and afterwards Bishop of Bangor, accom- panied Henry into Italy, with several other men of learning, to support the controversial part of the conflict, which has been quite eclipsed by the King's decisive measures. David was charged to write a history of the expedition, which was used by Ekkehard and William of Malmesbury. 32 CONTEST ABOUT INVESTITURES. Chap. III. part and violent resistance from his flock, was consecrated in his cathedral as Pope Calixtus II. (1119-1124). § 10. The anarchy and civil war now raging in Germany disposed the Emperor to listen to the Pope's proposals for a compromise, on the terms that Henry should be released from excommunication on giving up his claim to investiture, but that the bishops should still do homage for their fiefs. Calixtus had even set out from Hheims, where he was holding a great Council, to meet the Emperor, when his commissioners reported that Henry was trying to evade the terms agreed upon. Calixtus returned to Rheims in great indig- nation, and the Council, after enacting further canons against simony, clerical marriage, and investiture, pronounced a most solemn ana- thema on the Emperor and the Antipope, and absolved Henry's subjects from their allegiance (Oct. 1119). § 11. Among the matters brought before the Council of Rheims were complaints made by the King of France1 against Henry I. of England, for his conduct in regard to the duchy of Normandy, and for his treatment of his brother Robert.2 These purely secular disputes were referred by Louis, with the consent of Henry, to the Pope's arbitration ; and the attempt of the Norman primate, Godfrey of Rouen, to vindicate his sovereign, was put down by the clamour of the Council. Henry had given four English bishops permission to attend the Council ; but he had warned them against bringing back any " superfluous inventions ;" and he had charged them not to complain against each other, because he was resolved to do full justice to every complaint within his own kingdom. In accordance with this principle, Henry had resisted the use of the legatine authority, which was one of the most effective means of subjection employed by the Hildebrandine party. At the beginning of his reign (1100), he and the English Church had refused to receive the present Pope as legate of Paschal II., who had admitted the claim of the Archbishop of Canterbury3 to be his sole repre- sentative in England. On the election of a new archbishop, Ralph (1114), Paschal had complained of the independent spirit 1 Louis VI. le Gros (1108-1137). 2 Robert had been a prisoner since the battle of Tenchebrai (1106); but Louis supported the claims of his son, William, to the duchy of Normandy. Here, and in §§ 13-20, we relate briefly, as a part of our whole subject, the matters of which a fuller account is given in the Student's History of the Eagh'sh CiUrch, by Canon Perry, Period I., Chaps, xi.-xiii. 3 This admission, however, was personal to Anselm, who had just returned from his first exile, and might be relied on to support the cause of Rome. The next legate appointed by Paschal was Ansclm's nephew, also named Anselm, Abbot of St. Edniundsbury. Respecting the earlier disputes of Anselm with William Rufus and Henry I., see below §§ 16-20 A.D. 1119. THE CONFERENCE OF GISORS. 33 shown by the English Church, and had appointed another legate, whom Henry ordered to he received with honour in Normandy, but did not suffer him to cross the sea. There was also a question open between Henry and the Pope about the claim of the see of York to independence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which two successive archbishops of York had main- tained against Lanfranc and Anselm, but without success. Thurstan, who had been appointed to the see of York in 1114, and had refused to be consecrated at Canterbury, had gone to Reims and received consecration from Gelasius, in spite of the protest of the English bishops. On all these questions the Pope determined to hold a personal con- ference with Henry, whom it was of great importance to conciliate, both as King of England and as father-in-law of the Emperor.1 Calixtus proceeded from lieims to meet Henry at Grisors, and readily accepted his answers to the complaints of the King of France (November 1119). The Pope promised that no legate should be sent into England except at the King's request, and for the arrange- ment of such matters as the English bishops could not settle. Having conceded these points, the Pope asked that Thurstan might return to his see ; and when the King replied that he had sworn to the contrary, Calixtus, as apostolic pontiff, offered to release him from his oath. Henry's conscience was not over-scrupulous ; but he was able to plead that, whatever a pope might do or undo, a king could not break his oath without producing universal distrust. On his return to Italy, Calixtus punished the Antipope, who was betrayed into his hands, by a humiliating exposure,- and shut him up for life in a monastic prison (1121). § 12. Germany was still a prey to anarchy, and the armies of the Emperor and the primate Adalbert, now papal legate, were encamped near Wurzburg, as if for a decisive battle, when negociations were opened, and had a successful issue (October 1121). The contest of half a century had exhausted both parties, and each had learned the impossibility of obtaining complete supremacy over the other. The princes of Germany were unwilling that the Emperor should be subjected to Pome, and the clergy of France — where investiture was unknown, because the kings had retained an effectual control over 1 Matilda, daughter of Henry I., was married to the Emperor Henry V. in 1114, when only twelve or thirteen, and was left a widow by his death in 1125. She married Geoflrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, in 1130. 2 Burdinus was paraded about Rome, dressed in bloody sheepskins for his Pontifical robe, and seated backwards on a camel, the tail of which he held in his hands. 34 THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS. Chap. 111. the Church— came forward to suggest a compromise, by which the election and consecration, which made a bishop, should be clearly distinguished from his investiture in his temporalities by means of other symbols than the ring and staff, which were proper to his spiritual authority. On this basis the Pope and the Emperor made the Concordat of Worms (September 23, 1122). " On the Pope's part it was stipulated that in Germany the elections of bishops and abbots should take place in the presence of the King, without simony or violence. If any discord should arise, the King, by the advice of the metropolitan and his suffragans, was to support the party who should be in the right. The bishop elect was to receive the temporalities of his see by the sceptre, and was bound to perform all the duties attached to them. In other parts of the Emperor's dominions the bishop was, within six months after consecration >., to receive the temporalities from the sovereign by the sceptre, without any payment, and was to perform the duties which pertained to them. The Emperor, on his part, gave up investiture by ring and staff, and engaged to allow free election and consecration through- out his dominions ; he restored to the Roman Church all possessions and royalties which had been taken from it since the beginning of his father's reign, and undertook to assist towards the recovery of such as were not in his own hands."1 These terms were read out before a vast multitude assembled in a meadow^ near Worms, and the ratifications were solemnly exchanged in the city. The papal legate, Lambert, cardinal bishop of Ostia, performed mass, and gave the Emperor the kiss of peace. On the apparent simplicity of the solution, as contrasted with the length and bitterness of the struggle, Canon Robertson observes : — " But in truth circumstances had disposed both parties to welcome a solution which at an earlier time would have been rejected. The question of investitures had, on Gregory's part, been a disguise for the desire to establish a domi- nation over temporal sovereigns ; on the part of the emperors, it had meant the right to dispose of ecclesiastical dignities, and to exercise a control over the hierarchy. Each party had now learnt that its object was not to be attained, hut it was not until this experience had reduced the real question within the bounds of its nominal dimensions that any accommodation was possible." The terms of the Concordat were confirmed by the First General Council of Lateran, which is reckoned by the Romans the Ninth (Ecumenical Council (March 1123). Two years later, Henry V. died childless at Utrecht (May 23, 1125), and with him ended the line of the Franconian Emperors. 1 Robertson, vol. ii. p. 757. A.D. 1070. WILLIAM I. AND LANFRANC. 35 § 13. A few words must be added concerning the dispute about investitures in England, a country which had also at this time the honour of possessing the two greatest lights of the Western Church, as successive primates. The ecclesiastical policy of William the Conqueror was directed by his own resolute will, with the twofold purpose of securing his power over England, and keeping it free from foreign control. From the first he acted on the watch- word of our national independence — "Britain is a world by itself." The native English prelates were soon replaced by his own followers, whom he appointed and promoted at his pleasure, and invested according to the feudal forms. By abstaining from the sale of benefices, he earned the praise of Gregory VI 1., and also deprived him here of what was the great excuse for his interference with the German Church, in order to put down simony. Deep as were his obligations to the Papacy for the support given to his enterprise by Alexander II., William was not the man to hold his kingdom as the vassal of the Pope. Legates were allowed to hold synods, in which, however, nothing was to be done without the King's sanction first obtained. Bishops were forbidden to obey citations from Rome, or to receive letters from the Pope without showing them to the King ; and none of his nobles or servants were to be excommunicated without his license. § 14. While conferring bishoprics ana abbeys on his .Norman followers with very little regard to learning or even character, William chose for the primacy one of the most eminent ecclesias- tics of the age, the Lombard Lanfranc, a native of Pavia, who had been a distinguished lawyer before he became a monk of Bec-Herlouin in Normandy, which he made a great school of both sacred and secular learning. William had made Lanfranc head of his new abbey of St. Stephen's, at Caen, whence he was called to Canterbury, against his own will, on the deposition of the English primate, Stigand (1070). Proceeding to Rome for the pall, he was received by Alexander II. with the highest honour, and was made legate in England. He exerted himself to reform the disorders of the Emilish Church, which the Norman writers represent as in a dis- graceful state from the ignorance ane § 13). 1 William of Malmesbury, Gesta JRerjum, lib. v. p. 654 : — " Rex investi- tnram annuli et baculi indulsit in perpetuum ; retento tantum electionis et regalium privilegio. Respecting his exercise of the power of nomination, Anselm writes to the Pope, "Rex ipse in personis eligendis nullatenus pro- pria utitur voluntate, sed religiosorum se penitus committit consilio." Shrine of the "■Three Kings," Cologne Cathedral. CHAPTER IV. THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN AND THE PAPACY. FROM THE ELECTION OF POPE HOXORIUS II. AND THE EMPEROR LOTHAIR II. TO THE DEATHS OF THE EMPEROR HENRY VI. AND POPE CELESTINE III. A.D. 1124 TO 1198. § L„ Results of the Conflict on Investitures — The German People and the Papacy. § 2. Contest for the Empire — The House of Hohenstaufen — Election of Lothair II. of Saxony — Civil War between the Saxon and Swabian parties. § 3. Pope Honorius II. — Papal Schism between Innocent II. and the Antipope Anacletus II. § 4. St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the " Venerable " of Clugny — General acceptance of Pope Innocent. § 5. Diet of Wiirzburg — Lothair crowned Emperor — His submission to the Pope — Roger of Sicily — Death of Lothair, and of the Antipope. § 6. Coxrad III. of Hohenstaufen, the first King of the Swabian Line — War of the Guelpks and Ghibellines. § 7'. The Second Lateran Council — Arnold of Brescia— Republic at Rome — Popes Celestine II. and Lucius II. § 8. Pope Eugenius III. — The Second Crusade — Bernard's work " On Consideration " — Deaths of Conrad, Eugenius, and Bernard. § 9. Election of Frederick I. BarbaroSSA — His Character and Work. § 10. State of Italy — Frederick's first expedition into Lombardy — Pope Anastasius IV. § 11. Pope Adrian IV. — Execution of Arnold of Brescia— Frederick A.D. 1125. RESULTS OF THE LATE CONFLICT. 41 crowned Emperor. § 12. Beginning of the Hundred Years' Conflict between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen — Affairs of Sicily — Assembly of BesaiKjon and quarrel about "beneficia," § 13. Frederick again in Lombardy — Assembly of Roncaglia — Indignation and death of Adrian. § 14. The Twenty Years' Papal Schism — Pope Alexander III. and the Imperialist Antipope Victor IV. — Real significance of the contest — Council of Pavia — General acceptance of Alexander — His Character and Policy. § 15. Frederick takes Milan — Council of Tours — Thomas Becket — The Antipope Paschal III. — Council of Wvirzburg. § 16. Frederick's fourth expedition into Italy — League against him — The Emperor Manuel Comnenus — Frederick at Rome — The fatal Pestilence and disastrous Retreat — The Lombard League — Murder of Becket and Submission of Henry II. to Alexander — The Antipope Calixtus III. § 17. Frederick's fifth expedition and defeat at Legnano — His agree- ment and meeting with the Pope at Venice. § 18. Alexander at Rome — Submission of Calixtus and imprisonment of the fourth Antipope, Innocent III. — The Third Lateran Council prescribes the order of Papal Elections and sanctions Crusades against Heretics — Death of Alexan- der III. § 19. Pope LUCIUS III. — Frederick's Reichsfest at Mainz — His sixth visit to Italy and agreement with the Lombards — Pope Urban III. — His hostility to Frederick — Marriage of Henry VI. to Constance of Sicily — Death of Urban — The Third Crusade and death of Frederick Barbarossa— Death of Pope Clement III. § 20. Henry VI. crowned Emperor by Pope Celestine III. — Henry's War in South Italy — He conquers Sicily : his cruelties — His Proposal of an Hereditary Empire rejected — His Ecclesiastical Policy — The Fourth Crusade — Deaths of Henry and Celestine — Results, of the Conflict. § 1. The long conflict between the Franconian Emperors and the Italian Popes left permanent results, which had great influence both on the imperial constitution and on the second and decisive stage of the struggle for supremacy. The personal authority of the Em- peror had received rude shocks, and the power of the princes and nobles had risen on his humiliation. " All fiefs are now hereditary, and when vacant can be granted afresh only by consent of the States; the jurisdiction of the crown is less wide; the idea is beginning to make progress, that the most essential part of ihe Empire is not its supreme head, but the commonwealth of princes and barons. Their greatest triumph is in the establishment of the elective principle, which, when confirmed by the three free elections of Lothair II., Conrad III., and Frederick I., passes into an un- doubted law. The Prince-Electors are mentioned in a.d. 1156 as a distinct and important body.1 The clergy, too, whom the policy 1 "Gradum statim post Principes Electores." — Frederick I.'s Privilege of Austria, in Pertz, Man. Hist. Germ. Legg. ii. 42 GERMANY AND THE PAPACY. Chap. IV. of Otto the Great and Henry II. had raised, are now not less dangerous than the dukes, whose power it was hoped they would balance ; possibly more so, since protected by their sacred character and their allegiance to the Pope, while able at the same time to command the army of their countless vassals."1 But their preten- sions had roused a new spirit among the German people, and espe- cially in the rising order of the burghers. " It was now that the first seeds were sown of that fear and hatred, wherewith the German people never thenceforth ceased to regard the encroaching Romish court. Branded by the Church, and forsaken by the nobles, Henry IV. retained the affections of the faithful burghers of Worms and Liege. It soon became the test of Teutonic patriotism to resist Italian priestcraft."2 § 2. The choice of Henry V.'s successor exemplified at once the principle of free election and the influence of the clergy. The death of Henry without a direct heir gave an opportunity for asserting fully the old German right of electing the new sovereign ; and the princes who attended his funeral issued from Spires a letter — ascribed to Henry's chief enemy, Adalbert, archbishop of Mainz — exhorting their brethren to choose one who would free the kingdom from "so heavy a yoke of slavery."3 In August, 1 125, a great assembly of 60,000 men of the four German nations — Franconians, Saxons, Swabians, and Bavarians — encamped on both banks of the Rhine between Worms and Mainz, the city where the princes met. Under the guidance of the papal legate, the procedure was modelled on that of an election to the Holy See ; the choice being made by a select body — ten from each of the four nations — and ratified by the whole assembly. The candidate who had the strongest hereditary claim was Frede- rick, Duke of Swabia, whose father, Frederick', head of the ancient house of Hohenstaufen,4 had risen into celebrity as the firm ad- herent of Henry IV., who had bestowed on him the hand of his daughter Agnes, and the dnchy of Swabia. Thus Frederick was 1 Bryce. p. 165. 2 Ibid, p. 164. 3 Pertz, Eegg. ii. 79 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 2. 4 This renowned title was derived (like that of Hapsburg) from the family castle of Hohenstaufen, which stood (as its name denotes) on a lofty conical hill, between Ulm and Stuttgart. It was destroyed in the Peasants' War, and only a few foundations mark its site : but the remembrance of its imperial dignity is preserved by an inscription over the doorway of a chapel on the slope below — " Hie transibat Caesar." To avoid confusion, the succession of the Dukes of Swabia, of the house of Hohenstaufen, should be noted: — (1) Frederick I., son-in-law of Henry I.; (2) His son. Frederick II., the competitor with Lothair II. ; (3) His son, Frederick III., who be- came the Emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa. A.D. 1130. LOTHAIR II., INNOCENT II., AND ANACLETUS II. 43 Grandson of Henry IV., and joint heir of the family estates of the Franconian emperors with his brother Conrad, who inherited the duchy of Franconia through his mother. But their other inheri- tance— of the policy of their house — provoked the opposition of the clergy, as well as of the nobles, who feared a strong emperor ; and the influenceof Archbishop Adalbert turned the scale in favour of Lothair, Count of Supplinburg and Duke of Saxony, who was chosen king, and became afterwards the Emperor Lothair II. (1125-1138).1 Though he had been, during a life already long, the firm opponent of the late Emperor, Lothair was now required to give new guaran- tees in favour of the Church, among which the Concordat of Worms was tacitly ignored. The mission of two bixhops to solicit the Pope's confirmation of his election gave an earnest of that complete submission to the Holy See, by which he sought to strengthen himself against the Swabian party.2 § 3. The Pope to whom this request was made, Honorius II. (1124-1130), had succeeded Calixtus II. after a brief contest with an Antipope, Celestine. The death of Honorius was followed by a far more important struggle for the papal throne, which- brought into notice the great names of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and Peter V the Venerable " of Clugny. On this occasion the double election represented no conflict of principles, but a rivalry of powerful fac- tions. No sooner was Honorius dead, than a party of the Cardinals met in the church of St. Gregory, on the Caslian, and made a hasty election of Gregory, cardinal of St. Angelo, by the name of Innocent 11. (1130-1143), but without the proper formalities ; while a larger number of the sacred college, at a later hour of the same day and observing the regular forms, chose Peter Leonis, cardinal of St. Mary in the Transtevere. Peter, who had studied at Paris and been a monk of Clugny, was the head of the " Leonine " family or " Pkr- leoni," so called from his grandfather, a wealthy Jew, who had em- braced Christianity under Leo IX., and was baptized by his name. The family had gained increasing power by their wealth and their able services in office and diplomacy ; and the party of Peter, who was styled Anacletus II.,3 was strong enough to hold possession of Home, while Honorius sought refuge and support in France. The response of Louis VI. and the French church was deter- mined by the two great Abbots, of whom some account must now be given. 1 Lothair was descended from Otho II. through his daughter Matilda. He became Duke of Saxony in 1106. 2 The origin and details of Lothair's civil wars with Frederick and Conrad behmg to civil historv. 3 Antipope from 1130 to 1138. 44 ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. Chap. IV. § 4. Bernard, born in 1091, the third of the six sons" of a Bur- gundian knight, imbibed a spirit of deep devotion from his mother Aletha, who died while he was still a youth. After a conflict be- tween the love of learning for its own sake and the religious profes- sion, to which his sainted mother often appeared to summon him in vision, he resolved not only to devote himself to the monastic life, but also to lead his family and friends to the same calling. His uncle, his brothers, his father, and his only sister, were successively won over, and at length, in 1113, Bernard, with more than thirty companions, applied for admission to the monastery of Citeaux.1 The Cistercian fraternity, which had grown but slowly owing to its rigorous discipline, was so enlarged by this addition, that new monasteries were founded at La Ferte and Pontigny ; and, in 1114, Bernard himself led fortb a company to a desolate spot, formerly the haunt of robbers, which now exchanged the name of " Valley of Wormwood " for that of Clair vaux {Clara Vallls). But it was a "bright valley" only in the spiritual sense: for the new settlers suffered extremities of cold and hunger, and a visitor carried away a piece of bread as a curiosity. The Abbot's own life was one of the most rigid mortification, hard manual labour, and diligent study, pursued in a spirit of independent thought, which demands special record : " Although he read the orthodox expositors, he declared that he preferred to learn the sense of Scripture from itself, that his best teachers were the oaks and beeches among which he meditated in solitude."2 Miracles were ascribed to him, and he appears to have been himself persuaded of their reality ; but they were hardly needed to enhance the fascination of Bernard's eloquence, made doubly persuasive by his pale face and emaciated form and the power of his holy life. "As the chief representative of the age's feelings, the chief model of the character which it most revered, he found himself, apparently without design and even unconsciously, elevated to a position of such influence as no ecclesiastic, either before or since his time, has attained. Declining the ecclesiastical dignities to which he saw a multitude of his followers promoted, the Abbot of Clairvaux was for a quarter of a century the real soul and director of the Papacy : he guided the policy of emperors and kings, and swayed the deliberations of councils ; nay, however little his character and the training of his own mind might have fitted him 1 The Cistercians, that is, brethren of Citeaux, had been founded by Robert, a Benedictine, near the end of the eleventh century. They were now under their third abbot, Stephen Harding, an Englishman, who had sought the solitude of the convent as a pilgrim. For nn account of these and the other new monastic oi-ders, see Chap. XX. 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 9. A.D. 1130. PETER THE VENERABLE OF CLUGNY. 45 for such a work, the authority of his sanctity was such as even to control the intellectual development of the age which owned him as its master." l The whole weight of Bernard's influence was thrown into the scale for the fugitive Pope ; and his eloquence, which was felt to be like a divine inspiration, prevailed on the Council which Louis VI. con- vened at Etampes to declare in favour of Innocent, chiefly on the ground of his personal character; for Anacletus was accused of impiety, corruption, and many other misdeeds. But at this crisis the authority of Bernard had scarcely more weight than the spon- taneous judgment of Peter, the "Venerable" Abbot of Clugny, against Anacletus, who had relied on the support of his former fraternity. " The character of Peter was such as to give all weight to his decision. Elected to the headship of his order at the age of thirty, he had recovered Clugny from the effects of the disorders caused by his predecessor, Pontius, and had once more established its reputation as a seat of piety, learning, and arts. In him the monastic spirit had not extinguished the human affections, but was combined with a mildness, a tolerance, and a charity, which he was able to reconcile with the strictest orthodoxy. The reputation of the 'Venerable' Abbot was such, that emperors, kings, and high ecclesiastical personages revered his judgment; and when it became known that Innocent had reached Clugny with a train of sixty horses, provided by the Abbot for his conveyance, the effect of this signal declaration against the Cluniac Antipope was widely and strongly felt."2 During his stay at Clugny, Innocent was welcomed in the King's name by the Abbot of St. Denys ; and early in the new year Louis himself received him, with every mark of reverence, at Fleury. By the personal influence of Bernard, though opposed by many English and Norman prelates, Henry 1. of England was brought to give his support to Innocent in a personal interview at Chartres (Jan. 1131). All the great orders throughout the West declared in favour of Innocent, while Anacletus vainly pleaded his cause in letters to princes and prelates ; and the state of the controversy wras pithily -expressed by the verse : — " Peter holds Rome, but Gregory the world." 3 § 5. A German diet held at Wurzburg declared in favour of Innocent, who met Lothair at Liege, and crowned him with his queen Bichenza (March 1131). Two years later the King met the 1 Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 11, 12. We have to spenk in another place of St. Bernard's share in the scholastic controversies of the age, and of his conflict with Abelard. (See Chap. XXVIII.) - Ibid. pp. 12, 13, 3 " Roniam Petrus habet, totum Gregorius orbem." Rob. de Monte, A.D. 1130: Robertson, ibid. p. 14. 46 LOTHAIR II. EMPEROR. Chap. IV. Pope in Italy and escorted him to Rome, where Innocent crowned Lothair Emperor in the Lateran, St. Peter's being still held by the Antipope (June 4th, 1132). Before the ceremony, Lothair took an oath to defend the Pope's person and dignity, to maintain those royalties of St. Peter which Innocent already possessed, and to aid him with all his power for the recovery of the rest. It is, however, doubtful whether the Emperor's submission went the length of that acknowledgment of vassalage which Innocent boasted in the inscrip- tion beneath a picture of the scene on the wall of the Vatican ; "Rex venit ante fores, jurans prius urbis honores, post homo fit Paps, sumit quo dante coronam." For the present, the Emperor had so little power to give the promised help, that, as soon as he had left Rome, Innocent was again driven out to Pisa, where he remained till 1137. By that time Anacletus had exhausted his wealth and lost most of his adherents ; his only powerful supporter being Roger II., whom he had crowned King of Sicily. Innocent now returned to Italy ; and Lothair, who had made peace with the Swabian party in 1135, led a powerful army across the Alps, drove Roger out of his possessions in Italy, and restored the Pope to Rome. But on his return the Emperor fell sick at Trent, and died in a peasant's hut on the Alps (Dec. 3, 1137). A few weeks later the papal schism was ended by the death of Anacletus in the Vatican (Jan. 25, 1138). * § 6. The pretensions of Lothair's son-in-law, Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria and afterwards of Saxony, were now contested by Conrad of Hohenstaufen, who was chosen king by a part of the electors, headed by the Archbishops of Treves and Cologne, without waiting for the meeting of the Diet. With Conrad III. (1138- 1152) began the Swabian or Hohenstaufen dynasty ; but civil war and his unfortunate part in the Second • Crusade prevented his establishing his power in Italy,oreven going to Rome to receive the Imperial crown. His contest with Henry is memorable for the use of the names of the Saxon and Swabian factions, Gutlph and Ghibelline, which became so famous as the titles of the Papal and Imperial parties.2 They are said to have been first used as watch- words at the great battle of Weinsberg, in which Conrad defeated Wei f, the brother of Henry (1140). The fall of Weinsberg vir- 1 A new Antipope. who was set up under the name of Victor IV., was soon persuaded to make his submission to Innocent (May 1138). 2 Guelp'i and Ghibelline are the Italian torms of the German We'f and Waihlingen ; the former being; the family name which the Dukes of Saxony inherited from Henry's grandfather, Welf I., Duke of Bavaria, the latter the name of the village where Conrad's brother Frederick had been brought up. A.D. 1139. SECOND LATERAN COUNCIL. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA. 47 tually ended the civil war. Henry had died the year before ; and peace was made in 1142.1 § 7. Pope Innocent II., restored to the undisputed possession of Rome, held the Second General Council of Lattran (the Tenth (Ecumenical of the Romans), which annulled the acts of Anacletus and excommunicated Roger of Sicily (1139). This Council also condemned Arnold of Brescia, who may be called in some respects one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation, while he was also a leader of the republican agitation which was now gaining strength in Italy. The conflicts between the Empire and the Papacy, and the diminished power of the Em- perors south of the Alps, had encouraged many of the Lombard cities to assert their independence under republican forms of govern- ment ; and the claims of their bishops to temporal rule provoked a political resistance to the hierarchy, who were already widely de- nounced for their worldliness and immorality. This twofold opposi- tion found a vigorous leader in Arnold, who was born about 1105 at Brescia, one of the chief centres of republican independence in Lombard}'. Having been for some time a reader in the church, he adopted the monastic profession, and began to denounce the cor- ruptions both of the clergy and the monks in a strain of eloquence, to which Bernard applied the language of the Psalmist (lv. 22): — "his words were softer than oil, yet were they very swords." His ideas of reform were based on the pure spirituality of the Church. " Filled with visions of apostolical poverty and purity — of a purely spiritual church working by spiritual means alone — Arnold im- agined that the true remedy for the evils that had been felt would be to strip the hierarchy of their privileges, to confiscate their wealth, and to reduce them for their support to the tithes, with the free-will offerings of the laity."2 Condemned to banishment by the Council of 1 139, he withdrew to France, and afterwards to Zurich. The influence of Arnold's teaching was supposed to be manifested by the insurrection at Rome in 1143, which replaced the Pope's civil government by a Senate in the Capitol. The Romans " re- solved that their city should resume its ancient greatness — that it should be the capital of the world, as well in a secular as in a religious sense; but that the secular administration should be in different hands from the spiritual."3 Broken down by this revolt, Innocent died in the same year, and his successor Celestine II. held the See for only six months (1143-44), during which time Arnold, who had been before protected by the new Pope, seems to 1 The details belong to the histories of Europe and Germany. 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 43. 3 Ibid. p. 4»5 ; cf. Bryce, pp. 174, 253, 277, f 48 CONRAD III., LUCIUS II., EUGENIUS III. Chap. IV. have returned to Rome. On the death of Celestine, the model of the old Republic Avas still further copied by the creation of an equestrian order; and a Patrician, as nominal representative of the Emperor,1 was substituted for the papal prefect of the city. The new Pope, Lucius II., provoked by the riots and new demands of the people, and trusting to the armed power of the nobles, lost his life in an attempt to drive the Senate from the Capitol (Feb. loth, 1145). § 8. His successor, Eugenius III. (1145-1153) — a pupil of Bernard of Clairvaux, and hitherto known only for his pure sim- plicity— surprised his former master and the world by displaying an ability and eloquence, which were explained by miraculous illumination. The interruption of his consecration by a riotous demand for his acknowledgment of the Republic caused his retire- ment to Viterbo; and he only returned to Rome (Jan. 1146) to be driven out again by the people (March), whose riots were inflamed by the harangues of Arnold and by his armed force of 2000 Swiss. The efforts of Bernard to induce Conrad to restore the Pope were interrupted by the excitement which caused the disastrous Second Crusade, of which Bernard was the great preacher (1147-1149).2 The Pope Eugenius, who had gone to France to support the Crusade, was enabled by the help of Roger of Sicily to return to Rome in 1149. The treatise " On Consideration," 3 which Bernard wrote at his request and for his direction, exhorting him to the spiritual duties of his office and warning him against secularity, contains an exposure of the abuses that infected the Roman Church and the monastic system, which is doubly impressive as a witness borne by the great champion of the Papacy. Though respecting the personal character and spiritual authority of Eugenius, the Romans still resisted his secular government, and he was again driven out after a few months. While preparing an expedition to restore him, Conrad died of a sudden illness (Feb. 1152). At the end of the year the Romans consented to receive Eugenius, but he died six months after his return (July 1153); and in the following month Bernard — to use the words of a chronicler — "ascended from the Bright Valley to the mountain of eternal brightness."4 He was canonized by Alexander III. in 1174. 1 It should be remembered that there was no Emperor at this time ; and Conrad had refused the invitation of the republican party to receive the imperial crown at Rome as the head of the revived state. 2 The details of the Crusade belong to civil history. 3 " De Considei-atione." — Bernard explains the meaning of this term (in contradistinction to contemplatio) as " intensa ad investigandum cogi- tatio vel intentio animi investigantis rerum." — ii. 2. * Rob. Autissiod. ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 70. A.D. 1152. FREDERICK I. BARBAROSSA. 49 § 9. A week after Conrad's death, the electors at Frankfort con- firmed his designation of his nephew Frederick I.,1 surnamed by the Italians Barbarossa ("with the Red Beard"). In him was united the blood of the Ghibellines and Guelphs, whose feud was suspended during his reign. A few days later he was crowned as King of the Germans at Aix-la-Qhapelle, at the age of thirty-one, and he reigned thirty-seven years (1152-1189). His firm character and splendid abilities qualified him to fulfil his resolution of sup- porting the imperial dignity and rights after the model of Charles the Great ; and his reign is the most brilliant in the annals of the Empire. " Its territory had been wider under Charles, its strength perhaps greater under Henry III., but it never appeared in such pervading vivid activity, never shone with such lustre of chivalry, as under the prince whom his countrymen have taken to be one of their national heroes, and who is still, as the half mythic type of Teutonic character, honoured by picture and statue, in song and in legend, through the breadth of the German lands. The reverential fondness of his annalists, and the whole tenor of his life, goes far to justify this admiration, and makes it probable that nobler motives were joined with personal ambition in urging him to assert so haughtily and carry out so harshly those imperial rights in which he had such unbounded confidence. Under his guidance the Transalpine power made its greatest effort to subdue the two antagonists which then threatened and were fated in the end to destroy it — Italian nationality and the Papacy."2 Frederick's famous struggle with the Lombard cities must be left to the civil history of the age, except in its bearing on his conflict with his papal antagonists, Adrian IV. and Alexander III. § 10. The state of Italy at Frederick's accession was such as to demand vigorous action, unless he were prepared to renounce all do- minion beyond the Alps. The exiled Pope Eugenius entreated his aid against the republicans, while they wrote to assure him that all respect for the Papacy was lost at Piome. The cities of North Italy were not only asserting their independence, but abusing it in bitter contests with each other ; the larger oppressed their weaker neighbours ; and a fierce feud was waged between Milan and Pavia, the ancient capital of Lombardy, which remained faithful to the Empire. To protect Southern Italy against the Norman kingdom of Sicily, Frederick formed an alliance with the Greek Emperor, Manuel Comnenus, and he made a compact with Pope Eugenius for the mutual safeguard of their interests (March 1153). At his first 1 He was the son of Frederick II., Duke of Hohenstaufen, and of Judith, sister of Henrv the Proud and of Welf. (Cf. p. 42, n. 4.) 2 Bryce, p." 167. 50 REIGN OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. Chap. IV. diet (1152) he proposed an expedition to Italy, the. importance of which was indicated by the two years' preparation required of the princes. In October, 1154, Frederick led into Lombardy the strongest German army that had ever crossed the Alps, and asserted his power over the imperial vassals and the cities. Meanwhile death had carried off not only Eugenius, who had promised to crown him Emperor, but also his successor, Anastasius IV. (1153- 1151); and, while Frederick was still in Lombardy, the election fell upon Adrian IV., who began that hundred years' conflict with the house of Hohenstaufen, which at length raised the Papacy to the climax of its power (Dec. 1154). § 11. Nicolas Breakspear, the only Englishman who ever filled St. Peters chair, is described by a biographer as " a man of great kindness, meekness, and patience, skilled in the English and the Latin tongues, eloquent in speech, polished in his utterance, dis- tinguished in singing and an eminent preacher, slow to anger, quick to forgive, a cheerful giver, bountiful in alms, and excellent in his whole character."1 But these milder personal virtues did not exclude the utmost vigour in exalting and enforcing the claims of his office. He at once refused to acknowledge the republican government of Rome, and, on the murder of a cardinal in the street, he placed the city under an interdict in the midst of the solemnities of Lent, and only removed it on the consent of the Senators to banish Arnold of Brescia.2 This vigorous stroke was followed by an embassy of three cardinals to Frederick, who was now advancing rapidly towards Rome, requesting him to take measures against the common enemy of the Empire as well as the Church. Arnold, given up by his protectors, was sent by Frederick to Rome, where he was hanged and his body burnt, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber (1155). The mission of the Cardinals, who received friendly assurances from Frederick and promised him the imperial crown, was followed by a visit of the Pope to the King's camp. Not content with the 1 Card. Aragon, in the Patrolog., clxxxix. 1352; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 74. 2 An Interdict was a sentence, pronounced by the supreme spiritual authority of a district or country, suspending the service of the churches and all the other offices of religion, except the baptism of infants and the confession and absolution of the dying. Its appeal to men's spiritual fears was doubly terrible, as the innocent were involved equally with the guilty. The first example of its use was by Alduin, bishop of Limoges, in 994- ; but it was not till the time of Hildebrand and his successors that Inter- dicts on a whole kingdom were resorted to as the most powerful weapon in the Papal armoury. They were used most effectively by Innocent III. against France and England. A.D. 1155 ADRIAN IV. AND FREDERICK. 51 prostration of Frederick at his feet, Adrian required him to hold his stirrup, as Constantine was said to have performed that service to Sylvester! The politic King referred the question to his nobles, and, finding that the service had been performed by Lothair to Innocent II., he went through the form, but in such a manner as 1o make it ridiculous. Accompanying the Pope to Rome, Frederick was crowned Emperor by Adrian at St. Peter's (June 18, 1155). § 12. Causes of quarrel soon arose, first from Adrian's treaty of peace with William the Bad (son of Roger of Sicily), whom he in- vested with the kingdom of Sicily and more than the former posses- sions of the Normans in Italy, as a fief of the Holy See, not only disallowing the imperial sovereignty, but obtaining William's pro- mise of aid against all enemies. A petty quarrel, also, caused by an outrage on a Scandinavian bit-hop, was inflamed into a grave offence by one ambiguous word. At an assembly at Besancon (1157) two cardinals presented a letter from Adrian, reminding Frederick that the Pope had conferred on him the imperial crown, and protesting his willingness, had it been in his power, to have bestowed on him still greater favours (beneficia). This word was taken by the Germans in its technical sense of benefices, as if it were meant to im- ply that the Empire was a fief of the Holy See. When, amidst their clamorous resentment of the supposed insult, one of the cardinals, Roland, rashly exclaimed, " From whom then does the Emperor hold his crown, if not from the Pope?" — the noble who carried the unsheathed sword of state was hardly restrained from cleaving his head, and the Emperor — while holding him back — said, " If we were not in a church, they should know how the swords of the Germans cut." The taunt was amply avenged when the other of "the two swords"1 was wielded by the same Roland as Pope Alexander III. Frederick dismissed the le2ates with vehement reproaches, and put forth a declaration to his subjects that he would rather hazard his life than admit the Pope's insolent assump- tions. Adrian found it prudent to* explain that by beneficia he had only meant bona facta, and by conferring the crown the act of placing it on the Emperor's head. More than this, he yielded to Frederick's demand for the removal of the offensive picture of Lothair's homage to Innocent II.2 (Jan. 1158). § 13. In the following July Frederick acain led an immense army across the Alps, with the resolution of establishing the im- perial authority on a firm bnsis, which was settled in a great assem- 1 Luke xxii. 38 ; a text which was constantly applied to the two swords of temporal and spiritual government — of the Emperor and the Pope — especially by Boniface VIII., in his famous Bull Unam Sanctam (see below, p*. 99> 2 See above,. § 2. 52 REIGN OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. Chip. IV. bly held on the plains of Roncaglia (Nov. 1158). The details belong to the civil history of Italy: what concerns us here is the resent- ment of Adrian at the almost autocratic power over the Italian cities, which the assembly conferred upon the Emperor. " It seemed to him as if all that the Emperor gained were taken from himself." x The quarrel reached its climax in the Pope's claim to the uncontrolled government of Rome, in reply to which Frederick cited the imperial rights secured by the Civil Law,2 and concluded thus : — " Since by the ordination of God I both am and am called Emperor of the Romans, in nothing but name shall I appear to be ruler if the control of the Roman city be wrested from my hands." Such was the crisis in the midst of which Adrian IV. died at Anagni, on Sept. 1, 1159. § 14. Each of the two factions at Rome — the Imperialist, and that of the late Pope, which relied on the Sicilian power — now made a separate election, and a Papal schism ensued for twenty years. The majority of the sacred college elected the Chancellor Roland, Cardinal of St. Mark, whose bearing at the assembly of Besancon3 had given an earnest of his bitter opposition to the Empire as Pope Alexander III. (1159-1181). A majority of the cardinals, sup- ported by the lower clergy, the nobles, and the people, chose the Imperialist Octavian, Cardinal of St. Cecilia, who is regarded as the Antipope Victor IV. (1159-1164). It would be tedious to review the arguments of the two parties or the contradictory accounts of the riotous proceedings on both sides.4 The true issue is described by the voice of impartial history : — " The keen and long-doubtful strife of twenty-years that followed, while apparently a dispute be- tween rival Popes, was in substance an effort by the secular monarch to recover his command of the priesthood ; not less truly so than that contemporaneous conflict of the English Henry II. and St. Thomas of Canterbury, with which it was constantly involved. Unsupported, not all Alexander's genius and resolution could have saved him : by the aid of the Lombard cities, whose league he had counsel le 1 and hallowed, and of the fivers of Rome, by which the conquering German host was suddenly annihilated, he won a triumph the more signal, that it was over a prince so wise and pious as Frederick."6 1 Gunther, viii. 107-8, quoted by Robertson, vol. iii. p. 82. 2 The study of the Civil Law had received a great impulse through the University of Bologna, the professors of which had decided in favour of the high claims of imperial authority in the assembly of Roncaglia. For the great intellectual movement of this age, and the rise of the Universities, see Book V., especially Chap. XXIX. 3 See above, § 12. 4 For the details, see Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 85, 86. 5 Bryce, p. 171. • A.D. 1159. ALEXANDER III. AND VICTOR IV. 53 Frederick was engaged in quelling the resistance of Milan and other Lombard cities when he received the appeal of Victor for his decision, as well as a letter from Alexander announcing his election in terms which roused the Emperor's passionate indignation. In right of his imperial authority, after the examples of Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, and Charles the Great,1 he summoned a General Council, inviting the kings of France, England, Hungary, Spain and other countries, to send bishops ; but in fact the fifty prelates who assem- bled at Pavia were almost entirely his own German and Lombard subjects (Feb. 1160). Alexander not only refused to attend, assert- ing the old claim that a lawful Pope was above all human judg- ment, but he accused Frederick of invading the rights of the Holy See by calling a Council without his sanction. The Council pro- nounced its judgment for Victor and rendered him homage, the Emperor holding his stirrup, while on his part he received investi- ture from Frederick by the ring. Beyond the Empire, however, almost all Christendom declared for Alexander, who was solemnly acknowledged by the kings and bishops of France and England in a Council at Toulouse, as well as by the Byzantine court and the Latin Christians of Palestine. " In Alexander the hierarchical party had found a chief thoroughly fitted to advance its interests . While holding the highest views of the Hildebrandine school, the means which he employed in their service were very different from those of Hildebrand. He was especially skilful in dealing with men, and in shaping his course according to circumstances ; and above all things he was remark- able for the calm and steady patience with which he was content to await the development of affairs, and for the address with which he contrived to turn every occurrence to the interest of his cause." 2 § 15. Neither of the rival Popes had been strong enough to establish himself at Pome. Alexander indeed returned thither from Anagni in April 1161, but he soon found himself unsafe in the city, and after a short residence at Terracina he took refuge in France, just after Frederick had destroyed all his hopes of support in Lombardy by the capture and cruel chastisement of Milan after a three years' siege (1162).3 1 This was Frederick's own declaration at the opening of the Council. 2 Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 89, 90. 3 Among the relics now carried away from Milan were the skulls of the three "Magi," or "Wise Men from the East" (Matt. ii. 1), which were said to have been presented by the Empress Helena to Eustorgius, bishop of Milan, and were now transferred to Cologne Cathedral by Reginald, the imperial Chancellor. The splendid shrine of the " Three Kings of Cologne " was made towards the end of the century. It is more than 5 feet long, and 5 feet high. (See Vignette to this Chapter.) II—E 54 PAPACY OF ALEXANDER III. Chap. IV. In the following year Alexander was solemnly acknowledged by a great council of cardinals, bishops, and abbots, convened at Tours by Louis VII. and Henry II. ; 1 and on their invitation the Pope took up his residence at Sens (Oct. 1163). Among the ecclesiastics present at this Council was Thomas Becket, who had been made Archbishop of Canterbury in the year before (1162), and wTho, a year later, returned to France an exiled fugitive (Nov. 1164).2 His cordial welcome by Louis and Alex- ander seemed to offer an occasion for detaching Henry from the cause of the Pope. Meanwhile the Antipope Victor had died at Lucca in the same year ; and of the two surviving cardinals who had elected him, one, the Archbishop of Treves, declining the tiara for himself, appointed the other, Guy of Crema, as Paschal III. (April 1164). This step is ascribed to Reginald of Cologne;3 and it is a curious parallel to our own time to find an imperial chancellor, seven centuries ago, denounced by the then Pope as " the author and head of the Church's troubles."4 Having secured the warm support of Frederick (who is said to have first inclined to a recon- ciliation with Alexander), Reginald went to England to negociate with Henry, who consented to send envoys to an imperial diet at Wiirzburg, which pronounced a most solemn decision for Paschal (Whitsuntide, 1165). But Alexander gained new adherents even among the high ecclesiastics of Germany ; and the Romans, won over by money supplied from France, England, and Sicily, received him back into the city with an enthusiastic welcome (Dec. 23). § 16. And now the tide of Barbarossa's fortune began to turn. The tyranny and exactions of the podestas5 had spread disaffection in Lombardy even among the imperialist cities, and the princes of Germany were less and less ready to supply the force for another campaign in Italy. The Emperor Manuel took advantage of the long quarrel, to propose to the Pope a reconciliation of the Churches under a reunited Empire ; and he landed a body of troops at Ancona. At 1 It must be remembered that Henry II. 's possessions in France were larger than those of Louis. 2 The great conflict between Henry and Becket is so essential a part of the history of England, that we need only notice it here in its connection with the wider contest between the Empire and the Papacy. (See the Student's History of the English Church, Period I., Chap. XV.) 3 Reginald, though ruling at Cologne, was at this time only in deacon's orders, from the fear (as it seems) that consecration by a schismatic Pope would shut the door to reconciliation with Alexander; but, on the decision of the Diet *of Wiirzburg for Paschal, he was obliged to receive priest's orders, and was soon afterwards consecrated at Cologne as Archbishop. 4 Alex. III. Epist. 254; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 93. 5 The podcsta was the chief magistrate in each city, appointed by the Emperor, under the provisions settled at Roncaglia. A.D. 1167. BARBAROSSA AT ROME. 55 length Frederick crossed the Alps for the fourth time,1 with a powerful army, in the autumn of 1166; and, while he himself remained to besiege Ancona, the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz gained a decisive victory over the Romans at Monte Porzio, near Tusculum (May 20, 1167). Hastening to Rome, Frederick took possession of the Leonine City, and, after a fearful massacre of the Romans, who held out in the very Basilica of St. Peter, the Antipope Paschal was brought from his residence at Viterbo and solemnly enthroned, and the Emperor and Empress were crowned by him anew (Aug. 1). The Romans swore fealty to Frederick, who acknowledged the privileges of their Senate. Alexander, fortified among the ruins of the Colos- seum, refused all terms which would subject him to any earthly government. But this success was the prelude to a fatal disaster, in which the Papal party claimed God's judgment on "the new Sennacherib;" only it fell as heavily on the Romans themselves. The German army had scarcely been established in Rome when a pestilence broke out in the city and camp, carrying off in one week 20,000 of the soldiers, and among many chief prelates and nobles the Chancellor Reginald of Cologne. Frederick retreated northwards — his army thinned at every march — to find Lombardy in full insurrection. Already while he was detained at the siege of Ancona, the chief cities, encouraged by the Pope and the Emperor Manuel, had formed the famous Lombard League ; the walls of Milan had been rebuilt ; and Frederick's disaster made the revolt almost universal. Scarcely any of the cities obeyed his call to an assembly at Pavia ; and, having launched the brutum fulmen of an imperial ban against the rebels, he pursued his retreat, harassed by constant attacks, till at Susa he was obliged to fly for his life across the Alps. The great fortified city of Alessandria, which the Italians built to command the road through Piedmont, still preserves the memory of the Pope in whose honour it was named, and whose power was secured by his alliance with the Lombard League. The last stroke needed to turn the general sympathy of Christen- dom into enthusiasm was given by the murder of Thomas Becket (Dec. 29, 1170), and the submission of Henry II. to the terms of reconciliation dictated by the Papal Legates (May 1172). The King's penance at the tomb of "Thomas of Canterbury," whom the Pope canonized as " Saint and Martyr," at Lent, 1173, was the sign to Europe, as well as England, of Alexander's victory. Meanwhile the Antipope Paschal had died at Rome (Sept. 1168), and his successor, John of Struma, who bore for ten years the 1 He had visited Italy the third time in the autumn of 1163, but with- out any large force. 56 PAPACY OF ALEXANDER III. Chap. IV. empty title of Calixtus III. (1168-1178) is scarcely worthy of mention. § 17. It was not till seven years after his great repulse that Frederick once more crossed Mont Cenis, and avenged the insults he had received at Susa (1174) ; but both Alessandria and Ancona resisted his attacks, and the Lombard League gained a decisive victory in the great battle of Legnano, the Emperor hardly escaping with his life (May 20th, 1176). In the following year the complete triumph of the Papacy was displayed in the striking scene of the meeting between Alexander III. and Frederick Barbarossa, in the great square of St. Mark's at Venice^1 with all the public marks of abject homage, followed by less formal, and even cordial converse (July 23-25, 1177).2 " Three slabs of red marble in the porch of St. Mark's point out the spot where Frederick knelt in sudden awe, and the Pope with tears of joy raised him and gave the kiss of peace. A later legend, to which poetry and painting have given undeserved currency, tells how the Pontiff set his foot on the neck of the prostrate King, with the words, ' The lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.' 3 It needed not this exaggeration to enhance the significance of that scene, even more full of meaning for the future than it was solemn and affecting to the Venetian crowd that thronged the church and the piazza. For it was the renunciation by the mightiest prince of his time of the project to which his life had been devoted : it was the abandonment by the secular power of a contest in which it had twice been van- quished, and which it could not renew under more favourable conditions." 4 § 18. In March, 1178, Alexander re-entered Eome from his retirement at Anagni, on the invitation of all ranks of the people, whose obedience was guaranteed by the senate's homage and oath of fealty. His horse could hardly move through the crowds of people who struggled to kiss his feet, and his right hand was weary of bestowing benedictions.5 Calixtus soon after submitted to Alexander, who gave him a rich abbacy at Benevento (Aug. 1178); 1 The republic had been neutral in the conflict. 2 The terms of peace, settled before the meeting, provided for the ab- juration of the Antipope by the Emperor and the imperialist bishops, and a perpetual peace between the Empire and the Papacy. The Lombards were to yield the Emperor the same obedience which they had paid to his predecessors from Henry V. downwards; while the Emperor acknowledged their power to appoint their own consuls, to fortify their cities, and to combine for the defence of their liberties. There was to be a truce of six years with the Lombards, and of fifteen years with the King of Sicily. — Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 101, 102. a Psalm xci. 13. 4 Brvce, p. 171-2. 5 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 104. A.D. 1179. THIRD LATERAN COUNCIL. 57 and a fourth Antipope, set up by the Frangipani, mocked by- anticipation the famous title of Innocent III. for about a year, when he was delivered up to the Pope and imprisoned for life. To lessen the danger of future schisms, a new order for Papal elections was enacted by the Third Lateran Council (the Eleventh (Ecumenical of the Romans), held by Alexander in March 1179. " The share which had been reserved to the Emperor by Alexander II. had already been long obsolete ; and it was now provided that the election should rest exclusively with the College of Cardinals ; while, by adding to the College certain official members of the Roman clergy, Alexander de- prived the remaining clergy of any chiefs under whom they might have effectually complained of their exclusion from their ancient rights as to the election. It was enacted that no one should be de- clared Pope unless he were supported by two-thirds of the electors ; and that, if a minority should set up an Antipope against one so chosen, every one of their party should be anathematized, without hope of forgiveness until his last sickness." 1 This Council also marks a new epoch in the history of the Roman Church, as well as of the forces rising up in opposition to its supremacy, by its 27th Canon, which gave the first public sanction to a Crusade against Heretics.2 The few remaining events of Alexander's long pontificate3 belong rather to the separate histories, especially of France and England. Notwithstanding his triumph over all his enemies, he found the turbulence of his subjects at home so dangerous that he was again obliged to leave Rome, and he died at Civita Castellana (Aug. 30, 1181). His enemies insulted his corpse on its way to the city, and would hardly allow him to be buried in the Lateran Church. § 19. The enmity of the Romans broke out into open violence on finding themselves excluded, by the recent scheme, from any voice in the election of the new Pope, Lucius 111. (1181-1185), who was forced to seek refuge at Velletri, and was unable to re-enter the city during his whole pontificate. Frederick gained new strength by conciliating the Lombards, and, before the expiration of the six years' truce, the relations between the Empire and the cities were definitely settled by the peace of Constance (1183). At Whitsun- tide, 1184, Frederick gathered the flower of the German nobility to a great festival at Mainz — the famous Beichsfest of Barbarossa on 1 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 104. 2 On the whole subject of Heresies in this age, see Chaps. XXXIV. f. 3 Since St. Peter's pretended Papacy, of twenty five years, the twenty- two years of Alexander III. had only been exceeded by the twenty-three years of Sylvester I. and Adrian I. (before him), and of Pius VII. since (1800-1823), till Pius IX. falsified the old prophecy of warning to each Pope — "Non videbis annos Petri" — by surviving the full term of twenty- five years, which he completed in 1871, and lived on to the 7th of Feb., 1879. 58' FREDERICK BARBAROSSA AND URBAN III. Chap. IV. the Rhine — to celebrate the conferring of knighthood on^iis two elder sons, Henry and Frederick — Henry having been already crowned "King of the Romans."1 The Emperor was warmly welcomed, even at Milan, in the same year, when he visited Italy for the sixth time. At Verona he was met by the Pope, who solicited his aid against the Romans, but refused to crown Frederick's son Henry as his colleague in the Empire. Other causes of mutual complaint made a breach which seemed already hopeless, when Lucius died at Verona (Nov. 25, 1185), and was succeeded by a bitter enemy of the Emperor. Humbert Crivelli, archbishop of Milan, had been both a leader and a sufferer in the resistance of that city to Frederick, an advocate of the high pretensions of Pope and priesthood, and the friend and companion of Thomas Becket. On the same day that Lucius died, he gathered together twenty-seven cardinals, who elected him as Pope Urban III.2 (1185-1187). He at once sounded the note of conflict, not only by repeating the refusal to crown Henry emperor, but by refusing also, as Archbishop of Milan, to place the iron crown of Italy on the young King's head. Meanwhile Frederick was maturing a scheme for enhancing his power in Italy, which he compared to " an eel, which a man had need to grasp firmly by the tail, the head, and the middle, and which might nevertheless give him the slip." He had regained a hold of the head in Lombardy, and by securing the tail in the Two Sicilies, he might hope to keep the Pope in check in the middle. The kingdom, which had descended from the famous Roger to his son, William the Bad, had devolved in 1166 on his son, William the Good, who had been married to a daughter of Henry II. of England since 1177, but was still childless. Frederick resolved to grasp the almost sure reversion by the union of his son Henry with the next heiress, Constance, a posthumous daughter of Roger. In spite of the Pope's violent opposition and threats, the marriage was celebrated at Milan, where also Frederick was crowned as King of Burgundy, Henry as King of Italy, and Constance as Queen of the Germans (January 1186). The harshness of King Henry to the partisans of the Pope had embittered the growing quarrel, when Urban died at Ferrara, whither he had removed from Bologna with the intention of excommunicating Henry (October 20, 1187). Before his death the thoughts and feelings of all Western Christendom had been turned into a new channel by the fall of 1 On such coronations, see p. 29, n. 2 As in the case of Urban II. (see Chap. III. § 1), the name provoked pun, and Urban III. was nicknamed Twrbantts-— "eo quod in odium Imperatoris volebat turbare ecclesiam." — Chron. Ursperg., 224. A.D. 1190. DEATH OF BARBAROSSA. 59 the corrupt Latin kingdom of Palestine before the victorious Sultan of Egypt, Saladin, who took Jerusalem on the 3rd of October, 1187. This is not the place to relate the story of the Third Crusade? the van of which was led by Frederick Barbarossa, who was now sixty-seven years old. Amidst all his contests with the Papacy, he had always been a devout Christian, and it seemed fitting that he should end his course as he bad begun it, in fighting for the Sepulchre of Christ.2 But he was not destined even to reach the Holy Land. Leaving to civil history the story of his march, which began from Ratisbon in 1189, and of his firm policy towards the treacherous and supercilious Byzantines, it behoves us only to record his unlooked-for death near Tarsus, iu attempting the passage of the river Calycadnus (June 10, 1190). The Pope Clement III., who had followed Urban after the two months' pontificate of Gregory VIII. — and of whom nothing need be said except that he was restored to Rome by an agreement with the citizens — survived the great Emperor only till March 1191. § 20. The ntw Pope, Celestine III. (1191-1198), who was elected at the age of eighty-five, deferred his consecration till the arrival of King Henry VI.,3 who was on his way to Rome to receive the imperial crown. The Poj e was consecrated on Easter Day, and he crowned Henry and Constance on the two succeeding days (April 14-16, 1191). Henry at once marched southwards with his empress, whose inheritance had been seized — on the death of William in 1189 — by Tancred, a bastard of the Norman royal house. The first campaign, though opened by the capture of Naples, had a disastrous end; but two years later Henry conquered Sicily with the aid of a Genoese fleet, and his triumphal entry into Palermo was followed by cruelties which proved him — as indeed he had already shown in Lombardy — " a man who had inherited more than all his father's harshness, with none of his father's generosity."4 The acquisition of Naples and Sicily (1194) turned the stronghold of his enemies into a vantage-ground against the Papacy from the south, as Lombardy already was on the north, and encouraged him to propose a scheme for making the crown hereditary ; but all he 1 Besides the splendid narrative of Gibbon and the other histories which treat of this Crusade, it forms a special part of the history of England through the brilliant achievements of Richard Coeur de Lion. 2 Frederick had accompanied his uucle Conrad on the Second Crusade just forty years before. 3 We have seen that Henry had already been crowned King of the Romans (that is, heir to the German kingdom and the Empire) and of Italy in the lifetime of his father, who had left the government in his hands when he went on the Crusade. * Bryce, p. 205. 60 DEATHS OF HENRY VI. AND CELESTINE III. Chap. IV. could obtain from the diet was the election of his- infant son Frederick as King of the Romans (1196).1 " In his ecclesiastical policy, Henry showed himself resolved to yield nothing to the Papacy. He forbad appeals to Rome, and prevented his subjects from any access to the Papal court. He attempted to revive the imperial privilege of deciding in cases of disputed election to bishopricks. He refused the homage which the Norman princes had performed to the Pope for their Italian and Sicilian territories, and, returning into Italy, he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter up to the very gates of the city."2 The aged Pope tried to conciliate the Emperor, and reminded him of the vow which he had taken some time before to lead a new crusade.3 Henry renewed his engagements at Bari (Easter, 1195), and he gathered a force in Apulia, but with the intention of using it for his own ends, and especially against the Byzantine Empire. He had crossed over into Sicily and resumed his cruelties in putting down a conspiracy, when he died suddenly at Messina, not without a suspicion that he was poisoned by his wife Constance, through abhorrence of his savage treatment of her Norman relatives and friends (September 28th, 1197). Pope Celestine died soon after, on the 8th of January, 1198. The death of Henry VI. marks the turning point from which we have to trace the rapid fall of the imperial house of Ilohen- staufen, and the advance of the Papal power to its climax. 1 He is not, however, reckoned as King Frederick II. till his de facto accession in 1212. (See next chapter.) 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 134. 3 A part of the German forces proceeded on this Fotirth Crusade, and gained some success on the sea-coast only ; but they had fierce quarrels with the Templars, and on the death of Henry they made a six years' truce with the infidels. The Iron Crown of Lombardy, at Monza Cathedral. Apse of the Apostles' Church at Cologne. CHAPTER V. CLIMAX OF THE PAPACY : AND FALL OF THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. FROM THE ELECTION OF INNOCENT III. TO THE DEATHS OF CONRAD IV. AND INNOCENT IV. A.D. 1198-1254. § I. Exaltation of the Papacy. § 2. Election of Innocent III -His pre- vious career works, and character. § 3. His Reforms at Rome, and power m Italy-Frederick, Kin, of Sicily and ward of the Pope § 4. Contest for the German Crown— Otho IV. and Philip II.-- 62 CLIMAX OF THE PAPACY. Chap. V. Murder of Philip — Otho crowned Emperor. § 5. His Quarrel with the Pope, excommunication, and deposition — Election of Frederick II. §6. Wide influence of Innocent — England, France, Spain, and other states — The Fifth Cmsad:: Latin Empire of Constantinople. § 7. Crusades against Heathens and Heretics —New Romish doctrine of persecution and death for Heresy — The Vernacular Scriptures forbidden by Innocent — Burning of French Bibles — Rising forces of resistance. § 8. The Fourth Lateran Council — Transubstantiation and Auricular Confession — Death of Innocent III. — Climax of the Papacy, but seeds of Reaction. § 0. Pope Honorius III. — Sixth Crusade— Frederick II. crowned Emperor — Kingdoms of Sicily and Jerusalem. § 10. Pope Gregory IX. — Final and decisive contest with the Empire — Character of Frederick II. § 11. The Crusade — Frederick excommunicated — His Recovery of Jerusalem, return to Italy, successes, and Absolu- tion. § 12. Legislation of Frederick and Gregory — The Code of Melfi and the new Decretals — Laws of Frederick for burning Heretics. § 13. Rebellion, pardon, and death of Frederick's son, Henry — Election of Conrad as King — Victory of Corte Nuova over the Lombards. § 14. Frederick again excommunicated — Deaths of Gregory and his successor Celestine IV. § 15. Papal Vacancy — Election and Cha- racter of Innocent IV. § 16. His opposition to and peace with Frederick — His flight to Lyon — The First Council of Lyon deposes Frederick. § 17. War in Italy and Sicily — Rival Kings in Germany : Henry of Thuringia and William of Holland — Death of Frederick II. § 18. Real Fall of the Empire — Conrad IV., the last King of the Hohenstaufen line — Affairs of Italy — Deaths of Conrad and Innocent. § 1. The Thirteenth Century of the History, of the Church exhibits the closing scene of that great contest for supremacy, which was the unforeseen but inevitable result of the grand idea, conceived and carried on by Otho I. and his successors down to Henry III., of making a reformed Papacy the life and strength of a renovated Empire.1 "The first result of Henry lll.'s purification of the Papacy was seen in Hihlebrand's attempt to subject all jurisdiction to that of his own chair, and in the long struggle of the Investitures, which brought out into clear light the opposing pretensions of the temporal and spiritual powers. Although destined in the end to bear far other fruit, the immediate effect of this struggle was to evoke in all classes an intense religious feeling ; and, in o| ening up new fields of ambition to the hierarchy, to stimulate wonderfully their power of political organization. It was this impulse that gave birth to the Crusades, and that enabled the Popes, stepping forth as the rightful leaders of a religious war, to bend it to serve their own ends : it was thus too that they struck the alliance — strange 1 See Chap. I. § 1. A.D. 1198. POPE INNOCENT III. 63 as such an alliance seems now — with the rebellious cities of Lom- bardy, and proclaimed themselves the protectors of municipal free- dom. But the third and crowning triumph of the Holy See was reserved for the thirteenth century. In the foundation of the two great orders of ecclesiastical knighthood — the all-powerful all- pervading Dominicans and Franciscans — the religious fervour of the Middle Ages culminated. In the overthrow of the only power which could pretend to vie with her in antiquity, in sanctity, in uni- versality, the Papacy saw herself exalted to rule alone over the kings of the earth."1 But before the close of this century we shall see the triumphant Papacy fairly launched on the descent to its worst corruption and deepest degradation. § 2. We have seen that Henry VI. died in September 1197, and Celestine III. on Jan. 8, 1198 ; but a new Pope was elected before the succession to the Roman and German crowns was settled. On the very day of Celestine's death — without waiting, as was the rule, till after his funeral — the assembled cardinals pressed the papal dignity, against his own resistance and even tears, on Lothair, cardinal of SS. Sergius and Bacchus. Having waited till the ember season for ordination to the priesthood, for he was as yet only a sub-deacon, he was enthroned as Innocent III. (Feb. 22). The new Pope was now only 37 years old. Born a member of the house of Conti, as the Counts of Segni proudly styled themselves, he had studied at Paris, and also at Bologna, where he acquired a profound knowledge of ecclesiastical law. Having been ordained a sub-deacon by Gregory VII 1., he was made a cardinal, in his 29th year, by his relative, Clement III., and discharged several important missions. "The papacy of Celestine, to whom he was obnoxious on account of the hostility between their families,2 condemned him for a time to inaction ; and he employed himself chiefly in study, which produced its fruit in a treatise, On the Contempt of the World, and in other writings. The general tone of these is that of a rigid ascetic, withdrawn from the world and despising it — a tone seemingly very alien from the vigorous practical character which the author was soon to display. His sermons are remarkable for the acquaintance with Scripture which appears in them, and for his extraordinary delight in perverting its meaning by allegory ; a practice which in later times enabled him to produce scriptural authority for all his pretensions and for everything that he might desire to recommend. And in his books On the Sacred Mystery of the Altar, he had laid down the highest Roman doctrine as to the elevation of St. Peter and his successors over all other Apostles and 1 Bryce, pp. 204-5. 2 Celestine was of the family of the Orsini. 64 PAPACY OF INNOCENT III. Chap. V. Bishops." * Now that he was raised to the position for putting these principles in practice, he displayed a union of the boldness of Hildebrand with the cautious and patient policy of Alexander III. " Yet stern as Innocent was in principle, fully as he upheld the proudest claims of the Papacy — and not the less so for his continual affectation of personal humility — he appears to have been amiable in his private character. His contemporary biographer describes him as bountiful but not prodigal, as hot in temper but easily appeased, and of a magnanimous and generous spirit. He is said to have been even playful in intercourse ; he was a lover of poetry and music, and some well-known hymns of the Church have been ascribed to him."2 § 3. The first act of Innocent was to reform the. luxury of the Papal court ; and he attempted to free the administration of the Curia from corruption. Having secured the support of the citizens, he abolished the last vestiges both of the imperial and republican government at Rome, by exacting oaths of fide- lity to himself from the Prefect of the City, and from the Consul who now alone represented the Senate, as well as from all the people. Thus established as sole ruler in Eome, Innocent next set him- self to get rid of the Imperial power in Central Italy, and to transfer the suzerainty over Southern Italy and Sicily from the Empire to the Papacy. Taking advantage of the hatred borne by the Italians to the Germans, and of the discords among the German officers themselves, he contrived, by mingling negociations with threats of excommunication, to win the allegiance of the imperialist and other nobles who held possession of a great part of the States of the Church, and to drive out those who refused to acknowledge him as their sovereign. The desired severance of the Sicilian kingdom from the Empire was prepared to his hand by that hatred of the people to the Germans, which was felt even by their Queen, the widowed Empress Constance. Having caused her son Frederick to be crowned King of Sicily (May 1198), she offered to place the king- dom and her son under the Pope's protection. She died before the treaty was completed (Nov.) ; but her will left the guardianship of the young King to Innocent ; and thus the training of the heir of the anti-papal Hohenstaufens was committed to the hands of the very Pope who was most determined in upholding the claims which that family had resisted. § 4. In Germany the untimely death of the Emperor Henry VI., 1 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 283. 2 Ibid. p. 284. A.D. 1198. OTHO IV. AND PHILIP II. 65 while his son and colleague in the kingdom was an infant of three years old, caused new and strange relations of the rival parties both to each other and towards the Papacy. In the critical state of affairs, a long minority was but another name for anarchy; and while Philip, the youngest brother of Henry VI., was chosen by the Ghibelline party, at first only as guardian of the kingdom for his nephew Frederick (March 6, 1198), a Guelphic assembly, held at Andernach at Easter, elected Otho of Saxony, son of Henry the Lion, and nephew of Richard Cceur-de-Lion, who strongly supported his cause. " Each of the competitors was in the earliest manhood — Otho twenty-three years of age, and Philip younger by a year. In personal character, in wealth, and in the number of his adherents, Philip had the advantage. The chroniclers praise his moderation and his love of justice ; his mind had been cultivated by literature to a degree then very unusual among princes — a circumstance which is explained by the fact that he had been intended for an ecclesiastical career, until the death of an elder brother diverted him from it ; — and his popular manners contrasted favourably with the pride and rough- ness of Otho. But Otho was the favourite with the great body of the clergy, to whom Philip was obnoxious as the representative of a family which was regarded as opposed to the interests of the hierarchy." 1 At his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle, Otho IV. took an oath to maintain the Roman Church and to relinquish the abuses of his predecessors (July 12). Two months later, his rival was crowned at Mainz as Philip II.2 (Sept. 8). It could not be doubtful which side Innocent would take; but the applications made to him by the rival princes themselves, and by the kings of England and France — Richard pleading the cause of Otho, and Philip Augustus that of Philip — gave him the oppor- tunity of declaring his decision for Otho with the appearance of impartial argument.3 A ten years' war ensued in Germany ; and, though Innocent used his influence with growing vehemence on behalf of Otho, the cause of Philip prevailed more and more, till he was murdered by a personal enemy, Otho of Wittelsbach, Count Palatine of Bavaria (June 21, 1208). The Hohenstaufen family was now left without a head, for Frederick was still only in his fourteenth year, and was under the tutelage of the Pope. All parties desired peace, and it was proposed 1 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 292. 2 The number not only claimed a sequence with the old Roman Empire, but also recognized the claim of Philip (a.d. 244—249) to be regarded as the first Christian Emperor (see Part I. Chap V. § 4). 3 It is hardly worth while to cite the Pope's reasons, which will be found in Robertson, vol. iii. p. 294. 6Q OTHO IV. AND INNOCENT III. Chap. V. to unite the Swabian and Saxon houses by Otho's marriage to Philip's daughter Beatrice, who was yet only twelve years old. Having been recognized as king in a great assembly at Frankfort (Nov. II, 1208), and having solemnly renewed his promises to the Pope by a deed signed at Spires (March 1209), and celebrated his betrothal with Beatrice, Otho set out for Piome, where he was crowned Em- peror by Innocent (Oct. 4, 1209). At this ceremony he confirmed all his former promises by a solemn oath ; and, for the first and last time, an Emperor confessed that he held his crown " by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See." x § 5. But even this Guelph, hitherto so obsequious to the Pope, formed no exception to what seemed almost to have become a rille — that an Emperor's coronation was the preface to a deadly quarrel with the Pope who had just blessed him. Disputes began with the usual collisions between the Roman citizens and the German troops, for which Innocent refused redress. Otho with- drew from Rome, and made himself master of some of the places which the Pope had occupied ; and, when Innocent reminded him of his oath to respect the property of the Church, he replied that the Pope himself had caused him to swear that he would maintain the rights of the crown, and that, while he owned the authority of the Pope in spiritual things, he was himself supreme in the affairs of this world. After spending a year in strengthening his cause in Tus- cany and Lombardy, and composing the disputes of Guelph and Ghibelline, Otho proceeded to assail the most vital part of the Pope's Italian policy by invading Apulia. Upon this provocation, the Pope pronounced an excommunication against the Emperor (Nov. 1210) ; and, after repeated attempts to negotiate with Otho in his winter-quarters at Capua, Innocent solemnly confirmed the sen- tence on Maunday Thursday (1211). A powerful party had now risen up in Germany against the absent Emperor. His rough manners, his avarice, and his exac- tions, had made him unpopular with all classes, and especially with his chief supporters, the clergy, whose state he had attempted to reduce. Siegfried, archbishop of Mainz, whom Otho had formerly protected, undertook, as legate, to publish the Pope's sentence, and organized a confederacy of the Swabian party in favour of Frederick, the surviving heir of Hohenstaufen. On Ascension Day, a meeting of German princes and prelates at Nuremberg declared Otho to have forfeited the crown, and invited Frederick from Sicily. This call to the youth of sixteen, to embark on a career so much high( r and vaster than he could hope for in his Sicilian kingdom, was eagerly accepted by Frederick, against the advice of his councillors and the entreaties Gregorov. v. 80 : Robertson, vol. iii. p. 300. A.D. 1198. WIDE POWER OF INNOCENT. 67 of his wife.1 Innocent gave his consent, whether in the belief that his own influence and Frederick's southern blood and training had mastered the old Hohenstaufen leaven, or as the best policy open to him. In, either case we may well be struck with the destiny of the young prince, " whom a tragic irony sent into the field of politics as the champion of the Holy See, whose hatred was to embitter his life and extinguish his house." 2 It does not concern us here to follow Frederick's journey from Palermo — whence he set out on Easter Day, 1212 — to Rome — where he received counsel and money from Innocent — and across the Alps to Constance, with a small band of followers, Avhich was swollen at every stage of his progress down the Rhine. In Lorraine he was met by Louis, son of Philip Augustus, who made a treaty with Frederick. Meanwhile, Otho, at the news of the revolt, had returned to Germany (March 1212), which became the scene of a fierce civil war. In the desperate hope of reconciliation with the Swabian party, he completed his marriage with Beatrice (Aug. 7) ; but her death only four days afterwards, ascribed to poisoning by her husband's Italian mistresses, inflamed the exasperation of his enemies. His final effort against his rival's great supporter, the King of France, ended in his decisive defeat, with his English and Flemish allies, in the battle of Bouvines (July 27th, 1214). Otho fled to Cologne and thence to Saxony : he was deposed from the Imperial dignity by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), and died in 12 IS. § 6. Frederick II.3 (1212-1250) was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle by the German primate, Siegfried of Mainz, on St. James's Day, July 25, 1215 ; but the interest of his eventful career scarcely begins till after the death of Innocent, whose other acts mean- while claim our attention. In the furtherance of his stedtast de- termination to establish the unlimited spiritual supremacy of the Papacy over all the governments of Western Christendom, there was scarcely a country of Europe that was not made to bow to his authority, which was everywhere represented and upheld by the presence of his Legates. The two great contests with France and England — in which, putting forth all his power up to the terrible ex- tremity of the Interdict, he humbled Philip Augustus, deposed John, and gave him back his kingdom as the vassal of the see of Rome, and defied the Barons who had just extorted the Great Charter from 1 Frederick had been married, in his fifteenth year (August 1209), through the arrangement of the Pope, to Constance, daughter of Peter II., King of Arragon, and widow of Emmerich, King of Hungary, who was at least ten years older than himself. - Bryce, p. 207. 3 His reign is reckoned from his entrance into Germany, or even (by some) from the invitation sent to him in 1211. 68 PAPACY OF INNOCENT III. Chap. V. their sovereign — these triumphs of Innocent in the two kingdoms most independent of the Papacy are fully related in their histories.1 The Christian kings of Spain were brought under the spiritual authority of Innocent by the censures — extending 4o interdict and excommunication — to which their irregular marriages laid them open. For the first time since the erection of Arragon into a kingdom, Peter II. came to Rome to receive the crown from the Pope, and to hold it thenceforth as the tributary vassal of the Holy See (1204) ; and he united with the King of Castile, under the encouragement of Innocent, in repelling a new Moslem invasion from Africa at the decisive battle of Navas de Tolosa (1212). The kingdom of Portugal was made tributary to the Pope. Hungary and Dalmatia, Poland and Livonia, Norway and Scotland, accepted him as a mediator and director. Bulgaria was confirmed in its allegiance to the Eoman Church by his elevation of its prince to the royal dignity. But the like offer proved of no avail to shake the stedfastness of Bussia to the Greek Church. When the Papal envoy spoke of in- vesting the Grand Prince, Roman, with the power of St. Peter's sword, the prince laid his hand upon his own with the proud words, " Has your master a weapon like this ? If so, he may dispose of kingdoms and cities ; but so long as I carry this on my thigh, I need no other." 2 In the remote East the ancient church of Armenia was brought, through the intercourse renewed by the Crusades, into closer com- munion with Rome, and the Patriarch accepted a pall from Innocent, and promised to take part in Councils summoned by the Pope. It was under Innocent, too, that the Latin Christianity of the East came to a great crisis. No Pope was ever more strongly possessed with crusading zeal ; and the disasters of the Fourth Crusade only stimulated Innocent to redeem its failure. But the Fifth Crusade* which he proclaimed near the beginning of his pontificate (1199), was joined by no sovereign of the first rank, and it was diverted from its proper object to the capture of Constantinople (1203), and the establishment of a Latin Empire in that capital for nearly 60 years (1204-1261).4 But this passing success had no results on which it concerns us to dwell, except an increase of exasperation between the Greek and Latin Churches/ 1 See the Student1 a History of France, chap. viii. ; the Student's Hume, chap. viii. ; and the Student's English Church History, chap. xvi. 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 324. 3 The Fourth of Gibbon, who passes over the Crusade of Henry VI. 4 For the details, see the Student's Gibbon, chap, xxxiv. 5 See Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 336 f. We must be content to refer to the same historian's account of that strange outbreak of fanaticism, the Children's Crusades (pp. 340-1). A.D. 1198 f. CRUSADES AGAINST HERETICS. 69 § 7. There were other manifestations of the crusading spirit, into which Innocent threw himself with equal ardour. The mixture of religious zeal and chivalrous adventure, which had reached^ its climax in the efforts to rescue the Holy Places from the infidel Moslem, was directed against the nations which were still heathen, and against the heretics who, as ecclesiastical rebels, were deemed worthy of extirpation by the sword. Our survey of the conversion of Europe has shown how Innocent encouraged the military orders which subdued the heathens on the Baltic shores,1 and a subsequent review of the great internal movements of the Church during this age will give the fit occasion for describing his unflinching severity in the suppression of heresy, and, in particular, the exterminating crusade against the Albigenses ; as well as for the history of the champions whom he sent forth to the conflict with heresy by his encouragement of the two great non-military orders of ecclesiastical knighthood, the Dominicans and Franciscans.2 Meanwhile we must record, as characteristic of Innocent's ponti- ficate, the plainer avowal than had yet been made of the two prin- ciples : — that religious error ought to be put down by persecution even to the death, a doctrine which had been repudiated so lately and by so zealous a champion of orthodoxy as St. Bernard ;3 — and that the people should not read the Scriptures, " every man in his own tongue wherein he was born " (Acts ii. 8). The first principle is defended by Innocent in an argument from the less to the greater; that the heretic is both a thief and a murderer, because " He that taketh away the faith stealeth the life ; for the just shall live by faith."4 This is a sample of that peculiar use of Scripture which adds a sort of irony to Innocent's hostility against its possession in the vernacular tongue by the common people, to whose presumption he applies the command — " If a beast touch the mountain it shall be stoned."5 Almost at the beginning of his pontificate, in 1199, Innocent wrote to the bishop and faithful of Metz, in denuncia- tion of a party of laymen and women who used French translations 1 See Part I. Chap. XXIV. §§ 18, 19. 2 See below, Books III. and IV. 3 Scrm. in Cantica, 05-6 ; in which ho applies to heretics the text, Canticles ii. 15, as did Innocent after him ; but Bernard wishes the "little foxes that spoil the vines" to be " taken to 'is" — reclaimed to the Church ; while Innocent censures p. 207-8), who quotes from the Liber August ilis, printed among Petrarch's works, the following curious description of Frederick: '' Fuit armorum strenuus, linguarum peritus, rigorosns, luxuriosus, epicurus, nihil curans vel credens nisi temporale : fuit malleus Romans ecclesise." A.D. 1229. FREDERICK AT JERUSALEM. 75 as possible to the zeal of Godfrey or Coeur-de-Lion. By the treaty of February 1229, Frederick obtained Jerusalem, with Nazareth, Bethlehem, Sidon, and other places ; but the site of the Temple, venerated as it was by both parties, remained in Moslem custody, though open to the Christians. But the clergy and the Knights of the Temple and St. John joined in opposing Frederick's claim to the kingdom of Jerusalem on the ground of the Pope's censure and the want of an election ; and when Frederick took the crown from the altar with his own hands, the Archbishop of Cffisarea, in the name of the patriarch, laid the city and the holy places under an interdict because of the pollution. The denunciations and charges of vice and infidelity, with which the Pope pursued Frederick at Jerusalem, were accompanied by an invasion of Apulia, which brought him back to Brindisi, to the surprise and discomfiture of his enemies (June 10). It was indeed a case suited to enlist the sympathy which was excited by Frederick's vindication of his conduct. " Excommunicated by Gregory for not going to Palestine, he went, and was excommuni- cated for going. Having concluded an advantageous peace, he sailed for Italy, and was a third time excommunicated for returning."1 But Gregory's obstinacy was forced to give way before the desertions of his troops and the progress of Frederick's arms; and an agree- ment was made at Ceperano, by which the Emperor was absolved on his submission as to all matters for which he had incurred ex- communication and the payment of a large indemnity for the Pope's expenses (Aug. 1230). " Immediately after his absolution, Frederick visited the Pope at Anagni, and both parties in their letters express great satisfaction as to their intercourse on this occasion."2 § 12. The ensuing few years' interval of quiet is notable for the ecclesiastical laws enacted both by the Emperor and the Pope. The 'Code of Melfi' (1231) — which Frederick promulgated for his Sicilian dominions — the work chiefly of his distinguished Chan- cellor, Peter delle Vigne,3 secured the temporalities of the Church while controlling the pretensions of the hierarchy, subjecting them to taxation and the judgment of secular courts, restricting their jurisdiction to matrimonial cases, and forbidding the sale of land to the clergy, or even their holding it without providing for the feudal services. Appeals to the Pope were not allowed except in matters purely spiritual, and were altogether forbidden when the sovereign 1 Bryce, p. 209. 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 296. 3 Peter delle Vigne (in Latin, dc Vineis, like our name Viney) was a native of Capua, who had risen from the humble position of a mendicant scholar to the highest place in the Emperor's confidence. Besides his learning as a jurist, he shared with his master the reputation of a poet. 76 FREDERICK II. AND GREGORY IX. Chap. V. and the Pope should be at variance. The provision that the King might legitimatize the children of clergymen is a proof of the still surviving resistance to clerical celibacy. On the other hand " Gregory, who had been noted for his skill in canon law, put forth a body of Decretals, in which the principles of Hildebrand and Innocent III. were carried to their greatest height. According to this code, the clergy were to be wholly exempt from taxes and from secular judgment ; all secular law was to be sub- ordinate to the law of the Church ; and the secular power was bound to carry out obediently the Church's judgment. There was, how- ever, one subject as to which the rival systems of law were in accordance with each other. While Gregory was severe in his enactments against heresy, Frederick was no less so — declaring heresy to be worse than treason, and in this and his other legisla- tion condemning heretics to be burnt, or, at least, to have their tongues cut out, while he denounced heavy^ penalties against all who should harbour or encourage them."1 It seems not unfair to Frederick to suppose that these severities were designed partly as an answer to the imputations of heresy made against himself. It has been supposed, too, that he meant to use the new laws against the Lombard rebels, on the pretext of their being heretics ; and he made the necessity of combatting heresy among the Italians an excuse for not renewing the Crusade. § 13. The urgent need in which Gregory stood of Frederick's aid forced him to be content with strong remonstrances against the Code of Melfi. The Pope had resided chiefly at Anngni, and, after he had returned to Rome, he had been twice driven out. Though the citizens had done this chiefly in the cause of Frederick, the Emperor restored the Pope to the city earl}' in 1235. At Easter, Frederick left Rome for Germany, owing to tidings (received at the end of 1234) that his son and colleague, Henry, had raised a rebellion, in league with the Lombard cities. The revolt was easily put down, and Henry was forgiven ;2 but he soon gave his father fresh provocation, and was confined in 1 Pertz, Leges, ii. 244, 252, 287-9, 326, &c. ; Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 397-8. Dean Milman has shown (Lett. Christ v. 390) that, in the 12th, and per- haps the 11th century, heretics had been burnt in England, France, and Germany ; but this seems to be the first legislative sanction of the practice. As to the cutting of tongues, it is worth while to mention the coincidence, that the Assyrian sculptures and inscriptions of Sennacherib and his successors exhibit the like punishment of blasphemers of the god Asshur. 2 During this visit to Germany, Frederick formed an alliance with England by marrying Isabella, the "sister of Henry III. His second wife, lol.mthe, had died in childbirth just as he was setting out for the Crusade. A.D. 1241. DEATH OF GREGORY IX. 77 various prisons of Southern Italy. On his way from one of these to another Henry threw himself from his horse, and died from the injuries received in his fall1 (1242). Meanwhile, at Vienna, which Frederick had entered as a con- queror, after repelling an attack by the Duke of Austria, he pro- cured the election of Conrad, his son by Iolanthe, as King of the Romans (March 1237) ; and, in the following November, he gained the decisive victory of Corte Nuova over the Lombards, who had renewed their league two years before.2 § 14. All this time the Pope kept bringing charges against the Emperor, and sent repeated embassies urging him to submission. At length, having secured the support of Genoa and Venice, Gregory pronounced against Frederick the sentence of excommuni- cation and anathema, releasing his subjects from their allegiance, on Palm Sunday, 1239. Frederick, who was keeping Easter at Pavia, held a court in full state, at which he published the Pope's bull and his own answer to the charges, with his refusal to submit because the sentence was unjust. Gregory rejoined by a most violent letter, in which he brought against Frederick those charges of infidelity and profanity, to which the Emperor gave a firm denial, and for which there seem to have been no sufficient grounds, beyond a certain laxity of religious opinion, and his freedom from fanatical hatred of the Mohammedans. In his rejoinder he asserted his orthodoxy, and distinguished between the authority of the Church and of the Pope, whose power to bind and loose was null and void, if wrongly exercised. It is not uninteresting to find the heads of the Holy Roman Empire anticipating Protestant com- mentators in their interpretation of Apocalyptic imagery — the Pope comparing Frederick to the beast with seven heads and ten horns, having on his 'heads the names of blasphemy ; while the Emperor sees in Gregory the great red dragon and the Antichrist. The general feeling of Europe was on the side of Frederick, whose arms were successful in Italy ; and he was for the second time threatening Rome, when Pope Gregory IX. died on August 21, 1 Though Henry had been elected King of the Romans, he is not reckoned in the line of kings, and the title of Henry VII. is given to the King and Emperor of the Hapsburg line (1308-1314). 2 The details of the great and constantly renewed conflict between Frederick and the Lombards belong to civil history. 3 See Canon Robertson's discussion of the charges and of Frederick's religious opinions (vol. iii. pp. 389-390, 401-3). The specific charge — that Frederick had spoken of three great impostors who had deluded the world, and of whom two had died in honour, but the third had been hanged on a tree — was formerly supposed to be supported by a book De Tribus Impostoribus, ascribed to Frederick or his chancellor Peter ; but this work has been proved to be a foreerv of the lHth centurv. II— F 78 FREDERICK II. AND INNOCENT IV. Chap. V. 1241. His successor, Celestine IV., survived him only seven- teen days, and died without heing consecrated. § 15. The dissensions in the conclave prolonged the vacancy of the Holy See above a year and a half, till Frederick, to whom the delay was generally imputed, compelled them to an election at Anagni (June 25, 1243). Their choice fell on Cardinal Sinibald Fiesco, a noble Genoese, who had hitherto been an imperialist, but who soon verified the reply of Frederick, when congratulated on his election, that, instead of gaining a friendly Pope, he had only lost a friendly cardinal, for no Pope could be a Ghibelline. " By styling himself Innocent IV. (1243-1254), Sinibald seemed to announce a design of following the policy of the great Pope who had last borne the name of Innocent ; and this design he steadily carried out. In some respects his pretensions exceeded those of any among his predecessors ; he aimed at a power over the Church more despotic than anything before claimed ; and the vast host of the mendicant friars, who were wholly devoted to the Papacy, enabled him to overawe any members of the hierarchy who might have been disposed to withstand his usurpations. Yet, although he was less violent than Gregory IX., his pride, his rapacity, and the bitterness of his animosity against those who opposed him, excited wide dissatisfaction ; and many who were well affected to the Papacy were forced to declare that the Pope's quarrels were not necessarily the quarrels of all Christendom."1 § 16. From the first, Innocent took up the charges against Frederick, against whom the fortune of war turned at the same time; and the Pope entered Rome amidst the rejoicings of the people (Nov. 15, 1243). After long negociations, Frederick sub- mitted to hard terms of peace (March 31, 1244); but there was mutual distrust as to the execution of its "terms, and the poten- tates were advancing to hold a personal interview, when Innocent suddenly fled to Civita Vecchia, and embarked for Genoa. Thence he crossed the Alps to Lyon, which at this time was not in France, but belonged to the kingdom of Burgundy, while in fact it was independent under its own archbishop (Dec. 2). His overtures for a reception in England, France, or Arragon, had all been rejected — so strong was the feeling that had been roused, especially by the exactions of the papal legates and collectors ; but Innocent consoled himself with a remark which shows the aim of his policy : " When the great dragon is crushed or quieted, the king-snakes2 and little serpents will soon be trodden down." At Lyon Innocent summoned a General Council, to which 1 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 409. 2 This word may be allowed to represent the double sense of rrgulos, minor kings or cockatrices. (Matt. Paris, 660, 774; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 411, note.) A.D. 1245. FIRST COUNCIL OF LYON. 79 Frederick was invited, but the excommunication was renewed without waiting for his answer. He nevertheless sent the Arch- bishop of Palermo, and other envoys, headed by an eloquent and learned jurist, Thaddeus of Sessa. The First Council of Lyon (the Thirteenth (Ecumenical of the Romans),1 was opened on JSt. Peter's Eve (June 28th, 1245), the East being represented by the Latin Emperor and the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch. The chief subjects for consultation — which Innocent compared to the Saviour's five wounds — were the Tartar invasion of Europe, the schism of the Greeks, the prevalence of various heresies, the state of the Holy Land, and the enmity of the Em- peror ; but the last was the real object of the convocation. Notwithstanding offers from Frederick, whjch the Pope himself admitted to be fair if only he had sureties for their performance, the able defence of his master by Thaddeus (who finally appealed to a future Pope, and to a more impartial Council), and the desire of the French and English envoys that the sentence might be deferred, the synod, at its third session, decreed the deposition of Frederick. The German princes were directed to choose another King, while the Pope claimed to dispose of the kingdom of Sicily in consultation with his cardinals (July 17th). § 17. On receiving the sentence at Turin, Frederick declared himself released from all obedience, reverence, love, or other duty towards the Pope, whom he upbraided for his luxury, extravagance, blood-guiltiness, and neglect of his pastoral duties ; and he defied Pope or Council to deprive him of his crown without a bloody struggle. A cruel war was forthwith begun in North Italy, while in Sicily a revolt was stirred up by papal emissaries, who preached a crusade against the King; but we cannot dwell on the details of the conflict, in which both parties were equally violent, while the Pope was the more obstinate in rejecting all terms or mediation. In Germany a rival was found, with some difficulty, in Henry, Landgrave of Thuringia, who was elected King by the great Khenish prelates (Vlay 22nd, 1246), but died nine months later after a defeat by Frederick's son, Conrad (Feb. 1247). His successor, William, count of Holland, a youth of twenty, had little more than the name of royalty. Meanwhile the successful career of Frederick in Italy was rapidly turned to utter reverse by his repulse at the siege of Parma (Feb. 1248), where he lost Thaddeus and other faithful friends, and by the treason of his chancellor, Peter delle Vigne. Sick in body and mind, and with his temper exasperated to ferocious cruelty, he was at length struck with palsy, and died at Fiorentino in the Capitanata (Dec. 13, 1250). 1 But it is not admitted by the Gallican Church. 80 END OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN LINE. Chap. V. On his death-bed he was reconciled to the Church ; -and his will directed that her rights should be restored, but on condition that she restored the rights of the Empire. He was buried beside his parents in the cathedral of Palermo. § 18. That royal and imperial tomb was all that remained of the dominion set up by Barbarossa in the south ; but it belongs to oivil history to relate the complicated fortunes of the Sicilian kingdom. Lombardy also was virtually severed from the Empire by Frederick's death ; and even in Germany the crown lost its imperial splendour. " With Frederick fell the Empire. From the ruin that overwhelmed the greatest of its houses it emerged, living, indeed, and destined to a long life, but so shattered, crippled, and degraded, that it could never be to Europe and to Germany what it had once been."1 The " likeness of the kingly crown " of Hohenstaufen was indeed prolonged for four troubled years. The will of Frederick had ap- pointed Conrad IV. (1250-1254) the heir of all his dominions, and his illegitimate son, Manfred, to be regent in Italy and Sicily during Conrad's absence. Innocent launched a new excommunica- tion against Conrad, and wrote to the Germans that " Herod was dead, but Archelaus reigned in the room of his father."2 He even offered the hereditary lands of the Swabian duchy to any one who could seize them. Germany fell into complete anarchy; while Conrad crossed the Alps, and, after reducing Naples, died at the age of twenty-six (May 20, 1254), the last king of the house of Hohenstaufen.3 He left an infant son only two years old, named also Conrad, but called commonly by the diminutive, Conradin. Innocent now claimed the Sicilian kingdom, as having lapsed to its suzerain, St. Peter, and on his progress to take possession of it he was well received by the people, who were tired both of Saracen and German rule. He had reached Naples, when he received a mortal shock from the news of a victo^ gained by Manfred over his troops at Foggia, and he died five days later (Dec. 7, 1254). " We are told by a Guelfic chronicler that on his death-bed he often repeated the penitential words, 'Thou, Lord, with rebukes hast chastened man for sin.' 4 A story of different character is told by Matthew Paris — that, as the Pope lay on his death-bed, surrounded by his weeping relations, he roused himself to rebuke them by asking, ' Why do you cry, wretches ? Have I not made you all rich ?' " 5 1 Bryce, p. 210. We must be content to refer to Dr. Bryce's admirable sketch of the decline of the Empire, and the essential difference of its character under the Hapsburgs from what it had been under the Saxon, Franconian, and Hohenstaufen Emperors. 2 Matt. ii. 22. 3 Conrad II. never became Emperor. 4 Annul. Par mens. ap. Pertz, xviii. 77 (Ps. xxviii. 12, Vulg.). 5 Matt. Par. 897 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 426. Basilica of the Lateran. (San Giovanni in Laterano.) CHAPTER VI. END OF THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. FROM THE ELECTION OF ALEXANDER IV. TO THE DEATHS OF BONIFACE VIII. AND BENEDICT XI. A.D. 1254—1304. 1. Pope Alexander IV.— Germany : Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and Alfonso X. of Castile— Manfred, King of Sicily. § 2. Pope Urban IV. offers the crown of Sicily to Charles of Anjou— Pope Clement IV. crowns him— Defeat and Death of Manfred— Enterprise and Execution of Conradin. § 3. Triumph of the Papacy and be- ginning of its Decline— St. Louis IX. of France— His First Crusade, Captivity in Egypt, and Return. § 4. His Ecclesiastical Policy— His Pragmatic Sanction of 1269— His Treatment of Heretics and Jews. § 5 The Second Crusade of St. Louis— His Death at Carthage— Edward I of England in Palestine— End of the Crusades and of the Christian King- dom in Palestine. § 6. Philip III., King of France-Power of Charles in Italy— Papal Vacancy, and election of Gregory X.— His devotion to the Crusades— Rudolf I., of Hapsburg, elected King of the Romans- Change in the character of the Empire, and diminished power of the 82 END OF THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. Chap. VI. German kingdom. § 7. Attempt to reconcile the Latin and Greek Churches — Michael VIII. Pal^Ologus — Second Council of Lyon — New Rule for Papal Elections by the Cardinals in Conclave. § 8. Rudolf and the Pope — Death of Gregory X. — Rapid Succession of Innocent V., Adrian V., and John XXI. § 9. Nicolas III. — Martin IV. — Designs of Charles of Sicily — Insurrection : the " Sicilian Vespers " — Peter of Arragon in Sicily — Honorius IV. — Nicolas IV. § 10. Papal Vacancy — Election and Abdication of Celestine V. — Benedict Gaetani made Pope Boniface VIII. — His Character and Schemes — Obstacles to his Policy. § 11. His persecution of the Colonnas — His policy in Italy and Germany — Adolf of Nassau and Albert I. § 12. The Pope's contests with Edward I. of England, and Philip IV. (the Fair) of France — Taxation of the Clergy — The Bull Clericis Laicos — Strong Measures of Philip. §. 