READING HALL "THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY"

BOOK VI.FROM THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI. TO THE DEATH
OF POPE CELESTINE III, A.D. 1046-1198.
 

CHAPTER I.

THE PONTIFICATES OF CLEMENT II, DAMASUS II, LEO IX, VICTOR II, STEPHEN IX, NICOLAS II, AND ALEXANDER II. A.D. 1046-1073.

THE deposition of Gregory VI and his rivals by the council of Sutri left the papacy vacant. It was said that the Roman clergy were almost universally disqualified for the dignity by ignorance, simony, or concubinage, and Henry III resolved to bestow it on one of the prelates who had accompanied him from Germany—Suidger, a Saxon by birth, and bishop of Bamberg. The nomination of Suidger is said by some authorities to have taken place at Sutri; but his formal inauguration was, according to ancient custom, reserved to be performed at Rome. On Christmas-eve 1046, the day after his arrival in the city, Henry desired the Romans, assembled in St. Peter’s, to proceed to the election of a pope. They answered that they were bound by an oath to choose no other pope during the life-time of Gregory, but begged that the king would give them one who might be useful to the church; whereupon Henry was invested with the ensigns of the patriciate, and in the character of chief magistrate of Rome presented Suidger to the assembly. In answer to his question whether any worthier pope could be named from among the Roman clergy, no voice was raised by way of objection; and the king, leading Suidger by the hand, seated him in St. Peter’s chair, where he was hailed with acclamations as Clement the Second. On Christmas day, the anniversary of the day on which, nearly two centuries and a half before, Charlemagne had been crowned by Leo III—the imperial coronation of Henry and his queen Agnes was celebrated with extraordinary splendour and solemnity.

The emperor was earnestly bent on a reformation of the church, and had selected Suidger as a fit agent for the execution of his plans. Soon after his. election (Jan. 1047) the pope held a council with a view to the correction of abuses, and it was decreed that any one who had received ordination from a simoniac, knowing him to be such, should do penance for forty days. But beyond this little or nothing is known of Clement, except that he visited the south of Italy, and that after a pontificate of less than ten months he died at a monastery near Pesaro, in October 1047; whereupon Benedict IX, supported by his kinsmen, and by Boniface, the powerful marquis of Tuscany, seized the opportunity of again thrusting himself for a time into possession of the vacant see.

The emperor had returned to Germany in June 1047, carrying with him the deposed pope, Gregory. At a great assembly of bishops and nobles, which appears to have been held at Spires, Henry strongly denounced the simony which had generally prevailed in the disposal of church preferment. He declared himself apprehensive that his father's salvation might have been endangered by such traffic in holy things. The sin of simony, which infected the whole hierarchy, from the chief pontiff to the doorkeeper, had drawn down the scourges of famine, pestilence, and the sword; and all who had been guilty of it must be deposed. These words spread consternation among the prelates, who felt that they were all involved in the charge, and implored the emperor to have pity on them. He replied by desiring them to use well the offices which they had obtained by unlawful means, and to pray earnestly for the soul of Conrad, who had been a partaker in their guilt. An edict was published against all simoniacal promotions, and Henry solemnly pledged himself to bestow his ecclesiastical patronage as freely as he had received the empire.

But while the emperor projected a reformation of the church by means of his own authority, there was among the clergy a party which contemplated a more extensive reform, and looked to a different agency for effecting it. This party was willing for the time to accept Henry’s assistance; for his sincerity was unquestionable, his power was an important auxiliary, and his objects were in some degree the same with its own. Like the emperor, these reformers desired to extirpate simony, and to deliver the papacy from the tyranny of the Italian nobles. But their definition of simony was more rigid than his; with simony their abhorrence connected the marriage and concubinage of the clergy—offences which Henry (perhaps from a consciousness that his own character was not irreproachable as to chastity) did not venture to attack; and above all things they dreaded the ascendency of the secular power over the church. 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 guided 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 centred in the papacy.

Henry had exacted from the Romans an engagement, for which he is said to have paid largely, that they would not again choose a pope without his consent. A depu­tation in the interest of the reforming party now waited on him with a request that he would name a successor to Clement. They would have wished for the restoration of Gregory VI; but, as such a proposal was likely to offend the emperor, they begged that he would appoint Halinard, archbishop of Lyons, who was well known and highly esteemed at Rome in consequence of frequent pilgrimages to the “threshold of the apostles”. Halinard, however, had no wish for the promotion, and sedulously abstained from showing himself at the imperial court. Henry requested the advice of Wazo, bishop of Liège, a prelate of very high reputation, whose wise and merciful views as to the treatment of heretics have been mentioned in a former chapter; the answer recommended the restoration of Gregory, whose deposition Wazo ventured to blame on the ground that the pope could not be judged except by God alone. But before this letter reached the emperor, his choice had already fallen on Poppo, bishop of Brixen, who assumed the name of Damasus II (Dec. 25, 1047). The new pope was conducted to Rome by Boniface, marquis of Tuscany, and Benedict fled at his approach; on the 17th of July, 1048, he was installed in St. Peter’s chair; and on the 9th of August he was dead. The speedy deaths of two German popes were ascribed by some to poison; the opinion of another party is represented by Bonizo, bishop of Sutri, who tells us, in the fierceness of national and religious hatred, that Damasus, “a man full of all pride”, was appointed by the patricial tyranny of Henry, and that within twenty days after his invasion of the pontifical chair he “died in body and in soul”.

The emperor was again requested to name a pope, and fixed on his cousin Bruno. More than twenty years before this time Bruno had been chosen as bishop by the clergy and people of Toul, had accepted that poor see against the will of the emperor Conrad, who had destined him for higher preferment; he enjoyed a great reputation for piety, learning, prudence, charity, and humility; he was laborious in his duties, an eloquent preacher, a skillful musician, and was not without experience in public affairs. From unwillingness to undertake the perilous dignity which was now offered to him, he desired three days for consideration, and openly con­fessed his sins with a view of proving his unfitness. But the emperor insisted on the nomination, and at a great assembly at Worms, in the presence of the Roman envoys, Bruno was invested with the ensigns of the papacy. After revisiting Toul he set out for Italy in pontifical state; but at Besançon it is said that he was met by Hugh abbot of Cluny, accompanied by an Italian monk named Hildebrand; and the result of the meeting was memorable.

Hildebrand was born of parents in a humble condition of life near Suana (now Sovana), an ancient Etruscan city and the seat of a bishopric, between 1010 and 1020. From an early age he was trained at Rome for the ecclesiastical profession under an uncle, who was abbot of St. Mary’s on the Aventine. He embraced the most rigid ideas of monachism, and, disgusted by the laxity which prevailed among the Italian monks, he crossed the Alps, and entered the austere society of Cluny, where it is said that the abbot already applied to him the prophetic words, “He shall be great in the sight of the Highest”. After leaving Cluny he visited the court of Henry, and on his return to Rome he became chaplain to Gregory VI, whose pupil he had formerly been. On the deposition of Gregory, Hildebrand accompanied him into Germany, and at his patron’s death, in the beginning of 1048, he again withdrew to Cluny. There it may be supposed that, he brooded indignantly over that subjection of the church to the secular power which had been exemplified in the deprivation and captivity of Gregory; and that those theories became matured in his mind which were to influence the whole subsequent history of the church and of the world.

The character of Hildebrand was lofty and command­ing. His human affections had been deadened by long monastic discipline; the church alone engrossed his love. Filled with magnificent visions of ecclesiastical grandeur, he pursued his designs with an indomitable steadiness, with a far-sighted patience, with a deep, subtle, and even unscrupulous policy. He well knew how to avail himself of small advantages as means towards more important ends, or to forego the lesser in hope of attaining the greater. He knew how to conciliate, and even to flatter, as well as how to threaten and denounce. Himself impenetrable and inflexible, he was especially skilled in understanding the characters of other men, and in using them as his instruments, even although unconscious or unwilling.

In his interviews with Bruno, Hildebrand represented the unworthiness of accepting from the emperor that dignity which ought to be conferred by the free choice of the Roman clergy and people. His lofty views and his powerful language prevailed; the pope laid aside the ensigns of the apostolical office and, taking Hildebrand as his companion, pursued his journey in the simple dress of a pilgrims. It is said that miracles marked his way; that at his prayer the swollen waters of the Teverone sank within their usual bounds, to give a passage to him and to the multitude which had gathered in his train; and his arrival at Rome, roughly clad and barefooted, raised a sensation beyond all that could have been produced by the display of sacerdotal or imperial pomp. In St. Peter’s he addressed the assembled Romans, telling them that he had come for purposes of devotion; that the emperor had chosen him as pope, but that it was for them to ratify or to annul the choice. The hearers were strongly excited by his words; they could not but be delighted to find that, renouncing the imperial nomination as insufficient, he chose to rest on their own free election as the only legitimate title to the papacy. Nor was Bruno an unknown man among them; for yearly pilgrimages to Rome had made them familiar with his sanctity and his virtues and he was hailed with universal acclamations as Pope Leo the Ninth.

Hildebrand was now the real director of the papacy. Leo ordained him subdeacon, and bestowed on him the treasurership of the church, with other preferments. Among these was the abbacy of St. Paul’s, on the Ostian way, which he restored from decay and disorder, and to which he was throughout life so much attached that, whenever he met with a check in any of his undertakings, he used to send for some of the monks, and ask them what sin they had committed to shut up God’s ear against their intercessions for him. The party of which Hildebrand was the soul was further strengthened by some able men whom Leo brought from beyond the Alps, and established in high dignities—such as the cardinals Humbert, Stephen, and Hugh the White, Frederick, brother of Godfrey duke of Lorraine, and Azoline, bishop of Sutri. But above all these was conspicuous an Italian who was now introduced among the Roman clergy—Peter Damiani.

This remarkable man was born at Ravenna, in the year 1007. His mother, wrought to a sort of frenzy by the unwelcome addition to a family already inconveniently large, would have left the infant to perish; but when almost dead he was saved by the wife of a priest, whose upbraidings recalled the mother to a sense of her parental duty. Peter was early left an orphan, under the care of a brother, who treated him harshly, and employed him in feeding swine; but he was rescued from this servitude by another brother, Damian, whose name he combined with his own in token of gratitude. Through Damian’s kindness he was enabled to study; he became famous as a teacher, pupils flocked to hear him, and their fees brought him abundant wealth. His life meanwhile was strictly ascetic; he secretly wore sackcloth, he fasted, watched, prayed, and, in order to tame his passions, he would rise from bed, stand for hours in a stream until his limbs were stiff with cold, and spend the remainder of the night in visiting churches and reciting the psalter. In the midst of his renown and prosperity Peter was struck by the thought that it would be well to renounce his position while in the full enjoyment of its advantages, and his resolution was determined by the visit of two brethren from the hermit society of Fonte Avellano in Umbria. On his giving them a large silver cup as a present for their abbot, the monks begged him to exchange it for something lighter and more portable; and, deeply moved by their unworldly simplicity, he quitted Ravenna without the knowledge of his friends, and became a member of their rigid order. Peter soon surpassed all his brethren in austerity of life, and even gained the reputation of miraculous power. He taught at Fonte Avellano and in other monasteries, and was raised to the dignity of abbot. The elevation of Gregory VI was hailed by Peter with delight, as the dawn of a new era for the church, and, although his hopes from that pope were soon extinguished by the council of Sutri, he was able to transfer his confidence to Henry III, so that he even rejoiced in the emperor’s obtaining a control over elections to the papacy. He still, therefore, continued hopefully to exert himself in the cause of reform, and he was employed by Henry III to urge on Pope Clement the necessity of extirpating the simony which the emperor had found everywhere prevailing as he returned homewards through northern Italy.

The character of Peter Damiani was an extraordinary mixture of strength and of weakness. He was honest, rigid in the sanctity of his life, and gifted with a ready and copious eloquence; but destitute of judgment or discretion, the slave of an unbounded credulity and of a simple vanity, and no less narrow in his views than zealous, energetic, and intolerant in carrying them out. His reading was considerable, but very limited in its nature, and in great part of a very idle character. His letters and tracts present a medley of all the learning and of all the allegorical misinterpretations of Scripture that he can heap together; his arguments are seasoned and enforced by the strangest illustrations and by the wildest and most extravagant legends. The humour which he often displays is rather an oddity than a talent or a power; he himself speaks of it as “buffoonery”, and penitentially laments that he cannot control it. In our own age and country such a man would probably be among the loudest, the busiest, the most uncharitable, and the most unreasonable enemies of Rome; in his actual circumstances Peter Damiani was its most devoted servant. Yet his veneration for the papacy did not prevent him from sometimes addressing its occupants with the most outspoken plainness, or even from remonstrating against established Roman usages, as when he wrote to Alexander II against the decretal principle that a bishop should not be accused by a member of his flock, and against the practice of annexing to decrees on the most trivial subjects the awful threat of an anathema. In such cases it would seem that he was partly influenced by a strong and uncompromising feeling of right, and partly by his passion for exercising in all directions the office of a monitor and a censor. If Hildebrand under­stood how to use men as his tools, Peter was fitted to be a tool. He felt that Hildebrand was his master, and his service was often reluctant; but, although he vented his discontent in letters and in epigrams, he obeyed his “hostile friend”, his “saintly Satan”.

The superstitions of the age had no more zealous votary than Peter Damiani. His language as to the blessed Virgin has already been noticed for its surpassing extravagance. From him the practice of voluntary flagellation, although it was not altogether new, derived a great increase of popularity. He recommended it as “a sort of purgatory”, and defended it against all assailants. If, he argued, our Lord, with his apostles and martyrs, submitted to be scourged, it must be a good deed to imitate their sufferings by inflicting chastisement on ourselves; if Moses in the Law prescribed scourging for the guilty, it is well thus to punish ourselves for our misdeeds; if men are allowed to redeem their sins with money, surely those who have no money ought to have some means of redemption provided for them; if the Psalmist charges men to “praise the Lord on the timbrel”, then, since the timbrel is an instrument made of dried skin, the commandment is truly fulfilled by him who beats by way of discipline his own skin dried up by fasting. Cardinal Stephen ventured to ridicule this devotion, and induced the monks of Monte Cassino to give up the custom of flogging themselves every Friday, which had been adopted at the instance of Peter, but the sudden and premature deaths of Stephen and his brother soon after gave a triumph to its champion, who represented the fate of the brothers as a judgment on the cardinal’s profanity.

In addition to other writings, Peter contributed to the cause of flagellation a life of one Dominic, the great hero of this warfare against the flesh. Dominic had been ordained a priest; but, on discovering that his parents had presented a piece of goat-skin leather to the bishop by whom he had been ordained, he was struck with such horror at the simoniacal act that he renounced all priestly functions, and withdrew to the rigid life of a hermit. He afterwards placed himself under Damiani, at Fonte Avellano, where his penances were the marvel of the abbot and of his brethren. Next to his skin he wore a tight iron cuirass, which he never put off except to chastise himself. His body and his arms were confined by iron rings; his neck was loaded with heavy chains; his scanty clothes were worn to rags; his food consisted of bread and fennel; his skin was as black as a negro’s from the effects of his chastisement. Dominic’s usual exercise was to recite the psalter twice a day, while he flogged himself with both hands at the rate of a thousand lashes to ten psalms. It was reckoned that three thousand lashes—the accompaniment of thirty psalms—were equal to a year of penance; the whole psalter, therefore, with its due allowance of stripes, was equivalent to five years. In Lent, or on occasions of special penitence, the daily average rose to three psalters; he “easily” got through twenty—equal to a hundred years of penance—in six days; once, at the beginning of Lent, he begged that a penance of a thousand years might be imposed upon him, and he cleared off the whole before Easter. He often performed eight or even nine psalters within twenty-four hours, but it was long before he could achieve ten; at length, however, he was able on one occasion to accomplish twelve, and reached the thirty- second psalm in a thirteenth. These flagellations were supposed to have the effect of a satisfaction for the sins of other men. In his latter years, for the sake of greater severity, Dominic substituted leathern thongs for the bundles of twigs which he had before used in his disci­pline. He also increased the number of the rings which galled his flesh, and the weight of the chains which hung from his neck; but we are told that sometimes, as he prayed, his rings would fly asunder, or would become soft and pliable. The death of Dominic, who had become prior of a convent on Mount Soavicino (or San Vicino) in the march of Ancona, appears to have taken place in the year 1060.

The marriage of the clergy was especially abominable in the eyes of Peter Damiani. He wrote, preached, and laboured against it; his language on such subjects is marked by the grossest and most shameless indecency. Soon after Leo’s accession he presented to him a treatise, the contents of which may be guessed from its frightful title—The Book of Gomorrha. The statements here given as to the horrible offences which resulted from the law of clerical celibacy might have suggested to any reasonable mind a plea for a relaxation of that discipline; but Peter urges them as an argument for increasing its severity. He classifies the sins of the unchaste clergy, and demands the deposition of all the guilty. Leo thanked him for the book, but decided that, although all carnal intercourse is forbidden to the clergy by Scripture and the laws of the church, all but the worst and the most inveterate sinners should be allowed, if penitent, to retain their offices. A later pontiff, Alexander II, obtained possession of the manuscript under pretence of getting it copied; but he showed his opinion of its probable effects by locking it up, and the author complains that, when he attempted to reclaim it, the pope jested at him and treated him like a player.

The act of Leo in renouncing the title derived from the imperial nomination might have been expected to alarm and offend Henry. His kinsman, the object of his patronage, had become the pope of the clergy and of the people, and might have seemed to place himself in opposition to the empire. But the emperor appears to have regarded Leo’s behaviour as an instance of the modesty for which he had been noted. He made no remonstrance; and Hildebrand was careful to give him no provocation by needless displays of papal independence.

Leo found the treasury so exhausted that he even thought of providing for his necessities by selling the vestments of the churchy. But by degrees the rich and various sources which fed the papal revenue began to flow again, so that he was in a condition to carry on his administration with vigour, and to undertake measures of reform.

A synod was held (A.D. 1049) at which he proposed to annul the orders of all who had been ordained by simoniacs. It was, however, represented to him that such a measure would in many places involve a general deprivation of the clergy, and a destitution of the means of grace. The definition of simony had in truth been extended over many things to which we can hardly attach the idea of guilt. The name was now no longer limited to the purchase of holy orders, or even of benefices : it was simony to pay anything in the nature of fees or first-fruits, or even to make a voluntary present to a bishop or patron; it was simony to obtain a benefice, not only by payment, but as the reward of service or as the tribute of kindness. “There are three kinds of gifts”, says Peter Damiani; “gifts of the hand, of obedience, and of the tongue”. The service of the court he declares to be a worse means of obtaining preferment than the payment of money; while others give money, the price paid by courtly clerks is nothing less than their very selves. In consideration of the universal prevalence of simony, therefore, Leo found himself obliged to mitigate his sentence, and to revert to the order of Clement II, that all who had been ordained by known simoniacs should do penance for forty days. It would seem also that at this assembly the laws for the enforcement of celibacy were renewed—the married clergy being required to separate from their wives, or to refrain from the exercise of their functions, although it was probably at a later synod that Leo added cogency to these rules by enacting that any “concubines” of priests who might be discovered in Rome should become slaves in the Lateran palace.

Leo entered on a new course of action against the disorders of the church. The bishops were so deeply implicated in these that from them no thorough reformation could be expected; the pope would take the matter into his own hands, and would execute it in person. Imitating the system of continual movement by which Henry carried his superintendence into every corner of the empire, he set out on a circuit of visitation. On the way he visited Gualbert of Vallombrosa, an important ally of Hildebrand and the reforming party. He crossed the Alps, and redressing wrongs, consecrating churches, and conferring privileges on monasteries as he proceeded, he reached Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle. At Aix he effected a reconciliation between the emperor and Godfrey duke of Lower Lorraine, who for some years had disturbed the public peace. The duke was sentenced to restore the cathedral of Verdun, which he had burnt; he submitted to be scourged at the altar, and laboured with his own hands at the masonry of the church.

As bishop of Toul (which see he retained for a time, as Clement II had retained Bamberg) Leo had promised to be present at the consecration of the abbey church of St. Remigius at Reims. He now announced his intention of fulfilling the promise, and from Toul issued letters summoning the bishops of France to attend a synod on the occasion. The announcement struck terror into many—into prelates who dreaded an inquiry into their practices, and into laymen of high rank whose morals would not bear examination; and some of these beset the ears of the French king, Henry I. It was, they said, a new thing for a pope to assume the right of entering France without the sovereign’s permission; the royal power was in danger of annihilation if he allowed the pope to rule within his dominions, or countenanced him by his presence at the council. Henry had already accepted an invitation, but these representations alarmed him. He did not, however, venture to forbid the intended proceedings, but excused himself on the plea of a military expedition, and begged that Leo would defer his visit until a more settled time, when the king might be able to receive him with suitable honours. The pope replied that he was resolved to attend the dedication of the church, and that, if he should find faithful persons there, he intended to hold a council.