13. The Jubilee of 1300. § 14. Claim of Papal suzerainty over Scotland — Reply of the English Parliament. § 15. Progress of the Quarrel with France — Bulls against the King— § 16. The Bull Ausculta fill burnt by Philip — Assembly of the States-General— Papal Consistory. § 17. Council at Rome — Extreme assertion of the Pope's temporal supremacy in the Bull Unam Sanctam. § 18. Philip cited to Rome — Mutual defiances and preparations. § 19. Consistory at Anagni — Bull prepared for the deposition of Philip — Imprisonment, release, and death, of Boniface VIII. — The turning-point of the Papal supremacy — Its power never re- covered. § 20. Brief Pontificate of Benedict XI. § 1. The new Pope, Alexander IV. (1254-1261), a zealous Francis- can, and nephew of Gregory IX., had the will without the ability to carry on the system of his two predecessors ; and " while he is praised for his piety and for his kindly disposition, he is said to have been the dupe of flatterers, and a tool of those who made the Roman court odious by their rapacity and extortion." l Under him and his two successors the chief interest of our subject centres in the sequel of the struggle between the Papacy and the Hohenstaufen interest in the Sicilian kingdom. For the rest, it is enough to say that, in Germany, after the death of William of Holland (1250), the kingly power was merely nominal, during the " Great Interreg- num " and the rivalry of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (brother of Henry 111. of England), who was crowned but never really reigned (1257-1271), and Alfonso X. of Castile (1257-1273), who never set foot in Germany ; while in Northern Italy the fierce factions of Guelph and C.hibelline merged ecclesiastical in political conflicts. The sum of the Papal victory in the long contest with the Empire 1 Matt. Par. 897 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 450. The Franciscan Salim- bene gives the following terse description of the person and character of Alexander : " Gross us (i.e. corpulentus) et crassus rait, sicut alter Eglon ; beniguus, clemens, pins, Justus, ef timoratus fuit, et Deo devotus. A.D. 1258. MANFRED, KING OF SICILY. 83 was, Germany distracted, Italy dismembered, England and other states disgusted with the encroachments and exactions of Home, and — as we shall presently see — France a helper so much too powerful, that she was soon to humble both the Papacy and the Empire. In the Sicilian kingdom the papal power was resisted by the able and accomplished Manfred, who had thrown himself into the strong- hold of Luceria, which was held by a mixed garrison of Germans and Saracens,1 who were less hated by the people than the Germans. Manfred's reliance on his Saracen soldiers was a chief source of his strength, but the papal party made it a ground of accusation against his Christianity. The refusal by the Pope of a partition of the kingdom left him no choice but submission or war ; and he had nearly regained the whole, when, on a report of Conradin's death in Germany, which his enemies accuse him of inventing, the people cried for Manfred to be king, and he was crowned at Palermo (Aug. 11, 1258). The claim of Edmund, the young second son of Henry III. of England, to whom Innocent had offered the crown, was a source of embarrassment to the English king rather than of danger to Manfred,2 whose able administration gained him the sup- port of the people against the censures of the Church. The Pope was fain to reopen negociations ; but, when he asked for the dismissal of the Saracen troops, Manfred replied that he would fetch over as many more from Africa (1260). Soon after this the Pope, who had been driven out from Rome3 in 1257, died at Viterbo, May 25, 1261. § 2. His more vigorous successor, Urban IV. (1261-1264), a native of France,4 finding that no more money was to be got from England, offered the crown of Sicily to Louis IX. of France for one of his sons. The pious King preferred his own sense of the prior rights of Conradin and Edmund to the assurances of the Pope ; but his am- bitious brother, Charles of Anjou, was troubled by no such scruples. The Pope obtained a cession of Edmund's claim in return for a renewed censure against the barons, whose contest with Henry III. 1 There was still a considerable remnant of the old Saracen conquerors in Southern Italy ; and Frederick II. — one of whose greatest offences was his favour to his Mohammedan subjects — had permitted Saracen colonies to settle in Luceria and Nocera. 2 The sums of money raised in England for this enterprize, but wasted by the English and Roman courts, formed one chief ground of quarrel between Henry and his subjects. 3 For the political state of Rome — where the republican party still rejected the temporal government of the Pope — and the rule and fortunes of the Senator Brancaleone, see Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 426-7. 4 James Pantaleon, the son of a poor cobbler at Troyes, had risen by his skill in diplomatic missions. He was now Patriarch of Jerusalem, and, arriving at Viterbo when the Cardinals had been debating for three months on a successor to Alexander, he was elected to the vacant chair. 84 END OF THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. Chap. VI. was near its climax ; * and a Crusade against Manfred was preached in France (1263). The Koman people, among whom Manfred had had a strong party, now preferred Charles to him in the election of a Senator, and the prince used this advantage to make better terms with the Pope. Instead of a partition of Southern Italy, Charles was to have the whole, except the papal city of Benevento, (besides other advantages,) in return for his promise to resign the senator- ship as soon as he was in possession of the kingdom. Meanwhile Manfred had won most of the papal territory, and his advance on Rome caused the Pope's flight to Perugia, where he arrived and died on the same day (Oct. 2, 1264). He was succeeded by another Frenchman, Clement IV. (1265-1268), whose name (as with many other Popes) was a satire on his character and rule.2 He had been eminent as a lawyer, and had assisted Louis IX. in his legislation. He was fully prepared to espouse the cause of Charles ; but, when the prince arrived at Rome (May 1265) with few men and no money, Clement bitterly remarked that he could do nothing for Charles except by a miracle, and for this his own merits were not sufficient. Further offence was given by the prince's arrogance and exactions, but their common interests prevailed ; Charles was invested with the Sicilian kingdom on new con- ditions, and the Pope crowned him with his wife at St. Peter's at Epiphany (Jan. 6, 1266).8 The crusade which the Pope pro- claimed against Manfred gathered to Charles's banners a host of reckless adventurers, who were a terror to the whole country. The complaints of Clement and the want of supplies hastened the march of Charles, who won a decisive victory at Benevento (Feb. 26), where Manfred's defeat and death crushed the Ghibelline party throughout Southern Italy. But the tyranny and exactions of the new king prepared the people to welcome the gallant but rash attempt of Conradin, the son of Conrad IV., to recover his in- heritance. This last scion of the Hohenstaufen, now a handsome and accomplished youth of fifteen, was encouraged by his grand- 1 Urban confirmed the release which Alexander IV. had given Henry III. from his oath to observe the Provisions of Oxford. These are far from the only examples in our history of the Papal standard of good faith ; and it was characteristic of Edward I., that he refused to accept the dispen- sation from his oath, and preferred his own maxim, Pactum serva. 2 " Clemens, cujus nomen ab effectu non modice distat." Matins of Monza, ap. Pertz. xvii. 517 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 458. The different dates given for his accession (Oct. 1264, and Feb. 1265), may be probably accounted for by the interval between his election and his acceptance, as he was absent on a legation in England. 3 This was the first coronation of any sovereign at St. Peter's, except as Emperor. A.D. 1220-70. ST. LOUIS IX., KttsG OF FRANCE. 85 father's example to disregard the cautious counsels of his mother and the threats of the Pope. We need not dwell on the details of his enterprise, which, after a bright dawn of success, ended with his defeat and capture at Tagliacozzo (Aug. 23, 1268), and his execution at Naples after the mockery of a trial (Oct. 29).1 On that day month the Pope died at Viterbo (Nov. 29). § 3. The fall of the last Hohenstaufen signalized the triumph of the Papacy in Italy, so long its great field of battle with the Empire ; but it had already turned the summit towards that rapid descent of humiliation, of which the chief instrument was the very power it had helped to strengthen against the Empire. We have seen, in the ninth and tenth centuries, how slowly the Frank Church yielded to the supremacy of Ptome ; and we have now to witness the re-asser- tion of the liberties of the Gallican Church by that most devout of sovereigns whom Pome herself has canonized. Saint Louis, the ninth French king of that name (1226-1270), though not con- spicuous for intellectual gifts or military skill, shines in history above almost every other sovereign by the purer lustre of piety and moral principle, acted out consistently through his life : — " Where shall the Holy Cross find rest ? On a crown'd monarch's mailed breast : Like some bright angel o'er the darkling scene, Through court and camp he holds his heavenward course seiene."2 Even those who distrust the sympathy of the Christian poet may accept the testimony of Voltaire — " It is not given to man to carry virtue to a higher point." The King's scrupulous moderation in making use of advantages proved a gain to him, instead of a loss, as it gave confidence in his justice ; and no sovereign ever exercised a more wide-spread in- fluence over his age. The details of his career, even in ecclesiastical affairs, must be left to the special annals of France;3 but some points of it are inseparable from the general history of the Church. It was his peculiar distinction above other sovereigns to be the leader of two Crusades, almost without allies. In 1244, a new cry for help came from Palestine. The Latin Christians had enjoyed for fifteen years the fruit of the much-maligned 1 The part of Clement IV. in this atrocious deed has been very differ- ently represented. Canon Robertson (vol. iii. p. 464) adopts the statement of some authorities, that the Pope interceded for Conradin, adding, "the story that Clement, on being consulted by Charles, answered ' Vita Cor- radini mors Caroli ; mors Corradini vita Caroli,' — although adopted by Giannone (iii. 294) — is now generally rejected," and quoting, in support of this view, Raynald, Tillemont, Schrockh, Sismondi, Von Raumer, and Milman. On the other hand, Dr. Bryce says (p. 211), " The murder of Frederick's grandson Conradin was the suggestion of Pope Clement, the deed of Charles of France." 2 Keble's Christian Year: Advent Sunday. 3 See the Student's France, chap. ix. II— F 2 86 END OF THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. Chap. VI. policy of Frederick II., when they were overwhelmed by the irruption of the Chorasmians (or Carizmians), a barbarous horde, who, flying from northern Persia before the Mongols, defeated the united Moslem and Frank defenders of Syria, and sacked Jeru- salem. The Christian sovereigns were too much occupied with their own troubles to venture on the Crusade which was proposed at the Council of Lyon (see p. 79), and it was a tribute to the good government which Louis IX. had established, when Henry III. said, " The King of France may go, for his people may follow him." In the same autumn, the sudden recovery of Louis from what seemed a fatal sickness, as soon as the cross was placed in his hands, bound his couscience to the expedition, on which he started for Egypt in June 1248, and which ended, after a series of disasters, in his surrender to the Saracens at Damietta (April 8th, 1250).1 After being ransomed, he spent some time in Palestine, strengthening the places still held by the Christians, and attempting the harder task of reconciling them to one other ; and he returned home in 1254, after an absence of six years. Innocent IV. had proved the warm sympathy, which he expressed for the captive King, by diverting much of the money raised for his ransom to his own crusade against Frederick and Conrad ; but the retribution fol- lowed quickly, for the struggle of the Popes to make Italy their own left them powerless to resist the national policy of Louis. § 4. A chronicler testifies that the King's conversation after his first Crusade was better than before, as gold is better than silver.2 His opposition to the assumptions of Rome was the fruit of his piety, rather than a contrast to it, since it sprang from his deep sense of law and justice. The knowledge that his firmness was based on a pure conscience of right and wrong often silenced clerical resistance and encroachments ; and " thus the saintly reputation of the King enabled him to assert with success, and almost without question, principles which would have drawn on any ordinary sovereign the charge of impiety and hostility to the Church." 3 With consummate prudence he refrained from invading the immunities of the clergy by his own authority ; " but he gained the substantial acknowledgment of the rights of the state by prevailing on Alex- ander IV. to allow that the King's officials should not be liable to excommunication for arresting criminal clerks in flagrant delict, provided that they held them at the disposal of the ecclesiastical courts." 4 To the persistent claim of Hildebrand and his successors, 1 For the details of this Sixth (or Sere»th) Crusade, see the Student's Gibbon, p. 568, the Student's France, chap. ix. § 6, Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 443-9 ; and Milman, who draws a striking contrast between Fre- derick II. and St. Louis (Lf Dante, with the Guelphic party, and earned for Boniface 1 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 505. Comp. below, Book V. A.D. 1296. THE BULL " CLERICIS LAICOS." 95 himself a prospective place in the poet's Hell.1 In Germany he attempted to assert his authority by denying the right of the princes to depose Adolf of Nassau, who had been elected in opposition to Albert, the son of Rudolf (1292) ; and though Adolf was killed in battle just after the election of Albert in his place (1298), the Pope continued to denounce Albert as a usurper till, at a later period, the need of his help led to a reconciliation.2 § 12. But by far the most important exhibitions of this Pope's spirit and policy are his conflicts with the two great kings who now filled the thrones of England and France, Edward I. (1272-1307), and Philip IV., surnamed the Fair (1285-1314). It was more especially the great struggle in which Boniface engaged with the kingdom of France, which had now become more powerful than ever, that finally broke the power of the Papacy, and prepared its way into the " Babylonian Exile." The details of both contests form such essential parts of English and French history, that a broad outline will suffice here. In both countries the sovereigns insisted, with the strong will which was a quality common to Edward and Philip, that the clergy should contribute to the expenses of the state ; and the demand was sternly urged by both, owing to the necessities of the wars between France and England. Philip had also offended the Pope by scornfully refusing his mediation; and he had excluded the clergy from all share in the administration of the laws, substituting for their judicial authority the strict principles of the civil law. On the 24th of February, 1296, Boniface VIII. issued the famous Bull, Clericis Laicos* which excommunicated all clergymen who had paid or promised to pay any part of their revenues to laymen, and all sovereigns who had imposed or received such payments. The two kings, who were plainly indicated, though not named, defied the sentence by insisting on their demands; while Philip stopped all the supplies which the Pope and the Italian churchmen derived from various sources of revenue in France, by ferbidding the exportation of the precious metals and jewels, as well as of horses and munitions of war. A controversy ensued, which Boniface did not yet feel 1 Dante represents Nicolas III. as expecting Boniface in Hell (Inferno, canto xix. 53). Dante lived from 1265 to 1321. 2 Albert's marriage with Elizabeth, a descendant ot the Hohenstaufen through her mother made him especially obnoxious to Boniface, who declared that he should not be king "while that Jezebel lived." 3 The student is reminded that Papal Bulls are generally identified by their initial words, which are of course unmeaning till read with their context. Thus the Bull now mentioned begins with the proposition, "Clericis laicos infestos oppido tradit antiquitas:" — a strange result of thirteen centuries of teaching and pastoral care! 96 PAPACY OF BONIFACE VIII. Chap. VI. strong enough to carry to extremities. He conciliated Philip by canonizing Louis IX.; and his mediation was accepted by both kings, not however as Pope, but as a private person, " Master Benedict Gaetani" (1298). But both the substance of the award, and its form as a Bull, gave vehement offence to Philip and his nobles. § 13. To satisfy a prevalent expectation that the close of another century ought to be marked by some extraordinary spiritual privi- leges, and especially to gratify the craving for indulgences which had been excited by the Crusades, Boniface published a Bull, pro- mising very full indulgences to all who should visit the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul with penitence and devotion for a specified number of days during the current year ; and directing that, in future, the Jubilee should be celebrated in the last year of every century (Feb. 1300).1 But the Pope's idea of a Jubilee was not to " loose every yoke :" he excluded from its benefits the enemies of the Church — Frederick of Sicily and the Colonnas by name, and Philip of France by implication, as among their protectors. Nor did Boniface miss the opportunity of solemnly asserting for himself the power of " the two swords." " The Pope was now at the height of his greatness. Although some of his pretensions had not passed without question, he had never yet been foiled in any considerable matter ; and, while the enthusiasm of the Jubilee filled his treasury, the veneration of the congregated multitudes waited on him as uniting the highest spiritual and temporal dominion."2 § 14. We leave to British history the details of Boniface's attempt to act as sovereign arbiter between England and the Scots, by reviving an old legend — already made use of by former Popes, and especially by Alexander III. — that Scotland, as an ancient Catholic country, was subject directly to the Holy See. When Edward claimed the homage of the Scots, after the overthrow of Wallace at Falkirk (1298), the regency appealed to the Pope as their suzerain ; and Boniface addressed a Bull to the King of England, asserting the above claim, denying that the English sovereign had any feudal rights over Scotland, and requiring him to set free all Scottish eccle- 1 The desire for the indulgences and other benefits of the Jubilee led to the shortening of the interval to every 50th year by Clement VI. (1343), to every 33rd year by Urban VI. (1389), and to every 25th year by Paul II. (1470) ; and this interval has been ever since observed. 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 524. The two greatest names in the dawn of modern poetry and art are connected with this Jubilee. The multitudes passing to and from St. Peter's over the bridge of S. Angelo supplied Dante with a simile ; and the painting of Boniface VIII. proclaiming the Jubilee from the balcony of S. John Lateran is the sole remnant of the frescoes with which Giotto adorned the walls of that Basilica. A.D. 1301. THE BULL " AUSCULTA FILL" 97 siastics whom he held as prisoners, but permitting him to submit his claim to the judgment of the Pope (1299). The result was the solemn declaration of a Parliament assembled at Lincoln (Jan. 1301), which was sent to the Pope, subscribed by above a hundred English barons, to the following effect : — " It is our common and unanimous resolution (and by the grace of God it shall continue so) that our Lord the King shall not plead before you, nor submit in any manner to your judgment with respect to his rights as to his kingdom of Scotland, or as to any other his temporal rights : nor shall he suffer his said rights to be treated as questionable by any discussion as to the same. To do so would be to betray the rights of the crown of England, the constitution of the State, and the liberties, laws, and customs, which we have inherited from our fathers. These are rights which we have sworn to maintain, and, by God's help, we are pre- pared to defend them with all our might. We do not permit, we ought not to permit, our Lord the King to do the things demanded of him, and even if he were minded to do so, we would not allow him to do them or to make the attempt" We call special attention to the last sentence, as once for all asserting the independence of the English crown of all Papal claims, on the broad basis of the rights of the English people, even against the accidental disturbance of the constitution by a king's will. In accordance with this principle, Edward had refused to pay the tribute which John had promised to the Pope, and the vassalage confessed by that wretched tyrant, after being stedfastly ignored by successive kings and parliaments, was finally abolished by an Act of Parliament in 1367. § 15. On the present occasion Boniface was fain to abandon the Scots, lest he should add the enmity of Edward to his growing difficulties with France. We cannot dwell on the details of the new quarrel,1 which led to the Pope's issue of four Bulls against Philip on the same day (Dec 5, 1301). The first was a demand to release the Legate who, as a French bishop, had been tried and condemned for treason. The second summoned a Council of French ecclesiastics to meet at Rome, to consider the grievances of the Church of France. The third, known as Salvator Mundi, suspended all privileges which the Popes had granted to the French kings. The fourth, beginning Auscultafili (" Hearken, my son "), was a long letter in a tone scarcely consistent with the precept, " fathers, provoke not your children," mingling paternal solicitude with accusation, reproof, and admo- nition, and with the proudest assertion of the authority given to the Pope by God over kings and kingdoms, "to pluck down, destroy, scatter, rebuild, or plant."2 It concludes with inviting 1 For the affair of the Papal Legate, the Bishop of Pamiers, see Robert-^ son, vol. iii. pp. 527-9. 2 Jeremiah i. 10. 98 PAPACY OF BONIFACE VIII. Chap. VI. the King to appear before a Council which the Pope was about to convene at Rome. § 16. Philip accepted this Bull as a challenge to a mortal conflict. Having had it read before a full court of nobles and knights, the King declared that he would not acknowledge his own sons for heirs if they admitted the authority of any living person, save God alone, over the kingdom of France. Amidst a general outburst of indignation,1 the Bull was burnt before the King a fortnight later. This defiance was followed by the most solemn appeal which a French king could make to the opinion of the people, the assembly of the Estates of the Pealm,2 technically called the States- General ; and the meeting is the more remarkable as the first to which repre- sentatives of the Third Estate (tiers e'tat), answering to the English Commons, were summoned (April 10, 1302). In a speech reminding all three orders of the papal encroach- ments upon each, the Chancellor, Peter de la Flotte, proposed to them the question, whether the kingdom was to stand immediately under God, or to be subject to the Pope. The first impulse of the assembly was expressed by the Count of Artois, who declared — like the English barons — that, if the King were disposed to submit to the Pope, the nobles wrould not ; and by a Norman lawTyer, who preferred a written charge of heresy against the Pope, for his attempt to deprive the King of the rights he held from God. The more deliberate acts of the three orders were expressed with equal firmness in their several letters, addressed by the Clergy to the Pope (of course in Latin), and by the two lay orders to the Cardinals, in French; but the letter of the Third Estate is unfortunately lost. The Cardinals replied in a moderate tone, denying that the Pope had ever claimed temporal subjection from the King ; but Boniface himself answered the clergy in the spirit denoted by his opening words, Verba delirantis, the " madman " being the French Chancellor. The Pope and cardinals used similar language in a consistory held at Rome — where Boniface threatened to depose Philip " like a groom." § 17. The bold tone of the Pope Avas partly due to the troubles 1 Respecting the means taken to excite the people against the Pope, by circulating the so-called " Lesser Bull " (a still more violent epitome of Auscult i fili), with an equally violent reply in the King's name, see Robertson, vol. iii. p. 530. 2 In French history the Three Est s, of Clergy, Nohles, and Commons (or Third Estate, tiers (bit) are so clearly defined, that it may be needless to warn the student against the blunder so often made in England, that the King, Lords and Commons are the Three Estates. The cause of the error is the long union of the first two estates in the House of Peers, but -the old distinction is still preserved in the title, Lords Spiritual and Temporal. A.D. 1302. THE BULL " UNAM SANCTAM." 99 of Philip with the insurgent Flemings, who had defeated his army in the battle of Courtray (July 11, 1302). These reverses emboldened a considerable number of the French clergy, headed by the Arch- bishop of Tours, to attend — in defiance of Philip's prohibition — the Council which met at Rome in the ensuing November. It was then that Boniface put the climax to all the claims of the Papacy — and indeed of the whole priestly order (sacerdotis) ! — to temporal supre- macy by the famous Bull Unam sanctam,2 which defines the consti- tution of the Church and State. The Church is one body and has one head, not two (like a monster), Christ and his Vicar, Peter and his successor.3 The power of that one head is set forth by the favourite figure of the two swords, which the Lord declared to be " enough," not " too much." Hence, to use the very words of the Bull, " Each of the two is in the power of the Church, namely, the spiritual sword and the material. But the latter is to be used (exercendus) for the Church, the former by (he Church: the one by the hand of the priest, the other by that of kings and soldiers, but at the bidding and sufferance of the priest.4 Sword must be subject to sword, the temporal authority to the spiritual :" — a thesis sustained by curious arguments and texts of Scripture. Whoever resists this one power resists the ordinance of God ; for he cannot suppose there are two powers, without falling into the Manichean heresy of two principles.5 The Bull ends with this most comprehensive and emphatic asser- tion of the Pope's universal supremacy : — "Moreover we declare, we say, we define, and we pronounce, that it is absolutely necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Boman Pontiff"* Such was the climax of Papal pretensions ! § 18. Another Bull promulgated at this Council obliges all persons, of whatever rank, to appear when personally cited before 1 This deserves special notice with regard to high views of the authority of the priest, however independent of, or even opposed to, the supreme authority of Rome. 2 The full opening sentence is — " Unam sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam et ipsam apostolicam urgente fide credere cogimur et tenere." 3 To understand this plain assertion, it should be remembered that the Church of Rome distinctly denies the doctrine of an invisible Church, and hence leaves no place for Christ's headship of His Church. The only Church is that visible society on earth, of which Christ's Vicar is the only head. 4 " Sed ad nutum et patientiam sacerdotis." 5 " Quicunque igitur huic potestati a Deo sic ordinate resistit, Dei ordinationi resistit : nisi duo, ut Manichseus, fnyat esse princ'pia." 6 " Porro subesse Romano Pontifici omni humana? creature declaramus, dicimus, definimus, et pronunciamus, omnino esse de necessite salutis." The omni humanse creUurx may be compared with the irciaa t\ kt'ktis of Romans viii. 19-23; a text which seems to cast a prospective irony over the sentence of the Bull — a sort of contrast which must often strike the reader of Scripture and of Ecclesiastical History. 100 DEATH OF BONIFACE VIII. Chap. VI. the apostolical tribunal at Rome ; and Philip was thus summoned to answer for having burnt the Bull Ausculta fili. Negotiations proved fruitless ; and both parties prepared for a decisive conflict : Philip by making peace with Edward and abandoning the Scots; Boniface by acknowledging Frederick of Arragon as King of Sicily, and above all by flattering Albert and exalting the imperial dignity — which he compared to a secular papacy — as the power in which he trusted to overthrow France. Almost at the same time the Pope excommunicated Philip (April 13, 1303), and the King in a great assembly declared " Benedict Gaetani " an usurper of the Papal See, as a heretic and simoniac " such as none ever was from the begin- ning of the world," and demanded his suspension and trial before a Council," which Philip claimed the power to summon (March 12). Meanwhile he convened a second meeting of the States-General to consider the Pope's offences ; and this Assembly resolved to make an appeal to a General Council (June). § 19. Boniface, who had retired for the summer to Anagni, held a consistory, in which he purged himself by oath from the charge of heresy, and declaring his intention of issuing a Bull deposing Philip and absolving his subjects from their allegiance. Its solemn promulgation had been announced for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (Sunday, September 8) ; but, on the day before, a body of armed men, raised by the French Chancellor1 and one of the Colonnas, marched into Anagni under the French flag, with cries of "Death to Boniface! Long live the King of France!" They demanded the Pope's resignation ; and, after a parley, in which Boniface bore himself with calm dignity, he was dragged from his throne, and carried to prison with insults and contumely. But he was so carelessly guarded, that he was delivered by the people of Anagni, and was escorted by his friends to Pome. But the old man's sufferings and agitation had affected his mind as well as body, and he died on the 11th of October, 1303, at the age of 86. 2 His career as Pope was summed up in the epigram : — " He got in like a fox, played the Pontiff like a lion, departed like a dog ;" — " Vulpes intravit, tanquam leo pontifioavit, Exiit ut canis, de divite factus inanis." " Such was the description of Boniface's career, uttered no doubt after the event, but soon popularly changed into the form of a pro- phecy, which Celestine was supposed to have spoken when visited in his confinement at Fumone by his supplanter and persecutor. 1 William of Nogaret, who was on a mission to Italy, and was the bearer of the documents drawn up by the States-General. 2 For the various statements and conjectures concerning the manner of his death, see Robertson, vol. iii. p. 542. A.D. 1303. TURNING-POINT IN THE PAPACY. 101 The circumstances of his death produced a general horror, which was felt even by those who abhorred the man, while they revered the office which had been so atrociously outraged in him ;x and tales of judgments denounced by him on his enemies, and of terrible fulfil- ments of his curses, were eagerly circulated and believed. But the end of Boniface involved far more than his own ruin. He had attempted to strain the Papal power too far, and after his failure it never recovered the ascendancy which he had rashly hazarded in the endeavour to gain a yet more absolute dominion."2 § 20. The brief pontificate of his successor marks the mere sequel and end of the conflict in which Boniface succumbed. Eleven days after his death (Nov. 23), the conclave at Perugia, in which the Orsini party had full power, elected Nicolas Boccassini, bishop of Ostia, a native of Trevisa, of humble origin, who had been general of the Dominican order, and a firm adherent of Boniface down to the fatal scenes at Anagni. Benedict XI.3 (1303-4) proved his will to maintain the preten- sions of the Papacy by a Bull rebuking Frederick of Arragon for dating his regnal years from his assumption of the crown of Tri- nacria, instead of from the confirmation of his title by the Pope. Something of the same spirit was shown by the manner in which he made the concessions, which were dictated by prudence, to the King of France. As if to assert perfect free will in the matter,4 and to place Philip in a position to hold intercourse with the Holy See, the Pope anticipated the King's embassy of congratulation by an act of absolution, published at Paris, which revoked or suspended all the measures of his predecessor against France. The ambas- sadors who brought the King's flattering congratulations to the Pope on his elevation were cordially received, and all the privileges claimed by the Gallican church were restored. But all this policy of concession barely covered the longing for revenge on both sides. Benedict refused to include William of Nogaret in the amnesty for the outrage at Anagni, and Philip demanded a formal condemnation of the late Pope by a General Council. To avoid (as he said) the summer heats of Eome, but doubtless also for greater security from the power of the Colonnas, 1 See, for example, Dante, Furgat. xx. 86-91. 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 542. 3 He was at first styled the Xth of the name, as Benedict X. (1058-9) was regarded as an Antipope (see Chap. II. § 1, p. 11). 4 The Pope stated in a letter that the King was absolved ahsente et non petente. No embassy could be received by the Holy See from a prince under sentence of excommunication. The tone taken by Benedict towards Philip was that of a shepherd compelling the noblest sheep of his flock to return to the fold even against his will (Epist. ap. Dupuy, III. p. 207). II— G 102 BENEDICT XL Chap. VI. Benedict retired to Perugia, whence he fulminated a Bull of excom- munication against the sacrilegious perpretrators of the outrage upon Boniface, citing William of Nogaret and fourteen others to appear at the approaching feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. This Bull was issued on the 9th of June; the citation was for the 29th ; but on the 27th Benedict died after a few days' illness, brought on by eating freely of figs sent to him as a present from the abbess of St. Petronilla at Perugia. The passion of the age, which best knew its own propensities in the mode of disposing of an enemy, ascribed his death to poison;1 but there is no clear evidence of the fact. Benedict's death ended the resistance to France ; and he was the last Pope seen at Borne, or even in Italy, for that period of more than seventy years (1304-1378) which is called the Babylonian Captivity. 1 As to the different forms of the accusation, and the persons charged with the crime, see Robertson, vol. iv. p. 5. The Lord with SS. Peter and Paul. An ancient Glass Medallion, found in the Catacombs, and preserved iu the Vatican. (From Roma Sotteranea.) Avignon ; with the Broken Bridge over the Rhone. BOOK II. THE DEGRADATION AND OUTWARD REVIVAL OF THE PAPACY. Centuries XIV.-XVL CHAPTER VII. THE "BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY."— PART I. CLEMENT V. AND JOHN XXII. A.D. 1305—1334. 1. Dante on the overbuilt edifice of Rome— New Influences against the Papacy. § 2. Election of Clement V. — The Papal Court at Avignon — Results of the Removal. § 3. Relations of Clement to Philip IV. of France — The Emperor Henry VII. § 4. The Cou-icil of Vienne — Con- demnation of the Templars — Memory of Boniface VIII. — Proposed Crusade frustrated by the Pope — Durantis of Mende on Reformation in " Head and Members." § 5. Death of Clement V. — Character of John XXII. — Persecution of Magicians, Lepers, and Jews— Crusade of the Pastoureaux. § 6. Death of Henry VII. — Double election of LOUIS IV. of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria — League of John XXII. with Robert of Naples — The Visconti of Milan. § 7. The Pope's claim to the vicariate of the Empire— Victory of Louis IV. at Miihldorf — His Contest with John on the Imperial Authority — Men of Learning on 104 NEW EPOCH IN THE PAPACY. Chap. VII. both sides — The Defensor Pads. § 8. Papal Interdict against Louis — Union of Germany. § 9. Anti-papal Assembly at Trent — Louis IV. in Italy. § 10. His Coronation at Rome — Sentence of deprivation against John — The Antipope Nicolas V. — Unpopularity and. departure of the Emperor and Antipope — The Assembly at Pisa — Nicolas submits to John. § 11. Philip VI. of Valois proposes a Crusade against Louis. § 12. The Pope charged with heresy about the Beatific Vision — Decisiou of the Sorbonne — Death of John XXII. § 1. The pontificate of Boniface Till, marks a decisive turning- point in the fortunes of the Papacy. As is the common law in human affairs, the crisis of humiliation, provoked by his extreme pretensions, had been prepared by the predecessors by whom those same pretensions had been most successfully asserted. The victory over the Empire was also the fatal triumph of the Pope's secular over his spiritual authority. The lofty fabric of the Papacy had overbuilt itself ; and its tottering state was clearly discerned by Dante : 1 "To Rome, which taught the ancient world good deeds, Two suns were wont to point the twofold way, That of the world, and that to God which leads. The one hath quencht the other : with the crook The sword is joined ; and scarce it need be told How ill the twain such combination brook, Since one no longer doth the other curb. * * * * * Know then, Rome's Church, oppressed by too«much weight, Confounding the two governments, hath brought Herself into the mire, with all her freight." Such noble strains of vernacular literature were an organ of the free spirit that was rebelling against the claim to one supreme authority over temporal as well as spiritual affairs. That claim, with the exactions which it brought into constant and irritating exercise, was an especial means of advancing the growth of nationalities — a power fatal to papal supremacy, as was proved by the victory of Philip the Fair over Boniface, and afterwards by the legislation of Edward III. and his grandson against papal aggressions and exactions.2 The claims and humiliation of Boniface are justly marked by Archbishop Trench 3 as a decisive epoch in the History of the Church, " having in view the manner in which all subsequent 1 These lines of the Purgatorio (canto xvi. v. 97, Wright's translation) are part of a passage in which he contrasts the happy state of Northern Italy before the overthrow of Frederick II. with its later lawlessness. The date is 1300. 2 See further on these points, Trench, Medieval Church History, Lect. xix. pp. 279, f. 3 Ibid. p. 286. A.D. 1305. ELECTION OF CLEMENT V. 105 humiliations of the Papacy are connected with this first humilia- tion, and links in the same chain. With it, as we shall presently see, is immediately connected the transfer of the seat of the Papacy to Avignon ; from this ill-omened transfer springs the Great Schism of the West ; from the Schism, and with a view to its healing, the Three Councils, also of the West ; while all these events effectually work together for. the hastening forward of the Reformation." § 2. The brief episode of Benedict XL's pontificate was followed by a whole year's contest of intrigue between the Italian and French parties in the reduced conclave of nineteen members ; till the Dominican cardinal of Prato made the insidious proposal, that the Italians should name three Ultramontane candidates, from whom the French party should select the future Pope. The result was the choice of Bertrand d'Agoust or Du Got,1 archbishop of Bor- deaux, by birth a noble Gascon, who, besides being a subject of the King of England, had made himself obnoxious to Philip the Fair and his brother Charles of Valois, and had been a partisan of Boniface. These presumptions against his siding with France seem to have been relied on by the Italians ; but they were out- weighed by his vanity and ambition, and his election was secured by a secret compact, which bound him to the interests of Philip.2 Elected on the 5th of June, 1305, the new Pope, who took the name of Clement V., replied to the request of the Italian cardinals that he should go to Piome, by summoning them to attend his coronation at Lyon. " Matthew Orsini, the senior of the college, is said to have told the Cardinal of Prato that, since he had succeeded in bringing the Papal Court beyond the mountains, it would be long before it would return ; for, he added, / know the character of the Gascons."" 3 The Cardinal's foresight was justified by that long sojourn of the 1 His surname was taken from Le Got, a village near Bordeaux. The chief contemporary authorities for this period are Ferreti Vicentini (ab. 1328), Hist. Suorum Temporum, in Muratori, ix. 1014; and Giovanni Villain (o'k 1348), Hist. Florent., in Muratori, .\iii. 415, f. 2 Villain specifies five conditions, besides a sixth secret article, as agreed on at a personal interview between the Archbishop and the King in the forest of St. Jean d'Angely. It seems to be proved that no such meeting could have taken place ; but the fact of an agreement appears certain, and the details may have been inferred from the subsequent ((induct of the Pope. By the five alleged articles the Pope is said to have bound himself to the complete reconciliation of Philip and his agents with the Church, the condemnation of the memory of Boniface, the restoration of the Colonnas to the cardinalate and the promotion of certain friends of the King to that dignity, together with the substantia] gain of a tithe of the ecclesiastical revenues in France for five years towards the expenses of the Flemish war. 3 Villani, viii. 81 ; Piobertson, vol. iv. p. 7. 106 THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON. Chap. VII. Papal Court at Avignon,1 to which the Italians gave the name of the Babylonian Captivity, not only from its seventy years' dura- tion 2 and the subjection of the Holy See to the policy of France, but with an evident allusion to the likeness of the apocalyptic Babylon in the greed, rapacity, and profligacy of the Popes and ecclesiastics during that period.3 " It is not hard to perceive " — says Archbishop Trench 4 — " the manifold ways in which such a self-chosen estrangement from its Italian home must have wrought injuriously for the Papacy. It was no light matter for this to be thus torn away from those roots which during the course of ages it had stricken in the Italian soil, — dissociated from the reminiscences and traditions, patent still, of the imperial city. Then, too, the Popes could no longer make plausible claims to be regarded as inde- pendent umpires and arbiters in the affairs of Christendom ; for it was manifest that they had no choice but to set forward the interests and to fulfil the behests of the monarch who sheltered them ; and who, as no other, could work for them harm or good. At the same time, feeling comparatively safe in that ignoble shelter, they allowed themselves in insolences and aggressions on the rights of other princes of Christendom, upon which they would not otherwise have ventured; they advanced claims to an universal monarchy, which stood in ridiculous contrast with their own absolute de- pendence on the Court of France, a dependence so abject that there were times when a Pope did not venture to give away the smallest preferment without permission first obtained from the French king. ... It was altogether an unlovely time, as unlovely morally as is materially that ugly fortress-prison, called a palace, which the Popes have left behind them on the banks of the Khone. The morals of the Court of Rome may not have always been very edify- ing ; but those of the Court of Avignon were immeasurably worse. 1 After being compelled to retire from Lyon to Bordeaux through the exasperation of the citizens at the profligacy and exactions of his court, Clement moved from city to city in the south of France, till he fixed his residence at Avignon in Provence, on the left bank of the Rhone, which, with its territory (the small county of Venaissin), a part of the old Burgundian kingdom of Aries, belonged to Robert of Anjou, who was also the Pope's vassal for the kingdom of Naples. 2 The exact period of foreign residence was 71i years from the election of Clement XV. to the return of Gregory XL in Jan. 1377. It is a further coincidence with apocalyptic numbers, that there were seven Popes in the seventy years. 3 Thus Petrarch, in advocating the claims of Rome to have the Papacy restored to it, denounces the corruptions of the court at Avignon, which he calls the third Babylon and I'empia Ba'n/oiva. We shall see later how familiar that age had become with denunciations by sound Catholics of the Papacy as the mystic Babylon. 4 Mediecal Church History, p. 287. A.D. 1308. THE EMPEROR HENRY VII. 107 Petrarch, who formed one of a deputation from the city of Rome beseeching Clement VI. to return (1342), . . . gives in his Letters a revolting picture of the place, and of the things which were perpetrated there." § 3. The politics of Avignon are summed up by one writer in the words, " The whole court was governed by Gascons and French- men."1 Whatever may be the truth as to the secret agreement with Philip, its alleged five articles exactly represent the conces- sions made by Clement soon after his accession. He even consented to absolve William of Nogaret for his share in the violence done to Boniface VIII. ; but Philip's urgency for the condemnation of the late Pope's memory was evaded by reserving the question for a general council. His subserviency to the King was crowned by the part he took in the condemnation of the Templars, after suffi- cient hesitation to betray his consciousness of its iniquity.2 But in another matter of the greatest moment the cunning policy ot Clement contrived to disappoint the King of France. On the murder of the Emperor, Albert of Austria (May 1, 1308), Philip urged the Pope, who was then at Poitiers, to support the candi- dature of his brother, Charles of Valois. Clement could not but be alarmed at such an addition to the power of his royal patron, whose family already possessed, besides France and Navarre, the thrones of Naples and Hungary, and through agents at Florence and Rome had supreme influence in Central Italy ; while the establishment of a rival power in Germany and Northern Italy might secure another protector in future contingencies. So, while he gratified Philip by writing to the electors in favour of Charles, he took secret measures in favour of Henry of Luxemburg, who was elected as Henry VII. (Nov. 27th, 1308). " The Pope, in ratifying the election, exacted from Henry an engagement that he would confirm the grants of former emperors to the Church, that he would exterminate heresies and heretics, that he would never intermarry or ally himself with Saracens, heathens, or schismatics, and that he would secure to the Roman Church the lands which had been mentioned in former compacts." 3 1 St. Antoninus of Florence, iii. 269 ; Robertson, vol. iv. p. 10. For the new forms of exaction devised to support the court at Avignon, see Chap. XVI. 2 See below, Chap. XXI. 3 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 42. Henry's march into Italy to claim the imperial crown — a duty which Dante had censured his predecessors, Rudolf and Albert, for neglecting ; his contest with the Guelph factions headed by Robert of Naples, for supremacy in the peninsula, and for the possession of Rome ; his coronation by three cardinals, as commissioner, for the Pope, at St. John Lateran (the Vatican quarter, and St. Peter's being in the hands of John and the Orsini); his quarrel with the Pope, who interfered on behalf of the French king's kinsman Robert ; 11 as by servants, doctors, and notaries, so that they could neither make their wills nor obtain absolution before they died. 3 W. Nang. cont. 112; Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 125-6. 132 POPE INNOCENT VI. Chap. VIII. The excitement found vent also in another outbreak of the sect of the Flagellants, who had first appeared in Hungary and Germany during the preceding century. Professing to have received from an angel a written revelation of the Lord's wrath at the prevalent sins, they went about in procession stript to the waist, and scourging themselves while they sang. They regarded their blood as a sacrifice mingled with the Saviour's, and superseding the need of the sacraments. Such fanatical movements have always been found to grow into dangerous societies : thus the Flagellants had " masters," to whom they were bound by an oath of obedience ; and they showed a hostile spirit towards the clergy. When they went from Germany into France, their practice was pronounced a " vain superstition " by the University of Paris, at whose instance it was condemned by the Pope and forbidden by the King. Passing from the Low Countries into England, they were there rejected by popular feeling and branded as heretics by the Church. § 8. The impression produced by the pestilence may have been a chief cause of the zeal, celebrate d by Petrarch, with which about two millions of pilgrims flocked to Rome to keep the jubilee of 1350, and to obtain the indulgences for its observance ; though a chronicler of the time says that many came back worse than they had been before.1 Two years later, Clement VI. died sud- denly (Dec. 6, 1352). One of his last acts was to mitigate the rules for the seclusion of the Conclave. The new election, hastened in order to anticipate the interference of the French King,2 fell on Stephen Aubert, bishop of Ostia, a native of the Limousin, who took the name of Innocent VI. (1352-1362). He is described as " a good, sincere, and just man," learned in civil and canon law. He at once repudiated the " capitulations " sworn to by the members of the Conclave, which would have made the Pope the mere tool of the cardinals, availing himself of the saving clause, "provided that these laws be agreeable to right." Left more free to act as he wished by the disasters of the French monarchy in the war with England, Innocent applied himself to the work of reformation, retrenching the luxury of his court and of the cardinals, compelling the bishops to return from Avignon to their dioceses, discouraging pluralities, and making a good use of his own patronage. To put an end to the anarchy of Pome, he sent an army under Cardinal Giles Albornoz, a Spaniard, who had been a distinguished soldier before he became Archbishop of Toledo, and whose military talents reconquered the States of the Church (1353). With him, as 1 Limb. Chron. ap. Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 207. 2 The unfortunate John II., who was taken prisoner at Poitiers (1356), and died in England (1364), had succeeded to the crown in 1350. A.D. 1356. GOLDEN BULL OF CHARLES IV. 133 Legate, was associated Rienzi, released from prison, and appointed Senator of Rome. But the enthusiasm with which he was received by the people was soon turned into disgust by his renewed and aggravated exhibition of the arrogance and sensuality into which he had fallen before, and he was cut to pieces in a popular tumult (October 8, 1354).1 § 9. In the same year the Emperor Charles IV. went to Italy, to receive the crowns of Lombardy and Rome ; having engaged with the Pope to make no attempt to assert real authority. Attended by an escort so small as to disarm suspicion, he was welcomed everywhere with respect, even by the Guelphs of Florence. Having received the iron crown at Milan at Epiphany, 1355, he was crowned, with his empress, at St. Peter's, on Easter Day, by the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia. His departure from Rome on the same day, according to his agreement with the Pope, was a bitter disappoint- ment to Petrarch, who had urged him to revive the glories of the Empire. But preferring to such a doubtful enterprize the acknow- ledgment of his dignity by the Italian cities and the substantial gain of the contributions he had levied on them, Charles, in a diet at Nuremburg, commemorated his coronation by the famous " Golden Bull," which settled the rules for future elections to the Empire (Jan. 1356). In this new fundamental law of the Empire " the claim of the Pope to interfere with the election was not men- tioned at all ; and it was assumed that in Germany, at least, the King or Emperor had full power from the time of his election. The ' priests' Emperor ' had secured the crown against the pre- tensions of the Papacy; and Innocent was greatly annoyed at the result." 2 The new imperial constitution was, in effect, a final abandon- ment of Italy by the Empire, while in Germany it " confessed and legalized the independence of the Electors and the powerlessness of the Crown."3 Charles now sacrificed what was left of German unity under the Empire to the aggrandizement of the house of Bohemia, and gave a decisive impulse to that rapid decline, by which the " Holy Roman Empire " became (as Voltaire said) neither Holy, nor Boman, nor an Empire. § 10. On the death of Innocent VI. (Sept. 12, 1362), the cardinals, being unable to settle their respective claims, elected William de Grimoard, the Benedictine abbot of St. Victor at Marseilles, a man of sixty, of high repute for holiness and learning, as Urban V. (1362-1370). The new Pope retained his monastic dress and sim- plicity of life, and was even a more stedfast reformer than his 1 The details belong to civil history. 2 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 138. 3 See the results described by Bryce, pp. 225, 237-8. II— H 2 134 POPE URBAN V. Chap. VIII. predecessor. The frugality of his court was happily contrasted by his free expenditure on the restoration of the churches and palaces of Eome, and for purposes of learning as well as religion. He built and endowed a monastery and college at Montpellier, and maintained a thousand students at the Universities. Urban inherited from his predecessor two great sources of trouble, both in France and in Italy. The military adventurers, who had been trained in the Anglo-French wars, especially when thrown loose by the peace of Bretigny (1360), formed disorderly bands under the name of Free Companies. It was against them that Innocent VI. fortified the palace and city of Avignon. Urban V. put them down in the south of France; but they continued to infest Italy, both as inde- pendent bands and as mercenaries of the princes and cities. Even more audacious was the defiance both of Pope and Emperor by Bernabo Visconti, of Milan, against whom crusades were proclaimed both by Innocent and Urban. He continued, however, to with- stand the martial cardinal legate, Giles Albornoz, till Urban was fain to conclude a peace with him, by which Bologna was secured to the papal territory (1364). § 11. The way seemed now clear for that return to Borne, which Urban had advocated before his elevation ; and the renewed in- vitation of the people, adorned by the eloquence of Petrarch, was supported by the Emperor, who visited Avignon (May 1365), to ar- range a solemn meeting of the Pope and himself at Rome. Embark- ing with the reluctant cardinals, five of whom refused to leave Avignon (April 30, 1367), Urban, on landing at Corneto, was re- ceived by Giles Albornoz ; but the victorious legate died next month, while the Pope was staying at Viterbo. The Komans wel- comed his entrance with enthusiasm (Oct.) ; and, in the following year, he received the personal homage, not only of Charles, but of John Palasologus I., the eastern emperor, who, in his eagerness for that aid against the Turks which he failed to obtain, professed to acknowledge all the claims of the Latin Church and the see of Home. After three years, however, the influence of the French cardinals prevailed on the Pope to return to Avignon, where he died only three months after his arrival (Dec. 19, 1370). The dis- appointed Italians recognized the fulfilment of the warnings given to Urban by St. Bridget of Sweden,1 and by Peter of Arragon (who 1 St. Bridget, a widowed princess of Sweden, lived a life of ascetic devotion and charity, chiefly at Koine, from the jubilee of 1350 to her death in 1373. She founded an order, both of monks and nuns, at Wadstena, in Sweden, which spread far and wide. Her oracles, which had a great influence on her age, were approved by Gregory XI. and later Popes; and she was canonized by Boniface IX. (1391). A.D. 1377-8. RETURN AND DEATH OF GREGORY XI. 135 from a prince had become a Franciscan friar), that, if he returned to Avignon, it would be only to die. § 12. The like influences of enthusiasm, in which St. Catherine of Sweden, the daughter of St. Bridget, united with the more powerful pleading of her namesake of Siena,1 in prevailing on the new Pope, Gregory XI.2 (1370-1378) to take the step by which alone it seemed possible to save the temporal power of the Holy See in Italy. The persistent contumacy of Bernabo Visconti and his brother Galeazzo caused the proclamation of another crusade against them (1372). Eighty towns of the Papal States rose in rebellion, and the people suffered terribly from the licence of the mercenaries led against them by the legate Robert, Cardinal of Geneva. In the treacherous massacre with which he punished the rising of Cesena, 1000 women were saved, not by the legate's mercy, but by the compassion of his ally, Sir John Hawkwood, the most famous captain of Free Companies. The people of Bologna drove out the legate and papal officials. The Florentines, having formed a league against the papal authority, were placed under a ban and interdict, by which they were allowed to be made slaves (1376). It was at their request for her mediation, that Catherine of Siena went to Avignon to urge the Pope's return to Eome ; and Gregory announced his resolution, though opposed by the French King and most of the cardinals, of whom six remained at Avignon. The seventy years' "Babylonian Captivity" was ended by the Pope's entrance into Pome, amidst demonstrations of joy, in January 1377 ; but he had been able to do little towards com- posing the troubles of Italy, when his health, always feeble, broke down, and he died at the early age of 47 (March 27, 1378). 1 This most famous of the female mystical enthusiasts was born in 1347, the daughter of a dyer. In her sixth year she began to see visions, and in her seventh she devoted herself, by a vow to the Blessed Virgin, as the bride of the Saviour, whose mystic marriage with her was after- wards celebrated by a ring visible on her ringer to herself alone. Like St. Francis, she received the stigrrvit i, but with a difference which may help to suggest an explanation ; the marks were invisible, but she felt the pain of the wounds. She even s imagined that the Saviour had exchanged her heart for His own, as was witnessed by a scar in her side. She became a sister of penitence of the order of St. Dominic, and led a life of extraordinary asceticism, abstaining from food to a degree of which even her biographer says, " non video quod sit pos- sibile per naturam." Catherine died in 1380, and was canonized by Pius II. in 14-61. (Hase, Caterina von Siena, Leipzig, 1864.) 2 Cardinal Peter Roger, a Provencal, and nephew of Clement VI. He was highly esteemed for his learning and prudence, modesty and generosity. The Castle of St. Angelo (Mausoleum of Hadrian).1 CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT PAPAL SCHISM.— PART I. TO THE COUNCIL OF PISA AND THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER V. A.D. 1378—1410. 1. Elections of Urban VI. at Rome and Clement VII. at Avignon — Their characters and adherents — National character of the Schism — Forces at work for a reformation. § 2. Urban's visit to Naples ; his detention and escape — His violent acts and death. § 3. Exactions of Clement; resisted by France and England — Statute of Praemunire. § 4. Boniface IX. at Rome — His exactions and two jubilees (1390 and 1400). § 5. Effort at Paris to end the Schism — Death of Clement VII. and election of Benedict XIII. at Avignon — Attempts to make both Popes resign — France withdraws from and returns to Bene- dict. § 6. Death of Boniface IX. — Succession of Innocent VII. and Gregory XII. at Rome — Vain overtures of Pope and Antipope. § 7. France rejects Benedict — A General Council proposed. § 8. Gerson 1 The architectural decorations, though only an imaginary restoration, may serve to give some idea of the state of the edifice before its ruin at this epoch. (See p. 139, note.) A.D. 1378. ELECTION OF URBAN VI. AT ROME. 137 on Popes and Councils — Question of the Imperial Power. § 9. The Council of Pisa deposes both Popes. § 10. Declaration for reform " in head and members " — Election of the Franciscan Alexander V. — He dissolves the Council — The Schism not healed : the Church with three husbands — Weakness and profusion of Alexander — His Bull for the Friars, resisted by the University of Paris — His capture of Rome, and death — Balthasar Cossa, John XXIII. § 1. The death of Gregory XI. gave the signal for another pro- longed crisis, the Great Papal Schism of forty years (1378-1417), "which next to the long residence at Avignon, tended more than other agencies to shake the empire of the Popes, and stimulate a reformation of the Church." x The late Pope, foreseeing the struggle of parties in the Conclave, had decreed that an election by the majority of the cardinals, whether at Home or elsewhere, should be valid, even if the usual formalities were not observed. The Koman populace, resolved to prevent another return to Avignon, forced their way into the Vatican, clamouring for the election of an Italian ; their favourite candidate being the oldest member of the sacred college, Tibaldeschi, archpriest of St. Peter's. Of the sixteen cardinals at Rome, eleven were Frenchmen ; but they were divided among themselves, and it was as a compromise as well as under the popular compulsion, that they chose one who was not a car- dinal, but at once an Italian and a native subject of the Queen of Naples — Bartholomew of Prignani, archbishop of Bari, who took the title of Urban VI. (April 9th, 1378-Oct. 15th, 1389). To remove all doubts of the validity of the election, it was an- nounced to Europe and to their brethren at Avignon by the car- dinals themselves (instead of by the new Pope, as usual) as their unanimous choice, under the direction of the Holy Ghost. Urban, a man of humble birth and of ascetic life, learned in Church law and devoted to the study of Holy Scripture, had the reputation of humility, compassion, and disinterested equity. But he bore his elevation badly, at once announcing violent and impolitic reforms, and provoking the cardinals by his harsh mandates and his arrogant behaviour. He alienated a powerful ally in his late sovereign, 1 Hardwick (Ch. Hist. Mid. Age, p. 328), who cites the remarkable testi- mony of Henry of Hesse (1381): " Hanc tribulatiouem a Deo non gratis permissam, sed in necessariam opportunamque Ecclesise, reformntionem fina- liter convertendam." (Consilium Pads, in Von der Hardt's Consil. Constant. ii. 1, seq.) Hardwick also points out that " the long duration of the schism could not fail to give an impulse, hitherto unknown, in calling up the nationality of many a western state, in satisfying it that papal rule was not essential to its welfare, and in thereby adding strength to local jurisdictions." 138 CLEMENT VII. AT AVIGNON. Chap. IX. Joanna of Naples, by his rude reception of her husband,1 who brought him the Queen's congratulations. The majority of the cardinals, leaving the city one by one, assembled at Anagni, where they denounced the election of Urban as having been extorted from them by fear of death, and then, having removed to Fondi, in the Neapolitan territory, they made a new election of Cardinal Robert of Geneva, bishop of Cambray, as Pope Clement VII. (Sept. 20, 1378). The Antipope,2 who was connected by birth with the chief princes of Europe, was 36 years old, of an enterprizing spirit, which we have already seen displayed in the Italian wars in the guise rather of a captain of mercenaries than of a Christian prelate. He proceeded to visit Joanna, with whose concurrence the election had been made ; but the people of Naples, zealous for Urban as their countryman, raised the cry of " Death to the Antipope and the Queen," and Clement retired to Avignon, to become the dependent of the King of France. The University of Paris, after a contest between its " nations," pronounced in his favour (1379) : Scotland, the ally of France, took the same side ; while England declared for Urban, as did also Germany and Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and Portugal, as well as all Italy, except Naples. Castile and Arragon, after some delay, declared for Clement. The contest assumed very much of a national character, and an English writer of the time remarks that, but for the quarrels of nations, the schism would neither have been so lightly begun, nor kept up so long.3 The evil was aggravated by the want of any master-mind among the sovereigns of Europe; for at this very crisis the crowns of England, France, and Germany, passed from able and experienced rulers to young and feeble successors.4 But far deeper than these outward influences was the working of those internal forces, wThich had already come to a head in the open 1 Otho, duke of Brunswick, was Joanna's fourth husband. 2 Antipope, that is to say, according to the Roman authorities; but the legitimacy of the Popes at Avignon (Clement VII. and Benedict XIII.) is maintained by the Gallican divines, and no decision was given by the Councils held for the express purpose of healing the schism. The Pope appointed by the Council of Pisa, Alexander V., obtained a sort of ac- knowledgment by the fact that the next Pope of that name was numbered as Alexander VI., while, on the other haul, the names of Clement VII. and Benedict XIII. have been borne by later Popes. 3 Richard of Ulverstone, ap. Von der Hardt, i. 1170. 4 In England, Edward III. was succeeded by Richard II. in 1377; in Germany and Bohemia, Charges IV. was followed by his son Wenzel or Wen- ceslaus, a weak debauchee (1378) ; in France, the able King Charles V. was replaced (1380) by his son Charles VI., a boy of fourteen, whose imbecility left the realm a prey to factions and an English conquest. A.D. 1383-4. URBAN AND CHARLES OF NAPLES. 139 demands for a thorough reformation in England 1 and Bohemia, when the schism bore its own witness against the claims of either pontiff to universal authority. To all these movements the stimulus of practical grievances was added by the gross exac- tions begun by Avignon and soon outstripped by Rome. It was in vain that the University of Paris, feeling the national disgrace of Clement's proceedings, proposed that the dispute should be decided by a General Council. Both Popes professed their readi- ness to accept the judgment of a Council, but each demanded the submission of his rival as a prior condition. § 2. Urban VI. succeeded in re-establishing his authority in the Papal States by the aid of a native mercenary force, which broke up the Breton and Gascon free companies.2 To avenge himself on the Queen of Naples, he used all his temporal and spiritual power in aid of her kinsman, Charles of Durazzo, by whom Joanna was dethroned (1381), and, as was believed, murdered in her prison (1382). As Charles was slow in complying with the Pope's ex- travagant claims, Urban went to Naples, against the advice of his cardinals, on whose company he insisted with a fury that raised doubts of his sanity (1383). Charles received him with high honour, but kept a strict guard on his movements ; and, when Urban proceeded to more and more arbitrary acts of authority, he found himself a prisoner at Nocera (1384). Here his self-will and violence became so intolerable, even to the cardinals of his own creation, that they framed a design for putting him in charge of curators. The plot was betrayed, and a confession was extracted by torture from six cardinals, who were half starved in a narrow loathsome dungeon. At length Urban was aided to escape, and sailed to Genoa, where five of the six captive cardinals were secretly put to death.3 Having quarrelled with his protector, the Doge, 1 The epoch of Wyclifs appearance as a reformer may be dated from his establishment in the rectory of Lutterworth in 1375 ; and it was in the year which ended the Babylonian Captivity that he was summoned before the Archbishop of Canterbury at St. Paul's (1377). See Chap. XXXIX., and for Hus and Bohemia, Chap. XL. 2 An incident of this campaign was the ruin of Hadrian's splendid Mausoleum on the Tiber, which had been turned into the chief fortress of Rome, and named the Castle of St. Angelo. Being held by the party of the cardinals, it was now first assailed with cannon; and, after its capture by the papal forces, it was stripped of its marble facings and ornaments. (See the vignette on p. 136.) 3 On the murder of Charles in Hungary (1386), whither he had gone to secure the crown on the death of Louis, Urban refused to invest his son Ladislaus in the kingdom of Naples; thus playing into the hands of his rival Clement, who supported the claim of Louis of Anjou. Naples fell into anarchy, till Boniface IX. recognized Ladislaus (1389). In 140 BONIFACE IX. AT ROME. Chap. IX. Urban removed to Lucca (1386), and thence to Perugia ; and, compelled to leave that city by his nephew's infamous licence, he returned to Rome in August, 1388. His cold reception by the people, and the need of replenishing his coffers, suggested the popular expedient of a Jubilee ; and from his tender regard for those who found the interval of fifty years too long, Urban disco- vered a more sacred precedent in the thirty-three years of our Saviour's life on earth. But the appointed date of 1390 was anticipated by his own death (Oct. 15th, 1389). The cardinals at Rome elected Cardinal Peter Tomacelli as Boniface IX. (1389- 1404), a man in the prime of life, who is described as possessed of some showy personal qualities, but wanting in learning and knowledge of affairs. § 3. Urban had the one merit of abstaining from the gross exac- tions and simony which his rival carried to an outrageous length. Europe had now to support twTo papal courts, and the burthen fell most oppressively on the West, where Clement surrounded himself with no less than 36 cardinals. The papal claim to present to all * benefices was enforced wherever it was possible, and a new exten- sion of it was devised by the Qratise exspectativee, conferring the reversion of a benefice. The utmost use was made of existing forms of exaction, such as the tithes of vacant benefices, the annates and jus exuviarum, and all kinds of dispensations. The sale of appointments to the most unfit persons, in the schools as well as the Church, was ruinous alike to religion and learning, and the Uni- versity of Paris was deserted by its students. The resources thus raised were partly expended in purchasing the support of princes and nobles. The King of France endeavoured to check these abuses by a royal edict (1385) and by new taxation of the clergy ; and in England they provoked the famous statutes of Praemunire, im- posing the penalties of outlawry on any who should bring in papal bulls or instruments for the translation of bishops and the like purposes (1389 and 1393).1 § 4. At Rome the influence of the elder cardinals restrained Boni- Northern Italy, the weakness of the Roman court threw the chief power into the hands of the politic and unscrupulous John Galeazzo Visconti, who had poisoned his uncle Bernabo (1383). 1 13 Ric. II. st. ii. c. 2, 3 ; 16 Ric. II. c. 5. The latter, which is usually called the Statute of Praemunire, was enrolled at the desire of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. The former statute was especially directed against the bringing in of excommunications against those who enforced the equally famous Statute of Provisors (25 Edw. III. st. 6, 1351), which made it- penal to secure any presentation to benefices from the court of Rome. (Comp. Chap. XVI.'§ 7.) Another statute (27 Edw. III. c. 1) visited the carrying appeals to Rome with outlawry. A.D. 1394. EFFORTS TO END THE SCHISM. 141 face from the like practices during his first seven years, after which he far outstript even Clement in unblushing simony and multiplied exactions.1 In 1390 Boniface held the Jubilee proclaimed by Urban, and, after an absence caused by dissensions with the citizens, he returned to Rome, at their request, to celebrate the greater jubilee of the end of the century (1400). Both festivals were well attended, and even the French flocked to the second, in spite of the King's prohibition. The great profits drawn from these multitudes were increased by the indulgences granted in lieu of the pilgrimage. Besides what was retained for the Pope's use, means were thus provided for restoring the churches and fortifications of Rome, and for recovering portions of the papal territory, so that Boniface was more powerful than any of his predecessors for a considerable time. § 5. While Boniface, thus strengthened, endeavoured by repeated letters to detach the King of France from Clement, the University of Paris made a vigorous effort to end the schism. Having, at the beginning of 1394, obtained permission 2 to declare their opinion, and having collected the opinions of the academic body, they drew up a judgment suggesting three ways of settlement : either, that both Popes should abdicate ; or, that they should agree on the choice of a council of arbitration ; or, that the question should be referred to a General Council. This judgment, drawn up by Nicolas of Clamenges, who was styled the Cicero of his age, assisted by the eminent doctors, Peter d'Ailly, Chancellor of Paris, and Giles Deschamps, was submitted to the King, who had now recovered (June 1394) ; but the party of Clement, and chiefly the Cardinal Peter de Luna, persuaded Charles to postpone his decision. Most of the cardinals at Avignon, however, were disposed to agree with the University ; and, on learning this, Clement was so enraged that he died in a few days (Sept. 16, 1394). The letters of Charles, desiring the cardinals not to make a hasty 1 For the details, see Robertson (vol. iv. pp. 169 f.), and especially the extracts in Gieseler (iv. 100 f.) from the very important treatise, De Ruina Ucclesise or De Corrupto Ecclesim Statu (a.d. 1401), commonly, though very questionably, ascribed to Nicolas of Clamenges (printed in Hardt, Cone. Const. I. pt. iii.). This writer gives another example of the use of apocalyptic imagery in tracing all the evils resulting from the schism to the Popes and their courts : " Sed me praeterire non decet, quantam et quam abominabilem fornicationem Papa et hi sui fratres cum saeculi principibus inierint." Ample evidence to the same corruptions is borne by the works of another contemporary, Theodoric of Niem, De Schismate, and Nomus Unionis (printed at Strassburg, 1629). 2 From the Duke of Berri, who was in power during one of the King's attacks of derangement. Above 10,000 papers are said to have been thrown into the chest which was placed to receive the opinions of the members of the University. 142 BENEDICT XIII. AT AVIGNON. Chap. XI, election, found them just assembling in conclave. On this pretext the King's letters were left unopened, and the Cardinal di Luna was elected as Benedict XIII. (Sept. 28, 1394). This able and obstinate Spaniard had been from the first most active in the cause of Clement, and had won over Castile to his side. Still he had professed a desire to heal the schism ; and he was now under an oath, which all the cardinals had taken before the election, to do his utmost for that object, even by resigning if the college required it. But he had taken the precaution to declare that the oath could not bind the Pope, except so far as every Catholic was bound by right and conscience ;* and his real purpose was afterwards expressed by the pithy phrase, that " he would rather be flayed alive than resign." It was in this temper that he received a mission, headed by the Dukes of Berri, Burgundy, and Orleans, conveying to him the judgment of a great national council of the prelates, monastic orders, and Universities, that both Popes should resign (June 1395). 2 The sovereigns and Universities of Europe were called on for their opinions. Germany leaned to the side of Boniface. In England, Oxford declared for a Council ; but King Richard wrote to both Popes, advising their resignation. At a meeting at Keims, Charles V. and Wenceslaus agreed to enforce that measure, each on the Pope he had before supported; but, in answer to this resolution, each Pope required the other to resign first. At length another national council at Paris decided, by 247 votes out of 300, to withdraw support from Benedict (July 1398). A royal edict forbad obedience to him, and he was besieged at Avignon by the marshal of France, from April 1399 to March 1403, when he made his escape down the Rhone into Provence, the territory of Louis of Sicily. Meanwhile events had changed in his favour. The deposition of Richard II. ( 1399) 3 was followed by that of Wenceslaus (1400) and the election of Rupert, Count Pala- tine of the Rhine, as King of the Romans, which was confirmed by 1 " Whatsoever promises might be made [at elections], the Pope could never be bound by the oaths of the Cardinal." (Gibbon, vi. 897.) 2 Adopted by 87 votes to 22, and approved by the King. The cause of Benedict was espoused by the Dominicans, who had been excluded from the University of Paris for their rejection of the Immaculate Conception, and also by the University of Toulouse. When. Benedict deprived his opponents at Paris of their preferments, the University appealed to "a future, sole, and real, pope ; and when he declared appeals from the Pope to be unlawful, it repeated the act, asserting that schismatical and heretical popes were subject in life to the judgment of general councils, and after death to that of their own successors." (Robertson, vol. iv. p. 176.) 3 In England, the schism strengthened the nationality of the Church, and Henry IV. detained the papal revenues till the dispute should be decided. A.D. 1404-6. INNOCENT VII. AND GREGORY XII. AT ROME. 143 Boniface in a tone worthy of Hildebrand. In the factions at the French Court, the King's brother, the Duke of Orleans, espoused the cause of Benedict ; and the great leaders of the University — Peter d'Ailly, Nicolas of Clamenges,1 and John Gerson — went over to his side. Another national assembly resolved, and the King confirmed the decision by a public solemnity, to return to the obe- dience of Benedict, on condition that he should resign in case of Boniface's resignation or death, and that he would speedily call a General Council and abide by its judgment (May 1403). § 6. The contingency speedily occurred to test his good faith. In the following year he sent a mission to his rival, proposing a personal conference ; but Boniface scouted all idea of equality, and ordered Benedict's envoys to leave Rome. Provoked by this insolence, they replied, " At least our master is not a simoniac ;" and Boniface, stung mortally by the taunt, fell ill and died in three days (Oct. 1, 1404). The Roman cardinals now asked the envoys if they had authority to declare the resignation of Benedict; and, on receiving a negative reply, they elected the Neapolitan Cardinal Cosmato Migliorati as Innocent VII. (Oct. 17, 1404) ; every cardinal having first taken an oath that, if elected, he would labour to heal the schism, and resign if required. This mild old man, opposed to simony and rapacity, found his attempts to reform the morals of his court overborne by the ambition and vices of his kinsmen ; and his brief pontificate was one scene of trouble from the factions of Rome and the intrigues of Ladislaus of Naples.2 He died Nov. 6, 1406. Cardinal Angelo Corario, titular patriarch of Constantinople, a man of seventy, respected for his piety, learning, and prudence, was now elected as Gregory XII. (1406-1409), under so binding a pro- mise to heal the schism, by resignation if necessary, that he was said to be chosen rather as a proctor for resigning the Papacy than as a Pope.3 It was on his proposal that the cardinals took this oath, which he renewed after his election ; but Theodoric of Niem, who held an office at his court, calls him a wolf in sheep's clothing. In a letter to Benedict he likened himself to the Hebrew mother, who would rather give up her child than see it cut in twain ; and he only feared not to live long enough to fulfil his purpose. But, in fact, there were more immediate obstacles in the cupidity of his nephews 1 Nicolas became Benedict's private secretary. " It was with re- luctance that he consented, and he expresses joy at being released from the service, although he speaks with gratitude of the Pope's considerate behaviour towards him. The tone of the papal court, he says, was better than that of secular courts." (Epist. 14, 54. Robertson, vol. iv. p. 179.) 2 For the details, see Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 181-2. 3 Leonardus Arretinus, 925 ; Robertson, vol. iv. p. 182. 144 DEMAND FOR A GENERAL COUNCIL. Chap. IX. and the ambition of Ladislaus of Naples. Benedict responded by proposing a personal interview, for which both set out, but with such delays as to provoke a comparison to a land and sea animal proposing to meet, but each refusing to leave its own element. § 7. Meanwhile the French had again lost patience with Benedict, who was deprived of his chief friend by the murder of the Duke of Orleans (Nov. 1407) ; and he gave fresh provocation by two Bulls against his opponents (April 1408). Another great national assem- bly burnt the Bulls, and declared " Peter de Luna " guilty of heresy and schism, and he only escaped imprisonment by a flight to Per- pignan (May). At this same time Gregory, at Lucca, quarrelled with his cardinals, who withdrew to Pisa, and proceeded to meet Benedict's cardinals at Leghorn. The two parties agreed to summon a Council to meet at Pisa in the following year, and the design was approved by the Universities of Paris, Bologna, and Florence. In their letters to the princes and universities, the car- dinals of each party drew the most odious character of the Pope they had hitherto supported ; but, as Milman observes,1 " the mutual fear and mistrust of the rival Popes was their severest condemnation. These grey-headed Prelates, each claiming to be the representative of Christ upon earth, did not attempt to disguise from the world, that neither had the least reliance on the truth, honour, justice, religion, of the other." While refusing to abdicate their high dig- nity, they stripped it of all respect in the eyes of Christendom, at the very crisis of a wide-spread and growing demand for a thorough reform of the Church " in head and members." All this strength- ened the conviction that the time had come to fall back on the ancient mode of taking the judgment of the Church in a General Council. § 8. This course was advocated with great effect by a doctor whose name now becomes conspicuous, John Charlier, surnamed Gerson, from the village in Champagne where he was born (1363). Having studied at Paris under Peter d'Ailly and Giles Deschamps, he succeeded the former as Chancellor and professor of theology in 1395. The counsel he now gave was the more weighty from his former adhesion to Benedict and his unpopular opposition to the extreme course taken by the national council in 1406. In the works 2 which he contributed towards the closing of the schism, 1 Latin Christianity, vol. viii. p. 108. 2 Especially his Considerationes de Pace, a sermon preached before Benedict XIII. (Jan. 1, 1404), and his tracts, De Unitate Ecclesise, (1409), and De Auferibilitate P. 1444), Rcrum suo tempore in Italia gestarum Commentarins ah anno 1378 usque ad annum 1440 (in Muratori, xix. p. 909 f.) ; and Theodoricus a Niem, secretary to John XXIII., in his work De Schismate, his Vita Johannis XXIII., and Invectiva in diffugientem a Const. Concil. (in Meibomius, Rerum German. Script., and Von der Hardt, Concil. Const.) Niem is bitterly hostile to John ; but most of his charges are confirmed by the Acts of the Council of Constance, for which see Mansi, vol. xxvii., D'Achery, i. p. 828 f., and Von der Hardt : also Jacques Lenfant, Histoire du Cvncile de Pisa, et de ce qui s'est passe d< /i'ks memorable depuis ce Concile jusqu'au Concite de Co7istance, Arast. 1724. 3 The condemnation of his two brothers to death by Ladislaus, as pirates, though they were saved by the intercession of Boniface IX., embittered his hatred of the King. A.D. 1410. KING LADISLAUS OF NAPLES. 151 devised new and ingenious methods. To him is ascribed the enormous development of the public sale of Indulgences by priests and friars throughout Europe ; * and a case is recorded of his plun- dering one of these papal merchants of the proceeds of his traffic* Returning to Bologna as Cardinal and Legate, he ruled the city for nearly nineteen years " with as absolute and unlimited dominion as the tyrant of any other of the Lombard or Romagnese common- wealths. Balthasar Cossa, if hardly surpassed in extortion and cruelty by the famous Eccelino, by his debaucheries might have put to shame the most shameless of the Viscontis." He took an active part in the Council of Pisa, and was one of those named for the Papacy, but he found it more convenient to use the respectable Franciscan as his tool ; till the time came to " remove *' Alexander and secure his own election by his power over the conclave held at Bologna. " The pirate, tyrant, adulterer, violator of nuns, became the successor of St. Peter, the Vicegerent of Christ upon earth."3 § 2. The first acts of John XX1I1. confirmed the worst corrup- tions that were prevalent,4 and anathematized his two rivals and the King of Naples. The Crusade which he proclaimed against Ladislaus was supported by the arms of Louis of Anjou, who gained a great victory at Rocca Secca (May 17th, 1411), but, failing to force the passes of the Apennines, retired to Provence, leaving the Pope to deal alone with Naples. John had meanwhile entered Rome, where he celebrated the victory with insults against Ladislaus, and soon made the people repent of the welcome they had given him. He now found it necessary to purchase peace with a large sum of money, besides disallowing the claims of Louis to Naples and of Peter of Arragon to Sicily, and making Ladislaus standard-bearer of Rome 5 (June 14] 2). In affected compliance with the promises given at Pisa, the Pope now summoned at St. Peter's the mere 1 "On their arrival at a city, they exhibited a banner with the Papal arms, the keys of St. Peter, from the windows of their inn. They entered the principal church, took their seats before the altar, the floor strewed with rich carpets, and, under awnings of silk to keep off the flies, exhibited to the wondering people, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Priests and Bishops, their precious wares. ' 1 have heard them,' writes the biographer of John XXUL, 'declare that St. Peter himself had not greater power to remit sins than themselves ' (Niem, p. 7)." Milman, vol. viii. p. 130. 2 This person, seemingly a creature of Cossa's, who was then legate at Bologna, was seized by him on his arrival at that city, and thrown into prison, where he hanged himself in despair. 3 Niem, ap. Milman, ibid. p. 133. 4 For the details see Niem and Peter d'Ailly, quoted by Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 283 f. 5 Gregory XII., expelled from Gaeta, took refuge with Charles Malatesta at Rimini. 152 THE EMPEROR SIGISMUND. Chap. X. mockery of a Council, which only deserves a mention for its con- demnation and burning of Wyclif s writings (Feb. 1413).1 The treaty was soon broken on account of the exactions which John attempted in Naples, and he had to fly before Ladislaus (June), who entered and pillaged the city, and overran the Papal States as far as Siena, threatening the Pope's safety even at Bologna. John had now, most unwillingly, to seek a new protector in Sigismund, the Emperor-elect. § 3. On the death of Rupert, in 1410, the imperial schism was prolonged for a while by the partisans of Wenceslaus, of his brother Sigismund,2 and of Jobst (or Jodocus), marquis of Moravia, whose rivalry was ended by his death in about a year.3 Sigismund was then unanimously reelected, his deposed brother voting for him (July 1411). " He was the most powerful Emperor who for many years had worn the- crown of Germany, and the one unoccupied sovereign in Europe.4 . . . Sigismund, as Emperor, had redeemed the follies, vices, tyrannies of his youth ; ... he seemed almost at once transformed into the greatest sovereign whom the famous house of Luxemburg had ever offered to wear the imperial crown. ... He enacted and put into execution wise laws. He made peace by just mediation between the conflicting principalities. He was averse to war, but not from timidity. His stately person, his knightly manners, his accomplishments, his activity which bordered on restlessness, his magnificence, which struggled, sometimes to his humiliation, with his scanty means, had cast an unwonted and imposing grandeur, which might recal the great days of the Othos, the Henrys, and the Fredericks, around the imperial throne." 6 § 4. As King of Hungary, Sigismund had acknowledged John 1 For the strange incident of the owl, which on two successive days flew into the church, and sat glaring at the Pope, see Milnian, vol. viii. p. 135. 2 Sigismund (b. 1366) was the second son of the Emperor Charles IV., on whose death (1378) he succeeded to the marquisate of Brandenburg. Having married Maria, the daughter of Louis, King of Hungary, in 1386, he was recognized as King next year ; but he had a hard struggle to main- tain himself against Ladislaus and internal conspiracies, and afterwards against the Turks under Bajazet, whose great victory at Nicopolis (1396) made Sigismund a fugitive for 18 months. This earlier period of his life was sullied by his love of pleasure and the cruelties provoked by the frequent conspiracies against him. Wenceslaus reigned in Bohemia till his death. 3 He is said to have been 90 years old. 4 France, distracted by the factions striving for power in the name of the lunatic King, Charles VI., was already threatened with the invasion, which soon gave occupation to all the strength of England. The visit of Sigismund to Henry V. at London (in 1415, after the battle of Agincourt) is memorable for his full admission of England's independence of the Empire. (See Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 187.) 5 Milman, vol. viii. pp. 139-140. A.D. 1413. DECISION FOR A COUNCIL. 153 XXIII., with whom he had a common interest against the claims of Ladislaus.1 At his election he had sworn to the Archbishop of Mainz that he would receive the crown from no rival Pope. But he was above all things desirous of healing the schism of the Church ; and now, after the long triumph of papal supremacy, the imperial right of convening a General Council, after the example of Constan- tine, was not only revived, but put in force.2 This decisive act was urged upon the Emperor by Catholic reformers throughout Christen- dom ; and Gerson, in the name of the French Church and State, whose own strenuous efforts had failed, told him that it was a duty of his office, not to be neglected without mortal sin. John empowered his envoys to consent to this indispensable condition of the Emperor's support, but with a secret reservation, of which his secretary, Leonard of Arezzo, informs us in the very words which the Pope used to him : 3 " All depends on the place appointed for the Council : I will not trust myself within the dominions of the Emperor. My ambassadors, for the sake of appearances, shall have liberal instructions and the fullest powers, to display in public ; in private I will limit them to certain cities.*' But at the moment of their departure, whether from a fit of confidence, or from fear of losing all, or in sheer finesse leaving the game to them, he tore up the secret instructions ; and, on their meeting the Emperor at Como, they consented to the choice he had made of Constance.4 1 Besides his competition for the crown of Hungary, Ladislaus appears to have aspired to the Empire. 2 On the significance of this step at the particular crisis, Mr. Bryce ob- serves (pp. 303-4): — "The tenet commended itself to the reforming party in the Church, headed by Gerson, whose aim it was, while making no changes in matters of faith, to correct the abuses which had grown up in discipline and government, and limit the power of the Popes by exalting the authority of General Councils, to whom there was no\v attributed an in- fallibility superior to that which resided in the successor of St. Peter. . . . The existence of the Holy Roman Empire and the existence of General Councils were necessary parts of one and the same theory, and it was therefore more than a coincidence, that the last occasion, on which the whole of Latin Christendom met to deliberate and act as a single Common- wealth, was also the last on which that Commonwealth's lawful temporal head appeared in the exercise of his international functions. Never after- wards was he in the eyes of Europe anything more than a German monarch." Mr. Bryce adds the remark on the relations between the Emperor and Councils : — " It is not without interest to observe, that the Council of Ba«el showed signs of reciprocating imperial care by claiming those very rights over the Empire, to which the Popes were accustomed to pretend." 3 Leonard. Arret, s. a. 1413. The envoys were the Cardinal Challant and Zabarella, Cardinal of Florence. 4 In German Konstanz or Kostanz, from the Latin Constantia, so named from the Csesar Constantius Chlorus, having been formerly called Ganno- durum. Bodensee is the proper German name of the laiae, anciently called 1 54 COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. Chap. X. This ancient imperial city, on the western shore of the Lake through which the Khine flows in the great bend by which it encom- passes Switzerland on the East and North, was admirably adapted for the seat of a Council. Enjoying internal order and a salubrious air, it was accessible alike from Italy, from the heart of Germany, and by the Rhine from all Western Europe ; while needful supplies could be brought from the shores of the lake. The Pope's objection to the Italians having to cross the Alps was applied with still great force to the many more who lived outside them. It was in vain that he raved at his envoys for yielding the choice of a place, and tried to reopen it in an interview with the Emperor at Lodi, where he was treated with all respect, and promised compliance with Sigismund's exhortations to amend the faults by which he scandalized Christen- dom. At this time the summons to the Council had already gone forth by the Emperor's authority as the temporal head of Christen- dom (Oct. 31, 14 13) ; and John consented to issue his summons, as if by the independent authority of the Holy See (Dec. 9). Both fixed the date of the Feast of All Saints (Nov. 1), in the following year ; and the Emperor invited Benedict and Gregory to attend, but addressed neither of them as Pope. His edict promised his full protection to all who should attend, and guaranteed the rights of Pope and Cardinals, prelates and clergy. § 5. John was already threatened with an attack from Ladislaus in his residence at Bologna, when the King was seized with illness at Perugia, and was carried back to Naples to die (Aug. 1414). This release revived the idea of an escape from the decision to which the Pope stood committed, and his kindred pressed him to go to Rome instead of to Constance, with the ominous warning, " You may set forth as a Pope to the Council, to return a private man." But his Cardinals l urged him to keep faith with the Emperor and Christen- dom, and he set out with reluctance and misgivings. On his way through the Tyrol, he was met by Duke Frederick of Austria, the Lacus Brigantinus, from the Vindelician tribe of Brigantii on its north- eastern shore. Defined more precisely, the position of Constance is at the point where the Rhine flows out of the lake into the smaller lake called the Untersee (i.e. Lower D ike) from which the river goes westward past Schaffhausen. It must be remembered that the Swiss confederacy did not yet include the region in which Constance stands. In fact, to the present day, the city preserves its connection with Germany, belonging to the duchy of Baden. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. ' Milman observes (vol. viii. p. 145) that "it is among the inexplicable problems of his life, that some of the Cardinals whom he promoted were men of profound piety, as well as learning and character. . . . Their urgency might seem a guarantee for their loyalty. ... In all Councils, according to the ordinary form of suffrage, the Pope and the Cardinals had maintained commanding authority." A.D. 1414. ARRIVAL OF POPE JOHN AND JOHN HITS. 155 hereditary enemy of the house of Luxemburg, on whom the Pope conferred honours and gifts, while Frederick promised his support in case of need, and, at all events, a safe retreat from Constance.1 Among other friends, John reckoned on the Duke of Burgundy, the Marquis of Baden, and the Archbishop of Mainz, Primate of Germany. Most of all, perhaps, he counted on the great treasures he carried with him, to secure support in the Council itself. Yet he was haunted by misgivings and omens. As he descended the steep slope of the Arlberg, the upsetting of his sledge in the snow pro- voked a curse on the evil prompting of the journey ; 2 and when he looked down upon the fair city standing at the foot of the hills, on the point between the lake and river, he ejaculated, " So are foxes caught." But the reflection might still more truly have been made on the guileless innocence of the Reformer, who walked into the trap baited with the Emperor's safe-conduct specially given to him. John Hus arrived in Constance three days after the Pope (Nov. 3). Reserving the cause which brought him thither for the connected narrative of the movement for reform,3 we shall presently see that the proceedings against him had a most essential bearing on the whole course of the Council. § 6. Since Midsummer the quiet Swabian town beside the lake had become the busy scene of preparation for the visitors, who had now arrived in great numbers and kept pouring in for months after the sessions began. When fully assembled, the members numbered 22 cardinals, 20 archbishops — besides the titular patriarchs of Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, who took precedence next after the Pope, — nearly 100 bishops and 33 titular bishops, 24 abbots, 250 doctors, with many secular princes and nobles, repre- sentatives of absent princes, and deputies of the free cities. Some came in splendid array, with hosts of retainers, some singly on foot, like trains of pilgrims. " With these, merchants, traders of every kind and degree, and every sort of strange vehicle. It was not only, it might seem, to be a solemn Christian Council, but a European congress, a vast central fair, where every kind of commerce was to be conducted on the boldest scale, and where chivalrous or histrionic 1 Frederick was possessor of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg and the Black Forest, and his territory nearly surrounded Constance. 2 Jaceo hie in nomine diaboli, was his response to the anxious enquiries of his attendants. 3 See Chap. XL. Meanwhile the above sentence must not be under- stood as implying that Sigi&mund's safe-conduct was given with the least intention of breaking it. In point of fact, Hus went without waiting for the promised safe-conduct; and the exact date at which it reached him is uncertain. At all events it was before the first proceedings were taken against him on Nov. 28th, and it had been promised before he went. 156 COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. Chap. X. or other common amusements were provided for idle hours and for idle people. It might seem a final and concentrated burst and manifesta- tion of medieval devotion, medieval splendour, medieval diversions : all ranks, all orders, all pursuits, all professions, all trades, all artisans, with their various attire, habits, manners, language, crowded to one single city."1 The total number of ecclesiastics and princes, with their attendants, is reckoned at 18,000 ; and the strangers, who overflowed the city and encamped outside of it, amounted usually to 50,000, but sometimes twice that number, with 30,000 horses.2 § 7. The most eminent leaders of the Council were, on the part of the Italians, Cardinal Zabarella, archbishop of Florence ; and, repre- senting the Ultramontane 3 advocates of a reformation, Peter d' Ailly, now Cardinal Archbishop of Cambray, leader of the French prelates ; John Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, leader of the Doctors ; and Robert Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, who was com- missioned to declare the King of England's assent to the authority of the Council.4 The Pope had made efforts to conciliate this party by granting new privileges to the University of Paris, and sending a cardinal's hat to D' Ailly, who had published his doubts of the efficacy of a General Council.5 Their demand for " reformation of the Church in Head and Memhers" 6 formally adopted by the Council, pointed boldly at the Papacy itself, as the source and focus of the prevalent corruptions. But, in recognizing this Catholic precedent for the use of the word which we have lived to see scorned by 1 Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. viii. p. 228. 2 The history of the Council is compiled in the great work of H. von der Hardt : ' Magnum Oecumenicum Constantiense Concilium ex ingenti anti- quissimorum MScriptorum mole diligoitissime erutum op. H. v. d. Hardt, vi. Tom., Francof. et Lips. 1700: Tom. vii., sistens Indicem Generalem, congessit G. Ch. Bohnstedt, Berol. 1742.' Other works are : Histoire du Concile de Constance, par Jaques Lenfant, Amst. 1714 and 1727; Nouvelle histoire du Concile de Cmstance, par Bourgeoise du Chastenet, Paris, 1718. For other works, see Gieseler, iv. 286, Hefele, vii., Hase, p. 297. Im- portant extracts are given, as usual, by Gieseler. 3 This word is here used in its constant medieval sense ; namely, beyond the Alps, in contrast with Cismontane Italy. 4 He died at Constance during the sessions (Sept. 1417). A brass in front of the high altar of the Cathedral marks his grave. 5 In a tract addressed to Gerson in 1410, De Difficultate Reformations in Concilio Universali ; answered in the Opus de Modo uniendi ac re- fonnandi Ecclesiam in Concil. Univers., ascribed to Gerson, though his authorship has been doubted (see the note in Robertson, iv. p. 257). Both tracts are printed in Gerson's works and by Von der Hardt. 6 The formula, as it recurs in the public acts of the Council, is " gene- ralis reformatio Ecclesioe Dei in capite et in membris," and, more fully, " in fide et in moribus, in capite et in membris ;" where in fide must evidently be understood, not as bringing Catholic doctrine into question, but of the casting out of heresy. A.D. 1414. SPECIAL CHARACTER OF THE COUNCIL. 157 members of our own Protestant Church, we must clearly distinguish the sense in which they called for a thorough Reformation. This is well put by Milman : x " But Latin Christianity was alike the religion of the Popes and of the Councils which contested their supremacy. It was as yet no more than a sacerdotal strife, whether the Pope should maintain an irresponsible autocracy, or be limited and controlled by an ubiquitous aristocratic Senate. The most ardent reformers looked no further than to strengthen the Hierarchy. The Prelates were determined to emancipate themselves from the usurpations of the Pope, as to their elections, their arbitrary taxation by Rome, the undermining of their authority by perpetual appeals ; but they had no notion of relaxing in the least the ecclesiastical domination. It was not that Christendom might govern itself, but that themselves might have a more equal share in the government. They were as jealously attached as the Pope to the creed of Latin Christendom. The Council, not the Pope, burned John Hus. Their concessions to the Bohemians were extorted from their fears, not granted by their liberality. Grerson, D'Ailly, Louis of Aries, Thomas of Corcelles, were as rigid theologians as Martin V. or Eugenius IV. The Vulgate was their Bible, the Latin service their exclusive liturgy, the Canon law their code of jurisprudence." § 8. Besides the distinction of having been called by the Emperor, the Sixteenth (Ecumenical Council (according to the Latin reckon- ing) stands in a unique relation to all that went before, and to the few that have followed it.2 The ancient Councils, down to the schism of the East and West, represented (in some sense) the Universal Church ; while in those held since the severance the Italian element was predominant. The Council of Constance was the first that fairly represented the Western Church ; and, to use the words of Mr. Bryce, " it was the last occasion on which the whole of Latin Christendom met to deliberate and act as a single Common- wealth." 3 1 Latin Clirvitianity , vol. viii. p. 448. To make the statement complete, a more distinct recognition is required of the lay and national part in the demand for reformation. 2 In so far as the Council of Basle shared the same character, it may be regarded as a supplement to that of Constance ; but, besides its com- parative numerical insignificance, its validity is still a disputed question. As to the numbering, see p. 146, note 1. 3 Besides that, of course, no Protestant can concede this claim to the three remaining Councils, it is also to be observed that only the last of these (at Rome, 1870-1) fully represented the Roman Catholic world. The Fifth Lateran (1512-17), like former Councils at Rome, was chiefly Cismontane ; and even at the famous Council of Trent, Italy and Spain sent by far the greater number of the Fathers who were to reorganize the Church in its resistance to the Reformation. II— 12 158 COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. Chap. X. The Pope, as we have seen, reached Constance on the eve of the appointed Feast of All Saints (1414) ; but few of the Fathers had arrived ; and, though the Council was solemnly opened on Nov. oth, the first session was adjourned to the 16th. Sigismund was detained by his coronation as King of Germany, which wasxelebrated at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 8th; and the Italian party were for the time strong. John used the interval to " make himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," and to lay an astute plan for improv- ing the advantage which he had as the lawful Pope under the authority of the Council of Pisa. True, the sanction of this claim, by the proposal of his Italian partisans to confirm the acts done there (Dec. 7th), was adroitly evaded by the decision to regard the present Council as only a continuation of that of Pisa; but John had what seemed a surer game. The Council had a threefold object : to end the papal schism ; to reform the Church in head and members ; and to extirpate heretical doctrines, especially those of Wyclif and the Bohemians. For the last purpose John Hus had been summoned to the Council ; and his early arrival gave the Pope his opportunity. If the question of heresy could be taken in hand first, and dealt with effectually while John's authority was still supreme, the Reformation might be postponed, and the Pope, strengthened against his rivals and the Emperor by the honour of crushing the heresiarch, might dissolve the Council, as Alexander V., under his guidance, had dissolved that of Pisa. There was, as we have seen, no sympathy with the Husite doctrines, and the Germans had a national quarrel with the Bohemian reformers ; and, according to all precedent, false doctrine was to be dealt with before discipline. When Hus arrived at Constance, though under excommunication, he was received graciously by the Pope, who is reported to have said that he *' would protect Hus even if he had slain his own brother." x But he was followed at once by two of his bitterest enemies, and, on their accusation, he was called before the Pope and Cardinals, committed to custody, and soon after thrown into a noisome dungeon (Nov. 28 and Dec. 6). § 9. Before the late dawn of Christmas Day Sigismund crossed the lake to Constance, and attended mass. By a remarkable coincidence, in reading the Gospel for the day, as was his custom, his first public utterance before the Pope and Council was in the words : " There went forth a decree from Cesar Augustus ! " 2 On Innocents' Day (Dec. 28th) Cardinal d'Ailly preached from the ominous text, 1 Von der Hardt, vol. iv. p. 11 : — " Etiamsi Johannes Huss fratrem sibi germanum occidisset, se tamen nullo modo commissurum, quantum in ipso sitmn est, ut aliqua ei fiat injuria, quamdiu Constantia? esset." Perhaps the qualification was a loophole. 2 Luke ii. 1, A.D. 1414. D'AILLY'S OPENING SERMON. 159 " There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars." x The two great lights were figures of the supreme spiritual and temporal powers, the Pope and the Emperor, and the numberless stars the several estates of the Church, united in the firmament of the Council, in which Christ showed signs now, as in a higher sense at His second coming. But each in his own order, as established by the Lord. There could be no reform without union, nor union with- out reform. John, who held his office to be indefeasible except for invalid election or heresy, was touched to the quick by being to4d that a Pope who had risen by ambition or evil means, who lived ill or ruled ill, was but the false image of a sun ; and he seemed to be placed on a level with his rivals by the indignant likening of himself and them to three idols in the sun's house, the Church of Rome, usurping the place of the one Sun in heaven. The Emperor's place there was defined with high honour but strict limits ; not to pre- side over it, but to provide for its good ; 2 not to define spiritual and ecclesiastical matters, but to maintain its decrees by his power. The stars are to have their proper influence (the age believed in astrology) : it was granted that the Council derived its authority from the Pope ; but, once assembled, it was above him. The right of defining and decreeing belonged, not to him, but to the whole Council ; even as St. James published the decisions of the First Council, not in the name of St. Peter, but as the decree of the Apostles and Elders and brethren, who wrote, " It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord," and again " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to ws." 3 § 10. On the same day, in the first general congregation, the Emperor swore to protect the Pope ; but he also insisted on the admission of the legates of Benedict and Gregory to the Council. " This was to sever the link which bound the Council of Con- stance to the Council of Pisa ; it disclaimed the authority of Pisa, if it recognized as Popes those who had been there deposed." 