The assemblage at Reims was immense. The Franks of the east met with those of Gaul to do honour to the apostle of their race, the saint at whose hands Clovis had received baptism; and even England had sent her representatives. There were prelates and nobles, clergy and monks, laymen and women of every condition, whose offerings formed an enormous heap. All ranks were mingled in the crowd; they besieged the doors of the church on the eve of the ceremony, and thousands passed the night in the open air, which was brilliantly lighted by their tapers. The pope repeatedly threatened to leave the great work undone, unless the multitude would relax its pressure. At length the body of St. Remigius was with difficulty borne through the mass of spectators, whose excitement was now raised to the uttermost. Many wept, many swooned away, many were crushed to death. The holy relics were lowered into the church through a window, as the only practicable entrance, whereupon the crowds, excluded by the doors, seized the hint, and swarmed in at the windows. Instead of being at once deposited in its intended resting-place, the body was placed aloft above the high altar, that its presence might give solemnity to the proceedings of the council.

On the day after the consecration the assembly met. Some of the French bishops and abbots who been cited were unable to attend, having been compelled to join the royal army; but about twenty bishops and fifty abbots were present—among whom were the bishop of Wells, the abbot of St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, and the abbot of Ramsey. The pope placed himself with his face towards the body of St. Remigius, and desired the prelates to sit in a semicircle on each side of him. It was announced that the council was held for the reformation of disorders in the church and for the general correction of morals; and the bishops and abbots were required to come forward, and to swear that they had not been guilty of simony either in obtaining their office or in their exercise of it. The archbishops of Treves, Lyons, and Besançon took the oath. The arch­bishop of Reims requested delay; he was admitted to two private interviews with the pope, and at the second session he obtained a respite until a council which was to be held at Rome in the following April.

Of the bishops, all but four took the oath; of the abbots, some swore, while others by silence confessed their guilt. Hugh bishop of Langres (who, before the investigation of his own case, had procured the deposition of an abbot of his diocese for incontinence and other irregularities), was charged with many and grievous offences : witnesses deposed that he had both acquired and administered his office simoniacally; that he had borne arms and had slain men; that he had cruelly oppressed his clergy, and even had used torture as a means of exacting money from them; that he had been guilty of adultery and of unnatural lust. After having been allowed to confer with the archbishops of Lyons and Besançon, he requested that these prelates might be admitted to plead his cause. The archbishop of Besançon, on standing up for the purpose, found himself unable to utter a word, and made a sign to Halinard of Lyons, who acknowledged his client’s simony and extortion, but denied the other charges. The bishops of Nevers and Coutances professed that their preferments had been bought for them by their relations, but without their own knowledge or consent, and, on their submission, were allowed to retain their sees. The bishop of Nantes, who confessed that he had purchased the succession to his father in the bishopric, was degraded to the order of presbyter.

At the end of the first session it was asked, under the threat of anathema, whether any member acknowledged any other primate of the church than the bishop of Rome. The pope’s claim, and the lawfulness of his proceedings, were admitted by a general silence; and he was then declared to be primate of the whole church and apostolic pontiff.

At the second session it was found that the bishop of Langres had absconded during the night. The archbishop of Besançon acknowledged that his dumbness when he had attempted to defend the delinquent on the preceding day was the infliction of St. Remigius; the pope and the prelates prostrated themselves before the relics of the saint, add Hugh of Langres was deposed. The council lasted three days. Twelve canons were passed, of which the first declared that no one should be promoted to a bishopric without the choice of his clergy and people. Excommunications were pronounced against the archbishop of Sens and other prelates who, whether from fear of the pope’s inquisition, or in obedience to the king’s summons, had neglected the citation to the council; and we are told that within a year the judgments of heaven fell heavily on the counsellors who had influenced Henry against the pope. The bishop of Compostella was excommunicated for assuming the title of apostolic, and attempting to set up an independent Spanish papacy. The Breton bishops, whose church had long been separate from that of Rome, and whose chief styled himself archbishop of Dol, had been summoned to Reims, but as they did not attend, were charged to appear at Rome.

From Reims Leo proceeded to Mayence, where a council was held in the emperor’s presence and in this assembly Sibicho, bishop of Spires, purged himself of a charge of adultery by receiving the holy Eucharist.

The pope returned to Italy in triumph. He had assured himself of the support of Germany, and had crushed the tendencies to independence which had appeared in the churches of France and Spain. The system of visitations which he had thus commenced was continued throughout his pontificate, and its result was greatly to increase the influence of Rome. He practically and successfully asserted for himself powers beyond those which had been ascribed to the papacy by the forged decretals. The pope entered kingdoms without regard to the will of the sovereign; he denounced the curses of the church against prelates whose allegiance to their king interfered with obedience to his mandate. He was not only to judge, but to originate inquiries; and these were carried on under the awe of his personal presence, without the ordinary forms of justice. Bishops were required by oath to accuse themselves, and the process of judgment was summary. 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. His 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 dreamt of! And the manner in which his judgments were conducted was skillfully calculated to disarm opposition. Whatever 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 severity. Offenders were allowed to state circumstances in extenuation 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.

Leo again crossed the Alps in 1050, and a third time in 1052. This last expedition was undertaken in part for the purpose of attempting a reconciliation between the emperor and Andrew, king of Hungary, who had become a Christian, and had reestablished the profession of the gospel in his dominions; but the pope’s mediation proved unsuccessful. Another object of the journey was to request the emperor’s aid against the Normans. These had now firmly established themselves in southern Italy; they warred against both empires, or took investiture from either, according to their convenience. As far as their enterprise could reach, there was no safety from their aggressions; they invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, assaulted the pope’s own train, and threatened Rome itself. They spared neither age nor sex; the pope was deeply afflicted by the sight of miserable wretches who crowded into the city from the Apulian side, having lost eyes or noses, hands or feet, by the barbarity of the Normans; while reports continually reached him of monasteries sacked or burnt, and their inmates slain or cruelly outraged. His grief and indignation overflowed, and, finding remonstrances, entreaties, and denunciations vain, he endeavoured to engage both the Greek and the German emperors in a league against his formidable neighbours.

The pope found that by allying himself with the Italian party he had excited the jealousy of his own countrymen—a feeling which was significantly shown at Worms, where he spent the Christmas of 1052 with the emperor. On Christmas-day, as Luitpold, archbishop of Mayence and metropolitan of the diocese, was officiating at mass in the cathedral, a deacon chanted a lesson in the German fashion, which was different from that of Rome. Leo, urged by the Italians of his train, commanded him to stop; and, as the order was unheeded, he called the deacon to him at the end of the lesson, and degraded him from his office. The German primate begged that he might be restored, but met with a refusal. The service then proceeded; but at the end of the offertory Luitpold, indignant at the slight offered to the national usage, declared that it should go no further unless the deacon were restored; and the pope found himself obliged to yields

A feeling of jealousy against Rome would seem also to have dictated the answer to a request which the pope made for the restoration of the bishopric of Bamberg, and of the abbey of Fulda, to St. Peter, on whom they had been bestowed by Henry II. Instead of these benefices, which might have given a pretext for interfering with his German sovereignty, the emperor conferred on the pope the city of Benevento, the adjoining territory having already been granted to the Normans.

The success of Leo’s application for aid against the Normans was frustrated by the emperor’s chancellor, Gebhard, bishop of Eichstedt. Whether from apprehension of danger on the side of Hungary, from overweening contempt of the Normans, or from German jealousy of the papacy, he persuaded Henry to recall the troops which had already been placed at the pope’s disposal; and Leo, on his return to Italy, was followed by only seven hundred men, chiefly Swabians and Lotharingians, but including many outlaws and desperate adventurers from other quarters. It was the first time that a pope had appeared as the leader of an army against a professedly Christian people. Although Leo, when a deacon, had led the contingent of Toul in the imperial force, his own synods had renewed the canons against warrior bishops and clergy, and Peter Damiani was scandalized at the indecency of the spectacle :—“Would St. Gregory, he asked, have gone to battle against the Lombards, or St. Ambrose against the Arians?”. But as Leo moved along, multitudes of Italians flocked to his standard, so that, when the armies met near Civitella, he had greatly the advantage in numbers, while his sturdy Germans derided the inferior height and slighter forms of the enemy. The Normans attempted to negotiate, and offered to hold their conquests under the apostolic see; but they were told that the only admissible terms were their withdrawal from Italy and a surrender of all that they had taken from St, Peter. No choice was thus left them but to fight with the courage of despair. The armies engaged on the 18th of June, 1053; the pope’s Italian troops ran away; his Germans stood firm, and were cut to pieces; he himself fled to Civitella, but the gates of the town were shut against him, and he fell into the hands of the Normans. But defeat was more profitable to the papacy than victory could have been. The victors—some probably from rude awe, and others from artful policy—fell at the captive’s feet; they wept, they cast dust on their heads, they poured forth expressions of penitence, with entreaties for his forgiveness and blessings An accommodation was concluded, by which Leo granted them the conquests which they had already made, with all that they could acquire in Calabria and Sicily, to be held under the holy see. Thus the Normans, who had hitherto been regarded as a horde of freebooters, obtained the appearance of a legal, and even a sanctified, title to their possessions; while the pope, in bestowing on them territories to which the Roman see had never had any right (except such as might be derived from Constantine’s fabulous donation), led the way to the establishment of an alliance which was of vast importance to his successors, and of a claim to suzerainty over the kingdom of Naples which lasted down to our own times.

Leo was carried to Benevento, where he was detained in a sort of honourable captivity. His hours were spent in mournful thoughts of the past and of the future. He engaged in the strictest practices of asceticism and devotion; he celebrated mass daily for the souls of the soldiers who had fallen on his side, and at length was comforted by a vision which assured him that, as having been slain for the Lord, they were partakers in the glory of martyrs. At the end of nine months, feeling himself seriously ill, he obtained leave to return to Rome. He caused his couch to be spread in St. Peter’s, and his tomb to be placed near it. To the clergy, who were assembled around him, he addressed earnest exhortations to be watchful in their duty, and to exert themselves against simony; he commended his flock to Christ, and prayed that, if he had been too severe in dealing the censures of the church on any, the Saviour would of His mercy absolve them. Then, looking at his tomb, he said with tears, “Behold, brethren, how worthless and fleeting is human glory. I have seen the cell in which I dwelt as a monk changed into spacious palaces; now I must again return to the narrow bounds of this tomb”. Next morning he died before the altar of St. Peter. Tales of visions and miracles were circulated in attestation of his sanctity, and the doubts which some expressed on account of the part which he had taken in war were overpowered by the general veneration for his memory”.

During the last days of Leo IX, important communi­cations were in progress between the churches of Rome and Constantinople. From the time of Photius these churches had regarded each other with coolness, and their intercourse had been scanty. But the eastern emperors were induced by political interest to conciliate the pope, whose hostility might have endangered the remains of their Italian dominion; and about the year 1024 a proposal was made to John XVIII, on the part of Basil II and of the Byzantine patriarch Eustathius, that the title of Universal should be allowed alike to the patriarch and to the bishop of Rome. The gifts with which the bearers of this pro­posal were charged made an impression on the notorious cupidity of the Romans, and the pope was on the point of yielding. But the rumour of the affair produced a great excitement in Italy and France. William, abbot of St. Benignus at Dijon, an influential ecclesiastic of Italian birth, addressed a very strong remonstrance to the pope. Although, he said, the ancient temporal monarchy of Rome is now broken up into many governments, the spiritual privilege conferred on St. Peter is inalienable; and, after some severe language, he ended by exhorting John to be more careful of his own duties in the government and discipline of the church. The pope yielded to the general feeling, and the negotiation came to nothing.

In 1053 Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, and Leo, archbishop of Achrida and metropolitan of Bulgaria—alarmed perhaps at the progress of the Norman arms, which seemed likely to transfer southern Italy from the Greek to the Latin church—addressed a letter to the bishop of Trani in Apulia, warning him against the errors of the Latins. The point of difference on which they most insisted was the nature of the eucharistic bread.

It would appear that although our Lord, at the institution of the sacrament, used unleavened bread, as being the only kind which the Mosaic law allowed at the paschal season, the apostles and the early church made use of common bread. Such had continued to be the custom of the Greeks, nor had any difference in this respect been mentioned among the mutual accusations of Photius and his western opponents. But, whether before or after the days of Photius, the use of unleavened bread had become established in the west, and Michael inveighed against it, as figurative of Judaism and unfit to represent the Saviour’s death. The Greek word by which bread is spoken of in the Gospels signifies, he said, something raised; it ought to have salt, for it is written, “Ye are the salt of the earth”; it ought to have leaven, which a woman—the church—hid in three measures of meal, a symbol of the Divine Trinity. The other charges advanced against the western church were the practice of fasting on the Saturdays of Lent, the eating of things strangled and of blood, and the singing of the great Hallelujah at Easter only. The patriarch and his associate concluded by requesting that the bishop of Trani would circulate the letter among the western bishops and clergy.

Humbert, cardinal-bishop of Sylva Candida, one of the most zealous among the Roman clergy, who happened to be at Trani when this letter arrived, translated it, and communicated it to Leo; who was also soon after informed that Cerularius had closed the Latin churches and had seized on the Latin monasteries at Constantinople. On this the pope addressed from Benevento a letter of remonstrance to the patriarch. He enlarges on the prerogatives conveyed by St. Peter to the Roman see;  he cites the donation of Constantine, almost in its entire length. St. Paul, he says, had cast no imputation on the faith of the Romans, whereas in his epistles to Greeks he had blamed them for errors in faith as well as in practice. It was from the Greeks that heresies had arisen; some of the patriarch’s own predecessors had been not only patrons of heresy but heresiarchs; but by virtue of the Saviour’s own promise the faith of St. Peter cannot fail. He blames Michael for having shut up the Latin churches of his city, whereas at Rome the Greeks were allowed the free exercise of their national rites.

After some further communications, Leo in January 1054 despatched three legates to Constantinople—Humbert, Frederick of Lorraine, chancellor of the Roman church, and Peter, archbishop of Amalfi,—with a letter entreating the emperor Constantine Monomachus to join in an alliance against the Normans, and one to Cerularius, in reply to a letter which the patriarch had addressed to Leo. The tone of this answer is moderate, but the pope defends the Latin usages which had been attacked; he adverts to a report that the patriarch had been irregularly raised to his dignity; he censures him for attempting to subjugate the ancient thrones of Alexandria and Antioch; and he expresses disapprobation of the title Universal. It had, he said, been decreed to the bishops of Rome by the council of Chalcedon; but as St. Peter did not bear it, so his successors, to whom, if to any man, it would have been suitable, had never assumed it.

On arriving at Constantinople the legates were received with honour by the emperor, who was anxious to secure the pope’s interest, and had been annoyed at the indiscretion of his patriarch. Humbert put forth a dialogue between a champion of the Byzantine and one of the Roman church, in which the Greek retails the topics of the letter to the bishop of Trani, while the Latin refutes him point by point, and retorts by some charges against the Greeks. To this a Studite monk, Nicetas Pectoratus, replied by a temperately-written tract, which, in addition to points already raised, discussed the enforced celibacy of the western clergy. Humbert rejoined in a style of violent and insolent abused and ended by anathematizing Nicetas with all his partisans. But he did not leave the victory to be decided by the pen; the emperor, in company with him and the other envoys, went to the monastery of Studium, where Nicetas was compelled to anathema­tize his own book, together with all who should deny the prerogatives or impugn the faith of Rome. At the request of the legates Constantine ordered the book to be burnt; and next day the unfortunate author, of his own accord (as we are asked to believe), waited on the legates, retracted his errors, and repeated his anathema against all that had been said, done, or attempted against the Roman church. Humbert’s answers to the patriarch and to Nicetas were translated into Greek by the emperor’s order.

Michael, however, continued to keep aloof from the Roman envoys, declaring that he could not settle such questions without the other patriarchs. The legates, at length, finding that they could make no impression on him, entered the church of St. Sophia, and laid on the altar, which had been prepared for the celebration of the Eucharist, a document in which, after acknowledging the orthodoxy of the people of Constantinople in general, they charged the patriarch and his party with likeness to the most infamous heresies, and solemnly anathematized them with all heretics, “yea, with the devil and his angels, unless they repent”. Having left the church, they shook off the dust from their feet, exclaiming, “Let God look and judge!”; and, after charging the Latins of Constantinople to avoid the communion of such as should “deny the Latin sacrifice”, they set out on their return, with rich presents from the emperor.

A message from Constantinople recalled them, as Michael had professed a wish to confer with them. But it is said that the patriarch intended to excite the multi­tude against them, and probably to bring about some fatal result, by reading in the cathedral a falsified version of the excommunication. Of this the legates were warned by the emperor, who refused to allow any conference except in his own presence; and, as Michael would not assent, they again departed homewards. The further proceedings between the emperor and the patriarch are variously related by the Greeks and by the Latins. The points of controversy were discussed for some time between Michael, Dominic patriarch of Grado, on the Latin side, and Peter, patriarch of Antioch, who attempted to act as a mediator. A legation was also sent to Constantinople by Stephen IX (who had been one of the Roman legates); but it returned on hearing of Leo’s death, and the breach between the churches remained as before. Cerularius himself was deposed by the emperor Isaac Comnenus in 1059, and ended his days in exile.

On the death of Leo, which took place soon after the departure of his legates for the east, the clergy and people of Rome were desirous to bestow the see on Hildebrand, to whose care the dying pope had solemnly committed his church. But Hildebrand was not yet ready to undertake the administration in his own name, and was unwilling to forego the advantage of the emperor’s support. He therefore persuaded the Romans to entrust him with a mission for the purpose of requesting that, as no one among themselves was worthy, Henry would appoint a pope acceptable to them; and he suggested Gebhard, bishop of Eichstedt, the same by whom the emperor had been induced to withdraw his troops from Leo’s expedition against the Normans. The policy of this choice would seem to have been profound; for whereas Gebhard, as an imperial counsellor, was likely to use his powerful influence against the papacy, he could hardly fail, as pope, to be guided by the interests of his see. Henry, unwilling to lose him, proposed other names; but Hildebrand persisted, and the emperor felt himself unable to oppose the choice of a prelate who had long held the highest place in his own esteem. Gebhard himself made earnest attempts to escape the dignity which was thrust upon him, and is said to have shown his resentment of Hildebrand’s share in his promotion by a general dislike of monks during the remainder of his life. But he justified the expectation that his policy would change with his position. As a condition of accepting the papacy, he required of the emperor a promise to restore all the rights of St. Peter; and we are told that, whenever he found himself crossed in any of his undertakings, he regarded it as a just punishment for his undutiful opposition to Leo.

In April 1055 the new pope arrived at Rome, where Hildebrand took care that, like his predecessor, he should be formally elected by the clergy and people; and he assumed the name of Victor II. In principle his papacy was a continuation of the last. The system of reforming synods was kept up, but instead of being conducted by the pope in person, they were left to his legates. At one of these synods, which was held in Gaul by Hildebrand, a remarkable incident is said to have taken place. An archbishop, who was charged with simony, had bribed the witnesses to silence, and boldly demanded, “Where are my accusers?”. The legate asked him whether he believed the Holy Ghost to be of the same substance with the Father and the Son, and, on his answering that he believed so, desired him to say the doxology. On coming to the name of that Divine Person in whose gifts he had trafficked, the archbishop was unable to proceed. After repeated attempts he fell down before Hildebrand, acknowledging his guilt, and forthwith he recovered the power of pronouncing the whole form. Such a scene would perhaps be now explained by the ascendency of a powerful will, combined with the assumption of a prophetic manner, over a weaker mind disturbed by the conscious­ness of guilt. But it was then held to be a miracle, and the terror of it led many other bishops and abbots to confess their simony and to resign their dignities.

In 1056 Victor was invited by the emperor to Germany, where he was received with great honour. But soon after his arrival an illness from which Henry had been suffering became more serious : and on the 5th of October the emperor died in his fortieth year, at the hunting-seat of Bothfeld in the Harz. To the pope, from whom he received the last consolations of religion, he bequeathed the care of his only son, Henry, a child under six years of age; and, although the young prince had already been crowned as his father’s colleague and successor in the German kingdom, the good offices of Victor were serviceable in procuring a peaceful recognition of his rights from the princes, prelates, and nobles who had been gathered around the emperor’s death-bed. The virtual government of the empire seemed to be now vested in the same hands with the papacy. But the union was soon dissolved by the death of Victor, who, after having returned to Italy and presided over a council at Florence, expired at Acerra on the 28th of July, 1057.

FREDERICK OF LORRAINE.