4 This blow was followed by the decisive one which Sigismund dealt upon John, against his will, and to his own lasting dis- grace, though still more to the teaching of the Church and the Council itself. Already, on an appeal from the friends of Hus, 1 Luke xxi. 25: in our Lord's prophecy of his second coming. 2 Thus we try to render the play of words : " Non ut pnrsit, sed ut prosit ;" but prxsit implies power over it, not mere place. It might be rendered, " not to be master, but minister." 3 Acts xv. 23, 25, 28. We are not told what the Cardinal made of the words "the brethren," " the multitude " (v. 12), and " the whole church," who are associated with the Apostles and Elders in the decree (verse 22). 4 Milman, vol. viii. p. 253. The election of a new Pope had already been proposed in a sermon by a Parisian divine. 160 COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. Chap. X. the Emperor had sent an indignant order for his release, which was disregarded ; and he now retired for a time from the city, threatening to withdraw from the Council. The reforming leaders urged upon him that this course would be to sacrifice the unity of the Church and his own noblest desires, nay to bring a sus- picion of heresy on himself, for the sake of an enemy of the faith, with whom Popes and Councils and Canons had decreed, and the Doctors of the Church had taught, that no faith should be kept.1 He was told that even his power did not extend to the pro- tection of a heretic from the punishment due to his errors ; that his safe-conduct did not pledge the Council, which was greater than the Emperor, and that the responsibility would rest on them. As he himself afterwards pleaded to the Bohemians, Sigismund was over- come by these importunities and the difficulties of his position ; and he left John Hus to be tried and sentenced by the Council. If, as seems probable, he had also come to believe Hus politically dangerous, he reaped his reward in the disastrous civil war which raged in Bohemia for the remaining twenty years of his life, and brought ruinous disgrace on his arms. § 11. This sacrifice of the reformer's life and his own plighted faith restored harmony between Sigismund and the Council, and broke down John's astute plan. The prosecution of Hus's case was postponed to the ' more urgent settlement of the schism.2 John's last reliance, on the influence of the Cardinals and the su- perior clergy, and the votes of the numerous poor Italian clergy, bound to him by interest, fear, and dislike of the Transalpines, was broken down by the mode of procedure which was adopted. First, the professors and doctors of theology, who had been admitted to vote in the Council of Pisa, had the privilege secured to them ; and it was given to the proctors, and inferior clergy ; also to princes and their ambassadors, except in articles of faith. But of far more importance was the adoption of the mode of voting by Nations, as practised in most Universities. The nations were four : 1 As Milman says (viii. 255): "The fatal doctrine, confirmed by long usage, by the decrees of pontiffs, by the assent of all ecclesiastics, and the acquiescence of the Christian world, that no promise, no faith, was binding to a heretic, had hardly been questioned, never repudiated." It was deliberately and formally avouched by this reforming Council; and the more we admit the excuses urged for Sigismund, the more does the case of John Hus fasten the guilt of the doctrine on the theological and moral system of the Church that taught it. ' 2 It was after the deposition of John XXIII. that Hus was burnt, on July 6th, 1415, and his friend, Jerome of Prague, who had joined him at Constance, suffered on May 30th, 1416. The details, and the outline the Bohemian war, are related in another place (Chap. XL.). A.D. 1415. CHARGES AGAINST JOHN XXIII. 161 Italians, Germans (including Hungarians, Poles, and Scandinavians), French, and English (Feb. 7, 1415).1 This arrangement, carried against the Pope's remonstrances, reduced the Italians to one vote out of four ; the Germans and English being thoroughly hostile to John, as were the most influential of the French, though the factions of their country, and the great national quarrel with England, tended towards discord in the Council.2 § 12. The resignation or deposition of John XXIII. was now only a question of time and manner ; and it would be tedious to trace his artifices to evade the result. The secret presentation to the Council, by an Italian, of a memoir setting forth the crimes of his life, with details deemed unfit even to be read in public, came to his know- ledge, and frightened him into a conditional promise of abdication simultaneously with his rivals, in artful terms, which the Council, now led by John Gerson,3 insisted on his making more stringent. But the restored concord, attested by the gift to Sigismund of the golden rose,4 the special sign of papal gratitude, was belied by the watch set on the gates of Constance, and the promise exacted from John not to attempt flight. The leaders of the Council pressed for his absolute resignation ; but, by the contrivance of Duke Frederick of Austria, he escaped in disguise to Schaffhausen (March 20th), and thence removed successively to Freyburg, Breysach, and Neuenburg. Frederick, placed under the ban of the Empire, had to make abject submission to Sigismund, and finally to pursue John and bring him back (May 27). Meanwhile the Council had adopted a strong declaration, proposed by Gerson, of its authority above the Pope ; and 70 articles of accusation were exhibited against him, and witnesses heard in support of them. " Never 1 When, at a later period of the Council, Arragon and Castile abandoned Benedict and joined the Council, the Spaniards formed a fifth nation. 2 At this time (the spring of 1415) Henry V. was preparing the invasion which led to the battle of Agincourt (October 25th, 1415). The Orleanist faction ruled in France. John, duke of Burgundy, who, after his formal reconciliation with the Dauphin Charles (1414), was waiting events in sullen retirement, was inclined to the party of Pope John ; and his rela- tions to the Council were complicated by its having to decide on the charge brought against the Franciscan Jean Petit for his defence of the murder of Louis, duke of Orleans, by the contrivance of his cousin, John of Burgundy (Nov. 1407). For the details, see the Student's History of France, chap. xi. 3 Gerson arrived with the delegates of his University, on Feb 18th. 4 "The golden rose is consecrated on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and is given by the Pope to such princes as have rendered signal services to the Church. The origin of this custom is uncertain, but it is commonly referred to Leo IX. (See Herzog's Encyclop. art. Rose, die Goldene)." Robertson, vol. iv. p. 142, 162 THE THREE RIVAL POPES DEPOSED. Chap. X. probably were seventy more awful accusations brought against man than against the Vicar of Christ. The Cardinal of St. Mark 1 made a feeble attempt to repel the charge of heresy ; against the darker charges no one spoke a word. Before the final decree, sixteen of those of the most indescribable depravity were dropped, out of respect, not to the Pope, but to public decency and the dignity of the office. On the remaining undefended fifty-four the Council gravely, deliberately, pronounced the sentence of deposition against the Pope."2 John received it with quiet sub- mission, and voluntarily swore that he would never attempt to recover the Papacy. He was kept a prisoner in the castle of Heidelberg, till his further disposal should be determined by his successor (Martin V.), who after two years restored John to the dignity of Cardinal and made him Bishop of Frascati ; but he died at Florence without entering on his see (Dec. 28th, 1417). His rival, Gregory XII., had died two months before him (Oct. 18), at the age of 90, having given in his resignation to the Council through his legate (July 4th, 1415), and been made Car- dinal-Bishop of Porto and first of the sacred college. Benedict XIII. held out obstinately, even evading an interview with Sigismund, who went as far as Perpignan to meet him ; but the Emperor succeeded in obtaining the Antipope's renunciation by the King of Arragon and other princes (Dec. 13th, 1415). Shutting himself up in the fortress of Peniscola, in Valentia, Benedict remained proof against all negociations, and at length received the sentence of depo- sition 3 with the outburst of violent rage, " Not at Constance, the Church is at Peniscola." This end of the forty years' schism was celebrated by a Te Deum in the Cathedral and proclaimed with the sound of trumpets in the streets of Constance. § 13. During the two years of waiting for this result, the work of " reformation in head and members " had been suspended, and was now frustrated by a repetition of the fatal error made at Pisa, the election of a Pope — to prevent it. The English and Germans supported the Emperor's demand to give precedence to reforms; 1 Zabarella, the leader of the Italian party, who, unable to support John, did his best to break his fall. 2 May 29th, 1515. Milman, vol. viii. p. 277. 3 In the sentence passed on July 26th, 1417, the Council, besides declaring Benedict guilty of perjury, scandal to the whole Church, and schism, contrived to fasten on him a constructive charge of heresy, inasmuch as he had violated the article of faith in " one Holy Catholic Church." After his death at Peniscola, in 1424, his cardinals attempted to set up two successors, three of them electing a Clement VIII. and the fourth a Bene- dict XIV. (a schism within the dead remnant of a schism) ; but the King of Arragon had fully acknowledged Martin V., and the nominal Clement VIII. was finally compelled to abdicate by a Council at Tortosa (1429). A.D. 1417. ELECTION OF POPE MARTIN V. 1 63 but the divisions in the Council were inflamed by national hatred ; * and the French, led by d'Ailly, in whom " the Cardinal prevailed over the Reformer,'' 2 joined the Italians in demanding the elec- tion of a new Pope. The Spaniards, who now entered the Council as a fifth nation, took the same side ; to which even the English fell off, after the death of Robert Hallam3 (Sept. 4th, 1417). At this crisis, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, arrived at Ulm, with the prestige of an intended Crusade added to the dignity of the uncle of the English King. The Emperor invited him to Constance to act as mediator ; and he used his influence for the election of a Tope, to which the Council agreed, as much probably from weariness as conviction, and Sigismund gave his reluctant consent (Sept. 30). After further disputes about the mode of election and the reforms to which the future Pope must agree as the conditions of his elevation, the Council, at its 40th Session (Oct. 30th), " made its last effort for independent life. It declared that it was not to be dissolved till the Pope had granted reform." 4 It was agreed that thirty members (six from each nation) should be associated with the twenty-three Cardinals ; and this Conclave, enclosed according to the regular forms on Nov. 8th, proclaimed in three days, " We have a Pope, Lord Otho of Colonna." Amidst the ringing of all the bells in Constance, and the shouts of 80,000 people, exulting in the restored unity of the head of the Church on earth, the Emperor rushed into the conclave, and fell at the feet of the Pope, who raised and embraced him as the chief author of this peaceful issue of the schism. Being as yet only a lay Cardinal,5 Otho was ordained deacon, priest, and bishop, on three successive days, and on the 21st he was crowned as 1 It was within a week after Benedict's deposition that Henry V. landed at the mouth of the Seine (Aug. 1st. 1417) on his second invasion, which resulted in his conquest of France. 2 Milman, vol. viii. p. 309. 3 They appear to have acted under the direction of Henry V., who would naturally wish to secure the favour of the future Pope to sanction his proceedings in France, and Beaufort was doubtless his agent in the same policy. Martin V. rewarded his services by making him a Cardinal (November 28th) and Legate for England and Ireland, an appointment which was resisted by Archbishop Chichele, as the Primate had always hitherto been Legate ; and Beaufort was not received in that character till his family gained the ascendancy under Henry VI. This famous Cardinal Beaufort was the second son of John of Gaunt, by his marriage (afterwards legitimated) with Catherine Swynford, and so the half-brother of Henry IV. 4 Milman, vol. viii. p. 310. 5 He had been made Cardinal of St. George by Innocent VII., had sup- ported Gregory XII. till the Council of Pisa declared against him, and had been one of the last to give up the cause of John XXIII. 164 FIRST ACTS OF MARTIN V. Chap. X. Pope Martin V., after the saint on whose day he was elected (Nov. 11th, Martinmas). § 14. This election formed an honourable contrast with nearly all those of the Captivity and Schism. Martin was about 50 years old, of the noblest blood of Home, learned in the Canon Law, of irreproach- able morals, " courteous in manners, short and sententious in speech, quick and dexterous yet cautious in business, a strict and even ostentatious lover of justice." * Though so fast an adherent of John as even to share his flight, he displayed a dignified moderation in all the debates of the Council, who might flatter themselves that in such a man, " no stern advocate of reformation, no alarming fanatic for change," they had chosen the desired leader and arbiter of the work they had yet to do. But there has ever been a power in the papal tiara, which might seem magical were it not the natural result of the changed position, to develop qualities unsus- pected under the cardinal's hat. Leonard of Arezzo says of Martin that whereas, before his elevation, he had been noted rather for his amiability than for his talents, he showed, when Pope, extreme sagacity but no excess of benignity.2 His great sagacity was proved in the disappointment prepared for the Council, when they gave themselves a head which they expected to begin the work of reform upon itself! Perhaps, indeed, they acted on the principle, which has since become familiar in what is called statesmanship, accepting what seemed inevitable rather than daring to do what was right. In the oft-quoted saying, " Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor? the true point lies in the last word — " drifting " on the current, real or imagined. They ought to have seen that, the abler and more respectable the new Pope, the more sure was he to revive the papal power rather than to " crown the edifice " of the Council. Martin's first brief, dated on the day after his election, confirmed the regulations of all his predecessors, even of John XXIII., for the Papal Chancery, the very focus of ecclesiastical abuses ; and that by the act of the Pope, not of the Council. " All the old grievances — Reservations, Expectancies, Vacancies, Confirmations of Bishops, Dispensations, Exemptions, Commendams, Annates, Tenths, Indul- gences— might seem to be adopted as the irrepealable law of the Church." 3 Martin was prepared for the protests of the nations, 1 Milman, viii. 311. 2 Muratori, xix. 930 ; Robertson, iv. 296. Of the change charged against him from contented poverty to avarice we have to speak pi-esentlv. 3 Milman, viii. 312. Even the Spaniards threatened to return to the obedience of Benedict, but their indignation evaporated in a satirical " Mass for Simony." (On the abuses enumerated see further in Chap. XVII.) A.D. 1414. THE CASE OF JEAN PETIT. 165 and met their demands by " a counter-plan of Reformation, each article of which might have occupied the weary Council for months of hot debate."1 He constituted a "reformatory college" of six cardinals, with representatives of the nations, and offered some improvements in the Curia, in order to elude the wider demands of the Germans. Meanwhile, acting on the maxim Divide et impera, he proposed to grant partial reforms by vague Concordats 2 with the several nations, Germany, England, and France, the Italians having at once accepted the Pope's ecclesiastical supremacy. England, secure in her laws of provisors and praemunire, seems to have left the Concordat offered to her unnoticed ; while that with France was rejected by the Parliament, and the Dauphin postponed the acknowledgment of Martin's title, till it should have been examined and approved by the University of Paris.3 § 15. It remains to notice the other affair on which the French, both at Paris and Constance, were at issue with the new Pope. The treacherous murder of Louis of Orleans by the agents of John of Burgundy (1407) had been defended, as an act of tyrannicide, by a Franciscan friar, Jean Petit (Joannes Parvus), in a discourse before the King (March 1408),4 for which the author is said to have pro- fessed penitence on his death-bed (1410). Eight propositions ex- tracted from his work — the " Eight Verities " of Jean Petit — Avere condemned by a Council of theologians, canonists, and jurists, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Paris (1414) ; and Gerson,5 in the name of the University, supported by D'Ailly, asked for a confirmation of this sentence at Constance. Thus the Council had before them the abstract question of tyrannicide, and the practical condemnation of the Duke of Burgundy, whose partisans, headed by the Bishop of Arras, joined with the Abbots of Clairvaux and Citeaux and the Friars, " did not scruple to undertake the contest, to allege every kind of factious objection, every subtlety of scholastic logic. These monstrous tenets were declared to be only moral and 1 Milman, vol. viii. p. 316. 2 This technical word of diplomacy is the Latin concordata, " things agreed on." 3 It must be remembered that at this time the Dauphin Charles, at the head of the Orleanist party, was endeavouring to withstand Henry V., who, having formed an alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, was pursuing the conquest of France. 4 Printed in Gerson's Works, vol. v. p. 15, seq. 5 Gerson, always a consistent opponent of passive obedience, had in his earlier years defended tyrannicide on the ground taken by Seneca: " Nulla Deo gratior victima, quam tyrannus." But his opinion was changed by the murder of the Duke of Orleans, and he denounced the doctrine in his treatise, De Auferibilitate Papas. 166 FATE OF THE THREE JOHNS. Chap. X. philosophical opinions, not of faith, therefore out of the province of the Church and of the Council." x An attempt was made to silence Gerson by charges of heresy, and all that could be obtained from the Council was a condemnation of one of Petit's extremest doctrines : " It is lawful, and even meritorious, in any vassal or subject to kill a tyrant, either by stratagem, by blandishment, flattery, or force, notwithstanding any oath or covenant sworn with him, without awaiting the sentence or authority of any judge.'"1 2 This sentence, passed, by a noteworthy coincidence, on the day of Hus's condem- nation (July 6, 1415), was annulled by Martin V. for informality; and thus, of the three Johns,5 wTho were arraigned for different offences before the Council, the guilty Pope was allowed to end his days in peace and dignity ; the blameless Hus was betrayed by a breach of imperial faith, and burnt by a reforming Council ; while even the memory of the third was saved from condemnation. But a fourth John, leader and mouthpiece of the effort for reform, " the learned pious Gerson, dared not return to Paris, now in the power of Burgundy and the English; he lay hid for a time in Germany, lingered out a year or two at Lyons, and died a proscribed and neglected exile ; finding his only consolation, no doubt full conso- lation, in the raptures of his Holy Mysticism." 4 § 16. Of the great " reformation in head and members," nothing was effected, save some decrees on exemptions and other means of papal exaction, on simony, tithes, and the lives of the clergy ; and these were solemnly pronounced, with the Concordats, a full 1 Mil man, vol. viii. p. 305. 2 Observe the exact parallel, except in the last clause, to the treatment of heretics avowed and acted on by the Council. For Martin's determined opposition to the condemnation of similar doctrines in the case of the Dominican, John of Falkenberg, who had declared it highly meritorious to assassinate the King of Poland and all h:s people, see Robertson, vol. iv. p. 300. In this matter the Pope ventured, in defiance of the main prin- ciples laid down by the Council, to deny the lawfulness of any appeal from " the supreme judges, viz. the Apostolic See, or the Roman Pontiff," (March 10th, 1418). Gerson denounces this decree as destroying the funda- mental validity of the Councils of Pisa and Constance, with all their acts, including the elections of Alexander V. and Martin himself. (See his Dialogue on the case of Jean Petit, quoted by Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 306.) 3 See the striking contrast drawn by Milman, vol. viii. pp. 303-306. 4 On the breaking up of the Council, Gerson accepted an asylum from the Duke of Bavaria. The offer of a professorship at Vienna was declined in a poem of thanks to Frederick of Austria. On the death of the Duke of Burgundy (September 1419), he returned to France; and, Paris being in disorder, and the Dauphin making terms with Henry V., he stayed at Lyon, where, after ten years passed in devotion, study, and abundant labour in letters, he died at the age of sixty-six. only three days after finishing his Commentary on the Canticles (July 12th, 1429). A.D. 1418. END AND FAILURE OF THE COUNCIL. 167 satisfaction of those declared to be essential before t lie election of the Pope ! x For the rest, they had the promise of regular Councils ; and the next of these was appointed to be held at Pavia, much to the dis- content of the French (April 19th, 1418). The Emperor had already- been rewarded (in January) with the Pope's solemn thanks, and the grant of a year's tithe from the German church ; 2 but he did not withhold some covert bitterness in his farewell. " He declared his full obedience to the Pope ; his submission to all the decrees of the Council ; but if the Council had fallen into error, he disclaimed all concern in it." 3 At the 45th and last Session (April 22, 1418) the Pope pronounced plenary absolution on all who had attended the Council ; officiated in high pomp in the Cathedral on Whitsunday, and at night gave his blessing to the thousands who crowded round the bishop's palace (May 15th). Next day, with the Emperor and the Elector of Brandenburg holding his bridle on either side, he went forth on the way to Genoa at the head of a cavalcade of princes, nobles, cardinals, bishops, churchmen, and their followers, to the number of 40,000, which might well seem the triumph of papal Eome. " The Council which had deposed Popes had been mastered by a Pope of its own choosing ; the old system of Kome, so long the subject of vehement complaint, had escaped un- touched." 4 1 Compare the articles of this decree of the 43rd Session (March 21, 1418), with those, which it express1 y cited, of the 40th Session (October 1417), in Gieseler, vol. iv. pp. 301, 304-5. 2 See the Literse, Gratiosas (7 Cal. Febr. 1418) in Gieseler, iv. 305. This tithe was objected to in Germany, but without effect. 3 Von der Hardt, iv. p. 1563 ; Milman, vol. viii. p. 319. 4 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 301. Compare Milman's eloquent summary, too long to quote here (vol. viii. pp. 319-321). Medal of Martin V. From the British Museum. Medal of Pope Eugenius IV. CHAPTER XI. PAPACY OF MARTIN V. AND EUGENIUS TV. THE COUNCIL OF BASLE : TO ITS VIRTUAL END. A.D. 1418—1443. 1. State of Italy : Braccio and Sforza — Martin V. at Rome — His merits and faults — His claims of supremacy — England and France. § 2. Councils of Pavia and Siena — Danger of the Eastern Empire — Overtures for Reconciliation. § 3. France — Bohemian War — Death of Martin V. § 4. Measures of the Cardinals — Election and Character of Eugenius IV. — Proscription of the Colonnas. § 5. The Council of Basle and the Bohemian Crusade — The Legate Julian Cesarini — Battle of Tauss — The Pope's attempt to postpone the Council. § 6. Its opeuing — Mode of Voting— Four Deputations — The Leaders — Nicolas Cusanus on Popes and Councils. § 7. The Council claims to be above the Pope — Eugenius denounces the Council. § 8. Sigismund in Italy — His Coro- nation at Milan and Rome. § 9. He arrives at Basle — Eugenius sanctions the Council — Departure and death of the Emperor. § 10. Eugenius driven from Rome — Government and fate of John Vitelleschi — The Pope's return. §11. Refonning decrees of the Council — Bull trans- ferring it to Ferrara — Open quarrel with the Pope. § 12. New leaders at Basle — Defection of Cusanus and Cesarini — Louis, Bishop of Aries, and Nicolas of Palermo — jEneas Sylvius Piccolomini : his early life and appearance at the Council. § 13. Election of Albert II. — Prag- matic Sanction of Bowges. § 14. The Council deposes Eugenius, and elects the Antipope Felix V. — Failure of this Schism. § 15. Death of Albert II. — Election and Character of Frederick III. — Low State of the Empire — ./Eneas Sylvius in Frederick's service — Virtual end, but formal continuance, of the Council and the Schism. A.D. 1418. MARTIN V. AT ROME. 169 § 1. Taking leave of the Emperor at Geneva.1 Martin travelled slowly to Italy, where the first Pope, who since forty years had an undisputed title, was not master of a single city. Besides the local governments, the captains of Free Companies had risen to great power ; and one of them, Braccio of Montone, had made him- self master of Kome after the deposition of John XXIII. He was well matched by another captain, Jacopo Sforza Attendolo, whose son afterwards won the dukedom of Milan. Sforza was now serving in the pay of Joanna II., the sister and successor of Ladislaus in the kingdom of Naples, with whom Martin made an alliance. As gonfalonier of the Church, Sforza expelled Braccio from Eome ; but the latter held his ground at his native city of Perugia, and found it prudent to make his peace with the Pope, who, after a splendid reception at Milan, was staying at Florence (Feb. 1420).2 He restored several towns in the Papal territory, receiving others as a fief; and recovered Bologna for the Pope. Entering Rome on the 28th of September, Martin beheld the misery and ruin wrought by the long absence of the Popes and by the wars of factions. Order was restored by his firm and just administration ; and his labours, emulated by the Cardinals, in rebuilding the churches and other public edi6ces, gained for him the titles of " the third founder of Rome, and the happiness of his times." 3 But his cardinals resented his arbitrary rule over them ; and the ecclesiastical abuses, that were to have been reformed at Constance, continued to bring in vast wealth, of which a large part was bestowed, besides castles, lands, and offices, on the Pope's kindred. In his relations with the powers of Christendom, Martin revived the highest claims of his predecessors. England only accepted Cardinal Beaufort as Legate with limited powers, and stood firm against the Pope's haughty demand for the repeal of the anti-papal 1 Geneva was an imperial city, under the government of its bishops, who, from the beginning of the 15th century, were of the house of Savoy. 2 It was at Florence that Martin received the submission of his deposed predecessor. Here too the severe economy of the Pope's equipage, espe- cially in contrast with the magnificence affected by Braccio, was ridiculed in popular songs, with a refrain curiously echoed in one of our own nursery rhymes : — " Papa Martino : Non vale un quattrino : " " Here is Pope Martin : Not worth a farthing." The rival chieftains died in the same year (1424), Braccio of wounds received in action, Sforza drowned in the river Pescara. His son, Francesco, obtained the sovereignty of Milan in 1449, two years after the death of Philip Masse, the last of the Visconti. 3 For the enthusiastic efforts of St. Frances of Rome (ob. 1440), and the Franciscan St. Bernardino of Siena (ob. 1444), to rouse Rome to a religious and moral reformation, see Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 373-375. 170 PAPACT OF MARTIN V. Chap. XI. statutes.1 The Parliament of Paris resisted the Concordat till the death of Charles VI. (1422) ; when the Pope won over the young King for a time, through the influence of his mother and brother, and absolved him from the oath which he had sworn, as Dauphin, to observe the national laws (1425).2 § 2. Meanwhile the Parliament of Paris urged the Pope to convene the Council, for which the place and date had been appointed at Constance ; and a few prelates, from Italy only, were assembled at Pavia (April 1423), whence, in consequence of an outbreak of plague, the session was transferred to Siena. The Council, which was opened by a papal commission on July 21st, did nothing beyond renewing the condemnation of Wyclif, Huss, and Peter of Luna (Benedict XIII.). Martin had shown his resolve to abate nothing of the supremacy of Rome ; and he hoped to set aside the question of reform by the grander idea of reuniting Christendom under his obedience. The victorious Turks had now pressed their conquests in Europe, till of the Eastern Roman Empire Constanti- nople alone was left ; 3 and but one hope remained, to purchase help from Latin Christendom at the cost of an ecclesiastical reunion, for which some overtures had already been made. But, small as was the number of Transalpine prelates at Siena,4 the Council passed a decree that the internal union of the Church by reform ought to take precedence of external union. On the ground that so few Fathers could not pretend to represent Christendom on so great and vital a question, Martin issued a Bull dissolving the Council, and appointed another to meet in seven years' time at the imperial city of Basle (1424).5 1 For the details of these affairs, and the resistance of Archbishop Chichele to the Pope, see Canon Perry's Student's Enjlish Church History, Period I. chap, xxiii. 2 Charles VII. would naturally seek to win the support of the Pope in that great conflict with the English, which gained him the surname of " the Victorious." On the other side, Gerson wrote a treatise, urging, among other arguments, the coronation oath, by which the Kings of France bound themselves to defend the liberties of the national church. 3 The first (unsuccessful) siege of Constantinople by Amurath II. was in 1422; and the truce, which postponed its fall for 30 years, was made in 1425. For the details see the Student's Gibbon, chap, xxxviii. 4 Besides a very few from England, there were only five from Germany, six from France, none from Spain. It is not reckoned as an (Ecumenical Council. 5 This old French form of the name is a convenient compromise between the pure German Basel and the modern French Bale. It is the Roman Basilia, first mentioned in the 4th century, which grew on the decay of Augusta Rauracorum, the ruins of which are still visible behind Augst, about 6 miles higher up the Rhine. Early in the 4th century it was important enough to be mentioned, in the Notitia Imperii, as Civitas Basiliensium. A.D. 1431. ELECTION OF EUGENIUS IV. 171 § 3. The interval was marked by great events. The uprising of France, moved by the enthusiasm of the Maid of Orleans (1429), pro- mised a revival of the spirit of ecclesiastical liberty ; while in Bohemia the war provoked by the death of Huss had brought repeated disaster and disgrace on the imperial arms, till Sigismund felt it necessary to negociate.1 He demanded the submission of the Bohemians to the decrees of the coming Council, to which they were to send delegates. But they distrusted alike the Emperor's good faith and the promise of reformation; and at the beginning of 1431 a papal Bull pro- claimed a new Crusade against them under the Cardinal Legate, Julian Cesarini,2 who was appointed by another Bull to preside at the Council (Feb. 1). But, before either instrument could be acted on, Martin V. died (Feb. 20th, 1431). § 4. To guard against another such rule over themselves, the Cardi- nals joined in a mutual pledge, which the new Pope was to confirm by his oath and publish in a Bull, that he would reform the Curia as he might be required by the cardinals, use them as his acknowledged advisers, respect their privileges and the rules laid down at Constance for the making of new cardinals, and call a General Council, at such place and time as they should recommend, for the reformation of the whole Church, in faith, life, and morals. On the next day (March 3rd) the election fell on Cardinal Gabriel Condolmieri, a Venetian and nephew of Boniface XII., who took the name of Eugenius IV. (1431-1447). The new Pope's age was forty- eight. In early life he had given his fortune to the poor and joined his cousin in founding a society of canons on one of the islands of Venice. " Both his virtues and his faults were chiefly those of a monk. In his own person he was abstinent and severe, although his household expenses were equal to the dignity of his station ; he loved and encouraged men of letters, although his own learning was but moderate ; he was obstinate, narrow-minded, possessed by an ambition which refused to consider the limits of his power ; little scrupulous in the pursuit of his objects, open to flattery, filled with a high idea of the papal greatness, and implacably hostile to all 1 The crown of Bohemia devolved on Sigismund on the death of his brother Wenceslaus, in 1419, but the armed insurgents held out against his efforts to subdue them with the whole force of the Empire. For the events of the war, and the state of parties in Bohemia, see Chap. XL. 2 Julian Cesarini, who had lately been made Cardinal of St. Angelo, was a Roman, " of a family whose poverty is more certain than its nobility. He had risen to eminence by his merits, was esteemed for ability, morals, and learning, and, from having been in Bohemia in attendance on a former legate, was supposed to have special qualifications for the office." — Robert- son, vol. iv. p. 398. 172 THE BOHEMIAN CRUSADE. Chap. XI. deviation from the established doctrines of the Church. Under him the Romans found reason to look back with regret on the prosperous government of Martin ; and to his mistaken policy was chiefly to be ascribed the troubles by which the Church was agitated through- out his pontificate." * Leagued closely with the Orsini, his first act was to reclaim from the Colonnas not only the wealth which their kinsman, the late Pope, had placed in their hands, but to subject them to plunder and proscription, and to destroy the monuments of Martin's pontificate. § 5. The time appointed for the Council to meet was in March, and Eugenius renewed the commission to Cardinal Cesarini, both to preside at Basle and to attend to the affairs of Bohemia, evidently wishing to postpone the former to the latter. While the Fathers were gathering together with a slowness that proved ominous of the eighteen years to which the Council dragged out its feeble existence,2 the Legate travelled up the Bhine and as far as Flanders, to stir up princes and people to the Crusade. He-deputed two Dominicans to open the Council, and to entreat it to await the issue of the holy war. After further vain attempts at negociation, an army of 100,000 men, under the imperial banner, entered Bohemia on the 1st of August, only to be utterly routed within a fortnight (Aug. 14) in the Battle of Tauss, the Legate himself hardly escaping in the garb of a common soldier. His silver crucifix, cardinal's robes and insignia, and the very Bull authorizing the Crusade, were long shown at Tauss as memorials of the victory. Not only by this crowning disaster, but by what he had seen in Germany, Cesarini was convinced that the sole hope both of reconciling the Bohemians and satisfying the Germans lay in the Council and its work of real reformation ; and he pressed this view on the Emperor and princes at Nuremburg. Repairing to Basle (Sept. 9), where but very few prelates were as yet assembled, he exerted himself by letters to secure a fuller attendance, and obtained its authority to write a very conciliatory letter to the Bohemians (Oct. 15), which was forwarded by the Emperor. Indignant at such a concession, the Pope issued a Bull denouncing and annulling any treaty with heretics, and calling the faithful to a new Crusade, and sent the Legate a decree dissolving the Council, aud announcing the calling of another a year and a half later at Bologna (Nov. 12th). The reasons alleged for this prorogation Avere the small attendance, the insecurity of the roads owing to the war between Burgundy and Austria, and the convenience of the envoys 1 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 400. 2 From July 23rd, 1431, to April 25th, 1449. A.D. 1431. THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. 173 expected from Constantinople : all which really meant the post- ponement of reform to the honour and substantial gain of bringing back the Eastern Church to the obedience of Rome. Cesarini replied by an earnest and bold remonstrance, insisting on the demoralized state of the clergy, the necessity of reform, and the danger of losing, not only Bohemia, but Germany, a risk not to be run for the doubtful reconciliation of the East. § 6. On the very day after the dispatch of this letter, the Council began its work (Dec. 14th), which it defined under the three heads of the extinction of heresy, the restoration of peace and unity among Christians, and the reformation of the Church " in head and members." The system adopted at Constance, of voting by nations, was found impracticable ; l and the Council was divided into four deputations, each composed of the clergy of all ranks, which met thrice a-week and discussed all questions before they were pro- posed in a general sitting. They were charged severally with the subjects of ( I ) General Business ; (2) Reformation ; (3) The Peace ; (4) Faith. The extension of the right of voting to all ecclesiastics of good repute deprived the bishops of their usual predominance, and tended to give to the proceedings a democratic, and even a turbulent character ; while the proximity of Basle to Germany and France gave those nations a great preponderance in the Council. Like that of Constance, it was greatly guided by the spirit of the University of Paris.2 The great leaders who had passed away, Gerson, D'Ailly, and the rest, had for a time a worthy successor in the Cardinal Nicolas Cusanus,3 a man of the highest reputation for learning in ancient letters and a wide range of practical experience, who attended the Council as Dean of St. Florins at Coblenz. Early in its sitting, he 1 For the reasons of this, see Robertson, iv. p. 408. Among these were the fierce jealousies between the Spaniards and English, and the practical abstinence of the latter from any part in the Council. 2 See, for example, the Letter of the University sustaining the Council (Feb. 9, 1432) against all attempts to remove, prorogue, and dissolve it, and denying any such right in the Pope. (Bulaeus, Hist. Univ. Paris, vol. v. p. 412; Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 319.) 3. Nicolas Chryfftz, in High German Krebs (i.e. Crab), was named Cusanus from the village of Cues on the Moselle, in the diocese of Treves, where he was born in an humble station in 1401. iEneas Sylvius speaks of him as "homo et priscarum litterarum eruditissimus, et multarum revum usu perdoctus." Like his predecessor Cardinal d'Ailly at Constance, and his successor in the leadership at Basle, ./Eneas Sylvius, Nicolas Cusanus went over to the papal side (in 1437), and did all he could to bring the Council into discredit. His M)ri III. de Catholica Concordantia are printed in his Works, Paris, 1 514. See the extracts given bv Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 319. II— K 174 THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. Chap. XI. published a work on " Catholic Agreement," which assailed the very foundations of the Papal supremacy. He maintained that a General Council had supreme power in all things, above, the Roman Pontiff. Recognizing the division of opinion among the Fathers of the Church, whether the power of the Pope was of God or of man, he decides that it is from God through the human medium of Councils. The Roman Pontiffs primacy above other bishops in the seat of St. Peter depends, therefore, on the consent of those who have the rule in all other things ; and hence if, for example, it should happen that the Archbishop of Treves were elected by the assembled Church as their president and head, he, rather than the Pope of Rome, would be the true successor of St. Peter in the primacy. A Council might depose a Pope for other causes besides heresy. Infallibility was a grace promised to the whole Church, not to any one of its members. Besides these opinions on matters of principle, he ventured, as the result of careful study, to declare the famous donation of Constantine apocryphal, " as also perhaps (he adds) some other long and great writings, ascribed to St. Clement (the Pseudo-Clementines) and Pope Anacletus, on which those rely, wholly or in part, who wish to exalt the Roman see above what is expedient and becoming for the Holy Church." § 7. Under such leadership, the Council, at its second session (Feb. 15th, 1432),1 renewed the decrees of Constance, pronouncing a General Council to be above the Pope, and the Pope bound to obey it. They declared that the Council neither could nor should be removed, prorogued, or dissolved, without its own consent, and that no one, even though invested with the papal authority, could or ought to hinder any person from attending. At this juncture, too, the cause of the Council was decidedly taken by an assembly of the French clergy at Bourges, who petitioned Charles VII. to support it by an embassy to the Pope (Feb. 26). The renewed prohibition of Eugenius, in the same month, was again answered by Cesarini, who not only repeated his exposure of the futility of the reasons given, but maintained that the authority of the Council was derived from the same source as that of Martin V. and Eugenius himself, the decrees of Constance, against which the Pope had no right to dis- solve the Council (June, 1432). The Legate, however, deferred to the Pope's authority by resigning the presidency, to which the Council elected Philibert, bishop of Coutances ; at the same time announc- ing, in a synodal letter to the princes and churches of Christendom, their resolve to remain at Basle till their work should be accom- plished. While humbly beseeching the Pope not to dissolve the 1 For the negotiations which the Council, of its own authority, carried on with the Bohemians, see Chap. XL. A.D. 1431. SIGISMUND IN ITALY. 175 Council, they summoned him and the Cardinals to attend it within three months (April 29) ; affirmed their right, in ease of the death of Eugenius, to elect his successor (July 3 2) ; and at length, after fruitless negociations with the papal Legates, they proceeded to declare the Pope and seventeen cardinals contumacious for non-attend- ance (Sept. 6). This bold attitude attracted larger numbers to the assembly, which Eugenius denounced as a Synagogue of Satan.1 " It is marvellous but true," writes the most famous actor in a later stage of the proceedings,2 " that the prohibition of the Pope drew more than the invitation of the Council." Even the Cardinals slunk away from Borne to Basle, till only four remained with Eugenius. § 8. The Emperor-elect, though strongly in favour of the Council as the only means of pacifying Bohemia, had not yet appeared at Basle. Shortly before it met he had acted on a sudden resolution, without the wish or consent of the Electors, to go to Rome for his coronation. Like his father Charles IV., he was tempted with the hope of reviving the imperial influence in Italy by the aid of the Duke of Milan ; and, after his disappointment at Constance and his reverses in Bohemia, he probably thought that the dignity of a crowned Emperor would enhance his influence both in and on behalf of the Council. But the want of money, which was a constant check on Sigismund's magnificence and still more on his real power,3 reduced him to appear in Italy with a train of only 2000 German and Hungarian horse, instead of a force adequate to join Philip Maria in his contest with Florence, Venice, and the Pope. The Duke kept away from the ceremony of crowning Sigismund with 1 The numbers at the Council varied greatly, the largest attendance being about 100, in June 1435. 2 iEneas Silvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., of whom more presently. His Commentariorum de Gestis Concilii Basiliensis Libri IL, written in 1444, while he still sided with the Council, contains its history for the years 1438-1440. (Published in the Fasciculi Rerum Expetend. ac Fugiend. Colon. 1535 f.). The Epistola ad Jvannem de Segovia de Coro- natione Felicis, appended to the work, is often reckoned as a 3rd Book. Another leading authority is Augustinus Patricius (a Canon of Siena) Sumrna C ' nciliorum Basiliensis, Florentini, Lateranensis, Lausanensis, sed potius servitiuni." 176 THE COUNCIL AND THE POPE. Chap. XI. the iron diadem1 of Lombardy at Milan (Nov. 25, 1431). Though treated with outward respect, the King was in danger from the Guelfic republics and the Free Companies ; and his first cordial wel- come was at the Grhibelline city of Siena.2 Here, however, he was detained many months by the evasions of Eugenius, who endeavoured to make the forcible suppression of the Bohemians a condition of the coronation. At length the Pope had to be content with Sigismund's promise never to desert his cause ; and the Emperor was crowned at Home on Whitsunday (May 31, 1433). The diminished splendour of the ceremony suited its loss of any real significance.3 § 9. During his long stay in Italy, the Emperor had kept on urging the Pope to allow the Council to continue, and had sent letters to enlist the princes of Christendom in its support ; while, as its acknow- ledged protector,4 he had written to moderate its proceedings against Eugenius. While the Pope was preparing fresh Bulls of dissolution, the Council extended the term of the summons to him again and again; till the Emperor arrived at Basle (Oct. 11th), bringing a document from Eugenius, which was deemed insufficient. At length the increasing troubles of Italy, and the factions which made Rome unsafe for the Pope, induced him to issue a Bull, revoking all his sentences against the Council (Dec. 15th, 1433). On April 26th, 1434, in presence of the Emperor, the Pope's legates were admitted to the Council as its presidents, " on swearing, in their own names,5 that a General Council has its authority immediately from Christ, and that all men, including even the Pope, are bound to obey it in 1 The " iron crown " of Lombardy, of which an engraving is given on p. 60, is really a diadem of gold and jewels, but wrought within it is a thin circle of iron, said to have been forged from one of the nails of the cross. It was the reputed gift of Queen Theodelinda (ob. A.D. (528) to the cathedral of Monza, where it is still preserved. For its history, see the article Crown in the Diet, of Christian Antiqq. vol. i. p. 507. 2 This city had been visited by Charles IV. soon after his marriage, and so the people claimed a sort of hereditary interest in Sigismund. 3 Mr. Bryce observes that Sigismund was virtually an Hungarian king. Eugenius, also, had to contend with narrowed observance from his dis- obedient son; for, "as Sigismund was suffering from gout, the Pope was obliged to consent that his mule should be led only three steps by the Emperor — a symbol rather than a performance of the traditional homage of Constantine. It is said that from this time is to be dated the use of the double eagle as denoting the union of imperial and royal dignity." Robertson, vol. iv. p. 411. 4 By a decree of the 9th Session, Jan. 12th, 1433, which also declared any papal sentence of deprivation against Sigismund null and void. 5 I'rivatis nommibus, but the Council maintained that this act implied the Pope's sanction to all their proceedings from the beginning. His advocates, however, declared that his approval was given only to the progress of the Council, not to its decrees! A.D. 1434-40. STATE OF HOME. VTTELLESCHI. 177 matters relating to faith, to the extinction of schism, and to the reform of the Church in head and members." 1 It was but a hollow reconciliation ; but the Emperor declared he would die rather than allow another papal schism. He felt the scanty numbers of the Council to be a poor support for their high pretensions, which trenched on his own prerogative, not only by negociating with other powers, but interfering with the politics of Germany. He left "Basle on the 19th of May, 1434. Before his departure, he had introduced the question of the marriage of the clergy, which was debated seriously, but without result. Through its mediation with the more moderate party of the Bohemians, he was at length acknowledged as their King in 1436. He was again labouring to avert the papal schism, when he died at Znaim, in Hungary (Dec. 9th, 1437). § 10. Wi;hin a month of Sigismund's departure from Basle, Eugenius was driven from Rome by a popular rising against the in- solence of his nephew, Cardinal Condolmieri (June 1434). The Pope escaped in the disguise of a monk to Ostia, and thence to Florence ; while the Eomans once more set up a short-lived republic, and made overtures to the Council. But they soon found their new govern- ment intolerable, and their city a desert without the papal court. At their request Eugenius resumed his authority, but remained at Florence,2 while he entrusted the government of Rome to John of Vitelleschi, who united the characters of a bishop and captain of Condottieri, and whose services were rewarded with the dignities of Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, and titular Patriarch of Alexandria. John's ruthless devastation of the Campagna in his war to crush the Colonna, and his vices and despotism, were atoned for, in the eyes of the Romans, by the peace and prosperity secured by his five years' rule (1435-1440) ; and, after he fell a victim to the suspicion of playing the part of another Rienzi (April 1440), they erected a statue to Vitelleschi as a new founder of their city.3 His chief enemy, Scarampo, held the government, or tyranny, of Rome till the Pope's return, after an absence of nine years (Sept. 1443). How Eugenius had been occupied during that long interval will appear immediately. 1 Robertson, iv. p. 421. "The power of the Legates was limited by- strict conditions, which showed tiiat a fresh breach with the Pope was apprehended." 2 He afterwards (1436) removed to Bologna, as a stronghold against the Duke of Milan. 3 For the details of Vitelleschi's fall, and the question of Eugenius's complicity in his treacherous arrest and death in prison, see Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 429-430. 178 BREACH BETWEEN POPE AND COUNCIL. Chap. XI. § 11. The Council had lost no time in using the Pope's sanction to proceed earnestly with the work of reformation (1435). " Decrees were passed for entire freedom of election in churches ; against expectancies, usurpations of patronage, reservations, annates, and many of the exactions by which the Roman court drained the wealth of the Church ; against frivolous appeals ; against the abuse of interdicts, the concubinage of the clergy, the burlesque festivals and other indecencies connected with the service of the Church. Rules were laid down as to the election and behaviour of Popes. . . . The number of Cardinals was limited to twenty-four ; they were to be taken from all Christian countries, and to be chosen with the consent of the existing Cardinals. A very few of royal or princely families might be admitted, but the nephews of the Popes were to be excluded from the College." 1 The contraction of the sources of papal revenues touched Eugenius at his most sensitive part. His plea for the continuance of annates, till some other means of maintaining his dignity should be provided, was answered by the demand to submit himself unreservedly to the Council.2 While he appealed by letters to the princes of Christendom, new charges were brought against him in the Council, and he was again summoned to appear within sixty days (July 31st). Mean- while the Greeks had continued their appeals both to the Pope and the Council ; and it was vehemently disputed whether the conference with the Greeks should be held within or beyond the Alps. When at length Eugenius issued a Bull for transferring the Council to Ferrara (Sept. 18), they continued their sessions at Basle, and pro- nounced him obstinately contumacious for disregarding their summons (Oct. 1). The Pope opened his Council at Ferrara (Jan. 8, 1438), which excommunicated the men at Basle, and annulled their acts ; they declared the assembly at Ferrara schismatical, and cited its members to appear at Basle within 30 days (Jan. 24th). This 31st Session was, in fact, the last at which reformatory decrees were passed ; 3 henceforth the Council existed only to carry on a war with Eugenius, which soon became an open schism. § 12. In this conflict the leaders were somewhat changed. Nicolas of Cusa had already left Basle, seduced, it is said, by the flattery of the Pope, that " his peerless learning was absolutely necessary to conduct negociations with the Greek Church, now returning into the bosom 1 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 423. See the extracts from the decrees of the Council in Gieseler, vol. iv. pp. 322 f. 2 It is a striking sign of the ingrained abuses now prevalent, to find the Pope retorting on the Council itself the charge of issuing indulgences, to provide for the cost of an embassy to the Greeks. 3 For the details, see Gieseler, vol. iv. pp. 331-2. The negociations with the Greeks, and the Council held by Eugenius at Ferrara and Florence, are related in the ensuing Chapter XII. A.D. 1438. jENEAS SYLVIUS PICCOLOMINI. 179 of Rome."1 The legate Julian Cesarini had striven to remain loyal both to the Council and the Pope, till he seemed in danger of being elected as the head of a schism. He and Nicolas of Cusa left Basle at the beginning of 1438 ; but they, with two other Cardinals, were the only seceders to Ferrara. The lead was now taken by the Burgundian Louis Allemand, bishop of Aries (the only Cardinal left at Basle),2 who combined the most signal eloquence and fairness, temper and tact, with inveterate animosity to Eugenius.3 The new president was supported by Nicolas de Tudesco, archbishop of Palermo (Nicolas Panormitanus), the most famous canonist of the age. Less conspicuous as yet, but destined to a fame much more lasting, was the versatile Italian, JEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, " the most elegant writer of Latin, the historian of the Council — at one time its ruling authority, at another its most dangerous, because secret foe." 4 A very microcosm of Rome in all the stages of its history is suggested by the scion of a noble but reduced Italian house, named after the refugee from Troy and his great-grandson, the third King of Alba,5 beginning life as an adventurer and votary of pleasure, and, after taking part in a bitter conflict with the papal see, labouring to revive its loftiest traditions in his own person, and dying in the odour of sanctity. The Piccolomini, of whom Pius II. does not stand alone in history,6 one of the noblest and most 1 Milman, vol. viii. p. 361. 2 Several Cardinals had left Basle before. Eugenius had created new Cardinals, to supply the place of those who had gone to Basle, and the Council had declared these appointments null and void. 3 iEneas Sylvius describes Louis as " homo multarum parabolarum, liberalitate insignis, sed odio erga Eugenium veteri et novo accendissimus." " His lofty independence and resistance to the Papal See did not prevent his subsequent canonisation." Milman, viii. p. 361. 4 Milman, /. c. We must be content to refer to the Dean's graphic pages for a fuller account of the remarkable career of ^Eneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius 11. (Chap. xvi. vol. viii. p. 415 f.) 5 He had a third and more Christian name, Bartholomew. 6 Besides his nephew, who was Pope for a month (in 1503) as Pius III,, Ottavio Piccolomini (b. 1599, d. 1656), the Austrian general in the Thirty Years' War, has been made famous by Schiller's tragedy, translated by Coleridge. The chief modern authority for the Life of JEneas Sylvius is Voigt, JEneas Sylvius de' Piccolomini als Papst Pius II., und seiti Zeitalter 3 vols. Berlin, 1856-63. The original sources are his own works, espe- cially his Letters, and the Commentaries of Pius II. The latter book, though not published till 1504, 120 years after his death, and then under the name of the copyist, Joannes Gobellinus, is known by the testimony of two friends of the Pope to have been his own work. The editor, Francesco Bandini de' Piccolomini, not only kept back the true authorship, but suppressed some passages, which were however collected by some one who saw the sheets while passing through the press. The collection was preserved among the MSS. of the Chigi Library, the librarian of which 180 COUNCIL OF BASLE. Chap. XI. powerful families of Siena, had fallen with the establishment of the republic. The father of iEneas added to the poor remnant of a dissi- pated estate a family of 22 children, of whom 10 grew up, only to perish by the plague, except two daughters and iEneas himself, who was born at the village of Corsignago on the 18th of October, 1405. Though the poverty of the family obliged him to take part in the labours of the field, his education was not neglected ; and at the age of 22 he went to Siena, where the aid of his wealthier relations enabled him to pursue the study of law, but he turned with ardour to Greek and Roman letters under the famous scholar Filelfo. Driven from Siena by the war with Florence, he became secretary to Cardinal Dominico Capranica, whom he attended to the Council of Basle. But the Cardinal's poverty compelled iEneas to seek other patrons, whom he followed in varied missions through Germany, Italy, and France, and was himself sent on to England and Scotland, of which countries he has left a most interesting description.1 Returning to Italy, he joined his master, the Bishop of Novara, at Basle, shortly before the final rupture of the Council with Eugenius (1437). " No sooner was iEneas fixed at Basle, than his singular aptitude for business, no doubt his fluent and perspicuous Latin, his flexibility of opinion, his rapidly growing knowledge of mankind, his determination to push his fortunes, his fidelity to the master in whose service he happened to be, opened the way to advancement ; offices, honours, rewards, crowded upon him. He was secretary, first reporter of the proceedings, then held the office as writer of the epistles of the Council. The office of these duo- decimvirs was to prepare all business for the deliberations of the Council ; nothing could be brought forward without their previous sanction, nor any one admitted to the Council till they had examined and approved his title. He often presided over his department, which was that of faith. The leaden seal of the Council was often in his custody. During his career he was ambassador from the Council, three times to Strassburg, twice to Constance, twice to Frankfort, once to Trent, later to the Emperor Albert, and to persuade Frederick III. to espouse the cause of the Council." 2 has published them under the title " JEnese, Sylvii Piccolomini Se?iensis, qui postea fuit Pius II. Pont. Max. Opera Inedita ; descripsit Joseph us Cugnoni, Roma, 1883." The work is invaluable for the characteristically frank expression of opinion ou contemporary persons and affairs. Another recent work is " The Life of Pope Pius II., as illustrated by Pinturicchio's Frescoes in the Piccolomini Library at Siena. By the Rev. G. W. Kitchen, M.A. With the engravings from the Frescoes by Professor Gruner. Printed for the Arundel Society, 1881." 1 See Milman, vol. viii. pp. 417 f. For .Eneas's frank confession of his loose morals, as natural in a layman, in his Letters, see ibid. p. 421 f. 8 Milman, vol. viii. pp. 423-4. A.D. 1438. PRAGMATIC SANCTION OF BOURGES. 181 § 13. His first appearance as a full member of the Council (when in the debate on the place for conference with the Greeks, taking a middle course between the Papal and Transalpine parties, he supported the Milanese proposal for Pavia) was rewarded with the office of provost of St. Lawrence at Milan. On his return thence to Basle, still a layman, he preached with great success before the Council on the feast of St. Ambrose (Dec. 7th, 1437). As we have seen, this was the moment when the Council took a decisive step against the Pope, and when Sigismund died, leaving his hereditary crowns of Hungary and Bohemia to his son-in-law, Albert of Austria, who was elected in the following March as Albert II., King of the Komans.1 He was reluctant to accept the dignity, the prospect of which he was said by the Hungarians to have expressly renounced on his election as their king. iEneas, virtually if not formally accredited by the Council, accompanied the Duke of Milan's ambassador to Vienna, and overcame the objections of the Hungarians as well as of Albert himself. The Electors had seized the opportunity to declare Germany neutral between the Council and the Pope ; 2 and a more important decision was taken by France about the same time. Charles VII. himself had not been favourable to the Council ; but in a national assembly at Bourges he adopted their reforms, with some modifi- cations, by a Pragmatic Sanction, which was one of the foundations of Gallican liberty (July 7th, 1438).3 The assembly also disowned the Council of Ferrara. § 14. These measures were taken in the hope of averting a schism ; but the Council of Basle, now growing more and more irreconcil- able, trusted to the support of France and Germany. The final step divided the Council itself ; and most of the bishops retired, leaving 1 By this election the imperial dignity, which had been held bv Rudolf of Hapsburg (1273-1292) and his son Albert I. (1298-1308), returned to the House of Hapsburg, in which it remained till the abdication of Francis II. in August 1806, — with the sole exceptions of the Bavarian Charles VII. (1742-45) and Francis I. of Lorraine (1745-65), though the latter may be called a Hapsburg by his marriage with Maria Theresa. Mr. Bryce, however, has pointed out that Maximilian I. was the true founder of the greatness of the Hapsburgs, and he has traced the causes which made the elective imperial dignity practically hereditary in that family. (Holy Roman Empire, p. 352 f.) Of all the Emperors-elect during the 368 years from Albert II. to Francis II., Frederick III. was the only one crowned at Rome. 2 A year later, however, the reforms of the Council were adopted by the Emperor and Diet at Mainz in a formal Instrumenium Acceptationis (March 26, 1439). See Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 353. 3 See the Pragmatique Sanction, or La Pragmatique de Bourges, editel by Pinson (1666), in the Ordinances des Kois de France de la T, oisieme Pace, vol. xiii. p. 267. II— K 2 182 THE ANTIPOPE FELIX V. Chap. XI. affairs in the hands of the lower clergy, after a violent discussion whether preshyters had a vote or only a consultative voice. The Cardinal president, Archbishop of Aries, who sided with the extreme party, caused all the holiest relics of saints that could be found in Basle to be placed in the vacant seats of the bishops; a device which moved the Council to tears ! With such overwrought feelings, but with marked dignity and decorum, the assembly of about 400 clergy (but few of whom were bishops) pronounced the deposition of Eugenius as " notoriously and obstinately contumacious, a violator of canons, guilty of scandal to the whole Church ; as simoniacal, perjured, incorrigibly schismatic and obstinately heretical, a dilapidator of the Church's rights and property, and unfit to administer his office" (June 25th, 1439). A few days later, to the surprise of the Council itself, the ambassadors of the Emperor-elect and the French King expressed their concurrence in the act, and added an apology for their absence. During the interval of sixty days allowed before the new election, a terrible outbreak of plague tried the stedfastness both of the dying * and the survivors ; but the few who left Basle returned as it abated, and the session of September 17th is remarkable for its decree affirming the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.2 The 37th session (October 24th) resolved to associate with their only Cardinal (the Archbishop of Aries) 32 other electors, chosen from all nations and all ranks of the clergy ; three being named by the Council to choose the rest.3 Out of seventeen candidates named at first, the conclave announced, on the sixth day,4 its choice of Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, who, after governing his duchy for thirty-eight years with high reputation, had resigned it to his son (1434), and was living at Eipaille, on the south shore of Lake Leman, as the head of a society of twelve noble hermits.5 Their life seems to have been easy, if not luxurious ; but the character of Amadeus was above reproach, and the objections that he was a layman and had been married were easily overruled. Yet it seemed to Christendom a strange choice, of an aged retired prince instead of 1 It is said that many, with the last sacrament in their hands, professed that their salvation depended on their renunciation of Eugenius. ./Eneas Sylvius was one of the few stricken who recovered. One writer (Rinaldi) regards the plague as a judgment, without explaining whether those who died from it at Ferrara were equal sinners with those at Basle. 2 The schismatic character ascribed to the Council (a-t all events after its deposition of Eugenius) deprived this decree of any authority. 3 One of these was a Scotch monk, Thomas, abbot of Dundrennan, a Cistercian house in the diocese of Candida Casa ( Whitherne in Galloway). 4 Nov. 5th, confirmed by the Council, Nov. 17th, 1439. 5 He was styled Dean of St. Maurice, the patron saint of that region. jEneas suggests that his retirement was a scheme to prepare for his eleva- tion to the Papacy, but this is improbable. A.D. 1440. THE EMPEROR FREDERICK III. 183 a bold and vigorous prelate, or a learned canonist, likely to fulfil the hopes of a complete reformation by the Council. Perhaps respectably neutral qualities were thought safest ; and it seems to have been supposed that Amadeus could for a time supply the want of papal revenues by his own wealth, and ultimately induce his powerful connections to establish him at Home. He was crowned at Basle with great splendour as Felix V. (July 23rd, 1440) ; but he is only reckoned as an Antipope. It was soon seen that his cause was hopeless ; and his elevation marks the epoch of the Council's rapid decline in power and repute. Its imposition of a tax on vacant ecclesiastical benefices at once made it unpopular. The King of France expressed his disapproval of the schism, and wrote from Bourges, exhorting " Monsieur de Savoye " and the Council to study the peace of the Church. Alfonso, King of Arragon, was after some time induced to separate himself from the Council by Eugenius's recognition of his claim to Naples, against Rene of Anjou (1443).1 § 15. Germany resented the schism as a breach of her neutrality ; but the Emperor Albert died at the very moment of the election which he had written to deprecate (Nov. 5, 1439). His cousin, the Duke of Styria (b. 1415), son of Ernest the Iron, Duke of Austria, was elected as Frederick III.,2 King of the Romans (Feb. 4, 1440). His inglorious reign of 53 years marks the lowest degradation of the Empire. He was far from being destitute of ability and good sense ; but his tenacity of purpose was marred, as that quality often is, with constitutional indolence. He was signally unfortunate ; and his want of decision and alleged meanness were often the result of the want of wealth, which now paralysed the Empire. His super- stitious weakness gave the example of that subservience to the Papacy, which became the hereditary policy of his line. Though hitherto favourable to the Council, he shrank from the schism, and three Diets held by him affirmed the neutrality of Germany. iEneas Sylvius, who was a warm partisan of Felix, and had accepted the post of his secretary, was sent on an embassy to Frederick, which 1 Joanna II. had died in 1435, bequeathing her kingdom to Rene, the brother of Louis of Anjou, whom the Pope was disposed to favour, while claiming to treat Naples as a lapsed fief of the Holy See. Alfonso now added to his former claim his heirship of Manfred and the Hohenstaufen. The consequence of his abandoning the Council was the withdrawal of Nicolas of Palermo, who gave up the cardinalate he had received from Felix. 2 As Emperor, Frederick is variously reckoned as the Illrd, IVth ^r Vth (according as former claimants, of the name, are recognized or not). Albert Kranz (Saxonia, 304) likens him to Fabius Maxim us for his slowness in action. Rauke gives a careful estimate of his character, doing justice to his better qualities {Hint, of the Popes, translated by Mrs. Austin, vol. i. pp. 101-5). 184 LAST SESSION OF THE COUNCIL. Chap. XI. proved a turning-point in his own fortunes. The Emperor nattered his literary vanity, and made him his poet laureate (July 1442). In November, Frederick appeared at Basle, but in the avowed character of mediator, treating Felix with profound respect, but avoiding any recognition of his title. The chief result of his visit was the transference of iEneas to his own service as secretary, with the reluctant consent of Felix. The astute Italian, while as yet unchanged in his convictions of the Council's right, began to doubt both the motives and the issue of the conflict. In words of very wide application, he says, " In truth the quarrel is not for the sheep but for the wool ; there would be less strife were the Church poor." In accepting the Emperor's service, he took up his new position of neutrality, and resolved to secure his own advancement and power by a steady course of seeming obedience to his master's weaker will.1 Meanwhile Felix withdrew to Lausanne, on the plea of illness ; and the Council of Basle held its 45th and last session on the 16th of June, 1443, when Lyon was appointed as the place for the next General Council, to be held according to the decrees of Constance. As a protest, however, against the rival assembly, which was still sitting at Florence,2 the Council declared its continued existence,- which was prolonged in form, with that of its nominal Pope, for six years longer, till 1449. " The authority of this assembly has been variously estimated within the Eoman communion. The more moderate divines in general acknowledge its oecumenical character as far as the 26th session, i.e. until the time when Eugenius proposed to transfer it to Ferrara. But the advanced Gallicans maintained its authority throughout ; and by the more extreme Romanists it is altogether disavowed." 3 1 See his own frank and acute avowals cited by Milman, vol. viii. p. 431. Here is a hint for those who try to manage affairs by reports and memorials, as the Archbishop of Palermo was labouring to do at Frankfort : — " Stultus est qui putat libellis et codicibus movere reges." Soon after his removal to Vienna, iEneas took holy orders, and lived for a time on the small benefice given him by the Emperor, in a retired valley of the Tyrol, whence he removed to the better living of Auspac in Bavaria, given him by the Bishop of Passau. He attended the Diet of Nuremberg (144-1), and maintained the strict neutrality for which it again declared. 2 See the next Chapter. 3 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 437. According to the best Roman Catholic authorities, this Council, so far as it is accepted at all, is merged in that of Ferrara and Florence, as the consequence of its removal by Eugenius IV. Hence the XVIFth CEcum< nical Council is that of Basle- Ferrara- Florence, usually styled simply, of Florence. (Hefele's Conciliengeschichte ; Her- genroether's Kirchenaeschichte. 1879-80; Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, translated by Tabish and Byrne, ] 874-78.) Florence. CHAPTER XII. THE COUNCIL OF FERRARA AND FLORENCE. THE XVIITH (ECUMENICAL OF THE ROMANS. END OF THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. A.D. 1438 TO 1447. 1. The Greek Empire and Church — Progress of the Turks: help sought from the West — Former overtures for Union — Embassies from Pope and Council — John Pal^eolocjus II. and his suite at Ferrara — Mark, Bessarion, a ,d Syropulus — The Council removed to Florence. § 2. The four chief points in dispute — The " procession " and Filioque — The Agreement (Definite-). § 3. Death of the Patriarch Joasaph — Dissent of Demetrius and Mark — Ceremony of Reconciliation. § 4. The Agree- ment rejected at Constantinople — The Council ti-ansferred to Rome — Submission of other Orientals. § 5. Crusade against the Turks — Ladislaus, Ces:irini, and Huniades — First Successes — Disastrous battle of Varna — Sequel of the Agreement — Constantink XIII. and Maho- met II. — Mission of Cardinal Isidore — Popular feeling agaii.st the Latins. § 6. Quarrel of Eugenius with the Germans — Mission of iEneas Sylvius to Rome — His favour with the Pope — Thomas of Sarzana. §7. The Diet of Frankfort — Diplomacy of ./Eneas — How "Mainz was captured" — New German compact. § .8. /Eneas again at Rome — The dying Pope concludes the agreement — His four Bulls, and death — The agreement continued by Nicolas V. § 9. The Concordat of 186 THE EASTERN CHURCH. Chap. XII. Aschaffenburg — The Council of Basle dissolved — Resignation and death of Felix V. § 10. Archbishop Trench on the three Great Councils — Their wrong view of the reformation needed — Yet not total failures — The Hildebrandine idea rejected — They mark the end of the Middle Age of the Church, by their shock to the Papal dictatorship. § 1. The hollow character and fruitless result of the last effort, or pretence of an effort, to reunite the Greek and Latin Churches, demands but a brief account of the Council held by Eugenius IV., at Ferrara and Florence, in opposition to that of Basle.1 It belongs to secular history to follow the victories of the Turks in Europe, by which the Eastern Empire was now narrowed to the environs of Constantinople. " In the four last centuries of the Greek Emperors," says Gibbon, " their friendly or hostile aspect towards the Pope and the Latins may be observed as the thermometer of their prosperity or distress." We have seen how, after the capture of Adrianople by Amurath I., the Emperor John Palajologus I., the son of a Latin mother, Anne of Savoy, went in person to propitiate Urban V., who made a vain effort to kindle an Eastern Crusade (1369). Thirty years later, his son Manuel visited France and England, but gained only empty honour. The overthrow of Bajazet by Timour (1403) gave a respite, which was prolonged by the dissensions of the Turks, till Amurath II. laid siege to Constantinople in 1422. Its brave resistance and a revolt in Asia obtained the peace which allowed the new Emperor, John Palaeologus II. to reign over the city as the Sultan's tributary (L425). Before his father's death, John had gone to Italy in search of aid (1423), and he is said to have formed the idea of reuniting the Empires as the successor of Sigismund. He agreed to the proposal of Martin V., that he and other Greeks should attend a Council for accommodating the differences between the Churches. Not to dwell on the further overtures made to the Greeks by the Coimcil and the Pope,2 both of wThom sent fleets to Constantinople, which came near illustrating their desire of union by a battle with each other, — the result was that the Greek Emperor, with his brother, the " despot " Demetrius, and the Patriarch Joasaph, attended by 22 bishops and a large train of clergy and monks,3 embarked on the Venetian 1 For the details, see Milman's graphic narrative, c. xiii. vol. viii. p. 365 f., and Gibbon, c. xxxvii. 2 Among the Pope's envoys was Nicolas of Cusa, the former leader in the Council. 3 Among the attendants of the Patriarch was the Ecclesiast (Preacher) Sylvester Syropulus (otherwise called Sguropulus, ^yovpoirovXos) who (as Milman puts it) M avenged the compulsion laid upon him to follow his master to Ferrara and Florence by writing a lively and bold history of the whole proceedings." His Vera Hisloria LT?iionis non Verse, sen Concilii A.D. 1438-9. COUNCIL OF FERRARA AND FLORENCE. 187 galleys provided by the Pope (Nov. 29th, 1437), and were welcomed with great ceremony at Venice (Feb. 8th, 1438). Here they first learned the decisive breach between the Pope and the Council ; and it was chiefly by the persuasion of the Legate Cesarini that they decided to attend the Pope's Council, which had been opened in January at Ferrara.1 After various difficulties of etiquette had been adjusted — the Pope sitting as President above the Emperor, and the Patriarch on a level with the Cardinals — the preparatory discussions were opened between twelve champions on either side. Of these the most conspicuous, among the Greeks, were the rough outspoken Mark and the more conciliatory Bessarion, archbishops of Ephesus and Nicam ; among the Latins, Cardinal Julian Cesarini and the Spanish Dominican John, provincial of Lombardy.2 But the Greeks soon found themselves pressed by other forces besides argument : the Emperor's resolve to effect some sort of union as the only hope of help against the Turks ; the disgrace visited on the obstinate ; and the cost and difficulty of needful provisions, which were supplied or withheld according to their obedience. Their troubles were increased by the plague,3 which gave the Pope a pretext for transferring the Council to Florence (Jan. 1439), a move which roused the suspicions of the Greeks. § 2. Meanwhile the public conferences had begun on the four chief points, out of fifty more in which the Greeks were held to be heretical ; 4 and at the 25th session the Emperor summed up the Flonntini exactissima Narratio, was edited, with a free Latin Translation, bv Rob. Creighton, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, Hagae Comitis, 1660; and was severely criticized in the Exercitationes of Leo Allatius, Romae, 1665. 1 From its removal in the following year, it is usually called the Council of Florence. Its Acts, both in Greek and Latin, are in the Collections of Labbe and Cossart, vol. xiii , and Harduin, vol viii. See also the History of the Council of Florence from the Russian of B. Popoff, edited by J. M. Neale, Lond. 1861. 2 Contrasting Cesarini with Mark, Syropulus says that, although the Cardinal was the more eloquent, the Archbishop of Ephesus was the stronger and more solid. The principal interpreter was Nicolas Secondino, a native of Negropont ; but we are told that St. Bernard of Siena received, in answer to his prayers, the gift of conversing fluently in Greek, a tongue unknown to him. 3 See above, p. 182. As a sign of national habits, it is interesting to read that the chief sufferers were the Latins, and the Russians who came in the train of their Patriarch Isidore, himself a Greek. 4 For the course of the arguments, especially on the main question of the " Procession," see Milman, /. c. and Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 443 f. It is important to observe that the Latins acknowledged themselves unable to trace the Filioque in the Nicene Creed further back than to the Frank Church under Charles the Great. (See Vol. I. of this work, pp. 473-4.) 188 COUNCIL OF FLORENCE. Chap. XII. discussion by leaving the Pope to devise terms of union, otherwise the Greeks would return home. Ten representatives of each side at length agreed on a Definition,1 which was drawn up in Latin by Ambrose Traversari, head of the Camaldolite order, and translated into Greek by Bessarion. (1.) On the main question of the " Pro- cession of the Holy Ghost" it was decided that the difference was only in the form of expression ; inasmuch as the Latins disavowed the inference, that the Holy Spirit proceeded from two principles, which was the ground of the Greek objection to the words Filioque. (2.) As to the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist, the consecration of either was valid, and each Church was allowed to retain its own custom. (3.) The doctrine of Purgatory was affirmed, but as to its nature nothing was defined against the opinion of either Church. (4.) The Roman Pontiff was declared to have the primacy of the whole world, as the successor of St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles and true vicar of Christ; and the agreement " renewed the order " of the other patriarchal sees " handed down in the Canons," namely, Constantinople second, Alexandria third, Antioch fourth, Jerusalem fifth, " saving all their privileges and rights." Thus, leaving the Eastern Patriarchs to make what they might out of this saving clause, the Pope had gained the one sole object of his ambition, the full acknowledgment of his supremacy. All the rest was unmeaning compromise, for the sake of a formal concord 2 which soon proved to be just as hollow. § 3. The Definition was subscribed by every member of the Coun- cil,— though not without reluctance, especially on the part of some Greek ecclesiastical officers, who had had no voice in the debates, — with three remarkable exceptions. The Patriarch Joasaph, who had been earnest for the union, was spared the last surrender by his death (June 10th). The despot Demetrius refused to sign, and retired to Venice ; " he was to reap his reward in popularity, hereafter to be dangerous to his brother's throne." 3 The Archbishop Mark, whose 1 The Definitio is printed in Labbe and Cossart, xiii. p. 510 f., Harduin, vol. ix. p. 401 f. ; and Gieseler, vol. v. pp. 206-7. Each of the forms, Greek and Latin has the force of an original. 2 This was plainly expressed in the words of a deacon to the English ambassadors who met the Emperor on his return. "Neither did we go over to the doctrine (8<$|t?) of the Latins, nor the Latins to that of the Greeks ; but the doctrine's were considered severally by each party, and were found to be accordant, and so they appeared to be one and the .same doctrine. Wherefore it was ordained that each party should hold the doctrine that it had held till now, and so we should bo united. " (Svicpulus, p. 307, ap. Gieseler, vol. v. p. 207.) A remarkable case of "agreeing to differ;" but. as usual in such cases, the difference remained without any agreement worth the name. 3 Milman, vol. viii. p. 3i*8. A.D. 1439. THE HOLLOW RECONCILIATION 189 resistance had brought him into hot collision with the Romanizing Bessarion, had obtained the Emperor's promise that he should not be compelled to sign ; and the Pope's prophetic remark, " Then we have done nothing at all ! " acknowledged in Mark the true voice of the Greek Church. For the present, however, Eugenius celebrated his triumph in the magnificent Cathedral which he had lately- consecrated, after it had been 150 years in building l (July 6th, 1439). It was the practical reply of the patriarch of reunited Christendom to his deposition at Basle just a week before. " Nothing was wanting to the splendour of the ceremony, to the glory of the Pope. After Te Deum chanted in Greek, Mass celebrated in Latin, the Creed was read, with the Filioque. Syropulus would persuade himself and the world that the Greeks did not rightly catch the indistinct and inharmonious sounds. Then the Cardinal Julian Cesarini ascended the pulpit and read the Edict in Latin, the Cardinal Bessarion in Greek. They descended and embraced, as symbolizing the indissoluble unity of the Church. The Edict (it was unusual) ended with no anathema." 2 § 4. While the Greeks returned by Venice to Constantinople, to find their submission indignantly repudiated, Eugenius transferred the Council to Rome, and reopened its sessions in the Church of St. John Lateran (Oct. 1443). Here the formal reconciliation of the Eastern Church was completed by the reception of deputies, real or pretended, of the Copts, Jacobites, Maroni.tes, and Chaldasans ;3 the Armenians having already presented themselves at Florence. " This frivolous scene," as it is justly characterized by Gieseler,4 " was evidently intended to win back the public opinion of the Western world to the Pope, by the appearance of a general union of all Christendom under the papal obedience, and to overawe and bring to submission the adherents of the Council of Basle." § 5. Meanwhile the Pope had endeavoured to fulfil his part of the alliance with the Greeks by proclaiming a Crusade against the 1 The Duomo of Florence, originally the church of Santa Reparata, afterwards dedicated to Santa Maria del Fiore, was begun in 1298 from the designs of Arnolfo, continued by many architects, among whom were Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi, and Andrea Orcagna, and finished by Brunelleschi, who completed the dome in 1446. For a full description, see Murray's ' Handbook for Central Italy,' pp. 32 f. 2 Milman, vol. viii. p. 398. But it is a slight anticipation to call Bes- sarion Cardinal. Wisely distrusting the effect on the Greeks of the part ne had taken in the Council, he declined the vacant patriarchate of Con- stantinople, accepted the reward of a Cardinal's hat from Eugenius, and remained at Rome, where he exercised great influence, and was thrice near being elected Pope. 3 For these churches, see Vol. I. pp. 355, 379-383. 4 Vol. v. p. 409. 190 LAST CRUSADING EFFORT IN THE EAST. Chap. XII. Turks. Though England, France,1 and Germany, were too much occupied at home to act as nations, they furnished many adventurers, attracted by what Gibbon calls an endless treasure of indulgences ; and an enthusiatic leader was found in young Ladislaus, King of Poland and Hungary. Cardinal Julian Cesarini, who had preached the holy war in those countries, accompanied the Crusade, which was aided by the military skill of John Huniades, and the equipment of fleets from Flanders, Genoa, and Venice. An advance to Sophia, the capital of Bulgaria, with two considerable victories, brought the Turks to sue for terms ; and both parties swore to a ten years' truce (Aug. 1, 1444). But the Cardinal Julian, who had held sullenly aloof from the negociations, now received news that the fleets of Burgundy, Genoa, and Venice, were in the Hellespont, while the Greeks were gaining victories in Asia Minor. His power of absolution persuaded Ladislaus to break the truce and advance to Varna, where the fleets were expected. But, instead of their aid, the powerful army of Amurath had been transported from Asia by the perfidious Genoese, and the last hope of Latin help for the Greeks perished with Ladislaus and 10,000 Christians in the fatal battle of Varna (Nov. 10th, 1444).2 It is convenient here to follow the vain attempt at reconciliation to its sequel. John Palaeologus, having been compelled by popular feeling to repudiate the agreement of Florence, was succeeded in 1448 by his son Constantine XIII., the last Emperor of New Rome ; and three years later the moderation of Amurath II. was replaced by the youthful vigour of his son Mahomet II., the destined conqueror of Constantinople.3 On his renewal of war (1452), Constantine turned again to Rome with professions of penitence, and the Cardinal Isidore, a Greek and former metro- politan of Russia, was sent to renew the reconciliation. But the Latin forms used in a solemn thanksgiving at St. Sophia provoked the popular indignation. The church was avoided as if it were " a Jewish synagogue;"4 the ministrations of the Romanizing clergy were refused. So violent was the feeling against the Latins, that a great officer declared " that he would rather see a Turkish turban than a cardinal's hat in Constantinople." 5 As in the last days of Jerusalem, the religious factions aggravated the terrors of the siege and helped to paralyze the defence ; the Greeks were disputing 1 It was now the very crisis of the expulsion of the English from France and the eve of the Wars of the Roses. 2 The legate Cesarini perished in the flight ; but the manner of his death is variously related. 3 See his character drawn by Gibbon (Stu<1e7it's Gibbon, p. 622). 4 Ducas, pp. 143, 148. 5 Ibid. p. 146. A.D. 1445. EUGENIUS AND THE GERMANS. 191 over a text, while the Turk, the derider of all their texts, was thundering at their gates.1 § 6. Though, as we have seen, the imperial diet maintained its neutrality in the papal schism, the policy of Frederick III. was guided by iEneas Silvius towards a reconciliation with Eugenius. Disregarding all warnings of personal danger, the former anti-papal leader and secretary of Felix went on a mission to Eome, and con- vinced the Pope of his true penitence and the wisdom of making a friend of such a man as himself (1445).2 But Eugenius evaded the Emperor's chief demand, for a new Council to be held in Germany ; and, overrating his own strength and the submissiveness of Frederick, he deposed the Archbishops of Treves and Cologne for the part they had taken, both in the Council of Basle and as Electors, in favour of neutrality. This sentence kindled a flame in Germany : six of the seven Electors, including the two Archbishops, met at Frankfort, and bound themselves by a secret agreement to join the Antipope, unless Eugenius would agree to certain practical reforms and to the regular holding of General Councils, with an admission of their authority according to the decrees of Constance and Basle. The Emperor, who was informed of the agreement without a pledge of secresy, sent iEneas Sylvius to Home (1445) ; and, though joined with a rougher colleague, Gregory of Heimburg,3 he paved the way to reconciliation with such address, that the Pope invited him to become his secretary.4 1 For the final catastrophe, see Chap. XIII. § 6. 2 On this and his subsequent mission ./Eneas was aided by the mediation of Thomas of Sarzana, bishop of Bologna (the future Pope Nicolas V.), the only one of the curia who at tirst looked coldly on his professions of penitence, but who showed him great kindness when he fell ill. ^Eneas, who had at first refused to humble himself before the Cardinal's severe virtue, adds this reflection on his own conduct — " Si scisset ./Eneas futurum Papam, omnia tolerasset !" Thomas was not made a Cardinal till Dec. 1446, at the same time with John of Carvajal. 3 ./Eneas describes Gregory as " the most eminent among the Germans for eloquence and learning; a man of fine person, but rough in manner, and careless of his appearance, whose sturdy German patriotism regarded the Italians with dislike and contempt." (Hist. Frid. 123. Robertson, vol. iv. p. 463.) 4 ./Eneas accepted this offer somewhat later, and was continued in the office by Nicolas V. He meditates with his usual frankness on his wonderful fortune in having been secretary to three cardinals and as many Popes (though one of them, Felix, was not genuine — adulterum), while to the Emperor he was not only secretary, but a councillor, and crowned with the honour of a princedom : — all of which he imputes, not to luck but to God, the ruler and governor of all things. Epist. clzzzviii. p. 760; comp. the passage from his autobiographical Commentaries in Milman, vol. viii. p. 439. 192 DIPLOMACY OF .ENEAS SYLVIUS. Chap. X1L § 7. iEneas left Rome in company with Thomas of Sarzana, who had a mission to the Duke of Burgundy on the way. At Frankfort the Diet was assembled in full state, though Frederick was not there in person (Sept. 1, 1446). The Pope was represented by his legates, the Spaniard John of Carvajal and Nicolas of Cusa (besides Thomas of Sarzana, when he arrived) ; the Antipope Felix and the Council of Basle by the Cardinal of Aries, John of Lysura, and others, from whom iEneas had to bear some sharp taunts for his desertion. But his temper and tact prevailed, aided by the free use of money and a diplomatic artifice, as bold as it was astute. The great object of the Emperor and Pope was to break up the compact of the Electors by any means. " Mainz was taken " — that is,1 the Archbishop was bribed, though he refused all offers for himself, with 2000 florins divided among his four chief councillors. But the spiritual prince required a plausible excuse for breaking his sworn faith ; so iEneas took in hand the notes of the compact made by the Electors, " taking out of them all the venom, and composed new notes," to which he pledged his opinion that Eugenius would consent.2 The Electors of Mainz and Brandenburg, with other princes and bishops, signed the new agreement in private ; and its support by a majority of the Diet overawed the three dissentient Electors of Treves, Cologne, and Saxony. As a further security, the Emperor's envoys made a new treaty with the princes who supported them, to send a mission to Eugenius, at Christmas, to offer the submission of the German nation if he would approve the new agreement. " The Diet broke up ; the three Electors departed in indignation ; the ambassadors of Basle in sorrow and discomfiture." 3 § 8. iEneas and his colleagues found the Pope near his end, but determined, before he died, to complete the agreement with the Emperor and the Germans. The opposition of nearly all the Cardinals was overborne by a threat of new creations; and the legates, Thomas of Sarzana and John Carvajal, were at once added, with two others, to the Sacred College. iEneas pressed on the agreement, lest the work should have to be begun again, and a 1 Literally " He of Mainz " was stormed. See the full account given by .Eneas with his usual frankness. Hist. Friderici III., p. 125 f., quoted by Gieseler, vol. iv. pp. 340 1. 2 The purport of this document was that the Archbishops should be restored, and the authority of ihe Council safeguarded ; this general phrase being purposely left open to mean either the Council of Basle, or the new Council which was proposed. 3 Milman, vol. viii. p. 445; iEneas gives an account of the embassy to Rome, the death of Eugenius IV., and the election and coronation of Nicolas V., in a speech to the Emperor. Frederick. Baluzii Miscell. lib. vii. p. 525 foil. A.D. 1447. DEATH OF EUGENIUS IV. THE CONCORDAT. 193 new election might even create a new schism. Eugenius lived just long enough to issue four Bulls, accepting the decrees of Constance in general, and in particular those relating to General Councils; sanctioning such of the decrees of Basle as had been accepted by the Germans under the Emperor Albert ; reinstating the deprived Archbishops on their acknowledgment of Eugenius as the true Vicar of Christ ; and forgiving all who had taken part in the proceedings at Basle, on their submission. A fifth Bull declared that nothing in the agreement should infringe on the privileges of the Church. From the morrow of the day when this restoration of concord with the Empire was celebrated with brilliant rejoicings at Rome (Feb. 5th, 1447) the Pope sank rapidly ; and on the 23rd he died, expressing his regret that he had not lived and died a simple monk. " The dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life ; " * for his dying acts extinguished the long- lived hostile Council and the last papal schism ; and their end must be recorded before tracing the brilliant era of his successor. The new Pope, Nicolas V., at once assured iEneas Sylvius of his resolve to hold a middle course between the undue assumption of authority by former Popes over other bishops, and the pretension of the Council of Basle to shorten his hands ; and iEneas, rewarded with the bishopric of Trieste, and carrying with him a written confir- mation of the agreement, returned to Germany to give effect to the Pope's designs. § 9. The versatile Italian, able for a time at least to serve two masters, aided the papal legate Carvajal in obtaining from the Em- peror all that Piome could now ask, by the Concordat of Aschaffenburg (Feb. 17th, 1448), which the Electors were bribed with privileges, patronage, exemptions, and the like, to ratify. The Pope was to have annates and reservations, with a mere change of form ; the acceptance of the decrees of Basle by the Diet at Mainz (1439) * was set aside, and Germany was again placed under the burthens that she had struggled against for fifty years. In consequence of this agreement, the Emperor formally withdrew his protection from the Council of Basle, and forbad the city to harbour it, under penalty of the imperial ban. A decent if not dignified end was arranged by a conference at Lyon between the Cardinal President and envoys of the French and English kings. Felix announced to the remnant of the Council, which had joined him at Lausanne, that he resigned his dignity for the sake of the peace of the Church (April 7th, 1449); his eight cardinals went through the form of electing "Thomas of Sarzana " as Pope ; and the Council declared itself dissolved 1 Judges xvi. 3. 2 See p. 181, n. 2. 194 END OF THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. Chap. XIL April 25th). This quiet close of the schism was confirmed by the moderation of Nicolas. Amadeus himself, invested with the nominal dignities of premier-cardinal and legate for Savoy and Piedmont, survived only one or two years in his old retreat at Ripaille. The cardinals created by him were enrolled in the Sacred College ; even the Archbishop of Aries was left unmolested, and, dying in the following year (1450), ultimately received the honour of beatification from Clement VII. m 1527. § 10. Thus ended at once, with the last papal schism, the series of Great Councils of the 15th century, which gave the Church of Rome its last opportunity of reformation from within. It remains for us to ask, with Archbishop Trench,1 " Shall we lament the defeat of so many well-intended efforts for the Church's good ? Have we reason to suppose that there was any real help for a Church, sick at heart, sick throughout all her members, any true healing for her hurts, in that which these councils proposed to effect ; assum- ing that they had been able to bring this about, instead of succumbing, they and their handiwork, before the superior craft and skill which were arrayed against them ? 1 cannot believe it. The Gersons, the Clemangises, the d'Aillys, with the other earnest Doctrinaires who headed this movement, — let them have the full meed of honour which is their due ; but, with all their seeing, they did not see what is now most plain to us ; they only most inadequately apprehended the sickness wherewith the Church was sick. For them the imperious necessity of the time was a canonically chosen Pope, and one who, it inclined to go wrong, might find the law of the Church too strong for him ; when indeed what the time needed was, no Pope at all ; what it wanted was, that the profane usurpation by a man of the offices of Christ, — kingly, priestly, prophetical, — should cease altogether; that the standing obstacle of the Church's unity, — a local centre for a divine Society, whose proper centre, being the risen and ascended Lord, was everywhere, should be removed. They would admit no errors of doctrine in the Church, but only abuses in practice ; wholly refused to see that the abuses were rooted in the errors, drew all their poisonous life from them, and that blows stricken at the roots were the only blows which would profit. So far from admitting this, the most notable feat which in all their course they had accomplished was the digging up of the bones of a dead man, and the burning of a living man who had invited them to acknow- ledge their errors and to amend them. "And yet, failure upon failure as these Councils had proved, wholly as every gain which they seemed to have secured for the 1 Lectures on the Medieval Church, pp. 305 f. A.D. 1449. THE THREE REFORMING COUNCILS. 195 Church was again lost before many years had elapsed, total failures they were not. They played their part in preparing the Church for a truer deliverance than any which they themselves could have ever wrought. The Hildebrandine idea of the Church, — a society, that is, in which only one person has any rights at all, — this idea, questioned debated, denied, authoritatively condemned, could never dominate the Church and world, as for nearly three centuries it had done. The decrees of the Councils might be abrogated, and their whole legislation abolished ; but it was not possible to abolish from men's minds and memories that such once had been. There needed many blows, and from many quarters, to overthrow so huge and strong- built a fabric as that of the medieval Papacy. By the Councils one of these blows was stricken" This judgment of the Protestant Archbishop is strikingly con- firmed by the terse sentence of the French Ultramontane historian Capefigue : " I consider the Councils of Constance and Bale and the Pragmatic Sanction as the three acts which end the Middle Age of the Church, by the shock they gave to the powerful and holy dictatorship of the Popes." Medal of John Pala'ologus IT., by Pisani. (Reverse.) The Emperor, travelling through a mountainous country, is stopping in prayer before a Latin cross. Interior of St. P* ter's, at Rome. CHAPTER XIII. OUTWARD REVIVAL OF THE PAPACY. AGE OF THE RENAISSANCE. COLAS V. CALIXTUS III. PR'S II. PAUL II. A.D. 1447-H71. 1. The culmination of Latin Christianity — New Epoch in Art and Letters. § 2. Election and Character of Nicolas V. — The Pacification of Italy. § 3. The Great Jubilee of 1450— Its results in Europe. § 4. Frederick III. in Italy : his Marriage and Coronation. § 5. Roman Republicanism : Conspiracy of Porcaro — Its evil influence on the Pope. § 6. Constantinople taken by the Turks (145.3)— Effect on the West — A Crusade proclaimed. § 7. Death of Nicolas (1455) — His Love of Letters — Revival of Learning— Influx of Greeks into Italy. § 8. Greek A.D. 1447. EPOCH OF NICOLAS V. 197 Teachers and Translators — Laurentius Valla — Invention of Printing. § 9. Buildings of Nicolas V. at Rome : St. Peter's, the Vatican, &c. § 10. Election of Alfonso Borgia as Calixtus III. § 11. His zeal for the Crusade — Opposition in Europe — The Gcrmania of ./Eneas Sylvius. § 12. The Pope's Nepotism — Roderigo and Peter Borgia — Death of Calixtus (1458). § 13. Election of iEneas Sylvius Piccolomini as Pius II. §14. His devotion to the Crusade — Congress at Mantua: inadequate response of the Powers. § 15. Zeal of Pius for the Papacy — The Bull Execrahilis and Bull of Retractation. § 16. Louis XI. revokes the Pragmatic Sanction. § 17. Progress of the Turks — The Pope's Letter to Mahomet II. — Pius sets out in Person for the Crusade — His Death (1464). § 18. Character of Paul II. § 19. Heathenism in the revival of Letters : the College of Abbreviators : persecution of Platina, the papal bio- grapher. § 20. Fruitless Efforts for the Crusade — First use of Printing at Rome— Death of Paul II. § 1. Dean Milman1 marks the pontificate of Nicolas V. (1447- 1455) as " the culminating point of Latin Christianity ;" nor is this inconsistent with the judgment cited at the close of the preceding chapter. True, the papal autocracy, which had been declining from Innocent III. to Boniface VIII., had been compelled to yield, at Constance and Basle, to the control of an ecclesiastical aristocracy in a General Council ; but the great object of those reformers was to strengthen the Hierarchy, not to yield a jot of the creed of the Church, or of its powrer over the conscience. "It was not that Christendom might govern itself, but that they themselves might have a more equal share in the government." In the contest with the Council of Basle and its Antipope, the practical victory remained with Rome ; and she spent another half century in enjoying and improving it in her own fashion, heedless of the warning that, unless there were a reformation of discipline and administration, from the head throughout the members, there would be a compul- sory reformation rising upward from below, and not effected without violence and schism.2 The revolutionary reform thus rendered necessary was forwarded by the artistic and intellectual revival — the boasted Renaissance — which gave new outward splendour to the last age of the medieval Papacy. It was for evil and good strangely mingled that " Latin Christianity had yet to discharge some part of its mission. It had to enlighten the world with letters, to adorn it with arts. It had hospitably to receive (a gift fatal in the end to its own dominion), and to promulgate to mankind, the poets, historians, philosophers, 1 History of Latin Christianity, vol. viii. p. 448. Respecting the Anti- pope, who bore the same title in 1328-9, see Chap. X. § 10. 2 For such warnings by Peter d'Ailly, Julian Cesarini, and others, see Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 439. II— L 198 PAPACY OF NICOLAS V. Chap. XIII. of Greece. It had to break down its own idols, the Schoolmen, and to substitute a new idolatry, that of Classical Literature. It had to perfect Christian art."1 § 2. The spirit of the age was well represented in the new pontiff, whose election was due to one of those accidents not unfrequent in the Conclave, where nicely-balanced parties suddenly united their votes on some one not at first thought of (March 6, 1447).2 Thomas Parentuccelli, or Thomas of Sarzana (his mother's native place),3 was born at Pisa in 1398 ; and, in spite of difficulties from the harshness of a stepfather, he studied at Bologna with great success and reputation. Such was his univeral science, that iEneas Sylvius says anything hidden from him must be beyond the knowledge of man. The name he took as Pope marked his gratitude to his early patron, Cardinal Nicolas Albergati, in whose family he spent twenty years. The ability he displayed in controversy with the Greeks at Florence had been lately rewarded by Eugenius with the bishopric of Bologna, where as Legate he was active and popular, and with a cardinal's hat. In person he was small and spare ; of affable and unassuming manners. iEneas Sylvius, speaking — as we have seen4 — from personal experience, describes him as hasty, but placable ; friendly, but there was no friend with whom he was not sometimes angry ; neither revengeful nor forgetful of wrongs. The complaint of undue trust in his own judgment, and wishing to do everything himself, perhaps marks the limit of the great confidence which he reposed in iEneas, who became the energetic minister of the Pope's 1 Milman, /. c. p. 449. A recent work of the highest value for the period down to the Reformation is " The History of the Renaissance in Italy, by John Addington Symonds." This work traces the Pagan spirit which infected the revival of classical learning, as an almost inevitable reaction from the utterly corrupt Christianity of the age ; and the deep moral degra- dation of society, especially in Italy, and in particular of the Papacy, which attended the new splendour of art and letters, except in the few who applied themselves earnestly to a religious reformation. For all but those few, the collapse of the doctrinal and ecclesiastical system, which had governed the mind and conscience of Europe for a thousand years, involved the abandonment of the very foundations of Christian morality. 2 The papal elections, especially in this age, furnished many examples of what was called the vote by access, that is, when, after an indecisive ballot in the forenoon, an elector (or more than one) revoking his morning's ballot, transfers his vote to some one whose name had that morning already come out of the ballot-box, or to an entirely new candidate. (Cartwright on P4.) 3 The chief authorities are the Lives of Nicolas V. by Vespasiano and Manetti (in Muratori) and Georgi, Pom. 1742 ; ./Eneas Sylvius ; and Bartholomew Platina (papal officer under Pius II. &c, ■ b. 1481), Vitx P,,ntificum Romano mm, Venet. 1479, continued by the Augustinian Onofrio Panvini (6. 1568), Venet. 1562, and reprints. * See Chap XII. p. 191, n. 2. A.D. 1450. PACIFICATION OF ITALY. 199 desire to recover the prerogatives that had "been shorn at Constance and Basle. We have seen how he confirmed the agreement with Germany,1 whither iEneas returned rewarded with the bishopric of Trieste and confirmed in the office of papal secretary. The new Pope was free from that vice of nepotism, by which several of his predecessors and successors vainly tried to establish their kinsmen in principalities. " Hitherto these families had taken no root, had died out, sunk into obscurity, or had been beaten down by common consent as upstart usurpers. Nicolas V. laid the foundations of his power, not so much in the strength of the Koman see as a temporal sovereignty, as in the admiration and gratitude of Italy, which was rapidly reported over the whole of Christendom. He kept in pay no large armies ; his Cardinals were not Condottieri generals ; he declared that he would never employ any arms but those of the Cross of Christ. But he maintained the Estates of the Church in peace ; he endeavoured (and the circumstances of the times favoured that better policy) to compose the feuds of Italy, raging at least with their usual violence. He was, among the few Popes, really a great Pacificator in Italy."2 While pre- serving neutrality in the contests between Spain and France in Naples, between the Florentines and Venetians, and in that which established the Sforzas in the duchy of Milan, he recovered the tributary allegiance of the chieftains who had usurped the domains of the Church in the Romagna. § 3. The peace and security thus established helped to make the Jubilee of 1450 the greatest, and the most fruitful to the treasury of Home, since the first Jubilee, kept by Boniface VIII. and cele- brated by Dante, a century and a half before. The papal collectors and vendors of indulgences had been busy throughout Christendom, not indeed without provoking discontent and opposition, especially in Germany.3 But the twofold temptation of the present pleasure and future recompense of the pilgrimage was still too strong for the reforming spirit. The pilgrims who flocked to Rome are likened to 1 Chap. XII. p. 193. 2 Milman, viii., p. 455. The details of the contests referred to belong to civil history. 3 " In 1449, a collector and vendor of indulgences levied in Prussia 7845 marks : for indulgences, 3241, for Peter's pence, 4604 " (Milman, vol. viii. p. 456). The Teutonic knights at first refused to publish the Bull ; but they afterwards paid the Pope 1000 ducats for the privilege of themselves dis- pensing the indulgences of the Jubilee to those who should perform devotions and alms in their own country; and a similar compromise was made by Philip, Duke of Burgundy. Even Nicolas of Cusa, the papal legate in Germany, when asked whether a monk might go on pilgrimage without leave of his abbot, quoted Pope Nicolas himself for the opinion that obedience is better than indulgences (Robertson, vol. iv. p. 479). 