The Romans had felt themselves delivered from restraint by the death of Henry, and now proceeded to show their feeling by not only choosing a pope for themselves, but fixing on a person who was likely to be obnoxious to the German court—Frederick, the brother of duke Godfrey of Lorraine. Godfrey, after his submission to Henry III, had gone into Italy, and had obtained the hand of the emperor’s cousin Beatrice, widow of Boniface, marquis of Tuscany, and mother of the Countess Matilda, who, by the death of her young brother soon after the marriage, became the greatest heiress of the age. The connection appeared so alarming to Henry, whose rights as suzerain were involved in the disposal of Tuscany, that it led him to cross the Alps in 1055. Beatrice waited on him in order to assure him that her husband had no other wish than to live peaceably on the territory which he had acquired by marriage; but the emperor distrusted his old antagonist, and carried off both Beatrice and her daughter as hostages to Germany, where they were detained until Godfrey succeeded in appeasing him by waiting on him in Franconia, and solemnly promising fidelity.

While Godfrey thus raised himself by marriage from the condition of a discredited adventurer to a position of great power, wealth, and influence, his brother was ascending the steps of ecclesiastical promotion. Frederick, a canon of Liège, had accompanied Leo IX to Rome after the reconciliation of Godfrey with Henry in 1049, and had been appointed chancellor of the holy see. He was a leader in the expedition against the Normans, and was one of the legates who excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople. The rumour of the wealth which he had brought back from his eastern mission excited the suspicions of Henry; and Frederick, apprehending danger from the emperor, became a monk at Monte Cassino. About two years after his admission into the monastery a vacancy occurred in the headship; when the monks, who claimed the right of electing their superior and presenting him for the papal benediction, made choice of one Peter as abbot. Pope Victor, however, was inclined to question their privileges, and sent Cardinal Humbert to inquire on the spot whether any defect could be found in the election. Four monks, supposing that the cardinal came to depose their abbot, raised the neighbouring peasantry to arms; and Peter felt that their unwise zeal had fatally injured his cause. He told them that it was they who had deposed him from a dignity of which he could not otherwise have been deprived; he resigned the abbacy, and the monks, under Humbert’s presidency, elected Frederick m his room. At the council of Florence, Frederick was confirmed in his abbacy by the pope, who also created him cardinal of St. Chrysogonus; and he was at Rome, engaged in taking possession of the cure annexed to that title, when he was informed of Victor’s death. The Romans, dreading the interference of the neighbouring nobles, took on them­selves the choice of a pope, and, in answer to their request that he would name some suitable candidates, Frederick proposed Humbert of Sylva Candida, with three other bishops, and the subdeacon Hildebrand; but the Romans insisted that he should himself be pope, and on August 2, 1057, he was hailed as Stephen IX, taking his name from the saint to whom the day was dedicated, Stephen the antagonist of St. Cyprian.

Stephen was a churchman of the stern and haughty monastic school. His behaviour at Constantinople is significant of his character, and the acts of his short pontificate were consistent with it. Synods were held which passed fresh canons against the marriage of the clergy.

Hildebrand’s influence continued unabated, it was probably by Stephen that he was ordained deacon, and was appointed archdeacon of Rome. And by Hildebrand’s recommendation Peter Damiani was raised to the bishopric of Ostia, the second dignity in the Roman church—his distaste for such preferment having been overpowered by a threat of excommunication in case of his refusal.

In addition to the interests of his see, it is supposed that Stephen was intent on advancing those of his own family—that he meditated the expulsion of the Normans from Italy, and the elevation of Godfrey to the imperial dignity. He had retained the abbacy of Monte Cassino, and, with a view to the prosecution of his designs, he ordered that all the treasures of the monastery should be sent to Rome. But when they were displayed before him, and he saw the grief of the provost and other monks who had executed his order, a feeling of compunction seized him; and the provost, observing his emotion, told him that a novice, who knew nothing of the intended transfer, had seen a vision of St. Scholastica weeping over the loss of the precious spoil, while her brother St. Benedict endeavoured to comfort her. The pope burst into tears, and ordered that the treasure should be restored.

Within a few months after his election Stephen felt that his health was failing, and resolved to provide for the future disposal of his offices. At Monte Cassino, where he spent the Christmas season, he procured the election of Desiderius as his successor in the abbacy and on his return to Rome he exacted an oath that no pope should be chosen without the advice of Hildebrand, who was then engaged in a mission to Germany, probably with a view of conciliating the empress-mother, to whom Stephen must have felt that neither he himself nor the manner of his election could be acceptable. From Rome the pope proceeded to Florence, the capital of his brother’s dominions; and there he died in the arms of Gualbert of Vallombrosa, on the 29th of March, 1058.

Immediately on receiving the tidings of Stephen’s death, the nobles of the Campagna, headed by Count Gregory of Tusculum, rushed into Rome, seized on St. Peter’s by night, plundered the church, and set up as pope John, cardinal-bishop of Velletri, a member of the Crescentian family under the name of Benedict X. That John’s part in this affair was forced on him appears even from a letter of Peter Damiani, who speaks of him as so stupid, ignorant, and slothful, that he could not be supposed to have planned his own elevation. But his reluctance may be more creditably explained. His moral character is unassailed; he was one of the five ecclesiastics whom Stephen IX, before his own promotion, had named to the Romans as worthy of the papacy and the charges of ignorance and dullness which are brought against him by the al­most blind enmity of Damiani may be the less regarded, since the pope of Peter’s own party is described by Berengar of Tours as grossly illiterate, and in both cases such charges seem to have been prompted rather by passion than by justice.

The chief of the Roman clergy refused to share in the election of Benedict. Damiani would not perform the ceremonies of installation, which belonged to his office as cardinal-bishop of Ostia; and the pope was installed by a priest of that diocese, who was compelled by force to officiate, and whom Peter describes as so ignorant that he could hardly read. The cardinals withdrew from the city, threatening to anathematize the intruder, and envoys were sent by a party at Rome to the empress-mother Agnes, with a request that she would nominate a pope. Hildebrand, in returning from Germany, met these envoys, and suggested to them the name of Gerard, bishop of Florence, a Burgundian by birth, who at their desire was nominated by the empress, while Hildebrand, in order that this nomination might not interfere with the claims which were now advanced in behalf of the Roman church, contrived that he should almost at the same time be elected by the cardinals at Siena. The pope, who took the name of Nicolas II, advanced towards Rome under the escort of Godfrey of Tuscany, whose interest had doubtless been consulted in choosing the bishop of his capital as the successor of his brother in the papacy. At Sutri Nicolas held a council, which condemned and excommunicated Benedict as an intruder. The antipope fled from Rome, but, after the arrival of Nicolas in the city, he returned, and submitted to him, saying that he had acted under compulsion; whereupon he was readmitted to communion, although degraded from the episcopate and the priesthood, and confined for the remainder of his days within the suburban monastery of St. Agnes.

Immediately on gaining possession of the papacy Nicolas found his attention drawn to the affairs of Milan. The Milanese church had long held a very lofty position, and it had gained in reputation by the contrast which it presented to the degraded state of the papacy. The archbishop was a great secular prince, and in the absence of the emperor was the most important person in northern Italy. Heribert had long ruled the church with great vigour; he had maintained his title to the archbishopric in defiance of Conrad II and Benedict IX, and had held it in peace after the accession of Henry III, until 1045, when he died, leaving among his flock the reputation of a saint. The clergy of Milan bore a high character in all that related to the administration of their office; there was a proverb—“Milan for clerks, Pavia for pleasures, Rome for buildings, Ravenna for churches”. Their learning was above the average of the time; their discipline was strict, their demeanour regular, their services were performed with exemplary decency; they were sedulous in their labours for the education of the young, and in the general discharge of their pastoral duties. The Milanese church differed from the Roman in allowing the marriage of the clergy under certain conditions. St. Ambrose, the great glory of Milan, and the author of its peculiar liturgy, was believed to have sanctioned the single marriage of a priest with a virgin bride and this had become so much the rule that an unmarried clergyman was even regarded with suspicion. The same practice was generally observed throughout Lombardy, and the effect of the liberty thus allowed was seen in the superior character of the clergy, which struck even those witnesses who were least able or least willing to connect the effect with its cause. Thus Peter Damiani acknowledged that he had never seen a body of clergy equal to the Milanese, and he also bestows a very high commendation on those of Turin, whose marriage was sanctioned by the bishop, Cunibert.

On the death of Heribert, who, according to some writers, had himself been a married man, the see of Milan was bestowed by Henry III on Guy of Velate, a clerk of humble birth, to the exclusion of four eminent ecclesiastics whom the Milanese had sent to him for his choice. The new archbishop appears to have been a man of mean and feeble character; he is described as deficient in learning, and he was charged with the practice of habitual simony—a charge which probably meant nothing worse than the exaction of fees from the clergy.

The first movement against the marriage of the Milanese clergy was made by Anselm of Baggio, a priest who had been proposed as successor to Heribert in the archbishopric. On Guy’s application to Henry III, Anselm was removed from the scene by promotion to the see of Lucca, but the work which he had begun was soon taken up by others. One of these, Ariald, was a deacon, who is said to have been convicted of some gross offence before the archbishop. He held a cure in his native village, near Como, where he began to denounce the iniquities of clerical marriage, but met with little encouragement from his parishioners, who told him that it was not for ignorant people like themselves to refute him; that he would do better to transfer his preaching to Milan, where he might meet with persons capable of arguing with him. Ariald went accordingly to the city, where his admonitions were unheeded by the clergy, to whom he first addressed himself but he gained an important ally in Landulf, a man of noble family, and with a great talent for popular oratory, who appears to have been in one of the minor orders of the ministry, and is said to have aspired to the archbishopric. Anselm, on revisiting Milan, was provoked by the admiration which the clergy of his train expressed for the eloquence of the Milanese; he saw in Ariald and Landulf fit instruments for carrying on the movement which he could himself no longer direct; and he bound them by oath to wage an implacable warfare against the marriage of the clergy.

The two began publicly to inveigh with great bitterness against the clergy, and their exaggerated representations were received with the greedy credulity which usu­ally waits on all denunciation of abuses. The populace, invited by means of tickets or handbills which were distributed, of little bells which were rung about the streets, and of active female tongues, flocked to the places where the oratory of Landulf and his companion was to be heard; and the reformers continually grew bolder and more unmeasured in their language. They told the people that their pastors were Simoniacs and Nicolaitans, blind leaders of the blind; their sacrifices were dog’s dung; their churches, stalls for cattle; their ministry ought to be rejected, their property might be seized and plundered. Such teaching was not without its effect; the mob attacked the clergy in the streets, loaded them with abuse, beat them, drove them from their altars, exacted from them a written promise to forsake their wives, and pillaged their houses. The clergy were supported by the nobles, and Milan was held in constant disquiet by its hostile factions, while the emissaries of Ariald communicated the excitement to the surrounding country. The followers of Ariald and Landulf were known by the name of Patarines—a word of disputed etymology and meaning, which became significant of parties opposed to the clergy, whether their opposition were in the interest of the papacy or of sectarianism.

Archbishop Guy, by the advice of Stephen IX, cited Ariald and Landulf before a synod, and, on their scornfully refusing to appear, excommunicated them; but the pope released them from the sentence. Stephen then summoned them to a synod at Rome, where they asserted their cause, but were opposed by a cardinal named Dionysius, who, having been trained in the church of Milan, understood the circumstances of that church, and strongly denounced the violence with which they had proceeded in their attempts at reform. Stephen, although his feeling was on the side of Ariald, affected neutrality between the parties, and sent a commission to Milan; but his short pontificate ended before any result appeared.

The intervention of Nicolas II was now requested by Ariald, and Peter Damiani was sent to Milan as legate, with Anselm, the original author of the troubles, as his colleague. They found the city in violent agitation. The Milanese, roused by the alarm that their ecclesiastical independence was in danger, were now as zealous on the side of the clergy as they had lately been against them. Loud cries were uttered against all aggression; the Roman pontiff it was said, had no right to force his laws or his jurisdiction on the church of St. Ambrose. Bells pealed from every tower, handbells were rung about the streets, and the clangour of a huge brazen trumpet summoned the people to stand up for their threatened privileges. The legates found themselves besieged in the archbishop’s palace by angry crowds; they were told that their lives were in jeopardy; and the popular feeling was excited to frenzy when, on the opening of the synod, Peter Damiani was seen to be seated as president, with his brother legate on his right hand, while the successor of St. Ambrose was on the left. Guy—whether out of real humility, or with the design of inflaming yet further the indignation of his flock—professed himself willing to sit on a stool at the feet of the legates, if required. A terrible uproar ensued, but Peter’s courage and eloquence turned the day. Rushing into the pulpit, he addressed the raging multitude, and was able to obtain a hearing. It was not, he said, for the honour of Rome, but for their own good, that he had come among them. He dwelt on the superiority of the Roman church. It was founded by God, whereas all other churches were of human foundation; the church of Milan was a daughter of the Roman, founded by disciples of St. Peter and St. Paul; St. Ambrose himself had acknowledged the church of Rome as his mother, had professed to follow it in all things, and had called in pope Siricius to aid him in ejecting that very heresy of the Nicolaitans which was now again rampant. “Search your writings”, exclaimed the cardinal, “and if you cannot there find what we say, tax us with falsehood”. Since Damiani himself reports his speech, it is to be supposed that he believed these bold assertions; at all events, the confidence and the fluency with which he uttered them, the authority of his position, and his high personal reputation, prevailed with the Milanese. The archbishop and a great body of the clergy forswore simony, bound themselves by oath to labour for the extirpation of it, and on their knees received the sentence of penance for their past offences. The result of the legation was not only the condem­nation of the practices which had been complained of, but the subjection of the Milanese church to that of Rome.

In April 1059 Nicolas held a council at Rome, which was attended by a hundred and thirteen prelates, among whom was Guy of Milan. The archbishop was treated with studious respect; he was seated at the pope’s right hand, and, on his promising obedience to the apostolic see, Nicolas bestowed on him the ring, which the archbishops of Milan had usually received from the kings of Italy. Ariald stood up to accuse him, but was reduced to silence by Cunibert of Turin and other Lombard bishops. It was enacted that no married or concubinary priest should celebrate mass, and that the laity should not attend the mass of such a priest; that the clergy should embrace the canonical life; that no clerk should take preferment from a layman, whether for money or gratuitously, that no layman should judge a clerk, of whatever order. The council also discussed the case of Berengar, a French ecclesiastic, who was accused of heresy as to the doctrine of the Eucharist. But its most important work was the establishment of a new procedure for elections to the papal chair.

The ancient manner of appointing bishops, by the choice of the clergy and people, had been retained at Rome, subject to the imperial control; but the result had not been satisfactory. The nobles and the people were able to overpower the voice of the clergy; to them were to be traced the ignominies and the distractions which had so long prevailed in the Roman church—the disputed elections, the schisms between rival popes, the promotion of scandalously unfit men to the highest office in the hierarchy. It was therefore an object of the reforming party to destroy the aristocratic and popular influences which had produced such evils. Independence of the imperial control, which had of late become an absolute power of nomination, was also desired; but the imperial interest was ably represented in the council by Guibert, the chancellor of Italy, and the Hildebrandine party were for the present obliged to be content with a compromise. It was enacted that the cardinal-bishops should first treat of the election; that they should then call in the cardinals of inferior rank, and that afterwards the rest of the clergy and the people should give their assent to the choice. The election was to be made “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, as we have already granted to him; and of his successors who shall personally have obtained this privilege from the apostolic see”.

By this enactment the choice of pope was substantially vested in the cardinals. The term cardinal had for many ages been used in the western church to signify one who had full and permanent possession of a benefice, as distinguished from deputies, assistants, temporary holders, or persons limited in the exercise of any rights belonging to the incumbency. But at Rome it had latterly come to bear a new meaning. The cardinal-bishops were the seven bishops of the pope’s immediate province, who assisted him in his public functions—the bishop of Ostia being the chief among them; the cardinal-priests were the incumbents of the twenty-eight “cardinal titles” of chief parish churches in the city. By the constitution of Nicolas, the initiative in the election was given to the cardinal-bishops. The other cardinals, however, were to be afterwards consulted, and a degree of influence was allowed to them; while the part of the remaining clergy and of the laity was reduced to a mere acceptance of the person whom the cardinals should nominate. The imperial prerogative is spoken of in words of intentional vagueness, which, without openly contesting it, reserve to the pope the power of limiting or practically annihilating it, as circumstances might allow; and whatever might be its amount, it is represented not as inherent in the office of emperor, but as a grant from the pope, bestowed on Henry out of special favour, and to be personally sought by his successors. The time for venturing on this important innovation was well chosen; for there was no emperor, and the prince for whom the empire was designed was a child under female guardianship, the sovereign of an unruly and distracted kingdom.

In the same year Nicolas proceeded into southern Italy, and held a council at Melfi, with a view to extirpating the Greek usages and habits which prevailed among the clergy of that region—especially the liberty of marriage. But a more important object of his expedition was the settlement of his relations with the Normans, whose most considerable leader was now Robert, styled Guiscard—the Wise, or rather the Crafty—one of the twelve sons of Tancred, a banneret or valvassor of Hauteville in Normandy. Three of Tancred’s sons by his first marriage had in 1035 joined their countrymen in Italy, and had been gradually followed by seven half-brothers, the children of their father’s second marriage, of whom Robert was the eldest. These adventurers rose to command among the Normans of the south, and formed the design of expelling the Greeks from their remaining territories in Italy. The eldest and the second brothers died without issue; on the death of the third, Humphrey, in 1057, Robert set aside the rights of his nephews, the children of the deceased, and was himself raised aloft on a buckler, and acknowledged as Humphrey’s successor. Under this chief, who was distinguished for his lofty stature, his strength and prowess, his ambition, his rapacity, his profound and unscrupulous cunning, the Normans carried on a course of incessant and successful aggression on every side. Their numbers were swelled by large bands from Normandy, while the more spirited among the natives of Apulia and Calabria assumed their name and habits, and were enrolled in their armies.

The Normans had not spared the property of St. Peter. Guiscard had been excommunicated by Nicolas for refusing to give up the city of Troia, which he had taken from the Greeks, and to which the Roman church laid claim; but mutual convenience now brought the warrior and the pontiff together. Instead of the schemes which his predecessors had formed for driving the Normans out of Italy, Nicolas conceived the idea of securing them to his alliance. On receiving an application from Guiscard for the withdrawal of his excommunication, he proposed that a conference should take place at the intended synod of Melfi; and the conference led to the conclusion of a treaty. By this the pope bestowed on Guiscard the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and such territories in Italy or Sicily as he might in future wrest from the Greeks or the Saracens; and he conferred on him or confirmed to him the title of duke. At the same time Richard of Aversa, the representative of the earlier Norman settlement, received the title of prince of Capua, a city which he had lately taken from the Lombards. On the other side, “Robert, by the grace of God and of St. Peter, duke of Apulia and Calabria, and, with the help of both, hereafter to be of Sicily”, swore to hold his territories as a fief of the Roman see, and to pay an annual quit-rent. He was never to give them up to any of the ultramontanes. He was to be faithful to the holy Roman church and to his lord the pope; he was to defend him in all things, and to aid him against all men towards establishing the rights of his see. He was to maintain the pope’s territories, to subject all the churches within his own dominions to Rome, and, in case of his surviving Nicolas, he was to see that the successor to the papacy should be legitimately chosen. For both parties this treaty was an important gain. The Normans acquired, far more than by the earlier treaty with Leo IX, an appearance of legitimacy—a religious sanction for their past and for their future conquests. The pope converted them from dangerous neighbours into powerful allies, obtained from them an acknowledgment of his suzerainty, and especially bound them to maintain his late ordinance as to the election of future popes. In fulfillment of their new engagements, the Normans advanced towards Rome, reduced the castles of the nobility of the Campagna, and, having thus established the pope in security, they resumed the career of conquest which had been authorized by his sanction. The acquisition of Sicily, however, which Guiscard, in the enumeration of his titles, had claimed by anticipation, was reserved for another member of his family. While the elder sons of Tancred of Hauteville were pursuing their fortunes in Italy, Roger, the youngest, had remained to watch over his father’s decline, until he was released from his duty by the old man’s death. He then followed his brethren to the south, where he soon gave proofs of his valour and daring; but he was unkindly treated by Guiscard, and, being left to his own resources, was reduced for a time to find a subsistence by robbing travellers and stealing horses—a fact which was afterwards preserved by the historian of his exploits, at Roger’s own desire. The brave and adventurous youth gathered by degrees a band of followers, which became so strong as even to be formidable to Guiscard. The brothers were reconciled in 1060, and combined for the siege of Reggio. After the taking of that city Roger carried his arms into Sicily under a banner blessed by Alexander II. His force at first consisted of only sixty soldiers; its usual number was from 150 to 300 horsemen, who joined or left him at their pleasure. Roger was often reduced to great distress, as an instance of which we are told that, when shut up in the city of Traina, he and his countess had but one cloak between them, in which they appeared in public by turns. But his indomitable courage and perseverance triumphed over all difficulties. The Saracens, effeminated by their long enjoyment of Sicily, and weakened by the division of their power, were unable to withstand him, even although aided by their brethren from Africa; and after thirty years of war, Roger was master of the island. He assumed the title of Grand Count, and his family became connected by marriage with the royal houses of Germany, France, and Hungary.

Nicolas, like Leo IX, had offended his own country­men by the zeal with which he devoted himself to the Italian interest. An opposition to him was formed in Germany, headed by Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, who, in conjunction with other prelates, drew up an act of excommunication and deposition against the pope. Nicolas was already ill when this document reached him; he is said to have read it with a great appearance of grief, and his death followed almost immediately, on the 27th of July, 106i.

Each of the Roman parties now took measures for securing the succession to the papacy. The nobles and imperialists, under the guidance of Cardinal Hugh the White, who had lately deserted the high ecclesiastical party in disgust at the superior influence of Hildebrand, despatched an embassy to the German court, under Gerard, count of Galeria, who had repeatedly been excommunicated by popes, and had lately incurred a renewal of the sentence for plundering the archbishop of York, with other English prelates and nobles, on their return from a visit to Rome. The ambassadors, who were instructed to offer the patriciate and the empire to the young king, were favourably received; while the envoys of Hildebrand and his friends waited five days without obtaining an audience of Henry or of his mother. Hildebrand, on learning this result, resolved to proceed to an election. By the promise of a large sum, he induced Richard, prince of Capua, to repair to Rome; the cardinals, under the protection of the Norman troops, chose Anselm of Lucca, who assumed the name of Alexander II; and, after a bloody conflict between the imperialists and the Normans, the pope was enthroned by night in St. Peter’s. In this election even the vague privilege which had been reserved by Nicolas to the emperor was set aside, in reliance on the weakness of Henry’s minority and on the newly-acquired support of the Normans.

The report of these proceedings reached Agnes at Basel, where a diet of princes and prelates was assembled, and among them some representatives of the Lombard bishops, who, under the direction of the chancellor Guibert, had resolved to accept no pope but one from their own province, which they styled “the paradise of Italy”. The tidings of Alexander’s election naturally raised great indignation. Henry was acknowledged as patrician of Rome; the late pope’s decree as to the manner of papal elections was declared to be null;  and, with the concurrence of the Roman envoys, Cadalous or Cadolus, bishop of Parma, was elected as the successor of Nicolas. The imperialist pope, who took the name of Honorius II, was, no doubt, favourable to those views on the subject of clerical marriage which distinguished the Lombard from the Hildebrandine party; but little regard is to be paid to the assertions of his violent opponents, who represent him as a man notoriously and scandalously vicious.

Honorius advanced towards Rome, where Benzo, bishop of Alba,s a bold, crafty, and unscrupulous man, was employed to prepare the minds of the people for his reception. The talents of Benzo as a popular orator, his coarse and exuberant buffoonery, and the money which he was able to dispense, were not without effect on the Romans. On one occasion he had a public encounter with Alexander, whom (as he boasts) he compelled to retire amid the scoffs and curses of the mob. Honorius was received with veneration in many cities. At Tusculum, where he established his camp, he was joined by the count of the place, envoys from the patriarch of Constantinople waited on him, and his troops were successful in an encounter with the small force which was all that the Normans could then spare for the assistance of Alexander. But the appearance of Godfrey of Tuscany, with a formidable army, induced both parties to an accommodation. Cadalous was to retire to Parma, Anselm to Lucca, and the question between them was to be decided by the imperial court, to which Godfrey, who affected the character of a mediator, undertook to represent their claims. Honorius relied on the favour which he already enjoyed; Alexander, on the interest of Godfrey. But at this very time a revolution was effected which gave a new turn to affairs.

The upright and firm administration of the empress-mother was offensive to many powerful persons, who felt it as interfering with their interests; and the princes of Germany, who had been galled by the control of Henry III, especially during the last years of his reign, had conceived hopes of establishing their independence during the nonage of his son. Groundless slanders were spread as to the intimacy of Agnes with Henry, bishop of Augsburg, on whom she chiefly relied for counsel, and a plot was laid to remove the young king, who was now in his twelfth year, from her guardianship. Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, a severe, proud, and ambitious prelate, undertook the execution of the scheme. He caused a vessel to be prepared with extraordinary richness of ornament, and, while at table with Henry on an island of the Rhine, he described this vessel in such terms as excited in the boy a wish to see it. No sooner was Henry on board than the rowers struck up the river. The king, suspecting treachery, threw himself overboard, but was rescued from the water by Count Eckhardt, one of the conspirators; his alarm was soothed, and he was landed at Cologne. The people of that city rose in great excitement, but were pacified by the archbishop’s assurances that he had not acted from any private motives, but for the good of the state; and, by way of proving his sincerity, Hanno published a decree that the administration of government and justice should be vested in the archbishop of that province in which the king should for the time be resident.

Hanno had thus far supported the Lombard pope, but he now found it expedient to make common cause with the Hildebrandine party; indeed it is probable that his late enterprise had been known beforehand to Godfrey of Tuscany, if not to Hildebrand and the other ecclesiastical leaders. Peter Damiani, who had already, by letters written with his usual vehemence, urged Henry to put down the antipope, and Cadalous himself to retire from the contest, now addressed Hanno in a strain of warm congratulation—comparing the abduction of Henry to the good priest Jehoiada’s act in rescuing the young Joash from Athaliah, and exhorting the archbishop to take measures for obtaining a synodical declaration against Cadalous. Guibert, the chief supporter of the imperial interest in Italy, was deprived of his chancellorship; and in October 1062 a synod was held at Osbor, where Peter appeared, and presented an argument for Alexander in the form of a dialogue between an Advocate of the Royal Power and a “Defender of the Roman Church”. The Roman champion, as might be expected, is fortunate in his opponent. The advocate of royalty, ill acquainted with the grounds of his cause, and wonderfully open to conviction, is driven from one position after another. His assertion that popes had always been chosen by princes is confuted by an overwhelming array of instances to the contrary. The donation of Constantine is triumphantly cited. The royalist then takes refuge in the reservation which the late pope’s decree had made of the imperial prerogative; but he is told that, as the Almighty sometimes leaves His promises unfulfilled because men fail in the performance of their part, so the grant made by Nicolas to Henry need not be always observed; that the privileges allowed to the king are not invaded, if during his childhood the Roman church—his better and spiritual mother—exercise a guardian care like that which his natural mother exerts in the political administration of his kingdom.

The pamphlet was read before the synod, which acknowledged Alexander as pope, and excommunicated his rival. It was the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, the anniversary of the antipope’s election; and a prediction which Damiani had confidently uttered, that, if he should persist in his claims, he would die within the year, was proved to be ridiculously false. The prophet, however, was not a man to be readily abashed, and professed to see the fulfillment of his words in the excommunication—the spiritual death—of Cadalous.

Peter had by this time withdrawn from the eminent position to which Stephen IX had promoted him. His reforming zeal had been painfully checked by the supineness of those with whom he was associated. His brother cardinals, to whom he addressed an admonitory treatise on their duties, continued to live as if it had never been written. His attempts to stimulate pope Nicolas to a thorough purification of the church were but imperfectly successful, although he cited Phineas as a model, and Eli as a warning. Moreover, in his simple monkish earnest­ness for a religious and moral reformation, he was unable to enter into Hildebrand’s deeper and more politic schemes for the aggrandizement of the hierarchy; he felt that Hildebrand employed him as a tool, and he was dissatisfied with the part. He had therefore repeatedly entreated Nicolas to release him from his bishopric, on the plea of age, and of inability to discharge his duties. The pope refused his consent, and Hildebrand, unwilling to lose the services of a man so useful to his party, told the cardinal that he was attempting under false pretences to escape from duty; but Peter persisted in his suit, and in the first year of Alexander's pontificate he was allowed to retire to his hermitage of Fonte Avellano. There he spent part of his time in humble manual works; among his verses are some which he sent to the pope with a gift of wooden spoons manufactured by himself. But he continued to exercise great influence by his writings; he was consulted by multitudes as an oracle; and from time to time he left his wilderness, at the pope’s request, to undertake important legations. The empress-mother Agnes, after the death of bishop Henry of Augsburg, placed herself under the direction of Damiani; and, having been brought by him to repent of her policy towards the church, she submitted to penance at the hands of Alexander, and became a nun in the Roman convent of St. Petronilla.

Hanno and his associates had loudly censured Agnes for the manner in which she educated her son; but when they had got the young king into their own hands, his education was utterly neglected. No care was taken to instruct him in the duties of a sovereign or of a Christian man. His talents, which were naturally strong, and his amiable dispositions were uncultivated; the unsteadiness of character which was his chief defect was unchecked; no restraint was opposed to his will; he was encouraged to waste his time and his energies in trifling or degrading occupations—in hunting, gaming, and premature indulgence of the passions. Hanno, finding that he himself was distasteful to Henry, both on account of the artifice by which he had obtained possession of the king’s person and because of his severe and imperious manners, called in the aid of Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg. The character of this prelate has been very fully depicted by the historian of northern Christianity, Adam, who, as a canon of his church, had ample opportunities of knowing him. Adalbert was a man of many splendid qualities. His person was eminently handsome; he was distinguished for eloquence and for learning; his morals, by a rare exception to the character of the age, were unimpeached; his devotion was such that he wept at the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice. He had laboured with zeal and success for the spreading of the gospel among the northern nations—extending his care even to the Orkneys and to Iceland. He had conceived the idea of exalting Bremen to the dignity of a patriarchate, and it was a desire to promote the interest of his see which first led him to frequent the imperial court. He acquired the confidence of Henry III, whom he attended into Italy in 1046; it is said that the emperor even wished to bestow the papacy on him, and that Suidger of Bamberg, who had been a deacon of the church of Hamburg, was preferred by Adalbert’s own desire. The hope of erecting a northern patriarchate ended with the death of the archbishop’s patrons, Henry and Leo IX, and from that time he devoted himself to political ambition. The faults of his character became more and more developed. His pride, vanity, ostentation, and prodigality were extravagantly displayed. His kindness and his anger were alike immoderate. The wealth which he had before spent on ecclesiastical buildings was now lavished on castles; he maintained a numerous and costly force of soldiers; and to meet the expenses of his secular grandeur he oppressed the tenants of his church and sold its precious ornaments. He entertained a host of parasites,—artists, players, quacksalvers, minstrels, and jugglers; one was a baptized Jew, who professed the science of alchemy; others flattered their patron with tales of visions and revelations, which promised him power, long life, and the exaltation of his church. While engaged in the society of these familiars, the archbishop would refuse an audience to persons who wished to see him on the gravest matters of business; sometimes he spent the night in playing at dice, and slept throughout the day. His eagerness to extend the possessions of his see, and to render it independent of lay control, involved him in many quarrels with neighbouring nobles; and his favourite table-talk consisted of sarcasms on these powerful enemies—the stupidity of one, the greed of another, the boorishness of a third. At the same time he was proud of his own descent from the counts palatine of Saxony; he spoke with contempt of his predecessors in the archbishopric as a low-born set of men, and even claimed kindred, through the family of the Othos, with the emperors of the east. To the poor his behaviour was gentle and condescending; he would often wash the feet of thirty beggars; but to his equals he was haughty and assuming.

The young king was won by the fascination of Adalbert’s society, and after a time Hanno found it expedient to admit his brother archbishop to a share in the administration. The misgovernment of these prelates was scandalous. Intent exclusively on their own interest and on that of their partisans, they appropriated or gave away estates belonging to the crown, while they used the royal name to sanction their plunder of other property. The wealth of monasteries, in particular, was pillaged without mercy. To Hanno his rapacity appeared to be justified by the application of the spoil to religious uses; Adalbert was rapacious in order to obtain the means of maintaining his splendour. Hanno, a man of obscure birth, practised the most shameless nepotism in the bestowal of ecclesiastical dignities, while Adalbert disdained such expedients for enriching his kindred. The sale of church preferment was openly carried on; a historian of the time tells us that money was the only way to promotion. The feuds and insubordination of the nobles became more uncontrollable; nor were ecclesiastics slow to imitate their example. Thus, in consequence of a question as to precedence between the bishop of Hildesheim and the abbot of Fulda, a violent affray took place between their retainers in the church of Goslar, at Christmas 1062, and the quarrel was renewed with still greater fury at the following Whitsuntide, when the king’s presence was no more regarded than the holiness of the place. Henry was even in personal danger, and many were slain on both sides. The great monastery of St. Boniface was long disturbed by the consequences of these scenes, and was impoverished by the. penalties imposed on it for the share which its monks had taken in them.

Adalbert gradually supplanted Hanno. At Easter 1065, he carried Henry to Worms, where the young king, then aged fifteen, was girt with the sword, and was declared to be of age to carry on the government for himself. Thus the regency of Hanno ceased, while Adalbert, as the minister of Henry, for a time enjoyed undivided power. Under his administration the state of things became continually worse. Simony was more shamelessly practised than ever; the pillage of monasteries was carried on without measure; for the archbishop taught the young king to regard monks as merely his stewards and bailiffs. Adalbert’s private quarrels were turned into affairs of state, and he took advantage of his position to inspire Henry with a dislike of the Saxons and others who had offended him. The discontent of his enemies and of those who suffered from his misgovernment rose at length to a height, and at a diet which was held at Tribur, in January 1066, Henry was peremptorily desired by a powerful party of princes and prelates to choose between the resignation of his crown and the dismissal of the archbishop of Bremen. Adalbert was compelled to make a hasty flight; he was required to give up almost the whole revenue of his see to his enemies; and his lands were plundered, so that he was reduced to support himself by appropriating religious and charitable endowments, and by oppressive exactions which are said to have driven some of the victims to madness and many to beggary. Hanno resumed the government. His rapacity and nepotism were unabated, but sometimes met with successful resistance. A nephew named Conrad, whom he had nominated to the archbishopric of Treves, was seized by the people, who were indignant at the denial of their elective rights; the unfortunate man was thrice thrown from a rock, and, as he still lived, was despatched with a sword. And an aggression on the property of the monks of Malmedy was defeated by the miraculous power of their patron St. Remaclus.

The antipope Honorius had made a fresh attempt on Rome in 1063, when he gained possession of the Leonine city, and was enthroned in St. Peter’s; but many of his partisans deserted him as his money decreased, the Romans rose against him, and, after much fighting with a Norman force which Hildebrand had called in to oppose him, he was compelled to shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo, under the protection of Cencius, a disorderly noble who had made himself master of the place. For two years he held out in the fortress; but his condition became more and more hopeless. It was in vain that he implored the assistance of Henry and Adalbert; and at length he felt himself obliged to withdraw, paying three hundred pounds of silver for the consent of Cencius to his departure. Hanno, after the recovery of his power, proceeded into Italy with a view of putting an end to the schism. At Rome he held a synod, where Alexander appeared. The archbishop asked him how he had ventured to occupy the apostolical chair without the sovereign’s permission; whereupon Hildebrand stood forward as the champion of his party, and maintained that the election of the pope had been regularly conducted—that no layman had any right to control the disposal of the holy see. Hanno was disposed to be easily satisfied, and adjourned the consideration of the case to a synod which was to be held at Mantua in Whitsun-week. At this synod Alexander presided, and defended all his acts. Honorius, who had retired to his bishopric of Parma, refused to attend, unless he might be allowed to sit as president, and attempted, at the head of an armed force, to disturb the sessions of the council. But the attempt was put down by Godfrey of Tuscany, Alexander was formally acknowledged as pope, and in that character he was escorted by Godfrey to Rome. The antipope held possession of Parma until his death, but, although he continued to maintain his pretensions to the papacy, he made no further active attempts to enforce them.

The pacification effected by Peter Damiani at Milan had too much the nature of a surprise to be lasting. The promulgation of the decrees against the marriage of the clergy which were enacted by the Roman synod of 1059 became the signal for great commotions in northern Italy. Many bishops refused to publish them; the bishop of Brescia, on attempting to do so, was almost torn to pieces by his clergy. And in Milan itself disorders soon broke out again.

Landulf died, but his place as an agitator was taken by his brother Herlembald. The new leader had been a valiant soldier; his views as to the marriage of the clergy had been bitterly influenced by finding that his affianced bride had been guilty of levity with a clerk. On this discovery he broke off the match, went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and at his return would have become a monk, but that Ariald persuaded him to continue in secular life, and to serve the church by defending it. The character of Herlembald was bold, violent, and resolute; he was possessed of a fiery eloquence, and was devoted to his cause with the narrow, reckless, and intolerant zeal which not uncommonly marks the religious partisanship of men trained to martial professions. He now accompanied Ariald to Rome, where Alexander received them as old friends, and bestowed on Herlembald a consecrated banner, charging him to unfurl it against heresy. On returning to Milan, the two began a fresh course of aggression against the married and concubinary clergy. They excited the multitude by their addresses; they won the poor by large distributions of money, and the young by the skillful use of flattery. A company of youths was formed, sworn to extirpate concubinage among the clergy, and with it was joined a rabble composed of low artisans and labourers, of men rendered desperate by want of employment, and of ruffians attracted by the hope of plunder. Some Manicheans, or adherents of the Monteforte heresy, are also mentioned as associates in the cause. For eighteen years Herlembald exercised a tyrannic power in Milan. Yet the populace was not entirely with him; for while he and Ariald, in their enthusiasm for Roman usages, went so far as to disparage the Milanese ritual, they furnished their opponents with a powerful cry in behalf of the honour of St. Ambrose. The reformers were very unscrupulous as to the means of carrying out their plans; Herlembald, when in want of money, proclaimed that any priest who could not swear that he had strictly kept the vow of continence since his ordination should lose all his property; and on this his adherents conveyed female attire by stealth into the houses of some of the clergy, where the discovery of it exposed the victims of the trick to confiscation, plunder, and outrage. The streets of Milan were continually disquieted by affrays between the hostile parties. Peter Damiani by his correspondence stimulated the reformers, and Gualbert of Vallombrosa sent some of his monks to aid them. The persecuted clergy, on the other hand, found allies in many Lombard bishops, who urged them to leave the city, and offered them hospitable entertainment. It is said that even Ariald was at one time touched by remorse, and expressed penitence on seeing the misery, and the destitution of religious ordinances, which had arisen from his agitations

A conference was held, at which a priest named Andrew especially distinguished himself by pleading for the marriage of the clergy. He rested the warrant for it on Scripture and on ancient usage, and spoke forcibly of the worse evils which had resulted from a denial of the liberty to marry. It was said that St. Ambrose had sanctioned the marriage of the clergy; that, by representing continency as a special gift of grace, he implied that it was something which ought not to be exacted of all. Ariald replied that marriage had been allowed in the times when babes required to be fed with milk, but that all things were now new. The conference was broken off by an attack of the mob on the clergy. The discomfited party alleged that miracles were wrought among them in behalf of clerical marriage, but their stories produced no effect.

In 1066, Herlembald, leaving Ariald to keep up the excitement of the Milanese, went again to Rome, and before a synod accused archbishop Guy of simony. The pope was unwilling to proceed to extremities, but Hildebrand persuaded him to pronounce a sentence of excommunication, which was conveyed to Milan by Herlembald. On Whitsunday the archbishop ascended the pulpit of his cathedral, holding the document in his hand. He inveighed against Herlembald and Ariald as the authors of the troubles which had so long afflicted the city. He complained of their behaviour towards himself and concluded his speech by desiring that all who loved St. Ambrose would leave the church. Out of a congregation of seven thousand, all withdrew except the two agitators and about twelve of their adherents. These were attacked by the younger clergy, with some lay partisans of the archbishop. Ariald was nearly killed; Herlembald fought desperately, and cut his way out of the church. The Patarines, on hearing of this, rose in the belief that Ariald was dead, and their numbers were swollen by a multitude of peasants from the neighbourhood, who had repaired to Milan for the festival; they stormed the cathedral and the archiepiscopal palace, dragged the archbishop out, handled him roughly, and left him hardly alive. Next day, when the peasantry had left the city, the nobles and clergy resolved to take vengeance for these outrages. Ariald fled in disguise, pursued by two clerks with a party of soldiers, while the archbishop laid an interdict on the city until he should be found. The unfortunate man was betrayed by a companion into the hands of a niece of the archbishop named Oliva, who directed five of her servants to conduct him to an island in the Lago Maggiore. On arriving there, his guards asked him whether he acknowledged Guy as archbishop of Milan. “He is not”, said Ariald, “nor ever was, for no archbishop-like work is or ever was in him”. The servants then set on him, cut off his members one by one, with words of savage mockery, and at length put an end to his life, and threw his body into the lake. Some months after the murder, the corpse was found, and Herlembald compelled the archbishop to give it up; it was carried in triumph to Milan, and miracles were reported to be performed by it. By these scenes the exasperation of Herlembald and his party was rendered more intense than ever.

In the following spring, the pope visited Milan, on his way to the council of Mantua, where he made some regulations as to discipline, and canonized Ariald as a martyr. Two Roman cardinals were soon afterwards sent as legates to Milan. They entered on their commission in a temperate and conciliatory spirit (Aug. 1, 1067).