200 CORONATION OF FREDERICK III. Chap. XIII. flights of starlings and swarms of ants ; more than 400,000 daily- walked through the streets and filled the churches ; and an acci- dental stoppage of the two crowds, passing the bridge of St. Angelo to and from a display of the holy Veronica,1 cost the lives of 200 persons crushed to death or pushed into the Tiber. The throng must have greatly aggravated the plague, which spread from Northern Italy 2 to the city in the summer, when the Pope with- drew with a company of scholars, and shut himself up in one castle after another till the danger was over. But the splendour of the Jubilee prevailed over all these drawbacks and disasters. " The pilgrims carried back throughout Europe accounts of the resuscitated majesty of the Roman Pontificate, the unsullied personal dignity of the Pope, the reinthronement of Religion in the splendid edifices, which were either building or under restoration."3 Of this use of the wealth now poured in we have to speak presently. § 4. Two years later Kome saw for the last time the coronation of an Emperor by a Pope.4 The feeble Frederick III. vainly hoped to revive his authority by this high sanction, at the same time that he went to Italy to receive his bride, Leonora of Portugal. So reduced was the imperial state, that the Pope supplied part of his expenses as a recompense for the concordat of Vienna ; and the third Frederick solicited a safe-conduct from the cities which Barbarossa had marched into Italy to conquer. The Emperor's authority was exhausted in bestowing nominal privileges and dignities, such as count and knight, doctor, and even notary, for the sake of the money they brought him in fees ; and his weakness ensured him a cordial reception.5 At Siena, his faithful iEneas, whom the Pope had lately made bishop of his native city, met him with his bride ; and here, too, Frederick submitted to take an oath for the Pope's security and dignity, which was repeated before he entered Rome.6 There he was lodged in the old imperial palace of the Lateran, and held frequent conferences with the Pope. 1 The napkin impressed with a miraculous likeness (vc a icon) of the Saviour (See Vol. I. p. 27). 2 We are told that in Milan 60,000 persons died, and hardly any were left alive at Piacenza. 3 Milman, vol. viii. p. 457. * As has been said before, Charles V. was the only subsequent Emperor crowned by a Pope but at Bologna, not at Rome. All the rest, from Maxi- milian to Francis II. were strictly only Emperors Elect. (See note, pp. 89-90.) 5 A contemporary writer says that "all before him had made some attempt to recover power ; he was the first who gave up the hope." 6 The two cardinals, who met the Emperor at Florence, represented the oath as prescribed by that treasury of papal claims, the pseudo-Clementines (Lib. ii. tit. 9, Dc Jwejura>id>), as well as by custom. Frederick replied that it had not been required of Henry VII. and only of Charles IV., but he yielded at last. A.D. 1452. CONSPIRACY OF PORCARO. 201 On the 16th of March the marriage was celebrated by the Pope, who crowned Frederick, not as King of Italy,1 but of Germany, with the crown brought from Aix-la-Chapelle for the purpose, and two days later the imperial coronation was solemnly performed by Nicolas, on the anniversary of his own.2 " The Emperor swore once more to support and defend the Roman Church, and, according to the traditional usage, he performed the 'office of a groom' by leading the Pope's horse a few steps." 3 On his return from a visit to King Alfonso at Naples, Frederick waived the demand for a Council, and only asked for a Crusade, which the Pope referred to await the general consent of Christendom. § 5. In the same year the power of Nicolas was threatened by a new outbreak of the republican fanaticism which was ever smoulder- ing at Rome. The death of his predecessor had been seized by Stephen Porcaro * — an enthusiast of high culture and influence — as an opportunity for addressing to the common council of the city, in the church of Ara Cceli, a vehement protest against the baseness of slavery, foulest of all when it was yielded to priests : let them, he cried, strike a blow for liberty while the cardinals were shut up in conclave. But the force which Alfonso of Naples had at hand for the protection of the cardinals rendered a rising hopeless, and the policy of Nicolas made Porcaro podesta of Anagni. On his return to Rome and attempt to renew the agitation at a popular festival, he was sent in honourable banishment to Bologna, where he pondered the verses of Petrarch and the example of Rienzi, and at length, by correspondence with his friends in Rome, organized a conspiracy, which was betrayed : and, on his arrival at Rome for its execution, Porcaro was seized, and hanged by night from a tower of St. Angelo (Jan. 9, 1453). The punishment of his confederates, both at Rome and in distant places, was pursued with treachery as well as cruelty, and much sympathy was shown for them by the people. Nicolas, disgusted at the ingratitude of the Romans, and also (it seems) at the severity to which he had been driven, and suffering from the gout, changed his popular mode of life for a morose retirement, and often uttered the wish that he could again become Master Thomas of Sarzana. 1 Significant as this omission was in fact, the reason for it was the protest of ambassadors from Milan, with which city Frederick was at enmity for its preference of the claims of Sforza to his own. Respecting the four crowns of Rome, Italy, Germany, and Aries or Burgundy, see Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, pp. 193, 403. 2 The ceremony is fully described by ./Eneas Sylvius, who made a speech on the Kmperor's behnlf. (Vit. Frid., p. 277, s- q.) 3 Mn. Sylv. 292-3; Robertson, vol. iv. p. 481. 4 He claimed descent from the Porcii, the yens of the Catos. 202 FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Chap. XIII. § 6. This year was signalized by the great catastrophe, which put an end to the old Koman Empire, after a duration of nearly 1500 }Tears from its establishment by Augustus, and full twenty-two centuries from the foundation of the city.1 On the 29th of May, 1453, the Turkish Sultan Mahomet II. took Constantinople by assault, and the body of the last Emperor, Constantine XIII. Pal^ologus, was found under a heap of slain. The great church of St. Sophia was converted into a mosque ; but the wise moderation of the conqueror, desirous to retain the Christian population of the city, shared the other churches between them and the Moslems ; and the patriarch, George Scholaris (or Gennadius), who had retired to a monastery rather than carry out the agreement with Rome,2 was re-elected under an order of the Sultan. It was not till sixty years later that the public countenance of Christian worship in Constantinople was put an end to by the Sultan Selim. This catastrophe fell upon Latin Christendom with the double pain of indignation for the loss of the city of Constantine, the newly-reconciled capital of Eastern Christianity, and terror at the prospect of the like fate. The first effect was an effort to revive the crusading spirit, to which iEneas Sylvius devoted the remainder of his life. The Pope issued a Bull, declaring the founder of Islam to be the great red dragon of the Apocalypse,3 dwelling on the fate of Constantinople and the danger threatening the West; calling on all princes to take up arms ; and requiring a tithe from the clergy. John Capistrano, an observant friar of unrivalled eloquence, who had been a disciple of St. Bernardine of Siena, was sent to preach the new crusade in Germany, while xEneas Sylvius urged it with all his power on successive diets. But his zeal was encountered by deep distrust of the Papacy; and the suspicion of the use to be made of the funds appealed for was supported by complaints of Nicolas's expenditure on the works of Eome. § 7. The shock, which the great disaster gave to the Pope's enfeebled health, hastened his death (March 24th, 1455). But, as is truly said by the historian who concludes his great work with 1 The distinction between the Western and Eastern Empires, and the appellation of "Greek "for the latter, tend to obscure the real continuity of the Empire, which was called Roman to the last ; a name which still survives in the province around Constantinople (Boum>li, Roumelia). For the details of the fall of Constantinople, see the Student's Gibb>n} chap, xxxviii. 2 See Chap. XII. § 5. The Cardinal Isidore, the head of the Latin party, who was at first supposed to have perished in the sack, escaped in disguise, and, after many adventures, reached Italy in safety. 3 Anol her example of that use of apocalyptic imagery, which is often ignorantly supposed to be peculiar to modern Protestants. A.D. 1455. DEATH AND WORKS OF NICOLAS V. 203 this event,1 " Nicolas V. foresaw not that in remote futurity the peaceful, not the warlike, consequences of the fall of Constantinople would be most fatal to the Popedom — that what was the glory of Nicolas V. would become among the foremost causes of the ruin of medieval religion : that it would aid in shaking to the base, and in severing for ever, the majestic unity of Latin Christianity. Nicolas V. aspired to make Italy the domicile, Borne the capital, of letters and arts. As for letters, it was not the ostentatious patronage of a magnificent sovereign; nor was it the sagacious policy which would enslave to the service of the Church that of which it might anticipate the dangerous rebellion In Nicolas it was pure and genuine, almost innate, love of letters." Long before his advancement he had been a great collector of books ; and as Pope he began the great Libraiy of the Vatican with a collection of 5000 volumes. Florence was now the centre of the revival of letters, which was daily gaining strength by the influx of Greek fugitives from the advance of the Turks; and a great epoch in this movement was marked by the visit of John Palasologus with his train of learned ecclesiastics, some of whom — such notably as Cardinal Bessarion — stayed behind to enlighten the West with Greek learning. The acquaintance of these men was sought by Thomas of Sarzana, when he went to the Council of Florence with Pope Eugenius ; 2 and when the last siege and fall of Constantinople drove many more learned Greeks into exile, they were welcomed by several of the Italian states, and especially at Florence by the Medici, and by Nicolas V. at Rome. They became living teachers of the language which was henceforth to be the chief organ of intellectual life for the world.3 § 8. Besides the treasures of MSS. brought from the East, the emissaries of Pope Nicolas ransacked all the countries of Europe for 1 Milman, History of Latin Christian^'-, vol. viii. p. 468. Comp. Gibbon's reflections to the same effect, chap, lxvii., and Trench's Meduval Church History, lecture xxv. 2 See especially the Disaiu'sitio de Nicolai V. Pont. Max. e ga literas et liteiarios vir-os pa'rocinio, appended to his Life by Georgi, Rom. 1742. 3 We have to speak of this great intellectual revival in aDother place; but a word of warning mav be given here against the mistake of supposing the knowledge of Greek to have been anything like extinct in the West. It was fostered in England under Theodore of Tarsus ; it was known to Bode, Scotus Erigcna, Roger Bacon, and many other Western scholars; and Petrarch, with whom it made a fresh start in Italy, learnt it from a bishop of Calabria (the ancient Magna Graecia), where it was still spoken. In fact, it is simply untrue to call Greek and Latin dead Ian iUages in any sense ; besides their vital and vivifying literature, neither has ever ceased to be a verna ular tongue, the one as the speech of a people, the other as the common language of learning and of a large part of the Church. 204 REVIVAL OF LETTERS. Chap. XIII. the remains of classical and patristic antiquity ; and the refugees, and scholars taught by them, were employed to translate the great Greek authors into Latin.1 One example demands special record, as showing how the love of letters began to prevail over the rules of orthodoxy, even in a Pope. One of the greatest scholars of the age, Laurentius Valla (born at Rome, 1406), had dared (about 1440) to publish a treatise exposing the forgery of the " Donation of Constantine ; " and he found it needful to withdraw secretly to Naples, where he applied his critical skill to the fictitious corre- spondence of Abgarus with Christ, and also to the pretended authorship of the Apostles' Creed by the Holy Twelve.2 Rescued from the Inquisition by King Alfonso, he in vain sought permission from Eugenius to return to Rome ; but the liberal Nicolas invited him and made him his secretary, and Calixtus II I. promoted him to a canonry of the Lateran. He died in 1465. The significance of this revival of letters was immensely en- hanced by the Invention of Priuting, which has been well called " a new gift of tongues — if only it had been always turned to worthy uses."3 The epoch assigned to that great event is the year 1442, when John Fust (the Faust of dramatic legend) esta- blished his press at Mainz ; and the first work printed from metal types (cut, not yet cast) was the Latin Bible,4 completed at the same place by John Gutenberg in the same year that Nicolas V. died. § 9. The decay of Rome, during the exile at Avignon and the strife of the great schism, had begun to be repaired when order and prosperity were re-established by Martin and Eugenius ; but " under Nicolas V. Rome aspired to rise again at once to her strength and her splendour." 5 With the restoration of the Pope's authority, his ordinary revenues flowed in steadily, but the Jubilee of 1450 fur- nished the special resources for the new works of defence, majesty, and ornament. While the fortifications of the whole city were repaired, the Leonine quarter on the Vatican Mount beyond the Tiber was to be separately fortified and embellished for the residence of the Pope and the Cardinals, in security against the turbulent populace of the city. As its sacred centre, the ancient basilica of St. Peter, built by Constantine,6 now falling into decay, was to be 1 For the splendid rewards offered by Nicolas, just before his death, to the Greek Philclpho, for a translation of the Iliad and Odyssey into Latin verse, see Milman, vol. viii. p. 472. A prose version of the Homeric poems had been made by Leontius Pilatus, under the care of Boccaccio. 2 See Vol. I. pp. 26, 234. 3 Trench, Medi ml Ch. fhst. p. 389. * Called the M 'sarine Bible, from a copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin. See the work of Dr. Hessels on Gutenberg, 1882. 3 Milman, vol. viii. p. 474. 6 See Vol. 1. p. 422. The Lives of Nicolas V. by Georgio and Manetti A.D. 1455. BUILDINGS OF NICOLAS V. 205 replaced by a majestic edifice, in the form of a Greek cross; and Nicolas began the work by building a tribune, which was destroyed when the new design of Bramante was carried out. Beside the old basili-a there was a palace, probably of the same age, in which Charles the Great had lodged when he was crowned by Leo III. It was rebuilt by Innocent III. and enlarged by Nicolas III. ; and, on the return from Avignon, Gregory XI. transferred the papal residence to this palace on the Vatican, for the security afforded by the neighbouring castle of St. Angelo. Nicolas V. now resolved to build, beside the cathedral of St. Peter, a palace worthy of his successor ; but the completion of " the Vatican," with its 20 courts and 4422 rooms, covering and enclosing a space of 1151 'feet by 767, with its vast treasures of art and letters, occupied his successors for four centuries, to the fall of the temporal power under Pius IX.1 The palace was connected by strong walls with the castle of St. Angelo ; and both the fortress and bridge were strengthened and adorned with bulwarks and towers. All the principal churches of the city were repaired, and their ritual made more magnificent than before. Nicolas restored the Milvian Bridge and the aqueduct of Augustus, whose ancient name of Aqua Virgo was easily sanctified as Acqua Vergine ;* and he cleansed the channel of the Anio. Nor did his munificence expend itself on the city only. " Everywhere in the Roman territory rose churches, castles, public edifices. Already the splendid church of St. Francis, at Assisi,3 wanted repair: Nicolas built a church describe the design and the details of the plan, of which Milman says, " Julius II. and Leo X. did but accomplish the design of Nicolas V. Had Nicolas lived, Bramante and Michael Angelo might have been prematurely anticipated by Rosellini of Florence and Leo Battista Alberti." The mosaic pavement of the apse, begun by Nicolas V., was completed bv Paul II. The existing church was designed, in the plan of a Greek cross surmounted by a cupola, by Bramante for Pope Julius II., who laid the foundation stone, under one of the piers, in 1506. Leo X. employed Raphael on the work, which was checked by the death of both ; and in 1534 Paul III. entrusted it to Michael Angelo (then in his 72nd year), who declared that he would raise the dome of the Pantheon in the air. The drum only was complete when he died at the age of 89 (1563), but the church was finished according to his plan, except that the nave was lengthened to the form of a Latin cross, in order to include the western part of the old basilica, and the portico was made in two stories, with the result of hiding the near view of the dome. The church was dedicated by Urban VIII. (Nov. 18th, 1626), 176 years after its commencement by Nicolas V. For a full account, see Murray's Hundbo >k for Borne. 1 For its history, and a full account of its museums, galleries, and libraries, see Murray's Rome, Sect. I. § 26. 2 For many such adaptations, see Conyers Middleton's Letter from Home. 3 See below in the account of the Franciscans, Chap. XXIIL, p. 387, n. II— L 2 206 THE BORGIAS. CALIXTUS III. Chap XIII. dedicated to St. Francis at his favoured town of Fabriano; one at Gualdo in Urnbria to St. Benedict. Among his princely works was a castle at Fabriano, great buildings at Centumcellce, the walls of Civita Castellana, a citadel at Narni, with bulwarks and deep fosses ; another at Civita Vecchia ; baths near Viterbo ; buildings for ornament and defence at Spoleto. The younger arts, Sculpture and Painting, began under his auspices still further to improve. Fra Angelico painted at Rome at the special command or request of Nicolas V." } § 10. On the death of Nicolas V., Bessarion seemed marked out as his worthiest successor ; but his severe virtue was disliked by the laxer cardinals,2 who objected to the promotion of a Greek neophyte, still wearing- his beard. So by the frequent method of compromise, the preference was given to the first of that name which was soon to become a proverbial type of outrageous wicked- ness.3 The Spanish Cardinal Alfonso Borja (in Italian Borgia), a native of Valencia, studied and became a professor in the University of Lerida, and was esteemed the greatest jurist of his time. His first preferment was received from Benedict XIII.; but, being sent by Alfonso of Arragon to Rome on an effort to end the remnant of the papal schism, he was rewarded by Martin V. with the bishopric of Valencia ; and, on a second mission to Eugenius at Florence, he was made a cardinal, and attached himself to the papal court. It was at the advanced age of 77 that he became Pope by the title of Calixtus III. (1455-1458).4 § 11. Despising and openly censuring the splendid tastes and schemes of his predecessor, he divided his energies between the Crusade and the advancement of his family. Public works were stopped, and the remains of Nicolas's treasure, as well as church property and jewels, were devoted to the holy war, to which a Bull summoned the nations of the West for the 1st of March, 1456. Calixtus equipped a fleet, and sent aid to the famous Albanian chieftain Scanderbeg ; while the eloquence of John Capistrano 1 Milman, vol. viii. p. 477. The only remaining works at Rome of the Dominican Fra John or Angelico are his paintings in the chapel of St. Laurence in the Vatican. He died in the same year as the Pope. 2 Leces et volnpt >osi (Platina, Panetmr. in Bessar. 8 »). 3 The famous lines, in which Pope illustrates the position, that moral as well as physical evils may be a part of the scheme of Providence — *• If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design, Why then a Borgia or a Catiline ?" — may refer to Alexander VI., or his son Ca?sar, or both. {Essay on Man, Bk. I. 155-6.) 4 Some writers call him Calixtus IV.; but the former Calixtus III. (111)8-1178) is regarded as only an Antipope by the Roman authorities. A.D. 1456 f. CRUSADE. THE POPE'S NEPOTISM. . 207 raised an enthusiastic though undisciplined force of 40,000 men, which, animated by his daily exhortations, and led by the skill aud valour of John Huniades, repulsed Mahomet II. from Belgrade (July and August, 1456).1 But this check to the instant danger from the Turks tended rather to make the great powers more suspicious of the Pope's designs in the Crusade. Charles VII. of France dreaded a diversion of the strength needing to be consolidated after the deliverance from the English yoke ; and the universities only consented with reluctance to the tenth demanded. The same impost was collected in Arragon and. Sicily, but was used by Alfonso against the Genoese as " the Turks of Europe." 2 The chief opposition was in Germany ; but the zea/ and energy of /Eneas Sylvius secured the adhesion of Frederick III., and obtained for himself the reward of a cardinal's hat (1456). It was on this occasion that iEneas wrote an interesting book on the relations of the Papacy to Germany, in which " he contrasts thi free cities of Germany, which owned subjection to the Emperor alone, and enjoyed the greatest liberty anywhere known, with the Italian republics, such as Venice, Florence, and Siena, where all but the dominant few were alike slaves." 3 § 12. While the crusading zeal of Calixtus remained fruitless, his nepotism had lasting results in the history of the Papacy and Europe. Enfeebled by age and gout, he fell under the influence of his three nephews, the sons of his sisters, and a band of friars, whom the popular hatred designated as the Catalans (a nation not only Spanish but notorious as pirates). They were laden with offices, and under their administration Rome fell into frightful cor- ruption and disorder. One nephew, Louis John Milano, was made the Pope's first new cardinal and bishop of Bologna. Even /Eneas Sylvius was for a while passed over in favour of another nephew, Roderigo Lenzuol, who assumed the name of Borgia, which he was destined to make infamous as Pope Alexander VI. At the age of 22 he was made a cardinal, chancellor of the Roman church, and warden of the Marches, besides being invested with numerous ecclesiastical benefices. His elder brother, Peter Borgia, who re- mained a layman, was made Duke of Spoleto, Vicar of Benevento 1 In the enthusiasm of gratitude, preachers applied to Huniades, as afterwards to Sobieski, the text (John i. 6), "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." Both the defenders, Capistrano and Huniades, were in feeble health, and died within two months after the victory. St. John Capistrano was canonized in 1690. 2 For the troubles of Calixtus about the succession to the crown of Naples on Alfonso's death (1458), see Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 492-4. 3 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 492. The title of the book is Germanh. 208 • jENEAS SYLVIUS, POPE PIUS II. Chap. XIII. and Terracina, standard-bearer of the Church, and prefect of Rome. In this office he became the special object of a popular insurrection against the " Catalans," which broke out on the Pope's death (August 6th, 1458) ; and he escaped down the Tiber, only to die of fever at Civita Vecchia, leaving his vast wealth to his brother Roderigo. § 1 3. The close balance of parties in the conclave caused another resort to the vote by access, and, on the proposal of Cardinal Borgia, the election fell on iEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who may perhaps have followed Virgil's well known epithet of iEneas in assuming the name of Pros II.1 (1458-1464). His elevation was acceptable both to the Roman people, weary of the " Catalan " yoke, and to the states of Europe, which had ample experience of his eloquence and accomplishments, his personal fascination, political skill and versatility. He came to the papal throne vainly pledged, like so many of his predecessors, by a capitulation agreed on among the cardinals, to the following effect : — " The future pope was bound to carry on the war against the Turks, to reform the curia, to secure a provision for the cardinals, to act by their advice, to choose them according to the decrees of Constance, without regard to the im- portunities of princes. Once a year the cardinals were to meet, in order to enquire as to his performance of his engagements ; and they were authorized to admonish him in ca«e of failure." 2 § 14. Of these obligations, Pius devoted himself heart and soul to the advancement of the Crusade; and, for the rest, the former leader in the Council of Basle became the uncompromising assertor of the papal privileges he had there assailed. His fondness for letters, and his elegant tastes, yielded to the devotion of all his resources to the Crusade, except in the favour he showed to Siena, the cradle of his family, and to his birthplace Corsignano.3 " The war against the Turks engrossed his care, and left him no funds to spare for the patronage of arts or of letters. His personal tastes and habits were simple ; he delighted in the pure air of the country, and intensely enjoyed the beauties of nature ; and the rapidity of his movements disgusted the formal officers of the court, although 1 Vergil. JEneid. i. 305, ct passim. The only papal precedent for the name was as far back as the second century ; Pius I. (142-157). Pius II. was now in his 53rd year, having been born in 14Uf>. 2 Robertson, iv. p. 495. 3 He made Siena an archbishopric, and Corsignano, renamed after him- self Pienza, a bishopric. The splendid cathedral and vast Piccolimini palace, built by Pius II. aud his nephew, Pius III., also a native of the place, still contrast strangely with the iusignificance of the town of 20u0 inhabitants. Respecting the frescoes in the Library, see above, p. 180. A.D. 1458-9. CRUSADE. CONGRESS OF MANTUA. 209 they did not really interfere with' his attention to the details of business." x It was a striking sign of the degradation of the Empire when a Pope summoned, V>y his own authority, not an ecclesiastical council, but a congress of princes, to meet at Mantua ;2 but the result was a lamentable contrast to the enthusiastic meeting at Clermont under Urban II. The Emperor Frederick found an excuse for not obeying in person the summons of his former secretary, in the contest which he was beginning with Matthias Corvinus(the son of John Hnniades), who had been elected King x>f Hungary on the death of Ladislaus V. (1458).3 Pius reproved him sharply both for his absence and the inefficiency of his ambassadors, remembering doubtless how differently he himself had worked both for Emperor and Pope. Charles VII. of France, offended at the part taken by Pius in Naples,4 refused his concurrence ; and when at last he sent ambassadors, they pleaded the impossibility of doing anything; till peace was made with England ; and the latter power was now fully occupied with the Wars of the Roses.5 Even Philip of Burgundy, the prince heartiest in the cause, was persuaded by his counsellors to remain at home ; but he sent a splendid embassy, with a promise of 6000 men. The Duke of Milan, and other Italian princes, ap- peared in. person. Even among the Cardinals, Bessarion was the only earnest supporter of the Crusade. 1 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 496. 2 Pius II. instituted two new orders of knighthood for the enterprize, in imitation of the Templars and Hospitallers, named after Jesus and "the Blessed Virgin Mary of Bethlehem." 3 Ladislaus, the posthumous son of Albert II. (born 1440), had been sent to Frederick III. by his mother Elizabeth, with the regalia of Hungarv. Chosen king after death of Ladislaus IV. at Varna (1444), under the regency of John Huniades, he was at last released by the Emperor in 1452; but his ungrateful treatment of Huniades caused civil dissensions, in which Ladislaus, the eldest son of Huniades, was executed, his second son Matthias Corvinus was imprisoned in Bohemia, and the young King died, it was said from poison (1457). The Hungarians then elected Matthias (15 years old), who was released from prison, and had to sustain a long but ultimately victorious conflict with Frederick III. 4 Alfonso the Wise, King of Arragon and the Two Sicilies, being with- out lawful issue, had procured from Eugenius IV. the legitimation of his son Ferdinand, on whom he intended to bestow the crown of Naples (as his own conquest), those of Arragon and Sicily going in due course to his brother John. The arrangement was confirmed by Nicolas V. ; but, on the death of Alfonso (1458), Calixtus III. claimed Naples as a lapsed fief of the Holy See, intending it, as was supposed, for his son Peter ; while the house of An jou renewed their claim. Pius II. acknowledged Ferdinand, and married one of his nephews to a natural daughter of the King. 5 England, however, sent representatives, with whom, as well as those of Castile, the Pope expressed himself dissatisfied. 210 PAPAL PRINCIPLES OF PIUS II. Chap. XIII. Though Pius, whose health was bad, made a painful journey over the snow-clad Apennines in January 1459, it was not till the 1st of June that he opened the Congress. His speeches are described by those present as unrivalled for elegance and copious variety ; but his own peroration to his eloquent address of three hours (Sept. 26th) complains that his " many words " failed to call forth the response of Godfrey, Baldwin, and their fellows, when they rose and answered Urban with the shout, " Deus vultl Deus vult." Assu- redly a Crusade for the defence of Hungary, as the bulwark of Western Christendom, was more needful and more righteous than the first for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre ; but the spirit of the age had changed, and the varied interests of Europe were harder to unite against a pressing danger, than then for a distant enterprize. Of the promises made in men and money, a large part were after- wards disavowed ; but, in dissolving the Congress (Jan. 19th, 1460), the Pope was able to count on 88,000 men, to be supplied, in nearly equal proportions, by Germany, and by Hungary, the country in most imminent danger.1 The support of Germany was purchased at a price sufficient to ruin the enterprize, the concession of its command to the feeble Emperor. § 15. That the politic and versatile iEneas had a genuine enthu- siasm for this cause, seems proved by his whole career as Pope ; nor can we doubt that he felt himself to be the champion of Christendom against the danger that threatened to overwhelm it. But he was not the man to overlook the power that this position would give to the Papacy, the aggrandizement of which was his other great object. Accordingly, though the Congress of Mantua was no Council, and he alleged that the consent which he obtained from the Fathers present there left the act entirely his own, he issued thence the Bull Exe- crabilis, declaring an appeal from a Pope to a General Council to be punishable with excommunication. This reversal of the decrees of Constance and Basle — or rather of the very foundations of those Councils — on the sole authority of a Pope, who had himself been a leader on the other side, was followed up, three years later, by his famous " Bull of Retractation," addressed to the University of Cologne (April 1463).2 "With characteristic skill and frankness he relates his former errors, and pleads the course of events as his apology; admitting that he had said, written, and done many 1 Besides the 6000 Burgundians, Germany promised 10,000 horse and 32,000 foot, and Hungary 20,<>0 > horse and 2 y>00 foot. 2 For the various events, which had meanwhile caused fresh demands for a Genei-al Council -the Pope's conflict with Diether (Theodore), archbishop of Mainz, with Sigismund of Austria about the jurisdiction of the legate, Nicolas of Cusa, and with the persistent opponent of the Papacy, Gregory of Heimburg see Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 502-3. A.D. 1461. PROGRESS OF THE TURKS. 211 things which might be condemned; but professing his desire to follow the example of St. Augustine in his " Confessions." The spirit of the whole is summed up in the appeal : " Believe an old man rather than a young one, and do not make a private person of more account than a Pontiff. Eeject jEneas ; receive Pius;1 the former Gentile name our parents imposed on us at our birth ; the latter Christian name we took with our apostolic office." § 16. To the Pope's new principles the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges was, of course, no less obnoxious than the decrees of the Councils, and he denounced it to the French ambassadors at Mantua as a token of the Antichrist's approach. While Charles VII. lived, it was steadily maintained ; but Louis XI.2 began at once to reverse the policy of his hated father. He was, however, far too politic to act from passion only ; and he was persuaded by Gode- froy, bishop of Arras, who conveyed the Pope's congratulations on the King's accession, that the repeal of the Sanction would further his great policy of curbing the power of the nobles, by transferring their influence in ecclesiastical promotions to the crown. Godefroy, next year, carried back the repeal of the Sanction, which was received with public rejoicings at Rome; but it was resolutely opposed by the Parliament and the Universities of France; and when it appeared that the Pope would not support the Angevine cause in Naples, Louis reverted to an anti-papal policy. § 17. In 1461 a new excitement was caused by the Turkish capture of Trebizond and Sinope, and by the arrival at Rome of Thomas Paheologus (brother of the last Emperor), who, having been expelled from the Morea, came from Patras, the place where St. Andrew was said to have died a martyr, bringing with him the Apostle's head. The holy relic was received with great solemnities by a vast crowd assembled from Italy by the promise of indul- gences, and was buried beside the head of St. Peter on the Vatican. The Pope now took the strange step of addressing to the Sultan Mahomet a letter inviting him to end the contest by embracing the Christian faith ; but the enthusiasm and self-confidence of Pius are more apparent than the old diplomatic skill of iEneas, in the zeal with which, after a courteous exordium on the Sultan's virtues and his faith in one God, he urges the imposture of the 1 This seems to confirm the motive suggested above for the choice of his papal name from Virgil's Pius 2Enn.as. 2 The great authority for the reign of Louis XI. (July 22, 1461 -Aug. 30, 1483), as well as of his son Charles VIII., is the Hf&moires of Philippe de Confines; but it is impossible to separate Louis from the powerful sketch of his character drawn by Sir Walter Scott in Quentin Duraard. For the outlines of his reign, see the Student's France, chap. viii. 212 CRUSADE AND DEATH OF PIUS II. Chap. XIII. Koran, the moral vices of Mohammedanism, and the sure damnation of all but Catholic Christians. Another congress of princes was summoned to meet at Rome, and Pius proclaimed a "truce of God " for five years throughout Christendom. In one of his most eloquent and pathetic speeches, he declared to the Cardinals his resolve to lead the Crusade in person, not to wield the weapons of war, but, like Moses while Israel fought with Amalek, to lift up his hands in prayer from some hill or lofty ship. His Bull called forth no response, except from Hungary and Venice; but he set out, tortured with gout and fever, to meet the Venetian fleet at Ancona (June 19th, 1464). " Farewell, Rome ! thou wilt never see me alive ! " — were his parting words, fulfilled at Ancona within a fortnight. He died comforted by the sight of the Venetian fleet, and by the assurance of Bessarion that he had governed well. " Pray for me, my son ! " were the last words of the man who had played so many varied parts in life (August 15th, 1464). § 18. Paul II.1 (1464-1471) was a Venetian and nephew of Fugenius IV., who had made him Cardinal of St. Mark at the rge of twenty-two. While holding that dignity, he built, chiefly from the ruins of the Colosseum, the great Venetian Palace on the Via Lata, the street now called the Corso, from the races which he instituted at the Carnival. He was fond of display in splendid attire, jewels, and ornaments ; 2 and to gratify these tastes he kept the incomes of vacant bishoprics in his own hands. His reputation has doubtless suffered from the mortal affront given to his biographer, Platina, by measures which throw an important light on the character of the age. § 19. The great revival of letters and art was deeply infected with the paganism, from the famous works of which it derived its chief impulse, — a natural reaction from corrupt Christianity, when not replaced by purer faith. In his attempts to reform the College of Abbreviators, whose office it was to record contemporary events,3 Paul is said to have detected a society, or, as they called themselves, an academy, who laid aside their baptismal names for fanciful appellations, such as Callimachus and Asclepiades,4 and, with their 1 Peter Barbo, of a family claiming descent from the Ahenobarbi. He is said to have been so vain of his beauty as to wish to take the name of Formosus. That of Paul was derived from the church which he rebuilt. 2 He is said to have painted his face, to heighten the effect of his appearance at the festivals of the Church. 3 The college, which dated from the time of the Papacy at Avignon, had been remodelled by Pius II., who fixed its number at 7<>. * The fact that many of these names were found in the catacombs raises the question whether the movement may not have been, in part, a pro- fession of primitive Christianity. A.D. 1464*71. PAPACY OF PAUL II. 213 pagan ideas, held republican principles, which were perhaps their chief real offence. Many of them were tortured in the Pope's own presence, and banished. Among the accused was Bartholomew Sacchi, called Platina, from the old Latin name of Piadena, in the Cremonese, where he was born in 1421. He had been made an abbreviator by Pius II., but under Paul II. he was deprived of his office, imprisoned and tortured, though finally acquitted. Sixtus IV. made him librarian of the Vatican, and induced him to write the lives of the contemporary Popes. He died in 1481. No wonder that he represents Paul as heartless and cruel, while other writers speak of his tenderness, benevolence, and charity, and Platina himself testifies to his bounty to the poorer cardinals and bishops, and his mercy to offenders against the law. Though he made three of his relations cardinals, he did not succumb to favourites ; " and his pontificate, however little we may find in it to respect, came afterwards to be regarded as an era of purity and virtue in comparison with the deep degradation which followed." * § 20. The election of Paul was preceded, as in so many other cases, by capitulations among the cardinals, accepting mutual obligations, which the new Pope at once threw off as illegal. For the crusade against the Turks, who were now threatening Italy, he gave subsidies to the Venetians, Hungarians, and Scanderbeg ; and endeavoured to form alliances and raise money in Germany, where his invitations were answered by a demand for reform. The Crusade, in fact, had died with Pius. A visit from the Emperor Frederick to Rome led to nothing but display and empty compli- ments, ending in mutual dissatisfaction (1468). Far more im- portant is the record of the first use of printing at Rome in 1467. Paul was found dead in his bed on the 26th of July, 1471. 1 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 515. Medal of Cosmo dei Medici : b. 1389, d. 1464. From the British Museum. Bronze Statue of St. Peter, in St. Peter's, at Rome : ascribed to the time of St. Leo the Great. CHAPTER XIV. THE PAPACY IN THE AGE OF THE RENAISSANCE. SIXTUS IV. INNOCENT VIII. ALEXANDER VI. PIUS III. A.D. 1471-1503 § 1. Moral Degradation of the Papacy — Election of Cardinal della Rovere as Sixtus IV. — His nepotism — The Popes as Italian princes — Julian della Rovere; Peter and Jerome Riario — Corruption and oppression — Jubilee of 1475 — Public Works at Rome. § 2. Conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence, and complicity of the Pope — The Turks at Otranto. § 3. Quarrel with the Venetians — Birth of Martin Luther (1483) — Death of Sixtus IV. (1484). § 4. Innocent VIII. — His gross immo- rality— Corruption and profligacy of the court — Disorder of Rome. A.D. 1471. MORAL DEGRADATION OF THE PAPACY. 215 § 5. Wars with Naples — Alliance with the Medici — Cardinal John de' Medici (afterwards Leo X.). § 6. Relations with the Turks — Prince Djem at Rome — Treaty with the Sultan Bajazet. § 7. Conquest of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella — Deaths of Lorenzo de' Medici- and Innocent VIII. (1492). § 8. Election of Roderick Borgia as Alex- ander VI. His Early Life and Character — His Family ; John, Duke of Gandia, Caesar Borgia, Lucrezia. § 9. Maximilian I. Emperor Elect. § 10. Charles VIII. of France at Rome and in Naples — Ferdinand II. restored at Naples by the Spaniards — His death. §11. Murder of John Borgia by his brother Caesar, who renouuees his cardi- nalate and clerical orders. § 12. Accession and divorce of Louis XII. — Mission of Caesar Borgia to France — His Conquests in Italy — French conquest of the Milanese. § 13. Profligacy and corruption at Rome — The Jubilee of a.d. 1500, and its effect in Europe. § 14-. Savonarola at Florence : his pi'eaching : no doctrinal innovations — His republicanism : the death-bed of Lorenzo de' Medici. § 15. Savonarola's relations to Charles VIII. and the Florentine Republic — His work of reformation. § 16. Interference of the Pope — The " Sacrifice of Vanities " — Excom- munication of Savonarola. § 17. His renewed preaching, and the Franciscan opposition — The Ordeal of Fire — His imprisonment and mar- tyrdom— Machiavelli. §18. Birth of Charles V. — Naples seized by Spain. § 19. Death of Alexander VI. § 20. Election and Death of Pius III. § 1. The period of about half a century, that now lies before us to the epoch of the Reformation, is at once glorified by the highest spendours of the Renaissance and darkened by the deep moral corruption, which had its climax in the characters of those who still claimed to be the Vicars of Christ and chief pastors of His flock : " Quis custodiet ipsos Custodes ? " A recent writer x sums up, in colours not blacker than the truth, the characters of the Popes who are now to be passed in review : " The Papacy had descended to the lowest depths of infamy. The fiercely avaricious and cruel Paul II. had been succeeded by ISixtus IV., who was steeped in bloodshed and diabolic lust ; under Innocent VIII., more con- temptible and scarcely less guilty, the imperial city liecame once more the asylum of murderers and robbers ; till finally, in Alexander VI. the Christian nations saw a monster, who excelled in depravity the most hated names of the Pagan Empire, seated on the throne of St. Peter." 1 Mr. F. P. Willert, in an article on Machiavelli, in the Fortnijhtly Review, March 1884. In the description of this corruption in the verses of the Carmelite friar, Baptista Mantuanus (ob. 1516), de Hbrum Tempumm Calamitalibus Libei IV., one chief element is thus described : — " venulia nobis Templa. sacerdotes, altaria, saeni, corona?. Igncs, thuia, preces : cctlum est venale, Deusque." The last words are not too strong for the traffic in Indulgences. (See Gieseler, vol. iv. pp. 437-8.) 216 NEPOTISM OF SIXTUS IV. Chap. XIV. After the death of Paul II., the election of Bessarion was once more prevented by those " light and voluptuous " cardinals, who dreaded his severe virtue. They were afterwards rewarded with offices and preferments for their preference of Francis della Rovere, who took the name of Sixtus IV.1 (1471-1484). Born near Savona, in a humble station (1414), he had become a Franciscan, and, after teaching philosophy and theology in several Universities, he had lisen to the generalship of his order; and, through the influence of Bessarion, he had been made Cardinal of St. Peter ad Vincula (1407). Some of his works had been put forth by the new art of printing. But this learned cardinal, if we are to believe the chief contem- porary annalist,2 became as Pope a monster of moral depravity, as well as a most corrupt and oppressive governor; and, however exaggerated may be the shadows of the picture, its outline is justified by his public history. Sixtus IV. is notorious in the annals of the Papacy for his outrageous nepotism. Indeed we have now reached a point where the See of Bome, instead of being the centre of Latin Christianity, might almost seem to part company with any proper history of the Christian Church. The Pope becomes a secular Italian prince, using his ecclesiastical dignity chiefly as a means of influence in the politics of the Peninsula and of Europe, and aiming to strengthen himself, as well to gratify his relations, called in general nephews,3 by making them the heads of great families, and even conferring on them principalities ; so that a new power was raised up in rivalry with the cardinals at Rome and with the nobles and States of Italy. In defiance of the usual "capitulations," in which he had concurred before his election, Sixtus at once conferred the dignity of cardinal on two of his nephews, young men of humble origin, who, like himself, had 1 With regard to the origin of this papal name, which had not been used for more than 1000 years, and was destined to be made famous by Sixtus V. (1585-1590), it is a simple blunder to connect it with Sextus. In the history of the early Popes (Sixtus I. 119-128, Sixtus II. 257-8, a martyr under Valerian, and Sixtus III. 432-440) it appears in the original form of Xystus, a Graeco-Latin word signifying a terrace or colonnade, so called from its smoothed floor (£u(rros, from £eV). The name would become in Italian ^isto, which was re-latinized as Sixtus. 2 Stephanus Infessuva (who is styled Senatus Populique Romani Scriba s. Cancellarius. circ. 1494) author of a Diariwn homanse Urbis, 1294-1494 (in Eccard and Muratori). See the passage (in Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 385), in which the writer speaks of the Divine Providence in the Pope's death, and dwells on his wickedness and oppression. But a much less severe character is given in the Life ascribed to Platina, whom, as we have seen, Sixtus made librarian of the Vatican. 3 The ambiguous application of the term was made still more con- veniently in its original Latin form, niputes, whence nep t sin, A.D. 1475. JUBILEE- WORKS AT ROME. 217- become Franciscans, but speedily threw off all the restraints of their profession (Dec. 1471). One of them, Julian della Rovere, became famous under the name of Pope Julius II. The other, Peter Riario, took only two years to bring himself to ruin and the grave at the age of 28 by his extravagance and debauchery (Jan. 1474) ; when his brother Jerome succeeded to the Pope's still greater favour.1 To create fortunes for these relatives, Sixtus raised money by the most disgraceful arts ; selling the highest dignities to unworthy purchasers, who were often defrauded of their money by non-fulfilment of the promise ; creating new offices to trade in; corrupting justice by the sale of pardons, even for capital offences ; imposing oppressive taxes ; and tampering with the market-prices of provisions to such an extent as even to cause a famine. As a means of bringing in money, advantage was taken, by large indulgences, of the Jubilee appointed by Paul II. for 1475, twenty-five years after the last celebration : but the influx of pilgrims, notwithstanding the amplest offers of indulgences, was checked not only by a pestilence, but also by the evil repute of the Pope, which had reached all parts of Christendom. Still it brought in great wealth, which Sixtus expended in part on the im- provement of Rome, though with much of the destruction which has become almost synonymous with " restoration." In widening and repaving the streets, he destroyed many porticoes and other ancient buildings, which the King of Naples marked as obstacles to the Pope's full mastery of Rome. One of his biographers boasts that the city would have been rebuilt had Sixtus lived, and, in rivalling the famous saying of Augustus, he destroyed many of the most venerable churches. His chief monuments are the Janiculan bridge, which he rebuilt, and the Sistine chapel in the Vatican, afterwards renowned for the frescoes of Michael Angelo. His enlargement of the Vatican Library, and appointment of Platina to its charge, testify to his patronage of letters. § 2. The nepotism of Sixtus IV. affected his whole policy towards the States of Italy ; and in one case it was a chief cause of his complicity in an atrocious crime, the conspiracy of the Pazzi, at Florence, for the murder of Lorenzo de' Medici (surnamed " the Magnificent ") and his brother Julian. The Pope's nephew, Jerome Riario, and his grand-nephew, Raphael Riario, who had 1 The brothers Riario were said to be really the Pope's sons ; and Infessura ascribes their favour to a more odious connection. Another nephew, who is described as "a very little man, aud of intellect corre- sponding to his person." was married to an illegitimate daughter of Ferdinand of Naples; and, as the price of this alliance, Sixtus commuted the tribute of Naples to the Apostolic See for rs<'! There are other cases of the Pope's nepotism, which it is needless to recount. 218 DEATH OF SIXTHS IV. Chap. XIV. just been made a cardinal at the age of eighteen, were active parties in the conspiracy, to the support of which Sixtus, while professing to desire no bloodshed, promised the aid of the papal troops. When the murderous attack, made by two priests in the cathedral, at the moment of the elevation of the host (Sunday, April 26th, 1478), failed of its object — Lorenzo de' Medici escaping with a wound, though his brother Julian was killed, and the people taking part vehemently against the assassins — the Pope issued a violent Bull against Lorenzo and the magistrates of Florence, and made war upon the city in league with Ferdinand, King of Naples. Europe in general was indignant against the Pope, and Louis XL threatened to revive the Pragmatic Sanction and to stop the papal revenues from France, which, he declared, went to enrich Jerome, instead of being applied to the Holy War. So little indeed had been done towards the Crusade, for which the Pope had professed great zeal at his accession, that Home itself was now threatened by Mahomet, who took Otranto, and put 12,000 out of its 22,000 inhabi- tants to the sword (Aug. 21, 1480). This blow brought the Pope" to terms with the Florentines, who had already, in their extremity, won over Ferdinand of Naples by the personal influence of Lorenzo de' Medici. Their ambassadors went through a solemn form of sub- mission and reconciliation at Pome ; and the chief States of Italy joined to expel the invader from Italian soil. The dynastic contest, which followed the death of Mahomet the Conqueror (May 3rd, 1481), cut off the reinforcements needed fur holding Otranto, and the Turkish garrison surrendered to the Neapolitans (August 10th). § 3. Instead of following up this success against the common enemy, who were besieging the Knights of St. John at Rhodes, the Pope and the Venetians joined in an attempt to take Ferrara from the house of Este for Jerome Riario. Ferdinand of Naples opposed the scheme, and his troops had advanced to the gates of Rome, when he won over Riario, and through him Sixtus himself (1482). The Pope's late allies were invited to join in a new league for the pacification of Italy ; and their refusal was punished by Bulls of the severest excommunication and interdict (May 1483). But the Venetian oligarchy proved itself too strong for the Vatican ; and, fortified by the opinion of the jurists of Padua, the Council of Ten intercepted the papal missives, compelled the clergy to perform their functions, and appealed both to a General Council and a Congress of Christian princes. Besides this war, the Roman territory was desolated by the feuds of the papal Orsini and the an ti- papal Colonna and Savelli ; till a peace was made between Venice and Naples, without any stipulation in favour of Jerome A.D. 1484. CHARACTER OF INNOCENT VIII. 219 Riario. The Pope's vexation at this treaty is said to have hastened his death, which took place five days later (Aug. 12, 1484). The biographer sees the power of God in this liberation of His Christian people ; but we may now still more trace the Divine hand in an event of the last year of Sixtus. Martin Luther ivas born on the 11th of November, 1483.1 § 4. The death of Sixtus IV. gave free rein to the popular hatred of his family and connections, the factions of the nobility, and the intrigues of parties in the Conclave. The interests of the cardinals were again vainly protected by stringent capitulations ; and the confident hopes of Roderigo Borgia were frustrated by the exertions of Julian della Rovere and Ascanius Sforza 2 in favour of Cardinal John Baptist Cibo,3 who was elected as Innocent VIII. (1484- 1492). The moral laxity of the nominal head of Christianity seemed to have reached its climax in a Pope whose seven illegiti- mate children, by different mothers, were openly recognized and provided for out of the revenues of the Church. Corrupt and simoniacal dealings were continued and increased ; and offices were created to be sold, the purchasers repaying themselves by exactions. The " capitulations," to which the Pope had renewed his oath after his election, were set at nought. Rome, distracted by the renewed feuds of the Colonna and Orsini, was thrown into utter disorder by a papal edict allowing the return of all who had been banished, for whatever cause (1485) ; and pardons were sold for the grossest crimes, for, as a high officer said, " God willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should pay and live."* The papal court 1 The same year was also marked by the death of Louis XI. (Aug. 30, 1483), to soothe whose superstitious terrors Sixtus sent relics in such abundance that the Romans remonstrated against the loss to their city. Among the troop of holy men, whose intercession was sought by the King, was St. Francis of Paola, the founder of a new branch of his great namesake's order of the Minorites (Fratns JJinores), which he called in his humility the Minims (Fratres Minimi). See further in Chap. XXV. § 9. 2 Ascanius Sforza, son of Galeazzo Sforza of Milan, had been made a car- dinal by the late Pope in consideration of the marriage of Jerome Riario to an illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo. 3 His family was of Greek origin, but had been long settled at Genoa and Naples by the name of fomacelli, that to which Boniface IX. belonged. The name of Cibo was taken from the chess-board pattern (kv^os) in their arms. The father of Innocent had been Viceroy of Naples under King Rene, and Senator of Rome under Calixtus III. 4 Infessura, ap. Robertson, vol. iv. p. 544. According to the oft-mis- quoted proverb, the exception tests (probat) the rule; as when two papal secretaries, detected in forging Bulls, were put to death because they could not pay the price of a pardon. On the other hand, there are writers who praise Innocent for his maintenance of public order; but the testimony of Infessura, though hostile, seems the more trustworthy. 220 THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA. Chap. XIV. was disgraced by gross profligacy, extravagance, and gambling, which infected the whole society of Home. § 5. The demand made by Innocent of the former tribute from Naples involved him in long wars with King Ferdinand, though twice ended by treaties in favour of the Papacy, the terms of which, however, were little regarded.1 In this conflict the Pope sought the alliance of the great ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici, whose son John (Giovanni), afterwards famous as Leo X., was made a cardinal at the age of thirteen (1489). § 6. While following the example of his predecessors, and with as little result, in calling the princes of Europe to a crusade against the Turks, Innocent entered into curious relations with their royal family. The succession to the great Sultan Mahomet II. had been disputed between his sons, Bajazet and Djem (called Zizim or Zemes in the West) ; and the latter, defeated by his brother, fled to the Knights of St. John at Rhodes, who sent him for greater safety to their brethren in France. After some years of competition for the young prince's person, to be used as a pretender against the Sultan, Djem was given up to the Pope, and was lodged as an honoured guest in the Vatican (1489). Bajazet, having failed (if the report can be trusted) in an intrigue to poison both the prince and the Pope, arranged to pay Innocent 40,000 ducats annually for his brother's maintenance and safe custody;2 and he propitiated the Pope with a most holy relic, the head of the spear which pierced the Saviour's side.3 § 7. While these civilities were exchanged between the Pope and Sultan, a great landmark was set in the history of Christendom by the final victory of Ferdinand and Isabella over the Moslems in Spain, in the conquest of Granada after a twelve years' war (Jan. 1492). The triumph was celebrated at Rome with unbounded rejoicings, and with bull-fights given by the Spanish ambassador and Cardinal Borgia. Three months later, the almost royal honours, with which the young Cardinal John de' Medici was installed on 1 For the details of these purely political affairs, see Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 544-5. 2 The young prince's fate was in keeping with the vest of this policy. When the next Pope, Alexander VI., supported the claim of Charles VIII. on Naples (see below, § 10), lie gave up Djem to the French King, to be used in a Crusade (Jan. 1495). But in the next month Djem died, poisoned, as was believed, and is now confirmed by the secret archives of Venice (see p. 232, n), for the great sum which Bajazet gave the Pope. 3 This is still one of the four most sacred relics preserved at St. Peter's. True, the possession of the lance was already claimed by other places, and Bajazet himself informed the Pope that its point (cuspis) was at Paris; but, as a writer asked in the spirit of the classic revival, if several cities claimed the birth of Homer and the tomb of /Eneas, why should there not be many claimants to the custody of this holy relic? A.D. 1492. RODERICK BORGIA, ALEXANDER VI. 221 completing his sixteenth year, were interrupted by the death of his father Lorenzo (April 7th) ; and the Pope died on July 27th. § 8. Amidst the armed tumults and loss of life in Eome and its neighbourhood, for which every papal vacancy had become the regular signal, a vehement struggle took place in the Conclave between the parties of Cardinals Borgia, Sforza, and della Rovere ; till Sforza, finding his chance hopeless, threw his weight into the scale of Borgia, whose success was ensured by unbounded bribery and promises of preferment to his brother cardinals.1 Alexander VI. (1492-1503), whose name stands alone in its " bad eminence !" even among the Popes of this age, expressed his exultation in words which have a satiric force in history; "I am Pope, Pontiff, Vicar of Christ ! " Some of the Romans rejoiced in the promise which his noble presence, wealth, and expensive tastes, gave of a splendid pontificate ; but his elevation alarmed the sovereigns of Spain, who knew him better, and Ferdinand of Naples is said to have burst into tears at the news. His career seems strangely placed in this history of the Christian Church ; but it helps on the climax of evidence for the necessity of a better foundation than the falsely- claimed Roman rock of Peter — that one true Rock of which the Apostle's name was but the symbol.2 \Roderigo Borgia,3 now 61 years old, was (as we have seen) 1 The only ones not thus won over are said to have been the Cardinals Piccolomini, della Rovere, and three others. Contemporary satire cele- brated the means by which Borgia secured his election, and his indis- criminate sale of benefices : — " Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Chi istum : Emerat iota prius ; vendere jure potest." Alexander's consciousness of the means by which his election was obtained was betrayed by his constant dread of a General Council. 2 The grand text inscribed round the dome of St. Peter's (Matt. xvi. J 8, "Tu es Petrus, &c") may suggest an irony to those who remember the state of the Papacy when it was set up. 3 The chief original authorities for this Pope and his family are Stephen Infessura(to 1494); Burchard, Master of the Ceremonies to Alexander VI., Diarium Curse Romanee, 1484-1506 (the first vol. of a new and complete edition, by L. Thuasne, has appeared at Paris, 1883) ; and especially Guicciardini, Isto-ia d'ltalia, Lib. XX. 1494-1532. Francesco Guicci- ardini, who ranks at the head of the general historians of Italy, was born at Florence in 1482, and became a strong partisan of the Medicean party. He was in the service of Leo X. and Clement VII., and had a chief share in the final establishment of the rule of the Medici in 1530. But disgust at the despotic power usurped by Cosmo I. caused his retirement to his country seat at Arcetri, where he wrote his History, and died in May 1540. The History was only published 20 years later by his nephew, Bks. I.— XVI. in 1561, aud the first complete edition at Venice in 1569. Though prolix, it is valuable and authentic, the more so because charac- terized, like the great work of his contemporary Machiavelli, by the moral indifference of the age, and so the more impartial. II— M 222 MAXIMILIAN I., EMPEROR ELECT. Chap. XIV. by birth a Spaniard: he and his family spoke Spanish among themselves, and were surrounded by attendants and confidants of their own nation.1 A legatine mission to Spain, to collect money for the Crusade, added to the great wealth he derived from his numerous preferments and the inheritance of his uncle, Calixtus III. Like the Spanish clergy in general, he was deficient in learning, though of ready eloquence ; his ability lying chiefly in craft, resources, and perseverance as a negociator. His faithlessness, Machiavelli tells us,2 was such that he was not to be believed on his oath. His addiction to pleasure was not allowed to interfere with business, which he often transacted during a large part of the night. His earlier ecclesiastical life had been marked by deeds as well as professions of piety and charity ; nor, up to this time, had his loose morality reached the licence which made the palaces of some other cardinals notorious for their profligate revels.3 It was probably about 1470 that he made an irregular marriage (so he regarded the connection) with Vanozza de' Catanei, whom he pro- vided with two husbands in succession.4 Alexander's surviving family was three sons and two daughters. His eldest son, Peter Louis, having died, the title of Duke of Gandia, given him by the King of Spain, had devolved on his next brother, John. The third and favourite son, the infamous Cesar Borgia, who was studying for the priesthood at Pisa, was at once made Bishop of Pampeluna and soon after Archbishop of Valencia (his father's see), and next year a cardinal.5 § 9. In the same year (1493) a new force arose in Europe by the succession of the able and adventurous Maximilian I. to his father Frederick III.6 From him dates the real greatness of the house of 1 Caesar Borgia's trusted assassin and poisoner was a Spaniard. 2 Principe, c. 18. 3 Even an historian of the age, who holds that the vices of Alexander were equalled by his virtues, draws his character in the following terms : — "perfidia plusquam Punica, saevitia immani, avaritia immensa ac rapaci- tate, inexhausta parandifilio imperii per fas et nefas libidine . . . Mulieri- bus maxime addictus, &c" Onuphrius Panvinius (the continuer of Platina), de Yit. Pontif. p. 360, Colon. 1600. * After Alexander's death, Vanozza is said to have led a life of devotion and beneficence. She is buried in the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo. 5 The character and adventures of the beautiful Lucrezia Borgia, who was now fifteen, have no real place in the ecclesiastical history ot' the age. It is enough to say that there is undoubtedly much exaggeration in the traditional accounts of her, and indeed of the whole family of Borgia. But enough was true to m:\ke the worst easy of belief. 6 As has been said before, he was the first who bore the title of Emperor Elect, whi.h was formally conferred by Pope Julius II., when the Venetians prevented Maximilian from going to Rome for his coronation (1508). Born in 1459, he had been elected King of the Romans in his father's lifetime. At the age of 18, he married Mary, heiress of Charles A.D. 1494 f. CHARLES VIII., OF FRANCE, IN ITALY. 223 Hapsburg in the Empire which they held (with the exception of only one reign) till it was abdicated by Francis II. in 1806. § 10. We may best leave to civil history the intricate movements of Italian politics, which brought Charles VIIL of France to Rome on his enterprize to recover the Angevine inheritance of Naples (Dec. 31, 1494). The Pope, who had taken part with King Alfonso,1 and had vainly sought aid from Maximilian, found himself unable to refuse Charles a passage ; he shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo, threatened at once by the French cannon and an appeal promoted by a large party of the cardinals to a General Council for his deposition. But he found means to influence the King's counsellors; a treaty was concluded, and Caesar Borgia accompanied Charles as legate, but really as a hostage, and contrived to escape on the march to Naples. Alfonso, whose tyranny and vices, as well as his father's, had made him hated by his subjects, abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand II., and retired to a monastery, where he soon after died ; while the new King, unable to oppose the invader, fled to Ischia, and Charles entered Naples unopposed (Feb. 21st, 1495). But his indolence and misgovernment, and the rapacity and licence of his followers, utterly disgusted his new subjects ; and the news of a league formed by the Pope, the Emperor, the sovereigns of Spain, and the Vene- tians, forced him to retreat from Naples. At Rome, Alexander avoided meeting him by retiring to Orvieto, and Charles recrossed the Alps in October. Meanwhile Ferdinand was reinstated at Naples by the aid of the " Great Captain " of Spain,2 Gonsalvo de Aguilar, the conqueror of Granada, who also recovered Ostia for the Pope from the force left there by Charles under Julian della Rovere ; the Cardinal himself being driven into exile. Gonsalvo accepted the golden rose as a present for his sovereigns ; but he refused the honours offered for himself, and rebuked the Pope for the disorders of his court (1497). § 11. The speedy death of Ferdinand IT., at the age of 27 (Sept. 7th, 1496), opened to the Pope a prospect of schemes for the the Bold of Burgundy, who brought the Low Countries to the house of Austria; and the marriage of their son, Philip, with Joanna, the heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella, united the possessions of Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands, in the person of their son, Charles I. of Spain, the Emperor Charles V. 1 Alfonso succeeded his father Ferdinand, Jan. 25th, 1494. Charles was urged on to the enterprize by the Cardinal della Rovere, the im- placable enemy of the Pope. 2 It is a sign of the objects for which the pretence of a Crusade was kept up, that the Pope authorized the Spanish sovereigns to employ the money, collected for that purpose in Spain, against the French in Naples. 224 LOUIS XII. KING OF FRANCE. Chap. XIV. aggrandizement of his family in Naples, like those which had been formed by Sixtus IV. As a first step, the dukedom of Benevento — the ancient possession of the Papacy in the heart of the Neapolitan dominions — was conferred on John Borgia, duke of Gandia, Picco- lomini being the only cardinal who protested against this aliena- tion of the Church's patrimony (June 7th, 1497). But on that day week the duke was murdered in the streets of Rome,1 and it was not doubted that the crime was perpetrated by Caesar Borgia, in order to secure for himself the advancement designed for his brother. Alexander, amidst his bitter lamentations, cried out that he knew the murderer ; but before the consistory he declared that he suspected no one. In his agony of grief, he appointed a commis- sion of six cardinals to draw up a scheme for the reformation of the Church, and even talked of resigning the Papacy ; but all this ended in verifying the famous proverb of the sick wicked one. Csesar soon regained his ascendancy over his father, and went to Naples to crown the new King, Frederick, uncle of Ferdinand, an amiable and popular sovereign, whom he was perhaps already plotting to supplant (Aug. 1497). To smooth the path of his ambition, Caesar obtained a dispensation from his clerical orders and dignity as a cardinal, and became a simple layman (Aug. 1498). § 12. Meanwhile Charles VIII. of France had died at the age of 28 (April 7th, 1498), and was succeeded by his cousin the Duke of Orleans, as Louis XII. The new King was eager for release from his deformed but amiable wife, Jeanne, whom her father, Louis XL, had forced upon him,2 that he might marry Charles's widow, who was heiress of Brittany in her own right. Alexander eagerly seized the opportunity for an alliance with France, and sent Caesar on a splendid mission, with Bulls for the divorce and remarriage of Louis,3 and one conferring the dignity of cardinal on the King's minister, d'Amboise. The divorce was pronounced after a scanda- 1 John (Juan, Giovanni), who was 24 when he died, was the only one of the Borgias in whose line the family was continued. His son Juan was the ancestor of dukes, cardinals, and prelates: and chief among them ranks his son, St. Francesco de Borgia (b. 1510), who, after a splendid career at the court of Charles V. (whose executor he became later), retired from the world on the death of his wife (1546), entered the Society of Jesus, and became its third General (1565). He died at Rome in 1572, and was canonized by Clement IX. in 1671. 2 Louis XII., the first King of the line of Valois-Orleans, was the grandson of Louis, duke of Orleans, the younger son of Charles V., and of Valentina Viseonti, on his descent from whom he based his claim to the duchy of Milan. As to the death of Charles VIII., see ]-. 232, n. 3 With characteristic duplicity, the second Bull was kept back, to secure better terms from Louis; but its existence was betrayed to the King by a bishop, whom Caesar is said to have poisoned for his indiscretion. A.D. 1498 f. CAREER OF CESAR BORGIA. 225 lous mockery of a trial. Louis rewarded Ca3sar Borgia with the hand of his niece Charlotte d'Alhret, sister of the King of Navarre, and with the duchy of Valentinois, and promised to aid his ambi- tious schemes in Italy. While Louis, in two campaigns, conquered the duchy of Milan, and carried off Ludovico Sforza a prisoner to France,1 Cajsar Borgia pursued his designs in Central Italy. With the design of creating a great principality — and even, as some think, of aiming at a union of the peninsula — Ceesar began by putting down the numerous petty princes, who had raised them- selves from the original condition of papal vicars in the territories of the Holy See. The oppressive taxation, required to support these courts in the luxury of the age and their patronage of arts and letters, made them hateful to their subjects ; and their failure to pay the tribute to Rome gave a pretext for their suppression. The alienation of their fiefs from the domain of the Church to become the property of the Borgias was sanctioned by the Sacred College, and Ca?sar, who had been received at Rome with a splendid triumph (Feb. 1500), was created Duke of Romagna. His designs on Tuscany were checked by the French king, wlio was urged by many of the Italians to deliver the Church from the Pope and his son. Alexander, however, secured the influence of Cardinal d'Amboise by new promises ; and the alliance was confirmed in an interview between Louis and Caesar at Milan (Aug. 1502). § 13. It would only be disgusting to recite in detail the acts of cruelty and perfidy by which Caisar Borgia secured and extended his power in Italy; or the shameless profligacy in which, after making allowance for exaggeration, we must believe that the Pope, his family, and his court, revelled at the Vatican. These excesses, and the splendid establishments of the Borgias, were supported in part by all the old abuses — the traffic in benefices and indulgences, the creation of offices for sale, the misappropriation of money collected for the Crusade — with new and most shameful devices. Cardinals were created in large numbers at a time, " for a consideration ; " but their removal was still more profitable. Alexander not only seized the property of deceased cardinals under the jus exuvia/rum, in defiance of their testamentary dispositions, but even forbad their making wills, and in some cases a rich succession is said to have been secured by poison. Wealthy prelates disappeared mys- teriously. Rome was kept under a government of terror ; the prisons were crowded, while the streets were full of assassins and spies, and dead bodies were daily found lying in the streets or floating 1 The details belong to civil history. See the Student's France, chap. xiii. § 2. 226 JUBILEE OF 1500. Chap. XIV. in the Tiber. Criminal charges were invented against Roman nobles, that their confiscated property might be swept into the coffers of the Iiorgias ; and church property was largely alienated for their possession.1 The Jubilee of 1500 enriched the Vatican with the contributions of a vast number of pilgrims, who in return carried abroad the news of the utter depravity of Rome, and so gave an impulse to the great movement of the sixteenth century.2 § 14. How the forces of reformation were gathering beyond the Alps, will be told in its place ; but, even in the great depth of Italian corruption, the dark picture of Alexander's Papacy is broken by the appearance of one of the most striking characters of the age, the reformer and martyr Jerome Savonaboi-a.3 Born in 1452 at Ferrara, where his grandfather was court physician, he became an ardent student of poetry, philosophy, and theology. Imbued with reverence for Thomas Aquinas, and disgusted at the profligacy of the times, he was led by the preaching of a Dominican friar to enter the Order at the age of twenty-two (1475). He had already believed himself favoured with visions ; and in the scrip- tural studies, which he pursued with ardour, he was addicted to mystic and allegorical interpretations. After a course of seven years in the Dominican convent at Bologna, his superiors removed him to the monastery of St. Mark's at Florence (1482), of which he was elected prior in 1491. Meanwhile, notwithstanding some natural disqualifications and first failures, Savonarola burst forth into full power as a preacher to the multitudes who filled the 1 "Thus Caesar, in addition to his fiefs in the Romagna, received the abbey of Subiaco, with eighteen castles belonging to it ; and nineteen cardinals signed the deed of alienation, while not one dared to object to it."— Robertson, vol. iv. p. 580. 2 A series of events of the highest importance in contemporary history claim notice also as an illustration of the lofty claims of the Pap;icy. The Discovery or re-discovery of Americx was begun by the first voyage of Columbus in 1492, and in 1497 Vasco da Gama found the way to India round the Cape of Good Hope. Alexander VI. assumed the right to divide the newlv discovered worlds by a Bull, drawing a line from Pole to Pole west of the Azores, and giving the East to Portugal and the West to Spain (1493). 3 In Italian Girolamo, in Latin, Hieronymus Savonarola. The chief authorities are the old lives, by his admirer Picus of Mirandola, 1530, and by the Dominican Burlamacchi (ob. 1519), in Baluz. Miseell. vol. i. ; Ecchard and Quetif; Machiavelli, and De Comines. Among modern works, the most valuable is that of Villari, Storia di (iir. Sav. 2 vols. Fir. 1859-61; also the lives by Rudelbach, Hamb. 1835, Hase (Ncue Propheten, Leipz. 1851-1861), Madden, Lond. 1853; and an article by Dean Milman in the Qu irt< rly Bevien; June 1865. The preaching and death of Savonarola play a conspicuous part in 4 George Eliot's ' novel of Romola A.D. 1491 f. SAVONAROLA AT FLORENCE. 227 cathedral, to hear the friar whose fervent words and passionat" gestures seemed to mark one who pleaded for God. He propounded no new doctrines, nor did he assail any point in the creed of the Church; but he rebuked with equal vehemence the practical cor- ruptions of laity and clergy, the utter want of spirituality amidst the splendour and culture of the age ; the luxury of common life, and the pomp of religious worship. Formerly, he said, the Church had golden priests and wooden chalices, but now the chalices were of gold, the priests of wood. His threats of coming punishment were not only couched in apocalyptic imagery, but in more directly prophetic language, predicting that Italy wTould be scourged by a new Cyrus coming over the Alps. He claimed to have received visions and revelations from angels; these, and his contests with evil spirits, became famous beyond Italy ; and his admirers spoke of him as " the prophet." With Savonarola's religious enthusiasm was mingled an ardent love of republican freedom ; and his political opposition to the Medici was the more inflexible for his reprobation of their luxury and vice. In 1492, Lorenzo " the Magnificent," on his deathbed, turned to the prior of St. Mark's, whom he had before vainly tried to conciliate, and confessed the sins that lay heaviest on his conscience. But when Savonarola, replying by assurances of the Divine mercy and goodness, demanded acts of restitution, one of which was that he should restore the liberties of Florence, Lorenzo refused, and Savonarola left him unabsolved. § 15. When, two years later, Charles VIII. entered Italy and approached Florence, Pietro de' Medici, who at the age of twenty-one had succeded to his father's power and was already unpopular for his vice and weakness, met the French king and made with him a treaty most disadvantageous to the city. For this he and his brothers wTere expelled ; but Savonarola, as a leader in the restored Eepublic, counselled submission to Charles, of whom he spoke as " the new Cyrus ;" while the French king made a vague response to the friar's exhortations that he would respect the liberties of Florence, and labour for the reformation of the Church (1494). After this brief episode of Charles's invasion, the responsibility of guiding the Eepublic devolved in a great degree on Savonarola, amidst the suppressed dislike of the Medicean party and the avowed opposition of the ardent oligarchs, while the pure repub- licans had little sympathy with the principles of moral and religious reform, which he put above all worldly policy. " He proclaimed the sovereignty of Christ, and did not hesitate to deduce from this the sacredness of the laws which he himself set forth. His visions 228 THE SACRIFICE OF VANITIES. Chap. XIV. increased, partly through the effect of his ascetic exercises."1 His preaching produced a complete revolution in the outward aspect of life at Florence, in dress, manners, religious duties, almsgiving, commercial honesty, the reading of serious in place of licentious lite- rature, and the abandonment of gross public spectacles. H is influence even pressed into the service of reform the unruly boys, whose exaction of money for their festivities had been a chief scandal of the Carnival, where they now appeared to collect alms (149B). In his own priory he effected a thorough reformation, not only restoring the simplicity of monastic life, but training the brethren in schools for the study of Holy Scripture in the original tongues, and for the arts of calligraphy, painting, and illumination, which were used to defray the expenses of the house. " The number of the brethren had increased from about 50 to 238, of whom many were dis- tinguished for their birth, learning, or accomplishments ; and among the devoted adherents of the prior were some of the most eminent artists of the age ; . . . above all, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who even to old age used to read the sermons of Savonarola, and to recal with reverence and delight his tones and gestures."2 § 16. Around such a course it was inevitable that bitter enmity, both ecclesiastical and political, should gather. As the result of representations made to Koine, Savonarola was prohibited from preaching ; but his temporary obedience was soon broken by new denunciations of the vices of the Roman court and of the Pope's simoniacal election, with appeals to a General Council (1495). The crafty Alexander tried to win him over by offering to make him a cardinal ; " but Savonarola indignantly declared from the pulpit that he would have no other red hat than one dj^ed with the blood of mar- tyrdom."3 He was again interdicted from preaching till he should obey the summons to Rome. The Carnival of 1497 was signalized by Savonarola's great Sacrifice of Vanities. " For some days the boys who were under his influence went about the city, asking the inhabitants of each house to give up to them any articles which were regarded as vanities and cursed things ; and these were built up into a vast pile, fifteen stories high — carnival masks and habits, rich dresses and ornaments of women, false hair, cards and dice, perfumes and cosmetics, amatory poems and other books of a free character, musical instruments, paintings, and sculptures ; all surmounted by a monstrous figure representing the Carnival. ... On the morning of the last day of the Carnival, Savonarola celebrated mass. A long 1 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 584. 2 Ibid. p. 585. s Villari, i. 423 ; Robertson, iv. 587. A.D. 1497. SAVONAROLA AND ALEXANDER VI. 229 procession of children and others then wound through the s'reets, after which the pyre was kindled, and its burning was accompanied by the singing of psalms and hymns, the sounds of bells, drums, and trumpets, with the shouts of an enthusiastic multitude, while the signory looked on from a balcony (Feb. 7)."1 On the ensuing Ascension Day (May 4) Savonarola's friends with difficulty protected him from a riotous assault made upon him in the pulpit ; and at the same time (May 12), Alexander issued the sentence of excommunication against him. 2 Savonarola retired to his convent and wrote his most important work, • The Triumph of the Cross.' On the death of the Duke of Gandia (July 1), he addressed to the Tope a letter of consolation, and of encouragement in the reforms which Alexander professed to contemplate under the pres- sure of his grief, and it seemed at the time to meet with a favourable reception.3 § 17. In the spring of next year he resumed his preaching at the request of the signory, denouncing the arbitrary claims of the Pope, and especially the abuse of excommunication, as well as the vices ot the papal court, and urging the necessity of a General Council. The " burning of vanities " was repeated, and was followed by wild dances and singing in front of St. Mark's, by allowing and defending which Savonarola incurred fresh odium. A fanatical Franciscan, Francis of Apulia, now came forward to challenge the great Dominican reformer to the ordeal of fire ; but Savonarola declared that the truth of his teaching was proved by sounder evidence, and that he had other and better work to do. The challenge, however, was eagerly accepted by his zealous adherent, Dominic of Pescia ; 4 and not only all his friars, but a multitude of men, women, and even children, proffered themselves for the trial. At leng h, as Francis refused to meet any one but Savonarola himself, the chal- lenger's place was taken by another Franciscan, Fr. Eondinelli, and the eve of Palm Sunday was fixed for the ordeal (April 7th, 1498). All Florence flocked to the Place of the Signory, where two piles of wood were heaped up, each 40 feet long, with a passage between them only a yard wide. But the Franciscans raised objections, chiefly on the ground that Savonarola's boast of miraculous powers 1 Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 587-8. 2 The ground alleged was Savonarola's disobedience, as prior of St. Mark's, to the order uniting that society with the Tuscan congregation. 3 Afterwards, however, Alexander treated the intrusion as an offence. Villari, ii. 32. 4 Dominic had taken Savonarola's place in the pulpit, when his leader was forbidden to preach: and he had been engaged in disputations with Francis of Apulia. We have to speak afterwards of the bitter rivalry long since established between the two great orders of Mendicants. II— M 2 230 MARTYRDOM OF SAVONAROLA. Chap. XIV. might be made good by magical charms. The dispute had lasted for hours, when a heavy fall of rain soaked the piles, and the signory finally forbad the ordeal. The multitude of sightseers, who, according to their kind in all ages, cared most for the danger and cruelty of the spectacle, vented their disappointment on Savonarola, whose friends could hardly conduct him in safety to St. Mark's. Two days later the convent had to surrender to a mob, and Savonarola and Dominic were put in prison. The signory who governed Florence were elected anew in alternate months, and the power which had protected Savonarola had now fallen into the hands of his enemies. A hostile commis- sion was appointed for his examination, and he was repe itedly sub- jected to torture, which his frame, exhausted by an ascetic life, was unable to endure. " When I am under torture," he said, " I lose myself, I am mad ; that only is true which I say without torture." The Pope wished him to be sent to Rome for trial; but, as the Florentines stood on the dignity of the Republic, and argued that the scene of the offence should also be that of the punishment, Alexander appointed the General of the Dominicans and another as his commissioners. Though it was found impossible to make good any charge of doctrinal unsoundness,1 the predetermined judgment was pronounced (May 19th), and on the following day Savonarola, Dominic of Pescia, and Sylvester Maruffi, were hanged and burnt in the place of the Signory, and their ashes were thrown into the Arno. In the preliminary ceremony of degradation, the officiating bishop, who had formerly been a friar of St. Mark's, was so agitated that he misread the formula : " I separate thee from the Church triumphant." Savonarola calmly corrected him : " From the militant, not from the triumphant, for that is not thine to do:" in those few words rebuking the whole usurpation of the power of binding and loosing.2 1 The acts of the process seem to have been falsified with this view. See the original documents in Villari, and the authorities cited by Gieseler, v. 155 f., and Robertson, iv. 593. 2 It was in the same year, and just after the death of Savonarola, that the active career of NlCCOLO MACHIAVELLI began. Born of a noble Florentine family, in 14G9, he was 25 years old when the Medici were expelled and Charles VIII. entered Florence. His decided Republicanism was rather of a heathen character than in any sympathy with the theo- cratic views of Savonarola, whom he charges with weakness in not destroying the " sons of Brutus " (i.e. the Medici). For fourteen years (1498-1512) he served the Repubic as Secretary to the Council of Ten, and also proved his high ability in the discharge of several missions to the King of France, the Emperor, and Popes Pius III., Julius II. and Leo X. It was at Rome, during the election of Pius III., that he conceived A.D. 1501 f. NAPLES SEIZED BY SPAIN. 231 § 18. To return to Rome at the epoch of the Jubilee of 1500. In the midst of the celebration of Caesar Borgia's triumph, news arrived of the birth, at Ghent (Feb. 24), of Charles, son of Philip of Austria and Joanna of Castile, grandson and heir of Maximilian and Ferdinand, around whom, as the Emperor Charles V., the coming religious contest was to centre. In the same year, Louis of France and Ferdin md of Spain made a treaty at Granada for the par- tition of Naples (Nov. 11). The Pope sanctioned the treacherous scheme, on the old plea of preparing for a crusade ; and Caesar Borgia joined " the great cap' am " Gonsalvo 1 in expelling Frederick, w ho surrendered to Louis and received from him the duchy of Anjou (1501). A quarrel about the division of the spoil was arranged by another treaty at Lyon (April, 1503), providing for the marriage of the infant Charles, of Spain and Austria, to Claude, the daughter of Louis XII. But, in open disregard of this treaty, Gonsalvo, joined by Cassar Borgia, overran Naples, to recover which Louis was preparing an expedition, when all was changed by the Pope's sudden death.2 § 19. Alexander VI. seemed s* ill in full vigour at the age of seventy-two, and an ambassador had admired his sonorous a bitter hatred of " those rascally priests," to whom he ascribed the ruin of faith and morality in Italy. On the restoration of the Medici, he submitted, and even sought office, but in vain, and in the following year he was arrested on a charge of conspiracy, tortured, and banished. It was during his retirement of eight years that he composed his famous works, of which especially the Principe and the Discorsi illustrate the history of his times, and embody the then prevalent maxims of Italian policy which have become proverbial under his name, that "the means must be judged by the ends for which they are employed," and that a sovereign may use all arts of fraud and violence, the one crime being failure. It mav be said that Caesar Borgia was the original of his J rincipe ; and his principles were acted out by Frederick the Great and Napoleon. His earnest endeavours for the favour of the Medici may be explained from his conviction that a despotism was the only hope for the state ; and his cvuical contempt for human nature set him free from all bonds of political morality. He died in 1527, just after the second expulsion of the Medici. The very valuable Life and Times of Muchiavelli, by Professor Villari, has been translated by Linda Villari (1878 f.) ; and a complete English trans- lation of his works has recently appeared. 1 Gonsalvo was in Sicily, professedly preparing to aid the Venetians against the Turks. 2 The French army was detained in the Roman States by the intrigues of Cardinal d'Amboise, as a candidate for the Papacy. The delay proved fatal ; and the destiny of Naples was decided bv the victory of Gonsalvo on the Gariijliuno, one of the greatest military disasters in the history of France (Dec. 27, 1503). This decision of war was confirmed by Leo X., and Naples remained united to Spain till their separation in the great War of Succession (1707). 232 ELECTION AND DEATH OF PIUS III. Chap. XIV. voice in celebrating mass at Easter. On the 12 h of August, in his vineyard near the Vatican, he gave, with his son Ca?sar, a supper to the wealthy cardinal of St. Chrysogonus and Bishop of Hereford,1 who, according to the common belief, was to be "removed" by the usual practice of the Borjjias. Whether by some mismanagement or by a counterplot,2 all three were seized with illness, from which Ca>sar and the Cardinal recovered after a frightful crisis; but the Pope died within a week, as was publicly given out, of a fever (Aug. 18, 1503). § 20. The preparations which Ca?sar Borgia had made for such an event were hampered by his illness, and the cardinals were taken quite by surptise. As a temporary expedient, ihey chose the most respectable but most infirm of their body, Francis Piccolo- mini, 3 who, from respect to the memory of his uncle, iEneas Sylvius (Pius 11.), took the title of Pius III. (Sept. 22). The utter anarchy caused by the rising against the Borgias of the people of Rome, the nobles of the environs, and the cities of the Romagna, drove the Pope for refuge to the castle of St Angelo, where he died on the twenty-sixth day after his election (Oct. 18, 1503). 1 Adrian Castellesi, a native of Corneto, was made Bishop of Hereford in 1502, and translated to Bath and Wells in 1504. The architect Bramante built the splendid palace in the Borgo for the Cardinal, who gave it to Henry VIII., and it became the residence of the English ambassador. Under Leo X. Adrian retired to Venice, in consequence of having become privy to the conspiracy of Petrucci ; and he is supposed to have been murdered on his way to Rome for the election of Leo's successor. 2 Ranke cites, from a MS. of Sanuto, a story that Adrian, suspecting the design against his life (like the famous Cardinal Spada of romance) bribed the Pope's cook to serve up a poisoned dish to Alexander (Hist, of the Popes, iii. 253). The common report, that the Pope and Caesar drank by mistake of the poisoned wine, is given by several original authorities, in vague terms, as is natural under the circumstances; and the hypothesis of an innocent accident seems quite untenable. The recovery of the Cardinal favours the supposition that he was on his guard. His whole skin is said to have been changed. The recovery of Caesar is ascribed to the use of antidotes, aided by his youthful vigour. The belief that the Pope died of a fever contracted by supping in the garden is perhaps but a sign of what is now called "scientific criticism." Some very interesting revelations of the free use of poison in this age, as well as of other points in its history, are made in the recent publication of the secret archives of Venice — " Secrets d' /'tat de Venise. Par Vladimir Lamansky, St. Petersbourg, 1884-." Among seventy-seven eminent persons whose lives were thus attempted or threatened by the Republic, we find the Emperors Sigismund and Maximilian, Kings Charles VIII. and I.ouis XII., the Sultans Mahomet II. and Bajazet III., Casar Borgia and Julius II. 3 He was 64 years old, and had been made a cardinal by his uncle in 1460. The Pope in Procession. CHAPTER XV. THE FAPACY IN THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION. JULIUS II. LEO X. CLEMENT VII. CORONATION OF CHARLES V. TO THE EPOCH OF THE A.D. 1503-1530. 1. Parties in the Conclave — Capitulations — Election of Julian della Rovere as JULIUS II. — His portrait and character: love of war, and policy of Italian independence. § '_'. Expulsion and death of Caesar Borgia — The Pope's conquesjts in the Romagna. § 3. Power of J'< nice against both the Empire and Papacy- — Maximilian styled "Emperor 234 POPE JULIUS II. Chap. XV. Elect " — League of Cambray and war with Venice — The Venetians re- conciled to the Pope — Henry VIII. of England. § 4. Quarrel of Julius with France — National Assembly of Tours — The Gravamini of Germany. § 5. Julius in the Field — The Keys of Peter and Sword of Paul — Siege of Mirandola. § 6. Demands of Maximilian and Louis — Anti-papal Council of Pisa — The Holy League against France — Battle of Ravenna — The French driven out of Lombardy. § 7. The Fifth Lateran Council (the 18th (Ecumenical of the Romans) — Adhesion of the Emperor. § 8. Death of Julius II. (1513). § 9. Cardinal John de' Medici : his earlier life and election as Leo X. § 10. His character, a personification of the Renaissance — His patronage of arts and letters ; splendour, luxury, and extravagance. § 11. Instability and selfishness of his policy — New League against Louis XII. — The French again driven out of Milan — Peace made by the Pope — Louis adheres to the Lateran Council. § 12 Accession and character of Francis I. (1515) — His invasion of the Milanese and victory at M irignano — Interview with the Pope — The Pragm die Sanction renounced — New Concordat : confirmed by the Council. § 13. Accession of Charles I. in Spain (1516) — His Alliance with France — Europe at Peace. § 14. End of the Council and Beginning of the Reformation by Luther's 95 Theses (1517). § 15. Death of Maximilian, and contest for the Empire — Frederick the Wise of Saxony — Election of Charles of Spain as Charles V. (1519). § 16. Francis renews the war — Ignatius Loyola — The Pope joins the Emperor —Death of Leo (1521). § 17. Adrian VI. (1522-3) ; his attempted reform and death. A Pope denying Pap d Infallibility. § 18. Another Medicean Pope, Clement VII. § 19. War in Lombardy — Battle of Pavic (1525) — New Holy Lrajue against Charles — Rome sacked by the Germans — French success in Lombardy and disaster at Naples. § 20. Peace of Cambray — Charles crowned by Clement at Bologna — Position of the Empire — Death of Clement VII. (15o4), coincident with the epoch of the English Reformation — State of the Papacy. § 1. The brief episode of Pius III.'s pontificate gave a breathing- space to test the strength of parties in the Sacred College. Cardinal d'Amboise,1 the powerful minister of Louis XII., having found his own election hopeless, threw his influence into the scale of Julian della Kovere ; and even Csesar Borgia saw the policy of supporting that enemy of his family as the only hope of still maintaining some part of his own power. Among the capitulations sworn to, it would seem with more serious purpose than usual, the most important 1 George d'Amboise, archbishop of Rouen, the early friend of Louis XII. and his chosen minister on his accession, had been male a cardinal (as we have seen) by Alexander VI. on the occasion of Ca>sar Borgia's mission in 1499, and he was now rewarded for his support of Julius II. by the appointment of Legate in France. But his great power and abilities made him a thorn-in-the-side to Julius, who, on, the Cardinal's death in 1510, is said to have exclaimed, "Thank God, I am now the only Pope ! " A.D. 1503. HIS PORTRAIT AND CHARACTER. 235 was the promise to call a General Council, within two years, for the reformation of the Church. Without the formality of a conclave, 37 out of the 38 cardinals gave their votes for Julian, who retained his own name under the slightly altered form of Julius II. (Oct. 31, 1503).1 The lineaments of this remarkable man are preserved by Raphael's wonderful portrait in our National Gallery, which has no superior, if any equal, in that province of art.2 We have had to notice the earlier career of this nephew of Sixtus IV., who was now above threescore years of age.3 In contrast with the profligacy of some of his predecessors, his manner of life appears comparatively respectable ; but only comparatively, for he was licentious and given to wine.4 Even his great enemy, Alexander VI., allowed him the merit, then so rare, ot sincerity and frankness. But Julius is most of all distinguished in history for the martial energy, untamed by old age, which he brought to the support of a high policy, in striking contrast to the nepotism of his predecessors. It was his great aim to restore the power of the Papacy, according to the principles of Hildebrand, and (in his own phtase) to drive the "barbarians " out of Italy — that is, the French, whom he had himself invited in his enmity to Alexander. This chief design furnishes the key to the apparently varying policy and alliances by which his history is complicated. 1 His one predecessor of the name was the contemporary of Athanasius and the sons of Constantine (a.d. 337-352). It has been borne by but one Pope since, Julius III. (1550-5), who was elected by only two votes above Cardinal Pole. The chief original authorities for Julius II. are Guicciardini, Lib. vi.-xi. ; Paris de Grassis, Diarium Curiae Rom mse, 1504- 1 522 ; Hadrianus Castellensis, Itin. .lulii. 2 The picture represents him sitting in the attitude, and with the expression, described by Fr. Carpesanus (p. 1286) : " Dum domi forte sedens contractione super cilii nescio quid secum mussitaret ; " and the writer adds that Julius sometimes betrayed his secrets by this habit of thinking aloud. 3 He was born near Savona about 1441, or perhaps a year or two later. 4 Julius had a natural daughter, whom he married to one of the Orsini. " His love of wine is frequently mentioned in the Dialogue entitled Julius Exclusus, which is reprinted in the Appendix to Jortin's Life of Erasmus, and in Miinch's edition of the Epistolx Obscurorum Yirorum. In this bitter satire the Pope appears at the gate of heaven, attended by a 'genius,' and demands admission. A conversation with St. Peter ensues, in which the unlikeness of Julius — in his ambition, love of war, and personal character — to the true pastor of the Church, is brought out, and at last he is not admitted. Erasmus and Ulrich von Hutten have been charged with the authorship of this piece. Erasmus strongly denied it {Append. Epp. 17). Munch attributes it to Hutten (422), but Dr. Strauss believes that the initials ' F. A. F.' mean Faustus Andrelinus Faroliviensis, who was a partisan of Louis XII." Robertson, vol. iv. p. 597. 236 RECOVERY OF THE ROMAGNA. Chap. XV. §2. He had first to deal with Caesar Borgia, who regretted his support of Julius as the only mistake he had ever made. In the agitation following the death of Alexander, the cities of the Romagna had for the most part recalled their old lords, while some had been seized by the Venetians. The armed force of Caesar had been scattered by the Orsini and his other enemies ; yet with the 400 or 500 soldiers left him he resolved to attempt the recovery of the Romagna. But he was arrested when about to embaik at Ostia, and was kept a prisoner in the Vatican till he made over to the Pope the few Romagnese fortresses which still held out for him (Jan. 1504).1 Rejecting scornfully the compromise offered by the Venetians,2 Julius set out in person to reduce the fiefs of the Church (Aug. 1506). Perugia submitted ; Bologna was retaken from the Bentivogli ; and the Pope re-entered Rome in triumph on St. Martin's Day (Nov. 11). § 3. Julius now regarded the Venetians — even before the French in the Milanese — as the great immediate obstacle to his policy. The Republic was theu at the height of its power. While its fleet placed it in the forefront of the Crusade which was still contem- plated, and promised it the lion's share of any spoils won from the Turk,3 it kept the French in check in Lombardy, and defied the Pope on one side and the Emperor on the other. When Maximilian, with a view to re-establish the imperial influence in Italy,4 and with the support of a diet assembled at Constauce, set out for his 1 The sequel of Caesar's career may be briefly told. Repairing to Naples, he was received with honour by Gonsalvo, but Ferdinand ordered him to be sent as a prisoner to Spain. Escaping after two years, he entered the service of his brother-in-law, the King of Navarre, and found his death in a skirmish at Viana, in his own former diocese of Pampeluna (March 1507). 2 They offered to restore all their acquisitions in the Romagna, except Faenza, and to hold that city as a fief of the Holy See, on the same terms as its former lords. 3 This was the ground on which Florence had refused to join the Crusade proposed by Pius II., alleging that whatever might be taken from the Turks would fall to the Venetians. 4 This step was of special importance from the crisis which had arisen in the dynastic affairs of Austria and Spain. On the death of Isabella, in 1504, the crown of Castile passed to her only daughter Joanna, in con- sequence of whose mental incapacity her husband, the archduke Philip I. (King-consort of Castile), son of Maximilian, was co-regent with her father Ferdinand. Philip died in 1506, leaving his son Charles (now six years old), the only heir, on the one hand, to the united crowns of Spain, with its late acquisitions in the New World, and with Naples, which was now securely conquered by Ferdinand, and, on the other, to Maximilian's possessions of Austria and the Netherlands, besides the hereditary claim to preference in the election to the Empire. A.D. 1508. LEAGUE OF CAMBRAY. VENICE. 237 coronation at Borne, the Venetians offered him a free passage for himself, but refused it to his army. After some fighting on his descent from the Tyrol, Maximilian was fain to accept the com- promise offered by the policy of Julius, that, without the ceremony of coronation, he should have the title of " Emperor Elect " (1508), which was borne by all his successors, except his grandson Charles, who was Emperor in virtue of his papal coronation at Bologna. Glad as Julius was to keep the Germans away from Rome, he shared the Emperor's hostility to the Venetians, and that from other causes of quarrel besides their encroachments in the Romagna. In a letter to Maximilian, he spoke of them as aggressive, as aiming at supreme domination in Italy, and even at re-establishing the imperial power in their own hands. But, for all this, he dreaded still more the strengthening of the French power in Italy, and he was jealous of d'Amboise, his probable successor. Accordingly, when the Cardinal, as Legate, invited the Pope to join the secret Lague of Cambray (Dec. 1508) between France and the Empire, with the promised adhesion of Spain, against Venice, Julius made a private offer of peace to the Republic, if the territories in dispute were given up to him. But the Venetians, confident in their mercenary troops and the discordant elements of the alliance, rejected all terms ; and, while the French began a successful invasion of their territory, the Pope not only followed up a Bull against them by an interdict, but his troops, under his nephew, the Duke of Urbino, took Faenza, Rimini, Ravenna, and other towns (1509). In this strait, the Venetians are said to have hesitated between submission to the Father of Christendom and an alliance with the Turk ; but the Pope was moved by dread of French aggrandisement, and listened to the intercession of Henry VIII.,1 notwithstanding the strong opposition of France and the Empire. The Venetians yielded the points in dispute about ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and their envoys received the Pope's absolution in the porch of St. Peter's " not as excommunicate or interdicted, but as good Christians and devoted sons of the apostolic see " (Feb. 1510;. § 4. This reconciliation was followed by an open rupture with Louis XII., against whom Julius had ecclesiastical grounds of quarrel ; 2 but his great object was to exclude the French from 1 Henry VIII. had succeeded to the English throne during the crisis of the war with Venice (April 21, 1509). Already, as Prince of Wales, he was indebted to Julius for the dispensation for his marriage with Katherine, the widow of his brother Arthur. His envoy, who now interceded for the Venetians, was Bainbridge, archbishop of York, who was made a cardinal in March, 1511. 2 One dispute, in which Julius had to give way, was about the appoint- ment to the vacant see of Avignon : another arose out of the Pope's claim to the treasures of the Cardinal-Legate d'Amboise, on his death in May 1510. 238 QUARREL WITH FRANCE AND GERMANY. Chap. XV Italy, and with this view he laboured to form alliances against them. He made private overtures to England; and decided the long- pending dispute for the crown of Naples by declaring that Louis had forfeited his claim, and granting investiture to Ferdinand (July 1510). The Swiss, whom their ally Louis had offended, were induced to allow the Pope leave to enlist soldiers from the confederation. His Italian allies and vassals were required to follow his change of policy ; and when Alfonso, duke of Ferrara, refused to break off from the alliance against Venice, Julius issued a violent Bull, declaring that he had forfeited his fief, and that to punish him he would risk his tiara and his life (August). At the same time the King of France convened a National Assembly of prelates and doctors at Orleans (soon removed to Tours), which denounced the whole conduct of Julius, the intrigues which obtained his election, and the love of war wherewith he troubled Christendom; declared the right of princes to resist an aggressive Pope, even to the invasion of his territory, and reaffirmed the principles of the Pragmatic Sanction (Aug.-Sept. 1510).1 About the same time a paper was drawn up in Germany, and received favourably by the Emperor, reciting under ten heads the " Grievances of the German Nation" {Gravamina) in regard to the long-standing abuses of the curia: interference with the election of bishops ; reservation of the higher dignities for cardinals and papal officers ; expectancies, annates, patronage, indulgences, tithes for pretended crusades, and needless appeals to Rome.2 The grievances were folio we \ by proposed " Remedies " and an "Advice to His Im- perial Majesty," recommending a Pragmatic Sanction, on the princi- ples of that of Bourges. The imperial ambassador to Julius, Matthew Lang, bishop of Gurk, returned complaining of the impossibility of moving the Pope's " obstinate and diabolical pertinacity."3 § 5. Julius was now at Bologna, having taken up arms against Alfonso and the French, in spite of old age and serious illness. A famous epigram of the time represents him as throwing the harmless keys of Peter into the Tiber and girding on the sword of Paul.4 After leaving his sick-bed to bless from a balcony the 1 For the details, see Gieseler, vol. iv. pp. 401-2. 2 For the text of the ten Gravamina and the question of their author- ship, see Gieseler, vol. iv. pp. 402 f. 3 On the other hand, Lang's own arrogance seems to have been enough to make his mission hopeless. (See Robertson, vol. iv. p. 606.) * " In Galium, ut fama est, bfllum gessurus acerbum, Armatam educit Julius urbe mamuu ; Accinctus gladio, claves in Tibridis annu-m Projictt. et saevus talia verba facit : Qttum I etri nihil eWciant ad pralia c'aves, Avxilia Pauli forsitan ensis erit." There is a tale that, when a bishop remonstrated with Julius for A.D. 1511. SCHISMATIC COUNCIL AT PISA. 239 troops mustered at Bologna, Julius was carried in a litter to the siege of Mirandola. Amidst the severity of winter, he took an active part in the operations, once narrowly escaping capture by the famous Chevalier Bayard. When the place fell, the warrior Pope refused to enter by the gate, but rode in, arrayed in helmet and cuirass, through a breach made for the purpose in the wall (Jan. 20, 151 1).1 § 6. Louis and Maximilian now joined in requiring of the Pope the fulfilment of his promise to convene a General Council ; and the plan was aided by the defection of five cardinals,2 who repaired first to Florence and then to Milan, and there declared their hostility to the Pope. On the 10th of May, three of the cardinals, in their own name and that of six others (who disavowed the act), convened a Council to meet on the 1st of September at Pisa, a place which suggested a threatening precedent for the Pope,3 to whom it was notified at Bimini. Julius replied (July 18) by a Bull summoning a Council to meet at St. John Lateran on the Monday after Easter in the following year, with threats against the cardinals and all supporters of the rival Council. When that assembly met,4 under the presidency of Carvajal, it was found to consist almost entirely of Frenchmen, the German prelates having refused their concurrence. The Florentine magistrates, and even the clergy of Pisa, showed their dread of the papal interdict ; and the assembly removed to French territory at Milan (Dec. 7). This schismatical movement furnished a ground for the new alliance which Julius formed with Spain and Venice against the French, under the name of the "Holy League" (Oct. 9, 1511), causing war and bloodshed, and reminded him that Christ ordered Peter to put up his sword, the Pope replied, " True, but not till after Peter had cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant." 1 For the episode of the revolt of Bologna, in May, and the murder of the obnoxious legate, Alidosi, by the Pope's nephew, the Duke of Urbino, see Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 607-8. 