It was decreed that the clergy should separate from their wives or concubines; that such of them as should persist in defying this order should be deprived of their office; but that no one should be deprived except on confession or conviction, and that the laity should not take the punishment of offending clergymen into their own hands. These orders, however, had little effect. Herlembald, dissatisfied with the moderation of the commissioners, again went to Rome, where Hildebrand joined him in maintaining the necessity of appointing a. new archbishop instead of Guy, whose title they declared to be invalid, as being derived from the imperial nomination.

Guy himself at length became weary of his uneasy dignity. He expressed a wish to resign, and sent his ring and crosier to the king, with a request (which is said to have been supported by money) that a deacon named Godfrey might be appointed as his successor; but, although Henry accepted the recommendation, and nominated Godfrey to the see, the Milanese refused to receive him. Nor were Herlembald’s party able to establish a young ecclesiastic named Atto, whom they set up as a rival archbishop; on the day of his consecration he was driven from the city, after having been compelled to forswear his pretensions. The church was in a state of utter confusion. Hildebrand declared the oath extorted from Atto to be null, and procured a like declaration from the pope. Godfrey was excommunicated by Alexander, and was persecuted by Herlembald, who, by intercepting the revenues of the archbishopric, rendered him unable to pay a stipulated pension to Guy; and the old man, in distress and discontent, allowed himself to be decoyed into a reconciliation with Herlembald. He was allowed to retain the title of archbishop, but was kept as a virtual prisoner in a monastery, while Herlembald wielded the ecclesiastical as well as the secular power in Milan. Guy died in 1071, but the troubles of his church were not ended by his death.

While these scenes were in progress at Milan, disturbances of a similar kind took place at Florence, where John Gualbert and the monks of Vallombrosa publicly accused the bishop, Peter, of simony, and declared the ministrations of simoniac and married clergy to be invalid. After much contention and some bloodshed, they proposed to decide the question by ordeal. The bishop refused to abide such a trial, and the pope, who had been appealed to, discouraged it; but a monk named Peter undertook to prove the charge. Two piles of wood were erected, ten feet in length, and with a narrow passage between them. The monk celebrated the Eucharist, and proceeded to the place of trial, clothed in the sacerdotal vestments. After praying that, if his charge against the bishop of Florence were just, he might escape unhurt, he entered between the burning piles, barefooted and carrying the cross in his hands. For a time he was hidden by flames and smoke; but he reappeared uninjured, and was hailed by the spectators with admiration and triumph. The bishop, a man of mild character, yielded to the popular clamour by withdrawing from Florence; but he retained his office until his death, and the diocese was administered in his name by a deputy. The zeal of the monk Peter, who acquired the name of “the Fiery”, was rewarded by promotion to high dignity in the church. Under Gregory VII he became cardinal-bishop of Albano, and was employed as legate in Germany.

Henry III had chosen as a wife for his son, Bertha, daughter of the marquis of Susa, whose powerful interest in Italy he hoped to secure by the connection. The princess was beautiful, and, as appeared in the varied trials of her life, her character was noble and affectionate; but the young king, from unwillingness to forsake his irregularities, was reluctant to fulfill the engagement. After recovering from an illness which his physicians supposed to be desperate, he was persuaded by the entreaties of his nobles to marry Bertha in 1066; but regarding her as forced on him by his enemies, he felt a repugnance towards her, and three years later he formed a design of repudiating her. With a view to this, he endeavoured to secure the interest of Siegfried, archbishop of Mayence, by a promise of aiding him in enforcing the payment of tithes from Thuringia to his see, and Siegfried willingly listened to the inducement. He wrote to the pope on behalf of the divorce, although in a tone which showed that he was somewhat ashamed of his part; he had (he said) threatened the king with excommunication unless some definite reason were given for his desire of a separation. Peter Damiani was once more sent into Germany, and assembled a synod at Mayence, from which city, at Henry’s summons, it was transferred to Frankfort. After a discussion of the matter, the legate earnestly entreated Henry to desist from his purpose, for the sake of his own reputation, if he were indifferent to the laws of God and man. He told him that it was an accursed project, unworthy alike of a Christian and of a king; that it was monstrous for one whose duty bound him to punish misdeeds, to give so flagrant an example; that the pope would never consent to the divorce, nor ever crown him as emperor if he persisted in urging it. The king submitted, although unwillingly, and soon resumed his licentious habits. But the character of Bertha gradually won his affection, and, so long as she lived, her fidelity supported him in his troubles.

About this time Adalbert, after a banishment of three years from the court, recovered his position, and for a time conducted the government with absolute power. He resumed his ambitious project of erecting his see into a patriarchate. The evils of his former administration were renewed, and even exceeded. Ecclesiastical preferments were put up to open sale in the court; and it is said that a general disgust was excited by the sight of the shameless traffic in which monks engaged, and of the hoarded wealth which they produced, to be expended in simoniacal purchases. Feuds, intrigues, discontent, abounded. The writer to whom we are indebted for the fullest account of Adalbert’s career describes his last years with a mixture of sorrow and awe—dwelling fondly on his noble gifts, relating his errors with honest candour, and lamenting his melancholy perversion and decline. It seemed as if the archbishop’s mind were disordered by the vicissitudes through which he had passed. His days were spent in sleep, his nights in waking. His irritability became intolerable; to those who provoked him he spoke with an indecent violence of language; or he struck them, and sometimes so as even to draw blood. He showed no mercy to the poor; he plundered religious and charitable foundations, while he was lavish in his gifts to the rich, and to the parasites whose flatteries and prophecies obtained an ever-increasing mastery over him. Yet his eloquence was still unabated, and gave plausibility to his wildest extravagances and to his most unwarrantable acts. His nearest relations believed him to be under the influence of magic, while he was himself suspected by the vulgar of unhallowed arts—a charge for the falsehood of which the historian solemnly appeals to the Saviour and to all the saints. His health began to fail; a woman, who professed to be inspired, foretold that he would die within two years unless he amended his life; but he was buoyed up by the assurances of other prophets, that he would live to put all his enemies under his feet, and almost to the last he relied on these assurances in opposition to the warnings of his physicians. Omens of evil were observed at Bremen: crucifixes wept, swine and dogs boldly profaned the churches, wolves mingled their dismal howlings with the hooting of owls around the city, while the pagans of the neighbourhood burnt and laid waste Hamburg, and overran Nordalbingia. The archbishop gradually sank. It was in vain that the highest dignitaries of the church sought admittance to his chamber; he was ashamed to be seen in his decay. The king alone was allowed to enter; and to him Adalbert, after reminding him of his long service, committed the protection of the church of Bremen. On the 16th of March 1072 the archbishop expired at Goslar—unlike Wolsey, with whom he has been compared, in the recovery of his power, and in the retention of it to the last; but, like Wolsey, lamenting the waste of his life on objects of which he had too late learnt to understand the vanity. His treasury, into which, by rightful and by wrongful means, such vast wealth had been gathered, was found to be entirely empty; his books and some relics of saints were all that he left behind him.

On the death of Adalbert, Henry, in deference to the solicitations of his nobles and to the cries of his people, requested Hanno to resume the government. The arch­bishop reluctantly consented, and, although his rapacity and sternness excited complaints, the benefits of his vigorous administration speedily appeared. Nobles were compelled to raze their castles, which had been the strongholds of tyranny and insubordination; justice was done without respect of persons; it seemed, according to the best annalist of the age, as if for a time the minister had infused into the indolent young king the activity and the virtues of his father. But Hanno was weary of his position, and under the pretext of age and infirmity, resigned it at the end of nine months; when Henry, feeling (according to Lambert’s expression) as if he were delivered from a severe schoolmaster, plunged into a reckless career of dissipation and misgovernment. He neglected public business; violences were committed against nobles, the property of churches and monasteries was bestowed on worthless favourites, the hills of Saxony and Thuringia were crowned with fortresses intended to coerce the inhabitants, and the garrisons indulged without restraint their love of plunder and destruction, their insolence and their lust. In Thuringia, the prosecution of Siegfried’s claim to tithes was used as a pretext for the military occupation of the country; it had been agreed that the king was to enforce the claim by arms, on condition of sharing in the spoil. Siegfried, by a letter in which he plainly hinted a bribe, endeavoured to draw Hildebrand into his interest. In March 1073 a synod met at Erfurt, in the king’s presence, for the consideration of the question; when the abbots of Fulda and Hersfeld appeared in opposition to the archbishop. The Thuringians made an appeal to the pope, but Henry threatened ruin and death against any one who should attempt to prosecute it; and when the synod agreed on a compromise unfavourable to the Thuringians, he forbade the abbots to report the result to Rome. Henry had incurred the general detestation of his subjects, which was swollen by exaggerated and fabulous tales of his misconduct; the Saxons, the Thuringians, and the Swabians, exasperated by the wrongs which they had suffered and by the dread of further evils, were ready to break out into rebellions

The cries of Germany at length reached Alexander, who summoned the archbishops of Meayence and Cologne, with the bishop of Bamberg, to Rome, and reproved them for their slackness in discouraging simony. Hanno was gently treated, and was presented with some precious relics; Siegfried’s offer of a resignation was declined; Otho of Bamberg confessed his guilt, but it is said that he appeased the papal anger by valuable gifts, and he received the honour of the pall. The greatest prelates of Germany were at the pope’s feet; the two metropolitans of England had just been compelled to appear before him—Lanfranc of Canterbury, that he might personally receive the pall which he had in vain endeavoured to obtain without such appearance; and Thomas of York, that he might refer to the successor of St. Peter and of St. Gregory a question as to the English primacy. By these triumphs over national churches, Alexander was encouraged to enter on a contest with the chief representative of the secular power. In October, 1072, he had held a conference at Lucca with Beatrice and her daughter Matilda on the means of reforming their royal kinsman; and, as it was agreed that gentle measures would be ineffectual, he proceeded, at a synod in the following Lent, to excommunicate five counsellors who were charged with exerting an evil influence over Henry, and summoned the king himself to make satis­faction to the church for simony and other offences. Hanno and the bishop of Bamberg, who were on the point of returning home, were charged with the delivery of the mandate; but on the 21st of April 1073, Alexander died, and it remained unanswered and unenforced.

Peter Damiani had died in the preceding year, on his return from a mission to Ravenna, where he had been employed in releasing his fellow-citizens from the excommunication brought on them by their late archbishop, as a partisan of the antipope Cadalous.

CHAPTER II.

GREGORY VII.

HILDEBRAND was now to assume in his own person the majesty and the responsibility of the power which he had so long directed.

At the, death of Alexander II, Rome, by a fortune rare on such occasions, was undisturbed by the rage of its factions. Hildebrand, as chancellor of the see, ordered a fast of three days, with a view to obtaining the Divine guidance in the choice of a pope. But next day, while the funeral rites of Alexander were in progress, a loud outcry arose from the clergy and the people, demanding Hildebrand as his successor. The chancellor ascended the pulpit, and attempted to allay the uproar by representing that the time for an election was not yet come; but the cries still continued. Hugh the White then stood forth as spokesman of the cardinals, and, after a warm panegyric on Hildebrand’s services to the church, declared that on him the election would fall, if no worthier could be found. The cardinals retired for a short time, and, on their reappearance, presented Hildebrand to the mul­titude, by whom he was hailed with acclamations.

The name which the new pope assumed—Gregory the Seventh—naturally carried back men’s thoughts to the last Gregory who had occupied St. Peter’s chairs By choosing this name, Hildebrand did not merely testify his personal attachment to the memory of his master and patron; it was a declaration that he regarded him as a legitimate pope, and was resolved to vindicate the principles of which Gregory VI had been the repre­sentative and the confessor against the imperial power by which he had been deposed.

At the outset, however, Hildebrand did not wish pre­maturely to provoke that power. The proceedings which Alexander had commenced against Henry were allowed to drop; and, although the pope at once took on himself the full administration of his office, he sent notice of his election to the king, and waited for the royal confirmation of it. The German bishops, who knew that his influence had long governed the papacy, and dreaded his imperious character and his reforming tendencies, represented the dangers which might be expected from him; and, in consequence of their representations, two commissioners were despatched to Rome, with orders to compel Hildebrand to resign, if any irregularity could be found in his election. The pope received them with honour; he stated that the papacy had been forced on him by a tumult, against his own desire, and that he had deferred his consecration until the choice should be approved by the king and princes of Germany. The commissioners reported to Henry that no informality could be discovered, and on St. Peter’s day 1073 Hildebrand was consecrated as the successor of the apostle. It was the last time that the imperial confirmation was sought for an election to the papacy.

In the letters which he wrote on his elevation, Hilde­brand expresses a strong reluctance to undertake the burden of the dignity which had been thrust on him; and his professions have been often regarded as insincere. But this seems to be an injustice. Passionately devoted as he was to the cause which he had espoused, he may yet have preferred that his exertions for it should be carried on under the names of other men; he had so long wielded in reality the power which was nominally exer­cised by Leo, Victor, Stephen, Nicolas, and Alexander, that he may have wished to keep up the same system to the end. If he had desired to be pope, why did he not take means to secure his election on some earlier vacancy? Why should we suppose that his promotion as the suc­cessor of Alexander was contrived by himself, rather than that it was the natural effect of the impression which his character and his labours had produced on the minds of the Roman clergy and people? And even if he thought that matters had reached a condition in which no one but himself, acting with the title as well as with the power of pope, could fitly guide the policy of the church, why should we not believe that he felt a real unwillingness to undertake an office so onerous and so full of peril? His letters to princes and other great personages might indeed be suspected; but one which he addressed in January 1075 to his ancient friend and superior, Hugh of Cluny, seems to breathe the unfeigned feeling of his heart. Like the first pope of his name, and in terms partly borrowed from him, he laments the unhappy state of ecclesiastical affairs. The eastern church is failing from the faith, and is a prey to the Saracens. Westward, southward, northward, there is hardly a bishop to be seen, but such as have got their office by unlawful means, or are blameable in their lives, and devoted to worldly ambition; while among secular princes there is no one who prefers God’s honour and righteousness to the advantages of this world. Those among whom he lives—Romans, Lombards, and Normans—are worse than Jews or pagans. He had often prayed God either to take him from the world or to make him the means of benefit to His church; the hope that he may be the instrument of gracious designs is all that keeps him at Rome or in life.

But, whatever his private feelings may have been, Hildebrand, when raised to the papacy, entered on the prosecution of his schemes with increased energy. The corruptions of the church, which he traced to its connection with the state, had led him to desire its independence; and it now appeared that under the name of independence he understood sovereign domination. In the beginning of his pontificate, he spoke of the spiritual and the secular powers as being like the two eyes in the human body, and therefore apparently on an equality; but afterwards they are compared to the sun and the moon respectively—a comparison more distinctly insisted on by Innocent III, and which gives a great superiority to the priesthood, so that Gregory founds on it a claim to control “after God” the actions of kings; and still later (as we shall see hereafter), his statements as to the power of temporal sovereigns became of a far more depreciatory character. And, as he brought out with a new boldness the claims of the church against the state, it was equally his policy to assert a despotic power for the papacy against the rest of the church, while all his aggressive acts or claims were grounded on pretexts of ancient and established rights. The principles of his system are embodied in a set of propositions known as his “Dictate”, which, although probably not drawn up by himself, contains nothing but what may be paralleled either from his writings or from his actions. These maxims are far in advance of the forged decretals. It is laid down that the Roman 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 depose 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 appeals 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 church, according to Gregory, was not to be the handmaid of princes, but their mistress; if she had received from God power to bind and to loose in heaven, much more must she have a like power over earthly things. His idea of the papacy combined something of the ancient Jewish theocracy with the imperial traditions of Rome.

Gregory boldly asserted that kingdoms were held as fiefs under St. Peter. From France he claims tribute as an ancient right; he says that Charlemagne acted as the pope’s collector, and bestowed Saxony on the apostle. He declares that Spain had of old belonged to St. Peter, although the memory of the connection had been obscured during the Mahometan occupation; and on this ground he grants to the count of Roucy (near Reims) all that he may be able to regain from the Arabs, to be held under the apostolic see. To Solomon, king of Hungary he writes that that kingdom had been given by the holy Stephen to St. Peter; he rebukes him for taking investiture from the king of Germany, tells him that therefore his reign will not be long, and in writing to the next king, Geisa, he traces Solomon’s fall to this unworthy submission. He makes similar claims to Bohemia, to Denmark, to Poland, to Provence, Corsica, Sardinia, England, and Ireland. By conferring the title of king on the duke of Dalmatia, he binds him to be the vassal of the holy see; where he does not pretend an ancient right, he offers to princes—even to the sovereign of Russia among them—a new and better title from St. Peter; and in the event it was found that the hope of a title which professed to consecrate possession, to heal all irregularities, and to silence all questions as to the mode of acquisition, was the most powerful means of inducing princes to submit to the pretensions of Rome. The sternness of Gregory’s resolution to carry out his principles was expressed by the frequent citation of a text from Jeremiah—“Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood”. But in his dealings with princes he showed nothing of that fanaticism which disregards persons and circumstances. He could temporize with the strong, while he bent all his force against the weak. He was careful to strike where his blows might be most effective.

Philip I of France had succeeded his father at the age of seven, and, with a natural character far inferior to that of Henry IV, had grown up in a like freedom from wholesome restraint, and in a like want of moral training. Gregory, soon after his election, addressed a letter to the king, censuring the disorders of his government and Philip answered by promising amendment, but took little pains to fulfill his promise. On this the pope wrote to some French bishops and nobles, in terms of the severest denunciation against their sovereign. Philip, he said, was not a king but a tyrant—a greedy wolf, an enemy of God and man. By the persuasion of the devil he had reached the height of iniquity in the sale of ecclesiastical preferments; he paid no regard to either divine or human laws; a loose was given to perjury, adultery, sacrilege, and all manner of vices, and the king not only encouraged these but set the example of them. Nay, not content with this, he even robbed foreign merchants who visited his dominions—an outrage unheard of among the very pagans. The bishops were charged to remonstrate, and were assured that their obligations of fealty bound them not to overlook the sovereign's misdeeds, but to reprove them; the kingdom must not be ruined by “one most abandoned man”. Gregory told Philip himself that France had sunk into degradation and contempt; he threatened to excommunicate and interdict him, to withdraw the obedience of his subjects, to leave nothing undone in order to wrest the kingdom from him, unless he repented.

Yet all this led to no result. Philip was too indolent to enter into a direct conflict with the pope; he allowed the Roman legates to hold synods and to exercise discipline in his dominions; but he grudged the diminution of his revenues by their proceedings, and, when he found that they especially interfered with his patronage or profit in the appointment or deposition of bishops and abbots, he opposed them with a sullen and dogged resistances. Gregory repeatedly wrote to him, admonished him, and expressed hopes of his amendment. No amendment followed; but the pope was too deeply engaged in other business, and too much dreaded the spirit of the French nation—in which the nobles were gradually rallying round the throne, while the church was more united than that of Germany—to take any steps for the correction of the king.

While Gregory spared Philip, and while (as we shall see hereafter) he dreaded William of England and Normandy, his most vigorous efforts were employed against the king of Germany, the heir of the imperial dignity. If he could humble the highest and proudest of crowns, the victory would tell on all other sovereigns; and the papacy, in such strength as it had never before possessed, was measured against the empire in its weakness.

Germany was now in a miserable state of distraction. The young king had given much just cause of discontent, while his subjects were not disposed to limit their demands within the bounds of reason. The garrisons of the Saxon and Thuringian fortresses excited by their outrages the violent indignation of the people, and the complaints which were addressed to Henry against them were received with scorn and mockery. Sometimes he refused to see the deputies who were sent to him; it is said that on one occasion, when some envoys waited on him at Goslar by his own appointment, they were detained in his ante-chamber all day, while he amused himself by playing at dice, and at length were told that he had retired by another way. It was believed that the king intended to reduce the Saxons to slavery, and to seize on their country for his own domain. The whole population rose in frenzy; a confederacy was formed which included the primate Siegfried, with the abbots of Fulda and Hersfeld; and a leader was found in Otho of Nordheim. Both among princes and among prelates many were ready to disguise their selfish ambition under the cloak of patriotism and religion; and loud cries were raised for a new king. The exasperation of the Saxons was yet further increased when Henry endeavoured to engage the barbarians of the north—Poles, Luticians, and Danes—to take up arms against them.

Gregory in the beginning of his pontificate wrote to Godfrey of Tuscany and to other relations of Henry, entreating them to use their influence for the king’s amendment. Henry, feeling the difficulties of his position, and not suspecting the extent of the great scheme for the exaltation of the papacy at the cost of the empire, addressed the pope in a tone of deference; he regretted his own past misconduct—his encouragement of simony, his negligence in punishing offenders; he owned himself unworthy to be called the son of the church, and requested Gregory to aid him in appeasing the distractions of Milan, where a new claimant, Tedald, nominated by the king at the request of the citizens, who disowned both Godfrey and Atto, was now engaged in a contest for the archbishopric with Atto and the faction of Herlembald.