2 The reason alleged for this step was the death of a cardinal at Ancona; and a charge of poison seems to have been implied, though not openly alleged, against the Pope. The leader of the secession was the Spanish cardinal Carvajal. 3 See Chap. IX. Ferdinand of Spain refused the requests of Maximi- lian and Louis to join them in supporting the Council, and Henry VIII. wrote to the Emperor, expressing his horror at the prospect of a new schism. 4 The attendance is snid not to have exceeded 4 cardinals, who held proxies for 3 of their brethren, 2 archbishops, 13 bishops, 5 abbots, besides some doctors of law and deputies from Universities. The most dis- tinguished of these was Dr. Philip Dexio (or Decius), who wrote in defence of the Council, ;ind was therefore degraded by Julius II. His tracts are in Goldast, vol. ii. p. 1667 f., and Richer, vol. iv. p. 39 f. 240 FIFTH LATERAN COUNCIL. Chap. XV. and to which he obtained the accession of England, and afterwards of the Empire.1 Louis at once poured his forces into Lombardy under his heroic young nephew, Gaston de Foix, duke of Nemours, who on Easter Day gained a brilliant victory over the Papal and Spanish troops at Ravenna, but fell in the battle, at the age of twenty-four (April 11, 1512). " With him," says the contem- porary historian Guicciardini, " disappeared all the vigour of the French army," and there ensued an instant and complete turn of the tide. The Cardinal John de' Medici, legate of Bologna, was carried a prisoner from the field to Milan, where many of the soldiers accepted the absolution he offered to all who would promise not to serve against the Church. The people declared against the antipapal party. The Emperor, having joined the League at this moment, withdrew 2000 men from the French army, which retreated from Milan, pursued by 20,000 Swiss, who came down through the Tyrol for the service of Venice and the Pope.2 With the exception of the garrisons left in Milan, Cremona, and Novara, the barbarians were driven out of Italy, and the great object of Julian's civil policy was for the time achieved.3 There was, of course, no longer a place in Milan for the schismatic Council, which held its last session on April 21st. Its decrees, modelled for the most part on those of Constance, and among them a sentence suspending the Pope, had no authority or effect.4 § 7. By a noteworthy coincidence, the Pope's Council had been summoned for the 19th of April ; and these events only postponed it for a fortnight. The Fifth Lateran Council (the 18th (Ecu- 1 Maximilian joined the League in April, 1512. The motives and special aims of the several allies belong to secular history. Concerning the strange proposal of Maximilian, on the occasion of the Pope's seemingly mortal illness (in Aug. 1511) to become the coadjutor and ultimately the successor of Julian, see Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 407, and Robertson, vol. iv. p. t>09. The Emperor's pious ambition, as expressed in a letter to his daughter Margaret, regent of the Netherlands, went beyond the highest place in this world, to canonization and worship as a saint: — " de avoir le Papat et devenir Prester et apres estre Saint, et que yl vous sera de ne- cessite que apres ma mort vous seres contraint de me adorer, dout je me tmuvere bien gloryoes"! 2 The Emperor claimed the duchy of Milan, but the Pope was stedfast for the right of Maximilian Sforza (son of Louis) who was restored in December. The Cardinal Ascanius Sforza had been a strong supporter of the election of Julius, in the hope of his family's restoration at Milan. 3 Among the consequences of this campaign were the recovery of inde- pendence by Genoa, and the restoration of the Medici at Florence. The latter revolution was effected by the Spanish army under Cardona. 4 An insignificant remnant of the Council met at Asti, and afterwards at Lyon. Its minutes are in Richerii Concil. Gen. Lib. IV. p. i. c 3. For particulai"s, see Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 406. A.D. 1513. DEATH OF JULIUS II. 241 menical,1 according to the Koman reckoning), which lasted for nearly five years, may be regarded as the final act of the Latin Church before its great disruption. But, instead of representing the whole Western Church, it had a partisan character, being directed against France and the Pragmatic Sanction. The keynote was struck in a much-admired sermon, on the opening day, by Giles of Viterbo, General of the Augustinian Friars ; and, after two formal sessions, the real business was adjourned for half a year. Meanwhile Julius issued an interdict against all France, except Brittany, and, having again quarrelled with Venice about terri- tories on the Po, he concluded an alliance with Maximilian.2 At the third session (Dec. 3) the Bishop of Gurk appeared as the Emperor's representative, to declare that he adhered to the Council and annulled the acts of the conciliabulum of Pisa. The Council adopted the Pope's Bull condemning that assembly and renewing the interdict against France. The fourth session (Dec. 10) was opened by the reading of the letter in which Louis XL had promised to revoke the Pragmatic Sanction ; and two Bulls annulling that Act were read and adopted by the Council. § 8. When the fifth session was held, Julius lay on his death- bed (Feb. 16, 1513) ; but he obtained the sanction of a Bull for checking simony in papal elections. " The Pope retained to the last his clearness of mind and strength of will. With regard to the cardinals who had been concerned in the Council of Pisa, he declared that as a private man he forgave them, and prayed that God would forgive the injuries which they had done to the Church, but that as Pope he must condemn them ; and he ordered that they should be excluded from the election of his successor. On the night of the 21st of February Julius breathed his last, at the age of seventy." 3 § 9. Among the twenty-five cardinals, who met in conclave on 1 That is, according to the authoritative reckoning, which does not recognize Pisa, nor Basle as a distinct Council (see p. 146). The Fifth Late- ran Council was opened on May 3rd, 1512, and its last session was held on March 16th, 1517, the same year in which (Oct. 31) Martin Luther pub- lished his 95 Theses against the Papacy at Wittenberg. The character of the Council, as the mere instrument of a predetermined papal policy, is seen partly in the very moderate attendance, chiefly of Italians, but with some representatives of England, Spain, ami Hungary. From first to last, the numbers did not exceed 16 cardinals and about 100 bishops and abbots. (Paris de Grassis, in Raynald. Aunal. Eccles. 1512, 41 ; Robertson, vol. iv. pp. 622-3.) 2 The Venetians now formed an alliance with France 3 Robertson, vol. iv. p. 613. 242 JOHN DE' MEDICI, LEO X. Chap. XV. March 4th, the desire prevailed for a change from the restless warlike policy of Julius II. ; and the younger members, headed by- Alfonso Petrucci, son of the lord of Siena, were disposed to assert their influence. It was not till two days after the meeting that John (Giovanni) de' Medici arrived lrom Florence. Born in December 1475,1 the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, he was made a cardinal at the age of thirteen by Innocent Till. (1489). Driven from Florence five years later, in the expulsion of his family (1494), he travelled in Germany, France, and the Low Countries, courting the society of artists and men of letter.-. At Genoa, where he resided for some time,2 he was associated with Julian della Rovere in an intimacy cemented by their common enmity to the Borgias ; and on his friend's election to the Papacy he returned to Rome. There his palace was the home of Medicean splendour and patronage of art and letters, as well as of the bound- less extravagance which caused it afterwards to be said of him that he had spent the revenues of three Papacies. He threw open to the public a splendid library, gathered in great measure by the purchase of MSS. dispersed from Florence, where he afterwards founded the great Laurentian Library. In 1512 the Cardinal was sent as Legate to reduce the revolted Bolognese ; and was taken prisoner, , as we have seen, at the battle of Ferrara. After the retreat of the French from Milan, he rejoined the Spaniards under Cardona, to whom Florence capitulated (Aug. l-r»12). Entering the city with his brother Julian, he obtained, by the device of the universal suffrage of the assembled citizens, called the Parliament (parla- rnento),3 the reversal of all acts done since their expulsion of the Medici, and the appointment of a commission of their partisans, with dictatorial powers to reform the state (Dec). 1 Just 8 years before the birth of Luther. 2 Genoa was the home of his sister, who was married to Franceschetto Cibo, a favourite son of Innocent VIII. 3 The equivalent of the more modern plebiscite, of which Cavour said that it is a very good thing for those who know how to manipulate it ; only the vote was given by a personal assembly in the great square of the city, not through ballot-boxes. During the pontificate of Leo, Florence was virtually subject to Rome. The sequel of its history may be noted here. After an effort to preserve its independence amidst the struggle between Charles V. and Francis I., the city surrendered to the combined imperial and papal forces in 1530. By another parlameuto Alessandro de' Medici obtained his election as Duke, and his successor, Cosmo I., became lord of all Tuscany, as Grand Duke (1569). On the extinction of the Medicean line (1737), the Grand Duchy was given by the treaty of Vienna (1738) to Francis of Lorraine (afterwards the Emperor Francis I.), and remained an appanage of the house of Austria till the great Italian revolution of 1860. A.D. 1513. HEATHENISM OF THE RENAISSANCE. 243 On the death of Julius II., the Cardinal set out for Rome, leaving the government to his brother Julian and his nephew Lorenzo. An illness, which detained him on the journey, contributed to his election by raising the hope that his pontificate would be short ; and, in announcing the election of Cardinal Medici to the people as Pope Leo X. (March 11th),1 Cardinal Petrucci is said to have exclaimed, " Life and health to the juniors ! " For himself the aspiration proved ironical. The Pope, indeed, died at the early age of forty-six (Dec. 1, 1521), but five years before (1516) he sent Petrucci to the gallows as the chief of a plot against his life. Being only in deacon's orders, Leo was ordained priest and bishop on March 15th and 17th, and enthroued on the 19th, reserving a more splendid coronation till after Easter. § 10. The nine years of Leo's pontificate were so crowded with great events in history and adorned by art and letters, as to have invested his name with a splendour far beyond his personal merits. The Medicean pope represented the spirit of the Renaissance enthroned as the head of the Church, which it was his destiny to rend asunder as the direct effect of that same spirit. We have often meditated on the problem, Can a Pope believe in himself? but Leo assuredly had no such faith. It seems doubtful whether he ever uttered the saying ascribed to him, "All ages well know how profitable the fable of Christ has been to us and ours ;"2 but no words could better express the state to which the Pope and Curia had now come. The gods of Olympus and other heathen emblems adorned the coronation procession, in which Leo rode to the Lateran on the Turkish charger which had borne him through the battlefield of Ravenna. His magnificence and expense were unbounded. His banquets, at which the newest and strangest luxuries were served, were enlivened by the wit of true scholars and the verses of the poetasters who amused and flattered him ; and the comedies and other diversions, which he shared with the younger cardinals, often transgressed the bounds of decency. But he was a munificent patron of real learning and of the art which is 1 The chief original authorities for his papacy are Guicciardini, Lib. XI. -XIV. ; Paris de Grassis, Diarium Curiae Homanse, 1504—1522; Paulus Jovius, bishop of Nocera (06. 1552), Vitas Virorum lllustr. Among modern writers, besides Ranke and Gregorovius, the well-known work of Roscoe, Life and Pontificate of Leo X., was written with the partiality of a biographer for his subject, at a time when men were dazzled by the splendours of the Renaissance. 2 " Quantum nobis nostrisque ea de Christo fabula profuerit, satis est omnibus saeculis notum," are the alleged words of Leo to Cardinal Bembo, but on no better authority than Bale, bishop of Ossory, who was ready to believe anything against the Church of Rome. 244 ITALIAN POLICY OF LEO X. Chap. XV. still supreme in the modern world ; for Michael Angelo and Raphael wrought for him at Florence and Rome. Himself au accomplished classical scholar, as the pupil of Politian, he encouraged the study of Greek ; restored the University of Rome and the Laurentian Library at Florence ; collected classical and oriental MSS. and antiquities ; gathered about him a galaxy of scholars, and cor- responded with such men as Ariosto, Machiavelli, and Erasmus. The necessities of his profusion drove him to all the old corrupt expedients for raising money. His zeal in advancing the rebuild- ing of St. Peter's became, through the indulgence preached by Tzetzel, the well-known occasion of the great religious revolution, of which the causes lay far deeper. § 11. But to all this splendour there was wanting — nay it was the very sign of its absence — a solid foundation of firm character and consistent policy. Leo's indolent good-nature did not, indeed, prevent his good administration of. his own states, and his occasional severity is a quality often found with easy selfishness. But his chief objects were the advancement of his own family,1 and the pre- servation of the Papacy by conciliating and cajoling the great con- tending powers of Europe, without any regard to principle or con- sistency.2 At the moment of Leo's accession, Louis XII. made an alliance with the Venetians for the recovery of the Milanese (March 24) ; and the Pope joined the new league made at Mechlin between the Emperor and the Kings of England and Spain against France (April). The troops poured by Louis into Lombardy were joined by a strong Venetian army ; Milan declared for the French, and Maximilian Sforza fled to the camp of his Swiss mercenaries at Novara, who, in their turn, surprised the French camp with a dis- astrous defeat (June 6), and drove the invaders out of Italy. At the same moment Henry invaded France, accompanied by Maxi- milian as a volunteer, and won the " Battle of the Spurs " (Aug. 16). These disasters inclined Louis to peace; while Leo was drawn 1 Signal examples of this are seen in his taking the duchy of Urbino from the nephew of Julius II. to give it to his own nephew Lorenzo; his annexation of Perugia by treachery ; and his attempt to create a princi- pality for another nephew by the union of Parma and Piacenza with Reggio, and, when that plan failed, by the expulsion of Alfonso d'Este from Ferrara — a scheme frustrated by the Pope's death. The Romans were disgusted by the preference given to Florentines for all sorts of offices and employments. 2 With England several causes concurred to keep Leo on good terms. His accession took place at the moment when Henry went to war with France ; but the more permanent bonds of union were Henry's theological prepossessions and the influence of Wolsey, who was made a cardinal in 1515 and a legatee 1518. A.D. 1516. CONCORDAT WITH FRANCIS I. 245 towards him by fear of the aggrandizement of Spain and the Empire. The French King guaranteed Milan to Sforza, and agreed to renounce and expel the rival council ;* and his accession to the Lateran Council was made at its 8th session (Dec. 17, 1513). Maximilian deserted England for France ; and Henry, though deeply offended, was induced by the Pope to assent to the peace. § 12. A sudden change was made by the death of Louis XII. on New Year's Day, 1515, and the accession of Francis I. at the age of twenty.2 The young King resembled Henry VIII. in his fine person, chivalrous accomplishments, joyous spirit, and graceful manners ; but these brilliant qualities were marred by levity and faithlessness, addiction to gross pleasure, and hard-hearted selfishness. Martial ardour and ambition urged him to emulate the fame of Gaston de Foix, and to recover the ground lost in Italy. He at once pro- claimed himself Duke of Milan, and entering Lombardy with a mighty army, aided by the Venetians, he defeated the hitherto invincible Swiss in what a veteran present called the " battle of giants " at Marignano (Sept. 13 and 14) near Milan, which became the prize of his victory.3 Leo threw himself on the mercy of the conqueror, and hastened to conclude a peace ;4 and at a personal in- terview at Bologna (Dec. 10), chiefly it seems by holding out hopes about Naples on the death of Ferdinand, he induced Francis not only to sanction his designs in Italy, but to concede the one great vital point of the Pragmatic Sanction.5 Francis entrusted the negociation to his Chancellor, Duprat, whom Leo had won over by the hope of a Cardinalate ; and the terms of a new Concordat were settled at Bologna, in August 1516. The mutual compromises made had the curious effect (remarked by Mezeray) that the Pope abandoned to the civil power a purely spiritual privilege, and received a temporal advantage in return. Elections in cathedrals and monasteries were abolished, on the ground of the alleged evils 1 That is, the remnant of the Council of Pisa, then sitting at Lyon. 2 As Louis XII. died without male issue, Francis of Angouleme, duke of Valois, was the next collateral heir of the line of Valois-Orleans, being the grandson of John, count of Angouleme, the younger son of Louis, duke of Orleans, who was the younger son of King Charles V. Francis was also the husband of Claude, the eldest daughter of Louis XII. 3 For the particulars, and an engraving of the battle, from the tomb of Francis at St. Denys, see the Student's France (pp. 292—4). The Duke Maximilian retired to France, and so ended the rule of the house of Sforza at Milan. The Swiss Republic transferred their friendship to France, by the Paix Pcrpetuclle, which was faithfully observed to the time of the Revolution. 4 At Viterbo, Oct. 13. 5 This question had occupied the Council, without any decisive result, at its 9th and 10th sessions in 1514. II— N 246 CHARLES I. KING OF SPAIN. Chap. XV. attending them, and the King acquired the right of presentation to bishoprics and other ecclesiastical dignities, subject to the Pope's veto on the ground of canonical disqualification. The rights thus surrendered were, in fact, at the expense of the Gallican Church rather than of the Pope. As to temporalities, Leo surrendered the papal reservations and gratise exspectativee, but obtained a compen- sation in the recovery of the annates. The Concordat was ratified by the Lateran Council at its eleventh session (Dec. 19, 1516) ; the Pragmatic Sanction was annulled, being stigmatized as " the Bourges corruption of the kingdom of France ;" and the apparent triumph of the Papacy in the struggle of two centuries was com- pleted by the re-enactment of the famous Bull of Boniface VIII. " Unam sanctam Ecclesiam." 1 Thus the doctrine was re-affirmed, that the Pope is the sole Head of the Church, invested with the power of the " two swords," spiritual and temporal, and that " it is absolutely necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." 2 And this within a year of Luther's first public protest against Rome ! § 13. This same year brought a new and mighty element into the national and ecclesiastical relations of the European world. The death of Ferdinand the Catholic (Jan. 23, 1516) left the united kingdom of Spain, with the Indies and the Two Sicilies, to Charles I. ; and, in place of Lord Bacon's tres mayi of statecraft, Louis XL, Henry VII., and Ferdinand, Europe became the field for the rival ambitions of the three youthful sovereigns, Henry, Francis, and Charles.3 But the youngest, though a mere boy, was already more than a match for the other two in policy and war. Never since the first founder of the Roman Empire has history shown such an example of precocious prudence, supported by deep dissimulation. At once, in the critical relations of the great powers, he saw the importance of quiet for the time ; and a treaty of peace and alliance between France and Spain, signed at Noyon (Aug. 13, 1516), was soon concurred in by England and the Empire. The closing year 1 See Chap. VI. § 17, p. 99. The Bull was adopted with the slight modifications made by Clement V.; see p. 1< »8. 2 In France the Concordat was received with manifestations of popular indignation ; it was denounced from the pulpits and vehemently opposed by the University and Parliament of Paris ; nor was it submitted to till Francis transferred the cognizance of ecclesiastical causes from the courts of law to the Great Council of State (1527). The spirit of the Gallican liberties survived, but the attempts made to re-assert them lie beyond our range. The Concordat of 1516 governed the relations of Rome and France down to the Great Revolution. 3 At the beginning of 1516, Henry VIII. was 2-1 years old, Francis I. was 21, Charles was 15. A.D. 1517.. END OF THE FIFTH LATERAN COUNCIL. 247 left Europe in the rare state of profound peace, which lasted for two years, till the rivalry for succession to the Empire gave the signal for new and furious wars. § 14. Leo might well be satisfied with his share in this result. The Lateran Council had done its one great work, as the mere in- strument of the Papal policy : France was restored to the papal obedience, and the reforming efforts of Constance and Basle seemed brought to naught. " A few decrees for the reform of the Curia, and other such objects, were passed in the later sessions ; but they were so limited by exceptions and reservations, that little effect was to be expected from them. There was also a project of an alliance between Christian sovereigns against the Turks. There was a con- demnation of some sceptical opinions which had been vented as to the eternity of the world and the mortality of the soul ; and, in order to check the indulgence in such speculations, it was decreed that no student in any university should spend more than five years in philosophical and poetical studies, without also studying theology or canon law, either instead of such subjects or together with them." x The Council ended with its last Session on the 1 6th of March, 1517 ; little thinking how its accomplished work was to be dis- turbed in the same year by an obscure Augustinian friar. The Pope, intent on the completion of St. Peter's, had issued an Indul- gence of unexampled compass, which was preached in Germany by the Dominican Tetzel with unprecedented boldness in the assertion of its power both in this world and the world to come. How these extravagant claims roused the opposition of Martin Luther, who published his famous 95 theses at Wittenberg on the 31st of October, has to be related in its place.2 § 15. Meanwhile it is convenient here to follow the history to the epoch of what seemed for the moment the decisive supremacy of another great Emperor Charles in Europe. Leo showed at first a contemptuous carelessness about the contest between Luther and the Dominicans, to whose demand for his interference he replied, that Brother Martin was a fine genius and the whole dispute sprang from jealousy among the orders of friars.3 He felt also the policy of not 1 " Hard. ix. 1720. Under the name of poetry was included the study of classical literature in general." Robertson, vol. iv. p. 623. 2 See Chap. XLI. § 4. 3 " Che Fra Martino fosse un bellissimo ingegno, e che coteste erano invidie fratesche," are the words ascribed to Leo by the contemporary Matteo Bandello, bishop of Agen, the writer of episcopal annals (Novel. XXV. Pref., Lucca, 1554). Leo, as well as Bembo and other members of the Curia, is said to have spoken with habitual scorn of the friars as hypocrites. 248 THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. Chap. XV. offending Luther's protector, Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,1 the most respected and powerful prince of Germany, in the near prospect of an imperial election. On the death of Maximilian (Jan. 12, 1519), it became clear that the hereditary claim of the house of Hapsburg would be strongly contested, not only by the ambition of Francis, but from a wide-spread jealousy of the vast power which would fall into the hands of Charles.2 The adminis- tration of the Empire was committed to Frederick of Saxony, who at a later period of the contest declined the crown offered him by the patriotic party in Germany. Henry VIII. became a candidate, but rather to assert his dignity than with a serious purpose to press his claims.3 The real competitor with Charles was Francis, who advanced the fallacious claim, so often since repeated, that the sovereign of France is the successor of Charlemagne, and wrote to his ambassador at the Diet, " I will spend three millions of crowns to gain my object." He even obtained the promise of four out of the seven votes ; but, when the day of election came, other counsels prevailed. The refusal of the crown by Frederick the Wise, fol- lowed by his vote and cordial speech in favour of Charles, decided the election 4 (July 5th, 1519) ; and, after consenting to unusually stringent " capitulations," the King of Spain received the Eoman and German crown as Charles V. at Aix-la-Chapelle in the follow- ing year.5 We have described the vast possessions united under 1 This famous prince, who soon became the leader of the Protestant party, was born in 1463, succeeded his father Ernest in I486, and died in 1525. He founded the University of Wittenberg (1502), which became the focus of a moderate " Humanism ; " and in 1508 he appointed Luther Professor of Philosophy. 2 It should be remembered that Charles, though an Austrian archduke, was more of a Spaniard and a Fleming than a German, nor did he even speak the true German language. Born at Ghent, and brought up in the Netherlands, under the care of his aunt, the regent Margaret, daughter of Maximilian, he spoke only the Low German dialect, now called Dutch. 3 There would have been a strange anomaly in the election of the King of England, which prided itself on being "a world by itself," com- pletely independent of the Empire. Besides, Henry was too late in the field, and his envoy found all the votes promised. The chief object of his candidature was doubtless to strengthen his position as mediator in the inevitable conflict between Charles and Francis, whichever of them might be chosen. 4 The chief motive, which overcame the objections to Charles and the dread of the vast power united in his hands, was the desire to oppose that power to the still greater danger from the Turks, a striking sign of which is preserved in Luther's hymn to his grand " Pope and Turk " tune. 5 He was now " Emperor-Elect " by the grant of Julius II. to Maximilian ; but in 153a he received the imperial crown at Bologna from the humiliated but reconciled Pope, Clement VII. (See below, § 20.) A.D. 1521. DEATH OF LEO X. 249 the young Emperor (he was still only in his 20th year) ; but the least part of his strength was in Germany, which was soon rent asunder by the Reformation i1 his chief strength lay in his Spanish infantry, the industrial and commercial wealth of the Low Countries, and the riches of the New World. § 16. The year 1520 was one of preparation for both the conflicts, political and ecclesiastical. In the contest for the goodwill of Henry VIII., Charles outgeneralled Francis (in spite of the " Field of the Cloth of Gold "), chiefly by holding up the papal tiara before Wolsey. After Leo's vain attempts to win back Luther to obe- dience, his own bold assertion of his principles and the influence of his Dominican enemies at Rome called forth the Bull of excommu- nication (June 15th), which he burnt at Wittenberg (Dec. 10). In the next year, his appearance before the Diet at Worms was followed by the imperial ban against him and his abettors ; but the Em- peror's action was crippled by the outbreak of war with France both in Italy and the Pyrenees. The campaign for the recovery of Navarre on behalf of Jean d'Albret, whom Ferdinand had dis- possessed, is memorable for the introduction of another great actor on the scene of ecclesiastical history ; for it was in the defence of Pampeluna that a gallant young Spanish noble, Ignatius Loyola, received the wound which gave cause to the meditations that led him to a religious life and the foundation of the Society of Jesus. At the same time war was renewed in Lombardy. The Milanese were alienated from the French by the oppression of the governor, Marshal Lautrec, who was also left without means to pay his Swiss mercenaries. Leo, always siding with the stronger party, made a secret compact with the Emperor, and their united forces recovered Milan (Oct.). But in the midst of the public rejoicings at Rome, the Pope was taken ill, and he died just before completing his 46th year (Dec. 1st, 1521).2 § 17. The suspicion of poison, which attended his early death, was perhaps better founded in the case of his honest, pious, and 1 For some excellent remarks on what might have happened if Charles had supported the Reformation, and on the necessity of the opposite course from the essential relations of the Empire to the Papacy, see Mr. Bryce (pp. 321 f.) who observes that, politically, Luther completed the work of Hildebrand and neutralized the power of Charles, though increased by his conquest of Italy. 2 One of Leo's last acts (Oct. 11) was to confer on Henry VIII. the title of " Defender of the Faith," in recognition of the splendid MS. of his " Libellus Regius " on the Seven Sacraments, against Luther. The title was not new, having been granted to Henry IV. for his zeal against the Lollards. 250 THE REFORMING POPE ADRIAN VI. Chap. XV. reforming successor, Adrian VI. (1522-1523),1 whose physician is said to have been pronounced by the malcontent Romans " the saviour of his country." This last Teutonic Pope, Adrian Florent, born at Utrecht, the son of an artisan, rose by his learning and high character to be Vice-Chancellor of the University of Louvain, and was chosen by the Emperor Maximilian as tutor to his grand- son Charles. Ferdinand appointed the learned and zealous Domi- nican Bishop of Tortosa and Grand Inquisitor ; and after the King's death Adrian shared the regency of Spain with Cardinal Ximenes. He was created a Cardinal by Leo, on whose death Charles V., evading his promise to Wolsey,2 procured the election of his fellow- countryman and tutor, who kept his own name as one already famous in the Papacy (Jan. 2, 1522, but not crowned till Sept. 1). He has been called distinctively " the reforming Pope :" and he was the last who indulged the hope of a reformation of the Roman Church from within. A zealous Thomist, the Pope, who is himself now declared infallible, did not hesitate, in his Commentary on the Master's work, to deny the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, and that not only in the abstract but in fact, for he declares that " many of the Roman pontiffs were heretics," 3 as we have seen at least two pro- nounced by the authority of their own Church. His conviction of the need of a reformation was strengthened by his bitter hostility to the heresy of Luther, about the means of suppressing of which he corre- sponded with his old friend and countryman Erasmus, and invoked 1 The chief authorities, besides the general works on the civil and ecclesiastical history of the time (especially Onuphrius Panvinus (the continuer of Platina), Du Chesne, Ranke, and Gregoroviu^, are Burman's Vita Adriani VI., Utrecht, 1727; Correspondence de Charles-Quint et d Adrien VI., publie'e par Gachard, Brux. 1859 ; Bauer, Hadrian VI. Heidelberg, 1876. (For other works, see Hase, pp. 470, 471). 2 Charles succeeded in amusing Wolsey with hope for the next vacancy (to be equally disregarded), as well as the promise of a pension (which was never paid). Henry VIII. joined Charles this same year in the war against France. 3 Comment, in Lib. IV. Sent nt. Rom. 1522 : " Dico primo, quod si per Ecclesiam Romanam intelligat caput ejus, puta pontificem, certum est quod possit errare, etiam in Us qnze tangunt fidem, hseresim per suam determin- ationem aut decretalem asserendo. Plures enim fturunt pontifices Romani hxretici" (of course, it is indifferent whether the last word is adjective or substantive). Observe, from the date, that this is the declaration of Adrian as Pope; whether er cathedra is a question perhaps beyond our discrimination; but, in the light of honest common sense, the Infallible Pope denying the doctrine of Papal Infallibility is very much like the scholastic problem of Kpimenides and the Cretans, thus : Adrian says the Pope can err; he was infallible ; ergo, Adrian could err; ergo, this dictum may be an error, and the Pope cannot err ; ergo, Adrian did not err, and the Pope can err : and so on, ad infinitum. A.D. 1523-5. CLEMENT VII. BATTLE OF PA VIA. 251 the secular arm at the Diet of Nuremberg, while in his formal instructions to his legate he declared that " Many abominations had for a long time existed even in the Holy See, yea, that all things had been grievously altered and perverted." * Beginning his reforms at Rome, the change from Leo's splendour and prodigality to his frugal simplicity disgusted the people as well as the Curia ; and his schemes of reformation, as well as of uniting Christendom against the Turks, ended with his premature death (Sept. 24, 1523). § 18. The abortive honesty of the Dominican Pope proved but an episode between the reigns of two Mediceans ; for his successor, who took the name of Clement VII.2 (Nov. 1523-Sept. 1534), was Julius, a natural and posthumous son of Julian de' Medici, who was murdered in the Pazzi conspiracy, and a cousin of Leo X., who legitimated him and made him Archbishop of Florence and a Car- dinal. Born in 1478, he was now about 55 years old. With the worldly and irreligious spirit of his cousin he united a more stedfast ambition, but without the ability to make it good. Owing his election to the imperial influence, for the sake of antagonism to France, he hoped to restore the old relations between the Empire and the Papacy.3 § 19. The campaign of 1522 in Lombardy had been disastrous to the French, who were now for the third time driven out of the Milanese territory ; but next year a greater disaster befel Francis in the de- fection of the Constable, Charles, duke of Bourbon,4 who transferred his service to the Emperor, and arranged with him and England a combined attack on France. We must leave to civil history the vicissitudes of war which led to the defeat and capture of the King of France by the Constable Bourbon in the great Battle of Pavia, fought on Charles's birthday (Feb. 24, 1525). After a year's captivity in Spain, Francis regained his liberty on terms so severe that he never intended to observe them ; and the very greatness of Charles's success led to a new combination against him. The Pope absolved Francis from the obligations of the treaty of Madrid, and formed a league with him and the Venetians 1 Instructions to Francesco Chieregati, ap. Raynald, Annal. Eccles. an. 1522, § 66, cited by Hardvvick, Hist, of the Reformation Period, p. 3. 2 This title had already been borne by the French Antipope, whose election in opposition to Urban VI. (1378) began the Great Papal Schism. See Chap. IX. p. 138. 3 Clement's action with regard to the Reformation in Germany will be noticed in connection with that movement (Chap. XLL). His part in the divorce case of Henry VIII., which resulted in the severance of the English Church from Rome, belongs to the History of England. 4 The details of this event, and the offence which caused it, belong to civil history. (See the Student's France, Chap. XIV. § 6.) 252 ROME SACKED BY THE GERMANS. Chap. XV. and Florentines for the expulsion of the Imperialists from Milan, which was to be restored to Francesco Sforza. But while Francis, whose high spirit seemed crushed by his disaster, abandoned him- self to pleasure at Paris, Bourbon overran the duchy, which had been promised him by Charles. His German soldiers, for the most part Lutherans, demanded to be led against Rome, which, for the second time in history, was sacked by a northern army, but now under the banner of the Holy Roman Empire (May 6, 1527). The death of Bourbon, from a shot as he was mounting a scaling ladder, added revengeful fury to the assault, and for seven months the city was given up to violence and rapine. The Pope, shut up in the castle of St. Angelo, was the object of perpetual insult, which Philibert, Prince of Orange, who had suc- ceeded Bourbon in the command, was unable to restrain. " Soldiers dressed as cardinals, with one in the midst bearing the triple crown on his head, and personating the Pope, rode in solemn procession through the city, surrounded by guards and heralds : they halted before the castle of St. Angelo, where the mock pope, nourishing a large drinking-glass, gave the cardinals his benediction. They even held a consistory, and promised in future to be more faithful servants of the Roman Empire : the papal throne they meant to bestow on Luther." * And all this time the Emperor was enacting the solemn hypocrisy of ordering public prayers for the Holy Father's liberation ! A more practical way to that result was found in the alliance of England and France, in the name of outraged Christendom. A powerful French army under Lautrec again crossed the Alps, took Alessandria, Pavia, and Genoa, and, disregarding the interests and entreaties of Sforza and the other northern allies, marche 1 south- wards to attack Naples (April 1528). Their approach made Rome untenable, and the Prince of Orange fell back to defend Naples, while Charles set the Pope free for a large ransom and a promise not to take part against him. In striking contrast with this policy, the headstrong Francis threw away the advantage he had gained, by another blunder like his treatment of Bourbon. The army investing Naples was powerfully aided by the Genoese fleet, which had defeated the Spaniards off Salerno. As a just reward for this and former faithful services, the great admiral Andrea Doria petitioned for the restoration of certain franchises and commercial privileges to Genoa. Misled by his favourites, Francis not only refused, but sent out a French officer to supersede and arrest Doria, who thereupon carried his fleet over to the Emperor. The result 1 Ranke, German Hist, in the Age of the Reformation, Book iv. p. 449. A.D. 1530. CORONATION OF CHARLES V. 253 was the relief of Naples and the capitulation of the besieging force, while Doria, returning with his victorious fleet to Genoa, expelled the French and became the head of the restored Eepublic, which retained its independence till the great French Revolution. § 20. These disasters, and the exhaustion of France by the long and repeated wars in Italy, had tamed the martial ambition of Francis; while Charles was threatened with a religious war in Germany and by the advancing conquests of the Turks under Solyman the Magni- ficent.1. The Peace of Cambray is still more famous by the name of the Paix des Barnes, from its negociation between the Emperor's aunt, Margaret of the Netherlands, and Louisa of Savoy, the mother of Francis I. (July 1529). Its terms were based on those before accepted by the captive King at Madrid ; but all that concerns us here is the absolute surrender of the French claims in Italy.2 Charles, who was at Barcelona, had already come to terms with the Pope, to whom he restored the whole States of the Church, while he took the house of Medici under his special protection. He now proceeded to Italy, and, on the anniversary of his birth and of the victory of Pavia, he was solemnly crowned at Bologna by Clement (Feb. 24, 1530). This last imperial coronation marks an epoch which, at first sight, might be compared with that of Charles's great namesake in 800. But, besides the long-standing erection of the Western and Middle Frank kingdoms into a great rival power, the imperial 1 Solyman took Belgrade, the bulwark of Western Europe on the Danube, in Aug. 1521, and Rhodes, the last Christian possession on the coast of Asia, in Dec. 1522. In August 1526, he won the battle of Mohatz, in Hungary, where Louis II., the last Jagellon king of Hungary and Bohemia, was killed ; and the Archduke Ferdinand, regent of Austria for his brother Charles, was more intent on securing the vacant crowns than on repelling the Turkish invasion. Espousing the rival claim of John Zapolya, Solyman overran most of Hungary, and for the second time took Buda, which he burnt (1529). It was after the Peace of Cambray that he was repulsed from Vienna, with the loss of 70,000 men, by Frederick the Prince Palatine (Sept. 1529). 2 The subsequent renewal and end of the contest belong to civil history. We have only to notice here the policy of Francis in courting the favour of the Pope, which gave a share in the French throne to a queen- consort most notorious in history. Catherine de' Medici, daughter of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, was married by Clement himself at Marseille (Oct. 1533) to Francis's second son Henry, Duke of Orleans, who, in con- sequence of the death of his brother, the Dauphin Francis, succeeded his father as Henry II. (1547). The only important events in the few remaining years of Clement VII. belong to the history of the Reformation and of Henry VIII.'s divorce, his opposition to which occasioned (we do not say, caused) the severance of the English Church from Rome just at the time of his own death on Sept. 26th, 1534. II— N 2 254 POSITION OF THE PAPACY. Chap. XV. rule of Germany itself was little more than nominal. The severed states of that country were plunging into a religious war,1 from which Charles himself withdrew twenty-five years later, to meditate in his convent on the folly of trying to force human thought and action to uniformity, when even mechanism defied his regulation ; and, when another century saw an agreement at length affected by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the States of Europe had lost even the pretence of any likeness to the old civil and ecclesiastical con- stitution of the Holy Roman Empire under the double headship of the Pope and Emperor. There is no longer a united visible Church to occupy the historian. Meanwhile the great contest between the autocracy of Rome, and the principles of ecclesiastical aristocracy and the independence of national Churches, seemed now to have been decided everywhere, except in England, in favour of the Papacy. But the allegiance ren- dered to the Pope was no longer that of deep religious conviction, much less the enthusiasm of united Christendom, as at the epoch of the Crusades. The reverence still preserved for the visible centre of Latin Christendom was mingled with the element, now stronger, of that policy by which the sovereigns of Europe found it prudent to take account of the Papacy as a great Italian power, and as a bulwark against the encroachments of the ecclesiastical aristocracy, and against genuine reform, in their several states. Nor did any fresh papal schism bring its authority into dispute. But the vantage ground thus secured for the Roman see proved a growing temptation to the indulgence of those abuses which out- raged public morality ; the avarice, venality, and misgovernment, the luxury and personal vices, of the Popes and the papal curia. It was in vain that, through the whole fifteenth century, the most faithful counsellors urged a voluntary reformation from above as the only means of averting a compulsory reformation from below, which would not be effected without violence and schism. The events reviewed throughout this Book confirmed the conviction, that Rome herself would not undertake her own reform, and that neither the ecclesiastical aristocracy nor the temporal princes could enforce it, for want of union among themselves ; and it was the sad confession of a man most honourably eminent, that a reformation was at once necessary and impossible. But " the things which are impossible with men are possible with God." 1 It was in this same year that the great Protestant Confession (Con- fessio Augustana, or of Augsburg) was presented to the Diet of the Empire at Augsburg (June 25th, 1530), Durham Cathedral. BOOK III. THE CONSTITUTION, WOKSHIP, AND DOCTKINES OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH. Centuries XI. to XYI. CHAPTER XVI. THE PAPACY, HIERARCHY, AND CLERGY. 1. Character of the Period— Revival from the Darkness of the Tenth Century— The Middle Ages in their Glory — New Creations of the Age. § 2. Relations of the Church to the State— The Threefold Alternative: independent, national, or Catholic — Imperial (Ecumenical Church — National Churches of Europe. § 3. The Church of Rome and the Holy Roman Empire— Internal State of the Church— Era of its supreme sovereignty. § 4. Power of the Papacy — Causes of the general submission — The Pope's despotic authority — First claims to Infallibility — Supremacy over Councils and Canons — The Pope's dis- pensing power — Canonization. § 5. The Episcopate subject to the " Universal Bishop " — Oath of obedience imposed on Metropolitans — Power and Oppressions of the Papal Legates — Testimony of John of Salisbury and St. Bernard. § 6. The Curia Romans — Its ubiquitous and ravenous agents — John of Salisbury and Adrian IV. — The Mother- Church a Stepmother — The Pope and Cardinals. § 7. Episcopal Eleo- 25G THE MIDDLE AGES IN THEIR GLORY. Chap. XVL tions by Cathedral Canons — Interference of the Pope : Preces, Man- data, and Plenaria Dispositio — Papal Reservations or Provisions, and Exemptions — Attempts to restore free Elections — Character of the Bishops — Titular or Suffragan Bishops — Power an I Tyranny of the Archdeacons and " Officials." § 8 Increase of Church Property — Feudal Claims of Sovereigns : the Regale, Jus Exuviarum, and Jus Primarum Prccum — Taxation of the Clergy — Papal Exactions from them — Annates and Expectancies. § 9. Worldly motives and spirit of the Clergy — Abuses of Patronage — Income of the Clergy — Tithes — Simony and Pluralism — Secular Business and Ambition. § 10. De- graded state of the parochial clergy — Caricatures and more serious testimony — Acephali and Chaplains — Popular preference for the Friars. § 1. The title of the Dark Ages — indiscrimiuately applied to the Medieval Period of History by the pride of the Renaissance and the self-complacency of modem progress — is truly characteristic of the Tenth Century. The great intellectual revival, fostered by the government of Charles the Great on the Continent, and renewed by Alfred in the island wThich had been one of its chief sources, had spent its force amidst the conflicts of the kingdoms into which the new Empire was again split up, and the sacred centre at Rome had become the seat of corruption. But already, before the end of the tenth century, we have seen the efforts of the great Saxon Emperors to reform the Church and Papacy ; and the following cen- turies, from the eleventh to the thirteenth, are marked by the out- burst and growth of new light and life, religious and intellectual energy, none the less powerful and fruitful of ultimate results, though their elements were as yet working in disorder, and re- pressed by the despotism which the See of Rome now succeeded in establishing. These three centuries are justly described by- Arch bishop Trench1 as "the Middle Ages in their glory and at their height" — as "their creative period, to which belong all those magnificent births which they have bequeathed, some to the admiration, and all to the wonder, of the after- world— the Cru- sades, the rise of Gothic Architecture, the Universities, the School- men, the Mystics, the Mendicant Orders :" to all of which must be added the still newer forces of free religious thought and wTorship — new in form, but springing from the primitive sources of Chris- tianity itself — that were destined to transform the Church, though now the civil and ecclesiastical powers suspended their deadly strife to join in crushing this common foe. The seeds of purer truth and holier life, which were mingled with much that was evil in the medieval heresies, the efforts for reformation within the bosom of 1 Lectures on Medieval Church History, pp. 16-17. Chap. XVI. THREE ALTERNATIVES FOR THE CHURCH. 257 the Church, and even the growing worldliness and corruption of the Papacy, when it seemed to have crushed or evaded those attempts, all converge to the great crisis of Reformation in the sixteenth century. § 2. The threefold alternative in the relations of the Church to the civil power and the life of the people — independence, nationality, or a Catholic despotism — is now fairly presented to us in its his- toric working. The pure ideal of a Church independent of all worldly power had been of necessity maintained so long as the civil government was anti-christian ; and the revived aspiration for " a free Church in a free State," prompted by the corruption and tyranny of both powers, became a great problem of the future. The close union and theoretical identity of the Church with the Christian state, established by Constantine, was practicable while the Roman Empire was co-extensive with Christendom, and so long as the decrees of (Ecumenical Councils could be regarded as express- ing the mind of the universal Church under the civil control of one imperial ruler. In the ensuing disruption, this constitution furnished a type for the several National Churches, at the necessary sacrifice of oecu- menical action, though with the attempt to preserve the Catholic unity of doctrine, ritual, and discipline. But the bishops of the old capitals still clung to those oecumenical claims, of which, after the severance of the East and West and the revival of the Holy Roman Empire, Rome became the unrivalled centre for the Latin Church. We have seen how the generally admitted claim of pre- cedence was pressed forward, step by step, first to the Pope's spiritual authority over the Western Church (and in theory over the whole), and then to his supremacy over the civil power in all matters, tem- poral as well as spiritual ; in short, a personal Catholic despotism, equally opposed to the ideas of a free spiritual Church, and of nationally constituted Churches : for the claim of Rome to embody the former is perpetually contradicted by her assumptions of tem- poral power and control. § 3. While the idea of national churches, with rights more or less independent of papal control, was maintained in England and France — to be asserted with signal vigour in the latter part of the period we have reviewed — the great region still included in the Empire had received the doctrine, that God had divided all power on earth between the Emperor and the Pope. The question then arose, whether these " two swords " were held each by an inde- pendent commission, in virtue of which the Emperor was supreme in civil matters even over ecclesiastics, or whether — as the Hilde- brandine doctrine held — the ecclesiastical power was independent, 258 SOVEREIGNTY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. Chap. XVI. and the civil power was derived from and responsible to the Pope as Christ's vicar upon earth. In the foregoing chapters we have followed the external aspect of " the struggle, so grand and terrible, between the world- king and the world-priest, the Emperor and the Pope, with the triumph, complete though temporary, of the latter, the Papacy, in the most towering heights to which it ever ascended." l We have seen how the overbuilt edifice, weakened by its own lofti- ness, was shattered by the Babylonian Captivity and the great Papal Schism ; and how, evading the demands for internal reforma- tion, it regained a deceptive splendour amidst the corruptions that brought on the final crisis. We have now to trace the working of the power won by the Papacy on the internal constitution of the Church, together with the whole character of its worship and disci- pline, its doctrines and controversies, its religious and intellectual life, during the Middle Ages. The general character of the period is admirably summed up by Schaff:2 " This may be termed the age of Christian legalism, of Church authority. Personal freedom is here, to a great extent, lost in slavish submission to fixed traditional rules and forms. The individual subject is of account only as the organ and medium of the general spirit of the Church. All secular powers, the state, science, art, are under the guardianship of the hierarchy, and must everywhere serve its ends. This is emphatically the era of grand universal enterprises, of colossal works, whose completion required the co-operation of nations and centuries ; the age of the supreme outward sovereignty of the visible Churchy § 4. That supreme sovereignty was vested in the see of Rome by the efforts of Hildebrand and his successors, with the general assent of the clergy and the people. To understand this submission, it must be remembered that the Hildebrandine claim to papal as- cendancy went hand in hand with that effort to reform the deep corruptions of the clergy, which won the mass of the people to the side of Gregory VII. It might well seem to earnest men that the work could only be achieved by a central power invested with absolute spiritual authority ; and, in yielding up a portion of their liberty, the clergy saw their order strengthened against the civil ruler. In an elective hierarchy, every member naturally sympa- thizes with the aggrandisement of the head, especially as the triumph of spiritual power over worldly might. From a president or primus, acting as an authoritative counsellor and arbiter according to the canons, the Pope became the autocrat of the Latin Church, accord- ing to the principles of the false Decretals,3 the supreme and ulti- 1 Trench, I.e. 2 Church Hist. Introd. p. 51. 3 See Pt. I. p. 500 f. The gradual adoption of the autocratic principle Chap. XVI. CLIMAX OF PAPAL CLAIMS. 259 mate source of jurisdiction, as the one representative of Christ on earth, wielding a kind of power above that belonging to human rulers.1 Though the claim, to infallibility, which lias been retro- spectively affirmed in our own day,2 was only beginning to be heard, the supreme authority of Councils was more and more dis- tinctly usurped. The old imperial authority to summon General Councils was now claimed by the Pope ;3 they sank to the position of deliberative assemblies, whose decrees derived their force from the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and (from the time of Inno- cent III.) were published in his name.4 He was placed so far above the laws of the Church, as to be not only not bound by them himself, but able to release others from obedience; and this dis- pensing power, which was at first applied only in extreme cases, as an indemnity for offences already committed, was extended to prospective infractions of the canon-law.5 Such dispensations, and is one great distinction between Western and Eastei-n Christendom. It was never admitted in the Greek Church. 1 Though it was reserved for later and worser Popes to assume actual Divine titles, we find Innocent III. describing himself as " citra Deum, ultra hominem," and as " minor Deo, major liomine" — where the disclaimer is scarcely less arrogant than the assumption. The same pontiff plainly puts forward the claim to be the Vicar, no longer of St. Peter only, but of the true God and of Jesus Christ (Epist. i. 326). These growing claims were symbolized by the triple crown. Boniface VIII. added to the papal tiara a second crown, to denote the Pope's twofold lordship, spiritual and temporal ; and Urban V. added the third crown, to signify that the Pope is the representative of Christ. The climax of titular assumption is seen in the worst age of the Papacy, when, at' the 5th Lateran Council (1512), such a Pope as Julius II. was addressed as "another God upon the earth " : " Tu enim pastor, tu medicus, tu gubernator, tu cultor, tu denique alter Dcus in tern's." (See Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 432.) 2 By the Vatican Council, 1870. The doctrine was chiefly founded on Luke xxii. 32, " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" and as such it is cited in the Vatican decree of 1870 (chap. iv.). For examples of the claim, in a greater or lesser degree, by Leo IX., Gregory VII., and Innocent III., see Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 164, n. 3 Thus, as early as 1095, Urban II., relying on the enthusiasm for the Crusade, summoned the Councils of Piacenza and Clermont by his own authority (see above, p. 26). * Thus he says of the 4th Lateran Council (1215): — "Sacra universal] Synodo approbante, sancimus ; " and the formula is duly repeated in the Vatican Decrees of 1870 ; " Pius Episcopus, &c, sacro approbante concilio." 5 The earlier and more restricted form of dispensation, which gave " veniam canonis infracti," but not infringendi, was granted by ordinary bishops. The wider power dates from Innocent III., who, for example, absolved King John from his oath to observe the Great Charter (see his Epist. lib. xvi. 154 ; ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 163). But the power was not held to be unlimited. As defined by Thomas Aquinas, the Pope's ple- nary authority in the Church gave him the power to dispense with the 260 SUBJECTION OF THE EPISCOPATE. Chap. XVI. especially the Pope's absolution from the laws of marriage and from oaths, struck at the foundation of social and political order, in the same proportion as they exalted and extended his authority over the common life of persons, families, and nations. The power of canonization, which had formerly belonged to bishops, was vested in the Pope by a decree of Alexander III. (a.d. 1170). § 5. As an inference from his authority as the Vicar of Christ, the Pope claimed to be the " universal bishop " and head of the episcopate in all countries.1 As a necessary consequence, the metro- politans, who had been the heads and champions of their national and provincial churches, became the vicars of the Pope. An oath of obedience to him was imposed on them as the condition of receiving the pallium, from the time of Gregory VII., who regarded the relation of metropolitans to the Holy See as that of vassals to a suzerain.2 This authority was soon extended to the confirma- tion of all episcopal elections, and the Pope often even nominated the bishops, from whom and from the exempted abbots the oath imposed on the metropolitans was also exacted. The Pope further claimed the right to remove and depose bishops, and to receive appeals from episcopal decisions. The growing frequency of these appeals to Rome was not only a serious interference in national jurisdiction, but a cause of the decay of discipline, which the bishops were deterred from exercising by the constant fear of a mandate from Rome reversing their decisions. The relation thus claimed was made a practical power by the papal Legates (legati a latere), who, according to Gregory VII., " were to be heard even as the Pope himself." Such representatives had been at first only sent from Rome on special occasions ; but from the time of Leo IX. their commissions were unlimited both in time and subject. Under Gregory VII. a regular legate was esta- blished in every country, either as an emissary direct from Rome (generally a Cardinal), or by a commission conferring the lull power of the Pope on a local ecclesiastic. The Legate, who, although usually a bishop, might even be a deacon or archdeacon, at once superseded institutes of the Church, as the ordinances of mail or of positive Ici't; but not with those of divine or natural law ; or, as others put it, not against the Gospel or articles of faith, or the precept of an Apostle, though, according to one authority, " tamen contra Apostolum dispensat." 1 This was a main point of contention in the reforming effort of the 15th century. While Gerson and his party at Constance held that the episcopal and papal authority rested on a common foundation, the champions of Home claimed that the Pope was the source and perpetual dispenser of all episcopal powers. 2 For a full account of the Pallium, see the article in the Diet, of Christ. Anti/q. Chap. XVI. PAPAL LEGATES. 261 the full authority of the metropolitan, or, if the latter held the office, the danger to the national church was still greater. Besides this usurpation on the ancient system of episcopal authority, the power entrusted to the legates, in an age of great worldliness and corruption among the clergy, was used as the instrument of oppression and rapacity, to such a degree that John of Salisbury (the close friend of the English Pope Adrian IV.) speaks of them as "raging in the provinces as if Satan had gone forth from the presence of the Lord for the scourging of the Church."1 St. Ber- nard, who often mingled his championship of Rome with faithful warnings of her corruptions, has left a picture of the behaviour of a cardinal named Jordanus, as legate to France : 2 " Your Legate has passed from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people, everywhere leaving foul and horrible traces among us. Travelling about from the foot of the Alps and the kingdom of the Germans through almost all the churches of France and Normandy, and all round as far as Rouen, the apostolic man has filled them, not with the Gospel, but with sacrilege. He is reported everywhere to have committed disgraceful deeds, to have carried off the spoils of the churches, to have advanced pretty little boys3 to ecclesiastical honours where he was able, and to have wished to do where he was unable. Many have bought themselves off, that he might not come to them ; those whom he could not visit he taxed and squeezed by his messengers. In schools, in courts, at the cross roads, he has made himself a by-word. Seculars and religious, all speak ill of him."4 § 6. Nor is a better character given to the numerous body of ecclesiastics at Rome, whose aid and advice the Pope found ne- cessary for the exercise of his authority, and whose very name, which has since become a byword, was regarded from the first as a sign of worldliness, oppression, and corruption. In the middle of 1 Policrat. lib. v. c. 16, ip. Gieseler (vol. iii. p. 179), who gives a number of similar testimonies. 2 Epist. 290; ad Episcop. Ostic?is. (1152); Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 177; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 216. For St. Bernard's strong warning of the moral danger of the Papacy, especially from its growing secularization, addressed to his former pupil, Eugenius III., in his work on Self-Consideration, see Trench, Med. Ch. Hist. p. 280. 3 We can scarcely mistake what is veiled under the words " formulosos pueros." 4 For the resistance to the intrusion of Legates into England, see Chap. III. § 11. The objection appears to have been not so much to the office itself as to its exercise by Italian cardinals. From the year 1195 to the Reformation it was generally held by the Archbishops of Canterbury. We have seen the dissatisfaction caused by the appointment of Cardinal Beaufort in the 15th century (Chap. X. p. 163, n.3). 262 THE CURIA ROMANA. Chap. XVI. the 12th century, Gerhoh, Bishop of Reichersperg l complains to the reigning Pope of the stain (macula), that the venerable name of the Church of Rome had been exchanged for that of the Roman Court (Cukta Romana). The vast growth of business consequent on the extended power and jurisdiction of the Pope created a ubiquitous host of ravenous Officials of the Curia. John of Salisbury tells us that when, on a visit to Adrian IV. at Benevento, the Pope asked him what men thought of the Church and himself, he frankly exposed the evil reports which he had heard in various provinces.2 " For, as was said by many, the Roman Church, which is the mother of all the Churches, shows itself to the rest not so much a mother as a stepmother.3 The Scribes and Pharisees sit in it, laying on the shoulders of men burthens not to be borne, which they do not touch with a finger. They shatter churches, stir up strifes, set clergy and people against one another, have no sympathy with the toils and miseries of the afflicted, revel in the spoils of the churches, and account all gain godliness. They render justice not so much to truth as to a bribe." From this character he excepts "a few, wdio fulfil the name and duty of the pastor," but he describes the Roman pontiff himself (to whom he said all this) " as almost intolerably oppressive to all," and of his chief agents he says, " The palaces of the priests are splendid, while the Church of Christ is made sordid in their hands. They plunder the spoils of provinces, as if it were their business to replenish the treasuries of Croesus." In the next century, a greater Englishman, Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, warned Innocent III. that the extravagant claims of the Roman Church were tending to open schism. The monastic orders were still, for the most part, a sort of papal garrisons in every land, and we have presently to describe the vast reinforcement brought to the power of Rome by the mendicant orders, who have been called the Pope's militia. § 7. In the time of Gregory VII., and as a part of his reforming efforts, the election of bishops was transferred from the people to the clergy ; and, after the pattern of the papal elections, it passed int© the hands of the canons of each cathedral.4 But the change 1 De Corrupto Ecclesise Statu ad Engcaium III. ; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 178. The formal council of the Pope was the College of Cardinals. The actual administration of affairs was in the hands of the Curia. The department of finance was called the Rota Romana. 2 Policrat. lib. vi. c. 24 ; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 179. 3 The same figure was used by the Emperor Frederick II., in a letter to Henry III. of England (Matt. Paris, a.d. 1254, p. 293). * The secular canons (canonici) were a class of ecclesiastics attached to particular churches, intermediate between the ordinary parish clergy Chap. XVI. APPOINTMENT OF BISHOPS. 263 from lay patronage, instead of doing away with the corruption which had been the subject of such indignant denunciations, had only the effect of transferring it from courtiers to the canons ; and in its new form it worked worse than before, inasmuch as the clergy might choose a bishop with a view of benefiting by his defects, or might make a bargain with him more injurious to the Church than any that could be made by a layman. Jealousies, intrigues, and disputed rights, which led to long and ruinous suits, and sometimes to open war, now became rife ; and Frederick Barbarossa had probably good reason for declaring, in a well-known speech, that the bishops appointed by the imperial power had been better than those whom the clergy chose for themselves.1 The Popes now began to interfere in the elections of bishops, and the appointment of the clergy in general, first by requests (jpreces), from which Innocent III. advanced to mandates (mandata), and Clement IV. (ob. 1268) claimed the full right of disposing of vacant benefices (phnaria disjwsitio). These abuses reached their climax during the residence of the Popes at Avignon, when, being separated from their estates, they made their claims of patronage a source of revenue. Clement V. began the system of appropriating rich bishoprics and benefices to the use of the Pope, his kinsmen and favourites, under the name of papal Reservations or Provi- sions, in contempt of the rights of sovereigns and chapters; and John XXII. claimed to reserve for himself all the benefices in Christendom ! Besides that interference with the rights of national churches, which was vigorously resisted in England,2 the system and the monastic orders. They were so called either from living under a regular rule, or, as is more probable, from the enrolment of their names in the lists of officers of the Church (navwv, in Latin matricula, albus, tabula). The institution sprang from the practice which arose even before the 4th century, and of which we have examples in Ambrose, Augustine, and other bishops, who gathered a body of clergy round them in a common domicile, under strict rules of life ; but it received its definite form in the latter part of the 8th century, from Chrodegang, archbishop of Mainz, and cousin of King Pepin. " The essential difference between a cathedral with its canonici and an abbey-church with its monks has been well expressed thus : the canonici existed for the service of the cathedral, but the abbey church for the spiritual wants of the recluses happening to settle there (Freeman's Norman Conquest, ii. 443)." — Diet, of Christian Antiqq. art. Canonici. For the growing corruption of the secular canons, and the foundation of the " canons regular of St. Augustine," see below, Chap. XX. 1 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 218. See what is there added on the partly successful efforts of sovereigns, especially in England, to retain influence over the episcopal elections. The contest about Investiture has been fully related above (see Chaps. II. and III.). 2 By the famous Statute of 1'rovisors, visiting the introduction of papal 264 SUFFRAGAN BISHOPS AND ARCHDEACONS. Chap. XVI. tended to deprive the episcopate of the increased power due to the weakening of the Papacy by the great schism. The rights and disciplinary authority of the Bishops were also infringed by the habitual exemptions of churches, monasteries, chapters, and even individuals, besides the Mendicant Friars as a body, from episcopal jurisdiction.1 The kindred of the Pope were loaded with prefer- ments, and Clement VII., when remonstrated with for these abuses, replied, "Our predecessors knew not how to play the Pope." The theory of episcopal elections, however, was still maintained. After the settlement of the great contest on Investitures, the bishops were almost universally elected by the cathedral canons ; and this system, with the exclusion of the ancient assent of the laity, was enjoined by decrees of Innocent III. and Gregory IX. The Council of Basle endeavoured to restore the practice " accord- ing to the ancient laws" (1433); and free elections were stipulated for by the German Compact of 1448 ; but they fell more and more into the hands of sovereigns. In the Concordat with France (1516) the appointment of bishops was conceded to the King by Leo X., who set a higher value on the revenues that were yielded to him in return.2 The whole character of the times leaves little ground for wonder that the bishops, with some admirable exceptions, grew worldly and corruprt, idle in their own office but ambitious of secular power, and covetous of wealth ; and few were willing or even able to take the lead in the work of reformation by means of the diocesan synods, which the Council of Basle directed to be held in every diocese at least once a year. Since the order of country bishops (Chorepiscopi3) had died out, their functions devolved partly on the Archdeacons, and partly on the Titular or Suffragan Bishops, whom (especially from the thir- teenth century onward) the Popes ordained for sees in the hands of the Saracens (in partibus infidelium). The order of Archdeacons acquired a new character and growing importance onwards from the eighth century, when, instead of only one under each bishop, every diocese was divided into several archdeaconries, in which those who were still but deacons exercised jurisdiction over the presbyters, and were tempted to make themselves independent. They are complained of as defying the authority of their bishops, instruments for such " provisions " with the penalties of praemunire (25 Edw. III. c. 6). 1 Martin V., in his Bull for remedying such abuses (1418), confesses that they had been created by his predecessors "in grave ipsorum ordina- riorium pra-judicium." In the case of the monasteries, however, the primary cause of their exemptions may be traced to the exactions and oppressions of the bishops upon them. 2 See Chap. XV. § 12. 3 See Vol. I. p. 296. Chap. XVI. TEMPORALITIES AND TAXATION. 265 tyrannizing over the clergy, and vexing the people by their exac- tions, especially on the pretext of penance, by which they were said to make a gain of sins. New abuses were the sole result of the attempts of the bishops to check these troublesome dignitaries by setting up courts of their own under the presidency of " officials," whom Peter of Blois (himself, it is true, an a'chdeacon) designates " Bishops' leeches." § 8. All these evils were aggravated by the increased wealth of the Church and the contests of the clergy with the people and the state respecting temporalities and taxation. " It was not to any regard for their persons, but to the superstition and circumstances of the age, that the clergy were indebted for the remarkable increase of their property. It was brought about partly by the vindication of tithe-law, partly by wills, partly by advantageous purchases and mortgages (obtained mostly from nobles who took the cross), partly by compact with the oppressed free commonalty, who received their own property in copyhold from them. From time to time, however, this immoderate increase of ecclesiastical wealth began already to attract attention and receive some restric- tions from secular law."1 By long contests, and much firmness, the sovereigns of England, France, and Germany, succeeded in maiutaining the right to tax the clergy,2 which was first called in question during this period, as well as the feudal dues styled Regale and Jus Exuviarum or Spoliorum. The former was the " royal title " to the income of vacant sees ; the latter was the inheritance of the personal property of deceased bishops, which the King's claim had at least the advantage of saving from lawless plun- derers. This claim was constantly contested by the Popes, who enforced it in their turn when they had the powTer. In 1198 both rivals for the Empire, Otho and Philip, renounced it to obtain the Pope's support, and so did the electors ; and the renunciation was 1 Gieseler iii. 214, 215. For the details and authorities, see the Notes ad loc, and Robertson iii. 225 f. 2 This right was limited in Germany to one year, but in France and England it appears to have been enjoyed at the King's pleasure. We have seen (Chap. III. § 15) how shamefully it was abused by William Rufus, who seems first to have established it in England. Its origin in France is traced back to the 7th and 8th centuries, when the Frank kings interfered to rescue the property of vacant bishoprics from seizure by dukes or counts, and to hold it as the chief advocates ecclesix ; so that the seeming exaction was, in fact, a remedy for worse evils. The English clergy were severely taxed by Edward I. for his wars ; and when the Archbishop of Canterbury (Robert Winchelsea) attempted resistance on the ground of the Bull of Boniface VIII. (<'/rricis Idicos. see p. 95), Edward put the whole of the clergy under a virtual outlawry till they yielded. (For details, see Student's Eng. Ch. Ilitt p. 386 f.) 266 FORMS OF PAPAL EXACTION. Chap. XVL. repeated by Frederick II. (1213), and by the envoys of Rudolf at the Second Council of Lyon (1274). The Jus Primarum Precum was a compensation to sovereigns (first granted in 1242), entitling them to claim one piece of patronage from each new bishop or abbot, in lieu of their former share in the appointment of bishops. While resisting these imposts of the secular powers, the Popes themselves claimed the right to tax the clergy for special objects, such as a war against the infidels, or a conflict with an Emperor or Antipope. A rematkable example is furnished by the " Saladin's tithe," which was exacted long after the Crusade was abandoned. It was significant of the free spirit which survived to bear future fruit, that this tithe " was at first resisted by the clergy and monks, on the ground that their prayers were their proper and sufficient contribution towards the holy cause; those who fight for the Church," said Peter of Blois, " ought rather to enrich her with the spoils of her enemies than to rob her."1 A new and vast deve- lopment of these abuses was caused by the wants of the Popes in their banishment at Avignon, and of their rival courts during the great papal schism. Besides exercising more severely the Jus Exuviarum, which their predecessors had resisted in the hands of sovereigns, they devised new engines of exaction. In addition to the reservations or jwovisions, spoken of above, the Annates, or first year's revenue of benefices, brought in an immense treasure to John XXIL, who first invented them.2 During the great schism, the Pope at Avignon, Clement VII,, began the grants of Expec- tancies (gratiie exspectativse), by which the reversion of benefices was conferred during the life of their incumbents (comp. p. 140) ; and the abuse was carried to such lengths, that the same reversions were granted over and over again to each who would bid higher than another. These exactions were repeatedly condemned by the great reforming Councils, the University of Paris, and the civil powers both of France and Germany ; till by the Concordat of 1516 Leo X. gave up reservations and expectancies, but the Annates were secured to the Roman see. Meanwhile the practical pressure of these claims had been the most fruitful source of discontent against the Papacy. § 9. The increased wealth of the Church, and the eagerness with which her temporal rights and possessions were fought over, tended to make the sacred calling more and more a worldly profession, in which holy orders were a short road to opulence. Not only ignorant 1 Epist. 112 (Patrolog. ccvii. 337-3); Robertson, iii. 230. 2 A false claim to the higher antiquity of Annates was set up by Eugenius IV. in reply to the decree of the Council of Basle for their abolition. Chap. XVI. CLERICAL INCOME. TITHES. 267 and worthless men, but even boys, were appointed to benefices by family interest and corrupt traffic with patrons. For, from a time as early as the ninth century, the appointment of parish priests, throughout the Western Church, as a general rule, had fallen into the hands of lay patrons, suppressing the ancient voice of the people in the choice of their pastors. In the case of churches built by private persons, the patronage was vested in the founder, and was sometimes continued to his representatives. Hence arose the practice of church-building as a speculation, the founder being reimbursed by the oblations, out of which he paid the incumbent a stipend. Such arrangements, though condemned by canons, were legalized by the Carolingian kings; and canons were enacted, to secure the bishop's right of assent to an appointment, while forbid- ding him to reject a presentee except on good grounds.1 In the early medieval age the Income of the Clergy was still derived from the voluntary offerings of their flocks and the endow- ments of the churches. Generally, in the Western Church, these funds, thrown into a common stock in each parish, were divided into four portions: (1) for the poor; (2) for the clergy; (3) for maintaining the fabric of the church and the expenses of its service ; while (4) the remnant went to the bishop, in whose hands rested the entire administration of the property. The endowments were largely increased by testamentary bequests, by advantageous pur- chases of land and other arrangements made with Crusaders in want of funds, and by the contracts called feuda oblata, in which a holder made over his property to the Church, on condition of receiving it back in fee, whereby, besides the present consideration, the Church had the chance of the reversion. To these revenues were added the perpetual source from Tithes, which were claimed from early times on the ground of Scriptural precedent, but not generally paid by Christians of the West till the close of the sixth century ; and from the eighth they were enforced as a legal obliga- tion by Charles the Great and other sovereigns. Like the earber voluntary offerings, they were allotted to the poor, as well as to the clergy and the maintenance of worship, the allotments being prescribed by the diocesan. From the produce of the land, tithes were extended to the earnings of trade and professions and military service, and it was even held that they ought to be paid on the receipts of beggars and prostitutes ; but the full enforcement of such rules was of course impracticable. Among the reforms contemplated by Gregory VII. was the entire recovery of those portions of the tithes which bad fallen into the hands of laymen, but he was 1 See Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 201, 202. 268 SIMONY : PLURALITIES : WORLDLINESS. Chap. XVI. obliged to give up the attempt through his need of the support of the nobles against the Emperor, and later elforts to recover the tithes from lay impropriators proved unsuccessful.1 The constant practice of simony was condemned by Papal decrees, but was fre- quent (as we have seen) in the election of the Popes themselves; and the special war made upon it by Gregory VII. proved in vain. There was a close connection between the great Pope's war against simony and his enforcement of clerical celibacy; but the former abuse embraced other relationships than the fruit of marriage. The vast multiplication of pluralities2 was a natural consequence of a state of things in which preferment was regarded chiefly as a source of ample income for churchmen who devoted themselves to secular affairs, maintaining the state of nobles and princes, playing an ambitious part in the service3 or humiliation of sovereigns, and were even forward to distinguish themselves in battle. This martial spirit was partly due to the prevalent reign of physical force, and partly an inheritance from the Crusades, where, for example, " Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, attracted the admiration of the lion-hearted Richard himself, and after his return found exercise for his military talents in the feuds of his own country. And the story is well-known how Richard, having taken prisoner Philip, count-bishop of Beauvais, met the Pope's interference on behalf of the warlike prelate by sending to him Philip's coat of mail, with the scriptural quotation, ' Know now whether it be thy son's coat or not.' " 4 But yet, besides the bright individual exceptions to this abandoned worldliness, the reformatory injunctions of synods, from which we learn much of the evil, attest the continued acknowledgment of a higher standard of piety and duty. § 10. With such examples among the higher clergy, we do not wonder to find St. Bernard complaining that " the insolence of the clergy, of which the negligence of the bishops is mother, everywhere disturbs and molests the Church." 5 Prelates of such a character, 1 See further in Robertson, vol. iii. p. 22fi. 2 The third Lateran Council (1179) denounced the practice of accumu- lating six or move churches on one incumbent ; but for the vastly greater growth of the practice, see Robertson, iii. 232. 3 The frequent employment of ecclesiastics in the higher offices of state was a natural consequence of their being the only well-educated class ; and it was for the most part an advantage to the sovereign and people, whatever its effect upon the character of the Church. On the other hand, the resolute struggle (as in the contest of Becket with Henry II.) for the exemption of the clergy from the jurisdiction ; church, under penalty of a fine, on Sundays, Saturday evenings, and the greater festivals ; and during this period the strict observance of the Lord's Day was enjoined by councils and by preachers, and enforced by pretended revelations and the threat of special judg- ments on those who profaned the Sabbath.2 § 2. A remarkable plan devised by clerical ingenuity for the religious instruction of the uneducated people was that of the Mys- teries or Miracles, in which a rude presentation was given on the stage of subjects taken from the whole range c?f Scripture history, the interest and attention of the uncultivated audience being main- tained by the admixture of a sufficiently broad grotesque and comic element.3 The popular taste for such comedy was also exhibited in a form to which the clergy at first found it prudent to condescend as a harmless amusement for the vulgar, in the mock festivals, such as the Feast of Fools, with its Bishop of Fools, at Circumcision 1 Canon 14. This prohibition was especially directed against the Romaunt translations in use amongst the Waldenses ; and it is remark- able that a new edition of the French Bible was put forth by authority under King Charles V. (1364—1380), expressly to supplant those versions (Hardwick, p. 290). In the Greek Church the Scriptures were forbidden to the laity as early as the 9th century. 2 See the particulars in Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 262-263. The Calendar of Church Festivals was enlarged during this period by the addition of Trinity Sunday, in the 12th century, and the Feast of Corpus Christ i (1264, confirmed in 1311) to commemorate the full establishment of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, besides many new Saints' Days. 3 An account of these plays, and of the Moralities and Interludes which formed a link between them and the regular drama, is ' given in the Student's History of English Literature (chap. vi. § 1-3). Chap. XVII. THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS. 275 or Epiphany, the " Feast of Asses" (referring to the infant Saviour's flight to Egypt), and the election of the " boy-bishop," or " boy- abbot " on Innocents' Day, or at the Feast of St. Nicholas, the patron of children. This burlesque of sacred things, with the pro- fanation of churches by the attendant revelries, became the object of condemnation by numerous councils ; but they failed to put down a taste which at last grew into a formidable instrument of satire on the Church of Rome at the time of the Reformation. § 3. In the ministrations of the Church to the spiritual life and conscience of the faithful, especially for the forgiveness of sins and peace with God, there was a constant growth of what may be called the mechanical (in some cases we might even say magical) efficacy of external acts and priestly functions. The sacramental system was fully developed by investing the chief acts of a Christian's life with the mysterious sanctity which now became attached to the word. In its primitive meaning, " sacra- ment" was a general term for any symbolic aet,1 the sign of some sacred reality, leaving a wide scope for different views as to the lesson which it taught, or the spiritual operation with which it was connected. Gradually the idea of intrinsic efficacy in the rite itself prevailed more and more, till it reached the hard and fast form denoted by the significant phrase, opus operatum, as clearly embodied in the words of Duns Scotus : " A sacrament confers grace through the virtue of the work which is wrought, so that there is not required any good inward motion such as to deserve grace; but it is enough that the receiver place no bar" in the way of its operation.2 In its original sense, the name was applied especially to Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as the sacraments instituted by Christ himself, a pre-eminence which was still ad- mitted-when the schoolmen of the 12th and, 13th centuries, influ- enced by a mystic view of the number, established the doctrine of Seven Sacraments, namely, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penitence, Extreme Unctio:i, Holy Ord'rs, and Matrimony. z 1 St. Augustine's definition was sacrse ret signum or invisibilis gratise visihilis forma. Among the acts to \yhich he applies the word, are exorcism and the giving salt to the catechumens ; and the like com- prehensive sense survived to the period now under review. Thus a writer early in the 12th century says that the episcopal ring and staff, salt and water, oil and unction, and other things essential to the consecration of men and churches, are sacraments of the Church ; and St. Bernard applies the term to the washing of feet, which our Lord used as symbolical of an act essential to salvation (John xiii. 9). — Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 327. 2 Duns Scotus, Sentent. lib. iv. dist. i. qu. vi. § 10; Robertson, iii. 608. 3 The first distinct trace of this number is fbund in a discourse of Otho, the apostle of the Pomeranians (a.d. 1124 ; Hardwick, pp. 208, 301). It 276 PENITENTIAL DISCIPLINE. Chap. XVII. § 4. The foundation of Christian life, in the evangelic doctrine of the forgiveness of sin, was now more and more undermined by the corruption of the penitential discipline of the Church. On the vital questions of repentance and penance, confession and absolu- tion, we trace a remarkable conflict between mechanical and more spiritual views in the teaching of the great masters of the Church ; but its practical application to the life of the people was all in the downward direction. The better side of Gregory VI I. 's character is shown in the earnestness with which he combatted the prevalent tendency to substitute outward acts of penance for genuine re- pentance towards God and amendment of the life. In a remarkable letter to the bishops and faithful of Brittany, he argues that true repentance is nothing less than a return to such a state of mind as to feel oneself obliged hereafter to the faithful performance of baptismal obligations ; while other forms of penance, if this state of heart be wanting, are sheer hypocrisy.1 Hildebert, bishop of Tours in the early part of the 12th centuiy, was the author2 of the famous definition of penitence, which was adopted by the great "master of sentences," Peter Lombard,3 and other scholastic divines, as consisting of three parts, the contrition of the heart, the confession of the mouth, and the satisfaction of the work. § 5. As the outward evidence of the first, the Church required the second and third, confession and penance ; but the proper forms of both were subject to long discussion and development in practice. The primitive doctrine was, that open sin cut off members from the Church, and public confession was the condition of restoration to communion. But now the wider question had arisen respecting secret as well as open sins. The necessity of confession to a priest in order to the forgiveness of sins ; its sufficiency if made to a lay- man in the absence of a priest; the obligation of confessing venial as well as mortal sins ; these and other questions are discussed was established by the authority of Peter Lombard (Sentent. lib. iv. dist. 1 f.), followed by Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas (Summa Thco- logiae, lib. iv. qu. 60). The reader is reminded, once for all, that a full account of the great scholastic divines, whose opinions are quoted through- cut this and the ensuing Chapters, is given below (Book V.). Meanwhile it should be remembered that Thomas Aquinas is recognized by the general voice of Romanists, and most emphatically of late by Pope Leo XIII., as the chief doctrinal authority of their Church. 1 Epist. lib. vii. 10 ; so also Ivo of Chartres, Epist. 47, 22S ; Hard- wick, p. 307. 2 Sermo 23. 3 Sentent. lib. iv. 16, c. 1. We find a significant variation in Peter of Blois (ab. a.d. 1180), who gives as the third part carnis qffiictionem, and describes the three as pnrgatoria mercifully assigned to us by Christ, while Himself making purgation of sins {Be Confessione Sacramentali, p. 1086, ed. Migne ; Hardwick, p. 307). Chap. XVII. CONFESSION AND PENANCE. 277 by the great scholastic theologians.1 Duns Scotus held the ex- treme view, that confession falls under a positive Divine command ; but Thomas Aquinas agreed with Bonaventura, that it did nut become heretical to deny its necessity, until the decision of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which prescribed to every Catholic Christian the duty of confessing to his own parish priest once a year at least.2 The enormous power thus conferred on the priest, with all its liability to abuse, failed of the one good object intended — namely, to strengthen the discipline of the pastor over his flock — through the preference of the people for confessing to the mendicant friars rather than to their own priests. But the decision established the great principle of sacerdotalism, which invests the priest with the full authority of God over the penitent sinner; and "from that time forth the confessional began to be considered as the only means of obtaining forgiveness for deadly sin, which the priest as the repre- sentative of God actually granted, and which he alone could grant.'' 3 § 6. The necessity of confession, thus established in the fullest 1 For a summary of opinions on the whole subject, see Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 357-364. The whole subject is admirably treated in Dean Reichel's Sermon before the University of Cambridge (June 10th. 1883) on The History and Claims of the Confessional, with a valuable collection of original authorities. 2 The extremer views, which at last found utterance in this Canon, derived their chief support from the work Be vera et falsa Poenitentia, which was fathered upon Augustine in the 11th or 12th century, and embodied almost in its entirety in the Decretal of Gratian and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and hence quoted by the schoolmen generally. It exhorts to confession on the ground of the full absolving power com- mitted to the priests, and teaches that sins mortal in themselves are made venial by confession. 3 Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 360. Among other important testimonies he quotes the decisive authority of Thomas Aquinas on the question, Utritm con- fessio sit necessaria ad saluteml The answer is, that the passion of Christ, without the virtue of which neither original or actual sin is remitted, operates in us through the reception of the sacraments, by baptism for the former and penitence for the latter. And as he who seeks baptism thereby commits himself to the minister of the Church, to whom it belongs to dispense the sacrament, so by the very act of confessing his sins he submits himself to the minister of the Church, to obtain through the sacrament of penitence the remission dispensed by him, who cannot apply the fit remedy unless he knows the sin, which he only does through the confession of the sinner. " And therefore confession is necessary for his salvation who hat fallen into mortal sin." Gieseler adds that " confession was universally believed to be indispensably necessary only for the forgive- ness of deadly sins ; with reference to venial sins the judgment of St. Augustine, quoted by Lombard, was received, ' For those daily and light sins, without which our life is not led, the daily prayer of the faithful makes satisfaction.' " II— O 2 278 DOCTRINE OF ABSOLUTION. Chap. XVII. sense, involved that extreme view of the authority of sacerdotal absolution, which was a doctrine as new to the Church as it was a mighty engine of command over freedom of action as well as conscience. Nothing is more certain, as a matter of fact, than that down to the 13th century the form of absolution used in the service of the Church was not authoritative, nor even declaratory, but (as it was called) deprecatory — that is, a prayer, implied in the priest's address to the penitent on his confession, recognizing the remission of his sins as in the power of God alone.1 In accordance with this formula, the doctrine is distinctly explained by the great authority of Peter Lombard, but in terms which mark the beginning of a tendency to magnify the authority of the priest :2 " This we are able fully to fay and think, that God alone remits and retains sins ; and yet He has conferred on the Church the power of binding and loosing. But He himself binds and looses in one way (or 'sense'), the Church in another (aliter . . . aliter). For He himself of himself alone remits sin, because He both cleanses the soul from its inward stain, and frees it from the debt of eternal death. But this He has not granted to the priests, to whom how- ever He has granted the power of binding and loosing, that is, of shoiving men bound or loosed. Because, though a man be loosed in the sight of God, yet is he not regarded (habetur) as loosed in the face of the Church, except through the judgment of the priest." That judgment, then, is the outward recognition, for the sake of the penitent's position in the Church, of the real state in which he is placed by the Divine forgiveness; as is further shown by the comparison of his case with that of the lepers, whom Christ com- manded to shew themselves to the priests, according to the law,3 for the cure of the outward disease of which all were cleansed, though only the one who obeyed was made whole thiough his faith. The resort to the priests was necessary, both as they were the appointed ministers of the leper's exclusion or restoration, and to this end they had diligently to examine (a parallel to confession), and pass judgment on the signs of his condition. "Therefore (says Lombard) in loosing or retaining sins4 the evangelical priest acts (operatur) and judges in the same manner as did the legal priest of old in the case of those who were contaminated with leprosy, which is the 1 For the proofs and examples, see Gieseler (iii. 358), and Reichel. * Sentent. lib. iv. dist. 18 ; quoted by Gieseler, iii. 358. 3 Luke xvii. 14 ; see Lev. xiii. 2 and xiv. 2. 4 Here culpis. the word which signified the guilt of sin, subjecting to eternal death, in contrast with pma, its temporal penalty. This distinc- tion is of the utmost importance for understanding the views of the scnolastic theologians on the whole subject. Chap. XVII. ABSOLUTION BY LAYMEN. 279 outward mark of sin." All this goes to explain and qualify the sense in which he argues from God's committal to the priests of the power of binding and loosing, that " to those to whom they give remission, God also gives it;"1 and he distinctly holds that their absolution is only valid in so far as it accords with the Divine judgment. And how completely his whole view of absolution rests on this foundation is shown by his at once subjoining, " If, how- ever, a priest be not at hand, confession is to be made to the nearest neighbour or companion." Such confession is distinctly held to be sacramental by another of the greatest schoolmen, Albertus Magnus,2 who regards the ministration committed to the priests as only one of Jive kinds of absolution, the last being described in the most widely comprehensive terms as ufrom the unity of faith and charity; and this in the case of necessity devolves on every man for the relief of his neighbour ; and this power the layman has in case of necessity." Had Albert been asked " Who is the neighbour" qualified to grant this " absolution of faith and charity " ? — he might perhaps have replied in the confession which his Master's parable drew from the scribe, " He that shewed mercy on him," when the priest and Levite had passed him by.3 It is true that these opinions were not universal; but even their strongest opponents in the 12th century did not venture to maintain the absolute power of the priest to remit the guilt of sin as with the authority of God. In the Victorine school, for example,4 the founder Hugh held a high sacramental view of absolution,5 and his follower Richard described the opinion of Lombard — that the priests had not the power of binding and loosing, but of showing men bound or loosed— as frivolous and almost too ridiculous for refutation.6 But his own 1 It is to be particularly observed that, wheiever Lombard approaches the extreme views of confession and absolution, he is following the treatise falsely ascribed to St. Augustine (see p. 277 ). On the locus clatsicus respecting the power of binding and loosing in heaven as well as earth (Matt. xvi. 19), he quotes Jerome's condemnation of the-authority assumed by bishops and presbyters " who did not understand the text" 2 Sentent. lib. iv. dist. 17, art. 58, 59, where we have the true echo of the apostolical precept, so often perverted into an argument for auricular confession to a priest : " Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much " (James v. 16). As late as 1310 confession to a Catholic layman by a person in danger of death, when no priest was at hand, was sanctioned by the Synod of Treves; and we have an example of its practice in the confession of Joinville and his companions to the Constable of Cyprus, when prisoners in the hands of the Saracens (Join- ville, Hist.de St. Louis, quoted by Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 364). 3 Lukex. 37. 4 See Chap. XXVIII. § 14. 5 Hugo a S. Victore, de Stcrament, lib. ii. pars. xiv. c. 8. 6 Ricardus a S. Vict., de Potestate ligandi et solvendi, c. 12 280 THOMAS AQUINAS ON ABSOLUTION. Chap. XVII. view fell far short of that which ultimately prevailed, for the absolute power which he ascribes to the priest extends onh' to the temporal penalty of sin (the poena), while he reserves for God the " deliverance from its guilt (culpa) by the inward supply of grace from God" But in the 13th century the same great distinction is as clearly drawn, only to be decided the other way by the authority of Thomas Aquinas, expressing the prevalent opiniou of his age.1 Propounding the two questions — Whether the power of the keys extends to the remission of guilt, and whether the priest can remit sin as respects its penalty : — he replies to the former, that the virtue of the keys operates for the remission of guilt, just as also does the water of baptism. But still the great master's scholastic subtilty avoids the purely mechanical view of an opus operatum. In both cases the work is not that of a principal agent, for Grod alone of Himself remits guilt, and by virtue of His power baptism and the priest act each as an instrument — an inanimate instrument in the water, a living instrument in the power of the keys — and, even as an instrument, not causing, but disposing to the reception of grace and the remission of guilt. At first sight, this disposing might appear to be a spiritual operation ; but he further explains it as operating in the sacrament itself, in such a manner that, " if before absolution the person had not been perfectly disposed for receiving grace, he would obtain grace in the sacramental confession and absolution itself, if he opposed no obstacle " — for the loss of the benefit of a sacrament by its unworthy reception was a doctrine never abandoned, at least in theory. But such refinements were not likely to reach the understanding of the vulgar, who were even told by some of their priests that they were cleared of their sins as a stick is peeled of its bark.2 The popular confidence in so comfortable a doctrine was strengthened by the change which was made about this time from the old form of absolution into the formula, "I absolve thee" (Ego te dbsolvo), not without strong objections, as we learn from the pains taken by Aquinas to answer them. As late as 1249, William, bishop of Paris,3 distinctly testifies to the continued use of the formula dfjn-r- catoria : " Nor does the confessor, after the manner of judges in the 1 " Secundum opinionem quae sustenetur commuuius." — Summa Theo- logize, pars. iii. qu. 18, art. 1, 2. There is no reason to doubt this testimony to the growth of opinions so much in accordance with human nature, as well as with the spirit of the times. 2 This expressive figure was used with reference to the virtue of a local indulgence, and was condemned by Honorius III. (1255). 3 Be Sacramento Pamitentix, sub fin. ; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 363. Chap. XVII. THE NEW AUTHORITATIVE FORMULA. 281 courts, pronounce the sentence, We absolve, we do not condemn; but rather he offers prayer over him, that God would give him absolution and remission and grace." Thomas Aquinas quotes the statement of a writer, to whom he is replying, that it was scarcely thirty years since all had used the form, "May God grant thee absolution and remis.sion," and that the priest ought not to say " I absolve thee," both because this lies within the power of God alone, and because the priest could not be sure that the person was really absolved. Thomas decided for the formula, "I absolve thee," as alone effective, the deprecatory formula being retained only as an introductory prayer that the penitent might be rightly disposed to receive the formal absolution.1 As to the authority of the priest alone to grant absolution, Thomas Aquinas argues thus: — "The grace, which is given in the sacraments, descends to the members from the Head : and therefore the only minister of the sacraments in which grace is given, is he who has the ministry over Christ's true body; which belongs to the priest only, who has power to consecrate the Eucharist. And therefore, since grace is conferred in the sacrament of penitence, the priest alone is the minister of this sacrament; and to him alone, therefore, is to be made the sacra- mental confession, which ought to be made to the minister of the Church." In such reasoning we see how completely the character of the Church, as the body of Christ, in which all believers are united as members to Him,2 their living head, had been usurped by the priesthood. § 7. The power of absolution from the temporal penalty (poena) of sin was connected with the whole penitential discipline, which fell during this age into depths of abuse, corruption, and supersti- tion. To the question, Whether the priest can remit sin in respect of its punishment, Thomas Aquinas replies, that those who through penitence obtain remission of guilt and of the sentence of eternal death receive increase of grace and remission of the temporal penalty, a part of which had still remained. For penitence is not, like baptism, a regeneration, but a healing, a process in its nature gradual and imperfect; and, after contrition, absolution, and con- fession, there is a remnant of penalty {residua poena), for which satisfaction has still to be made. Hence the effort to maintain true repentance and amendment of life was overpowered by the idea that penance was a satisfaction for sin to God, required of the 1 Summa, pars. iii. qu. 84, art. 3 : " Utrum hasc sit forma hujus sacra- menti, Ego te absoho." The formda deprecatoria was retained as the absolution in some places down to the 14th century ; afterwards it was used only as an introduction (Gieseler, iii. 363). 2 See Rom. xii. 4, 5 ; 1 Cor. vi. 15, xii. throughout ; Ephes. iv. 25, v. 30. 282 PENANCE AND ASCETICISM. Chap. XVII. sinner as his part over and above the atonement of Christ and the absolution of the Church. In this new sense of satisfaction we find the key to a vast system of abuse. For the evangelic duty of "bringing forth fruits meet for repentance " and making reparation for the wrong done so far as it was possible, was substituted a system of acts, burdensome or frivolous, not for the benefit of the injured person, bat for the quieting of the offender's conscience. The primitive doctrine of penitential discipliue and self-denial, to combat and remove the sin incurred from day to day, was now corrupted into a system of "indulgences" and "commutations of penance," in which the Church made profit from the vices of the people. Penance was commuted for some less onerous task, of which pilgrimage was one most in favour ; pecuniary gilts, the building of churches and founding of monasteries, and even the vicarious obser- vance of fasts and other penances by the dependants of the great, who thus laid their sins on others. But while the worship, disci- pline, and sacramental system of the Church grew more and more mechanical, many were moved all the more by dissatisfaction with such a system, and especially with the easy modes of penance, to the sterner practice of asceticism. Such persons for the most part found refuge in the stricter monastic orders ; and we shall have to speak presently of the special provision made for them. Among various modes of self mortification, sometimes vying with the cruellest ingenuity of torturers, besides protracted fasts, special virtue was attributed to flagellation, whether self-inflicted or volun- tarily submitted to. One of the most vehement advocates of this discipline was Peter Damiani, who regarded self-mortification as a meritorious anticipation of purgatory on earth.1 The practice grew, though protests were made against its excess.2 Jn the year 1260 it broke out into a sort of epidemic, originating at Perugia, which should, however, rather be accounted among the irregular fanatical movements of the age, than as example of ascetic discipline. The fanatical Flagellants of the 14th century have been spoken of above (Chap. VIII. § 7). § 8. The chief form of commutation, which now arose and was afterwards developed into an elaborate system, was that of Indul- 1 Damiani, Opusc. xliii. Be Laude Flagellorum ct Discipline. 2 Thus in England the author of the Ancren Rivcle (' The Rule of Female Anchorets '), a sufficiently stern disciplinarian, enjoins upon the nuns of Tarent, in Dorset : " Wear no iron, nor hair-cloth, nor hedgehog skins; and do not beat yourselves therewith, nor with a scourge of leather thongs, nor leaded ; and do not with holly nor with briars cause yourselves to bleed without leave of your confessor; and do not, at one time, use too many flagellations." (Morton's translation, p. 419; quoted by Hardwick, p. 307.) Chap. XVII. PLENARY INDULGENCES. 283 gences, pardons of sin granted in consideration of particular acts of piety and services to the Church. At first they referred only to specific offences already committed, and were granted by bishops ; and the abuses attending them were rebuked by the very Popes who developed the system on a gigantic scale.1 Plenary Indulgences* began to be granttd fur all sins, without limitation to special acts; such as Gregory VII. promised to those who supported the rival of Henry IV. (1080) ; but the first grand example of a general plenary indulgence was that which Urban II. proclaimed at the Council of Clermont to all who would join in the First Crusade (1095). " These indulgences, indeed, were intended as remissions of those temporal penalties only, which it was believed th.it the sinner must undergo in this life or in purgatory ; but the people in general understood them, and persisted in understanding them, as promises of eternal forgiveness, while they overlooked any conditions of repentance or charity which had been annexed to them. And the licence which marked the lives of the Crusaders, and of the Latins who settled in the Holy Land, is an unquestion- able proof of the sense in which the papal offers were interpreted."3 There were not wanting those who saw these evil consequences, and contended that the graces of penitence and devotion were essential to the benefit of indulgence ; but others, more practically if less piously, regarded the popular view as necessary to the indulgence having any value, and held that, if the people were deceived, the deceit was lawful for its good effects. The fatal doctrine was now propounded, " The Church deceives the faithful, and yet she doth not 1 Among the acts for which indulgences were granted by bishops were " the recitation of a certain prayer before a certain altar, visiting a church on a certain day, pilgrimages to relics or miraculous pictures, or the like ; and in furtherance of local undertakings, such as the building or enlarge- ment of a church, the building of a bridge, or the enclosure of a forest " (Robertson, iii. 271). An interesting example of the system in a state of transition is furnished by the promise of Gregory VI. (1044), in grntitude for the offerings made towards the restoration of churches in Rome, of his prayers and those of his successors on behalf of the donors for the remis- sion of their sins, that they might be brought to everlasting life. — D'Achery, Spicileg. iii. 398 ; Gieseler, iii. 366, n. 2 " At first plenary indulgence was only granted for services undertaken on behalf of the Church at the risk of life. Thus the idea of the power of martyrdom to eradicate sin entered into the conception of indulgence." — Gieseler, iii. 366, n. 3 :% Those who remained at home also received the benefit of the indul- gence in proportion to the amount of their contributions to the cost of the Crusade; but Gregory IX. was the first who allowed such a pay- ment as a commutation for fulfilling the vow of the Crusader," — Robert- son, vol. iii. p. 270. 284 DISCUSSIONS ON INDULGENCE. Chap. XVII. lie;"1 and Thomas Aquinas says that, if inordinate indulgences are given, " so that men are called back almost for nothing from the works of penitence, he who gives such indulgence sins, yet, never- theless, the receiver obtains full indulgence."2 In fact, something like doubt about the whole system is betrayed by the elaborate discussions respecting both the foundation and the extent of the efficacy of indulgence, which some altogether denied as inconsistent with the fundamental doctrine, that God only can forgive sin. This seems to have been one of the points on which the purer religion surviving in the monasteries withstood the corruptions countenanced by the bishops and Popes from motives of interest.3 Thus Stephen, abbot of Obaize, in laying the founda- tion of a new church (1156), resisted the bishop's offer of letters of indulgence to the assembled people, refusing to introduce a custom which (he said) was a stumbling-block to the people and a disgrace to the clergy, by making them a present of indulgences which none but God had the power to give.4 "We" — said the pious abbot to the bishop, on another like occasion — "are still burthened by our sins, nor have we pow^r to lighten the sins of others." 5 In his own sharper spirit of sarcasm, Abelard denounces " priests who deceived those put under them, not so much through error as covetousness, so that for offerings of money they condoned or mitigated the penance enjoined for satisfaction, regarding not so much the Lord's will as the power of money. And we see " (he adds) " not only priests, but also the very princes of those priests (I mean the bishops) so shamelessly inflamed with this covetousness, that when, at the dedications of churches, or the consecrations of altars, or the blessing of cemeteries, or any solemnities, they gather assemblies of the people from which they 1 William of Auxerre, quoted by Neander, vii. 487. 2 Summa Theol. suppl. qu. xxv. art. 2 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 610. 3 In the 12th century, and even later, all bishops had the right to grant indulgences in their own dioceses, unless it were limited by the Pope (Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. "p. 368, n.). Innocent III., by a decree at the Fourth Lateran Council, imposed restric- tions on the granting of "indiscreet and extravagant" (supertfuas) " indulgences by the prelates," who thereby " contemned the power of the keys, and weakened penitental satisfaction " — a plea for the papal prerogative as much as for holy discipline. 4 It is clear from other evidence, as well as from the testimony of Abelard next quoted, that the indulgences granted on such occasions were not a gracious reward for pious acts, but a stimulus and enticement to obtain contributions from the people. 5 Vit. Steph. Opaz. ii. 18 ; ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 168. Chap. XVII. OPPOSITION OF ABELARD. 285 expect copious oblations, they are prodigal in the relaxation of penance, granting to all in common the indulgence, sometimes of a third, sometimes of a fourth part of the penance, under a certain semblance forsooth of benignity, but in truth from the greatest covetousness. And in vaunting themselves of the power which, as they say, they have received through Peter or the Apostles,1 when the Lord said to them, Whosesoever sins ye remit, &c. (John xx. 23), they boast above all that the act is theirs, when they confer this benignity on those put under them. And I would that they at least did this for their own sake and not for money, that it might seem at all events to be benignity rather than cupidity. But, indeed, if it is to redound to the praise of their benignity, that they remit a third or a fourth of the penance, much more would their piety deserve proclaiming if they were to remit the half or the whole completely, as they profess to have the right entrusted to them by the Lord, as if heaven were placed in their hands. While, on the other hand, they seem chargeable with great impiety, because they do not absolve all those put under them from all their sins, so as to suffer none of them to be damned : if, I say, it has been thus put in their power to remit or to retain what sins they will, or to open or shut heaven to those for whom they decide : nay, they might well be proclaimed most blessed, if the}' could open it to themselves when they would. But if this is beyond either their power or their knowledge, they certainly incur, as 1 think, the censure of the poet, Nee prosunt domino, qua -prosunt omnibus, artes. Let who pleases covet that power — not I— by which he is able rather to profit others than himself, as though he had power over the souls of others rather than his own." 2 The sarcastic boldness of this language, so characteristic of Abe- lard, is scarcely more damaging to the doctrine of indulgence than the doubts and limitations with which the doctrine was accepted.3 1 It is very interesting to observe, in the frequent references of this age to the leading texts on the remission and retention of sins, how little stress is laid on that commission of the power of the keys to St. Peteb on which the Papacy rests its highest claims (Matt. xvi. 19 ; comp. xvih. 18, where the same commission is given to all the Apostles). It is evident also that Abelard's reasoning applies a fortiori to Papal indul- gences, and even to the whole extreme theory of sacerdotal absolution. 2 Abaelardi Kthica, cc. 18, 25; ap. Gieseler, iii. 365-6. 3 See, for example, Paul us Presbyter, who recites seven probable opinions (Summa de Poznitentia, 15 ; about a.d. 1200), and Gulielmus Episcop. Altissidor. (SenUnt. iv. tract vi. c. ix. qu. 1), who discusses the question, Whether in truth the remission avails as much as the Church pro- mises* (Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 368-9). Albertus Magnus (Sentent. lib. iv. dist. 20, art. 16) says that three opinions were snciently held about 286 TREASURY OF SUPEREROGATION. Chap. XVII. The original and moderate notion was, that the remissions granted in reward of contributions and services to the Church availed only- through securing the prayers of the Church ; and even the highest views attached some conditions and limitations to their efficacy. But much more than this was not only commonly understood, but often promised. Thus of the indulgence by which many were induced to take the Cross, they were told by the bishops that the vowed Crusader, on his death, would immediately fly away to heaven ; upon which a writer x observes that " the prelates make many promises which are not performed; wherefore this sort of remissions should be made with great discretion, and not at random." But the high theory, which ultimately prevailed, was that the Church had at its disposal an accumulated treasure of merits won, the good deeds, sufferings, and penitential exercises of the faithful, especially of Christ himself, to impart to deserving penitents, in virtue of which, like the " Mammon of unrighteousness " in the parable, they would be " received into everlasting habitations." 2 The scholastic divines of the thirteenth century gave this notion the form in which we find it taught by Alexander Hales and Albertus Magnus, and fully elaborated by Thomas Aquioas, of the " Treasury of Supererogation "3 of the merits of those made perfect (thesaurus indulgences : the first, that they were of no effect at all, hut a pious fraud which the mother uses to entice her children to goodness, such as pilgrimage, and alms, and hearing the word of God, and the like ; but this, he thinks, perverts the acts of the Church into mere child's-play, and almost savours of heresy. Others, going too far in their eagerness to contradict that view, have said that indulgences avail simply as they are pronounced, without any other condition declared or understood. He him- self agrees with the third opinion, namely, that indulgences avail just as the Church declares them to avail ; but six conditions are required, which are either supposed or expressed by the Church. Two of these are on the part of the giver : authority and a pious cause ; two are pre- supposed on the part of the receiver : contrition with confession, and faith that this can be done for him through the power of the keys, wherefore letters of indulgence always (?) contain the clause " to those who are contrite and have confessed " ; the other two are required on the part of grace or of the Church, namely, the superfluity of the treasury of merits (abundantia thesauri meritorum), and the just estimation of that remission for which the indulgence has been instituted. 1 Gulielmus Altissidor, I.e. 2 We find the germ of this doctrine in the first of the seven "probable topinions " enumerated by the Presbyter Paulus (loc. sup. cit.), who quotes he parable (Luke xvi. 1-9). 3 The verb erogo, "to obtain by asking," had the secondary sense of expending grants thus obtained from the people, and then generally of spending and paying. Hence, in Roman law, supererogo signified " to make a payment over and above the sum due," and supererogatio any excess of payment so made. Chap. XVII. POWER OF THE KEYS. 287 supererogationis perfectorum, also meritorum), on which (to use the modern phrase) the Church could draw, in virtue of the poiver of the keys, for the remission both of the temporal and eternal penalties of sin, not only for the benefit of the living, but also of the dead in purgatory. The doctrine of some, that such remissions regard only the judgment of the Church, and not the judgment of God, is expressly rejected by Alexander Hales,1 because, if the Church remits punishment and God does not, this would be more of a deception than a remission, and cruelty rather than piety ; and he holds that God confirms the remission granted by the Church. To the question, whether the merit of one man can avail in satisfaction of the penalty incurred by another, he replies that, so far as punish- ment is a remedy (rtiedicamenturti), it cannot, but if we speak of it as a price (pretium), in this sense one man can make satisfaction for another. But this can only be done by the authority of a superior ; and his conclusion is, that " indulgences and remissions are made in consideration of the supererogatory merits of the mem- bers of Christ, and principally those of Christ himself2 which are the spiritual treasure of the Church. But to dispense this treasure does not belong to all, but only to those who are chiefly the vice- gerents of Christ, that is, the Bishops." Thus he leads up to the Pope's prerogative of indulgence by the power of the keys, which is more fully developed by Thomas Aquinas.3 And that power was now held to rule over the unseen world of purgatory, as well as over the Church on earth ; so that those who had died in penitence, but without receiving absolution, even though absolved by God, might still obtain the absolution of the Church ; as Alexander Hales says, " It is presumed probably and most truly that the Pontiff can grant indulgences to those who are in Purgatory." But he adds, with special emphasis, that several conditions are required for the efficacy of such indulgence, which he regards as availing chiefly through the faith and prayers of surviving friends and of the 1 Summa Theol. pars iv. qu. 23, art. 1. 2 It would be an injustice to the views of the scholastic divines to over- look the stress they lay upon this point, not merely that the treasure of supererogation consists chiefly of the merits of Christ, but also that those of the saints avail (as Aquinas puts it), "because of the mystic unity of the members of His body . . . just as the apostle says that he filled up what was wanting of the sufferings of Christ in his body for the Church to which he writes (Col. i. 24) ; and so the aforesaid merits are the common merits of the whole Church " ; and (he adds), as common property, they are distributed to the individuals of the community at the pleasure of him who presides over it, namely, the Pope, in virtue of the power of the keys {Summa Thcol. suppl. pars. iii. qu. 25, ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 375-6). 3 Loc. mp. cit. 28S SPECIAL FORMS OF INDULGENCE. Chap. XVII. Church. Aquinas infers the benefit of the dead from the com- munity of the whole Church in the merits on which indulgences depend.1 This final form of the doctrine of indulgence, both for the quick and dead, brought a vast increase and awful sanction to the authority of the Papacy, as holding the supreme power of the keys. The attempts of Popes2 to check the abuse of the episcopal power of indulgence tended to strengthen their own prerogative. During the 13th century, plenary indulgences were renewed for every crusade, not only against infidels, but against heretics and contumacious princes, as the Albigenses and Frederick II. At the Jubilee of the year 1300 Boniface VIJ I. proclaimed to all penitent visitors to the clurches of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome "not only a full, but mure abundant, nay the fullest pardon of all their sins." When at length the system reached the climax which provoked Luther's opposition, Leo X. declared that the temporal penalty {poena) could be remitted to the living and the dead alike, by means of the indulgences which he was empowered to distribute as the almoner of Christ and of the Saints; the guilt {culpa) being graciously forgiven through the sacrament of penance. Lesser indulgences were granted on the most trivial pretexts; and they were dispensed throughout Christendom, in the Pope's name, by his devoted agents the monks, and especially by the friars, who used them in return for easy and mechanical services as the means of attracting popular devotion to their respective orders. Thus the Franciscans gathered crowds of visitors every year, on the feast of St. Peter's chains (Aug. 1), to receive the benefit of the indulgence which their founder's prayers had obtained from the Saviour himself for the church called Portiuncula at Assisi (cf. p. 418) ; while the Dominicans established the use of the rosary, by proclaiming indul- gences for the prayers reiterated by the aid of that instrument.3 1 See his full answer to the question, Utrum indulgent >'a> Ecclesise prosint mortnis 1 (Quasst. 71, art. 10, ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 377). 2 As Innocent III. at the 4th Lateran Council (1215), and Honorius III. (1225). Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 372. 3 Though the rosary (capettina, paternoster, preculse, psalteriuni) now became the special property of the Dominicans, it had certainly been in use much earlier, and it appears to have been derived from the "muttering chaplet " (in Sanscrit, japamatd), or " remembrance " (snutrani), in use among Hindoos and Buddhists long before the Christian era (see the article in the Diet, of Christian Ant qq. vol. ii. p. 1819). "The manner of performing the devotion of the rosary was by reciting the angelic saluta- tion, with a prayer for the Blessed Virgin's intercession in the hour of death. A rosary of 150 beads represented a like number of arcs, which were divided into fifteen portions, and between these portions a recitation of the Lord's Prayer was interposed. Some mystery of the Christian faith Chap. XVII. QUESTUARIES AND PARDONERS. 289 The abuse of the system reached its climax in the open sale of indulgences, for which the way was prepared, first by such grants to those who contributed money for a Crusade, in place of personal service ; next by the pecuniary commutation of a Crusader's vow ; and finally by the grant of indulgences for small contributions without reference to any special pious object. The function of making such collections was abused by a set of impostors in the garb of friars, often of abandoned character — called Quaestuarii, from their trade1 — who went about preaching in rivalry with the regular mendicant orders, and offering for sale an unlimited supply of briefs of indulgence, as well as forged relics. Their practices were denounced by several Councils,2 and in most vehement terms by the friars on whose special province they intruded. Thus the Franciscan Befthold (pb 1272) inveighs against them as "newly sprung up, for when I was a little child there was never a one of them. They are called penny-preachers : the devil has no more favourite servants. For one of these goes out among the simple folk, and preaches and shouts, till all weep who stand before him. And he says he has power from the Pope to take off all thy sins for one mite. And he lies, saying that a man is thereby made free from sin before God. Thus he crowns the devil every day with many thousand souls. Ye must give him nought : ye must stand off from the fraud. The while you are giving to him, he is selling to you eternal death. And they slay you, and turn you away from true repentance, which God has hallowed, so that ye never may have the will to repent." Thus far the Franciscan ; and the General of the Dominicans3 is equally emphatic: "about was proposed for meditation during the performance of this exercise, and the whole was concluded by a repetition of the Creed" (Robertson, vol. iii p. 609). 1 Or, more fully, Quxstuarii prsedicatores, "trafficking preachers." 2 See, for example, the declaration of the Council of Mainz (a.d. 1261, Mansi, xxiii. 1102; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 372), "Contra Quxstuarios maledicos" whose monstrous abuse of base gain had made them as odious to the world as persons infected with the plague ; who exhibited as relics the bones of profane persons and of brutes, and boasted of lying miracles ; and then spent the money thus sacrilegiously acquired in feasts and drunken- ness, games and luxury. The Council orders them to be delivered over as prisoners to the bishops. In the following year Urban IV. issued a Bull to the inquisitors to restrain the " prsedicatores quarstuarios " from the function of preaching, " which in no way belongs to them," while recog- nizing their proper business of " merely collecting charitable contribu- tions, and exhibiting (exponere) the indulgence, if they happen to have any " (Gieseler, ib.). 3 Humbertus de Romanis, in his book drawn up at the request of Gregory X., on the questions to be treated of in the General Council of Lyon (1274), lib. iii. c. 8 ; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 373. 290 TRAFFIC IN RELICS. Chap. XVII. the questuary preachers, who infect almost the whole Church in every land and are a scandal to the whole world : . . . . for they are for the most part persons dishonoured and of ill fame." And their influence over the common people was encouraged by the superior clergy; for he adds that "they corrupt Prelates and officials, and Archpresbyters and Presbyters to such a degree by their obsequiousness,1 that they let them loose to say and do whatever they please Moreover they are wont to tell many lies both about relics and about indulgences ; and, what is the crowning mischief, these and many other evils have been so turned into sport and derision, that scarcely any one grieves over them for the sake of Christ."2 § 9. The traffic in Relics was a means of meeting a demand which had grown chiefly out of the Crusades and the passion for pil- grimage as a penance and a form of indulgence. While the moral and religious results to the pilgrims and Crusaders themselves are pithily summed up in the contemporary testimony, " I have scarcely, nay never, seen any who returned better, either from the parts beyond sea or the shrines of the saints,"3 they returned at once to corrupt their friends and to stimulate in them new devotion by the visible signs of their own, in the shape of portions of the body and blood, and even of the tears, of Christ, the Apostles, and Saints, the instruments of His passion and their martyrdom, and other objects connected with them, often in a way almost grotesque.4 These 1 Servitiis seems to imply the acting as their servants and tools in various ways. Of course, the jealousy between the secular and regular clergy, especially the friars, must be borne in mind. 2 This testimony is confirmed by the prominent part played by the qua?stionary or " pardoner " in satiric literature from this time to the Reformation — a matter which, as well as the mock festivals, is graphically introduced by Sir Walter Scott in the Abbot. 3 Albertus Stadensis, ap. Gieseler (vol. iii. p. 367), who quotes other striking testimonies to the abandoned character of many of the Crusaders, and its aggravation by the system of indulgences ; the worst of them going so far as to say " I will work wickedness, because by taking up the Cross I shall not only be blameless, but shall free the souls of many from their crimes." Innocent IV. (1246) found it necessarv to desire the French prelates to warn the Crusaders against presuming on indulgence to commit the thefts, homicides, rapes, and other crimes, of which the King had made complaint to the Holy See. But the climax of enormity (the testimony of Gregory X.) was reached by the Christians in Palestine, whose devotion was repaid by the amplest indulgences. 4 Among the most memorable are the dish, said to be of emerald, but really of green glass, still preserved in the cathedral of Genoa, whither it was brought from the capture of Caesarea, in 1101, as the Holy Grail used in our Lord's last supper (William of Tyre, x. 16); the likeness of the Saviour (vera icon) on a napkin, the name of which was at last trans- Chap. XVII. MULTIPLICATION OF SAINTS. 291 relics were not merely reverenced as memorials, but (following a heathen superstition of high antiquity) they were trusted in as charms, by which evils might be warded off and diseases cured. More important than a vain attempt to specify the vast number of such relics are the testimonies borne by Councils1 and by writers of high character to the many gross impostures, for the sake of gain, as well as the protests which were still raised against the honours paid, not only to the relics but to the Saints themselves, whose number was now so vascly multiplied, that one writer likens the multitude of patron saints to the idolatries of the heathens settled in Samaria : " Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.2 Many stories were now invented to supply the silence of Scripture and of primitive Church History concerning the part borne by the Apostles and their contemporaries in the conversion of the several nations; such as that which brought Joseph of Arimathea to Britain and invented the legend of the sncred thorn of Glastonbury, with many others of the like sort. Churches discovered new patrons, and the monks muted into St. Veronica (see Part I. p. 27) ; the seamless coat of Christ, which (like many other relics single in their nature) was multiplied into several, among which the "Holy Coat of Treves " raised a new controversy not long ago ; the bodies of the three Magi, or " Kings," brought first to Milan, and translated by Archbishop Reginald to Cologne, where also the church of St. Ursula is still lined with the bones of the British princess and her 11,000 virgin comrades who were martyred by the Huns, a legend conjecturedly traced to the "XL M. V." (11 martyres virgines) of some ancient martyrology. We may cite among the more grotesque examples — a feather of the angel Gabriel, a portion of Noah's beard, a flame of the burning bush, and the sword that Balaam — wished for ! 1 As that of Poitiers (1100), the Fourth Lateran (1215), and that of Bordeaux (1255): Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 334; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 268. The multiplication of false relics suggested testing their genuineness by the ordeal of fire. -Mabillon, Vet. Analecta, p. 568; Hardwick, p. 198. 2 2 Kings xvii. 29. Guiberti, abbot of Nogent (f 1124), ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 334-5. This writer, after demonstrating the imposture of the tooth of Christ, which the monks of St. Medard pretended to possess, pro- ceeds to an uncompromising denunciation of the worship not only of relics, but of saints, and the frequent falsity of the current legends, by very many of which (he says) their preaching among the heathen would rather be blasphemed than glorified. He declares avarice to be the chief cause of these abuses, and implies that the custodians of the relics made use of their gold and silver settings, which they replaced as new offerings came in. " Assuredly " (he says) " if the bodies of the saints had the places belonging to them by nature, I mean their sepulchres, they would have been spared these errors. . . . Let each man say what he thinks, I feel quite sure of my conclusion, that it would never have pleased God or the saints themselves, that any of their sepulchres should be opened, or their bodies taken away piece by piece." 292 PILGRIMAGES AS PENANCE. Chap. XVII. found special saints to glorify their respective orders. The Crusades brought into the Western Church saints hitherto unknown, and some who probably never had any existence, such as St. Catherine of Alexandria, whose alleged relics were imported by Simeon of Treves (cir. 1030).1 § 10. Even after the failure of the Crusades, the practice of Pil- grimage retained its popularity as a proof of devotion and penitence, often by way of commutation for severer forms of penance; and this also was connected with the abuses of indulgences and forged relics.2 For the longer pilgrimages — such as to Rome and the shrine of St. James at Compostella, plenary indulgences were granted, as well as for that to Jerusalem; and these again were commuted for easier journeys.3 Against reliance on such acts weighty protests were uttered, especially by the monastic reformers, who held it better to " follow Christ in His burial " by entering a convent than to run after His burial-place at Jerusalem.4 They also re- 1 Baronius, ad Martyr. Bom. d. 25 Nov. ; Fleury, Hist. Eccles. lib. lix. s. 27; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 334; Hardwick, pp. 198, 424. Respecting the various forms of the legend of St. George, who supplanted Edward the Confessor as the patron saint of England, see the Diet, of Christian Biog. s. v. Many of the most extravagant legends in the Greek hagiographies of Simeon Metaphrnstes (fl. cir. 900) were copied into the works which became permanently popular in the West. Among these the title of Golden Legend was given to the Lombard History, or Legends of the Saints, by the Dominican Jacobus de Voragine (i.e. of Viraggio or Varese), archbishop of Genoa (b. cir. 1292). The system of allegorizing the saints' lives was carried to absurd lengths in the Bationale of Divine Offices by William Durantis, or Durandus (b. 1237 ; d. 1296), an eminent Professor of Law at Bologna, and afterwards Bishop of Mende. The lasting popularity of his Bationale is attested by the fact that it was the earliest work printed by Fust. 2 Pilgrims became naturally carriers of false relics, but some also forged them in order to claim the character. " Innocent III. complains that, for the sake of the privileges connected with the Compostella pil- grimage, the scallop-shells which were the tokens of it were counterfeited (Epist. x. 78)." — Robertson, vol. iii. p. 269. 3 "Thus Calixtus II. allowed the English and Scots, instead of going to Rome, to content themselves with resorting to St. David's (William Malmesb. Gest. Beg. 435)." Robertson (/. c), quoting old Fuller (i. 298), "Witness the ancient rhyming verse: 'Roma semel quantum bis dat Menevia tantum ' : not that St. David's gives a peck of pardons where Rome gives but a gallon, as the words at the first blush may seem to import, but that two pilgrimages to St. David's should be equal in merit to one pilgrimage to Rome." A favourite pilgrimage was to "St. Patrick's Purgatory," the place in Ireland where the saint had carried more than one visitor beneath the earth, whether in person or in vision, to see the terrors of Purgatory. ' Hildebert, i. 5 ; Peter of Clugny, Epist. ii. 15. So Anselm " held that a vow of pilgrimage was fulfilled by entering a monastic order ; that Chap. XVII. PRETENDED MIRACLES. 293 proved the neglect of ordinary duties consequent on these long journeys.1 But only a few of the more daring spirits ventured to question the Miracles2 which were now multiplied far and wide; like Abelard,3 who explains the cures of diseases by the mixture of ordinary remedies with food and drink, while the priests made a display of their prayers and benedictions and sanctified bread and water; and he cites the ridiculous failures of those who took on themselves to raise the dtad, like Norbert and his fellow-apostle Farsitus; every failure, great or small, being ascribed to want of faith on the part of the people. A grammarian at Bologna, Buon- compagno, ventured on a practical ridicule of the miracles of a Dominican friar, John. He gave out that he also would perform a miracle ; and having drawn a crowd of people out of the city to see him fly, he kept them waiting there a long time, and then dis- missed them with the words, " Depart with the divine blessing, and let it content you to have seen the face of Buoncompagno."4 thus to vow one's whole life to God was more than the partial vows of pilgrims {Epist. iii. 33, 116)." — Robertson, /. c. 1 Hildebert to Fulk, Count of Anjou {Epist. xv.) ; Bernard, Epist. Iii., 264, 399. 2 The accounts of such miracles were collected by Peter the Venerable, of Clugny (de Mirarulis sui Temporis, lib. ii.) ; Herbert, archbishop of Torre, in Sardinia; and Caesarius of Heisterbach (cir. 1227 : de Miracidis et Visionibus sum ^Etatis, libri xii.) ; besides the accounts of the miracles of St. Thomas of Canterbury, by William of Canterbury and Benedict of Peterborough. Among the most remarkable of these miracles were those which enforced the doctrine of transubstantiation by the visible appearance of flesh (sometimes dropping with blood) assumed by the consecrated wafer. (See further in Chap. XIX.) 3 Sermo XXXI. de S. Joanne Baptisto ; Gieseler, iii. 337. 4 Chron. Fr. Salimbeni de Adam. ad. ann. 1229; ap. Gieseler, iii. 337. It would certainly seem that there must have been a strong popular sym- pathy with the grammarian's scepticism to allow him to play off his jest with safety to himself. St. Peter Fishing. (From the Cjlixtine Catacomb.) II— P The Virgin Enthroned. CHAPTER XVIII. SAINT-WORSHIP AND MARIOLATRY. HYMNOLOGY AND SACRED ART. 1. Worship of Saints and Images — Progress of Mariohtry — Festivals and Titles of the Blessed Virgin — Orders in her honour — the Servites and Cistercians. § 2. Language of Peter Damiani — Deification and Mediation of the Virgin. § 3. St. Bernard — Views of the Schoolmen : doctrine of hyperdulia. § 4. Hymns and Office of St. Mary — The Ave Maria — The Marian Psalters — Scriptures applied to the Virgin. § 5. Feast of the Conception — Development of the Doctrine — View of Anselm — Opposition of Bernard and others. § 6. The Immaculate Conception rejected by Thomas Aquinas, but maintained by Duns Scotus and the Franciscans — Finally promulgated by Pius IX. (1854). § 7. Latin Hymns: Dies Irte ; Stabat Mater; Adam of St. Victor. § 8. Great Impulse to Church-building. § 9. The Architecture mis- called Gothic — The Romanesque or Norman style — Pointed Archi- tecture: Early English; Decorated; Perpendicular. § 10. Carving, Painting, and other works of art — The Renaissance. § 1. The miraculous powers referred to in the preceding chapter were often attached to the images and pictures, the worship of which had now been long established in the Latin as well as the Chap. XVIII. RISE OF MARIOLATRY. 295 Greek Church.1 The worship of the Saints, as if they were the tutelar divinities of persons and places, assumed a form scarcely distinguishable from polytheism; and, as they were exalted, the Virgin Mary was exalted higher and higher above them, and nearer and nearer to an equality with the Godhead. The spirit of Mariolatry among all classes betrays a strange mixture of religious doctrine, monastic devotion, popular feeling, and chivalric idealism, often of a character really erotic.2 We have seen the germ of the virtual deification of the Blessed Virgin3 in the early use of the title " Mother of God " (eeoroKos), which provoked the great Nestorian controversy ;4 and we have traced the growth of her worship, espe- cially in the Eastern Church, as a female mediator, replacing in the minds of men and women the lost goddesses of heathenism.5 Its progress is marked by the new festivals established in her honour, especially that of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (Aug. 15), which commemorated her being taken up into heaven without death, as if to equal her with her divine Son in His resurrection. This feast was instituted by the Council of Mainz (a.d. 813).6 The great development of Mariolatry belongs to the time of Gregory VII., in connection with the revived energy of religious life in the monasteries. Among the new orders,7 the monks of Clugny chose the Virgin as their patron, in conjunction with John 1 See Part I. Chap. XXI. 2 For thc popular German songs in honour of the Virgin, and the mixture of knightly courtesy with her worship, assuming the form even of love-songs by the Troubadours, see Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 339-341. In some cases we trace a sensuousness little short of Paphian. 3 Her usual ecclesiastical titles are Beata Maria or Virgo (or both combined), Sancta Maria, &c. 4 Part I. Chap. XV. § 3, p. 352. s Ibid. p. 452. 6 The first great festival of the Annunciation (March 25th, commonly called Lady Day) is referred to the 5th or even the 4th century: and it is worth remembering that this (rather than the birth of Christ, Dec. 25) was the epoch first used in chronology as that of the Incarnation. The Nativity of the Virgin (Sept. 8) was celebrated at an early period both in the East and West ; and while the growing honour paid to her is marked by the change of the feast of Christ's Presentation in the Temple into the Purification of St. Mary (Feb. 2, Candlemas), her own Presentation (her imaginary dedication to the service of the Temple, Nov. 21) was made, a feast of the Greek Church, though it was not adopted in the West till the 14th century. The legend commemorated by the feast of the Assumption originated in a mere conjecture of Epiphanius (Hxr. lxxviii. 11) that she never died, supported by sermons falsely ascribed to Jerome and Augustine (see Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 231-2). The word assumptio (&c. in caelum) was originally applied to the death of saints, without any suggestion of a miracle (Du Cange, s. v.). For a full account of the Feasts of the Virgin see the Diet, of Christian Antiqq., art. Mary, Festivals of ; see also the article Mary (in Art). 7 Respecting these, see Chap. XX. 296 PROGRESS OF MARIOLATRY. Chap. XVIII. the Baptist; the Carmelites were styled the "hermit friars of St. Mary ; " the Servites adopted their name to express their servitude to her (servi B. Marise Virginis) ; but the Cistercians are described as, from their first foundation, distinguished above all the other religious orders for their special devotion to the glorious Virgin,1 and all their churches were dedicated to her. § 2. The extravagantly hyperbolic language, with which writers and especially preachers now vied in inflaming the minds of men with adoration and something more, is flr.st found in the Sermons of the rigid ascetic, Peter Damiani, the great friend of Gregory VII.2 Though regarding Mary as a created being, he places her above all the greatest of God's other creatures, both in the excellence of her nature and the special object of her existence. " The works of God's fingers made nothing so excellent, so glorious." " When God made all His works very good, He made this one (Maria) better, consecrating in her for Himself" — a relation in which the mystery of the incarnation is ex- pressed in language too daring to be plainly quoted.3 Following up this idea, he represents God as announcing the design of man's re- demption, and the renewal of all creation, to a council of admiring and rejoicing angels — not as in Milton's sufficiently bold description of the covenant between the Father and the Son, but—" from the treasure of divinity the name of Mary is brought out (evoloitur), and through her, and in her, and of her, and with her, all this is decreed to be done, that, as without Him nothing was made, so without Her nothing should be made ! " 4 And as her part in the new creation is thus made, if not equal, certainly co-ordinate with that of the Father and the Son, so her entrance into heaven is even more glorious than His.5 The Assumption is " that sublime day, on which the royal Virgin is carried to the throne of God the Father, and, enthroned on the very seat of the Trinity, invites also the angelic nature to behold her glory. The whole concourse of Angels is gathered arouud to see the Queen 6 seated on the right hand of the Lord of virtues 1 These are the express words of the Privilegium granted to the order by Gregory IX. (Giesekr, iii. 340). 2 De Nativitate and de Annunciatione Marise, ap. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 427. 3 Sermo xi. de Annnnciatione B. V.M. Nor is Damiani alone in thus applying the Song of Solomon to Mary, who is thereby made the bride as well as the mother of God. 4 Referring to John i. 3. 5 Sermo xl. de Assumptione B. V. M. 6 The constant application to the Virgin of the title Regina coeli not only shows the growing tendency to invest her with a co-ordinate share of God's power in heaven and over creation, but betrays the hankering after the old heathen idea of female divinities, the "survival " of which, perhaps, formed the chief root of Mariolatry. She was also called Mother of Mercy, Blessed Queen of the World, &c. Chap. XVIII. APOTHEOSIS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 297 in her golden robe When the Lord ascended, all that glorious company of blessed spirits went out to meet Him. Now lift up your eyes to the assumption of the Virgin, and — saving the majesty of the Son — you will find the concourse of this procession even much more worthy ! For only angels could meet the Redeemer, but when the Mother entered the palace vf heaven, the Son himself going out in state to meet her, with the whole court both ot Angels and of the Just, carried her to the assembly of the blessed session,1 and says ' Thou art all fair, my love ; there is no spot in thee' (Cant. iv. 7)."2 This exaltation is distinctly declared to be a real apotheosis of the Virgin's human nature, in which she is again likened to the risen Saviour in the retention of human sympathy. In a direct apostrophe to her, Damiani says,3 " Because thou art thus deified, hast thou forgotten our humanity ? By no means, 0 Lady (Do- mino)," a title which means more than the mere reverence of " our Lady." As the relations of God to man were made more and more an awful mystery, in which perfect love was cast out by fear, and recourse was had to the mediation of Saints, what mediation could be so powerful as hers, who had now become fully recognized as the Mother of God, and who had womanly sympathy with mankind? But Damiani goes so far as to ascribe to her a sort of mediation, not only omnipotent through the power of God, but even directing His power by her authority ! Not content with applying to her the mediatorial prerogative of the Son — "All power is given to thee, in heaven and in earth ; nothing is impossible to thee, to whom it is possible to raise up the despairing to the hope of blessedness " — he adds this as the reason : " For how can that power, which took its origin from the flesh of thy flesh, resist thy power ? For thou approachest to that golden altar of man's recon- ciliation,4 not only asking hut commanding, as a mistress (Domina), not a handmaid (ancilla)." 1 We give, as safest, the literal rendering of the phrase ad beatse consistorium sessionis ; that it means the throne of the Trinity seems clear from the first sentence above : " Sublimis ista dies, in qua Virgo regaiis ad thronum Dei patris evehitur, et in ipsius Trinitatis sede repo- sita," &c. 2 This passage of the Song of Solomon was afterwards used to support the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. 3 Sermo xlv. or i. de Nativ. Marix, ap. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 427. 4 Referring to Hcbr. Maria Vinjinis, Psalm xciii. : "God is the Lord of vengeance, but thou, Mother of Mercy, turuest Him to pity " ! 3 Sentent. lib. iii. dist. 9, ap. Gieseler, iii. 341. 4 Alex. Halesius, Swnmi, pars. iii. qu. 30; Bonaventura, Sentent. lib. ii. dist. 9, art. 1, qu. 3; Thorn. Aquin. Sunma, pars. iii. qu. 25, art. 5. 5 Secunda secundae, qu. 103, art. 4. Chap. XVIII. FORMS OF WORSHIP TO THE VIRGIN 299 § 4. This attempted refinement vanishes when we turn to the honours actually paid to the Virgin and the forms of worship addressed to her ; beginning in the monasteries, and afterwards adopted throughout the Church. As early as the tenth century, we find in the convents a weekly service " in honour of Mary, the Mother of God -,"1 and the hymns of praise to her were developed into a form of service, the Officium Sanctx Marix, which is still in use. Its full establishment is due to the zealot Peter Damiani,2 who gives the assurance of eternal hope to those who paid their daily vows of '* hours" to the Blessed Queen of the World, and says that it was already a good old custom in some churches to celebrate offices of Masses in her honour every Sabbath (i.e. Saturday); s.j that there were three sacred days in every week (besides the Sunday), one in commemoration of the Cross of Christ, another of Mary, and another of all the Saints. Damiani's rule was resisted as an innovation in the Italian monasteries, especially by Gozo, a Benedictine, who even persuaded his brethren to discontinue their accustomed hymns to the Virgin ; but thereupon the convent met with great disasters, which only ceased when the monks promised unanimously to resume the wonted praises of the Mother of God. As early as 1095, it was decreed by Urban II. at the Council of Clermont that the Hours of St. Mary should be said daily, and her Office on Saturdays. The Council of Toulouse (1229) prescribed also to the laity devout visits to their churches on Saturday even- ings in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And as, besides Sundays, the great feasts were dedicated to the Lord, so, besides Saturdays, their vigils were consecrated to His mother.3 It was also in the time of Damiani that the " Angelic Saluta- tion," which the humble Virgin of Nazareth heard with fear and tremVing,4 began to be addressed to her in countless repetitions 1 See Gebhard's Life of Udalric. bishop of Augsburg (923-973), ap. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 428. For the general u-e of the service in monasteries from the time of Hildebrand we have this testimony in the 12th century : " In Cceuobiis canticum novum celebratur, cum a tempore Papse Sepiimi Gregorii cursus b. Marias frequentatur. Gerhoh, Comtn. in Ps, xxxix. 4, ap. Gieseler, iii. 342. 2 Damiani himself composed an Officium 8. Marise. 3 In the 13th century many kept a fast of forty days before the festival of the Assumption ; aud the forms of devotion to the Virgin were multi- plied in the convents. See the examples given by Robertson, vol. iii. p. 616. 4 Luke i. 27-30. The novelty of the practice is proved by Damiani's mentioning it as something singular, that an ecclesiastic had daily saluted the Virgin with the words of the Angel (Luke i. 28): "A-e Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus." This was the original formula of the Ave Maria] the fuller form was framed little by little 300 THE MARIAN PSALTERS. Chap. XVIII. every day, and, soon afterwards, by the aid of the rosary, Ave Marias and Pater Nosters divided the mechanical form of prayer between God and Mary. The high flown language of these forms of devotion to the Virgin culminates in the Marian Psalters, the Lesser and the Greater,1 the latter being for the most part a parody of the Psalms of David. The mingling of female perfections with divine power is seen in the 1st Psalm : " Blessed is the man who loves thy name, 0 Virgin Mary : thou shalt comfort his soul with thy grace. . . . Thou excellest all women in beauty: thou . surpassest Angels and Arch- angels in the excellence of thy holiness." Nor does the imitator hesitate to apply to her the words which express the exaltation of the Son of God above all created beings 2 (Ps. 109) : " The Lord (Dominus) said to our Lady (Domina), Sit, Mother, on my right hand : Goodness and holiness have pleased thee : therefore thou shalt reign with me for ever." In the same spirit the Bible was searched for passages to be transferred from Christ to Mary, and for figures, the application of which is often either ridiculous or pro- fane, or both combined. Thus she was said to be the Bock on which Christ was to build His Church, because she alone remained firm in faith during the interval between His death and resurrection.3 She was said to be typified by the tree of life, by the ark of Noah, by Jacob's ladder which reached to heaven, by Aaron's rod that budded, and by other Scriptural figures, down to the Apocalyptic woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet. § 5. Amidst all this excess of reverence and adoration, Mary was still acknowledged to be a created being, though above all other creatures. It remained still further to distinguish her nature from theirs, and to make it equal with the human nature of Christ, by the doctrine which has been finally developed into that of her Immaculate Conception. The first step had been taken long before, of supposing the Blessed Virgin free from any taint of actual sin ; 4 but it was still after the beginning of the 16th century, and was first honoured with universal acceptance by the Church by the Brcviarium Pii IV — Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 342-3. 1 The Psalterium Minus and the Psalterium 31ajns B. Marise Virginis, both of which were ascribed to Bonaventura, as a similar work, the Biblia Mariana, was to Albertus Magnus, but, it seems, equally without good reason. The works, however, certainly belong to their age. 2 Comp. Ps. ex. 1 with Matt. xxii. 44; Mark xii. 36; Luke xx. 42; Acts ii. 34 ; 1 Cor. xv. 2o ; Heb. ii. 13 ; 1 Pet. iii. 22. See also Ps. xxxiii. 5, xlv. 6, 7. 3 Bonaventura, Speculum B. Virginis, 12; a work full of the most high- flown language in her honour. 4 The primitive doctrine, down to the end of the 5th century, taught not only Mary's subjection to actual as well as original sin, but that she Chap. XVIII. FEAST OF THE CONCEPTION. 301 held that she shared with all humanity the guilt of original sin, which Anselm, for example, emphatically applies to her in the language of the Psalmist,1 saying that " though the conception of Jesus was pure, . . . yet the Virgin was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did her mother conceive her, and she was born with original sin, because she herself also sinned in Adam, in whom all sinned."2 And this continued to be the prevalent opinion among the great schoolmen (with the exceptions to be presently noticed) throughout the Middle Ages. It seems strange, with this clear expression of Anselm's views before us, that he should have been represented as sanctioning,3 or even himself instituting, the Feast of the Conception (Dec. 8) in England ; but this account is legendary. The festival does not appear in history till the following century (the twelfth) ; and at first it was only a commemoration of the fact of the conception of St. Mary, the Mother of Christ, in imitation of the festival of the Annunciation, which commemorates the conception of her Son.4 The superadded idea of something beyond the ordinary case of humanity was at first that of holy conception, that is, free from the guilt of original sin, but not supernatural like that of Christ ; and when the latter idea was first started, as we shall presently see, about the end of the 13th century, it was long before the term immaculate was adopted. The opposition to the new festival, as exhi- biting the new doctrine of a holy conception, was led by no less a did in fact fall into sins of infirmity. (See the testimonies of Tertullian, Origen, Basil, Chrysostom, &c, cited in the Diet, of Christian Biog. vol. ii. p. 1145. 1 Ps. ii. 5. 2 But he seems to regard her nature as freed from all possibility of sin, though her sanctification took place after birth, and by some mysterious working of faith. Cur Deus Homo, ii. 16, 17, 18 ; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 343. 3 The Le/jenda Aurea quotes Anselm as the authority for the story that the Abbot Helsinus, being sent on a mission to Denmark by William the Conqueror, was caught in a storm on his return, and, praying for help to St. Mary, saw a vision of a grave ecclesiastic on the waves, who assured him of safety on condition of his founding the Feast of the Con- ception of St. Manj on Dec. 8 (1067). In England it was only in 1328 that a Council at London accepted its imposition by Simon Mepeham, archbishop of Canterbury, who then ascribed its institution to Anselm, doubtless on the authority of the Legenda Aurea. The passages in its favour quoted from Anselm by recent controversialists are really in work.* by other authors or interpolated. (See Diet, of Christian Biog. vol. ii. p. 1145; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 264.) A Council at Oxford, in 1222, had prescribed the keeping of " all the feasts of S. Mary, except that of the Conception, the celebration of which is not imposed of necessity.'''' — Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 344. 4 For the way in which this parallel was worked out, see Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 314— 5. II— P 2 302 OPPOSITION OF ST. BERNARD. Chap. XVIII. person than St. Bernard, who condemned it as alike novel, heterodox, and unauthorized. His views are fully expressed in a letter of sharp rebuke to the canons of Lyon,1 because "some of them had wished to change what was already excellent by introducing a celebration unknown to the ritual of the Church, not approved by reason, nor recommended b}^ ancient tradition." He had learnt from the Church to regard the birth of the Virgin as undoubtedly holy and to be kept as a feast, " holding with the Church that she received in the womb the privilege to be born without sin." Others had been made holy before their birth;2 but he will not venture to say how far this sanctification availed against original sin. " Beyond all doubt also the Mother of the Lord was holy before she was born ; " and there- fore the Church is right in keeping the day of her birth as a joyful festival throughout the world, because "a more abundant blessing of sanctification came down upon her, not only to sanctify har own birth, but also to keep her life thenceforth free from all sin ; which is believed to have been granted to none else of those born of women. What (he asks)c?o we suppose is still to be added to these honours t" To the reply, " that her conception should be honoured, which pre- ceded her honourable birth," he rejoins; "that the same reason would apply to all her ancestors in an infinite series." As to the doctrine itself, he adds: "Although it has been given to some, however few, among the sons of men to be born holy, yet to noue to be also thus conceived, that the prerogative of a holy conception might be reserved for One only, who should sanctify all and make, a cleans- ing of sins, being Himself the only one who comes without sin. It is the Lord Jesus Christ alone that was conceived by the Holy Ghost, for He alone was holy before His conception. Excepting Him, the humble and true confession (quoting Ps. li. 5) applies to every one else of Adam's children. Then what can be the meaning of a Festival of her Conception ? How can a conception be said to be holy, which is not of the Holy Spirit, not to say, which is of sinf or how can it be regarded as a matter for festive celebration, when it is not holy ? The glorious woman will be ready enough to go without an honour, which seems either to honour sin, or to attribute a holiness which did not exist." The protest of Bernard was supported by various eminent contem- poraries ;s and the general rejection of the festival, up to or beyond 1 Efiist. 174, cited by Gieseler, vol. Hi. p. 343, and the Rev. F. Meyrick, n the Diet, of Christian Antiqq. vol. ii. p. 1145. 2 He names Jeremiah, as he had read in Jer. ii. 5 ; John the Baptist (Luke i. 41) ; and possibly David (on the ground of Ps. Ixx. 6 ; xxi. 11, 12). 3 For example: Potho, a presbyter of Priim, after questioning the reasonableness of introducing the Feast of the Trinity and that of the Chap. XVIIL OPINION OF THOMAS AQUINAS. 303 the end of the 12th century, may be inferred from the language of the ritualist Belethus : ! " Some have sometimes celebrated the Feast of the Conception, and still perhaps celebrate it ; but it is not authorized (or genuine, authenticum) and approved ; nay, it seems that it ought rather to be prohibited, for she was conceived in sin ;" and this conclusion is expressly adopted by his follower Durandus, the great ritualist authority of the 13th century.2 § 6. During that century, however, the celebration made steady ] >rogress ; 3 and even Thomas Aquinas4 allows that, "although the lioman Church does not celebrate the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, yet she tolerates the usage of some churches which celebrate that feast. Wherefore such celebration is not to be wholly blamed." But yet, he forthwith adds, it must not be understood from the fact of the celebration, that the Virgin was holy in her conception ; but, because it is unknown at what time she was sanctified, the feast of her sanctification, rather than of her conception, is celebrated on the day of her conception. Of her sanctification in the womb nothing is delivered to us in canonical Scripture, neither does it mention her Nativity; but the doctrine may be reasonably in- ferred.5 He defines this sanctification to be a cleansing from the original sin in which she had been conceived ; and he argues that if her soul (or " life," anima) 6 had never incurred the stain of original Transfiguration, says : " To these is added by some what seems more absurd — a feast also of the Conception of St. Mary {Be Statu Domua Dei, lib. iii.). Peter of La Celle, abbot of St. Remigius at Rheims, defended Bernard's views against the vehement attack of Nicolas, a monk of St. Albans (cir. 1175).— Gieseler, iii. 344. 1 Divin. Offic. Explicatio, c. 146 (ap. Gieseler, /. c). Belethus appears to have flourished at Paris or Amboise (or both) about 1182. His work is frequently appended to the Rationale of Durandus (J.b. p. 313). 2 Rationale, lib. vii. c. 7 (Gieseler, ib. p. 345). 3 See the examples cited by Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 344, n. 18. Observe that it was still simply the Feast of the Conception, without any such epithet as Immaculate or even Holy. * Summa, pars iii. qu. 27 ; ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 345-6. 5 Just as (he says) the fact of her being taken up to heaven in the body may be reasonably inferred, for which he quotes Augustine in that {spurious) Sermon on the Assumption, which greatly influenced the school- men's views of the honours due to the Virgin. As to the little weight given to the authority of Scripture, St. Bernard had already dismissed the Scriptural arguments for the higher view of the doctrine as of no weight if unsupported by reason and the authority of the Fathers: "Ipse mihi facile persuadeo script is talibus mm mover i, quibus nee ratio supped itare, nee certa invenitur favere auctoritas " (in the Epist. 174, referred to above). 6 This was the point on which the controversy turned, Aquinas holding, with the other great schoolmen of the 13th century, that the Virgin was not made holy ante animationem (see the passages cited by Gieseler, I.e.). Such are the subtilties of the scholastic divinity! 304 THE FRANCISCANS AND DUNS SCOTUS. Chap. XVIII. sin, she would not have needed the redemption and salvation which is through Christ, which would derogate from the dignity of Christ as the universal Saviour of all mankind. As to her own sinlessness, he concludes that " it is simply to be confessed that the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin, so that thus is fulfilled in her, what is written in Canticles iv. 7 : ' Thou art all fair, my love ; there is no spot in thee.' " l In these views the " Angelic Doctor " of the Dominicans gave the weight of his authority to the opinion prevalent in the 13th cen- tury, even among the Franciscans,2 whose " subtile Doctor," at the end of the century, became the great teacher of the higher doctrine, though even Duns Scotus did not venture to affirm it as certain. He states this threefold alternative:3 "It was in God's power to make her so that she never was in original sin ; or only for one instant ; or that she was in sin for some time, and was cleansed from it at the last moment of that time. Which of these three pos- sibilities took place in fact, God knows; but it seems probable to assign to Mary that which is the more excellent, if it be not opposed to the authority of the Church or the authority of Scripture."* As a part of the general controversy between Thomists and Scotists the Franciscans henceforth took the festival and doctrine under their special protection; and from the 14th century onwards, the belief in 1 As he quotes from the Vulgate, Tota pulchra es, arnica mea, et macnh non est in te," where the word macula became the great Scripture authority for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. 2 See Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 345, n. 17. Let it be remembered that, though Aquinas was a Dominican, Alexander of Hales and Bonaventura were both Franciscans. 3 Sentent. lib. iii. dist. 3, qu. 1, § 9 ; ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 346. 4 More decisive, but still brief, is the passage (dist. 18, qu. 1, § 13), " Virgo mater Dei nunquam fuit inimica actualiter ratione peccati actualis, nee ratione originalis (fuisset tamen, nisi fuisset pra?servata)." It appears especially strange to the later Franciscans that their Duct r Subtilis is so short on this head ; accordingly they consider that his prin- cipal works on this subject must have been lost (e.g. Hugo Cavellus in the Vita Scoti, prefixed to his Quzes'i >ne*). — Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 346-7. The later Franciscans state that (about 1304) Duns Scotus defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception against 200 Dominicans in a public disputation at Paris, and thereby induced the University to impose on commencing graduates an oath to defend the Blessed Virgin from original guilt, and to decree the annual celebration of the " Feast of the Im- maculate Conception." But the earliest authorities for this are late in the 15th century, and even they place the decree no earlier than 1333; and there is no trace of it in the Acts of the University. The " Gallic nation" first decreed the celebration in 1380, and the University de- clared the Immaculate Conception a probable opinion in 1387. — Gieseler, i'nd. The reforming Council of Basle passed a decree in favour of the doctrine (see p. 182). See further in Chap. XXII. § 10. Chap. XVIII. LATIN HYMNOLOGY. 305 the Latin Church1 wavered between a maculate and immaculate conception, according as the Dominicans or Franciscans were most powerful at Rome. At length, under the Jesuit influence which prevailed at Rome after the crisis of 1848-9, and the desire to retrieve the temporal losses of the Roman see by new assertions of spiritual and dogmatic power, Pius IX. promulgated a Bull (Dec. 8, 1854), declaring the dogma that St. Mary, having been conceived immaculately, was absolutely exempt from original and actual sin, to be an article of faith, all opposition to which is heresy.2 § 7. During this period, and especially in the 13th century, the worship of the Church was enriched with some of the noblest hymns which, either in the Latin original or translations, have become the possession of the universal Church. The "Dies Iix" is ascribed (but doubtfully) to Thomas of Celano, a Franciscan and one of the biographers of St. Francis, and the " Stabat Mater " to another Franciscan, Jacopone of Todi. In the highest rank of this sacred poetry is the series of Latin hymns composed for the great festivals and saints' days— a medieval Christian Year— by Adam of St. Victor, who lived at the famous Victorine convent at Paris through the greater part of the 12th century.3 These devout utterances— which owe part of their charm to the novel use of rhythmic cadence, in place of quantity, and of rhyme— however strange to the forms of classic Latin verse, bear witness to a strain of deep and pure devotion by the response which they evoke from devout minds in every age. § 8. Among the causes which tended to intensify religious feeling or outward acts of devotion, especially about the beginning of the period under review, were those millennial speculations, which have had a sort of fearful fascination in every age of the Church. As, 1 The doctrine is regarded by the Greek Church as heretical (see Con- ference between the Archbp. of Syros a id the Bp. of Winchester, Lond. 1871). 2 The fact that this dogma was promulgated by the immediate pre- decessor of the Pope (Leo XIII.) who has given an unlimited sanction to the theology of Thomas Aquinas, is the more remarkable in the light of the establishment of the doctrine of Papal infallibility under Pius IX. (1871). It is well asked by Dean Milman : "Is not the utter and total apathy with which it has been received the most unanswerable proof of the prostration of the strength of the Roman Church ? There is not life enough for a schism on this vital point " {Latin Christianity, vol. ix. p. 76, n.). 3 See " Tne Liturgical Poetry of Adam of SK Victor, from the text of Gautier ; with Translations in the original metres and short explanatory Notes ; by Digby S. Wrangham, Lond. 1^82 ; " and an article on Medio;',/ Hymns in the Quarterly Review, July 1882. The probable date of Adam is from before 1130 to 1192. Respecting the Victorines, see below, Chap. XXVIII. § 14. 306 IMPULSE TO CHURCH BUILDING. Chap. XVIII. even in apostolic times, our Lord's sayings were misunderstood as a warning of His immediate coming to the final judgment,1 so the apocalyptic prophecies of a millennium2 were not unnaturally interpreted as predicting the end of the world at the completion of 1000 years, first from the advent of Christ, and, when that epoch was overpassed, from the date of his crucifixion (1033). Then, as now, few were able to regard the consummation of Christ's media- torial work with joyful anticipation rather than fear; and the passage of each epoch was hailed as a relief from a crisis of terror, almost as if men forgot how near their own individual end must be, at the longest. The sense of gratitude for so great a deliverance is assigned by a writer of the age as one chief motive for the great impulse which was given to church-building, as if (he says) 3 " the world, casting off its old age, and renewing its youth were clad everywhere in the white robe of churches." To the partial truth embodied in this fancy several other causes must be added. Many ecclesiastical foundations, both churches and monasteries, were the fruit of servile fear rather than cheerful gratitude, a form of that compromise of penitence spoken of above, or a supposed meritorious sacrifice to be rewarded hereafter. But many are monuments of the purer feeling which led a king or noble to say with David, " See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains :"4 like Edward the Confessor, when he built the abbey church at Westminster. And that minster is also a type of the vast number of churches that sprang up as necessary adjuncts to the growth of monastic life. In our own country, especially, the destruction of the monasteries causes men to forget how many of our noblest cathedrals, besides others which have not become bishops' sees, were originally conventual churches ; not only those whose names 1 Thess. ii. 1, 2, 2 Rev. xx. 1-6. 3 Radulph, Hist. in. 4, quoted by Hardwick, p. 204. The " white robe" was not only the new brightness of stone and marble; but the brilliant aspect of the church amidst the landscape was due to the custom of casing the rough materials of the walls and towers with plaster and whitewash. u Aesthetic " u restorers " have been unable to distinguish between the abuse of whitewash in hiding the carved work within a church, and its proper use on the outside. A conspicuous example is seen in the raw edges of the Roman bricks of St. Alban's Abbey Church as exposed by the removal of the whitening which made it formerly a true Koh-i-noor — mountain of light — amidst a wide expanse of country. 4 2 Sam. vii. 2. This spirit of genuine devotion had been recommended by Charles the Great, in a Capitulary addressed to the prelates of the Empire (811) reminding them that, however good is the work of building fine churches, the true ornament and topstone of a good life is to be put before any buildings. (Mansi, xiii. 1073 : Hardwick, p. 93.) Chap. XVIII. ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. 307 bear witness to their origin, as Westminster, York Minster, Wimborne Minster,1 but such also as Canterbury, Durham, Ely, St. Albans, Christchurch (Hants), to name but a few examples. While the growing wealth of the Church at large supplied means for the natural passion for building, the monks, vowed to poverty, found in this an excellent use for their common revenues. Suc- cessive abbots rejoiced to enlarge and beautify their churches ; and their ambition was shared by the princely and noble men and women who brought their wealth to the cloister in which they sought refuge from the world. § 9. To illustrate these statements by examples would require us to follow the erection of many churches, both English and foreign : and even to trace the general process of church building in this age would lead us aside into the history of architecture.2 A very brief sketch must suffice us. Few students, perhaps, require now to be warned against the twofold error, prevalent not very long ago, of supposing that there was a particular style of ecclesiastical archi- tecture, and that that style was especially associated with the Church of Borne. In fact, it was in Italy, and especially at Rome, that classic architecture held its ground for ecclesiastical use ; and to this day the churches — with St. Peter's for their great type — have retained the form and style, as well as the name, of the old Roman basilica. With regard to the former point, in a rude age when houses were built with the barest regard to utility, and the general building of castles happened to be simultaneous with the new impulse to church building, the new style, developed for civil and domestic use, was adopted also for ecclesiastical purposes, modified in each case by the practical requirements of church or castle, palace, house, or hall. The Italians of the Eenaissance, in the contemptuous spirit of their classic revival, gave this medieval architecture the name of Gothic, from the mistaken idea that it was the native creation of the northern barbarians ; and, as a mere technical nomencla- ture, fixed by long usage, the term is retained as a broad distinction from the Classic and other types of architecture. It is now agreed that its earliest form was derived, not, as some have thought, from the Byzantine, but from the later Roman, called distinctively Romanesque,3 which spread from Italy over Western Europe. In 1 Minster is merely the English form of monaster turn. 2 For all that needs to be known on this matter, the student is referred to Fergusson's History of Architecture, and, for the present subject in parti- cular, Rickman's English Architecture, newly edited by the late John Heron Parker, C.B. : it is somewhat remarkable that Mr. Rickman was a Quaker. 3 The parallel is something more than merely fanciful, between the 308 POINTED ARCHITECTURE. Chap. XVIII. England, it is known as Norman, having been one of the new elements imported from Normandy in the 11th century, a con- siderable time before the Conquest.1 In a church of this style, massive columns or piers, round or polygonal (sometimes with smaller columns round them), divide the nave from the aisles, carrying semicircular arches, which support the lofty walls, covered in with a roof, in the oldest examples generally of timber, but with cylindrical groined ceilings in the smaller widths, as in the aislt s and porches. The round arch also heads the windows and doorways, and is used throughout as an ornament; but the characteristic forms of surface-ornament and mouldings must be left to special works on architecture. The lighter style— characterized by the pointed arch (which is said to have been known in Provence as early as the time of Charlemagne), and by the clustered columns, from which ribs branch out to support a groined roof — began to come into general use from the middle of the 12th century. The first great example of it is said to be the church of St. Denys, near Paris, about 1144. Brought into England somewhat later, it formed the style called Early English, in which the harmony of beauty and dignity has attained perfection ; as in the great examples of Salisbury Cathedral (1220-1258) and the nave and transepts of Westminster, reared by tke devotion of Henry III. The next stage of Gothic architecture, called from its richer ornamentation, and the more flowing tracery of the windows, the Decorated, belongs chiefly to the 14th century, the age of the Edwards in England, where it is seen in innumerable churches. It was succeeded by the style characterized by superficial florid orna- mentation and perpendicular lines (seen especially in the mullions of the windows), whence it has received the name of Perpen- dicular.2 In England, as the Early English is associated with Henry II L, so is the Perpendicular with his still more devout descendant Henry VI., in such works as the Chapels at West- relations of the Romanesque architecture to the Roman, and of the Romance languages to Latin. 1 Among its finest types are the naves of Winchester, Ely, St. Alban's, Peterborough, Durham, and Christchurch, the two last built (partly at least) by Ralph Flambard, the notorious minister of William Rufus, who is called by Peter of Blois "omnium virorum in terra cupidissimus et pessimus." His motive in the rebuilding of Christchurch, of which he was prior, is said to have beeu that he might keep the income of the canons in his hands during the progress of the works, after he was made Bishop of Durham (1099). The choir, as well as nave, of Durham is Norman. 2 Earlier writers, before Rickman, called it Florid. Chap. XVIII. SCULPTURES, PAINTINGS, &c. 309 minster,1 Windsor, and King's College, Cambridge, and the choirs of many cathedrals and abbey churches. § 10. The churches were adorned, as an essential part of the design, with carving which, like the architectural details, shows a growing skill and freedom in the artisans who worked out their spontaneous ideas; and, while the workmen produced figures of saints, sepulchral effigies, and those more sacred subjects which it was not then deemed profanity to represent, their exuberant imagi- nation revelled in most extraordinary efforts of grotesque art.2 Besides the rich colouring of architectural details, painting as an art went hand in hand with sculpture, on the inner walls of the churches, and especially in the windows of stained glass, which, with all their imperfections of drawing and composition, still baffle imitation for the purity and " fastness " of their colouring. The like art was lavished on the illumination of manuscripts, and the embroidery of vestments, altar-cloths, and other tapestry. Nor must we pass over the works in metal, the genuine product of the hammer in the hand of an artist-workman, as the architecture was of the mason and the carver. 1 n a word, all the work of the age owed its life to this creative power in the workmen themselves, of whom it may generally be said, as of the first sacred artist, Pezaleel,3 that they were filled with the spirit of God, because they worked by the nature He had given them, and with all their hearts, " in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, . . . and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship." We have had occasion to refer to the rise of those new forms of art which culminated in the great masterpieces of the Renaissance; but the subject is too large to follow here, and must be left to the special Histories of Art. 1 " Henry Vllth's Chapel," though finished and appropriated by that King, was planned and begun by Henry VI., for his own resting-place. 2 Besides the familiar gargoyles and masks of strange monsters, devils, and the damned in torture, whose place outside the church is contrasted with the saints within, the reader has only to turn up the seats of the stalls in almost any ancient choir, to see carvings which will excite a strange mixture of admiration (in both senses of the word) and of amuse- ment. Some curious examples are given in Wright's History of Caricature. 3 Exod. xxxi. 3-5. Abbey of Corbey, in Westpbalia. (The Monastery of Radbert and Ratramn.) CHAPTER XIX. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. LANFRANC AND BERENGAR— DOCTRINE OF TRANSCBSTANTIATION. 1. Doctrine of the Eucharist — The three Views of Paschasius, Ratramn, and John Scotus. § 2. Opinions in the 11th century — Opponents of Paschasius Radbert— Heriger and JElfric. § 3. General State of Opinion. §4. Middle View: Ratherius ; Gerbert ; Leutheric ; Fulbert. §5. Berengar of Tours: reproved by Adelmanu and Hugh— His remonstrance with Lanfranc for teaching the doctrine of Paschasius (1049). § 6. Lanfranc's answer : Berengar condemned at Rome (1050) ; imprisoned by Henry I. of France ; condemned at Vercelli — Popular fanaticism against him. § 7. Satisfies Hildebrand at the Synod of Tours (1054) — Council at Rome under Nicolas II. (1059) ; Berengar's enforced confession. § 8. His Character — Renewed Controversy with Lanfranc. § 9. Guitmund — Various Classes of Berengarians : Impo- rtation, &c. § 10. Real nature of the dispute — Statement of Bp. Bruno. § 11. Gregory VII. protects Berengar — The two Roman G^nt. IX.-XI. THREE VIEWS OF THE EUCHARIST. 311 Councils (1078-9); Berengar's enforced but qualified confession — Gregory's Letter in his favour — His last days ; honours paid to his memory. § 12. Intellectual Aspect of the Controversy — Authority and Reason; Use of Dialectic . § 13. Doctrine of the 12th century — St. Bernard — Popular Feeling — Miracles — The Schoolmen — Transuh- stantiation enacted under Innocent III. (1215) — The dogma fixed by Thomas Aquinas. § 14. Discontinuance of Infant Communion — The Cup withdrawn from the Laity. § 15. Elevation of the Host — Festival of Corpus Christi — Infrequency of Communion. § 1. The materializing tendencies of the a_-e under review reached their climax in that doctrine of the Eucharist, which was declared by authority as the faith of the Roman Catholic Church. We have related the controversy, which sprang up in the 9th century,1 between Paschasius Radbert, who first distinctly taught a real change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, and Ratramn, who advocated a spiritual change, producing the presence in truth and in figure to the faithful soul ; while John Scotus Erigena seems to have held that the Lord's Supper was nothing more than a com- memorative ordinance, in which the bread and wine were only the symbols of the body and blood of Christ, setting forth the truth of His sacrifice in visible signs. § 2. The last opinion was condemned as heretical by the chief disputants on both sides ; and the general acceptance of a " Real Pre- sence " in some form, without an attempt to define its mode, sus- pended the controversy during the 10th century and the first part of the 11th. The doctrine of Paschasius prevailed more and more, and was received (as we shall see) by the common people, always fond of mystical power, with an almost fanatical eagerness.2 But the more spiritual views of Ratramn had numerous adherents ; such as Heriger, abbot of Taubes, in the diocese of Liege, who, we are told, " collected in opposition to Radbert many writings of the Catholic Fathers concerning the body and blood of the Lord."3 Such were the views that seem to have prevailed in England, which was always slow to follow the extremes of the Roman and Frank churches. Thus iElfric,4 whose homilies were used by 1 Part I. Chap. XXII. §§ 12, 13. 2 The popular faith was stimulated by the stories of miracles (already referred to) in which the consecrated bread assumed the form of flesh, sometimes dripping with blood, or of the infant Saviour, and so forth, Such confirmations were urged as early as by Radbert himself. For examples see Acts of the Synod of Arras (1025) ; Mansi, xix. 433 ; Gieseler, ii. 397. 3 Sigebert Gemblac. op. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 398. * Vol. II. pp. 271-3, ed. Thorpe. vElfric's Homi'i-s belong to the early part of the 11th century, and their use by the Anglo-Saxon Church is 312 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. authority, discourses as follows. " Of the Sacrifice on Easter day :" " Great is the difference between the invisible might of the holy housel and the visible appearance of its own nature. By nature it is corruptible bread and corruptible wine, and is by the power of the Divine word truly Christ's body and blood ; not, how- ever, bodily, but spiritually. Great is the difference between the body in which Christ suffered and the body which is hallowed for housel. ... In His spiritual body, which we call housel, there is nothinn to he understood bodily, but all is to be understood spiri- tually. It is, as we before said, Christ's body and Bis blood, not bodily but spiritually. Ye are not to enquire how it is done, but to hold in your belief that it is done." § 3. The general state of opinion and feeling is described by Dean Milman with characteristic power and eloquence: — "This Sacra- ment— the Eucharist — from the earliest times had been withdrawn into the most profound mystery ; it had been guarded with the most solemn reverence, shrouded in the most impressive ceremonial. It had become, as it were, the Holy of Holies of the religion, in which the presence of the Godhead was only the more solemn from the sur- rounding darkness. That presence had as yet been unapproached by profane and searching controversy, had been undefined by canon, neither agitated before Council, nor determined by Pope. During all these centuries no language had been thought too strong to express the overpowering awe and reverence of the worshippers. The oratory of the pulpit and the hortatory treatise had indulged freely in the boldest images ; the innate power of the faith had worked these images into realities. Christ's real presence was in some indescribable manner in the Eucharist ; but under the notion of the real Presence might meet conceptions the most dissimilar, ranging from the most subtle spiritualism to the most gross materialism ; that of those whose faith would be as profoundly moved by the commemorative symbols, which brought back upon the memory in the most vivid reality the one sacrifice upon the cross, as that of the vulgar, to whom the more material the more impressive the notion, to whom the sacred elements would be what the fetiche is to the savage. " Between these two extremes would be the great multitude of believers, who would contemplate the whole subject with remote and reverential awe. To these the attempt at the scrutiny or even the comprehension of the mystery would appear the height of pro- fane presumption ; yet their intuitive apprehension would shrink, undoubted, though the identity of the writer is difficult to determine. On this question, and the attempt of Dr. Lingard to explain away his testi- mony, see Soames, Th». Creed of the A ig'o-Saxnn Churc'i (Oxford, 1835), and Robertson, vol. ii. p. 652. Cent. XI. GENERAL STATE OF OPINION. 313 on the one hand, from refining the holy bread and wine into mere symbols, on the other from that transubstantiation which could not but expose the actual Godhead to all the accidents to which those elements, now not merely corporeal, but with all the qualities of the human flesh and blood, but actually deified, might be subject."1 § 4. The prevalent disposition to accept the extreme doctrine as an incomprehensible mystery of faith, is thus expressed by Ratherius, bishop of Verona :2 — " That wine is made, by the blessing of God, true and not figurative blood ; and the bread, flesh. About the rest, I pray you, do not concern yourself, since you are told that it is a mystery, and that of faith. For if it is a mystery, it cannot be comprehended : if of faith, it ought to be believed, not discussed. The great Gerbert3 (Pope Sylvester II.) saw no great difference between the doctrines of Paschasius and Ratramn.4 His disciple Leutheric, archbishop of Sens, was censured by King Robert I. for administering the Eucharist with the words, " If thou art worthy, receive " (1004) ; and, though he submitted to be silenced, we are told that " his perverse dogma grew in that age."5 A more eminent teacher, Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, the friend of Leutheric and instructor of Berengar, uses language very similar to that of iElfric. The Lord, he says,6 " left us the pledge of his body and blood — a fledge of salvation — not the symbol of an empty mystery. The bread consecrated by the bishop is transfused7 into one and the same body of Christ.'" But he goes on to distinguish this from the body of His incarnation in these remarkable words:— "But in 1 Latin Christ. Bk. VI. c. ii. ; vol. iii. pp. 386-7. In the first sentence " the earliest times " must not be taken too literally ; but, except for the apostolic age, they are hardly too strong. See Part I. Chap. VIII. S§ 5, 7. 2 Epist. 6, ad Patricium, in D'Aehery, Spicileg. vol. i. p. 376 ; Gieseler, vol. ii. pp. 397-8. It is observable that he ascribes the transmutation of the elements not to the direct act of the priest, but " Dei benedictione. . . ." a phrase equally significant whether we understand the genitive sub- jectively or objectively. Ratherius (who died in 971) was distinguished for his efforts to reform the corrupt Italian clergy. 3 See Part I. Chap. XXIII. § 10, foil. 4 Corp. et Sang. Christi, in Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 398. 5 Helgoldus, Vita Roberti, ap. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 398 ; but it is some- what doubtful whether the censure was not rather for his use of the Eucharist as an ordeal. Another writer distinctly ascribes to Leutheric the origination of the Berengarian heresy: " Hujus tempore [i.e. John XVII., 1003] Leuthericus Senon. Archiep. haeresis Berengarianae primordia et semina sparsit." Vit. Johannis X I 11., Gieseler, I.e. 6 Epist. 1, ap. Gieseler, /. c. 7 Transfunditur, a remarkable word : neither transmutation, nor much less transubstantiation. 314 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. some way that body, which, being made incarnate in the Virgin's womb, suffered the outrage of the cross — the memory of which the bishop seems to present in the bread imparted by the presbyters — is different from that which is presented in the way of mystery." Such language might even seem to come down to the low view of John Scotus Erigena, but for the distinct statement of the preceding sentence; and, in the ensuing controversy, some of Fulbert's pupils evidently believed that he would not have approved of the views of Berengar. § 5. All this, however, suffices to show that the teaching of Berengar was by no means a sudden outburst of new heresy, but the revival of an unsettled controversy. It is remarkable both for the part taken in it by Gregory VII., and for the occasion it gave for the use of those dialectic subtilties which soon afterwards took a lasting form in the scholastic theology.1 Berengarius or Berengar of Tours (where he was born a.d. 1000), after studying under Fulbert at Chartres, returned to his native city in 1031, and became treasurer of the cathedral and master of its school, where he esta- blished so high a character as a teacher and theologian, that the Bishop of Angers2 made him archdeacon of that city, while still holding his post at Tours. Our earliest information of his opinions on the Eucharist is derived, not from his own writings, but from the letters of remonstrance on the scandal caused by his teaching, addressed to him by two of his old fellow-pupils under Fulbert, namely, Adelman, schoolmaster of Liege, and Hugh, bishop of Langres.3 As to the result, we only know it to have been so fruitless, 1 In the 18th century the controversy arquired a new interest through Lessing's discovery, among the MSS. at Wolfenbiittel, of Berengar's Treatise De Sacra Coena, which had been only known before through the accounts of his opponents, and on which Lessing wrote his famous vindi- cation of Berengar, Berengarius Ticron. od. Ankiindig. eines icichtige/i Werkes destelhen, Braunschweig, 1770, 4to. Lessing's endeavour to prove the identity of Berengar's doctrine with that of Luther, who had vehemently condemned it as formerly understood, gave great offence. The De Sacra Coena was first edited by A. F. and F. Th. Vischer, Berol. 1834. The knowledge of its contents had been previously derived chiefly from Lanfranc's work against Berengar, De Eucharistix Sacramento contra Berengarium in the Bibl. Pair. vol. xviii. p. 763, seq.. and in Dr. Giles's edition of Lanfranc's works, Oxon, 1844. The personal form of address in both works adds a zest to the controversy. The best account of it is in Ebrard's Das Dogma u. Geschichte des hciligen Abcndmahl, Frankf., 1844-6 It appears from internal evidence that the work of Lanfranc was written between 1063 and 1070, and that of Berengar in 1070, exactly seven centuries before its rediscovery. 2 Either Eusebius Bruno or his predecessor, in 1040. 8 Adelman, de Vep. et San/ D mini, ad Berengar. Epist., in Bibl. Patr. xviii. 438, and better edited by C. A. Schmid from a Wolfen- A.D. 1049. LANFRANC AND BERENGAR. 315 that we find Berengar in his turn remonstrating with no less a person than Lanfranc, then abbot of Bee,1 on a report brought to him by a certain ingelran, that Lan franc had disapproved, and even held as heretical, the opinions of Joannes Scotus (meaning Ratramn)2 on the Sacrament of the altar, in which he differed from Paschasius, whose views Lanfranc had adopted. This hasty opinion, adds Berengar, was unworthy of his high ability, and betrayed an imperfect study of Holy Scripture, from which he challenges Lanfranc to defend his view. Distinctly adopting the opinions of John Scotus (i.e. Ratramn) on the Eucharist as his own, Berengar tells Lanfranc that, if he deemed John a heretic, he must make heretics of Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, not to speak of others (a.d. 1049). § 6. Even if Lessing goes too far in praising this letter as " friendly, modest, and flattering," it scarcely deserved the hostile reception which appears to have been aggravated by an accident.8 When Berengar's messenger arrived at Bee, Lanfranc had left for Rome, and the letter was opened by certain clerks, whose pious zeal was so inflamed at the scent of heresy, that, instead of simply for- warding the letter, they showed it to others, and talked about the opinions expressed in it to many more. The result was — to use Lanfranc's own words — " that no worse suspicion was raised against you than against me, to whom you directed such a letter : " — biiltel MS., Bruns. 1770; Hugonis Ep. Lingon. Lib. de Corp. et Sang. Domini, in D'Acheiy, Opp. LnnfraiiC. Append, p. 68, seq., Bibl. Pair. xviii. 417. The date of Hugo's work must have been before 1049, when he was deposed by the Council of Rheims for simony ; that of Adelman was probably about 1047-8. He afterwards became Bishop of Brixen. The letter appears to have been answered, after some time, by Berengar in a Porgatoria Episto'a, of which we have only fragments; ap. Schmid, op. ct. p. 34, se'j. ; "Gieseler, ii. 399. The rumour which had reached Liege, as Hugo tells Berengar, was that he denied the "veium corpus Chri$tin in the Eucharist, and argued that it was only present in " a sort of figure and similitude." 1 See above, Chap. III. § 14. Guitmund, the pupil of Lanfranc, and one of Berengar's most vehement opponents, accuses him, in very coarse terms, of being moved by jealousy of Lanfranc's rising fame as a teacher. De Corp. et Sang. Christi, ap. Bibl. Pair. xvii. 441 ; Robertson, ii. 655. 2 Respecting the common error, by which the work of Ratramn was attributed to Joannes Scotus, see Robertson, ii. 306. Gieseler even supposes that Scotus did not write a book on the Eucharist. 3 The circumstances are related by Lanfranc (de Enchar. c. 4) : "Tempore S. Leonis [IX.] P. delata est It wests tua ad apostolicam sedem," &c. It is supposed that Lanfranc departed for Rome in the suite of Leo IX. after the Council of Rheims ; but a biographer (Milo Crispinus, Vit. Lanfr. c. 3) says he w ent to Rome on account of a clerk named Berengar, who dogmatized on the sacrament of the altar otherwise than as the Church holds. See Lessing, xii. 230 (Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 655-56). 316 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. a sign, it may be observed in passing, both of the frankness of the letter and of the unsettled state of opinion on the question. When the letter at last reached Home, it was read before a synod presided over by Leo IX. ; and the sentence of condemnation was at once promulgated against Berengar (1050). The Pope then called on Lanfranc to clear himself of the stain brought upon him by rumour ; to state his belief, and to prove it rather by sacred authorities than by arguments — (was this a rebuke from the simple-minded Bruno to the germs of the scholastic spirit?) "Therefore" — he says — " I rose up; what I thought, I said; what I said, I proved ; what I proved pleased all, displeased none." Berengar was sum- moned to a synod at Vercelli, in September ; where the question was raised as to the supreme jurisdiction of the Eoman see. He says that, according to the ecclesiastical laws, by which no one was com- pelled to go for trial out of his own province, his fellow-churchmen and his friends dissuaded him ; but from respect to the Pope, he applied for a safe-conduct to the King of France (Henry I.) as his ecclesiastical superior;1 but the King — we are not told on what ground — handed Berengar over to the custody of a person who stripped him of all his property.2 Though the Pope was informed of this, the accused was again condemned at Vercelli in his absence. Lanfranc indeed states that two clerics appeared there as his envoys, and, though wishing to defend him, " in primo statim aditu defecerunt et capti sunt." According to Berengar's comment on this somewhat obscure phrase, so far from any explanation being made to the synod of his opinions (on which indeed his own mind was not made up)3 one of the two clerks was sent, not by him, but by the clergy of Tours to move the Pope to compassion for his state ; the other was a Normau ecclesiastic, and the part they took was spon- taneous. The one, on hearing a member of the Council declare Berengar a heretic, was provoked to exclaim, "Thou liest!" The 1 That is as Abbot of St. Martin's, of which the cathedral of Tours was the conventual church. See Gieseler, ii. 400 ; Robertson, ii. 657. 2 Respecting the doubtful accounts of an intended synod at Paris, to condemn Berengar and his patron Bruno, bishop of Angers, which Henry I. was persuaded to give up, and of Berengar's condemnation by a Norman synod at Brionne, in 1051, see Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 400, Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 657-8. 3 The passage is doubly interesting as the frank utterance of an enquiring mind, confirmed in its convictions by persecution, and for that appeal which Berengar constantly made to the Scriptures : — " Quod sen- tentiam meam scribis Vercellis in concessit illo expositam, dico de rei veritate et testimonio conscientia; mese, nullum eo tempore sentential!) mean) exposuisse, quod nee mihi eo tempore tanta perspicuitate const ibat, quod nondum tanta pro vet if ate eu tempore perpessus, nondum tarn dilijenti in Scriptnris consideratione sategeram." A.D. 1054. HILDEBRAND'S SYNOD AT TOURS. 317 Norman, whose name was Stephen, when he heard the book of Scotus condemned at the bidding of Lanfranc, was moved by zeal to say that any book of St. Augustine might be condemned by the like incon- siderate haste. Whereupon the Pope ordered both into custody ; not, as he himself afterwards explained, with the intention of doing them any harm, but to protect them from the probable violence of the mob, — a remarkable testimony to the popular fanaticism for the myste- rious doctrine, which was again displayed at the council of Poitiers, in 1075, when Berengar narrowly escaped being killed in a riot.1 § 7. On the other hand, the fact that powerful friends2 adhered to Bruno, goes far to confirm his assertion of a general sympathy with his opinions among the more intelligent. To these friends was added no less a person than Hildebrand, who, as papal legate, held a numerous council of bishops at Tours (1054), at which for the first time Berengar had the opportunity of making his defence. Lanfranc indeed says that, instead of defending himself, he in presence of all confessed the common faith of the Church, which he swore to hold thenceforth, as he did aft/ r wards at Rome.3 This Berengar indignantly denies, and appeals for the truth of his own account to Hildebrand, whom (he says) he satisfied by arguments which any one who pleases may learn (setting himself aside) from Prophet, Apostle, and Evangelist, and from the authentic* writings of Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory. Hildebrand persuaded him to go to Rome, to plead his own cause with Leo ; and meanwhile the assembled bishops professed themselves satisfied with Berengar's confession, which he swore to hold from the heart : — " The bread and wine of the altar after consecration are the body and blood of Christ:" — a formula in which the mode was left as open as before, and not a word was said of any change of substance, or even of a " presence," corporeal or spiritual.5 1 Chron. S. Maxentii or Malleacense, ap. Gieseler, ii. 408. 2 For some of these, besides Bruno, bishop of Angers, see Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 402, n. 11. We are not told how Berengar obtained his release from custody. 3 On this Canon Robertson, who certainly shows no partiality for Berengar, observes (vol. ii. p. 659) : " The enemies of Berengar state that, being unable to defend his heresy, he recanted it at Tours, and afterwards resumed the profession of it. But this is a misrepresentation, founded on their misconception of what his doctrine really was. . . . Lessing (120) shows that Orderic Vitalis is wrong in supposing Lanfranc to have been at the Council of Tours." 4 Here is an indication that certain works of the Fathers, which were cited as authorities, were already regarded by some as spurious. 5 Except for the words "after consecration," the formula simply embodies our Lord's words of institution (Matt. xxvi. 26; Mark xiv. 22; Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. xi. 23-25); nor are the words "after consecration" II— Q 318 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. Very different was the confession which was dictated by Cardinal Humbert and imposed on Berengar five years later by a council at Rome, whither he seems to have gone in reliance on the support of Hildebrand,1 who had virtually nominated Pope Nicolas II. (1C59). But the violence of his opponents carried all before them ; they refused to hear a word from him about "spiritual refreshment from the body of Christ ;" and they were deaf to his request, that they would either listen to him with Christian mildness and fatherly attention, or, if not to him, that they would choose persons fit to search the Scriptures at leisure and with care. Berengar confesses his weakness in having yielded through fear of death, but represents his acquiescence as entirely passive. He was made to light a fire and cast his writings into it, while Cardinal Humbert wrote the confession, which he accepted but denies that he signed : " I, Berengarius, anathematize every heresy, especially that for which I have hitherto been brought into ill repute, &c. I agree with the Holy Roman Church, namely, that the bread and wine, which are placed on the altar, are after consecration not only a Sacrament, but also the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that sensibly (senstmliter), not only as a Sacrament but in reality (yeritate), they are handled by the hands of the priests, broken and ground by the teeth of the faithful ! " § 8. There are three types among men who have been called to suffer for what they believed to be truth : those who unite constancy to their opinions with the courage of the martyr or confessor ; those who prove themselves, in the hour of trial, destitute of both; and those whom fear impels to the temporary denial of the convictions to which they are still constant in heart, like Galileo muttering as he rose from his knees: "And yet it does move." To this third class — whom the world is apt to judge more harshly for their cowardly compromise than the second for their cowardly apostacy — Berengar belonged through his whole career. He no sooner re- turned to Tours than he began again to teach his old opinions ; to counteract which Lanfranc published the famous work,2 in which a real exception to the parallel, for it was " when he had blessed it " or "given thanks" that Christ said "This is my body," "This is my blood": — in whit sense, and what was the force of the consecration — still remained to be decided. 1 Whether Lanfranc himself was at the council is doubtful : it seems more probable that he was not. (See Robertson, vol. ii. p. 660.) 2 The De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, already often cited. As above stated, the date of this work is somewhere between 1063 and 1070, the year in which Lanfranc's removal from the Abbey of Bee to the primacy of England appears to have withdrawn him from the active prosecution of the controversy with Berengar. A.D. 1073 GUITMUND ON THE BERENGARIANS. 319 he gave his version of the controversy up to this time, and to which Berengar replied in the apologetic treatise, only discovered in its integrity a century ago.1 It is significant of the open state of the question, that through the long pontificate of Alexander II. (1061-1073) no attempt was made to put down Berengar by the authority of Rome ; and to the Pope's friendly remonstrances he replied that he was resolved to adhere to his opinions. § 9. About the time of Hildebrand's elevation to the Papacy as Gregory VII. (1073), a new disputant took the field against Berengar with still greater violence than Lanfranc. The work of this Guit- mund2 is of special interest for his statement of the different shades of opinion among those who followed the views of Berengar. He says that, while all the Berengarians — (an admission, by the wTay, of their number)— agreed that the bread and wine were not changed in substance (essentialiter), they differ much in this : — that some say there is in those sacraments nothing at all of the body and blood of the Lord, but that they are only shadows and figures ; while others, yielding to the right views of the Church, say that the body and blood of the Lord are contained there in truth, but in a hidden manner, and so that they may be taken, — that they are, so to speak, impanated : 3 and this, they say, is the more subtile opinion of Berengar himself. Others (he adds) — these not Beren- garians, but very sharply opposed to Berengar, though somewhat influenced by his arguments and certain words of the Lord — used formerly to think that the bread and wine are in part changed, and in part remain : while others hold that the bread and wine are indeed wholly changed, but, when the unworthy come to communi- cate, the flesh and blood of the Lord return again to bread and wine. This enumeration of various opinions throws a flood of light on the whole state of the controversy at this critical epoch before the 1 De Sacra Cani, adv. Lanfmncum liber posterior. The contents of his former work (the liber" prior) against Lanfranc are only known through the fragments quoted by Lanfranc and other opponents of Berengar. 2 De Veritite Corporis et Sanguinis Christi in Eucharistia, in the form of a Dialogue ; Bibl. Patrum, xviii. 440-468. " The date varies from 1073 and 1077. Guitmund (who was a Norman monk) had refused an English bishopric offered to him by the Conqueror. He was afterwards nominated to the archbishopric of Rouen, but his enemies objected that he was the son of a priest. He then obtained his abbot's leave to go into Italy, where Gregory made him a cardinal, and he was consecrated Archbishop of Aversa by Urban II. (Orderic. Vital, iv. 13 ; Anselm, Epist. i. 16 ; Hist. Litt. viii. 552, ?eq<].)" — Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 662-3. 3 fmpanari, i.e. "embodied in the bread," if we may venture at all to translate the word, formed from the analogy of incarnari, to express an idea of the Real Presence short of Transubstantiation. 320 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. definition of the Eucharistic doctrine by the Roman Church. It is a complete misapprehension to regard Berengar as a heretic rising up — whether wantonly or conscientiously — to oppose an orthodox doc- trine of the Catholic Church. In the older stage of the controversy the real innovator was Paschasius Radbert, whom Lanfranc and his party owned as their master. It may be difficult to determine whether the responsibility of its revival rests on Berengar or Lanfranc; but there is no doubt as to the real character of the struggle : it was an attempt for the first time to establish, in the form advocated by Paschasius and his followers, a doctrine on which the Church had not yet pronounced a decision. That doc- trine seems to have now obtained the majority of adherents, especially among the Noman clergy, the monks, and the common people. But, when Lanfranc claims it to be the doctrine of the Church, Berengar protests against his " so often giving the name of Church to a multitude of foolish persons ; " and adds : " when you say that all hold this faith, you speak against your conscience, which cannot but tell you — now that the question has been so freely agitated — how numerous, nay almost unnumbered, are those of every rank and dignity, who execrate your error, and that of Paschasius, the monk of Corbey, about the sacrifice of the Church." l § 10. The language of this confident appeal may be exaggerated, but it could not have been made without some strong grounds ; and it seems clear that there was a powerful resistance of the more thoughtful and spiritual minds against a current swollen by popular fanaticism. The party of Lanfranc had the advantage of main- taing a definite view of actual and tangible realities, against the more subtile and vacillating attempts to clothe a mystery in language which should express the whole teaching of Scripture2 and the Fathers. It is as needless as it would be perplexing, to trace the subtilties and inevitable inconsistencies of such a tenta- tive process : the spirit of Berengar's best adherents may be seen in a letter addressed to him by his bishop, Bruno, of Angers : 3 " Leaving the turbid rivulets of disputations, we say it is necessary to draw from the very fountain of truth, which is ' The Lord Jesus, the day before He suffered, &c.' 4 That the bread, after the hal- 1 De Ccena, p. 27 ; ap. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 407. 2 This is one very interesting feature of the controversy. We have seen how constantly Berengar makes his appeal to Scripture ; but his friend Paulinus (Joe. sup. cit.) remonstrates with him for " throwing the deep sense (profunditatem) of the Scriptures before those to whom he ought not, like pearls before swine." 3 Ap. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 408. 4 He quotes 1 Cor. xi. 23, &c, by the sense rather than the exact words. A.D. 107 COUNCIL AT ROME. 32 J lowing of the consecrating priest according to these words, is the true body of Christ, and the wine in the same manner the true blood, we believe and confess. But if any one asks in what way (qualiter) this can take place, we answer him, not according to the order of nature, but according to the omnipotence of God. And if any one enquires of us what our Fathers or Doctors think of this matter, we send him to their books, that he may read diligently what he finds in them, and may choose for himself what .he thinks agreeable to evangelic truth, with thankfulness and the desire of brotherly concord." Wide as is the scope which this reference to patristic authority leaves to the individual judgment, it is given with a qualification still more remarkable for that age: — "More- over for our own part — not contemning the writings of the Fathers, but yet neither reading them with the same assurance (securitate) as the Gospel, we abstain from (introducing) their opinions in the discussion of so great a subject, lest we might improperly put forward the opinions of the Fathers, either depraved by any accident, or not well understood or thoroughly investigated by ourselves." § 11. We could scarcely need a stronger. proof of the open state of the question, than that such a Pope as Gregory VII. protected Berengar, even if he did not agree with him. In fact, his imperialist enemies charged him by implication with being a Berengarian heretic. We have seen the part taken by Hildebrand, as Legate at Tours, and how Berengar went to Kome in reliance on his friendship (1059). In 1078 he was again in Rome as the guest of Gregory VII., who took the opportunity, at an assembly of bishops on All Saints' Day, of causing Berengar to swear to a confession of the Real Presence in general terms ; not without a loud d;ssent (yociferatione multa), to which the Pope replied that it sufficed to give babes milk, not solid food, that Berengar was no heretic, that he took his doctrine from the Scriptures, and not from his own fancy, and that that " son of the Church," Peter Damiani, had not agreed with the dicta of Lanfranc about the Sacrifice.1 The tumult was appeased, 1 Berengar. ap. Martene, Thes. Anecdot. xiv. 99, seq. ; Act. Cone. Rom (Mansi, xix. 761); Gieseler, ii. 409. Peter Damiani, the great monastic zealot and supporter of Hildebrand, had died a year before the latter became Pope (1072). This account of Gregory's appeal to his authority is given by Berengar ; but both parties claimed Damiani. His opinions, as expressed in the Expositio Carionis Missx (by some disciple, probably soon after his death) come much nearer to Transubstantiation ; and that word is said to occur first in this Treatise (c. 7), which was first published by Cardinal Mai, and reprinted in the Patrologia, cxlv. 879, seq. (See the passages quoted by Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 407 ; among them, the comparison of the daily consumption of Christ's flesh and blood to the widow of Sarepta's barrel of meal and cruse of oil : 1 Kings xvii.) 322 THE ECJCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. bat the question was not decided. Gregory sought counsel, as was his custom, from the Blessed Mar)', who revealed to a young monk (prepared by prayer and fasting) that nothing ought to be thought or held about the sacrifice of Christ, except what was contained in authentic Scriptures (or writings).1 But the opposite party urged the Pope to detain Berengar at Rome till the Lenten Synod, which they knew their supporters would attend in force ; and accordingly, at that assembly of 150 bishops and abbots, Berengar was required to sign a confession declaring in strong terms the substantial conver- sion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. If the grounds on which he consented betray his own want of moral strength, they are equally a satire on the binding power of such defining formulas. While his conscience found the strange subter- fuge, that, " substantially " {substantial iter) might mean " still re- taining its own substance" (salva sua substantia), so that the con- secrated bread is the body of Christ, not losing what it was, but assuming wliat it was not, — he discovered that the authors of the formula had written against themselves in ascribing the efficacy of consecration to " the mystery of prayer " (per mysterium orationis). The assembly insisted on his swearing to interpret the confession thenceforth according to their sense, and not his own ; but even here he found a loop-hole by replying, that he held what the Pope had stated to him a few days before ; referring to the revelation from the Blessed Mary. In the end, he signed the required con- fession, he tells us, through fear of anathema and violence, because God did not give him constancy ; and he was forbidden to teach in future, except to reclaim those whom he had led astray. After all this, Gregory sent him home, as an honoured guest, with his legate Fulco, bearing a commendatory letter, which declared to all the faithful in St. Peter, " that the Pope had anathematized all who should presume to do any injury to Berengar, the son of the Roman Church, or who should call him heretic." He forthwith revoked his enforced confession ; and, still protected by Gregory, he spent the rest of his life in quiet retirement on the island of St. Come, near Tours, where he died in 1088. In spite of his perseverance in his opinions to the last, his character is exalted by his contemporaries, whose testimony is confirmed by the annual festival long observed at his grave at Tours. On the strength of this reverence for his memoiy, Romanists claimed him as a convert at last to Lanfranc's arguments; and, before the discovery of his own work, he was 1 "Nisi quod haberent authenticae Scriptural' where the word authenticse suggests that the scriptune are the writings of the Fathers, as well as the Holy Scriptures, which would more probably have been mentioned without the qualification. Cent. XI. USE OF DIATICCELS. 