The troubles of Germany increased. In March 1074 an agreement was extorted from Henry that the hated fortresses should be destroyed. The great castle of the Harz was at once that in which the king took an especial pride, and which was most obnoxious to his people. It included a church, which, although built of wood, was splendidly adorned; a college of monks was attached to the church, and in its vaults reposed the bodies of the king’s brother and infant son. Henry dismantled the fortifications, in the hope of saving the rest; but the infuriated peasantry destroyed the church, scattered the royal bones and the sacred relics, carried off the costly vessels, and proceeded to demolish other fortresses in the same riotous manner. The Saxon princes endeavoured to appease the king’s indignation by representing to him that these outrages were committed without their sanction, and by promising to punish the ringleaders; but he refused to listen to their apologies, inveighed against the Saxons as traitors whom no treaties could bind, and complained to the pope of the sacrileges which had been committed at the Harzburg. About the same time the tumultuary spirit of the Germans showed itself in out­breaks in various quarters. The citizens of Cologne expelled their archbishop, Hanno, but he soon reduced them to submission, and punished them with characteristic severity.

In April 1074 Gregory sent the empress-mother Agnes, with four bishops, on an embassy into Germany. They were received at Nuremberg by Henry, but refused to hold any communication with him until he should have done penance for his offences against the church. Out of deference to his mother, the king submitted to this condition; in the rough garb of a penitent, and with his feet bare, he sued for and received absolution; and his excommunicated courtiers were also absolved, on swearing that they would restore the church property which they had taken. Henry was disposed to accede to the pope’s intended measures against simoniacs, as he hoped by such means to get rid of some bishops who had opposed him in the Saxon troubles. It was proposed that a council should be held in Germany, under a legate, with a view to investigating the cases of bishops suspected of having obtained their promotion by unlawful means. The primate Siegfried—a mean, selfish, and pusillanimous prelate—made no objection to the proposal. But Liemar, archbishop of Bremen, a man of very high character for piety, learning, and integrity, declared that it was an infringement on the rights of the national church; that, in the absence of the pope, the archbishop of Mayence alone was entitled to preside over German councils, as perpetual legate of the holy see. In consequence of his opposition, Liemar was suspended by the envoys, was cited to Rome, and, as he did not appear, was excommunicated by Gregory, who wrote to him a letter of severe rebuke; and other prelates who took part with him were suspended until they should clear themselves before the pope. Agnes and her companions were dismissed by the king with gifts, and were assured that he would aid the pope in his endeavours to suppress simony.

Gregory still had hopes of using Henry as an ally. In December 1074 he addressed to him two letters—the one, thanking him for his promise of cooperation; the other, remarkable as announcing the project of a crusade. The pope states that fifty thousand men, from both sides of the Alps, were ready to march against the infidels of the east, if he would be their leader; that he earnestly wishes to undertake the expedition, more especially as it holds out a hope of reconciliation with the Greek church; and that, if he should go, Henry must in his absence guard the church as a mother, and defend her honour. Even so late as July 1075, he commended the king for his cooperation in discountenancing simony, and for his desire to enforce chastity on the clergy, while he expressed a hope that this might be regarded as a pledge for yet more excellent things.

In the meantime the pope’s measures of reform were producing a violent commotion. Gregory was resolved to proceed with vigour in the suppression of simony and of marriage among the clergy. Like Peter Damiani, he included under the name of simony all lay patronage of benefices; that which is given to God (it was said) is given for ever, so that the donor can thenceforth have no further share in the disposal of it. In enforcing celibacy on the clergy, he was probably influenced in part by his strict monastic ideas, and in part by considerations of policy. By binding the clergy to single life, he might hope to detach them from their kindred and from society, to destroy in them the feeling of nationality, to consolidate them into a body devoted to the papacy, and owning allegiance to it rather than to the temporal sovereigns under whom they enjoyed the benefits of law and government, to preserve in the hierarchy wealth which might have readily escaped from its hands through the channels of family and social connections.

At his first synod, in Lent 1074, canons were passed against simony and clerical marriage. The clergy who were guilty of such practices were to be debarred from all functions in the church; the laity were charged to refuse their ministrations; it was declared that their blessing was turned into a curse, and their prayer into sin—that disobedience to this mandate was idolatry and paganism. Even if such enactments did not directly contradict the long acknowledged principle of the church, that the validity of sacraments does not depend on the character of the minister, their effect was practically the same; for it mattered not whether the sacraments were annulled, or whether the laity were told that attendance on them was sinful. The charge to the laity had, indeed, already been given by Nicolas and by Alexander; but the decrees of those popes appear to have been little known or enforced beyond the bounds of Italy, and north of the Alps the canon against the marriage of the clergy was received as something wholly new. In Germany it aroused a general feeling of indignation among the clergy. They declared that it was unwarranted by Scripture or by the ancient church; that the pope was heretical and insane for issuing such an order, in contradiction to the Saviour and to St. Paul; that he required the clergy to live like angels rather than men, while at the same time he opened the door to all impurity; that they would rather renounce their priesthood than their wives. Some bishops openly defied the pope—not from any personal interest, but because they felt for the misery which his measures would inflict on the clergy, their wives, and their families. Otho of Constance, one of Henry’s excommunicated counsellors, who had before tolerated the marriage of his clergy, now put forth a formal sanction of it. Altmann of Passau, in publishing the decree, was nearly killed. The primate, Siegfried, on being required to promulgate it, desired his clergy to put away their wives within six months. As the order was ineffectual, he held a synod at Erfurt, in October 1074, where he required them to renounce either their wives or their ministry, and at the same time he revived his ancient claim to tithes, which the Thuringians supposed to have been relinquished. A band of armed Thuringians broke in, and the council was dissolved in confusion. Siegfried requested that the pope would modify his orders, but received in answer a rebuke for his want of courage, and a command to enforce them all. A second council was held at Mayence, in October 1075; but, notwithstanding the presence of a Roman legate, the clergy were so furious in their language, their looks, and their gestures, that Siegfried was glad to escape alive. Having no inclination to sacrifice himself for another man’s views, he declared that the pope must carry out his schemes for himself and was content with ordering that in future no married man should be promoted to ecclesiastical office, and with exacting a promise of celibacy from those whom he ordained. In France, the excitement was no less than in Germany. A council at Paris, in 1074, cried out that the new decrees were intolerable and irrational; Walter, abbot of Pontoise, who attempted to defend them, was beaten, spitted on, and imprisoned; and John, archbishop of Rouen, while endeavouring to enforce them at a provincial synod, was attacked with stones and driven to flight. Gregory in one of his letters mentions a report (for which, however, there is no other authority) that a monk had even been burnt at Cambray for publishing the prohibition of marriage.

Gregory was undaunted by the agitation which had arisen. Finding that little assistance could be expected from synods, he sent legates into all quarters with orders to enforce the decrees. To these legates he applied the text—“He that heareth you, heareth me”; wherever they appeared, they were for the time the highest ecclesiastical authorities; and bishops trembled before the deacons and subdeacons who were invested with the pope’s commission to overrule, to judge, and to depose them. The monks, his sure allies in such a cause, were active in spreading the knowledge of the decrees among the people, and in stirring them up by their invectives against the clergy. If bishops opposed his measures, he absolved their flocks from the obligation of obedience;  he avowed the intention of bringing public opinion to bear on such clergymen as should be impenetrable to his views of their duty to God and to religion;  he charged his lay supporters to prevent their ministrations, “even by force, if necessary”. The effects of thus setting the people against their pastors were fearful. In some cases the laity took part with the denounced clergy; but more commonly they rose against them, and with violence and insult drove them, with their wives and children, from their homes. A general confusion followed; the ordinances of religion were deserted, or were profaned and invaded by laymen and the contempt of the clergy thus generated was very effectual in contributing to the increase of anti-hierarchical and heretical sects.

The pope could the better afford to be calm, because the troubles excited by his decree as to celibacy distracted the general attention from a yet more important part of his designs, and weakened theinfluence of a large party among the clergy whose opposition he had reason to expect. At the outset of his pontificate he had not attacked the practice of investiture. When Anselm, the favourite chaplain and adviser of the countess Matilda, on being nominated to the see of Lucca, consulted him on the subject, Gregory advised him not to take investiture from Henry until the king should have dismissed his excommunicated counsellors and should have been reconciled to the Roman churchy he did not, however, object to the ceremony of investiture in itself and, at Henry’s request, he deferred the consecration of Anselm, and that of Hugh, who had been elected to the bishopric of Die, in Burgundy, until they should have been invested by the king. But at the Lent synod of 1075 (where the censures of the church were pronounced against many of Henry’s partisans, who were charged with a breach of the conditions on which they had obtained absolution at Nuremberg), Gregory issued a decree that no ecclesias­tic should take investiture from lay hands, and that no lay potentate should confer investiture. Investiture, as we have seen, although it originated before the feudal system, had long been interpreted according to the principles of feudalism. By its defenders it was maintained on the ground that it related to the temporalities only; that, if bishops and abbots were to enjoy these, they ought, like other holders of property, to acknowledge the superiority of the liege-lord, and to be subject to the usual feudal obligations. The opposite party replied that the temporalities were annexed to the spiritual office, as the body to the soul; that, if laymen could not confer the spiritualities, they ought not to meddle with the disposal of their appendages, but that these also should be conferred by the pope or the metropolitan, as an assurance to the receivers that their temporalities were given by God. The abolition of investiture was a means to prevent effectually the sale of preferments by princes; but this was not all. On investiture depended the power of sovereigns over prelates, and the right to expect feudal service from them; if there were no fealty, there could be no treason. The patronage which was taken from sovereigns would pass into other hands; the prelates would transfer their allegiance from the crown to the pope; and if Gregory was sincere when, in September 1077, he told the people of Aquileia that he had no wish, to interfere with the duty of bishops towards sovereigns, he had at least discovered the real bearing of his pretensions when, in February 1079, he exacted from the new patriarch of Aquileia an oath of absolute fealty to himself including the obligation of military service.

Gregory knew that his decree was sure to be opposed by all the clergy who depended on the patronage of lay­men—from the prelates of the imperial court to the chaplain of the most inconsiderable noble—and that, in addition to these, there were many who would oppose him, not from any selfish motive, but from the belief that the measure was an invasion of the lawful rights of princes. For a time he hardly mentioned the new canon in his letters; the publication of it was chiefly left to his legates; and sovereigns, as if in a contemptuous affectation of ignorance as to the new pretensions of Rome, continued to invest bishops and abbots as be­fore.

At Christmas 1075 an extraordinary outrage was perpetrated by Cencius, who has been already mentioned. This man, after having been anathematized by Alexander II on account of his connection with Cadalous, effected a reconciliation with Alexander, and continued to reside at Rome. The city was scandalized and disquieted by his irregularities, which had often brought him into collision with the government; he had even been condemned to death, and had been pardoned only through the intercession of the countess Matilda; but he possessed great wealth and influence, and was master of several fortified houses, which were garrisoned by a force of desperate ruffians. On Christmas eve, Gregory proceeded to the church of St. Mary Major (where the holy cradle was then, as now, supposed to be preserved) for the midnight mass which ushers in the celebration of the Saviour’s birth. In consequence of tempestuous weather, the congregation was small. The pope was in the act of administering the sacrament when the church was suddenly invaded by Cencius with a party of his retainers. The worshippers were borne down; some of them were stabbed with daggers. Gregory was rudely seized, was dragged by the hair, and beaten; a sword, aimed at him with the intention of despatching him, wounded him in the forehead; he was stripped of a part of his robes, and was carried off on the back of one of the villains to a tower belonging to Cencius. All this he bore with perfect composure, neither struggling to escape, nor asking for mercy. During the night he was exposed to the insults of the gang into whose hands he had fallen, among whom a sister of Cencius was conspicuous by the bitter­ness of her reproaches; and Cencius himself holding a drawn sword at his throat, endeavoured by the most savage demeanour and threats to extort the cession of papal treasures, or of castles belonging to the apostolic see, to be held as benefices under it. But even in this den of ruffians, Gregory found sympathy from a man who endeavoured to protect him with furs against the piercing cold, and from a woman who bathed his wound. It was intended to send him privately out of the city; but in the course of the night the report of his captivity was spread by the clergy who had been with him at the time of the assault. The people of Rome were roused by the sound of bells and trumpets, the gates were watched so that no one could leave the city, and a vast multitude gathered around the tower of Cencius, demanding the release of their pastor. A breach was made in the wall, and the besiegers were preparing to set the place on fire, when Cencius, in abject terror, threw himself at the feet of his prisoner, and entreated forgiveness. “I pardon what thou hast done against myself”, Gregory calmly replied; “as for thy offences against God, His Mother, and the church, I enjoin on thee a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and that, if thou return alive, thou be guided in future by my counsels”. The pope, covered with blood, was received with exultation by the crowd, and was carried back to the church, to resume the interrupted rites, and to pour forth a thanksgiving for his deliverance. Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, formerly chancellor of Italy, and still Henry’s ablest and most active partisan in that country, was suspected of having instigated the attempt of Cencius, and was ordered to leave Rome. Cencius, forgetting his promises of amendment, soon incurred a fresh excommunication, and fled to Henry, who was then in Italy. The king refused to admit him to his presence openly, as being excommunicate, although it is asserted by the opposite party that he held secret conferences with him by night; and Cencius died at Pavia, where he was buried by Guibert with a pomp which gave countenance to the suspicions against the archbishop.

The divisions of Germany had become more desperate. The king and the Saxons had each invoked the pope. Henry demanded the deposition of the prelates who had opposed him; the Saxons declared that such a king was unworthy to reign, and entreated Gregory to sanction the election of another in his room. Henry had been greatly strengthened and elated by a victory over the Saxons at Hohenberg, on the Unstrut, in June 1075. The pope, on that occasion, wrote to him, “As to the pride of the Saxons, who wrongfully opposed you, which, by God’s judgment, has been crushed before your face, we must both rejoice for the peace of the church, and grieve because much Christian blood has been spilt”. He expressed a willingness to receive him as his lord, brother, and son, and exhorted him to employ his success rather with a view to God’s honour than to his own; but the advice was disregarded, and the king, by the abuse of his triumph, had added to the miseries and grievances of the conquered peopled

A short time before the outrage of Cencius, ambassadors from Henry arrived at Rome; and on their return they were accompanied by envoys charged with a letter from Gregory to the king. The address was conditional: “Health and apostolical benediction—if, however, he obey the apostolic see as a Christian king ought”. The letter explained that Henry’s conduct had given cause for this doubtful form; he was censured for intercourse with excommunicate persons, for nominating and investing bishops to several sees—among them, Tedald to Milan. But as to investiture, the pope offers to meet the king’s wishes if any tolerable way of accommodation can be pointed out. The bearers of the letter were instructed to proceed according as it should be received; if Henry were contumacious, they were to cite him, under pain of excommunication, to answer for his misdeeds at a synod which was to be held at Rome in the following Lent. He had already been warned by a private mission that, unless he should reform, he would be excommunicated. The reception of the pope’s letter was such that the envoys felt themselves bound to deliver the citation. The king was in great indignation; he sent them away with contempt, and summoned the bishops and abbots of Germany to a council at Worms, where all but a few Saxon bishops attended, and the feeling of the assembly was highly excited. One course only appeared to be open to Henry, unless he were disposed to absolute submission; as obedience to the pope had from the days of St. Boniface been a part of German Christianity, the only means of setting aside the authority of Gregory was by repudiating his claim to the apostolic see. An ally was found in Cardinal Hugh the White—the same who had taken so conspicuous a part in the elevation of Hildebrand to the pontificate. Hugh, a man of great ability and skillful in business, but versatile and utterly unprincipled, had lately been deprived by Gregory for conniving at simony, and for the third time laid under anathema. He now produced letters which are said to have been forged in the name of the Roman cardinals, charging the pope with a multitude of offences, and demanding his deposition; and to these Hugh added a virulent invective of his own. Gregory was reproached with the lowness of his birth; he was accused of having obtained the papacy by bribery and violence—of simony, magic, praying to the devil. Although the charges were for the most part so monstrous as to be utterly incredible, the German prelates were in no mood to criticize them, and, headed by Siegfried, they pronounced the deposition of Hildebrand. Two bishops only, Adalbero of Wurzburg and Herman of Metz, objected that, as no bishop could be condemned without a regular trial, much less could a pope, against whom not even a bishop or an archbishop could be admitted as accuser. But William of Utrecht, one of the ablest of Henry’s party, told them that they must either subscribe the condemnation of Gregory or renounce their allegiance to the king; and they submitted.

On the breaking up of the council, Henry wrote to the Romans a letter in which was embodied the substance of one addressed to Gregory. He begs them to reckon his enemies as their own enemies, and especially the monk Hildebrand, whom he charges with attempting to rob him of his Italian kingdom, and of his hereditary rights in the appointment to the papacy—with having declared himself resolved either to die or to deprive Henry both of his crown and of his life. The Romans are desired not to kill the pope, since life after degradation would be the severest punishment for him; but if he should make any resistance to the decree of deposition, they are to thrust him out by force, and are to receive from the king a new pope, able and willing to heal the wounds which Hildebrand had caused. Henry’s letter to the pope was addressed, “To Hildebrand, now not apostolic pontiff, but a false monk”. It taxed him in violent terms with an accumulation of offences and enormities. “We bore with these things”, said the king, “out of respect for the apostolic see. But you mistook our humility for fear, and rose against the royal power itself which God had granted to us—as if we had received the kingdom from you, and as if it were in your hand, not in God’s”· And he peremptorily charged Hildebrand to descend from the chair of which he was unworthy. The bishops also wrote a letter to “brother Hildebrand” in which they charged him with throwing the church into confusion. His beginning had been bad, his progress worse; he had been guilty of cruelty and pride; he had attempted to deprive bishops of the power committed to them by God, and had given up everything to the fury of the multitude. He had obtained the papacy by the breach of an oath to the late emperor; his intimacy with the countess Matilda is censured as improper; and the bishops conclude by solemnly renouncing him. The prelates of Lombardy, in a council at Piacenza, confirmed the proceedings of their brethren at Worms, and swore never to acknowledge Hildebrand as pope.

In February, the customary Lenten synod met at Rome. It is said that the members were pondering on the appearance of an extraordinary egg which had lately been produced—displaying on its shell the figures of a serpent and a shield—when Roland, a canon of Parma, who had been despatched from the council of Piacenza, entered the assembly, and delivered the king’s letter to Gregory. “My lord the king”, he said, “and all the bishops, both beyond the mountains and in Italy, charge thee forthwith to quit St. Peter’s seat which thou hast invaded; for it is not fit that any one should ascend to such an honour unless by their command and by the imperial gift”. Then, turning to the assembled prelates, he summoned them to appear before the king at Whitsuntide, that they might receive from his hands a new pope instead of the ravening wolf who had usurped the apostolic chair. The synod was thrown into confusion. “Seize him!” cried the bishop of Porto; and Roland might have paid for his audacity with his life, had not the pope warded off the swords of his soldiery by interposing his own body. Gregory stilled the tempest, and calmly desired that the king’s letter should be read. The bishops entreated him to pronounce the judgment which Henry had deserved, and on the following day the excommunication was uttered. The pope ordered that the canons against despisers of the apostolic see should be recited; he alluded to the portentous egg, of which the late scene now suggested an explanation; he recounted Henry’s misdeeds, and the failure of all attempts to reclaim him. Now that the king had attacked the foundations of the church, it was time to draw forth the sword of vengeance, and to strike down the enemy of God and of His church; and, in accordance with the desire of the assembled fathers, he pronounced sentence on Henry in the form of an address to St. Peter. The pope called the apostle to witness that he had not sought the papacy, or obtained it by any unlawful means; and, by the power of binding and loosing committed to him, he declared Henry to be deprived of the government of Germany and Italy, released all Christians from their oaths of fealty to him, and denounced him with the curse of the church. The rebellious bishops of Lombardy were suspended and excommunicated; those who had taken part in the proceedings at Worms were placed under a like sentence, unless within a certain time they should prove that their concurrence had been unwilling. The empress Agnes was present, and heard the condemnation of her son.

Gregory announced the excommunication and deposition of Henry in letters to the people of Germany and to all Christians. The report of the sentence reached the king at Utrecht, where he was keeping the season of Easter. At first he was greatly agitated; but the bishop, William, succeeded in persuading him to put on an appearance of indifference, and he resolved to meet his condemnation by a counter-anathema on the pope. Two bishops, Pibo of Toul and Dietrich of Verdun, although strong partisans of the king, were afraid to share in such a step, and left Utrecht by night. But on Easter-day, at high mass, William ascended the pulpit of his cathedral, and, after a fiery invective, pronounced a ban against Hildebrand. The Lombard bishops, on being informed of Gregory’s sentence against them, held another synod, under the presidency of Guibert, and renewed their condemnation of the pope.

The unexampled measure on which Gregory had ventured rent all Germany into two hostile parties. No middle course was possible between holding with the pope against the king and holding with the king against the pope. Herman of Metz ventured to report to Gregory that his right to excommunicate a king was questioned; to which he replied that the charge given by our Lord to St. Peter—Feed my sheep—made no distinction between kings and other men. He cited examples from history—the behaviour of St. Ambrose to Theodosius, and the pretended deposition of Childeric by Zacharias in answer to the opinion that the royal power was superior to the episcopal, he alleged, as if from Ambrose, a saying that the difference between lead and shining gold is nothing in comparison of that between secular and episcopal dignity and he declared that royalty was invented by human pride, whereas priesthood was instituted by the Divine mercy.

Henry soon felt that his power was ebbing from him. Destitute as Gregory was of any material force, he had left his decree to find for itself the means of its execution; yet in this he did not rely wholly on the belief of his spiritual power. The sentence of deposition against Henry was addressed to subjects among whom a disloyal and rebellious spirit had long prevailed. The pope was sure to find an ally in every one who had been offended by the king himself by his guardians, or by his father; all were glad to welcome the religious sanction which was thus given to their patriotism, their vindictiveness, or their ambition. The wrath of heaven was believed to have been visibly declared against Henry’s cause. Godfrey the Hunchbacked, duke of Lorraine, who had undertaken to seat an imperialist antipope in St. Peter's chair, had been assassinated at Antwerp in the beginning of the year. The bishop of Utrecht, soon after his display of vehemence against Gregory on Easter-day, fell sick; it was rumoured that he saw devils in his frenzy—that he died unhouselled and in raving despair. Others of the king’s partisans were also carried off about the same time, and their deaths were interpreted as judgments. A spirit of disaffection became general. Henry summoned diets, but few appeared at them; some of the princes, whose policy had hitherto been doubtful, now openly declared themselves against him, and bishops in alarm retracted their adhesion to the measures which had been taken at Worms. Among these prelates was Udo, archbishop of Treves, who went to Italy, made his peace with the pope, and on his return avoided all intercourse with the excommunicated bishops and counsellors; nor, although specially permitted by Gregory to confer with the king, in the hope of bringing him to submission, could he be persuaded to eat or to pray with him. The example was contagious; Henry found himself deserted and shunned, and his attempts to conciliate his opponents by lenient measures were ineffectual. The pope, in answer to a letter from the Saxons, told them that, if the king should refuse to amend, they ought to choose a successor, who should be confirmed in the kingdom by the apostolic authority.

In October a great assembly of German dignitaries met at Tribur. The leaders of the princes and nobles were Rudolf of Swabia, Welf of Bavaria, Berthold of Zahringen, and Otho of Nordheim; at the head of the prelates was the primate Siegfried. The patriarch of Aquileia and bishop Altmann of Passau appeared as legates from the pope, and made a strong impression by declaring that they must avoid all intercourse with such bishops as had not obtained formal absolution for their concurrence in the acts of the council of Worms. The sessions lasted seven days. All the errors, the misdeeds, the calamities of Henry’s life were exposed and dwelt on; a determination to depose him was loudly avowed. The king, who was at Oppenheim, on the opposite side of the Rhine, sent messages to the assembly day after day. His tone became even abject; he entreated the members to spare him; he promised amendment; he offered to bind himself by the most solemn pledges, and to resign into their hands all the powers of government, if they would but suffer him to enjoy the name and the ensigns of royalty, which, as they had been conferred by all, could not (he said) be resigned without discredit to all. His promises were rejected with contemptuous references to his former breaches of faith, and the confederates declared an intention of immediately choosing another king. Each party entertained projects of crossing the river and attacking the other by force; but at length it was proposed that the matters in dispute should be referred to the pope, who was to be invited to attend a diet at Augsburg at the feast of Candlemas ensuing. If Henry could obtain absolution within a year from the time of his excommunication, he was to be acknowledged as king; the princes would accompany him to Italy, where he should be crowned as emperor, and would aid him in driving out the Normans; but if unabsolved, he was to forfeit his kingdom for ever. In the meantime he was to forego the symbols and the pomp of royalty, to refrain from entering a church until he should be absolved, to dismiss his ex­communicated advisers, and to live as a private man at Spires, restricting himself to the company of Dietrich, bishop of Verdun, and a few other persons. If he should fail in the performance of any condition, the princes wore to be free from their engagements to him. Hard as these terms were, Henry saw no alternative but the acceptance of them; he disbanded his troops, dismissed his counsellors, and, with his queen and her infant child Conrad, withdrew to the city which had been assigned for his residence.

The prospect of meeting the pope in Germany—of appearing before him as a deposed king, in the presence of the exasperated and triumphant princes—was alarming, and Henry, by an embassy to Rome, requested that he might be allowed to make his submission in Italy. But Gregory refused the request, and announced to the Germans his compliance with the invitation to Augsburg. The year within which it was necessary for the king to obtain absolution was already drawing towards an end, and in desperation he resolved to cross the Alps and to present himself before the pope. With much difficulty he raised the funds necessary for the journey; for those who had fed on him in his prosperity were now deaf to his applications. He left Speris with Bertha and her child; among their train was only one man of free birth, and he a person of humble station. As the passes of the Alps were in the hands of the opposite party, the king, instead of proceeding by the nearest road, took his way through Burgundy, where he spent Christmas at Besançon with his maternal great uncle Duke William. At the foot of Mont Cenis, he was honourably received by his mother-in-law Adelaide, and her son Amadeus, marquis of Susa: but, says Lambert of Hersfeld, the anger of the Lord had turned from him not only those who were bound by fealty and gratitude, but even his friends and nearest kindred; and Adelaide refused him a passage, except on condition of his giving up to her the disposal of five bishoprics situated within her territory. With such a proposal, which seemed as if intended to embroil him further with the pope, it was impossible to comply; but Henry was fain to purchase the passage by ceding to her a valuable territory in Burgundy.

The winter was of extraordinary severity. The Rhine and the Po were thickly frozen over from Martinmas until the end of March; in many places the vines were killed by the frost; the snow which covered the Alps was as hard and as slippery as ice. By the help of guides, the royal party with difficulty reached the summit of the pass; but the descent was yet more hazardous. The men crept on their hands and knees, often slipping and rolling down the glassy declivities. The queen, her child, and her female attendants, were wrapped in cow-hides, and in this kind of sledge were dragged down by then guides. The horses were led, with their feet tied together; many dropped dead through exhaustion, some fell from precipices and perished, and almost all the rest were rendered unserviceable.

Having achieved this perilous passage, the king arrived at Turin, where he met with a reception which contrasted strongly with the behaviour of his northern subjects. The Italians remembered the effects produced by former visits of German emperors; they looked to Henry for a redress of their grievances, for a pacification of their discords; the Lombards were roused to enthusiasm by a belief that he was come to depose the detested Gregory. Bishops, nobles, and a host of inferior partisans flocked around him, and, as he moved onwards, the number of his followers continually increased.

The proceedings at Tribur had opened a magnificent prospect to Gregory; he might hope to extinguish the imperial power, and to create it anew in accordance with his own principles. Contrary to the advice and entreaties of his Roman counsellors, he set out for Germany under the guidance of the countess (or marchioness) Matilda, who, by the murder of her husband, the younger Godfrey of Lorraine, and by the death of her mother, had lately become sole mistress of her rich inheritance. The Great Countess was not more remarkable for power and influence than for character. Her talents and accomplishments were extraordinary; no sovereign of the age was more skillful in the art of government; and with a masculine resolution and energy she united the warmth of a woman’s enthusiastic devotion. Her marriage with the imperialist Godfrey, the son of her stepfather, had been disturbed by differences of feeling and opinion, and after a short union the pair had lived apart in their respective hereditary dominions. The attachment with which she devoted herself to the pope was a mark for the slander of Gregory’s enemies, but needs no other explanation than that acquaintance with her from her early years which had given him an opportunity of imbuing her mind with his lofty ecclesiastical principles, and of gaining over her the influence of a spiritual father. In company with Matilda the pope was advancing northwards, when, on hearing that Henry had reached Vercelli, and finding himself disappointed in his expectation of an escort from the princes of Germany, he was persuaded by her to withdraw to Canossa, a strong Apennine fortress belonging to the countess. There they were joined by the marchioness Adelaide of Susa and her son, who seem to have accompanied the king across the Alps, by Hugh abbot of Cluny, the godfather of Henry and the ancient superior of Gregory, and by other persons of eminent dignity.

The bishops and others of the king’s party who de­sired reconciliation with the pope appeared gradually at Canossa. Some of them had eluded the sentinels who guarded the Alpine passes; some had fallen into the hands of Henry’s enemies, and had been obliged to pay heavily for leave to pursue their journey. On their arrival Gregory ordered them to be confined in solitary cells, with scanty fare; but after a few days he summoned them into his presence, and absolved them on condition that, until the king should be reconciled, they should hold no intercourse with him, except for the purpose of persuading him to submission. For Henry himself a severer treatment was reserved.

On arriving before Canossa, the king obtained an interview with Matilda, and prevailed on her, with Adelaide, Hugh of Cluny, and other influential persons, to entreat that the pope would not rashly believe the slanders of his enemies, and would grant him absolution. Gregory answered that, if the king believed himself innocent, he ought to wait for the council which had been appointed, and there to submit himself to the pope’s impartial judgment. The mediators represented the urgency of the time—that the year of grace was nearly expired; that the hostile princes were eagerly waiting to catch at the expected forfeiture of the kingdom; that, if the king might for the present receive absolution, he was willing to consent to any terms or to any inquiry. At length the pope, as if relenting, proposed that Henry, in proof of his penitence, should surrender to him the ensigns of royalty, and should acknowledge that by his offences he had rendered himself unworthy of the kingdom. The envoys, shocked at the hardness of these conditions, entreated Gregory not to "break the bruised reed; and in condescension to their importunities he promised to grant the king an interview.

But before this interview a deeper humiliation was to be endured. Henry was admitted, alone an unattended, within the second of the three walls which surrounded the castle. He was dressed in the coarse woollen garb of a penitent; his feet were bare; and in this state, without food, he remained from morning till evening exposed to the piercing cold of that fearful winter. A second and a third day were spent in the same manner; Gregory himself tells us that all within the castle cried out against his harshness, as being not the severity of an apostle, but barbarous and tyrannical cruelty. At last Henry, almost beside himself with the intensity of bodily and mental suffering, sought a meeting with Matilda and the abbot of Cluny in a chapel of the castle, and persuaded them to become sureties for him to the pope; and on the fourth day he was admitted to Gregory’s presence. Numb with cold, bareheaded and barefooted, the king, a man of tall and remarkably noble person, prostrated himself with a profusion 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. After many words, the terms of absolution were stated. Henry was to appear before a diet of the German princes, at which the pope intended to preside. He was to submit to an investigation of his conduct, and, if found guilty by the laws of the church, was to forfeit his kingdom. In the meantime, he was to refrain from all use of the royal insignia, and from all exercise of the royal authority; his subjects were to be free from their allegiance to him; he was to hold no intercourse with his excommunicated counsellors; he was to yield implicit obedience to the pope in future, and, if in any respect he should violate the prescribed conditions, he was to lose all further hope of grace. The king was brought so low that even these terms were thankfully accepted; but Gregory would not trust him unless the abbot of Cluny, with other persons of high ecclesiastical and secular dignity, undertook to be sureties for his observance of them.

The pope then proceeded to the celebration of mass, and, after the consecration, desired Henry to draw near. “I”, he said, “have been charged by you and your adherents with simony in obtaining my office, and with offences which would render me unworthy of it. It would be easy to disprove these charges by the evidence of many who have known me throughout my life; but I prefer to rely on the witness of God. Here 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!”. A thrill of anxiety ran throughout the spectators; the pope amidst their breathless silence underwent the awful ordeal, and they burst into loud applause. Then he again addressed the king—“Do, my son, as you have seen me do. The princes of Germany daily beset me with accusations against you, so many and so heinous that they would render you unfit not only for empire, but for the communion of the church, and even for the common intercourse of life; and for these they pray that you may be brought to trial. But human judgment is fallible, and falsehood and truth are often confounded. If therefore, you know yourself to be guiltless, take this remaining portion of the Lord’s body, that so God's judgment may approve your innocence”.

The ordeal was unequal. The charges from which the pope had purged himself were distinct and palpable; those against the king were unnamed, infinite in variety, extending over his whole life, many of them such as he would have met, not with a denial but with explanation and apology. He shuddered at the sudden proposal, and, after a brief consultation with his friends, told the pope that such a trial, in the absence of his accusers, would not be convincing; he therefore prayed that the matter might be deferred until a diet should meet for the consideration of his case. Gregory assented, and, on leaving the chapel, invited the king to his table, where he conversed with him in a friendly tone, and gave him advice as to his future conduct.

While the king remained in the castle, the bishop of Zeitz was sent out to absolve, in the pope’s name, those who had held intercourse with Henry during his excommunication. His message was received with derision. The Italians cried out that they cared nothing for the excommunication of a man who had been justly excommunicated by all the bishops of Italy—a simoniac, a murderer, an adulterer. They charged Henry with having humbled them all by his abasement; he had thought only of himself, he had made peace with the public enemy, and had deserted those who, for his sake, had exposed themselves to hostility and danger. They spoke of setting up his son, the young Conrad, as king—of carrying the prince to Rome for coronation, and choosing another pope. Henry, on joining his partisans, found that a change had come over their dispositions towards him. The chiefs returned to their homes without asking his permission; and as he marched along, the general dissatisfaction was apparent. No cheers or marks of honour greeted him; the provisions which were supplied to him were scanty and coarse; and at night he was obliged to lodge in the suburbs of towns, as the inhabitants would not admit him within their walls. The bishops, who were especially indignant, held a meeting at Reggio, and combined to excite their flocks against him.

It is said that, when some Saxon envoys expressed their alarm in consequence of Henry’s absolution, the pope endeavoured to reassure them in these words—“Be not uneasy, for I will send him back to you more culpable than ever”. The story is generally discredited, on the ground that, even if Gregory had been capable of the profound wickedness which it implies, he would not have been so indiscreet as to avow his crafts. Yet it is hardly conceivable that he should have expected the king to fulfill the engagements which had been so sternly exacted from him in his distress. While the abasement to which Henry had been forced to stoop greatly exceeded all that could have been anticipated, the grace which had been granted to him was far short of his expectations. He was still at the mercy of the offended princes of Germany; his royalty, instead of being restored, seemed to be placed hopelessly beyond his reach. And the temper of the Italians—the enthusiasm with which they had received him, their burning animosity against his great enemy—proved to him that his humiliation had been needless. Although for a time he behaved with an appearance of submission to the pope—partly out of deference to his mother, who visited him at Piacenza — he wished to find some pretext for breaking with Gregory, and assured the Italians that he had submitted to him only for reasons of temporary necessity, but that he was now resolved to take vengeance for the indignities to which he had been subjected. They flocked again to his standard; he resumed the insignia of royalty; Liemar of Bremen, with his excommunicated advisers, again appeared at his side, and with them were many who had avoided him during his excommunication. Large contributions of money poured in from his adherents, and he again felt himself strong. He asked the pope to allow him to be crowned at Monza, as if his absolution had restored him to the kingdom of Italy; but the request was refused. He then invited Gregory to a conference at Mantua; but Matilda, acting either on information or on suspicion of some treacherous design, persuaded the pope to avoid the risk of danger.

Gregory remained at Canossa, or in its neighbourhood, until the month of August; and during his residence there, the countess bequeathed her inheritance to the Roman see—a donation which was afterwards renewed, and which, although it never fully took effect, contributed much in the sequel to the temporal power of the popes.

The princes of Germany considered that Henry, by going into Italy, had broken the engagements which he had made with them at Tribur, and they resolved to proceed to further measures. A diet was summoned to meet at Forchheim, in Franconia, in March 1077. The king excused himself from attending it, on the ground that, being on his first visit to Italy, he was occupied with the affairs of that country, and was unwilling to offend his Italian subjects by hastily leaving them. The pope declined the invitation, on the plea that Henry refused to grant him a safe-conduct; but he was represented at the meeting by legates. It was his wish to keep matters in suspense until the king, by some breach of the conditions on which he had been absolved, should give a clear pretext for deposing him; and the legates were instructed accordingly. They were to endeavour that, if the state of the country would permit, the election of a new king should be deferred until their master could himself go into Germany; but if the princes were bent on taking it in hand at once, they were not to oppose them. To the princes he wrote that they should carry on the government of the country, but should refrain from any more decided step until the case of Henry should be fully examined in his own presence.

But the Germans were furious against Henry, and would endure no delay. The legates, after expressing the pope’s feeling, said that it was for the princes to decide what would be best for their country, and were silent; and Rudolf, duke of Swabia, formerly one of Henry’s chief supporters, and connected both with him and with Bertha by having married a sister of each, was chosen as king. The first to vote for him was the pri­mate Siegfried, whose eagerness to secure the tithes of Thuringia had contributed so largely to Henry’s errors and unpopularity. The legates confirmed the choice, and proposed conditions for the new sovereign. He was to discourage simony and was to grant freedom of election to sees; and the kingdom was not to be hereditary, but elective—a provision intended to make its possessors feel the necessity of keeping well both with the pope and with the princes. Rudolf was crowned at Mayence on the 26th of March by Siegfried and the archbishop of Magdeburg. On the day of the coronation a bloody affray took place between the populace and Rudolf’s soldiers; and this inauguration of the new reign was too truly ominous of its sequel. Siegfried was driven from his city, never to return to it.

By the violent measure of setting up a rival king the feeling of loyalty was reawakened in many who had long been discontented with Henry’s government, and, when he returned into Germany, his force increased as he went on. He enriched himself, and found means of rewarding his adherents, by confiscating the estates of his chief opponents. With Rudolf were the mass of the Swabians, Saxons, and Thuringians; with Henry were Franconia and Bavaria. Yet in countries where the majority favoured one of the rivals, the other also had adherents, so that the division penetrated even into the bosom of families. The bishops were for the most part on Henry’s side; many abbeys sent their contingents to swell his army, and the populations of the towns were generally with him, out of gratitude for the privileges which they had received from him, and for the protection which he had afforded them against the tyranny of princes and nobles. For three years the contest was carried on; the land was desolated by the ravages of war, especially by the outrages of the barbarous and half-heathen Bohemians, whom Henry had called to his aid, and who revelled in acts of profanity and sacrilege, of lust and cruelty. Three great battles were fought; at Melrichstadt, in August 1078, and at Fladenheim (or Flarchheim) in January 1080, Rudolf was declared the victor; but so slight was his superiority and so severe was his loss that the victories were little more than nominal. In the meantime the anarchy of Germany was frightful. Neither Henry nor Rudolf dared to execute justice from fear of alienating their followers. Violence met with no check, nobles and knights built castles and lived by robbery, and the wretched people were ground to the dust by oppres­sion of every kind.

The north of Italy too was in a state of continual agitation. Guibert of Ravenna and Tedald of Milan were indefatigable in their exertions against Gregory. Imperialist and papalist bishops fought for the possession of sees, and strove to outbid each other by grants of privileges to their people.

Gregory found that he had gone too far—that Henry possessed a strength which the pope had not suspected when at Canossa he subjected him to such humiliation as could never be forgiven; and he was displeased that the princes, by electing Rudolf, had taken into their own hands the determination which he had wished to reserve for himself. During the war he refrained from showing any decided favour to either party. It was in vain that Rudolf entreated his recognition, and that Henry urged him to excommunicate the rebel leader, although Gregory said that he would do so unless Rudolf should be able to justify his conduct. He gave to each of them alike the title of king; he assured the envoys of each that he was anxious to do justice—that he would go into Germany and decide between them; and he asked both to grant him a safe-conduct. His legates went from Henry to Rudolf and from Rudolf to Henry; they took money from each, and spoke to each in terms of encouragement, while they were instructed by their master, if either of the rivals should be contumacious, to anathematize him, and to adjudge the kingdom to his more submissive opponents

The Saxons were indignant at this wavering conduct, so widely different from their expectations. In five letters, written in a plain and downright tone of remonstrance and with a scanty observance of the usual forms, they represent to Gregory the sufferings which they had brought on themselves by what they had supposed to be an obedience to his instructions. They tell him that they had relied on the firmness of Rome; that, after having urged them into danger, he had deserted them; that they are too simple to understand the subtle and equivocal policy by which he acknowledged two kings at once, and seemed to pay greater honour to him whom he bad deposed than to the king whose election they had believed to be warranted by the papal sanction.