323 attacked by Luther and vindicated by Bishop Cosin. " The recovery of his Treatise, and of his other writings, has placed his doctrines in a clearer light ; and it is now acknowledged by writers of the Roman Church that, instead of supposing the Eucharist to be merely figurative, he acknowledged in it a real spiritual change, while he denied that doctrine of a material change, which has become dis- tinctive of their communion."1 § 12. But, besides this crisis in the development of the sacra- mental doctrine, the Berengarian controversy has a special interest on account of the novel intellectual weapons wielded on both sides. It is perhaps the first theological dispute in which reason — (we are compelled to use the word in the popular sense which mixes up the free exercise of the faculty with the art of reasoning) was opposed to that appeal to authority by which alone all controversies had hitherto been decided. As will be more fully seen in a subsequent chapter, we stand, in the middle of the eleventh century, on the threshold of that new intellectual age, in which the method of dialectics (the art of disputation according to the rules of logic) was applied to theology and religious controversy. The movement had begun in the great monastic schools ; and (apart from all imputa- tions of personal jealousy) we must recognize in Lanfranc and Berengar, not merely contending theologians, but the heads of the rival schools of Bee and Tours.2 In the judgment of Gieseler,3 " the first trial of the new science was in the dialectic dispute between them concerning the Lord's Supper." Berengar's bitter opponent, Guitmund, traces the origin of Berengar's views about the sacra- ments to resentment at his signal defeat by Lanfranc in a minor dialectic dispute, and at the growing success of the school at Bee above his own.4 The new style of controversy was significantly hinted at, when the Council at Rome (1050) called on Lanfranc to prove his case " rather by sacred authorities than by arguments ; " while Lanfranc himself charges Berengar with "leaving sacred authorities, and taking refuge in dialectics," and apologizes for the necessity of following him into that field with a proud consciousness of his own dexterity in the art.5 Berengar replies, that he does not 1 Robertson, vol. ii. p. 665. 2 The fame of Lanfranc and Bee (supported by that of Anselm) has eclipsed the intellectual reputation of Berengar, who is described as " in grammatica et philosophia clarissimus," and perhaps also in physical science, as it is added " et in negromantia peritissimus " (Chron. Turon. ap. Bouquet, xii. 461-5). Even Guitmund, in violently disparaging Berengar, has no higher praise to give Lanfranc than as a man of the greatest learning equally with him. 3 Vol. ii. p. 396. 4 Guitmund, d<: Corp. e' Sung. Ckristi, in it. 5 De Eucharist, c. 7. This very interesting passage, which is too long 324 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. neglect the sacred authorities,1 but "no one, except with blind senselessness, will deny the evident proposition, that the use of reason in the perception of truth is incomparably superior ; " and he quotes the saying of Augustine (whose praise of the art had been confessed by Lanfranc), that " Human authority is by no means to be preferred to the reason of a purified soul, which attains to clear truth." He boldly asserts that it is a mark of the largest heart in all questions to resort to dialectics, for this is to resort to reason, to abandon which is to renounce our own honour and our daily renewal in the image of God. § 13. During the twelfth century, opinions more or less like those of Berengar continued to be held by a respectable, if decreasing, minority.2 Abelard distinctly speaks of the question — " whether the bread which is seen be only a figure of the Lord's body, or be also the real substance of the Lord's very flesh" — as being yet undetermined.3 A more spiritual view even than that of Berengar is expressed by St. Bernard,4 who defines a sacrament as a sacred sign or sacred secret, and declares the nature of all the sacraments to be such, that " God confers an invisible grace by some visible sign ; " and of the Eucharist he says, " To this day the same flesh is given us, but spiritually, not carnally." The more materialistic view, however, not only gained ground among the vulgar, whose faith was quickened by alleged miracles ; 5 but it steadily prevailed by for quotation here, is given in Gieseler, vol. ii. pp. 405-6 ; as well as some particular examples of the highly technical application of dialectic rules to the sacramental controversy by Berengar, with Lanfranc's criticisms iu reply. 1 These " sacred authorities " are evidently the Fathers, rather than the Scriptures ; and so he speaks just after of " human authority.'' 2 See the evidence cited by Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 313, 314; especially the statement by Alger of Liege (cir. 1130) of the different opinions then held, the sacramental sign, impanation, and various degrees of mutation. 3 TheoL Christ, iv. 4 Sermo i. in Coena Domini, ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 314. So wide is his sense of the word, that he includes under sacraments the washing of feet, with the reception of the Eucharist and Baptism. He illustrates what he means by a s gn by the ring, which has in itself no signification, but is given as a sign of investment with an inheritance, so that he who receives the ring may say : "The ring has no value, but the inheritance which I asked for." 5 Such are found already in the writings of Paschasius. As to these miracles, such as the apparition of the flesh of Christ in its own form — for example, that of a boy — or of bleeding flesh, or of a finger, or some other member, Alexander Hales says that the apparition, when from the Lord, is that of the Lord Himself ; adding, "I say from the Lord, because apparitions of this kiwi sometimes take place by human and perhaps by diabolical procuration ; " but he gives no test to distinguish the three cases. Where money wanted for a church (as at Walkenried, in 1252) A. D. 1215. TRANS INSTANTIATION DECREED. 325 the authority of the Schoolmen, who, in the emphatic words of Dean Milman, " stripped off all the awfulness, and coldly discussed it in its naked materialism." At length the Fourth Lateran Council, under Innocent III. (T215), formally declared Transubstantiation to be the doctrine of the one universal Church, out of which there is no salvation : namely " that the body and blood of Christ — himself both the priest and sacrifice — are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the outward forms (speciebus) of bread and wine, which have their substance changed (transubstantiates) into the body and blood by the power of God ; and this sacrament no one can accomplish, except the priest who has been duly ordained according to the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ himself granted to the Apostles and their successors." But, even after this decree, room was found for controversy respecting the manner of the change and its consequences, till the doctrine was fixed in its most positive and materialistic form by the authority of Thomas Aquinas.1 § 14. When the sanctity of the Sacrament was thus transferred from the truth it symbolized to its material elements, some changes naturally followed in the mode of celebration. The practice of infant communion was gradually discontinued, and was at length expressly forbidden by provincial Councils.2 The reverence due more especially to the wine, as the very blood of Christ (for " the blood is the life ") suggested special precautions against spilling it or other profanations ;3 such as sucking it up through a tube or was speedily obtained by such a miracle, he would perhaps have referred it to "human procuration." See Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 315. 1 Respecting the various questions raised, the solutions given by different schoolmen, and the last efforts of resistance, especially in the University of Paris, see Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 316 f., Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 603-605. It would seem impossible to push the materialistic view further than in the question whether, if an animal ate the consecrated host, it would eat the Lord's body, which Thomas Aquinas boldly decided in the affirmative, overruling the adverse opinions of Peter Lombard, Pope Innocent III., and Bonaventura. Such an accident (said Thomas) no more derogated from the dignity of Christ's body than its crucifixion by the hands of sinners. 2 Concil. Burdegal. ann. 1235, and Bajocense, ann. 1306. An inter- mediate step was taken by giving children unconsecrated wine, to avoid profanation by spilling; but Hugo of St. Victor sensibly observed that it was better to withhold it; and Odo of Paris (after 1196) forbad his clergy to give even the unconsecrated hosts to children. — Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 318. The change added another point of dispute to the controversy between the Latin Church and the Greek, which retained the communion of children. 3 For instance, through dipping the beard into the cup, or through the inability of sick persons to swallow the wine. II-Q2 326 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. Chap. XIX. giving the bread dipped in the wine, instead of the cup. The latter practice, which originated in the communion of the sick and infants, was condemned by Urban II.1 and Paschal II.,2 expressly on the ground of its inconsistency with our Lord's example in the institution of the Last Supper ; " for we know (says the latter Pope) that the Lord gave the bread by itself, and the wine by itself ;" and the contrast with the later Roman practice is made the more striking by the sole exception which the latter Pope allows, in the case of " infants and the infirm, who cannot swallow the bread ; for whom it is sufficient to communicate in the blood." In oppo- sition to such high authority, some, like Ernulph, bishop of Eochester (1120) maintained the right of the Church to vary the mode of obeying the Lord's precept ; and defended the practice, which held its ground in England, till it was forbidden by the Council of London in 1175. The next step in superstitious reverence for the wine as the blood — the withdrawal of the cup from the laity — began in the 12th century; but only in some few churches. Though the schoolmen for the most part still maintained that the communion was imperfect, unless in both kinds,3 Anselm had laid down the principle that the whole Christ is taken in either kind ; 4 and Thomas Aquinas developed this view under the name of sacramental con- comitancy. The laity were gradually accustomed to the new practice by the administration of unconsecrated wine, sometimes with a small portion of consecrated wine left at the bottom of the chalice. Even to the 16th century communion in both kinds was still practised in some monasteries.5 § 15. The elevation of the host in the Eucharist, practised in the Eastern Church from the 7th century, was adoped in the Western during the 11th ; but, in both only as a symbol of the exaltation of Christ. As a consequence of the establishment of the doctrine of tiansubstantiation by the Lateran Council (1215), the practice was converted into adoration, and, both at the celebration and when the host was carried through the streets, all were ordered to kneel before it.6 The external reverence for the presence of Christ 1 At the Council of Clermont, 1095. 2 Epist. 32, to the Abbot Pontius of Clugny (1110). 3 Alex. Hales, Sentent. lib. iv. qu. 53 ; Albertus Magnus, ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 321-2. 4 " In utraque specie totum Christum sumi." — Epist. lib. iv. 107. 5 Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 324. 6 Like the doctrine itself, this practice was supported by miracles, such as that persons who knelt in the mud in reverence to the host found that their fine clothes were not injured. — Caesarius Heisterbach (cir. 1225), de Miraiulis et Visionibus sui tempjris, lib. ix. c. 51. A.D. 1311. FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI. 327 in the Eucharist culminated in the festival in honour of the Tody of Christ, that is, the consecrated host {Corpus Ohristi), which began to be observed in the diocese of Liege about the middle of the 13th century, and was decreed by Pope Urban IV. in 1264, and finally established by a Bull of Clement V. in 1311.1 The mystery which obscured the great commemorative rite of the Church tended to defeat its first object by deterring from frequent communion. " Although some councils endeavoured to enforce the older number of three communions yearly, it was found that the canon of the Lateran Council, which allowed of one yearly re- ception as enough for Christian communion, became the rule. Instead of personally communicating, people were taught to rely on the efficacy of masses, which were performed by the priests for money ; and from this great corruptions naturally followed.'" 2 1 Respecting the story of the origin of the festival from the visions seen by Juliana, a nun of Liege, and by her communicated to the arch- deacon James, afterwards Pope Urban IV., see Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 325, Robertson, vol. iii. p. 607. 2 Robertson, /. c. vol. iii. p. 607. Archbishop celebrating Mass "before the Table." From an Ivory Diptych at Frank ort-on-the-Main, probably of the 9th century. The Abbey of Clugny, in Burgundy. BOOK IV. THE MONASTIC ORDERS AND MENDICANT FRIARS. CHAPTER XX. REFORMED AND NEW MONASTIC ORDERS. § 1. Corruption and Decay of the old Orders — Lay Usurpations — Spread of the Monastic Spirit — Wealth and Dependents of the Monks — Lay Brethren. § 2. Spirit of Independence — Alliance, especially of the reformed orders, with the Papacy — Their privileges and exemptions — Mitred and Cardinal Abbots. § 3. Chi/ny founded by Berno — Abbots Odilo and Hugh — Spread and organization of the Cluniac Congregation — Its support of Hildebrand. § 4. Eremite Societies — Nilus in Cala- bria— Grotto Ferrata — Orders of Camaldoli, founded by Romuald, and Vallomhrosa, by Gualbert. § 5. Opposition to monastic reform in Germany — Archbishop Hanno — The Congregation of Hirschau — Culture of learning and art. § 6. Stephen of Tigerno: his order of Grammont. § 7. The Carthusian order founded by Bruno— The Grande Chartreuse and Charterhouse. § 8. The order of Fontevraud founded by Robert of Cent. IX., X. MONASTIC CORRUPTIONS. 329 Arbrissel, chiefly for women — Order of Sempringham. § 9. Robert of Champagne founds the Cistercian order at Citeaux — Abbots Alberic and Stephen Harding — Rules of the order — " Daughter " societies — St. Bernard — General Chapters — Spread of the order. § 10. Corrup- tion of Cathedral Canons — Ivo, bishop of Chartres — The Canons Regular of St. Augustine — Norbert, founder of the Prsemonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg. § 11. Degeneracy of the New Orders— T Papal exemptions, real and forged — Ambition of Abbots — Rivalry of Monks and Canons — Relaxation of discipline and morality. § 12. Con- tests between the Cluniacs and Cistercians — Peter the Venerable and Bernard — Lateran decree of Innocent III. against new orders (1215). § 1. The forms of Ecclesiastical life, which we have been tracing, were moulded by new intellectual and spiritual forces, which, in their mingled co-operation and opposition, are among the most remarkable in the history of the human mind. The development of scholastic theology, and the rise of the Universities ; the growth of monasticism, and the institution of new orders for the reforma- tion and defence of the Church ; the spiritual opposition to the corruptions of religion, and the claims of intellectual freedom, which (not without the admixture of baser elements) gave origin to sects then deemed heretical, but, in part at least, the precursors of the Reformation ; — these three elements are so connected in their action on each other, as to make their separate treatment no easy task. In attempting to trace the great intellectual movement, we are brought into contact with the efforts of the mendicant orders for supremacy in the Universities, and the fact that the greatest of the schoolmen belonged to those orders ; which, in their turn, are to be traced, in great measure, to the demand for new champions against abuses in the Church, and still more against the opposition which those abuses provoked. The most convenient course is, to start from the Monastic Orders. Amidst the growing tide of corruption in the 9th and 10th centuries, the monasteries suffered both from internal decay and worldly oppression.1 They had grown rich enough to be made the spoil of princes and nobles, who either conferred them on their chaplains and clerical parasites, or even took possession of them, and made their residence in the cloister, with a host of retainers, who consumed its revenues, or sold them to the highest bidder. An ex- press title was devised for laymen who held such estates : they were called " Abbot-Counts." 2 But the very disorders of the times tended 1 Peter the Venerable, of Clugny, makes the striking remark, that it was easier to found new religious societies than to reform the old. J'pitt. i. 23, in Patrol, clxxxix. 2 Abba-comit's : see Palgrave, Hist, of the Normans, vol. i. p 184, foil. 330 THE MONASTIC ORDERS. Chap. XX. to preserve the vitality of the monastic spirit : the young renounced the world, in which they heard of so much evil, for a life of purity and meditation ; and those who had experienced its troubles, or were remorseful for their own part in the scene, sought a haven of penitence and rest. More worldly motives were naturally mingled with the spirit of devotion. The monks took pride in their sever- ance from the secular clergy (a name itself implying a somewhat invidious contrast), as an order of men peculiarly religious (ordo and religiosi). A devout pride was felt in the traditions with which most monasteries were associated, as preserving the memory of a martyr, like Saint Alban, of a saintly founder, like Benedict or Cuthhert, of a pious patron, like King Offa at 1 eterborough, or a devout lady, like Etheldreda at Ely; of spots once famed for heathen temples, now purged and sanctified for Christian use, or memorable for some great victory, like Battle Abbey ; or the site of a signal miracle or of more sentimental traditions.1 Supported at first by the diligent labours of the brethren, and afterwards enriched by the fortunes brought in by those who devoted their properties with their lives,2 and by the gifts of kings and nobles from pious generosity or penitential fear, they became the centre of a com- munity, generally remote from civil society, but sometimes forming a separate quarter .of a town.3 Besides the vassals who tilled the The French bishops complained that Charles the Bald gave away religious houses, from various motives of weakness or policy. 1 For example, the priory of the deux amoureux at Rouen. 2 " Such persons were called fratres oblati. The first example occurs at Clugny, ann. 948 (Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 417). There is a letter of Leo IX. (Epist. 66; Patrol, cxliii.) to the Italian bishops, complaining that monks persuaded people to give everything to the monasteries. " The Pope orders that any person wishing to turn monk, whether in life or on his death- bed, shall give half of what he intends 'pro salute animae' to the church to which he belongs." (Robertson, vol. ii. p. 782.) The monks not only intercepted gifts which would otherwise have been made to the secular clergy, but diverted to themselves large portions of the settled revenues of the Church, by persuading laymen who had usurped them to make restitution, not to the church which had been robbed, but to a monastery. Even tithes and other ecclesiastical dues were often accepted, in violation of the express rules of the orders, and in spite of the prohibitions of Councils, as those of Westminster (1102), the 1st Lateran (1123), and London (1125) (ibid.). Some persons obtained privileges of the monas- teries as fratres conscripti or confratres, like Conrad I., and Giesela, wife of Conrad II., at St. Gall, and Henry II. at Clugny. Another mode of participating in the spiritual benefits of the system was by putting on the monastic habit in dangerous sickness, too often with the result cele- brated in a well-known rhyme. — Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 417. 3 The mark of religious profession by a peculiar dress was (at least in most cases) not an original distinction, but arose from the continued use of what was at first the common dress, after it had become obsolete in Cent. XL THEIR ALLIANCE WITH THE PAPACY. 331 conventual lands or served the monastery in various lorms of traffic, the ancient rule of common labour was broken, by devolving what we now call menial offices and the management of secular business on lay brethren {conversi).1 § 2. The spirit of independence, which was beginning to stir in the towns, had its counterpart in the monastic societies which, thus complete in themselves and their own resources, elected their own abbots; and these aspired to independence of episcopal control, by means of royal charters, and still more of papal privileges.2 For this desire for independence cooperated with the natural dis- position of devotees to carry Catholic principles to an extreme, and to exalt the unity of the Church in its chief Bishop, in making the monks the chief and constant supporters of the authority of the Pope. This was especially the case from the time of the revival of the monastic spirit in the 11th century, which gave birth to reformed and powerful orders, among which reforming and am- bitious Popes, as we have seen in the history of Hildebrand3 had their chief supporters. The monks "were strictly bound to the Papacy by ties of mutual interest, and could always reckon on the Pope as their patron in disputes with bishops and other ecclesias- tical authorities. A large proportion of the papal rescripts during this time consists of privileges granted to monasteries. Many were absolutely exempted from the jurisdiction of bishops; yet such exemptions were less frequently bestowed, as the monastic com- munities became better able to defend themselves against oppres- sion. . . . Among other privileges granted to monasteries were ordinary civil society ; and such, indeed, is the origin of clerical and other professional costumes in all ages. (See the lively illustrations of this fact in Dean Stanley's Christian Imtituti'-ns.) But certain orders were distinguished by the colours of their hoods or whole dress, which have given them their popular names, such as H kite Friars for the Carmelites, Grey Friars for the Franciscans, Black Friars for the Dominicans. 1 These are said to have been first allowed by Guelbert, at Yallombrosa, in order that the monks might be wholly devoted to spiritual concerns. At Hirschau (see § 5) and elsewhere they were distinguished as fratrcs barbati, the monks not being permitted to wear beards. Martene, how- ever, carries back the institution of lay brethren to the 5th century, at Lerins. 2 We have already seen that, amidst the prevalent ignorance and corruption of the parish priests, the ministrations of the monks were preferred by the people ; their intrusion on pastoral functions was put down by the prohibition of councils, e.g. the 1st Lateran, 1123. Robert- son, vol. ii. p. 783. 3 See Chap. II. The powerful tendency of the movement for the celibacy of the clergy to advance the power of the monks had also been seen in the reforming efforts of Dunstan in the 10th centurv. 332 THE CLUNIAC CONGREGATION. Chap. XX. exemption from the payment of tithes and from the jurisdiction of legates ; exemption from excommunication, except by the Pope alone, and from any interdict which might be laid on the country in which the monastery was situated ; permission that the abbots should wear the episcopal ring, gloves, and sandals,1 and should not be bound to attend any councils except those summoned by the Pope himself. The Abbots of Clugny and Vendome were, by virtue of their office, cardinals of the Roman Church." 2 § 3. The reformation, instituted by Benedict of Aniane at the be- ginning of the 9th century,3 had needed a renewal at the beginning of the 10th, when the reformed Benedictine Order of Clugny was founded, in 912, by Berno, previously Abbot of Beaume and Gigni, on the invitation of William, duke of Auvergne or Upper Aquitaine, and its strict rules were framed by his successor, Odo (927-951).4 The close relation of the revised monastic system to Rome is seen in the fact that this Cluniac congregation ('monaster ium Cluniacum) was placed from the first under the direct authority of the Pope. Its reputation was so maintained and advanced by a succession oi abbots, among whom Odilo (994-1048) has been called " the arch- angel of the monks," 6 that most of the French cloisters either embraced the Cluniac rule of their own free choice, or were com- pelled by their princes and protectors to accept it. The organiza- tion of this great " Congregation of Clugny " was effected by the sixth abbot, Hugh, who succeeded Odilo at the age of 25, and 1 The earliest certain case of one of the "mitred abbots" (Abbates mitrati s. i'ifulat>) is that of the abbot of S. Maxim in at Treves, who received the mitre from Gregory VII. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 220. 2 Robertson, ii. 782-4. " The monks of Monfre Cassino, the ' head and mother of all monasteries,' claimed liberties even against the Papacy itself," as in a case where an abbot, Seniorectus, elected during the pon- tificate of Honorius II., refused to make a profession of fidelity to the Pope, and, on being asked why he should scruple to comply with a form to which all archbishops and bishops submitted, the monks replied that it had never been required of their abbots — that bishops had often fallen into heresy and schism, but Monte Cassino had always been pure. Hono- rius II. gave way; but when Reginald, the successor of Seniorectus, had received benediction from the Antipope Anacletus, the plea for exemption could no longer be plausibly pretended, and, notwithstanding the vehe- ment opposition of the monks, Innocent II. afterwards insisted on an oath of obedience as a condition of their reconciliation to the Roman church. See what is there added about the extensive use of forged grants in support of the pretensions of monastic bodies. 3 See Part I. Chap. XXII. § 2. 4 Among the most remarkable of the rules are the long periods of strict silence observed in the church, the dormitory, the refectory, and even the kitchen ; so that a complete code of signals was framed for the intercourse of the brethren. (These are described in c. iv. of the rules as written out by Ulrich.) 5 By Fulbert of Chartres ; ap. Bouquet, x. 426. Cent. XI. EREMITES.— ORDER OF CAMALDOLI. 333 governed the society for sixty years (1049-1109) ; exercising also a vast influence in the affairs of the whole Latin Church. By the middle of the 12th century, the order numbered about 2000 cloisters, chiefly in France, forming one great congregation under the Abbot of Clugny, who was elected by the monks, while he appointed the friars of the several monasteries. The legislation and oversight of all were conducted by a general chapter held every year at Clugny. It was this vast organization that gave the chief impulse to the reforms of Hildebrand, who was, himself, as we have seen, a monk of Clugny.1 Of the disorders and discords which set in under Pontius, the unworthy successor of Hugh, we have more to say presently. § 4. The monastic establishments of this age were chiefly of the eremite type, which had flourished in the East from the time of St. Anthony, whose fame was, as we have seen,2 one chief source of monasticism in the West. One famous establishment, indeed, was founded by a Greek hermit, Nilus the younger,3 who emulated the sanctity and longevity of Anthony, whose life he had read as a boy, and, at the age of nearly ninety, came forth from his retreat in Calabria to intercede with Otho III. for the Antipope John (991).4 After his death on the slope of the Latin Mount, his disciples founded over his grave the cloister of Grotto Ferrata, where the Greek rule of St. Basil flourished, and Greek learning was culti- vated on the Papal territory. Early in the 11th century, two famous eremite communities were founded in the recesses of the Apennines. That of CamaJdoli5 1 See Chap. I. p. 6. The rites and customs of Clugny were first com- mitted to writing in the 11th century by the Cluniac monk Bernhard (Ordo Cluniacensis per Bernhardum, lib. ii., in Herrgott's Vetus Disci) Una JMonasterica, Paris, 1726, p. 133) ; and in 1070 by the monk Ulrich for William of Hirschau (Anti) retired into complete solitude. The monks who lived in larger communities were called cexnobites (from koiv6s fiios, " common life "). 3 In contradistinction to Nilus, the pupil of Chrysostom, who founded the famous monastery on .Mount Sinai in the 4th century; ibid. p. 306. * Ibid. Chap XXIII. 5 Campus Maldoli, Camaldulum, near Arezzo. The life of Romuald was written by Peter Damiani, 0pp. ii. 205, ed. Cajetaui ; Mabillon, Act. SS. Saec. VI. pars i. p. 247. 334 ORDER OF VALLOMBROSA. Chap. XX. owed its origin to Romuald, of the ducal house of Ravenna, who, at the age of 20, was reclaimed from a dissolute life by horror at seeing his father, Sergius, slay a kinsman in a dispute about some property. Retiring into the monastery of St. Apollinaris for a forty days' penance, he was led by visions to embrace the monastic life. After three years he left the monastery, to place himself under the tutorship of a hermit named Marinus, whose severities were imi- tated by Romuald on the person of his own father, to prevent his abandoning the monastic life, which Sergius also had embraced.1 Romuald spent many years in contests with the monks in various places, who resisted his violent means of reformation. The mar- tyrdom of his friend Bruno, in Prussia, moved his emulation to undertake a mission to Hungary; but as often as he set out, a severe sickness warned him that this was not to be his work. He had passed his 110th year when he fixed his final retreat at Camal- doli, where he built an oratory and five cells (about 1018) ; and here he died, at the age of 1-0, a.d. 1027.2 The severity of Romuald's rules was mitigated by Rudolf, general of the Camal- dolese from 1082 ; and he also added an establishment of coenobites, who degenerated greatly from the original strictness. Other affiliated monasteries sprang up, though in no considerable number, and the Order has continued to the present day. An event not unlike the conversion of Romuald led John Gualbert, a noble Florentine, to forsake the world for the Convent of St. Miniato, near Florence, in spite of his father's reproaches and threats.3 Ten years later he declined the abbacy offered by the monks in admiration of his ascetic piety ; and, after staying for some time at Camaldoli, he retired to found an eremite cloister on the like model (1039) " In Vallombrosa,4 where the Etrurian shades High overarched, embower." — (Milton). " The rigour of the system was extreme ; novices were obliged to undergo a year of severe probation, during which they were subjected to degrading employments, such as the keeping of swine, and daily cleaning out the pigsty with their bare hands ; and Gualbert carried his hatred of luxury so far as to condemn the 1 For the strange but amusing details given by Damiani, see Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 524, 525. 2 From a vision of the angels on Jacob's ladder, Romuald adopted a white dress for his monks, that of the Benedictines being black. 3 For the details, see the Lives of (iualhert, by Atto (general of Vallom- brosa, ob. 1153), in Mabillon, Acta SS. Sa?c. VI. pars ii. pra?f. p. xxxiv. ; and by Andreas, Patrolog. cxlvi. ; and Robertson, vol. ii. p. 526. * YalUs umbrosa, " the shady valley," not far from Florence. Ceht. X., XI. MONASTIC REFORM IN GERMANY. 335 splendour of monastic buildings."1 After reforming many monas- teries, it was only in obedience to the Pope, Alexander II., that he became general of the order he had founded. He died in 1093. § 5. The more independent spirit, and the general social order, which prevailed in Germany, opposed a much stronger resistance to monastic reform than in France and Italy. The feelings of the monks are expressed by one of themselves, Widikund of Corvey (about 960).2 He naively complains of the grievous persecution raised against the monks by certain dignitaries, who thought it better that the monasteries should contain a few distinguished by their lives (claims vita), than many careless ones ; the result beino- that many, conscious of their own infirmity, put oft' the frock, left the monasteries, and shunned the heavy burthen of the priest- hood (as if he held it better to be a bad priest or a monk than a layman of any sort). The reformers, in his judgment, appealed to have forgotten the example of the householder in the parable,3 who forbad his servants to gather up the tares ; and he adds that some imputed to the Archbishop of Main/ the corrupt motive of wishing to disgrace the venerable Abbot Hadumar, who was faithful to the King.4 But besides the interference of bishops, several cases are on record5 of reforming abbots being resisted by their own monks, who beat or blinded them, and plotted against their lives, even by mixing poison with the Eucharist. Other monks and canons forsook the convents, and went about spreading disorder through districts and kingdoms.6 Still the reformation made progress, supported by Hanno, arch- bishop of Cologne,7 whose example was generally followed by the prelates on the left bank of the Rhine. The favour which the movement found with the German princes and people is attested by an old Benedictine, Lambert,8 in the querulous tone of the anti- 1 Andreas, 17 ; Atto, 40 ; Robertson, vol. ii. p. 527. See also the account of the impression made by Gualbert's anger and tenderness. 2 Widikund, de Bebus Gestis Saxon, ii. 37 ; ap. Gieseler, ii. 415. The time referred to is about that of the organization of the Cluniac congre- gation by Odo. 3 Matth. xiii. 24-33. 4 Namely, Otho I. The then state of German politics gives colour to the accusation. 5 See Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 415. 6 Lambert (see next note) says that, when the reformation got footing in the convents, as many as thirty, forty, or fifty monks would leave at once rather than submit to the severer rule of life. 7 In 1068 Hanno reformed the monastery of Siegburg, which he had founded, and others besides. — Lambertus, ad ann. 1075 ; ap. Pertz, vii. 238. Lambert had been for a long time in the monasteries of Siegburg and Saalfeld, for the purpose of learning the new discipline ; and he came to a decided conclusion in favour of the old, if faithfully carried out, with a zeal equal to the new. 8 Ad ann. 1071, p. i88. 336 CONGREGATION OF HIRSCHAU. Chap. XX. reformer in every age. The popular mind, always eager for novelty and astonished at the unknown, he says, held us whom they knew by experience <>f no account, and supposed the reformers to be not men but angels, not flesh but spirit ; and he adds that this opinion sank deeper and more firmly into the minds of the princes than of private persons. The chief fruit of this reformation was the establishment of the Congregation of Hirschau1 (1069) by William, abbot of the old Benedictine monastery there, on the model of that of Clugny, the rules of which were written down for William by the Cluniac monk ririch.2 At Hirschau itself he raised the number of the monks from 15 to 150, and reformed no less than 100 monasteries, besides founding new ones. He died in 1091. " The virtues of William were not limited to devotion, purity of life, and rigour of discipline ; he is celebrated for his gentleness to all men, for his charity to the poor, for the largeness of his hospitality, for his cheerful and kindly behaviour, for his encouragement of arts and learning. He provided carefully for the transcription of the Bible and other useful books, and, instead of locking them up in the library of his abbey, endeavoured to circu- late them by presenting copies to the members of other religious houses. The sciences included in the Quadrivium, especially music and mathematics, were sedulously cultivated at Hirschau, and under William the monks were distinguished for their skill in all that relates to the ornament of churches — in building, sculpture, painting, carving of wood, and working in metals." 3 § 6. The supremacy of Hildebrand, who was himself a Cluniac monk and relied on the monks to support his reforms, gave a fresh impulse to the formation of monastic societies. In the first year of his pontificate (1074), Gregory VII. gave his sanction and blessing to the foundation of a new society by Stephen, son of the Count of Tigerno or Thiers, in Auvergne, who had embraced the monastic 1 Congregatio Hirsaugiensis, at Hirschau, in the Black Forest, where the monastery lasted 500 years ; and the elm, which broke through the con- vent roof, still puts forth leaves every spring. 2 See above, p. 333, note *. S. Wilhelmi Constitutiones Hirsaugirnses ; in Herrgott's Veins Disciplina Momstica, Paris, 1726, pp. 375 seq. Respecting the life of William, see Bernoldi, Chron. ad ann. 1091, ap. Pertz, vii. 451; Jo. Tuthemii (oh. 1516) Annates ILrsaugienses. 3 Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 527. 528. One of William's rules deserves especial praise, and its general adoption by the transcribers of MSS. would have earned the gratitude of critics. Over all the transcribers, amongst whom the twelve best writers worked on the Scriptures and the books of the Fathers, was set " one monk, most learned in every kind of knowledge, whose duty was to appoint to each some good work for tran- scription, and to emend the faults of the more careless writers.'7 (Annal. Hirsauj. i. 227 ; ap. Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 416.) A.D. 1074. ORDER OF GRAMMONT. 337 life as a boy, in emulation of the hermits of Calabria.1 He went alone into a rocky wood near Limoges, built a hut of branches, and by the token of a ring — the only remnant of his property — devoted himself to the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mother. His bed was of boards sunk in the earth, like a grave, without even straw ; his prayers were so frequent and fervent, that he sometimes forgot food and sleep for days together. After a year, Stephen was joined by two companions, and soon afterwards by more, over whom he ruled as " corrector," humbly refusing the title of abbot ; and he exempted them from much of his own ascetic discipline. " It was believed that he had the power of reading their hearts ; tales are related of the miracles which he did, and of the wonderful efficacy of his prayers ; and a sweet odour was perceived to proceed from his person by those who conversed with him." 2 On his death, after 59 years of this hermit life (1124), the place was claimed by a neighbouring monastery ; and, directed by a voice from heaven, the brethren carried their master's remains to Grarnmont (a league distant), which place gave the order its name.3 Though professedly under the Benedictine system, but with a much more rigorous discipline, Stephen had declared that his only rule was that of the Christian religion ; and the order had no written code till the time of his third successor, Stephen of Lisiac (1141), under whom the fraternity reached its height, and numbered about 140 " cells " (as their convents were called), subject to the prior of Grarnmont. The rule imposed obedience, asceticism, and the strictest poverty. The monks were to accept no payment for Divine offices; they were to possess no churches, and no lands beyonds the precincts of their monasteries ; nor were they allowed to keep any cattle — " for (it is said) if ye were to possess beasts, ye would love them, and for the love which ye would bestow on beasts, so much of Divine love would be withdrawn from you," — a striking contrast to the teaching — " He prayeth best that loveth best All things both great and small ; For the same God that loveth us, He made and loveth all." 1 Vita S. Stephani, by Gerhard, 7th prior of Grarnmont, in the collec- tion of Martene and Durand, vi. 1050 ; and Patrvlog. cciv. ; Mabillon, A nnal. v. 65, 99 ; Acta SS. Ord. Benedict. Ssec. VI. praef. p. xxxiv. 2 Gerhard, 20-31 ; Robertson, ii. 763. 3 Ordo Grandiirvmtensis. Stephen was canonized by Clement III. in 1189. The place of his burial, which the monks had concealed, was betrayed by the miracles wrought there ; and the distraction of the convent's quiet by the resort of pilgrims only ceased when the prior threatened his deceased master, that he would throw his relics into the river if the miracles continued ! — Gerhard, 55 ; Robertson, ii. 763-4. 338 THE CARTHUSIAN ORDER. Chap. XX- Only when they had been without food for two days, might they send out brethren to beg, and then only for one day's supply. Flesh was forbidden even to the sick ; though the ornaments of the church were to be sold rather than they should want needful tendance. As in the Cluniac rule, a code of signals was prescribed for the long periods during which strict silence was enjoined. The brethren were not to leave the wilderness to preach ; this must be done by their life there ; and its effect, so long as they preached by self-denial, is attested by their popular name of the " Good Men." * But they were ruined by the relaxations of their rules, sanctioned by the Popes,2 and especially by quarrels between the monks and the lay brethren ; and the order lost its independence before the end of the 13th century. § 7. Ten years after Gregory VI I. 's commission to Stephen, the Carthusian Order was founded by Bruno of Cologne,3 Chancellor of the diocese of Hheims, and rector of the cathedral school, in disgust at the worldliness and tyranny of the Archbishop Manasses, who was deposed by Gregory.4 Retiring, with six companions, into the mountains above Gre- noble, Bruno built a monastery in a cleft of the rocks of the Grande Chartreuse, which gave its name to the order5 (1084). Six years after, he reluctantly accepted the invitation of his farmer pupil, 1 Du Cange, s. v. Boni Homines. Their convents were called Boni- hominiae. Patrol, cciv. 1001 ; Robertson, ii. 764—5. 2 Especially bv Innocent IV. 1245. 3 Mabillon* Annal. v. 202; Acta SS. Oct. iii. 491; Ata SS. Ord. Benedict. Sa?c. VI. ii. praef. p. xxxvii. 4 The legend, adopted by the Carthusian order, that Bruno's retire- ment was caused by the miraculous revelation of the lost state of a famous doctor of Paris,, who had died with the highest reputation for piety, is acknowledged even by Catholic writers to be a fabrication, which is applied in various forms to various saints. It is fully exposed by Io. Launoy, Be Vera Causa Secessus S. Brunonis in Ercmnm, Paris, 1646 (Opp. II. ii. 324); Gieseler, ii. 217; Robertson, ii. 765,' where the story is given. Other legends of Bruno are related in the Acta SS. Octob. torn. iii. p. 491. The true origin of the order is related by Bruno's con- temporary, Guibert, de Vita Sua, lib. i. c. 11 (Opp. ed. D'Achery, p. 467). 5 Ordo Carthusianus. For a description of the site (4268 feet above the sea) see the Handbook for France, pp. 572, foil.). The original convent was maintained till the Revolution, when the monks were expelled and their invaluable library destroyed (1792). They were restored in 1815; and the name has become curiously familiar by the liqueur, the secret of which is preserved by the monks, an ascetic fraternity ministering to a questionable form of luxury ! The memory of the order in England is preserved by the name of the Charterhouse in London, with its "poor brethren" and famous school (the " Greyfriars " of Thackeray), now removed to Godalming, and succeeded on its old site by the Merchant Taylors' School. A.D. 1100. ORDER OF FONTEVRAUD. 339 Urban IT., to Rome ; but, soon weary of the life in the great city, he retired to Calabria, and founded a second Carthusian convent (S. Stefano del Bosco), where he died in 1101. 1 The disciples who had followed him to Rome had meanwhile returned by his desire to the Grande Chartreuse, where the order was re-united in 1141. It was an eremite community of the austerest type; but, like the Benedictines, the monks used the time not occupied in devotion, in the study and preservation of literature. The wealth which flowed in to them, though their rules enjoined the strictest poverty, was employed on the buildings of their convents and the decoration of their churches;2 but they still preserved themselves from per- sonal luxury more strictly than any other order ; thus they escaped the satire which was profusely lavished on monks in general, and they never needed a reformation.3 There were also Carthusian establishments for nuns ; but the discipline proved too severe for women, and only five such convents survived in the 18th century. § 8. On the other hand, the female sex was the special, though not exclusive, object of the Order of Fontevraud* founded by Robert of Arbrissel (or Albresac, near Rennes, born 1047). Having studied at Paris, and become a teacher of theology, he was recalled to be vicar to the Bishop of Rennes (108 monstratensians. In 1131, revisiting Premontre, in company with Innocent II., he found it flourishing under his old comrade and successor Hugh, with about five hundred brethren. Norbert died in 1134, and was canonized by Gregory XIII. in 1582. " In the rule of the Pramionstratensians, the rigid life of monks was combined with the practical duties of the clerical office. The Cistercian system of annual chapters was adopted, and the Abbot of Premontre was elected by those of seven other houses, of which three were permanently fixed, while the others were variable. The order was not allowed to possess tolls, taxes, or serfs ; and the members were especially forbidden to keep any animals of the more curious kinds, such as deer, bears, monkeys, peacocks, swans, or hawks. . . . The Pramonstratensians spread widely — even in the the founder's lifetime they had houses in Syria and Palestine — and 1 Norbert's reputation had been enhanced by his success in reclaiming the followers of the fanatical heretic, Tanchelm, in 1126. (See below, Chap. XXXIV. § 7.) 2 Count Theobald was also a great friend of Bernard. His liberality to convents is celebrated, among other high virtues, by Robert of Auxerre (jChron. ap. Bouquet, xii. 291 ; quoted in Robertson, ii. 777). 346 DEGENERACY OF THE NEW ORDERS. Chap. XX. they long kept up their severity ; but in the course of years their discipline was impaired by wealth, and the order has become extinct even in some countries of the Roman communion where it was once established." 1 §11. In the natural tendency of all human things to degradation and decay, not only does every reformation soon need to be reformed, but each new reform contains new germs of corruption ; and the new orders, which sprang chiefly from a desire to reform the old, soon became subject to this law. Their very multiplication and popularity 2 caused the rapid development of monasticism to assume a more and more worldly and ambitious form. The zeal with which the movement was patronized by Gregory VII. and his suc- cessors invited a jealous rivalry among the monasteries for the papal privileges and exemptions, which sometimes even professed to make them independent of all authority, secular as well as eccle- siastical.3 When such bulls and letters were not obtained, they were unscrupulously forged so generally that, as Peter of Blois declared to Alexander III., "forgery prevailed in almost every exemption of monasteries," and monks on their death-beds con- fessed to the wholesale fabrication of such documents.4 "The abbots aimed at entire independence of the episcopal authority, even attempting, like the lawless barons of the time, to pre- sent clerks to parish churches without submitting them to the bishop of the diocese for institution.5 They affected the use of 1 Robertson, vol. ii. pp. 777-8. Of the great military orders, and some new ones of less importance, we have to speak in the next Chapter. 2 As an example of this rapid increase, in England, where there had not been above 100 monasteries before the Conquest, upwards of 300 were founded under Henry I. and his two successors. 3 Thus Urban II.,* Epist. 10, ad abbatem Cavensem : "Cavense ccenobium . . . . ab omni tarn saecularis quam ecclesiasticae personae jugo liberum esse omnino decernimus." For the whole passage, and the various privileges granted to the monastery, see Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 213, 220. 4 Peter Bles. Epist. 68 : the letter is written in the name of Richard, archbishop of Canterbury : see other cases in Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 221. and Robertson, vol. ii. p. 78+. Among the forgeries confessed to by the dying monk Guerno, of St. Medard's at Soissons (about 1130) was that of apos- tolical privileges for the monastery of St. Augustine's at Canterbury, whose contests with the monks of Christchurch (Canterbury Cathedral), and those of both with the archbishops, as well as of other monasteries with their bishops, furnish striking examples of tlie working of monastic ambition. See Canon Perry's Student's English Church Histurif, part i. 5 See the examples and complaints in Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 222. At the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) Innocent III. pronouuced against the grave excesses of certain abbots in usurping episcopal functions, taking cognizance of matrimonial causes, enjoining public penances, granting even letters of indulgence, and similar acts of presumption, which led many to contemn the authority of the bishops. Cent. XL AMBITION AND PROFLIGACY OF THE MONKS. 347 episcopal ornaments, and the episcopal right of bestowing bene- dictions." 1 While the abbots thus aimed to become equal with and inde- pendent of the bishops, the monks had a similar rivalry with the canons, both secular and regular ; contending with both for the possession of the cathedrals, and with the latter respecting the superiority of their respective modes of life and the exercise of clerical functions. While the monks claimed the favour of the people as being holier and more devoted to sacred duties, the canons tried to keep the monks to their convents, and denied their right to preach. In the warm controversy between the orders, Abelard took the side of the monks.2 The occupation of all parties with these ambitious aims and con- troversies, and the increasing freedom of the monasteries from episcopal oversight, could not but tend to the relaxation of dis- cipline; and, while abbots and monks strove with bishops and canons for rank and power, they often vied with them in pride, worldliness, luxury, and grosser vices.3 Peter of Blois4 testifies that the monasteries most distinguished for holiness were those which either had never desired the privileges in question, or had voluntarily resigned them. Bernard is vehement in his complaints of the injury done to monastic piety and purity by the system, which (he says) only made the bishops more insolent and the monks more dissolute ; 5 and he wished that he might sit in the Pope's seat for three years, chiefly to effect these three reforms — the first, to recal bishops to subjection and obedience to their Metropolitans and the exempted abbots to their bishops ; the second, that no ecclesiastic should hold two preferments ; the third, that no monk 1 Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 247-8. "Samson of St. Edmund's Bury was the first English abbot who obtained the privilege of giving the solemn episcopal blessing, wherever he might be, A.D. 1187. (Jocelin de Brakelonda, 41.) " The student should read Mr. Carlyle's picture of the monastic life at Bury under Abbot Samson, but not forgetting the colouring which the writer imparts to it. For the strong language of Bernard (himself an abbot) against the ambition and usurpations of the abbots, see Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 222-3. 2 Abelard, Epist. 12, in JJ.">. 3 "Opportunities for wanton living were especiallv given when there were convents for both sexes under one roof or close beside each other, or when in an establishment for monks sorores comer sx or reclusas were to be found. (Raumer, vi. 426; Hurter, iii. 527.)" Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 224, who cites satires, such as the Speculum Stultorum and Land of CockayauPeres for pontifices — "what has gold to do in the sanctuary?" Nor does he refrain from asking plainly, whether all this does not spring, not from the spirit of sacrifice, but from " covetousness, which is idolatry." And to the question — how ? — he answers : — " By such kind of art money is scattered, that it may be multiplied. By the very sight of sumptuous vanities, displayed for admiration, men are incited rather to offering than to prayer. By relics covered, with gold the eyes are feasted, that the purses may be opened. . . . What, think ye, is sought in all this? the contrition of penitents, or the admiration of beholders. Oh ! vanity of vanities ! and not more vain than insane." Nor is he less severe on the exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, which was the privilege of all the Cluniac monasteries. Peter the Venerable, the new and devoted Abbot of Clugny, defends his order in his letters to Bernard, who was his intimate friend, not so much in reply to the remonstrances of the latter, as against the attacks of the Cistercians.3 As he puts the case, it is the old contest between Christian charity and Pharisaic self- righteousness. While complaining of the popular preference for the younger order, Peter claims the respect due to the Cluniacs of his day as the restorers of the ancient discipline. His reply on the freedom from episcopal oversight is equally bold and 1 He would seem to have chosen the epithet " supervacuas latitudines " as implying (according to its original sense) empty aisles, useless for the worship of a congregation. 2 Persius, Sat. ii. 69. 3 Petri Ven. Epist. i. 28, iv. 17, among Bernard's works as Epist. 228. 229 ; also Epist. vi. 4, ad Bernard, and Epist. 15, ad Priores Ord. Cluniac, On this friendly controversy, see Maitland's Dark Ages, pp. 423 foil. II— R2 350 DECREE AGAINST NEW ORDERS. Chap. XX. suggestive of the growing devotion of the monks to the Papacy : while free, he says, to use the ministration of the bishops they might choose, the Cluniacs were subject only to the truest and holiest of all bishops, the Bishop of Home. He urges a spirit of harmony and love; but the rivalry between the orders was not to be appeased by the love, or even the authority, of a Bernard and a Peter, and it continued after their death.1 Meanwhile, the Cistercians were not long in yielding to the growing corruption which befel all the monastic orders ; and we find them, point by point, incurring the very same censures which Bernard had brought against the Cluniacs, till, at the end of the 13th century, \\ alter Map speaks of the Cistercians with especial abhorrence, and ridicules their pretensions to superior holiness and mortification.2 Even apart from positive corruptions, the very multiplication of new orders — with their various rules, forms of worship, and dis- cipline and dress, as if each were "a law to itself" — was so great a cause of scandal and doubt about the virtue of the whole system, that at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) Innocent III. strictly forbad the foundation of new orders, and decreed that any one who wished to devote himself to a " religious " profession should take one of those already approved.3 But even a Pope who claimed Divine authority on earth might " propose " without being able to " dispose ;" and scarcely had the decree been issued when the zeal of a lowly enthusiast prevailed on Innocent to sanction the latest and mightiest development of monasticism in the two great orders of Mendicant Friars.4 1 Among the curious literary monuments of the dispute are the work of a German Cistercian against the Cluniacs (written between 1153 and 1173), entitled Dialogus inter Cluniac. Monachum et Cisterc. de diversis utriiaxonix. As has been said above, the Carthusians long remained an exception to the prevalent degeneracy, owing, as the leonine verse said, to their observance of the three great points of discipline, solitude, silence, and regular visitation : " Per tria So. Si. Vi. Carthusia permanet in vi." 2 John de Huesden, prior of Windesheim (1391-1424) is named as one of the leaders of the society of Brethren of the Common Life (see Chap. XXXIII. § 16). It is interesting, as an omen of the future, to find another centre of the reforming movement at Wittenberg. In all this work John Busch took a leading part, as prior of Hildesheim. Cent. XV. NEW CONGREGATIONS. 367 Benedictine houses in France. Kome herself recognized the need of monastic reform as one object of the mission of Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa to Germany (1450-1) ; and the bishops and secular princes endeavoured to enforce reformation on the monks, who generally resisted all such efforts. § 15. Hence it resulted that the reforming party among the monks themselves generally drew off into separate houses, though still in connection with the great orders. The chief of these in Italy was the Benedictine congregation of St. Justina, founded by Louis Barbo at Padua, recognized by Martin V. in 1417, and in 1504 absorbed in that of Monte Cassino, which had joined the society ; as was also a similar congregation in Sicily (1506). The congregation of St. Bernard, in Tuscany and Lombardy, was founded in 14 97.1 In Spain, the Benedictines had the reformed congregation of Valladolid, founded by Martin de Vargas in 1425. But the most powerful of the new orders sprang from the energetic life of the Mendicants.2 1 We have already had occasion to mention the short-lived military orders of Jesus and " the Blessed Virgin Mary of Bethlehem," founded by Pius II. for his abortive Crusade (1458, p. 209). 2 The independent societies, partaking of a monastic character, for ob- jects of practical religion and benevolence, are described later, in connection with Mysticism, with which they bad a close affinity (see Chap. XXXIII.). Monks.— Devotion and Labour. One at prayer and two basket-making. From an early picture (Bottari). Interior of Cordova Cathedral. CHAPTER XXII. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. ST. DOMINIC AND THE PREACHING FRIARS. a.d. 1170, et seq. 1. Failure of the old Orders and Secular Clergy for the wants of the Age — Leading idea of the new Orders ; activity in the world : how varied by Dominicans aud Franciscans — Motive of antagonism to the sectaries. § 2. The Spaniard DOMINICTJS (Domingo Guzman) : his early life and austerity. §3. Goes to Rome with his bishop, Diego: both sent to Languedoc against the Albigenses — Diego's rebuke of the Cistercian legates — The work continued by Dominic. § -i. His alleged part in the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition. § 5. Real charac- ter of his woik — His school for girls— He founds the Order of Preachers: sanctioned by Innocent III. and Honorius III.- — Mastership of the Sacred Palace— His farewell to Languedoc. § G. Dominic at Rome- Spread of the Order — Their names of Black Friars and Jacobins — Their first General Chapters : rule of poverty adopted from the Franciscans. § 7. The A.D. 1215. NEW IDEA OF THE FRIARS. 369 General, Diffinitores, and provincial friars. § 8. Class of Tertiaries. § 9. Death, Miracles, and Canonization of St. Dominic — Spread of the Order — Missionary zeal. § 10. Later History of the Dominicans — Their special spheres of work, and relations to the Franciscans and the Papacy. § 1. We have seen how the power, independence, and abuses of the Monastic Orders led the Fourth Lateran Council to forbid their further multiplication (1215).1 Almost, however, at the moment when this canon was enacted, Innocent found himself impelled to give his sanction to the new and soon famous orders of Mendicant Friars,2 which sprang up from the zeal of two enthusiasts, to supply wants which were neither met by the existing orders nor by the secular clergy. While the latter, cold, worldly, and corrupt, had lost their hold on the hearts and minds of men, the monks, living apart from the world, had — with a few bright exceptions — become unfit for the active exercise of public religious offices and teaching, from which, indeed, they were precluded by their con- stitution.3 An age of growing intellectual activity not only felt the want of spiritual guidance, but despised its proper guides;4 while, to increase the danger, examples of the self-denial which the monks had ceased to practise, and of the evangelic activity which the clergy had disused, and especially of preaching the Word, were to be found among the sectaries whom the Church branded as heretics. The new idea, which found expression in the Mendicant Orders, is thus described by Archbishop Trench5: — "Hitherto the 1 Chap. XX., fin. p. 367. 2 The reader is reminded that there is no essential distinction in the name of Friars, the English form (through the French frere and Old English frere) of the Latin Fratres, which was the common appellation of all members of religious orders ; but its use without the name of monks gave rise to its specific application to the Mendicant Orders, who were not separated from the world, like the monks. The common prefix Fra to the names of friars is the abbreviation of the Italian Frate, " brother." 3 Though this was the essential character of monasticism, we have seen that the ministrations of religion were not only practised by the monks, but very generally preferred by the people. But such inter- ference was forbidden by express decrees. Thus the Council of Poitiers (1100) ordered that no monk should take upon himself {prgesumare) the parochial ministry of presbyters, namely, baptism, preaching, and giving penance {Cone. Pietav. c. 11) ; and Calixtus II., in the First Lateran Council (1123, c. 17), forbad abbots and monks to give public penances, to visit the sick, administer unctions, and sing public masses. 4 See the admirable remarks on the complete incompetency, both of the secular clergy, whose teaching was almost wholly through the ritual, and of the monks, who lived to save and benefit themselves, and not the world, in Milman, book ix. c. ix. vol. vi. pp. 1 seqq. 5 Medieval Church History, p. 231. 370 MOTIVE FOR THE NEW ORDERS. Chap. XXII. monk, in his ideal perfection, had been one who, withdrawing from the world, had sought in prayer, penitence, and self-mortification, to set forward the salvation of his own soul ; now he should be one who, in labours of self-denying love, in dispensing the Word of life, should seek the salvation of others.1 Hitherto he had fled from the world, as one who, in conflict with it, must inevitably be worsted ; now he should make war upon the world and overcome it — nothing doubting that, in seeking the salvation of others, he should best work out his own." This ideal was so far common to the two orders, in which, however, it took contrasted forms, as remarkable as their simultaneous rise. The pure devotion of St. Francis aimed to revive the old monastic self-renunciation in union with incessant evangelic work ; the austerer zeal of St. Dominic was inflamed by the need of a new power to combat heresy. This contrasted spirit of the founders was impressed upon the societies they formed. " Each of those orders had at the outset its distinctive character : the Dominicans, severely intellectual, rigidly orthodox, and tinged by the sternness and the gloom which had been impressed on the religion of the founder's native land ; the Franciscans, milder and more genial, addressing themselves less to the intellect than to the sentiments and the affections." 2 One chief motive to the creation of the new orders was the con- sciousness that the spiritual work, which the clergy had abandoned, and which the monks were incompetent to perform, had passed away into the hands of the sectaries; and it was the peculiar fortune of the Church of Rome, at the climax of its power under Innocent III., to enlist into her service the very elements of indi- vidual freedom, mystical enthusiasm, and, above all, the supreme power of popular preaching, which had begun to threaten her ascendancy. While both orders took up the clergy's work of popular instruction, and revived the ideal of monastic poverty and self-sacrifice, but for the benefit of others and no longer for their own, the energy of spiritual enthusiasm found a new expression in the life and influence of Francis, while the power of preaching and an unflinching conflict with heresy were the great aims of Dominic.3 § 2. The order founded by the latter took its peculiar character from the fervid zeal of the South, partly in his own Spanish origin,4 and 1 This contrast is marked in the Prologue to the Rules of the Dominican Order (c. 3): " Onlo noster speciali'er ob praxlicationem et animarum salntem ab initio noscitur institutus fuisse, et studium nostrum ad hoc debet principaliter intendere, nt proximonim animabus possinvis utiles esse.'' 2 Robertson, vol. iii. p. 363. 3 The whole subject of the Heresies of this age is tieated below, in Book VI. * See Dean Milman (vol. vi. p. 10) : " In Dominic, Spain began to A.D. 1170 f. EARLY LIFE OF ST. DOMINIC. 371 partly by way of antagonism to the heretics of Languedoc, with whose history his own is inseparably linked.1 Domingo Guzman2 (Lat. Dominicus) was born in 1170, at Calaruega, a village in the diocese of Osma, in Old Castile. Among the portents, borrowed from classical and ecclesiastical antiquity, which foreshadowed his power and eloquence before his birth, was one which alluded to the play upon his name, in which his followers rejoiced, as Domini canes ("the Lord's watch-dogs").3 Going to the University of Falencia4 at the age of fifteen, he spent ten years in study, chiefly of theology ; and here his self-devotion shone forth in a gentler light than afterwards invested his name. During a famine, to feed the poor he sold not only his clothes, but his books, the value of which to him in that age of MSS. was enhanced by his own notes ; and, at a later time, he offered to sell himself for the redemption of another.5 But exercise that remarkable influence over Latin Christianity, to display that peculiar character, which culminated as it were in Ignatius Loyola, in Philip II., and in Torquemada, of which the code of the Inqui- sition was the statutory law, of which Calderon was the poet. The life of every devout Spaniard was a perpetual crusade ; by temperament and by position he was in constant adventurous waifare against the enemies of the Cross. Hatred of the Jew, of the Mohammedan, was the herrban under which he served ; it was the oath of his chivalry. That hatred, in all its intensity, was soon and easily extended to the heretic ; hereafter it was to comprehend the heathen Mexican, the Peruvian. St. Dominic was, as it were, a Cortez, bound by a sense of duty, urged by an inward voice, to invade older Christendom." 1 See below, Chap. XXXVII. Of the many Lives of St. Dominic the oldest is that by Jordanus, his successor as general of the order, in the Acta SS., August, i. 545 ; next, the one in use by the order, written about 1254 by the fifth general, Humbertus de Romanis, ibid. p. 358 ; also the Annates Ordinis Prxdicatorum, by Th. M. Mamachius, and others, Rom., 1746 f. ; Quetif and Echard, Script. Ord. Prxd., Paris, 1719 f . ; Monumenta et Anting, veteris Disciplmx, &c, edited by Masetti, Rom. 1864; Lacordaire, Vie de S. Dominic, Paris, 1841 and (ed. 5) 1855 for other authorities see Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 236. 2 The descent, which his name might seem to imply, from one of the noblest houses of Spain, is questioned by the Bollandists. 3 His mother's dream, that she brought forth a dog with a torch in its mouth, which set the world on fire, was interpreted by his followers to signify that he was a dog barking against heretics, and the torch was either the light of knowledge or the flame of charity. 4 Afterwards famous at its new seat of Salamanca. 5 According to one story, a slave among the Moors ; according to another, the proposed sacrifice was for the support or a man who hesitated to avow his conversion from heresy, lest he should forfeit the charity on which he lived. Archbishop Trench remarks on the absence in Dominic of those tender traits which so much attract us in the character of St. Francis: " Lven those who exalt him the most, and those who knew him the nearest, sutler this to be seen. Austere is the epithet which in a Papal Bull is applied to him ; while a line of Dante's about him, ' Good 372 DIEGO AND DOMINIC IN LANGUEDOC. Chap. XXII. while thus displaying his natural tenderness even towards JewS and infidels, he zealously hardened his heart against heretics. In his twenty-fifth year he was enrolled by Diego de Azevedo (Lat. Dida- cus), bishop of Osma, as one of the canons of the cathedral,1 among whom he was distinguished for his austerity. " His life was rigidly ascetic ; he gave more of his time to prayer than to sleep ; and although during the daytime he was cheerful in his conversation, his nights were for the most part spent in severely penitential exercises ; he flogged himself nightly with an iron chain, once for his own sins, once for the sinners in this world, and once for those in purgatory." 2 § 3. After nine years of this obscure life, Dominic, now sub-prior, was chosen to accompany his bishop on a mission to Denmark, which was rendered useless as soon as they crossed the Pyrenees ; 3 and they proceeded on a pilgrimage to Rome (1203). The object of the pious Diego was to ask the Pope's leave to give up his quiet bishopric for the dangers of a mission to the heathens who still occupied a part of Hungary, in which Dominic would doubtless have still shared. But Innocent III. saw the need of such spirits nearer home ; and he sent the bishop back to his diocese with Dominic, armed with a commission for the extirpation of the heresy, which had already vexed their souls on their first arrival in Languedoc.4 They returned thither (1205), at the crisis when the mission of Cistercians, who had been sent to convert the Albi- genses, were despairing of success ;5 and when, at Montpellier, they met the Papal Legates with all their pompous retinue (for so had the Cistercians already degenerated), Diego answered their com- plaints with the famous rebuke and exhortation, which marks him as the author of the principles which were afterwards wrought out by Dominic : — " How can you expect success with this secular pomp ? It is not by the display of power and pomp, cavalcades of i etainers and richly houseled palfreys, or by gorgeous apparel, that to his friends and dreadful to his foes ' — crudo is the word used — may be taken for praise or blame, or for something made up of both, as we will." (Medieval Church History, p. 234.) 1 The bishop had changed the monastic chapter into one of canons regular of St. Augustin. * Jordan, 45-6 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 364. 3 By the death of the Danish princess, whose marriage with Alfonso VIII. of Castile was the object of the embassy. 4 "No sooner had they crossed the Pyrenees (on their journey from Spain) than they found themselves in the midst of the Albigensian heresy: they could not close their eyes on the contempt into which the clergy had fallen, or on the prosperity of the sectarians; their very host at Toulouse was an Albigensian. Dominic is said to have converted him before the morning." (Milman, vol. vi. p. 12.) 5 Comp. Chap. XXXVII. § 3. A.D. 1205 f. DOMINIC'S WORK AND MIRACLES. 373 the heretics win proselytes ; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity; by seeming, it is true, but yet seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal; false sanctity by real sanc- tity; preaching falsehood by preaching truth. Sow the good seed as the heretics sow the bad. Cast off those sumptuous robes, send away those richly caparisoned palfreys ; go barefoot, without purse and scrip, like the Apostles ; out-labour, out-fast, out-discipline these false teachers." Enforcing the lesson by an example which the legates were shamed into following, Diego and Dominic sent away their own horses, and barefoot, in the simplest canonical dress, led the way in a course of preaching and disputation in repeated conferences. When Diego returned to his diocese (1207), where he died a few months later, Dominic remained to carry on the work ; and his eloquence is said to have been enforced by abundant miracles. Not to repeat some which are absurdly ludi- crous, " Dominic raised the dead, frequently fed his disciples in a manner even more wonderful than the Lord in the desert. His miracles equal, if not transcend, those in the Gospel. It must indeed have been a stubborn generation, to need besides these wonders the sword of Simon de Montfort." x § 4. The conduct of Dominic during the Crusade against the Albi- genses is a problem which we have not positive historic evidence to solve. His earliest biographers are silent about his presence with the armies (attended by miracles), of which his later admirers boast, but which still later apologists again deny, according as opinion has varied on the character of such deeds.2 So too, as to the part he is said to have taken in the still greater judicial cruelties of the tribunal of Toulouse, and the doubtful honour of being the 1 Milman (vi. 14), who observes that the miracles of Dominic are largely borrowed from the lives of the Saviour and those of the saints. This is tiue of the whole mass of ecclesiastical miracles ; but the imitators generally try to improve on the originals. For a full account of the miracles, see the work of the Bollandists. 2 This is not a question between Catholics and Protestants, nor even between different parties in the Roman Church, but one among the Dominicans themselves. The Bol.andists maintain their founder's title to "that bad eminence'' in such language as that of Maloendia : " What glory, what splendour and dignity, belong to the Order of Preachers, words cannot express! for the Holy Inquisition owes its origin to St. Dominic, and was propagated by his faithful followers : by them heretics of all kinds, the innovators and corrupters of Bound doctrine, were destroyed, unless they would recant, by tire and sword : " quoting which, Dean Milman adds that " Calmer enquiry must rob him of, or release him from, these questionable glories. His heroic acts, as moving in the van of bloody battles, his title of Founder of the Inquisition, belong to legend, not to history " (vol. vi. p. 16). II— S 2 374 DOMINIC IN LANGUEDOC. Chap. XXII. Founder of the Inquisition, which was formally confirmed to Dominic by a Bull of Sixtus V.1 As Dean Milman observes, "It is his Order that has thrown back its aggrandizing splendour on Dominic." His character and deeds have been confused with those of his followers, who were more Dominican than Dominic himself.2 When the Inquisition was fully established by Gregory IX. (1233, twelve years after the death of Dominic), its administration was entrusted to the order, who became thenceforth the zealous agents ( f its cruelties.3 They rejoiced in the title of " Persecutor of the Heretics," conferred on their founder by the Inquisition of Tou- louse ; and the story of his interference to save one victim, in whom he saw some hopes of reconciliation, implies his habitual severity. While the silence of his earliest biographers as to his sitting on the tribunals of Languedoc leaves such stories without evidence, they are equally silent about any opposition or interference on his part ; and so, with regard to the Crusade " all, perhaps, that is certainly known is, that he showed no disapprobation of the character or of the deeds of Simon de Montfort; he obeyed his call to bless the marriage of his son, and the baptism of his daughter."4 After all, there is no doubt as to Dominic's spirit ; and while the evidence points only to his activity in preaching, it may be that " his words were very swords," sharpening the weapons of the persecutors. § 5. Turning to what we know with certainty of his real work, we have an admirable description of its character by Archbishop Trench 5 : — " Having accompanied his bishop on a preaching mis- sion in the South of France for the conversion of the anti-Catholic sects which were swarming there, he became aware of the imminent danger which threatened the Papacy from the wide-spread revolt of men's spirits. Nor was he less impressed by the unfitness of the secular or parochial clergy to contend with spiritual weapons against the sectaries, by the ignorance and sloth of the lower clergy, the worldly splendour of the higher; this all contrasting most un- favourably with the simplicity in life of their adversaries, their diligence and zeal in propagating their doctrines. He saw, too, how little help was to be gotten from the older monastic orders. Estranged from the poor, their own vows of poverty eluded, at their best seeking first and chiefly their own spiritual welfare, if not seeking this alone, they wholly failed to meet the needs of the 1 Bulla de festo S. Petri Martyris, a.d. 1586, in Bullar. Rom. ii. 573, ed. Luxemb. 1727. 2 One is tempted to say, with reference to their favourite watchword, that, if Dominic barked at the stray sheep to drive them into the fold, the Dominic'ins worried and mangled them. 3 See below, Chap. XXXVIII. 4 Milman, vol. vi. p. 15. 5 Medieval Church, p. 231. A.D. 1215-16. ORDER OF PREACHING FRIARS. 375 time. It was an aggressive order, one which should boldly take up the challenge which the sectaries had thrown down, that the crisis demanded. Such an order he resolved his Preaching Brethren — the name expresses the central idea for the carrying out of which they existed — should be ; devoting themselves to the preaching of the Word, to the spiritual oversight of the sheep everywhere scattered abroad without a shepherd, and, as another aspect of the same mission, to the repression and extirpation of all heresies." The moral power on which Dominic relied is seen in the first institution which he organized. Observing that the noble ladies of Languedoc were among the most eager hearers of the heretics, whose free schools kept the youth under their influence, he founded a school and retreat at Prouille, for the daughters of the poorer nobles (1209). But this was only a subsidiary work ; and his new Order of Preachers was first formed at St. Ronain, near Toulouse, of sixteen brethren, most of whom were Provencals, some Spaniards, and one an Englishman. But, though it sprang from the conflict with heresy in Languedoc, the order was to have the world for its field. In 1215 Innocent III. convened the Fourth Lateran Council; and Fulk, bishop of Toulouse, took Dominic with him to Rome to obtain the Pope's approval. The reluctance of Innocent was over- come by wiser counsels, while he professed to yield to visions, such as had already warned him to sanction the Franciscan brotherhood.1 The difficulty raised by the canon just enacted, forbidding the creation of new orders, was overcome by Dominic's consent to place his fraternity under the rule of the great preacher St. Augus- tine. Dominic returned to organize his society at Toulouse ; but only as a preparation for the removal of its head-quarters to Rome. In the first year of the new pontificate (1216), Honorius III. con- firmed it as a separate order by the title of Brethren Preachers (Fratres Prsedicatores), or to use the popular translation, Preaching Friars,2 under the government and protection of the Pope ; and he granted it other charters. Besides the privilege of preaching, that of hearing confessions everywhere was the source of enormous power. " On Dominic himself the Pope conferred the Mastership of the Sacred Palace — an office to which is annext the censorship of books, 1 See the following Chapter. 2 The Bull of Honorius, addressed to Dominic, designates them as " champions (pugiles) of the faith." With regard to the possessions con- firmed by it, it must be remembered that the order had not yet adopted the principle of absolute poverty. It is almost certain that they borrowed this from the Franciscans in 1220; but it is very doubtful whether, as the Franciscans assert, Dominic was present at the general Franciscan chapter in 1219. He is affirmed to have known Francis at Rome in 1216 (Acta 88. Aug. 4, p. 442 ; Oct. 4, p. 605). 376 THE " BLACK FRIARS " AND " JACOBINS." Chap. XXII. and which has always been retained by the order." 1 If his farewell address to the nuns of Prouille is genuine,2 after all that was fore- told of his successes and miracles in Languedoc, Dominic was fain to leave the fruit of his ten years' labours there to be still reaped by the sword of the Crusaders : — " For many years I have spoken to you with tenderness, with prayers, and tears ; but, according to the proverb of my country, where the benediction has no effect, the rod may have much. Behold, now, we rouse up against you princes and prelates, nations and kingdoms ! Many shall perish by the sword. 'J he land shall be ravaged, walls thrown down ; and you, alas ! reduced to slavery. So shall the chastisement do that which the blessing and which mildness could not do ! " § 6. At Rome, Dominic took up his abode first at the church of St. Sixtus, which he afterwards gave up to the nuns of the order, and fixed the headquarters permanently at the church of St. Sabina. Among his firmest friends was Cardinal Ugolino, the future Pope Gregory IX. The pilgrims who resorted to Rome carried back to every land the impression of his eloquence, and the conviction that this new power of preaching was what the Church and the world most needed. The order quickly spread, especially in England, where it was patronized by Archbishop Langton, and in France,3 where we shall presently have to speak of its influence in the University of Paris. Their popular name of Black Friars still adheres to the site of their great convent in London ; and in Paris they obtained the name of Jacobins, which was destined to pass on to a society only less terrible for the cruelties of its fanaticism.4 Even the remotest parts of Christendom were soon invaded by the zeal of the Preaching Brothers : two Poles, Hyacinth and Ceslas, carried the rules into their own country : convents were founded at 1 Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 366-7. 2 MS. de Prouille, published by Pere Perrin ; quoted by Lacordaire, p. 404; and Milman, vol. vi. p. 18. 3 In 1218 Philip Augustus bestowed on the Dominicans the hospital of St. James at Paris, whence they obtained the popular name of Jacobin Friars. On the suppression of religious orders at the Revolution, this house became the place of meeting of the Jacobin Club, thus linking under one name the extremes of ecclesiastical and infidel fanaticism. The other equally violent club inherited the name, with the site, of the Cordeliers (i.e. the covd- v earing Franciscans). In England, the Dominicans obtained from their dress (a black cowl worn over the white frock) the popular name of Black Friars, which is perpetuated in the part of London which was granted to them by the Corporation in 1276 for the site of their great convent. 4 Those who may think that the comparison is inverted in degree should remember that where the Reign of Terror slew its thousands (hundreds would be more exact), the Inquisition slew its tens of thousands. A.D. 1220. ORGANIZATION OF THE ORDER. 377 Cracow and at Kiev, the old southern capital of Russia. Repre- sentatives from Italy, France, Provence, Spain, England, Ger- many, and Poland, met at the two General Chapters which were held by Dominic at Bologna before his death. At the first, in 1220, he proposed absolute poverty and subsistence by the alms of the faithful, which Francis of Assisi had made the very foundation of his order. Whether from a conviction of its apostolic character, or from seeing the power which it gave to the Franciscans, the principle was unanimously adopted ; but it was not without much resistance that the original society at Toulouse consented to resign the endowments which Dominic had accepted from Bishop Fulk. How soon both orders broke these new vows of poverty, as the older ones had broken theirs, will appear presently. The process began almost at once, by the acceptance of land and the building of monastic houses, instead of that reliance on hospitality which was a part of the pattern they professed to follow ; l and wealth and splendour soon followed. § 7. At this first general chapter, Dominic wished to resign the dignity of General ; and when the brethren would not consent, he insisted on the appointment of a council of diffinitores (as they were called) representing the whole society, whose authority was to be supreme, even over the Master himself. The organization of the order was completed by a second general chapter, held also at Bologna in the following year. It was divided into eight provinces, namely, Spain, the first in rank, Provence, France, Lombardy, Rome, Germany, Hungary, and England ; and to these, four were added at later times. Each province — with the convents, having their several priors (priores conventuales) — was placed under a Prior (priores provinciates) ; all being governed by the General, who is called both Servant and Master (minister generates, magister ordinis) with his diffinitors. The supreme legislative power was vested in a general chapter of the order, to be held every third year.2 § 8. At a later time, besides the friars, the order — and this applies 1 See Matt. x. 11-13; Luke x. 5-7, where the last words gave a pre- text for contradicting all the rest. It may be observed, in passing, how completely the temporary character of the mendicant commission (if we may so speak) to the disciples whom Christ sent forth to preach, is marked in Luke xxii. 35, 36. The Constitutions of the order prescribe u moderate and humble houses," in which there are to be "no curiosities, superfluities, sculptures, pictures, pavements, or the like, which disfigure our poverty ; but these may be allowed in the churches." 2 The Rules of the order (Constitutiones fratrum ordinis Prsedicatorurn), collected from the decrees of several general chapters by the third general, Raymundus de Pennaforti, are in Holstenius, vol. iv. p. 10, ed. Brock ie. 378 THE DOMINICAN TERTIARIES. Chap. XXII. also to the Franciscans — included a third class of associates, called Tertiaries* — "a wider and more secular community, who were bound to the two former by bonds of close association, by reverence and implicit obedience, and were thus always ready to maintain the interests, to admire and to propagate the wonders, to subserve in every way the advancement, of the higher disciples of St. Dominic or St. Francis. They were men or women, old or young, married or unmarried, bound by none of the monastic vows, but deeply imbued with the monastic, with the corporate spirit ; taught to observe all holy days, fasts, vigils, with the utmost rigour, inured to constant prayer and attendance on divine worship. They were organized, each under his own prior ; they crowded as a duty, as a privilege, into the church whenever a Dominican ascended the pulpit, predisposed, almost compelled (if compulsion were neces- sary) to admire, to applaud, at least by rapt attention. Thus the order spread not merely by its own perpetual influence and un- wearied activity ; it had everywhere a vast host of votaries wedded to its interests, full to fanaticism of its corporate spirit, bound to receive hospitably or ostentatiously their wandering preachers, to announce, to trumpet abroad, to propagate the fame of their elo- quence, to spread belief in their miracles, to lavish alms upon them, to fight in their cause. This lay coadjutary, these Tertiaries, as they were called, or, among the Dominicans, the Soldiers of Jesus Christ, as not altogether secluded from the world, acted more widely and more subtly upon the world. Their rule was not rigidly laid down by the seventh Master of the order, Munion de Zamora ; it was then approved by the Popes." 2 § 9. Ihe death of Dominic, on the fith of August, 1221, was said to have been preceded by supernatural warnings and attended by a vision, in which a brother of the order saw the Master drawn up to heaven on a golden ladder, which was held at the top by the Saviour and the Blessed Virgin, who had long since revealed herself to him as the especial protectress of the order.3 Miracles, greater even than 1 Tertiarii (and »), also called fratres et sorores de Militia Jesu Christi. 2 Milman, vol. vi. pp. 21, 22. "Among the special privileges of the order (in the Bull of Honovius) was that in the time of interdict (so common were interdicts now become) the order might still celebrate mass with low voices without bells. Conceive the influence thus obtained in a religious land everywhere else deprived of its holy services!" 3 The Virgin is said to have shown to Dominic in a vision the white frock with black scapulary and hood. (But there is a great controversy about the original dress of the order; see Quetif and Echard, ii. 71 f . ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 367.) By some of the later writers (Bollandists) Dominic is all but deified as the adopted son of the Virgin, by others of the Father himself, who is made to couple, in an address to the Virgin, his adopted son, Dominic, with his eternal and co-equal Son, in a vision A.D. 1221. DEATH OF ST. DOMINIC. 379 those he had wrought while alive, followed his splendid burial by his friend, Cardinal Ugolino, who, as Pope Gregory IX., canonized St. Dominic in 1233. "I no more doubt," said the Pope; "the sanctity of Dominic, than that of St. Peter and St. Paul ; " but the saint's later worshippers placed him above St. Paul, as well as the other Apostles, as the teacher of an easier way of salvation.1 Such was the progress of the order after the founder's death tl at, when its fourth general, John of Wildeshausen (in Westphalia) held a general chapter at Bordeaux, it reckoned the number of its monasteries as 470; in Spain, 35 ; in France, 52 ; in Germany, 52 ; in Tuscany, 32 ; in Lombardy, 46 ; in Hungary, 30 ; in Poland, 36 ; in Denmark, 28 ; in England, 40. The missionary zeal, which was one great characteristic of the Dominicans, was already spreading the order among heathens, as well as into the Mohammedan coun- tries of Palestine, Greece, Crete, and even as far as Abyssinia. § 10. The subsequent history of the Dominicans is mixed up with that of the other great order, founded about the same time in a friendly rivalry, which passed ere long into jealous opposition.2 We have to speak presently of their philosophical and theological antagonism in the great scholastic movement, as the result of which the scientific divinity of the great Dominicans, Albert and Thomas Aquinas, gave ultimately the law to the Eoman Catholic Church. But their most vehement contest was waged (as we have seen) 3 about the Immaculate Conception, of which the Franciscans were the enthusiastic advocates ; while the Dominicans, not yielding in reverence to the Blessed Virgin, — in whose honour they adopted the Rosary,4 — yet withstood the dogma when all other Latin Christians adopted it. For th;s resistance they were expelled from the University of Paris for fourteen years (1395-1409). But it is a signal proof of their power, that the Franciscan Pope, Sixtus IV., in confirming the dogma by two Bulls, forbad either party to de- nounce the other as guilty of heresy or mortal sin, " inasmuch as the matter had not yet been determined by the Roman Church or the Apostolic see " (1474). In the age of " pious frauds " some over-zealous Dominicans, at Frankfort and Berne, got up a pretended vision of the Virgin herself, to testify to Pope Julius II. that she had been conceived in sin, but a papal commission, presided over by the Dominican provincial himself, sent the prior and three seen by St. Catherine of Siena, a tertiary of the order. For the citations and the bold representations of the relation of the Dominicans to the Virgin, see Milman, vol. vi. pp. 22, 23 ; Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 147. 1 See the Vita S. Dominici (ap. Bolland. Aug. 4), quoted by Milman, ibid. 2 The Dominicans were also specially hostile to the Templars. 3 Chap. XVIII. § 6. < See above, Chap. XVII., p. 288. 380 LATER HISTORY OF THE DOMINICANS. Chap. XXII. monks of the Dominican convent at Berne to the stake for their part in the fraud.1 The divergent characters of the orders are further seen in those different spheres of activity, which helped indeed to mitigate their antagonism. While, as we have seen, Dominic adopted from Francis the rule of evangelic poverty, which both orders soon broke,2 the Dominicans seem never to have regarded it as so essential, to have cast it off the more easily.3 They found special exercise for their influence as confessors to persons of high rank, directing the affairs of great men and the councils of sovereigns, while the ministry of the Franciscans was rather to the common people. But the special power of the Dominicans was in their ad- ministration of the Inquisition, which was committed to them by Gregory IX. in 1232 and 1233, and gave them an impregnable strong- hold even under the several Popes who were Franciscans. But on principle also the order retained that fidelity to the Papacy, from which we shall see a large party of the Franciscans, the " spirituals," turning away into bitter hostility.4 Both orders, however, were active powers in the Church, from the early time when Matthew Paris said (in 1243), " No faithful man now believes he can be saved, except he is directed by the counsels of the Preachers and Minorites," to the complaint of Alexander VI. that " it was safer to offend any powerful king than a Franciscan or Dominican." 5 The Dominicans retained their eminence as preachers, and much of the old religious fervour, which is attested by such members of the order as the mystic Tauler 6 and Savonarola.7 At the eve of the Reformation they were the vehement opponents of the " humanist " Reuchlin ; the chief preachers of, and traders in, indulgences ; and Luther's principal antagonists were Dominicans. Of their fall in popular estimation by this time, in common with the other friars, we have to speak hereafter. 1 For the details, see Giesler, v. 67-9 ; Robertson, vol. iv. p. 357-8. 2 As early as 1243, Matthew Paris — the champion, be it remembered, of the monks against the friars — gives a lively picture of the quarrels which broke out between the orders, " to the astonishment of many " (he slily observes), " because they seemed to have chosen the path of perfec- tion, namely that of poverty and patience," as well as of the corruption of the Mendicants. 3 About 1330, Petrus Paludanus, a Dominican of Paris, published a tract, " quod fratres praedicatores possunt habere possessiones et redditus." 4 See Chap. XXV. 5 Erasmus, Exsej. Seraph., Opera, torn. i. p. 872. 6 See Chap. XXXIII. § 7. 7 See Chap. XIV. § 14. St. Francis in Glory. From the Fresco by Giotto, on the Vault of the Lower Church of St. Francis at Assisi. CHAPTER XXIII. THE MENDICANT FRIARS— continued. ST. FRANCIS AND HIS ORDER. a.d. 1182-1226. § 1. Birth, Early Life, and Character of St. Francis — Religious Ecstasies — Choice of Poverty. § 2. Vision in the Church of St. Dam i an — Quarrel with his father — Devotes himself to Mendicancy — His care for lepers. § 3. Church of the Portiuncula — Call of Francis — His twelve Disciples — Dress of the Grey Friars — Journey to Rome. § 4. Francis and Innocent III. — The three vows, chastity, obedience, and absolute poverty — Hostility to Learning. § 5. The brethren licensed to preach and ordain — Their success and popularity — Their churches at Assisi and Rome — St. Clare and her sisterhood. § 6. Francis a missionary — First two Chapters of the Order — Provincial Ministers — Confirmation . by Innocent III. (1215). § 7. Francis in. Egypt : he attempts to con- 382 BIRTH OF ST. FRANCIS. Chap. XXIII. vert the Sultan — Franciscan Protomartyrs in Morocco. § 8. Charter of Honorius III. to the Fratres Minores or Minorites — Their first arrival in England — Constitution and Rules of the Order — Absolute poverty : no property, houses, or churches. § 9. Francis discourages asceticism : inculcates cheerfulness. § 10. His principles for the government of the order, and functions of the Minister. § 11. Second Order, of St. Clare ; third, of the Tertiaries, or Brethren of Penitence. § 12. The Stigmata sacra of St. Francis — His death, Burial, and Canonization — Controversy on the Stigmata — His Character. § 1. St. Francis of Assisi is distinguished from other saints of the same name by the appellation of the romantic Umbrian town, 13 miles S.E. of Perugia, where he was born twelve years later than Dominic (1182). His father, Peter Bemardini, seems to have desired to commemorate the child's birth during his own absence in France by the name which, on his return home, he substituted for that of John, which had been given by the mother.1 The mira- culous signs attending his birth are only to be noticed as examples of the legends by which his disciples assimilated their founder's life to that of Christ,2 except where they exalted the servant above the 1 The statement of Wadding (i. 21) and others, that the name was given to him later on account of his fondness for the French language, seems certainly erroneous. Among the mass of materials collected by Lucas Wadding, Annales Minorum, s. Trium Ordinum a S. Francisco institutorum (in the completest edition, 18 vols. fol. Romae, 1731-1741), the most important are the Life of S. Francis, written by Thomas de Celano, in 1229 {Acta SS., Oct., torn. ii. p. 683), enlarged in"l246 by the " Tres Socii " (Leo, Angelus, and Rufinus, ib. p. 723), and completed (1261) as the sacred book of the order, from its records and legends by Bonaventura (ibid. p. 742). Other chief authorities are S. Francisci Opera, Paris, 1641, Colon. 1849 ; Legende doree, ou Sommaire de mist, des Freres meridians, Amst., 1734; C. Vogt, d. h. Franz von Assisi, Tubingen, 1840; Malan, Hist, de S. Francis, Par. i841, 1855; Hase, Franz von Assisi, Leipzig, 1856. On the influence of the Franciscans in society, literature, and politics, the late Mr. Brewer's preface to the Monumenta Franciscana, Lond. 1858, in the " Rolls Series " ot English Chronicles, is invaluable : a second volume of this collection of original documents of the order has been edited, with an excellent Preface, by Mr. Richard Howlett, 1882. 2 Thus a prophetess (according to some the Erythrean Sibyl) foretold his birth, which took place, by the suggestion of an unknown visitor, in a stable, and was hailed by angels, though it was a human voice that pro- claimed peace and goodwill ; and, in place of Simeon, an augel held the child at the font. He was foreshadowed by the types in the Old ami New Testaments ; he was the Apocalyptic " angel ascending from the earth, having the seal of the living God" (Rev. vii 2 ) ; ami. m> long as harmony was preserved between the two orders, St. Francis and St. Dominic were the "two staves, Beauty and Bands," seen by the prophet Zechariah (xi. 7), the "Bands" (in the Vulg. funiculus) being the cord which the Franciscans used as a girdle ; in short, they are symbolized by nearly all the sacred couples that could be collected from the Old or New Testament. A.D. 1204 f. HIS CONVERSION AND CALL. 383 Lord. His impulsive and gentle nature had its course shaped by the indulgence of his fond mother, Picca, and the hard practical worldliness of his father, a rich merchant absorbed in trade. From an imperfect education by the clergy of St. George's Church, Francis was taken to assist his father in his business ; but he preferred a life of idle and extravagant pleasure with his young companions, much of his prodigality, however, being bestowed on the poor. At the age of 22, serving in a petty local war, he was made prisoner for a year at Perugia ; and the sobering influence of captivity was enhanced by a subsequent illness. He saw visions, and became rapt in religious ecstasies ; till his fervent devotions centred in the idea of absolute poverty, not only as a self-denying discipline, but in order to " make many rich." When he talked mysteriously of his future bride, he meant Poverty ; and he resolved never to refuse an alms, but to act literally on the precept, " G ive to every one that asketh thee." He made a pilgrimage to Rome, and laid all his little stock of money on St. Peter's altar ; and, on his return, he exchanged his clothes for the rags of the filthiest of a troop of beggars.1 § 2. As he was praying in the church of St. Damian, he heard a voice from the crucifix — " Repair my church, which is falling to ruin." Not understanding the Lord's call to his future work, Francis resolved to repair the church ; and, on being sent by his father to sell a bale of cloth at Foligno, he took the money to the priest of St. Damian, and, on his refusing to receive it, hid it in a hole and himself in a cave, where he spent a month in solitary prayer. After trying by shutting him up at home to reclaim him from his madness or dishonesty, his father brought him into court, that he might be compelled to renounce the patrimony he was wasting. Francis pleaded that he was devoted to the service of God, and the magistrates referred the case to the bishop. The hidden money had been found, and the question of future renunciation alone remained. " I will give the very clothes I wear," said Francis, as he stripped to his haircloth shirt; "Peter Bernardini was my father ; 1 have now but one, my Father in Heaven." Henceforth, with the dress of a hermit, he took up the life, not only of poverty but mendicancy ; begging at the doors of houses and the gates of These and many other " conformities," drawn also from profane history and mythology, are collected in the Liber Conformitatum of Barth. Albizzi (1385," adopted by the order in 1399), which Luther called " the Eulenspiegel and Alcoran of the barefooted monks." (Hase, p. 14). 1 It is well to remember that St. Francis had a predecessor, as earnest if less enthusiastic, in his principles of poverty and preaching, namely Waldo. (See Chap. XXXVI.) 384 FRANCIS AND HIS TWELVE DISCIPLES. Chap. XXIII. monasteries, and discharging the lowest offices. Lepers, who were at that time tended in houses severed from the world, as marked by a disease the type of sin, were the special objects of his care. He spent some time among them in the hospital at Gubbio, kissed their sores, and washed their feet ; and in one case he had a mira- culous reward by the healing of a leper with a kiss.1 These out- casts of humanity became the peculiar care of the Franciscan brotherhood. § 3. Returning to Assisi, he set himself to the redemption of his vow to repair the church of St. Damian ; begging for the mere materials where money could not be got : — " Whoever will give me one stone shall have one prayer ; whoever two, two ; three, three." The people mocked, and his father cursed him when they met : his reply was to ask of a beggar, " Be thou my father, and give me thy blessing." The hand of charity opened to persevering importunity ; and, besides the church of St. Damian, he was enabled to restore two others, those of St. Peter and St. Maria dei Angeli. The latter, called the Portiuncula, became the great sanctuary of the order, for his final call came to him within its walls. There it was that he one day heard the Saviour's charge to the disciples whom he sent forth to preach : " Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves." 2 He had already no purse or money ; so he threw away his wallet, staff, and shoes ; girded a coarse grey tunic 3 about him with a cord, and went through the city, calling men to repentance. One by one he gathered a band of eleven disciples, whom he led out of the town to a place called, from its position at the bend of the river, Rivo Torto ; 4 and here he first formed his order, for which a rule was wanted. Invoking the Holy Trinity, he 1 Thorn. Cel. 17 ; Bonav. 11, 13, 22. On St. Francis and the Lepers, see Mr. Brewer's Preface to the Monumenta Franciscana, p. xxiii. seqq. ; and the Translation of the Testament of St. Francis, p. 592. - Matt. x. 9, 10. 3 This dress (see p. 415) gave the Franciscans the popular name of Grey Friars, the local memorial of which in our midst (corresponding to those of Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and Austint'riars) has been obscured by a more famous appellation ; for it was on the site of the Grey Friars' monastery in London that Edward VI., ten days before his death (June 26th, 1553), founded "Christ's Hospital " for poor fatherless children and foundlings, now best known as the Bluecoat School ; the colour being no survival of the Franciscan grey, but that used in Edward's time for servants. 4 The parallel is evident to Christ's taking His disciples apart to give them the new law of His kingdom in the Sermon on the Blount (Matt. v. 1). To point out all these "conformities" would require a note on almost every passage of the Saint's life; but it is well to remember that the events may have been moulded to the conformities. A.D. 1212. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III. 385 thrice opened the book of the Gospels which lay upon the altar, and read, the first time, "If thou wilt be perfect, sell that thou hast and give to the poor ; " l the second, " Take nothing for your journey;"2 the third, "If any will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me."3 At once accepting both the rule and the mission, Francis made the sign of the cross, and sent forth his followers in four bands into the neighbouring villages, east and west, and north and south, — a sign of dividing the world for their field of labour. This was done on St. Luke's Day, Oct. 18th, 1212. Reassembling at Rivo Torto, they set forth to Rome, to ask the sanction and blessing of the Holy Father; and on the way, the sacred number of twelve disciples was com- pleted by a knight, who at once obeyed the call of Francis to lay aside his baldric and gird him with a cord ; for his sword to take up the cross ; and to exchange his gilded spurs for dirt and mire. § 4. " Innocent III." — so Dean Milman describes the scene — " was walking on the terrace of the Lateran, when a mendicant of the meanest appearance presented himself, proposing to convert the world by poverty and humility. The haughty Pontiff dismissed him with contempt." But wiser councils were either suggested, or fortified, by a dream, in which he saw the Church in danger of falling, and Francis propping it up. Here, though the connection is less direct than in the case of Dominic,4 we may trace the same idea of meeting the growing danger of heresy with the weapons of the heretics themselves ; " The Poor Men of the Church might out- labour and out-suffer the Poor Men of Lyon." 5 Innocent received Francis and heard his proposal in the midst of the cardinals, some of whom objected to the difficulty and even impossibility of the vows ; but the Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina replied, " To suppose that anything is impossible with God is to blaspheme Christ and His 1 Matt. xix. 21. 2 Mark vi. 8. 3 Matt. xvi. 24-. 4 It should be remembered that the Dominican order, though not sanctioned till three years later, was already formed and in full operation in Languedoc. 5 Milman, vol. vi. p. 30. This is not a rhetorical antithesis of the his- torian's, but the account distinctly given by the Chron. Ursperg. ad ann. 1212 (p. 243, ed. Argentorat. 1609): "At that time, when the world was already growing old, two religions (i.e. orders) sprang up in the Church, whose youth is renewed like the eagle's, which were also con- firmed by the apostolic see, namely, those of the Lessor Brethren and the Preachers. And they were probably approved on this occasion, because two sects formerly rose up in Italy and .still survive, of whom the one called themselves humiliati, the others the Poor Men. of Lyon\" and he goes on to compare the Preachers (i. e. Dominicans) with the former, and the Minorites (Franciscans) with the latter. See the whole passage in Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 232-3. On the Poor Men of Lyon, see Chap. XXX VI. 386 AUTHORITY RECEIVED FROM INNOCENT. Chap. XXIII. Gospel." In that first stage of this new enthusiasm it is quite true that " in the difficulty, the seeming impossibility of the vows was their strength. The three vital principles of the order were, chastity, poverty, and obedience. For chastity, no one was to speak with a woman alone, except the few who might safely do so (from age or severity of character), and that was to urge penitence, or to give spiritual counsel. Poverty was not only the renunciation of all worldly possessions, but of all property, even in the clothes they wore, in the cord which girt them — even in their breviaries.1 Money was, as it were, infected ; they might on no account receive it in alms, except (the sole exception) to aid a sick brother. No brother might ride, if he had power to walk. They were literally to fulfil the precept, if stricken on one cheek, to offer the other ; if spoiled of one part of their dress, to yield up the rest. Obedience was urged not merely as obligatory and coercive : the deepest mutual love was to be the bond of the brotherhood." 2 § 5. Innocent III. granted to Francis and his brethren authority to preach in every place, and at the same time they received the clerical tonsure;3 but, as will presently be seen, the full confirma- tion of the order was not made till some years later by Innocent's successor. On their return home, the power of their preaching, the novelty of their enterprize, and the miracles of their chief, gathered round them crowds of enthusiastic hearers, who even tore the dress of Francis in pieces to possess some relics of him. At Assisi, the church of the Portiuncula, which Francis had restored, and in which he had 1 " At first," says Bonaventura ; " they had no books , their only book was the Cross." " Francis greatly dreaded the pride of learning. His own education had been scanty, but it was supposed that the knowledge of divine things came to him miraculously, and he seems to have expected his followers to learn in the same manner. When one of them expressed some difficulty as to parting with his books, he told him that his books must not be allowed to corrupt the Gospel, by which friars were bound to have nothing of their own. From another he took away even a Psalter, telling him that, if that book were allowed him, he would next wish for a breviary, and then for other books, until he would become a great doctor of the chair, and would imperiously thunder out to his humble companion orders to fetch such books as he might require." (Robertson, vol. iii. p. 372.) Yet in a few years the order was to hold University chairs, and produce such writers as Hales and Bonaventura, Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus ! 2 Milman, vol. vi. pp. 30-1. * Francis was afterwards ordained a deacon, but at what time is uncer- tain. (See Bonav. 8t> ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 370.) For the home of the. order in the environs of Rome, the Benedictines of Subiaco gave a church, which, like that near Assisi, bore the name of S. Maria dei An/eli or delta Portiuncula. When Francis himself (in 1223) visited the place sacred as the first retreat of Benedict, he is said to have changed the thorns, in which that saint used to roll himself, into roses. (Comp. Part I. p. 406.) A.D. 1212. SISTERHOOD OF ST. CLARE. 387 received his divine commission, was given up to the new order ; but it was afterwards eclipsed by the conventual church dedicated to St. Francis himself, which, in strange contrast to his own prin- ciples, became one of the most splendid in Italy, decorated with the masterpieces of reviving art, the paintings of Cirnabue and Giotti.1 The preaching of Francis and his companions, less formal and more dramatic, more popular and appealing to the feelings, than the accustomed style, was attractive to women as well as to men. Under his influence, a noble young maiden of Assisi, named Clara Sciffi, cast off the ties of family life as sinful affections, and became the foundress of the poor and most rigidly severe sister- hood of St. Clare (1212). She is said to have preserved constant cheerfulness under a life of such mortification and humility, that she never raised her head or her eyelids far enough for the colour of her eyes to be seen, except once, to receive the blessing of Innocent IV., who visited her on her death-bed in 1253. She was canonized two years later by Alexander IV.2 § 6. It is said that Francis was still hesitating between the contem- plative and active life — prayer in the monastery and preaching throughout the world — when his choice was determined by a sign from heaven, and his mind was especially bent on missions to the infidel Mohammedans and the heathen. In accordance with the quadripart division made at Hivo Torto, while brethren went forth north, and west, and south, to Germany, Italy, and Spain, Francis himself embarked for Syria, but was driven back by storms. Kext 1 The building of the convent and church was begun in 1228, two years after the death of St. Francis, under the direction of an architect sent from Germany, Jacopo di Alemannia (also called Lapo), in con- junction with the friar Fra Filippo di Campbello. The convent (now suppressed) contains some frescoes by second-rate artists; among them a series of portraits of remarkable men of the order by Dono Doni (1595). The double church of S. Francesco, restored in 1874, is one of the most interesting monuments of Italian Gothic, and has a grand and singular appearance as seen on the approach from Perugia. (See vignette, p. 399.) It consists, in fact, of two churches, reared one over the other on massive substructions against the abrupt side of the hill on which the town stands. Beneath the lower, a third — a magnificent sepulchral crypt in the form of a Greek cross — was excavated around the place where the supposed remains of the saint were discovered in a rude stone sarcophagus in 1818. For a full description of the churches, their frescoes, and painted windows, see Murray's Handbook of Central Italy (1880), p. 373 f. 2 The order of nuns of St. Clare was-confirmed by a Bull of Innocent IV. Her body is still shown in the crypt beneath the high altar of the con- ventual church of Sta. Chiara at Assisi, built a few years after her death by Fra Filippo di Campello, and painted by Giotto ; but the greater part of the church has been replaced by modern restorations. A reliquary is shown containing the hair which the saint cut off with her own hand. 388 FRANCIS IN EGYPT. Chap. XXIII. year he set out to preach to the Moors in Morocco ; but a dangerous illness compelled him to return when he had got as far as Spain. At the first general chapter of the order, held in the church of the Portiuncula, provincial Ministers (such was the humble title used instead of Master1) were appointed for Spain, Provence, France, and Germany (1215) ; and, in the same year in which he also con- firmed the order of Dominic, Innocent III. renewed his approval of the Franciscan brotherhood. Four years later no less than 5000 brethren met at the second chapter of the order 2 (1219). § 7. In the same year the Crusade organized by Honorius TIT. gave Francis another opportunity for preaching to the Mohammedan infidels.3 With the apostolic number of twelve companions, he arrived in Egypt just after the Crusaders had taken Damietta ; and the certain failure, which he predicted from their dissensions, did not deter him from his own more peaceful but still more dangerous mission. A flock of sheep, seen on his way to the Saracen camp, recalled his Master's words, " Behold, I send you forth, as sheep in the midst of wolves ; " 4 and his temerity may have won the respect with which Mohammedans see in madness a share of Divine in- spiration. The Sultan heard him with attention, but declined his challenge to enter a great fire with the priests of Islam, or, when they refused, to let him expose himself alone to the ordeal ; for, said Francis, " if I should be burnt, you will impute it to my sins ; should I come forth alive, you will embrace the Gospel." Refusing the rich presents offered by the Sultan, who sent him back with honour to the camp, Francis returned through Palestine and the kingdom of Antioch to Italy. The like toleration was not shown by the fiercer Moors to the five brethren who, about the same time, had gone to Spain, and, having preached without effect at Seville, passed over into Africa, to become the protomartyrs of the order by the cruelty of King Miramamolin.5 St. Francis received the sad intelligence with triumph, and broke forth in gratulations to the convent of 1 The contrast expressed by the etymology of the words should be remembered : magister, from the root mag, " great ; " minister, from min, " little." 2 Bonaventura, 52; Wadding, vol. i. pp. 246, 257, 284-291. 3 See Chap. V. § 9, pp. 71-2. * Matt. x. 16 ; Luke x. 3. The harmlcsmess inculcated in the same text was being strangely illustrated by the Crusaders both in the East and in Languedoc. 5 Wadding a.d. 1219, 1220, pp. 48, 38. A list of the martyrs of the order, to 1342, is given in the Register of the London Franciscans, entitled Prima Fundatio Fratrum Minorum Lcndonise in the Monu- menta Franciscana (Rolls Series, pp. 526-8). It is there stated that the remains of the five protomartyrs were brought back by Peter, Infant of Portugal. A.D. 1224. ORDER OF THE MINORITES. 389 Alonquir, whicn had thus produced the first purple flowers of martyrdom.1 § 8. In 1223 (or 1224) Honorius III. granted the first formal charter to the order, confirming a stricter rule which had been drawn up by Francis ; and the appointment of Cardinal Ugolino (afterwards Gregory IX.), to the office of "protector et corrector ordinis " is one of many proofs of the original harmony between the brother- hoods of Dominic and Francis. (Each order had such an officer resident at Rome.) The deep humility of the founder was expressed in the name of the brotherhood, Fratres Minores (often called Minorites), not only as claiming a lower place than all the older religious orders, but as being, like the great preacher among the apostles, " less than the least of all saints," less even, as later Fran- ciscans loved to play upon the title, than the deepest humiliation confessed by patriarchs and psalmists, apostles and saints.3 In the same spirit, Francis desired the brethren of the order to be called by the diminutive, Fraticelli (that is, " little brothers "), and as we have just observed, the superiors of the order were called Ministers. Even the title of abbot (i.e. father) was avoided; the superior of each convent being a Custos (warden), of each pro- vince a Minister Frovincialis, and of the whole order the Minister Generalise The supreme legislative authority wTas vested in the 1 Milman, vol. vi. pp. 33-4. 2 The year 1224, the 9th of Pope Honorius III. and the 8th of Henry III. of England, and also the year of the arrival of the Franciscans in England, is the date given by Thomas of Eccleston, de Adventu Minorum in Angliam, and in the other documents printed in the Monumenta Franciscana, pp. 7, 493, 547, 631. 3 See the passage quoted by Brewer (Mon. Franc, pref. p. ix.). It should be remembered that, though for convenience we speak of Domi- nicans and Franciscans, the contemporary names are always Frxdicatores and Minores (with or without Fratres). The equivalent name, Fraticelli (little brethren), was afterwards adopted as distinctive by the more rigid Franciscans. 4 The convents of each province were grouped into several higher wardenships (custodix). Thus England was divided into the seven warden- ships of London, York, Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford, Newcastle, and Worcester, each containing 7, 8, or 9 convents, each wardenship com- prising an extensive district. London, for example, had the nine convents of London (St. Francis's near Newgate, now Christ's Hospital, though then much larger), Canterbury, Winchelsea, Southampton (St. Mary's), Ware, Lewes, Chichester (St. Peter's), Salisbury (St. Francis's), Winchester (St. Francis's.). See the full list in the Monumenta Franciscana, p. 579, where will also be found lists of the General Ministers, the English and Provincial Ministers, the Popes, cardinals, bishops, kings, nobles, princesses, and other distinguished persons of the three orders, besides the readers in theology at Oxford and Cambridge, for the 13th and part of the 14th centuries; with other verv interesting and instructive original documents. II— T 390 RULE OF ABSOLUTE POVERTY. Chap. XXIII. General Chapter of the whole order, which met every third year, and by it the General Minister was elected or deposed, but his deposition must be confirmed by the sentence of the Pope, to whom the order owed obedience.1 The rule enjoined the three monastic vows ; but the peculiar distinction of the order (besides its special work of preaching) was the literal and most rigid interpretation of the vow of poverty, both personal and collective. The Franciscan brother was to have absolutely no possession, except his gray hooded frock, made of the coarsest materials, and the cord which girt it about him ; no other vestments, nor hat, nor shoes ; no wallet, purse or staff. He was not to ride, except in case of abso- lute necessity. He was to live on the hospitality of those who invited him, eating and drinking what they might give him, and keeping nothing for the next day. The brethren were never to take alms in money, nor to receive the temporal goods of novices, as was customary with other orders. They were to have " neither monasteries or churches, nor houses or other possessions, nor where to lay their heads ;" 2 but this rule was almost immediately broken in practice. While, however, their life was to be so poor, and their food and dress the simplest and coarsest, and though Francis himself practised such abstinence as to stint himself even in his allowance of water, yet in society he conformed to the usages of those about him ; his principle being not so much self-mortification for its own sake, as contentment with whatever hospitality might be afforded; according to the precept, " Eat such things as they set before you." § 9. St. Francis discouraged all extremes of ascetic discipline and austerity, not only from his natural gentleness, but because they 1 The Bull of Honorius expressly recites the promise of obedience made by Francis. The order, as also the Dominican, stood in connection with the Curia, through its Protector and Corrector, who was a cardinal. 2 Jacobus de Vitriaco, Histor. Occident, c. 32. An interesting example of the growth of a Franciscan convent is seen in the account of bene- factions to the brethren in London, and the building of their church, from their first arrival in 1224. After landing at Dover (Sept. 8), five stayed at Canterbury, and there founded the first Minorite convent; while the other four went on to London, and were hospitably, received by the Dominicans for a fortnight. They then, through their spiritual friends, hired a house in Cornhill, and constructed in it small cells, in which they lived till the following summer, gaining favour with the citizens, one of whom, John Swyn, a mercer, gave them their first estate near Newgate, which was afterwards enlarged by other benefactions. In this second year (1225) they also made settlements at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere; and in the 32nd year (1255) there were 242 brethren living in 49 places. (Tliom.de Eecleston de Adcentu, &c, pp. 7-10; Prima Fundatio, &c, pp. 493 foil.) A.D. 1224. GOVERNMENT OF THE ORDER. 391 savoured of spiritual pride. " When some of his followers had injured themselves by their severities, he forbad all ' indiscreet ad- inventions ' by way of penance, such as the use of cuirasses, chains, or rings confining the flesh, and all endeavours of one to outstrip another in religion." * While other religious orders had vied with one another for the repute of superior holiness by their multiplied fasts and vigils, Francis bade his followers to observe only those pre- scribed by the Church : on other days they might eat flesh and all kinds of plain food. He used to say that, as the body was created for the soul, and the flesh ought to be subdued to the spirit, so the servant of God ought to eat, sleep, drink, and satisfy his bodily requirements with discretion, in order that the body might have no cause to complain that it could not stand erect or pay attention to prayer, because its wants were not satisfied. He always incul- cated that cheerfulness, which he himself maintained amidst all his humiliations and labours, saying that it was the sign of a clean heart, and a great defence against the devil. And in this rational practical piety, as in all else, he kept to the letter of his Lord's teaching ; 2 as when he rebuked a melancholy brother : " Why do you wear that sad and gloomy countenance because of your offences ? It is enough that your sorrow should be known between you and your God. Pray for His mercy to spare you and restore that cheerfulness to your soul which you have lost by your own demerits." 3 § 10. The like union of good sense with Christian kindness and knowledge of human nature, is shown in the principles he laid down for the government of the order. In his advice on the choice of a minister of the order,4 besides insisting on high personal qualifi- cations and a strict example of obedience to the rules of the order, he exhorts him to comfort the afflicted, lest they be driven to despair. " To win the perverse and proud to meekness, let him humble him- self, and abate somewhat of his own right, to gain a soul. To the runaways of his order, let him open the bowels of mercy, as to sheep that have been lost ; let him never refuse to pardon them, well knowing that their temptations are very strong, and if the Lord permitted him to be tried he might perchance fall worse than they." While insisting that the minister should be honoured as the Vicar of Christ, and that all should make provision for him in 1 Wadding, vol. i. p. 294; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 372. In this, as in other respects, the piety of St. Francis was too simple and rational for his followers. We find Thomas of Eccleston (among other like instances) recording that Peter the Spaniard, one of the first Franciscans in England, "wore an iron cuirass next his flesh and showed very many other examples of perfection." (Monum. Francisc. p. 10.) 2 Comp. Matt. vi. 16-18. 3 Monum. Francisc. pref. p. xxxiii. * See the passage in full in Brewer, ibid. 392 THE SECOND AND THIRD ORDERS. Chap. XXIII. all things with all benevolence, he warns him " not to be exalted by honours and favours more than he is delighted by injuries, or to let honours change his manners except for the better." He gives advice for government, which might well be studied by all in authority: — "Let him regard all accusations with suspicion at first, until the truth shall be known by diligent enquiry. Let him give no heed to gossippers, and particularly suspect all accusations pro- ceeding from such persons, and be slow to credit them. Let him not, from desire of retaining popularity, refuse or relax the forms of justice and equity ; nor, on the other hand, let him suffer souls to perish from overmuch rigour. Let not torpor arise from excessive kindness, nor the relaxation of discipline from over-indulgence; and so let him be feared by all who love, and loved by all who fear him." § 11. With the Minorite Friars, whether clerical or lay,1 the sister- hood of St. Clare was associated as a " second order ; " 2 and a third was formed, in 1221, of the Tertiaries, like those of the " Preachers," but with the characteristic difference that, while the title of Dominic's third order was militant, that of Francis was penitential. Their formation was not only a great accession of influence, but (as Dean Milman observes) a matter of necessity. " At his preaching, and that of his disciples, such multitudes would have crowded into the order, as to become dangerous and unmanageable. The whole population of one town, Canari in Umbria, offered themselves as disciples. The Tertiaries were called the Brethren of Penitence ;3 they were to retain their social position in the world ; but, first, 1 When Mr. Brewer says (pref. p. xxxv.) that "the Franciscans were to all intents and purposes laymen, bound by religious vows," he means that their main work was not that of clerical ministration, and did not need clerical orders for its performance (though even to this statement we shall find an exception of vast importance, in the case of the con- fessors). The Church of Rome, always more versatile than many freer religious communities, had discovered the wisdom of not fettering the gift of preaching by the requirement of ordination. But it must not be understood that the Franciscans were always or generally laymen. As we have seen, Francis himself, and his original companions, received the clerical tonsure from Innocent III. Of the nine brethren who first came into England in 1224, four were clerks and five laymen. 2 Under the head "De Secundo Ordine Sancti Francisci," the Prima Fundatio (p. 543) enumerates five sainted women, headed by "Beata Clara, qui in vita et in morte miraculis mirabiliter claravit." 3 Tertiarii, Tertius Ordo de Pcenitentia, or Frames Conversi. They were of both sexes. Among the eminent persons of this Third Order of St. Francis, the Prima Fundatio enumerates St. Elizabeth, princess of Hun- gary, St. Brigida, princess of Norway and Sweden, St. Eleazar, count of Alsace, and Louis VIII., king of France, who is also called Sanctus in the list. (Monum. Francisc. p. 543.) A.D. 1224. THE STIGMATA OF ST. FRANCIS. 393 they were enjoined to pay all their debts, and to make restitution of all unfair gains. They were then admitted to make a vow to keep the commandments of God, and to give satisfaction for any breach of which they might have been guilty. They could not leave the order, except to embrace a religious life. Women were not ad- mitted without the consent of their husbands. The form and colour of their dress were prescribed, silk rigidly prohibited. They were to keep aloof from all public spectacles, dances, especially the theatre; to give nothing to actors, jugglers, or such profane per- sons. Their fasts were severe, but tempered with some lenity; their attendance at church constant. They were not to bear arms, except in the cause of the Church of Rome, the Christian faith, or their country, and that at the licence of their ministers. On entering the order they were immediately to make their wills, to prevent future litigation ; they were to abstain from unnecessary oaths; they were to submit to penance, when imposed by their ministers."1 Except in the articles of fasting and penance, these rules differed very little from the conditions (expressed or under- stood) of church-membership in some Protestant communities, as belonging to a strict Christian life in the world but not con- formed to it. § 12. In the same year in which the order was confirmed by Honorius III. (1224), Francis — according to his own belief, ampli- fied into the legend which became a chief article of the Franciscan faith2 — received the crowning divine attestation of his conformity to his Master by the appearance in his hands and feet and side of five wounds, exactly like those inflicted on the Saviour by the nails of the cross and the soldier's spear — the famous " sacra stigmata of 1 Milman, vol. vi. p. 37. Pope Leo XIII. has lately iuvited laymen to cooperate in the contest with infidelity by " fostering and propagating the Third Order of St. Francis, as well as other pious guilds and associa- tions, such as that of St. Vincent of Paul (Encyclical against Freemasonry, April 20, 1884). 2 This mode of stating the case is justified by the great diversity in the early accounts. While, on the one hand, it was affirmed that the stigmata were seen by several persons during the saint's life (which is hardly consistent with his efforts to conceal them), and even by fifty disciples at once (a suspicious " conformity " with the 500 and more who saw the risen Saviour, 1 Cor. xv. 6), and publicly on his naked body after his death ; — on the other hand, Roger of Wendover places the appearance of the wounds only fifteen days before the death of Francis ; and, though he says they were seen flowing with blood by crowds of people during the fortnight, he adds that they closed and disappeared entirely after his death, according to his own prediction (Flores, iv. 154 ; s. a. 1227). Hase (p. 143 f.) argues no one but Fra Elias (a suspicious witness, as will presently be seen) pretended to have seen the stigmata during the life of Francis, and that the legend was invented immediately after his death. 394 DEATH OF ST. FRANCIS. Chap. XXIII. St. Francis." As the story is told by his earliest biographer,1 Francis had retired for a time to a hermit's cell on Mt. Aulma (or Alvernia) 2 in the Apennines, where he saw in vision a man, like the Seraphim, with six wings, standing above him, fixed to a cross by his outstretched hands, and his feet joined together. While he anxiously considered what the vision might mean, without being able to understand more than a deep impression of its novelty, there began to appear on his hands and feet the marks of nails, such as he had just seen on the man crucified above him. His succeeding biographers describe the marks as black excrescences, like the heads of nails on one side of his hands and feet, and like their clenched points on the other side ; and besides these marks, a wound broke out in his side, and often stained his garments.3 The humility of Francis strove to conceal the miraculous marks, and especially the wound in his side, but many of his disciples affirmed that they had seen them, and that many miracles were wrought by their power ; and when, in dying, he determined literally to leave the world naked as he came into it, the reality of the marks is said to have been proved to the eyes of his disciples. Worn out with illness, he had returned to die at Assisi, and, having asked to be carried into the church of the Portiuncula, he " solemnly blessed his weeping brethren, and breathed his last, lying on a shirt of hair, and sprinkled with penitential ashes (Oct. 4, 1226). His soul was seen in the form of a star more dazzling than the sun, which was 1 Thomas Celanus, lib. ii. c. i. § 94-5 ; comp. III. Socii, 69 ; Bonav. 191 f. ; Wadding, ii. 89-90. For the more elaborate account, combined from these writers, see Milman, vi. 38-9. 2 As the other authorities call it. The event, with its place and time, is commemorated by Dante, who was born in the fortieth year after the death of St. Francis (Paradiso, xi. 106-108): — " Nel crudo Basso, intra Tevere ed Arno, Da Cristo prese 1' ultimo sigillo, Che le sue membre due anni portarno." 3 Very soon the admiring believers were not content with the marks, or even with the effusion of blood. According to Roger of Wendover (/. c), " his right side was laid open and sprinkled with blood, so that the secret recesses of his heart were plainly visible." The Franciscan Pope Nicolas IV. affirmed that the nails were not only on the outside of the hands :ind feet, " but forced into the inner parts through the flesh and sinews and bones " (Wadding, v. 267) ; and the Liber Conformitatum (p. 298), always mag- nifying the parallels of St. Francis with the Saviour, says that the nails were divided from the flesh, in which they were movable but could not be removed, though St. Clara and others often attempted to take them out ! This manifest growth of the legend vitiates the whole chain of evidence : for it is impossible to mark the point where invention begins, and sound criticism (in all such cases) rejects the arbitrary device of sifting it down to a credible minimum. A.D. 1237. QUESTION OF THE STIGMATA. 395 conveyed in a luminous cloud over many waters to the abyss of brightness." l His desire to be laid in the burial-place of criminals without the town was indeed complied with ; but, as if to annul his humility, his disciples raised over his tomb the splendid church of St. Francis, which, with their convent, was enclosed within the city walls.2 Two years after his death, St. Francis was canonized by the former protector of the mendicant orders, Pope Gregory IX., who also gave an authoritative confirmation to the miracle of the sacred stigmata.3 But the three Bulls, which the Pope issued in 1237,4 attest also the doubts which needed to be silenced. The first, addressed to all believers in Christ, while asking their devout belief in the miracle, and their faith in the saint's intercession, exhorts them to turn a deaf ear to all assertion of the contrary ; the second denounces the sinful unbelief of a bishop, who had asserted that, as the Son of God alone had been crucified for man's salvation, neither Francis nor any other saint ought to be painted with the marks of crucifixion ; while the third, addressed to the Provincial Priors of the Preachers, threatens excommunication against a Do- minican friar, for the madness and impudence with which he had opposed the miracle, publicly calling the Franciscans., who had pro- mulgated the " pious statements," questuaries and false preachers.5 The opposition of the Dominicans is expressed more moderately by their great writer, Jacobus de Voragine, who reverentially accepts the fact of the stigmata, but explains their appearance on the body of St. Francis as the physical effect of exalted imagina- tion, combined with vehement love, admiration, meditation, and compassion.6 This explanation is accepted by Archbishop Trench, who says : 1 Thorn. Celan., 98-110; III. Socii, 68; Bonav., 213; Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 375-6. 2 See above, p. 387. 3 Alexander IV., another ardent supporter of the mendicant orders, further decreed that any one who should speak against the stigmata of St. Francis was to be excommunicated, and no one might absolve him from the offence except the Pope alone. (Robertson, /. c.) 4 Raynald., ann. 1237 ; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 252. 5 The Franciscan Pope Nicolas IV. issued a Bull silencing a Dominican who had dared to make the sarcastic comparison that in Peter Martyr (a Dominican) there were signs of the living God, in St. Francis only Dei mortui. Raynald. ann. l'J'Jl ; Milman, vol. vi. p. 39. 6 Sermo III. de S. Francisco (about 1290), ap. Gieseler, ii. 252". He confirms his explanation by parallel cases, which belong, however, to a another and well-attested class of physical effects, from the impression made on the mind of a mother during pregnancy. Archbishop Trench, however affirms that " there have been so many analogous cases verified beyond all doubt — some eighty at least, by no means all in the Roman Catholic Church — that it is idle to urge a physical impossibility." {Lectures on the Medieval Church, p. 243.) 396 THE STIGMATA OF ST. FRANCIS. Chap. XXIII. "Assuming their existence as sufficiently proved by contemporary evidence,1 I must wholly reject the explanation which sees in them special marks of divine favour miraculously imprinted on his body to bring him into closer conformity with his crucified Lord ; while, on the other hand, I dismiss with scorn the suggestion that they were marks artificially and fraudfully brought about by the Saint himself, for his own greater glorification, with or without the assist- ance or connivance of others;" and, after arguing the physical possibility, he comes to the conclusion, — " / am as confident that there was no miracle, as 1 am that there was no fraud." But is this the sole alternative? May not that pervading idea of con- formity to his Lord and Saviour, combined with his constant literal reading of the divine Word, which in Francis himself was as far removed from any desire of "his own glorification" as with his followers it was perverted into an almost blasphemous equality with Christ, — may not this have led him, in one of his ecstasies of mystic devotion, not only without a fraudulent purpose, but with an imperfect consciousness of the mechanical act itself, to work upon his own person a literal fulfilment of the Apostle's words, " I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus f " 2 And while he himself, in deep humility — possibly, in a less ecstatic frame, not without misgiving — concealed the marks, it was equally in full accordance with the spirit of his idolizing disciples to magnify and exalt them in every way, as the crowning example of the " conformities " which they pushed beyond the bounds of reason and reverence ; 3 so that 1 We emphasize this passage as containing, after all, a considerable assumption ; and when Dr. Trench adds that " There is no a priori ground for refusing credit to the statements of those who testified that they had seen these uowid-prints and handled them" he seems to imply too high an estimate of the evidence itself, apart from all a priori objections. Besides the doubt as to whether they did " see and handle " the wounds which Francis himself carefully concealed, and besides the grave discrepancies in the evidence, the most positive witnesses labour under the suspicion of " proving too much." 2 Galat. vi. 17. The probability of this explanation is confirmed by other examples in the same age. Thus we are told of a Marquis of Mont- ferrand, who, from devotion, "bore in his body the maiks {stigmata) of the Lord Jesus, with other penitential inflictions (pccnitentiis), which he used to make in memory of the passion of the Lord, and on every Friday he pierced his flesh with nails even to the shedding of blood " (Steph. de Borbone, in D'Argentre, Collectio Jxidicionun, i. 85, ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 253). Another case is mentioned in England in 1222 (two years before the stigmata of St. Francis), when a council, held by Archbishop Langton at Oxford, condemned to perpetual imprisonment a rustic " who had made himself Christ, and pierced his own hands and side and feet." (Annal. Dunstapl. p. 76 ; Trivet, 210-211 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 375.) 3 See Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 253-4, for examples of the length to which A.D. 1226. CHARACTER OF ST. FRANCIS. 397 they might at length silence every doubting Didymus who was disposed to say, " Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hands into his side, I will not believe." x But Francis himself is not to be judged by the faults or frauds of his followers. His character has been admirably drawn by Dean Milman 2 : — " Of all saints, St. Francis was the most blameless and gentle. In Dominic and in his disciples all was still rigorous, cold, argumentative; something remained of the Crusader's fierceness, the Spaniard's haughty humility, the Inquisitor's stern suppression of all gentler feelings, the polemic sternness. Whether Francis would have burned heretics, happily we know not, but he would willingly have been burned for them : himself excessive in austeri- ties, he would at times mitigate the austerities of others. Francis was emphatically the Saint of the people— of a poetic people, like the Italians. Those who were hereafter to chant the Paradise of Dante, or the softer stanzas of Sappho, might well be enamoured of the ruder devotional strains in the poetry of the whole life of St. Francis. The lowest of the low might find consolation, a kind of pride, in the self-abasement of St. Francis even beneath the meanest. ... In his own eyes (says his most pious successor) he was but a sinner, while in truth he was the mirror and splendour of holiness. It was revealed, says the same Bonaventura, to a Brother, that the throne of one of the angels, who fell from pride, was reserved for Francis, who was glorified by humility. If the heart of the poorest was touched by the brotherhood in poverty and low- liness of such a saint, how was his imagination kindled by his mystic strains ! St. Francis is among the oldest vernacular poets of Italy.3 His poetry, indeed, is but one long passionate ejaculation of love to the Kedeemer in rude metre ; it has not even the order and completeness of a hymn : it is a sort of plaintive variation on one simple melody — an echo of the same tender words, multiplied again and again, it might be fancied, by the voices in the cloister walls. But his ordinary speech is more poetical than his poetry. In his peculiar language he addresses all animate, even inanimate, creatures as his brothers ; not merely the birds and beasts : he had an especial fondness for lambs and larks, as the images of the Lamb they carried the principle, which they expressed in the words of the son of Sirach, " He made him like in the glory of the saints " (Ecclus. xlv. 2), nay, even asking of St. Francis, " Who is like God among the sons of God ? " (Ubertinus de Casali, about A.D. 1312.) 1 John xx. 25. 2 Vol. vi. p. 34 fol. 3 " M. de Montalembert is eloquent, as usual, on his poetry." (Preface to La Vie a" Elisabeth d'Hongrie.') II— T 2 398 CHARACTER OF ST. FRANCIS. Chap. XXIII. of God, and of the Cherubim in heaven.1 I know not if it be among the Conformities, but the only malediction I find him to have uttered was against a fierce swine, which had killed a young lamb. Of his intercourse with those mute animals we are told many pretty peculiarities, some of them miraculous. But his poetic impersonation went beyond this. When the surgeon was about to cauterize him, he said, ' Fire, my brother, be thou discreet and gentle to me.' In one of his Italian hymns he speaks of his brother the sun, his sister the moon, his brother the wind, his sister the water. No wonder that, in this almost perpetually ecstatic state, unearthly music played around him, unearthly light shone round his path. When he died, he said with exquisite simplicity, * Wel- come ! sister Death.' St. Francis himself, no doubt, was but unconsciously presumptuous, when he acted as under divine in- spiration, even when he laid the ground-work for that assimilation of his own life to that of the Saviour, which was wrought up by his disciples, as it were into a new Gospel, and superseded the old. His was the studious imitation of humility, not the emulous ap- proximation of pride, even of pride disguised from himself; such profaneness entered not his thought. His life might seem a reli- gious trance. The mysticism so absolutely absorbed him, as to make him unconscious, as it were, of the presence of his body. Incessantly active as was his life, it was a kind of paroxysmal activity, constantly collapsing into what might seem a kind of suspended animation of the corporeal functions.2 It was even said that he underwent a kind of visible and glorious transfiguration." 3 1 Bonaventura, c. 8. " He often bought off lambs which were on their way to the slaughter. . . . Once, as he was about to preach, and found that some swallows were making a noise, he addressed them : 1 Sisters, you have spoken enough for the present, and it is my turn ; be silent, and listen to the word of God.' He spoke to the fishes, to the worms, and even to the flowers. ... He saw, says an early bio- grapher, the Creator in all His creatures ; and it has been conjectured that the pantheism, with which the order was afterwards infected, may perhaps be traced to the founder's love of nature, and to his fondness for personifying it (Neander, vii. 382)." Robertson, vol. iii. p. 373, where see also the anecdote of his taming a wolf by a remonstrance addressed to " Brother Wolf" for his cruelty. 2 A modern biographer of St. Francis (Foligno, 1824) says that he was often so absorbed, immersed, swallowed up, and concentrated in Jesus, that sight, hearing, feeling, and the actions of his body were suspended, with all his knowledge and recollection. This state is thus illustrated : " he was riding on an ass ; he was almost torn in pieces by devout men and women, shouting around him ; he was utterly unconscious, like a dead man," 3 Bonaventura, Vit. Minor. 1 Jp Assisi: showing the Churches of St. Francis. CHAPTER XXIV. PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCANS. A.D. 1226-1256. § 1. Place of the Mendicants in the Church — Dangers from Oriental in- fluence— New spirit rising in the towns — The Franciscan the mission- ary of the town — Influence of their poverty — Opposition of St. Francis to secular learning. § 2. Special character and power of the Francis- can preaching. § 3. The Friars as Confessors : their consequent power, and complaints of the clergy — Their disparagement of the old orders — Intrusion on parochial ministrations. § 4. Impossibility of the Fran- ciscan ideal — The rule of absolute poverty — St. Francis on churches and houses — Decree of the general chapter — Necessity above the law : other pretexts for its breach. § 5. Course of the English Provincials, Agnellus and Haymo — Building a spoiling of preaching and devotion — 400 MISSION OF THE MENDICANTS. Chap. XXIV. Even debts might be contracted. § 6. Elias, the vicar and successor of St. Francis, the evil genius of the order — Contest about his election — His breach of the rule of poverty, and tyranny over the Spirituals or Zealots of the Order — Chapter for the reformation of the order — Elias deposed by Gregory IX. — His subsequent contumacy and league with Frederick II. § 7. Increasing corruptions of the rule — Innocent IV. sanctions the possession of property, under the Holy See — Growing dissensions — Resignation of the General Minister, John of Parma —Apologue of Alexander IV. : the two walls of knowledge and morals. § 1. A medieval historian1 regards the Mendicant Orders, and espe- cially the Franciscan, as a fourth institution, added by the Lord in those times to the three orders of Eremites, Monks, and Canons, to complete the square and solid foundations of the religious life. But if, he says, we consider carefully the state and order of the primitive Church, Divine Providence did not so much add a new rule, as renew the old one, lift it up from its fallen condition, and rouse almost from a state of death the religion which seemed all but setting in the eventide of the world, when the age of the son of perdition was at hand, that He might prepare new champions {athletes) against the perilous times of Antichrist, and strengthen the Church with new outworks. This view of the work of the Friars, in its relation to the wants of the" age, finds an echo in Mr. Brewer's able and interesting essay on the mission of the Fran- ciscans.2 At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the fabric of Latin Christianity, in the form which it had assumed under the ascendancy of Home, was threatened with the twofold danger of heresy and infidelity. " When the policy of Innocent III. seemed on the eve of being crowned with success, a new and more potent influence had started up to threaten the faith of Christendom. The genius of the Papacy had provided for all other contingencies : not for this. Slowly had it come to be recognized as the central and supreme authority of the West. The ideal of Gregory VII. had 1 Jacobus de Vitriaco, Hist. Occident, c. 32, ap. Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 235. 2 Preface to the Monumenta Franciscana (1858), in the " Rolls Series " of the " Chronicles," &c. The student must be warned, once for all, that Mr. Brewer's picture is coloured by a generous sympathy ; but it is drawn with his characteristic faithfulness to facts. The author, whose loss is recent as we write, was not of those who allow strong opinions to distort the essential outlines of history. In placing the rich matter con- tained in that costly work within reach of every student, we prefer for the most part to preserve the freshness and power of the writer's own language, marking the passages quoted, though compelled to omit much of the highest value. An able and impartial estimate of the good and evil of the mendicant orders is given by Dean Hook, Lives of the Arch- bishops of Canterbury, vol. iii. pp. 46 f. A.D. 1226. NEW DANGERS TO RELIGION. 401 been wrought into a system ; Italian policy was playing a successful game in all the courts of Christendom. But a new difficulty had arisen ; the Crusades, fostered by the Popes to support the Papacy, had ended, as all violent antagonisms do end, in producing the most opposite results to those which the promoters of these expeditions had anticipated. The conversion of the Saracens had not been secured ; it seemed much more likely that the converters would become con- verted. Oriental habits, tastes, and sciences, Oriental modes of thought,1 and with them the moral and physical diseases of the East, were advancing with a fascination and rapidity not easily described. The simpler people were falling before the more cul- tivated and subtle." More especially was this the case in the towns, which, having been long the refuge of the people from feudal oppression, and having thus gathered into themselves all that remained unsubdued of the spirit of freedom and energy, were rising into power through the commerce which had been quickened by the Crusades ; but com- paratively free also from the intellectual and spiritual control of the clergy and monasteries. "At this day we contrast the superiority in point of intelligence and education of the town over the country. In the thirteenth century these advantages were reversed. Schools and libraries, all that survived of art and science from the Teutonic and Norman deluge, existed only in the great monastic societies. Like colleges or universities spread throughout the country, monas- teries diffused learning and education, habits of order and economy, among the tenants of the soil. The inhabitant of the town, de- prived of these benefits, had to struggle on to light and order, self- taught and self-sustained. He learned from early times, as best he could, habits of independence. The same spirit, which animated the great manufacturing cities in the south of France, and made them the centres of opposition to the feudal baron and equally feudal bishop, constituted them also the centres of all freedom of opinion, of all subtle and obstinate heresies ; subtle, because the clergy did not understand them ; obstinate, because they could feel no sympathy for those who entertained them. If the towns sym- pathized with any faith, or any forms of philosophy, the Oriental had for them the greatest temptation. It was most opposed to that 1 "The facts cannot be disputed," says Mr. Brewer elsewhere (p. xxxix. note) ; " strange and unaccountable as they seem. The accusation against the Templars, and their practice of magic, will occur to the reader's mind. To these must be added the charge of Manicha?ism, imputed to the Albigenses ; the two infamous books of the age, the • Eternal Gospel ' and the ; Three Impostors,' the latter of which is attributed to the Emperor Frederick II. The communistic excesses of this century, especially in France, had the same origin." We treat all these in their places. 402 MISSION OF THE FRANCISCANS. Chap. XXIV. authority which they disliked ; it was most intimately connected with their commercial prosperity. "It was fortunate, then, that the efforts to carry Christianity among the masses of the towns proceeded from one who was not an ecclesiastic, and had received no ecclesiastical education. Hap- pily for the objects of his mission, St. Francis had early oppor- tunities, through his mercantile occupations, of coming into contact with the manufacturing population ; and his whole life shows, as well as the rule which he gave to his followers, that he understood better than most men (whatever else might be his failings) the true nature of his mission, and the character of the people with whom he had to deal. . . . The Franciscan is the missionary of the town. . . . He is the poor missionary preaching to the poor ; dependent entirely on their sympathies; disappearing when those sympathies are withdrawn." And among the poor, he is the poorest and most miserable. In the medieval towns, whose dirty narrow streets, stagnant ditches and ponds, receiving the refuse of the kennels and shambles, were constant sources of fever and pestilence, we find the head-quarters of the Franciscans in the poorest and most neglected suburbs ; x and, after the example of their founder, the lowest depths of those depths of misery were reached by their special ministrations to the outcast lepers.2 " Repulsive as that service was in all respects, especially to men of gentle blood and education, to these he looked for converts, and in this he was eminently successful. Unlike other and earlier founders of religious orders, the requisites for admission into his fraternity point to the better educated, not to the lower classes. ' He shall be whole of body and prompt of mind ; not in debt ; not a bondsman born ; not unlawfully begotten ; of good name and fame, and competently learned.' 3 Such were the early disciples of 1 See Mr. Brewer's illustrations of this point with respect to the Franciscan establishments in England (p. xvii. f.). In London the sig- nificant name of Styngkyng-lane occurs again and again in the documents relating to the earliest gifts of land for the site of their chief convent near Newgate. (Priina Ftmdatio, &c, pp. 495, 497, 499.) 2 The whole subject of the state of lepers in the medieval towns, and the self-denying care bestowed on them by St. Francis, is richly illustrated by Mr. Brewer, pp. xxi.-xxvii. 8 These are among the twelve qualifications ordained "in the General Chapter called Bercynonde," appended to the English " Testament of St. Francis." (Monum. Fran:isc, p. 574.) But to the requirement " that he be competently learned," there is the alternative, " or else that he be of such condition that he may profit the brethren by labour." It is farther ordained " that he be of such condition that his reception may be of great edification to the people." The other qualifications are " that he believe of the Catholic faith ; that he be suspect of no error ; that he be not A.D. 1226 f. ST. FRANCIS AGAINST LEARNING. 403 the Order. The effect of such men upon the neglected masses of the population may be easily imagined." "But the poverty thus strictly enjoined had another and not less important object. It was intended to prevent the friars from giving themselves up to the popular studies of the age. Logic and the canon law monopolized the clergy. . . . Possibly the secular training and occupations of St. Francis in his earlier years may have kept him from those ecclesiastical influences under which he must of necessity have fallen, had he at first proposed to himself the career of a preacher against heresy, like the Dominican. He had no temptation to magnify pursuits in which the clergy of his days universally engaged ; he must have seen how little suited they were for his Order, how little calculated to accomplish the object he desired. Therefore he set his face against learning ; he would have his followers like the poor, not in dress only, but in heart and understanding. Total, actual poverty secured this ; it was incom- patible with the possession of books or the necessary materials for study. When the stringency of the rule had been in some measure relaxed, much of its ancient severity remained. Roger Bacon had to carry on his researches and experiments without books or in- struments, except what he could procure from his friends. He tells the Pope, to whom he dedicated his works, that he possessed no MSS., that he was not permitted the use of ink or parchment, that nothing but a distinct order from his Holiness could dispense with the stringency of the rule. In the letters of Adam de Marisco the reader will see other instances of the penuriousness of the General Ministers, and their reluctance to furnish the members of the Order engaged in teaching and lecturing with the requisite means of study." On this point Francis himself was inflexible. " I will, I ought not, I cannot allow that which is contrary to my conscience and the profession of the Gospel which we have both embraced" — was his reply to a provincial minister, who asked whether he might make his books an exception to the renunciation of all his property ; l and he laid down the rule, " A man's knowledge is equal to his works." His was not a blind fanatical hatred bound to matrimony ; if he be clerk at the least that he be going of XVI year of age " — an exemplification of the prevalence of juvenile ordination. As a lay brother no one was to be received into the order under the age of twenty or over forty, unless "he be so notable or noble a person that, through his receiving great edification may come to the people." Brethren of other mendicant orders were not to be received ; probably to prevent those jealous rivalries which speedily broke out. 1 See the anecdote of the novice who asked his permission to have a Psalter, p. 386, note «. 404 DISTRUST OF A LEARNED DOCTOR. Chap. XXIV. of learning ; but a firm belief, not unjustified by the kind of learning then pursued, that it hindered the work to which he and his followers were devoted. " Many brethren," he said ; " who bestow all their time and thought on the acquisition of philosophy, forsaking their proper vocation, and wandering in mind and body from the way of prayer and humility, when they have preached to the people, and have turned some to repentance, are inflated and conceited at the result, as if it were their own work, and not another's. Whereas it happens not unfrequently that all they have done is to preach to their own prejudice and condemnation. In the conversion of men they have really done nothing ; they have been no more than the instruments of those by whom the Lord has truly reaped the fruit." When it was told him, as joyful news, that a great Doctor of the University at Paris had been received into the order, greatly to the edification of the clergy and people there, he said to those about him, " I am afraid, my sons, that such doctors will be the destruction of my vineyard. They are the true doctors who, with meekness of wisdom, exhibit good works for the im- provement and edification of their neighbours. A man has no more knowledge than he works, and he is a wise man only in the degree in which he loves God and his neighbour." It is conjectured that the Parisian Doctor was Alexander Hales ; and we shall presently be able to judge how far the saint's doubts and fears were fulfilled in the Schoolmen of his order.1 § 2. "A style of preaching " (says Mr. Brewer),2 " founded on meditation and experience was precisely adapted to the require- 1 How soon the spirit which Francis dreaded began to work in the order, and how it was regarded by his own first comrades and disciples, is illustrated by what we are told in the Liber Conformitatum (i. 79) of the leader and first Minister of the Franciscans in England: — "This Friar Agnellus received English lads into the Order, and, setting up schools for the poor, was zealous for study ; but afterwards had reason for regret, when he saw the Friars bestowing their time on frivolities, and neglecting needful things. For one day, when he wished to see what proficiency they were making, he entered the schools whilst a disputation was going on, and, hearing them wrangling and questioning, Utrum sit Deus, he cried : ' Woe is me ! Woe is me ! Simple brothers enter Heaven, and learned brothers dis- pute whether there is a God at all ! ' " 2 Preface, pp. xxxiv. f. We reluctantly omit what is added on the prominence which St. Francis's lively imagination and sympathies led him and his followers to give to the bodily sufferings of Jesus Christ, and also "to exalt the Virgin Mother, to present her as an actual woman, endowed with every grace and beauty, to the degraded population whom they addressed ; to set her before men, as an actual object of faith, hope, and devotion, as sympathizing in human sorrow and human evils, in sorrows which have pierced through her own heart, in evils from which she is entirely free." A.D. 1226. PREACHING OF THE FRIARS. 405 ments of those classes of the community for whose improvement and welfare St. Francis felt the deepest sympathy ; . . . . suited to an audience consisting as much of women as of men, appeal- ing more directly to the feelings; more popular and more dra- matic. This is one of the common accusations brought against the Friars by the Clergy, partly jealous of their new influence, partly suspicious of the result.1 They are loudly condemned by their opponents for magnifying preaching, and declining, like the older Orders, to confine themselves exclusively to manual labour, to reading and prayer. They are accused of studying eloquence and the art of rhetoric in the composition of their sermons, of making their addresses agreeable to the people, of communicating with secular persons, of derogating from the dignity of the clerical office, and bringing a scandal on the Church. . . . Here was a body of religious teachers, supported by the Head of the Church, as like the poorest of the laity in all respects, learning excepted, as could possibly be conceived. The Church, hitherto standing apart, was brought home to the people. Cold, and distant, and far removed from their sympathies, it now appealed to them directly : occupied by abstract discussions and formal statements of doctrine, it passed at once into the human, the sentimental, and the personal ; a great advance towards the sixteenth century." In this character of the Franciscan teaching the writer whom we are quoting sees an antidote, at least in part, to the Manichsean tendencies of the times, which were setting in upon Christendom through several channels of Oriental influence — the Crusades and commerce, the Moors in Spain, and Arabian learning affecting the Universities. § 3. How the mendicant friars — and in England, especially, the Franciscans — added to their work among the people that of teachers in the Universities, and how they became the leading and perma- nent authorities in systematic theology — will claim our attention presently. Meanwhile we have to notice another most powerful and subtle source of their influence with all classes, which tended to bring the highest affairs of Church and State under their control. The historian of the Franciscan settlement in England2 tells us that there were many brethren who, though not holding the office of preaching, or of lecturing in the Universities, yet by the favour of the prelates and the appointment of the provincial minister, heard the confessions both of religious and secular 1 See the summary of the complaints against the Friars, as enumerated in the reply of Thomas Aquinas, in Brewer, pp. xxxvi. xxxvii. 2 Thorn, de Eccleston, Coll. XI. Ue Institutione Confessorum, p. 41. 406 FRANCISCANS AS CONFESSORS. Chap. XXIV. persons, in various places. Thus in London a certain Fr. Salomon became the general confessor both of the citizens and the courtiers ; and a friendly controversy with the bishop,1 who required of him canonical obedience, was decided in favour of the order by a decretal which the provincial minister, Fr. Agnellus, obtained from Rome.2 Another confessor, at Gloucester, is described as " of such abstinence and rigour towards himself, and such sweetness and sociality to those under him, that he was beloved by all like an angel ; " and the writer joyfully records the success of these con- fessors in persuading the sick and penitent to enter the order. The privilege of hearing confessions ev ery where gave the friars a share, not only in the secrets of all classes, but in the councils of the highest, which led to their employment in affairs of Church and State. The power obtained by this mighty means of influence, added to the popularity won by the preaching and lives of the friars, is attested by the complaints which were raised against them by the clergy, jealous of the invasion of their functions, and especially by the older orders, who found their claims to sanctity and popular favour eclipsed.3 "The two great mendi- cant orders surpassed all other monastic bodies in vigour and popularity. They were to the elder orders much as these had been to the secular clergy — outshining them in the display of the qualities which were most admired, and endeavouring to surpass and supersede them in every way. Matthew Paris tells us that they disparaged the Cistercians as rude and simple; the Bene- dictines as proud and epicurean. The mendicants increased the more readily, because they were able to dispense with costly buildings. Their numbers were recruited, not only by young men who flocked into the mendicant cloisters, often against the will of their parents, but by many members of the older orders; and, while the friars were allowed by popes to receive accessions from other orders, it was forbidden that any other order should receive members from the friars. By the institution of Tertiaries they were so widely connected with the laity, that a writer of the age speaks of almost every one as being enrolled on the lists of one or other of the orders. And while the mendicants penetrated, as none had done before, to the very poorest classes of men, they knew also how to recommend themselves to the rich and great. 1 Roger Niger, bp. of London from 1229 to 1241. 2 The decretal Ntmis iniqua. 3 It must be remembered that Matthew Paris, from whom the fol- lowing picture is chiefly drawn, represents the feeling of the old Bene- dictine community of St. Albans, which was thoroughly hostile to the friars. A.D. 1226 f. INTRUSION ON PARISHES. 407 They were favoured by the popes, who employed them in business both ecclesiastical and secular ; they were familiar with the courts of princes, and were trusted by them with offices, and with the conduct of negociations, which might have seemed strangely in- congruous with their rigid and unworldly professions.1 Bishops of the more zealous kind, such as Grosseteste of Lincoln,2 employed them in their dioceses, to make up for the deficient zeal and ability of the secular clergy ; and they soon assumed for themselves authority to act independently of episcopal sanction, and were so far countenanced by the privileges which they acquired from popes, that they had little fear from the opposition of bishops. They invaded parishes, and derided the ministrations of the secular clergy, while they endeavoured to draw everything to themselves ; they preached, administered the sacraments,3 and directed con- sciences ; they persuaded the dying that bounty to their fraternity, death in the habit of their order, and burial in their cloisters, were the surest means to salvation. By hearing confessions, they annulled the penitential discipline; for, while one formal con- fession a year to the parish priest was considered to satisfy the decree of the Lateran Council,4 the intention of that canon was frustrated by the system of confession to strangers and interlopers."5 1 M. Paris, pp. 419, 518, 612, 727. 2 This great light of the English Church and State under Henry III., though not himself a member of the order, consented to lecture (before he became bp. of Lincoln) to the brethren of the school established by Fr. Agnellus at Oxford. He was succeeded in that office by the Franciscan Adam Marsh (Ada or Adam de Marisco), whose Letters in the Monumenta Franciscana abound with interesting information respecting the order in England and its relations to Rome. There are other letters by Grosseteste himself, and other eminent men, including the great Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, and Richard, earl of Cornwall, the King's brother. 3 "Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. allowed them to celebrate the Eucharist on portable altars, ' omni parochiali jure parochialibus ecclesiis reservato ' (Wadding, ii. 603 ; iii. 97) ; but the reservation seems to relate to money matters only." 4 See above, Chap. XVII. § 5. 5 Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 590-2. " The order of the Lateran Canon, that any one wishing to confess to another than his parish priest, should obtain the parish priest's leave, was neglected. (Collier, ii. 512.) In 1287, the Franciscan Archbishop Peckham, as protector of his order in England, decreed that the friars might receive confessions and enjoin penances without the leave of the parish priest, and even against his protest. (Wilkins, ii. 168.) Boniface VIII. (in 1298) interfered with the mendi- cants by ordering that any one who confessed to them should confess the same sins to his parish priest; but Benedict XL, himself a Dominican, altered this." In 1321 the same question, debated at Paris between John of Billy, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and Peter Paludanus, a Dominican, was decided by John XXII. in favour of the friars. 408 THE STRICT RULE IMPRACTICABLE. Chap. XXIV. All this is in striking contrast with the injunctions of Francis himself: " If (he said) I had as much wisdom as Solomon, and hap- pened to find the poorest simplest priests in the world, I would not preach in the parishes wherein they dwell, without their will." The Franciscans were always to show profound reverence for the clergy; if they met a priest riding, they were to kiss his horse's feet. § 4. The cardinal who at first advised Innocent III. that the rule proposed by Francis was impossible, gave utterance simply to a truth respecting human nature, which had been confirmed not only by the whole history of Monasticism, but more and more strongly by each new reforming effort to raise the standard higher and higher, and which was most signally illustrated in this last and highest effort. The Mendicant Orders gave the crowning example of the failure of a religious system pitched too high and supported only by an artificial power, which, like the wings of Icarus, fails through the intenseness of the test to which it is exposed, and ends in headlong ruin ; while those content quietly to walk the earth in the discharge of common duties, secular and religious, move safely in the path of usefulness and honour : — " the path of the just, shining more and more unto the perfect day." Matthew Paris, writing in the next generation after St. Francis, records it as " a terrible truth and sad presage, that, during more than three or four centuries the monastic orders had not made such progress in the downward path, as the order of friars within scarce twenty-four years from their entrance into England." And this, though the testimony of an enemy, agrees but too closely with the records of the earliest Franciscans themselves, which enable us to trace the downward steps with curious precision. At the very threshold of their course, there lay a twofold stumbling-block, in their founder's rules of absolute poverty, and renunciation of all knowledge save that of the first elements of Christianity. Of the latter point we have said something, and shall have presently to return to its later developments. As to the former, even St. Francis himself seems to have stopped short of the rigid consequence of his principles, which would have forbidden the possession of any property at all, even for homes and churches. What he required was that the cells and churches of the brethren should be of the humblest and plainest character. " We full gladly dwelt and tarried " (he says)1 "in poor desert and desolate churches And my 1 Testament of St. Francis in English (Monum. Francisc), p. 564 ; with the spelling modernized. It is worth while to notice the disclaimer of any novel or special forms of worship: — " Our divine service the clerks said as other clerks, and the lay brethren said their Pater Noster." But A.D. 1126. ACQUISITION OF LANDS AND HOUSES. 409 brethren must be well ware and advised in any wise that they receive no churches, nor dwelling-places, or any things, but if1 they be as seemeth (becomes) holy poverty, the which in our rule we have vowed and promised, always longing and abiding there in those places but as pilgrims and strangers. 1 command also sted- lastly and straitly by obedience unto all my brethren, that, where- soever they be and abide, they be not so bold or so hardy, either by themselves or by any other mean person, to desire or ask or to get or purchase any letter or writing from the Court of Home, neither for the church nor for any manner of place, neither for preaching nor under that colour, neither yet for the persecution of their bodies ; but wheresoever they be not received, they may flee away and depart thence to another place, to do penance with the blessing of God." The spirit of these injunctions is quite clear. The brethren sent forth into the world, like the first Evangelists by Christ, might accept not only temporary but more permanent hospitality in such form as to provide them with plain churches and humble homes, which they were to hold with the light grasp of strangers and pilgrims, nor use the favour of the Pope to obtain either property, exemptions, or privileges. So, in the second general chapter of the order, it was decreed that the churches should be poor and humble, and that the other buildings should be of wood or wattled with clay ; and any costly buildings were to be destroyed.2 But when the little bands of wandering brethren began to settle in strange cities and foreign lands, where numbers soon flocked into the order, the plea of necessity began to assert its proverbial power over law ; nay, the strict necessity was amplified by more worldly motives. In the plain language of the historian of the mission to England, not only did the rapid growth of numbers require larger houses and plots of grounds (arese) ; but " besides, by the Providence of God, persons of such quality (tales) often entered the brotherhood, for whom it seemed (and rightly so) that more honourable provision ought to be made." 3 § 5. The Provincial Minister, Agnellus, indeed, would only allow the later Franciscans could not let even the Lord's Prayer alone, without bringing their founder into it : " Pater Noster et Beati Francisci." 1 I.e. " except," or " unless they be," or " but such as be :" — the old English but = be-out, i.e. without or except. The ensuing injunction against the use of letters from Rome is a significant allusion to the practices of other orders, which the friars themselves were not long in imitating. 2 Wadding, i. 302 ; Vita Franc. 89. Yet Francis is said to have foreseen the certain infraction of the rule, throwing the responsibility on his suc- cessors with a vague hope as to the result : " Sed sufficit in tempore illo quod fratres mei custodiant se a peccatis." (Wadding, i. 129.) 3 Thorn, de Eccleston, p. 34. 410 PREACHING SPOILT BY BUILDING. Chap. XXIV. such enlargements when required by " inevitable necessity ;" but his second successor, Hay mo of Feversham, though himself also a com- panion of St. Francis, and one of the stricter party, yet avowed the principle, that " he would rather the brethren should have large spaces, and till them that they might be able to have pot-herbs at home," than (perhaps he meant) betray luxurious tastes by begging for more than bread ; and he made the ingenious apology for the concession, " that the buildings ought to be made moderately large, lest future brothers should make them too large." But the Minister had the roof of the new church in London pulled off, and the wooden enclosure of the cloisters torn down ; * and when a more fastidious brother threatened to complain to the Minister- General of the want of an enclosure, he replied, " And I will answer the General, that I did not enter the order to build walls." The zeal of such opponents was supported by St. Francis himself, in visions and miracles; and a famous preacher confessed that in the occupation of his mind about building he had lost his former power of preaching and devotion. In like manner, brother William of Abingdon had " an incomparable gift of preaching " before he erected the buildings at Gloucester, but afterwards his mean concern about temporalities brought on this rebuke from Henry III. : " Brother William, you used to speak so spiritually; but now all that you say is, 'Give I Give! Give!'" And if men receive because they ask, the words may seem confirmed by the long list of benefactions to the order.2 Nor was the rule of poverty infringed only by the possession of property, but even by the contraction of debts, which had the sanction of the fourth provincial minister of England, William of Nottingham, a man of the highest repute for piety. § 6. Unfortunately for the fair trial of the principles of Francis, the very person next to him in the order was one for whom his standard was too high. As a native of Assisi, Elias (or Helias) was among 1 Sometimes the people interfered with such zeal, as when the second minister in England, Albert of Pisa, had great difficulty in destroying the stone cloister at Southampton, on account of the objection of the towns- men. (Eccleston, p. 55.) 2 Prima Fundatio, &c. A letter written to Henry III. in the name of the secular clergy of England makes a sarcastic application of St. Paul's words to contrast the profession of the friars with their practice: " Although having nothing, they possess all things ; and although without riches, they grow richer than all the rich." (Peter de Vineis, i. 37 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 593.) See also the remarkable letter of Adam Marsh to William of Nottingham (fourth provincial minister of England), regretting the relaxation of discipline in the order, and the love of secular employments. The great edifice (he says) is being overthrown from its foundations, not so much through negligence as wilful waste of power. Epist. ccii. ; M<>n. Francisc. p. 361 f. A.D. 1231-9. THE GENERAL ELIAS. 411 Francis's earliest friends and converts,1 and he was his vicar during his almost constant journeys. But, from his connection with the University of Bologna, he probably brought into the order a spirit adverse to the simple faith of the founder.2 Even while Francis was yet alive, and during his absence in Egypt, Elias took advan- tage of his position as vicar to propose a mitigation of the rule, alleging that the grace which had been given to the founder was not to be expected of his successors.3 On the death of Francis, the order appears to have been divided between the claims of Elias, as their founder's chief friend and vicar, and the higher personal character of Johannes Parens, minister of Spain, "a wise and religious man, and of the most rigorous strictness." It would seem that Elias was at first elected almost as of course (or he may have assumed the generalship pro- visionally in virtue of his office as vicar) ; but that the more deli- berate choice of the general chapter fell on John Parens, in favour of whom Elias was deposed.* He retired to a hermitage, allowed his hair and beard to grow, and by this affectation of sanctity became reconciled to the brethren. At the general chapter held for the translation of St. Francis, Elias contrived to secure the attendance of a number of his parti- sans, who, silencing the opposition of the provincial ministers,5 made a tumultuous re-election of Elias, to which John Parens yielded, for peace-sake (1231). The disregard which Elias showed for the strict rule of poverty, both in his own habits and in the decoration of the new church of St. Francis at Assisi, provoked opposition from the stricter brethren,6 which he punished with tyrannical 1 His claim to succeed St. Francis as minister-general was " pra?cipue propter familiaritatem quam habucrat cum beato Francisco." (Eccleston, p. 45 ; and again, p. 46.) But the same writer, moralizing on his sub- sequent fall, bears testimony to his high reputation: " Quis in universo Christianitatis orbe vel gratiosior vel famosior quam Helias?" (p. 23). 2 It appears that Elias, as the intimate friend of Francis, was received into the order without taking the vow of absolute poverty, and he afterwards availed himself of this freedom for his conscience. 3 Wadding, i. 331. "St. Francis rebuked Elias for dressing too well (ibid. p. 340), but on his deathbed he especially blessed him (T. Celan. 108)." (Robertson, vol. iii. p. 590.) 4 For the details, see Thomas of Eccleston (Coll. xii. p. 44), and the list of General Ministers in the Mon. Francisc. (p. 558). But as the list in the Prima Fundatio (pp. 532-533) places John Parens before Elias, we may infer that he was almost immediately superseded by John Parens. 5 Eccleston, p. 44. Though the custodies and wardens were qualified to be present at the general chapters, the provincial ministers alone had a voice in the election of a general. 6 They were called the Spirituales or Zelatores Ordinis, while the less rigid party adopted the title of Fratres de Communitate. Eccleston stamps 412 GREGORY IX. AND THE ORDER. Chap. XXIV. severity; and in this he was for a time supported by Gregory IX., who had himself sanctioned a relaxation of the rule. At length the whole order was so disturbed by the " carnality and cruelty " 1 of Elias, that the zealots, headed reluctantly by Haymo of Fever- sham, took the bold step of obtaining the convention of a general chapter, which was held by the vicar of the order, who was the " penitentiary " of Gregory IX. The numerous provincial ministers who were opposed to Elias were assembled with the most approved of the Cismontane (i.e. Italian brethren).2 After long discussion, brethren were elected to consider the reformation of the order — this being only a dozen years since the founder's death. Their report was presented at a general chapter held in presence of the Pope and seven cardinals ; where Elias defended himself so plausibly, that the Pope refused even to listen to Haymo in reply, till one of the cardinals said, " My lord, this old man is a good man ; it is good that you should hear him, because he is brief in speech." In a tone of great respect for his superior, Haymo described his luxury in such plain language, that Elias interrupted him with the " lie direct ; " and the wrangling of the partisans on both sides, provoked a rebuke from the Pope, which described but too truly the future conduct of the friars : " This is not the manner of reli- gious persons." Ultimately the Pope gave his decision, prefaced by a personal commendation of Elias and a reference to his intimacy with St. Francis, that " he had believed his ministry to have been ac- ceptable to the brethren, but since the contrary was now proved, he decreed his deposition " 3 (1239). He then held a new election, which Elias with the title of turbator Ordinis ; and he describes the complaints of Haymo against him, which led to his deposition, as " propter scandala quae fecit, et tyrannidem quun in zelatores Ordinis exercuit " (p. 23). 1 Eccleston, p. 45. 2 Eccleston, p. 45. It should be borne in mind that the terms Cis- montane and Ultramontane are always used by the medieval writers as equivalent to the classical terms Cisalpine and Transalpine, the point of view being at Rome. The opposite use of Ult7*amontane as equivalent to Roman or Italian has grown up gradually from the point of view of the countries of Northern and Western Europe. Eccleston says (p. 48) that the corruption (deformatid) of the order through the excesses of Elias was greater " ultra montes," meaning chiefly France and Germany ; for, on the other hand, Albert, the reforming successor of Elias, commended the English above all nations in respect of their zeal for the order. The like praise was given by John of Parma, the sixth general, when he visited England (between 1247 and 1250); but this was after he had " brought back the brethren to unity " in a provincial synod held at Oxford. 3 The satisfaction which the decision gave is described by Eccleston, who further states that Albert, on his election, celebrated the first mass ever celebrated by a minister general — a proof that St. Francis had not performed sacerdotal functions. A.D. 1245. INNOCENT IV. RELAXES THE RULE. 413 fell upon Albert of Pisa, a strong representative of the rigid party, who had succeeded Agnellus as provincial minister of England; and the latter office was now conferred on Haymo.1 In the retreat to which Elias was relegated at Cortona, he was guilty of new violations of the rule, which caused Albert to summon him to Home, to obtain the grace of absolution. He disdained com- pliance; and when the Pope declared that he must obey the general like any other brother, Elias, unable to bear his humilia- tion, as one who had not learnt to obey, went over to the party of Frederick II., and thereby brought on himself a public sentence of excommunication from Gregory IX. " for his disobedience and apo- stasy."2 Elias spent the rest of his life at the court of the Emperor, " whose hatred of the Papacy and the mendicant orders he probably helped to exasperate." 3 § 7. We have related this affair fully, to show how immediately the ideal of St. Francis succumbed to the inevitable faults of human nature ; and, under the more rigid successors of Elias, we still find a constant growth of the more worldly elements, alike in wealth, learning, and even moral corruption. Measures were taken again and again to reform the rule, notwithstanding visions of St. Francis himself to sanction the resistance of the stricter brethren to any change.4 The possession of property was formally sanctioned by Innocent IV. (1245) in a form which strengthened the bond between the order and the Papacy. He declared that the property of the Minorites belonged to the Holy See, but that the brethren might appoint prudent men to manage it for their use.5 We read of frequent dissensions, which led to the resignation or deposition of provincial ministers and even generals ; as in the case of the seventh General Minister, John of Parma, in whom the "spiritual" party rejoiced "as a second St. Francis."6 But, with his zeal for the 1 Scotland was now reunited to England under the administration of Haymo ; the minister of Scotland, Robert de Ketene, being transferred to Ireland. 2 Eccleston, p. 23. 3 Wadding, ii. 241-2, 412; iii. 21, f.; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 596. Wadding says that he repented on his deathbed ; but according to another account he had refused the invitation of the general, John of Parma, to return to the order, and his bones were taken up and thrown on a dung- hill (Salimb. 412). 4 See an example in Eccleston, p. 49. 5 In the bull Quanto Studioshis, addressed ad Generalem et Provinciates Ministros Fratrum Minorum. (Wadding, vol. iii. pp. 129-131 ; Gieseler, vol. iii. p. 255 ; Robertson, vol. iii. p. 597.) 6 " Praecipuus zelator Ordinis " (Eccleston, pp. 49, 50) : he had lectured on theology at Paris, " cursorie legerat sententias (ibid.)" He is also described as " sanctae memoria?, magister in theologia, et lector curiae, de provincia Bonouia?." He wrote a treatise, addressed to Roger Bacon, as " In- nominato Magistro." (Prima Fundatio, &c., p. 533.) Cf. Chap. XXXI. p. 529. II— u 414 APOLOGUE OF ALEXANDER IV Chap. XXIV. purity of the order, John carried the mystic spirit of the founder to such lengths, as to adopt the apocalyptic fancies of the Abbot Joachim of Fiore,1 which were scarcely consistent with loyalty to the Church of Rome. His resignation (1256) was therefore suggested by Alexander IV., ostensibly on the ground of his inability to con- trol the disorders, which were thus confessed to prevail in the order. The Pope, a zealous friend of the order, complained of its state in a figurative apologue, that " whereas the order was built up with two walls — moral goodness and knowledge — the brethren had reared the wall of knowledge to the height of heaven, so as to be asking whether God exists ; but they had allowed the wall of morals to be so low, that it was great praise to say of a brother, He is a safe man ; " and soon few would give them even this praise. His warning that they should protect themselves and the reverence for their profession against prelates and princes, rather by their manifest merits than by apostolic privileges, was pointed by a contrast between their humble name and their actual pretensions.2 1 See next Chapter, p. 419 f. 2 " Ut essent minores inter omnes humilitate et mansuetudine." Christ the Good Shepherd, with subjects from the Old Testament. An archaic bronze Medallion, found in the Catacombs at Rome (Buonarotti). Franciscan Friar and Trinitarian Monk. CHAPTER XXV. LATER HISTORY OF THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 1. St. Bonaventtjra General of the Franciscans — Conflict with the secular clergy and Doctors — His rebuke of the corruptions of the order. § 2. Exactions, backed up by pious frauds — Indulgence of the Portiun- cula— Dying in the cowl— Rivalry of the orders for privileges and exemptions— Charges of heresy. §3. Mystical and prophetic views of the Franciscan Spirituals or Zealots — The Millennium at hand — Prophecies of Abbot Joachim — His three states of the world, ending a.d. 1260 — Denunciations of the Clergy, Papacy, and Empire — The 416 BONAVENTURA, FRANCISCAN GENERAL. Chap. XXV. Greek and Roman Churches — Final triumph of the monks — Prophecy of the two Mendicant Orders, a Franciscan forgery. § 4. Development of his views by the extreme Franciscans — The Introduction to the Ever- lasting Gospel — A Third Dispensation from a.d. 1260 — Its antipapal spirit — The three angels: Joachim, St. Dominic, and St. Francis — Franciscan authorship, by Gerardino. § 5. Schism of the Fraticelli or Spiritual Franciscans. § 6. Relaxations granted by Nicolas III. — Opposition of Peter John Olivi — The Celestine Eremites — Secession and persecution of the Fraticelli — Condemnation of Olivi's Postilla in Apocalypsin — His Seven States of the Church, culminating in St. Francis — The carnal clergy, papacy, and Antichrist — The seventh age. § 7. Growth of the Schism — Quarrel with John XXII. — Persecution — Michael Cesena — The Chapter at Perugia — The " spirituals "' Ghibelline and anti-papal — The Conventuals and Observants. § 8. Progress and corruption of the order — They become champions of ignorance and superstition. § 9. St. Francis of Paola and his order of Minims. § 10. The " unbridled multitude " of Friars, restricted to Four Orders — Carmelites — Augustinian Eremites — Martin Luther — The fifth order of Servites of the Virgin. §11. Universal influence of the Mendicant Orders, both for good and evil. § 12. Beguines and Beghards — Their origin and true character — Secular Canonesses — These societies confused with the Mendicants, and persecuted as heretics — Their later history. § 1. The Pope's allusion to the growth of learning in the order was strikingly illustrated by the successor, who was elected on the recom- mendation of John of Parma, the great schoolman Bonaventura.1 But the " Seraphic Doctor's " learning was more than equalled by his piety and zeal for Franciscan purity ; and under him the order obtained leave from Alexander IV. to abolish the 'interpretations by which Innocent IV. had modified the rule, except in so far as they agreed with those of Gregory IX. It was at the very time when, in the person of Bonaventura among the Franciscans, and Thomas Aquinas among the Dominicans,2 the mendicant orders had placed 1 John of Fidanza, of a Tuscan family, called " de Balneo Regio " from his birthplace (now Bagnorea), and by the conventual name of Bona- ventura, was the 8th general of the order, and held the office 18 years, till his death at the Council of Lyon, at the age of ,r>2 (1274). He taught theology at Paris, where he was known as the Doctor mellifluus (as well as seraphicus), and was made Cardinal-Bishop of Albano by Gregory X. He was canonized by the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV. (1482), and was ranked by Sixtus V. (1587) as the sixth in order among the great teachers of the Church. His Life of St. Francis has been already mentioned. His great master, Alexander Hales, said that in him Adam did not appear to have sinned ; and his pure piety is celebrated by the less partial testimony of Dante (Paradiso, c. xii. 127-9). 2 Concerning the scholastic fame of these great representatives of the two orders and the contest with the University of Paris, see below, Chaps. XXIX., XXX. A.D. 1257. HIS REBUKE OF CORRUPTIONS. 417 themselves at the head of the theological learning of the age, that they had to encounter the full storm of opposition from the com- bined elements of secular learning and clerical jealousy ; a com- bination all the more powerful, as the clergy, whose jealousy was excited on the grounds of the superior zeal and still more of the special privileges of the friars, were the chief teachers in the great seats of learning. The vehement conflict which now broke out at Paris will be better understood when we have reviewed the great intellectual movement of the age. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that in the controversy between William of St. Amour, as the chief assailant of the friars, and their champions Bonaventura and Aquinas, the attack derived its whole force from those corruptions for which we need not cite the bitter censures of the enemy, because they are set forth even more forcibly in the frank calmness with which they are confessed and lamented by the pious Franciscan General himself. While answering the accuser, he deemed it quite as much a duty to address a circular to the Provincial Ministers,1 plainly stating the result of his " diligent consideration of the causes, why the splendour of our order is somewhat obscured." His mind had been struck 2 by the multiplicity of business caused by money, the greatest enemy of the order, which was greedily sought, reck- lessly accepted, and more recklessly handled ; — the idleness, that sink of all vices, in which certain brethren, choosing a sort of mon- strous condition between the contemplative and active life, cruelly rather than carnally destroyed the blood of souls ; — the wandering life in which very many, to indulge their bodies, made their visits a burthen to those whom they visited, leaving behind them, not examples of life, but stumbling-blocks for souls ; — the importunate begging, which made travellers abhor and fear to meet friars as much as robbers ; — the sumptuous and artistic construction of buildings, which broke the peace of the brethren,3 laid burthens on their friends, and exposed them in manifold ways to the perverse judgments of men. Not to dwell on all the points of the recital, he mentions the invasion of the province of the clergy ; and the imprudent assumption of varied functions, which laid an intolerable burthen on brethren not trained to tbem, nor qualified for them by self-denying habits of body or spiritual strength. Nor does he con- 1 Paris, April 3, 1257 (in Wadding, s. a. No. 10); similar confessiors and exhortations are in his tract De Eeformandis Fratrihus. 2 "Occurrit mihi " — a phrase suggesting offences or stumbling-blocks. 3 When Bonaventura wrote this censure, the great artists of the dawning revival were engaged on the decorations of the church of St. Francis at Assisi. The phrase quse, fratrum pacem inquietat is illustrated by the dissensions which we have already seen arising so early about that edifice. 418 EXACTIONS AND PIOUS FRAUDS. Chap. XXV. ceai the moral scandals, suspicions, and ill-repute, arising from the intimacies forbidden by the rule,1 which were before long to make the friars a byword for corruption and a danger to social life. As the sum and root of all, he names the violation of that poverty which was the first rule of the order. " I am struck, finally, by the sumptuous expenditure of money ; for, since the brethren will not be content with few things, and the charity of men has grown cold, we have become burthensome to all, and we shall become more so in future, unless a remedy be quickly opposed to the disease"2 § 2. These words are prophetic of the fate reserved for the ideal poverty which repaid the bare support it asked from pious charity by a return of spiritual wealth and life, when it had become in fact a luxurious, wealthy, and corrupt system of ever-growing exaction, killing the charity on which it preyed, and turning it into hatred and disgust. As the source of willing charity ran dry, while the demands on it were ever growing, new means had to be found for working upon fear or favour ; and, in addition to papal privileges, fables and frauds were resorted to, to enhance the dignity and spiritual power of each order. " The more they degenerated, the more did their shamelessness in such pious frauds increase ; and thus they became the most active promoters of ecclesiastical super- stition." 3 One chief means used by the Franciscans for attracting devotees, was the plenary indulgence for all sins to contrite visitors to the church of the Portiuncula at Assisi on every first of August, when as many as 100,000 persons are said to have often assembled there. This privilege, said to have been granted to the founder's prayers by Pope Honorius III., but unheard of during the life of Francis, was first attested by two of his disciples half a century later4 (1277), and another added that it was confirmed by the voice 1 Those who are inclined to regard the prevalent immorality of the friars as a libel, should ponder these words ot' the pious general as but the keynote of a vast body of unanswerable evidence to the fact, that human nature revenged itself on a system pitched too high for all but the few purest spirits. 2 These confessions and rebukes are not very different in substance from the account given at the very same time by an enemy, Matthew Paris (a.d. 1256, p. 939) of the popular feeling towards the friars at this time: — "The people ridiculed them, and withheld their accustomed alms, calling them hypocrites, successors of Antichrist, false preachers, flat- terers and evil advisers of kings and princes, despisers and supplanters of ordinary preachers, clandestine intruders into the bed-chambers of kings, and prevaricators of confessions ; men who vagabondized through countries where they were unknown, and gave encouragement and boldness to sinners." 3 Gieseler, vol. iii. p. J47. 4 Not, however, of their own knowledge, but on the report of another friar, that he had heard the account from St. Francis. It is mentioned by A.D. 1256 f. MYSTICISM OF THE "SPIRITUALS." 419 of God, assuring Francis, as he left the Pope's presence, that, as thi indulgence had been granted to him on earth, so it was confirmed in heaven. The promise, which we have already noticed as having originated with the Carmelites, of sure salvation to all dying in the habit of the order, though assumed only on the deathbed, was adopted by all the mendicant orders. The motive for such inven- tions, to exalt the sanctity of their respective orders, was enhanced by the bitter rivalry which very soon sprung up, especially between the Franciscans and Dominicans. United at first by the enthusiastic adoption of evangelic poverty, and by the zeal which made them the common opponents of the secular clergy and the old monastic orders, they soon naturally became rivals on their own ground of fame as preachers and of popular favour ; they sought privileges and exemptions at one another's expense ; and, as we shall presently see, the division was widened by the formation of antagonistic theological schools, Dominican and Franciscan. The rivalry between the two orders, which had started from common principles and for a common work, became as vehement as that of the two great military orders ; and the parallel extends to the charges of heresy and secret profanity, which were made against the friars, especially against some branches of the Franciscans. § 3. The mystical element, which was predominant in Francis him- self, became a general characteristic of the party of " Spirituals " or " Zealots," whose opposition we have seen excited by the first in- fractions of the rule of poverty; and this feeling chimed in with the idea, prevalent throughout the 13th century, that the millennial consummation of all things was at hand.1 As they exalted their founder to a perfect parallel with Christ, and wanted but little of making him a new Messiah, so the promise of an approaching reno- vation of the corrupt church and ungodly world seemed to mark the great destiny of their order. The famous prophecies of the Abbot Joachim concerning the approaching end of the world, had a charm even for the most rational minds of the order.2 Though none of his early biographers, not even by Bonaventura. For the history of the pretension, and the marvellous additions made to it by one Fran- ciscan after another, see Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 245-6. 1 As has been said above, when the year 1000 passed away without the expected catastrophe, a new millennial period was imagined, dated from the imperial establishment of Christianity; just as, in our day, we have seen the great epoch of 1260 prophetic days shifted by apocalyptic theorists. 2 Besides the case of John of Parma already noticed, we have an example of this in the strong terms used by the great Oxford Franciscan, Adam Marsh, in sending to Bp. Grosseteste some of the "Expositions" of Joachim, which had been brought to him from Italy (Epist. xliii., Monum. Francisc. pp. 146, 147), 420 THE PROPHECIES OF JOACHIM. Cha.p. XXV. Joachim died (a.d. 1202) before Francis founded his order, and his proper place is among the visionaries of the age, the adoption of his prophecies by the Franciscan zealots requires some account of them in this place. Joachim was a native of Calabria, a land of monks and hermits.1 Born in 1145 (or, some say, in 1130), he was placed by his father at the court of Roger II. of Sicily ; but he left it in disgust, and went as a pilgrim to Egypt and Palestine, where for a time he led a life of severe asceticism. On his return he became a monk, and ultimately abbot, in the Cistercian house of Carace, near Squillace ; and after retiring for a period of solitary and strict meditation, he founded at Fiore, near the confluence of the rivers Albula and Neto, a new society, of which he was the abbot. The fame of his piety, and especially of his studies in the obscurer prophecies of Scripture, spread over Europe; and his expositions captivated the minds of high and low, excited by the crisis when the false prophet seemed again triumphing in the East, and when there was a general expectation of the end of the world. Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus held conferences with Joachim at Messina, on their way to the Crusade ; and his influence checked the cruel ravages of Henry VI. in Italy (1191). In the ecclesiastical world his expositions seem to have been on the whole favourably received, though opinions were divided. His prophetical studies were encouraged and approved by the three Popes, Lucius II., Urban III., and Clement 111., perhaps from an imperfect knowledge of his attacks on the Papacy, which were only fully apprehended in their development by subsequent enthusiasts, who used Joachim in a character which he himself disclaimed, as the prophet of a new dispensation.2 Though the gift of miracles as well as prophecy was claimed for him, his admirers failed to procure his canonization in 1346.3 Joachim 4 is described as remarkable not only for piety, but for 1 Joachim's Life is in the Acta Sanctorum, 29th of May, torn. vii. p. 89. For his writings see ibid. pp. 103, 129, seq. The chief are De Concordia Veteris et Novi 7'estamenti, Libri V. ; Expositio Apocalypsis (pub. Ventt. 1519) ; Psalterium decern chordarum (Venet. 1527) ; and Commentaries on Jeremiah (Venet. 1525 ; Colon. 1577), Isaiah (Venet. 1517), Ezekiel, Daniel, &c. These works appear to represent the threefold division of Scripture into history, prophecy, and psalmody. There are some important articles on Joachim, and the other prophetical expositors of the age, by the late Hon. Algernon Herbert, in the British Magazine, vol. xvi.-xviii. Extracts from the prophecies of Joachim are given by Gieseler, vol. iii. pp. 255-6. 2 See below as to the " Everlasting Gospel " and the views of Olivi. 5 Dante makes St. Bonaventura speak of Joachim as gifted with the spirit of prophecy. 4 For a full account of Joachim's views, see Robertson, vol. iii. pp. 202 f. We give only the most essential points. A.D. 1200. HIS THREE STATES OF THE WORLD. 421 modesty. The gift which he claimed was not that of prophecy, but of understanding, which was supposed to have rendered him inde- pendent of the ordinary means of learning, for it is said that, until supernaturally enlightened, he was wholly illiterate; and hence it was natural that he should denounce the method of the Schoolmen. His attack on Peter Lombard's doctrine as to the Trinity drew on himself the censure of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), as having vented a heresy very like tritheism. With his doctrine of the Trinity, however, was connected one of the chief parts of his prophetical system — the doctrine of the Three States,1 in which the government of the world was conducted by the Three Persons of the Godhead respectively. These states were not wholly distinct in time ; for one was said to -begin when another was at its height, and, as the earlier state ended, the next attained to its height of fructification or charity. Thus, the first state, in which men lived according to the flesh, reached its charity in Abraham, and ended with Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. 'I he second state, which is divided between the flesh and the Spirit, began with Elijah, and reached charity in Zacharias. The third began with St. Bene- dict, and its charity — the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh — was to be at the end of the forty-second generation from the Nativity — that is, in the year 1260.2 It was in the last three years and a half of this time that Antichrist would come. It is said that Joachim told Richard of England that Antichrist was already born at Rome, and the King replied that, in that case, he must be no other than the reigning Pope, Clement. But Joachim looked for Antichrist to arise among the Patarenes, and expected him to be supported by an Antipope, who was to stir him up against the faithful, as Simon Magus stirred up Nero. Against the existing clergy Joachim inveighed in the strongest terms, and he especially denounced the corruptions of the Roman cardinals, legates, and court, while he spoke with peculiar reverence 1 See the passages cited by Gieseler (I.e. ) from the Liber Conrordige, &c. 2 The 42 generations answer to the 42 months of the celebrated pro- phetic period, which has so much exercised the whole series of commenta- tors on unfulfilled prophecy, variously stated as 1260 days (lie v. xii. 6, interpreted by assuming the universal application in prophecy of Ezek. iv. 6, "I have appointed thee each day for a year"), or 42 months (Rev. xi. 2, xiii. 5, that is, 42 x 30 prophetic days = 1260 years), or a time, ti/nes, and the half (or dividing) of a time (Dan. vii. 25; xii. 7 ; Rev. xii. 14), that is 1 4- 2 + § = 3J years = 3£ X 360 prophetic days = 1260 years. Joachim most naturally dated from the Nativity. The initial epoch (or zero of the prophetic chronology) has been a more complex problem for his suc- cessors; and their solutions have been more curious than edifying. Then, as we have seen in our own d-y, when the critical epoch came and passed away, a new starting-point was discovered. II-U2 422 PROPHECY OF THE TWO ORDERS. Chap. XXV. of the Papacy itself.1 He regarded Rome as being at once Jeru- salem and Babylon ; Jerusalem as the seat of the Papacy ; Babylon, as the seat of the Empire — committing fornication with the kings of the earth.2 For he regarded the imperial power with especial abhorrence, and denounced all reliance of the Church on secular help: the bondage of the Church under the Empire was the Babylonian Captivity ; the Popes, in relying on the King of France, were leaning on a broken reed, which would surely pierce their hands.3 On account of the connection with the Byzantine empire, as well as of its errors as to the Holy Ghost, he ver v strongly censures the Greek Church, which he compares to Israel, while the Roman Church is typified by Judah ; yet, accord- ing to that comparison, he supposes the Eastern Church to contain a remnant of faithful ones, like those seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal.4 The only merit which he acknowledges in the Greeks is, that among them the order of monks and hermits originated. These he considers to be figured in Jacob, while the secular clergy are Esau. The seculars were to perish as martyrs in the final contest with Antichrist ; and, after the fall of Antichrist, the monks would shine forth in glory. Thus the Papacy was to triumph, but its triumph was to be shared by the monks only ; and Joachim's view of the final state of liberty and enlightenment, through the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit, excluded the need of any human teachers. That Joachim's works have been largely tampered with, appears to be unquestioned : and this was the case with a passage in which he was supposed to have foretold the rise of the Dominican and Franciscan orders. In its original shape, the prophecy contained nothing beyond what might have been conjectured by his natural sagacity : he speaks of two individuals, who are to begin the contest with Antichrist, and he seems to expect that these will arise from among the Cistercians. But in its later form the two men become two new orders, which are to preach the Everlasting Gospel,5 to convert Jews and Mohammedans, and to gather out the faithful remnant of the Greek Church, that it may be united to the Roman ; and the characteristics of the Dominicans and Franciscans are 1 Mr. Herbert considers Joachim's system as a deep plot, concerted with the Popes. (Brit. Mag. xvi. 49-4.) 2 But he also applies the figure to the Church of Rome: — Apoc. xvii. "Mulier auro inaurata indifferenter cum terras principibus fornicatur. Romana ecclesia ista est, quae in Babylonem vita; contusione transtusa moechatur." 3 The figure under which Hezekiah was warned against leaning on Egypt for support against Assyria (1 Kings sviii. 21 ; Isaiah xxxvi. 6). 4 1 Kings xix. 18; Romans xi. 4. 5 Rev. xiv. 6. A.D. 1254. "THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL." 423 marked with a precision which proves the spuriousness of the passage. And as, of the two orders, the Franciscans are preferred, it would seem that the forgery is rather to be traced to them than to the Dominicans. § 4. In the mention of Joachim's prophecies by Adam Marsh, as inspired warnings of the divine judgments coming on the " prelates and clergy, princes and people " of that age of extreme wickedness, nothing is said of their special application to the Franciscan order. But they became the keynote of the extreme zealots, who were incensed against Rome on account of the relaxation of their founder's rigid rule. Thus there arose among the strict Franciscans a party of apocalyptic enthusiasts, who not only declared the state of the Church at that time to be corrupt, but also regarded the whole work of Christ as nothing more than a preparation for a more perfect dispensation of the Holy Ghost. This view was most fully set forth in the famous work, commonly called the Everlasting Gospel, but more properly an Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel,1 in 1254, in which the end of the ex- isting dispensation, to give way to the final and everlasting age of the Holy Ghost, was fixed for 1260. Though certainly not, as -some have hastily assumed, the work of Joachim himself, it may be safely regarded as the full development of the ideas thrown out in his prophecies, to which it professed to be an intro- duction. Though there was long a great dispute about its author- ship, and though its true date has been called in question, it is certain that the book first attracted public notice in Paris in the year 1254, when the theological faculty of the University made a representation of its mischievous teachings to Alexander IV. The Pope issued a brief, charging the Archbishop of Paris to de- stroy the book and all extracts (scedulse) from it (real or alleged) in which the same doctrines were set forth, under pain of excom- munication on all who kept possession of them (1255). This will account for the non-existence of any copies ; but several ex- tracts are extant, either from the work itself or the "schedules" referred to by the Pope, and the Franciscans stand alone in im- pugning their genuineness. According to these extracts, it was affirmed that, about the year 1 rntrodnctorius (sc. libellus) in Evangelium JEternum ; which is re- garded by Thmnas Aquinas as an Introduction to the Works of Joachim ; and it is so described in the brief of Alexander IV. The title is taken from Rev. xiv. 6 ; and the author for authors) no doubt regarded Joachim as the "angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the Everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwelt on the earth," &c, and crying with a loud voice that the time of judgment was at hand. 424 "THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL." Chap. XXV. 1200 a.d. (the crowning epoch of Joachim's life), the Spirit of life went forth, to make of the two Testaments the Everlasting Gospel, the superior excellence of which is set forth in various figures. The Old Testament shone with the brightness of the stars, the New with the lustre of the moon, the Eternal Gospel with, the splendour of the sun : the Old was the outer sanctuary, the New the Holy place, the Eternal the Holy of Holies : the first was the operation of God the Father, the second of God the Son, the last of the Holy Spirit with the whole power of the Trinity. The Gospel of Christ was literal, the Eternal Gospel is spiritual, fulfilling the promise of the prophet, " I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; " * and this third state of the world will be free from all figures and enigmas, according to the saying of the Apostle, " For we know in part, and we prophesy in part ; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away ;" 2 as if he would say, Then shall all figures cease, and the truth of the two Testaments shall appear without a veil : for the New Testament is as temporary as the Old, and it was to last only till the year 1260. This consummation was to be brought about by the power of the Holy Ghost, but instrumentally by the prevalence of the writings of Joachim ; and in it the papal authority was to have no place. For the spiritual understanding of the New Testament has not been committed to the Eoman Pope, but only the understanding of the letter. Hence the Church of Eome has no power to judge of the spiritual sense; and its judg- ments are random (temeraria), for the Eoman Church is itself literal and not spiritual. The Greek Pope walks more according to the Gospel than the Latin Pope, and is nearer to the state of those who .shall be saved, and rather to be adhered to than the Pope or Church of Eome. In all those utterances, which are the representations preserved by enemies, we see the vague expression of that mystic spiritualism, exalted by fancies concerning the near fulfilment of the apocalyptic prophecy, and deeply imbued with a sense of the evils of the Papal system, which had begun to spread far and wide within the Church itself, even when it did not go to the length of separation. But other passages point to the friars, and especially the Franciscans, as the chief ministers of this new dispensation of the Spirit or Everlast- ing Gospel. In the spirit of their favourite "conformities" we find .that, as in the beginning of the first dispensation three great men appeared — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with his twelve (sons); and as in the beginning of the new, there appeared three— Zacharias, 1 Jerem. xxxi. 33. 2 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10. A.D. 1254. ITS FRANCISCAN AUTHORSHIP. 425 John the Baptist, and the man Christ Jesus, who likewise had twelve with Him ,- so in the beginning of the third there would be three like them, and these are found in the Apocalypse ; namely, the Angel clothed in linen,1 the Angel having a sharp sickle (Dominic),2 and the Angel having the seal of the living God;3 and the last Angel is in like manner to have twelve — the mystic number by which his followers were likened to the sons of Jacob and the Apostles, and to the tribes both of the natural and the spiritual Israel.4 The Everlasting Gospel is entrusted and committed princi- pally to that order which is created as a new ministry, and which is composed alike of the laity and the clergy — which the book designated as the " Order of Independents." 5 Here we seem to have sufficient internal evidence of the Fran- ciscan origin of the work ; that is to say, that it contained ideas which, put forth already before the ministry of Francis began, were adopted more or less fully — not indeed by the ruling party in the order — but by its " spiritual " section ; and its authorship seems in fact to have been charged upon them by their own brethren of the ruling party.6 For a long time it was ascribed to John of Parma, who was deposed, as we have seen, for his leaning to the doctrines of Joachim ; but at length its authorship has been fixed by clear evidence on John's friend and fellow-sufferer, the Franciscan " zealot," Gerard or Gerardino of Borgo San Donnino, who was con- demned by his superiors as a follower of Joachim, and, after eighteen years' imprisonment, was buried in unconsecrated ground.7 1 The idea seems to be a comparison of Joachim to that one of the seven angels clothed in linen and holding the vials of the seven plagues, who acted as hierophant or interpreter of the visions to St. John. (See Rev. xv. 6, 7 ; and xvii. 1.) 2 Rev. xiv. 14. 3 Rev. vii. 2. 4 The xii. belonging to the Angel of the new Gospel are evidently (from the context) the whole body of friars, starting from the twelve companions of St. Francis, and, as it seems, not excluding the Dominicans; the object being to exalt the system rather than the one order. 5 The " Ordo Independent ium " seems to describe their independence of clerical orders and episcopal jurisdiction. 6 When Matthew Paris (a.d. 1256, p. 939), in his account of the offence given by the " Preacher Brethren " to the University of Paris, says that they composed a book which they entitled " Here begins the Eternal Gospel," he is clearly not ascribing its authorship to the D