Gregory in reply endeavoured to justify himself by dwelling on the exigencies of the time, and on his wish to do impartial justice. He denied that he had insti­gated the election of Rudolf; he disowned the acts of his legates who had confirmed that election and had pronounced a fresh excommunication against Henry at Goslar in November 1077. But the Germans treated his excuses as subterfuges; they told him that he ought either to have refrained from proceeding against Henry or to follow up his acts by openly aiding them. They beseech him to have regard to his own reputation, and to the effusion of blood which must lie at his door if he should continue his course of indecision.

At length the tidings of the battle of Fladenheim (Jan. 27, 1080) roused the pope to a bolder proceeding. At the council which was held in the following Lent, and which was the most fully attended of all his councils, he refused to allow Henry’s envoys a hearing in answer to the charges which Rudolf’s envoys had advanced; he repeated his threats against all who should give or should receive investiture; and he renewed the excommunication and deposition of the king in very remarkable terms. The sentence, as before, is addressed to St. Peter and St. Paul. Gregory calls the apostles to witness as to the means by which he had attained his office, and as to his conduct in the administration of it. He recounts the course of his dealings with Henry—the king’s offences, his excommunication, his absolution, his breach of the promises which he had made at Canossa; the election of Rudolf, which, the pope solemnly protests, was not undertaken by his advice; the calamities which had followed in Germany, and of which he charges the guilt on Henry. He then again declared the king to be deposed, forbade all Christians to obey him, and anathematized him with his abettors. He prayed that Henry might never prosper in war; in the name and with the blessing of the apostles, he bestowed the kingdom of Germany on Rudolf, and promised to all who should faithfully adhere to the new king absolution for all their sins; and he prayed them that, as they had power to bind and to loose in heaven—as they judged angels—so they would now show to kings, princes, and all the world, that the dignities of this life also were in their disposal. “Do you”, the form concluded, “so exercise your judgment on the aforesaid Henry, as that all may know that he shall fall, not by chance, but by your power. May he be confounded unto repentance, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord!”. Gregory even ventured to assume the character of a prophet; he foretold (and he staked his credibility on the result) that within a year Henry would either be dead, or deposed and utterly powerless. And it is said that he sent into Germany a crown with an inscription signifying that it was the gift of the Saviour to St. Peter and of St. Peter to Rudolf.

On hearing of the pope’s proceedings, Henry resolved to meet them by a measure no less decided. At Whitsuntide he assembled a council of his bishops at Mayence for the choice of a new pope. With a view of obtaining the concurrence of the Lombards, the election was adjourned to a council which was to be held at Brixen, and the German prelates engaged themselves to accept the decision of their brethren. At Brixen, Gregory was condemned as a disturber of the church and of the empire—as a patron of murder, perjury, and sacrilege, a Berengarian heretic, a necromancer, and a demoniac; and Guibert of Ravenna was elected pope, under the name of Clement III.

The armies of Henry and his rival met once more, on the bank of the Elster. The contest was long and obstinate; each side prevailed by turns; and, although at last the victory was with the Saxons, the death of their leader converted it into a virtual defeat. The fatal wound is said to have been given by Godfrey of Bouillon—afterwards the hero of the first crusade. A stroke from the sword of another cut off Rudolf’s right hand, and it was reported that the dying man remorsefully acknowledged this as a just punishment, since with that hand he had sworn fealty to Henry. The pope’s prediction of Henry’s death was falsified; according to one version of the story, he had prophesied the death or ruin of the king, and Heaven had now declared that the king of Gregory’s own choice was the pretender.

Henry offered peace to the Saxons, but they answered that they could not act without the pope; and the king, in the belief that he might safely leave their intern discords to work in his interest, resolved to march on Rome.

The prospect which Gregory had before him might well have alarmed him. Henry was stronger than ever, and his alliance was sought by the emperor of the east, who wished to make common cause with him against the Normans. The pope could expect no aid from Philip of France. William of England and Normandy, although Gregory was assiduous in his civilities to him and to his queen, remained cool and uninterested. As he, alone among the sovereigns of his time, found Gregory tractable, he had no motive for taking part with the anti-pope; and he was not disposed to embroil himself in Gregory's quarrels. The countess Matilda was the only ally who could be relied on. Her devotion to the papal cause was unbounded; she placed her forces at Gregory’s disposal, she sheltered his adherents in her Alpine fortresses, and by her heroic energy, aided by the counsels, the pen, and the active exertions of Anselm of Lucca, she kept up the spirit of his party. By the sale, not only of her own precious ornaments, but of those which belonged to her churches, she repeatedly raised large sums, with which she enabled him to purchase for a time the support of the venal and fickle Romans. But her forces were altogether unequal to cope with those of Henry; and the pope was urged by his friends to make peace with the king and to bestow on him the imperial crown.

Gregory was undaunted and immoveable in his resolution; but a change had come over his object. It was no longer a question of things, but of persons. He had professed to break with Henry for the maintenance of certain abuses, and he was now willing to tolerate those very abuses in order to humble the king. All means were to be taken that men should not be driven to Henry’s side. The legates in Germany were instructed to permit the ministrations of concubinary priests, on account of the hardness of the times, and the fewness of clergy. If the bishop of Osnaburg should be disposed to abandon Henry, they were to deal easily with him in a suit as to tithes. The pope wrote to Robert, count of Flanders, in terms of great courtesy, professing, out of a wish to keep him in the unity of the church, to forgive the language which he had used against the apostolic see. The legate in France, Hugh, bishop of Die, was reproved for unseasonably enforcing the rigour of the canons. He was ordered to restore some Norman bishops whom he had deposed for refusing to attend a synod. He was to absolve certain knights who had impropriated tithes and had taken the part of simoniac and concubinary clergymen. The bishops of Paris and Chartres, against whom Hugh had proceeded in a summary manner, were treated by the pope with indulgence.  Above all, the legate was to beware of irritating the king of England, whom Gregory, although he pro­fessed himself not blind to his faults, declared to be far more worthy of approbation than other kings. To every one but Henry the pope breathed conciliation; and in this spirit he sought an alliance with the Normans of the south—selfish, faithless, profane, and sacrilegious robbers as he well knew them to be.

The power and the ambition of the Normans had been continually on the increase. Robert Guiscard had been suspected as an accomplice in the plot of Cencius, and had for some years been under excommunication for his invasions of the patrimony of St. Peter;  but Gregory, by the mediation of Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, now eagerly patched up a treaty with him. Guiscard swore to defend the pope; he was released from his excommunication without any profession of penitence; and, instead of exacting restitution from him, Gregory added to a renewal of the grants of Nicolas and Alexander the following remarkable words: —“But as for the territory which you unjustly hold, we now patiently bear with you, trusting in Almighty God and in your goodness, that hereafter your behaviour with respect to it will be such, to the honour of God and of St. Peter, as it becomes both you to show and me to accept, without peril either to your soul or to mine”. It is said that, in consideration of the expected aid, he even promised Guiscard the imperial crown.

In Germany, the partisans of Rudolf set up Count Herman of Salm or Luxemburg as his successor. Gregory instructed his legates to see that no one should be chosen who would not be obedient to the Roman see, and sent them a form of oath to be taken by the new king, which reduced the kingdom, and consequently the empire, to a fief of the church. But Herman was unable to gain any considerable strength, and Henry was safe in disregarding him.

Henry’s successes revived the disposition to ask whether the pope were justified in deposing sovereigns; and, in answer.to a renewed inquiry from Herman, bishop of Metz, Gregory laid down more fully than before his views of the papal authority. He cites the same passages of Scripture on which he had relied in his former letter. He magnifies the sacerdotal power above that of temporal sovereigns. The instances of Theodosius and Childeric are reinforced by a fabulous excommunication of Arcadius by pope Innocent, and by a forgery, apparently of recent date, in which Gregory the Great is represented as threatening to deprive of his dignity any king or other potentate who should invade the monastery of St. Medard at Autun. But the most remarkable words of the letter are those in which the pope contrasts the origin of secular with that of ecclesiastical power. “Shall not”, he asks, “the dignity invented by men of this world, who even knew not God, be subject to that dignity which the providence of Almighty God hath invented to His own honour, and hath in compassion bestowed on the world? Who can be ignorant that kings and dukes took their beginning from those who, not knowing God, by their pride, their rapine, perfidy, murders, in short by almost every sort of wickedness, under the instigation of the prince of this world, the devil, have in blind ambition and intolerable presumption aimed at domination over other men, their equals?”. The bold assertions of this letter called forth many replies from the controversialists of the opposite party, both during the lifetime of Gregory and after his death.

In the spring of 1081 Henry descended on Italy. Gregory, in a letter to Desiderius of Monte Cassino, speaks of him as being at Ravenna with a small force, and expresses a confident belief that he will not obtain either supplies or recruits in his further advance. “If we would comply with his impiety”, says the pope, “never has any one of our predecessors received such ample and devoted service as he is ready to pay us. But we will rather die than yield”.  The king’s army, however, (although he had been obliged to leave a large force behind him as a safeguard to the peace of Germany), was far stronger than Gregory represented it to be. He ravaged Matilda’s territories, and laid siege to her capital, Florence; but, finding that the capture was likely to detain him too long, he relinquished the attempt, and on Whitsuneve appeared before the walls of Rome. As he had expected the city to open its gates, he was unprovided with the means of assaulting it, and the siege lasted nearly three years — the king withdrawing during the unhealthy seasons, while such of his troops as remained on duty suffered severely from the climate. Gregory, although shut up in his city, and even there regarded with dislike by the mass of the inhabitants, who were influenced by Henry’s largesses, and ascribed to the pope all the sufferings which they endured on account of the siege, abated nothing either of his pretensions or of his activity; he held his synods as usual, he renewed his canons and his anathemas against the imperialists and their practices, he continued, by his legates and correspondence, to superintend the affairs of the church in foreign and distant countries. When Henry, in the summer of 1083, had gained possession of the Leonine city, the pope resisted all the importunities of the Roman nobles, clergy, and people, who endeavoured to persuade him to a reconciliation; he would consent to no other terms than that the king should resign his dignity and should submit to penance. All attempts at negotiation were fruitless. The pope held a last council, at which he is described as having spoken with the voice not of a man but of an angel; and, without naming Henry, he anathematized him among those who had intercepted bishops on their way to the assembly. The Romans, it is said, in order to obtain a cessation of hostilities, swore to Henry that either Gregory or another pope should crown him by a certain day. Gregory, on hearing of this, was indignant, but discovered an evasion : if Henry would submit, he would crown him as emperor; if not, he would let down a crown to him from the tower of St. Angelo, accompanied by his curse. At length the Romans, weary of the siege, made terms with the king, and ten days before Easter 1084 he became master of the greater part of the city. Guibert summoned Gregory to a council, but the invitation was disregarded. The antipope was formally enthroned in the Lateran church on Palm Sunday, and on Easter-day performed in St. Peter’s the imperial coronation of Henry and Bertha.

Gregory took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo, and a few of his partisans, chiefly nobles, held out in their fortified houses. In his distress the pope had entreated the aid which Guiscard was bound by his feudal obligations to render; but the Norman was engaged in an expedition which his daring ambition had led him to undertake against the Greek empire, and during his absence Henry, who had entered into an alliance with Alexius Comnenus and had received a subsidy from him, exerted himself to create an interest in the south of Italy.

Guiscard, on returning from the east, was occupied for a time in quelling the opposition which had been thus excited; but in Gregory’s extremity the long-desired aid arrived. Guiscard had sent before him a large sum of money, which the pope had employed in purchasing the favour of the Romans; and the Norman chief himself now appeared at the head of 6000 horse and 30,000 foot—a wild and motley host, in which were mingled adventurers of many nations, and even a large number of unbelieving Saracens. Henry, apprehending no danger, had sent away a great part of his troops, and, as the remainder were unequal to encounter these unexpected enemies, he retired at their approach, taking with him forty hostages, and assuring his Roman friends that he would soon return. The gates were closed against the Normans, but some of them found an entrance by an old  aqueduct, close to the gate of St. Laurence, and admitted the rest into the city. For three days Rome was subjected to the horrors of a sack. Butchery, plunder, lust, were uncontrolled. The inhabitants, driven to despair by these outrages, rose on their assailants, and Guiscard, to quell their resistance, ordered the city to be set on fire. The conflagration which followed raged fin and wide, and has left its permanent effects in the deso­lation which reigns over a large portion of ancient Rome. The Romans were at length subdued; multitudes were carried off by the Normans as prisoners, and many thousands were sold for slaves.

Gregory was again master of his capital. Guiscard, immediately after having effected an entrance, had carried him in triumph from the fortress of St. Angelo to the Lateran palace, and, falling at his feet, had begged his blessing. But the pope was sick of the Romans, of whose baseness and corruption he had had so much experience; he was unwilling to look on the ruins of his city; he shrank from the reproaches which were likely to be directed against him as the author of the late calamities, and felt that he could not trust himself to his people if the protection of the Normans were withdrawn. He therefore left Rome in company with his allies, and, after a visit to Monte Cassino, retired to Salerno. There, in the month of July, he held a synod, at which he renewed the anathemas against Henry and the antipope, and addressed a letter to all faithful Christians, setting forth his sufferings for the freedom of the church, complaining of their supineness in the cause, and urging them, as they would wish for forgiveness, grace, and blessing, here and hereafter, to help and succour their spiritual father and mother—St. Peter and the Roman church. During the following winter he fell sick, and, as his illness increased, he became aware that his end was near. He entreated the friends who stood around his bed to tell him if they had observed in him anything which needed correction. He declared his faith as to the Eucharist—probably with a view of clearing himself May 25, from the suspicions of Berengarianism which his enemies had industriously cast on him. He forgave and absolved all whom he had anathematized, with exception of the emperor and the antipope; but with these he charged his adherents to make no peace unless on their entire submission. A fearful tempest was raging without as his friends hung over the dying pope. Gathering himself up for a final effort, he exclaimed, in words which have been interpreted as a reproach against Providence, but which may perhaps rather imply a claim to the beatitude of the persecuted — “I have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile”.—“My lord”, a bishop is said to have replied, “in exile thou canst not die; for, as vicar of Christ and of His apostles, thou hast received from God the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession!”

The strength and towering grandeur of Gregory’s character, the loftiness of his claims, the intrepid firmness with which he asserted them through all changes of fortune, the large measure of success which crowned his efforts, in his own time and afterwards, have won for him enthusiastic admirers, not only among persons who are attached to the church of Rome by profession or by sympathy, but among those modern idolaters of energy whose reverence is ready to wait on any man of extraordinary abilities and of unrelenting determination. But we may hesitate to adopt an estimate which scorns to inquire into the righteousness either of his objects or of the means which he employed.

Gregory found the papacy in miserable degradation; he left it far advanced towards dominion over the kingdoms of the world. The progress which it had made under his administration is significantly shown by the fact that the decree of Nicolas II as to the election of popes, which had at first been resented as an invasion of the imperial rights, was now the ground on which the imperialists were fain to take their stand, while the papalists had come to disavow it as unworthy of their pretensions. The old relations of the papacy and of the empire were to be reversed; the emperor was no longer to confirm the election of popes, or to decide between rival claimants of the see, but the pope was to hold the empire at his disposal. The successor of St. Peter was to give laws to mankind.

We may reasonably believe that Gregory was sincere; we may believe that, in forming and in carrying out his great design, he was not actuated by selfish personal ambition; that he would have been content to go on to the end of his life directing the execution of his policy under the names of other men—anxious only that the policy should succeed, not that the author of it should be conspicuous, and willing that its triumph should be deferred until after he should himself have passed away from earth. But is this enough to entitle him to our approval? Are we to admire a wisdom so blind as that which would remedy the evils of secular misrule by setting up a universal spiritual despotism, and thus, by a certain consequence, plunging the spiritual power deeply into secularly? Or shall we sanction the idea of a conscientiousness so imperfect that, in pursuit of one engrossing purpose, it disregards all the ordinary laws of equity, truth, and mercy?

We read of Gregory with awe, mixed perhaps with admiration, perhaps with aversion; but in no human bosom can his character awaken a feeling of love. The ruthless sternness of his nature may be illustrated by an incident which occurred before his elevation to the papacy. Thrasimund, a monk of Monte Cassino, had been appointed by the abbot, Desiderius, to the abbacy of the dependent monastery of Tremiti. A rebellion broke out among his monks, and he suppressed it with great rigour, blinding three of them, and cutting out the tongue of a fourth. Desiderius, on hearing of this, was overwhelmed with grief; he displaced the abbot, and put him to penance for his cruelty. But Hildebrand justified the severity which had been used, and contrived that Thrasimund should be promoted to a higher dignity.

The exaltation of the papacy was Gregory’s single object. For this he sacrificed Berengar; he acted doubly with the Germans; he excited the multitude against the clergy and the empire; he occasioned an endless amount of confusion, bloodshed, and misery. He took advantage of Henry’s youth, of the weakness of his position, of the defects of his character; he used his triumph over him inhumanly, and when Henry had again become strong, Gregory, for the sake of gaining allies against this one enemy, was willing to connive at all which he had before denounced as abominable. Other popes had used the censures of the church as means of influencing princes through the discontent of their people; but Gregory was the first who assumed the power of releasing subjects Rom their obedience. He argued that Scripture made no difference between princes and other men as to the exercise of those powers of binding and loosing which the Saviour committed to His church. But it was forgotten that Scripture allows a discretion in the employment of ecclesiastical censures : that the greatest of the western fathers had strongly insisted on the inexpediency of rigidly enforcing discipline in cases where it would lead to a dangerous disturbance in the church; nor does Scripture give any countenance to the idea that the censures of the church deprive a sovereign of his right to civil obedience.

Gregory was not without enthusiasm. He instituted a new office in honour of the blessed Virgin, and relied much on her aid and on that of St. Peter he expected to obtain revelations from heaven by means of visions he even fancied himself an oracle of the Divine will, and dealt in predictions of temporal weal or woe, which, as we have seen, were in some cases signally unfortunate. Yet in many respects he rose above the superstitions and the narrow opinions of his age. He remonstrated humanely and wisely with the king of Denmark against the cruelties which in that country were practised on women accused of witchcraft. In the Eucharistic controversy raised by Berengar, while he appears himself to have held the opposite doctrine, he allowed that of Berengar to be sufficient for communion with the church.

In the controversy with the Greek church, he showed himself superior to the zealots of either side by regarding the use of leavened or of unleavened bread as indifferent. And, deeply monastic as was his own character, he was free from the indiscriminate rage for compelling all men to enter the cloister. He censures his old superior, Hugh, for having admitted a duke into the society of Cluny—thereby releasing him from the duties of his office, and leaving a hundred thousand Christians without a keeper. Such a man, he says, ought to have retained his place in the world., where, although piety is not uncommon among priests, and monks, and the poor, the instances of it among princes are rare and precious.

The plea that Gregory lived in a dark age is therefore only available in a modified degree for his defence, since it appears that in many things he was more enlightened than his contemporaries. And in admitting this plea for him, or for any other man to whom Holy Scripture was open, we must be careful never to let it cover the viola­tion of duties which Scripture unequivocally enjoins—of justice and mercy, of charity and simplicity; while, on the other hand, we must deny him the credit of any good which it may have pleased the Divine providence to bring out of his acts, if such good were beyond Gregory’s own wish and intention.

No doubt that elevation of the papacy in which he was the most effective agent was in the middle ages a great and inestimable bulwark against secular tyranny. But why should one usurpation be necessary as a safeguard against another? Why, if the investiture of bishops by princes was worse in its practical consequences than in its theory, should we be required to sympathize with one who opposed it by a system of which the very theory is intolerable? Spiritual tyranny is worse than secular tyranny, because it comes to us with higher pretensions. Against the oppressions of worldly force religion may lift up her protest; to those who suffer from them she may administer her consolations; but when tyranny takes the guise of religion, there is no remedy on earth, except in that which is represented as rebellion against God’s own authority. The power of the hierarchy, as established mainly through the labours of Gregory, served as a protection against the rude violence of princes and of nobles; but it claimed for itself an absolute dominion over the minds and souls of men, and it did not hesitate to enforce this by the most inhuman and atrocious measures. And how much of what was worst in the secular power may have arisen out of a reaction against the extravagant claims of the papacy!

While we freely and thankfully acknowledge the good which resulted from Gregory’s exertions, we may yet ask—and we may refuse to accept a theoretical assertion as an answer to the question—whether it would not have been infinitely better for mankind, and even for the hierarchy itself, that the power of the gospel should have been enforced on the world by milder and truer means?

CHAPTER III.

BERENGAR.

A.D. 1045-1088.

IN the middle of the eleventh century a controversy arose as to the manner of the Saviour's presence in the eucharist. On this question the church had not as yet pronounced any formal decision, or proposed any test of orthodoxy. A real presence of Christ was generally held; but the meaning of this reality was very variously conceived. Thus, in England, Aelfric, who is supposed to have written at the beginning of the century, and whose homilies were read as authoritative in the Anglo-Saxon churches, had laid down in these homilies the very doctrine of Ratramn—that the presence of Christ is not material but spiritual. But in countries nearer to the centre of the papal influence the opinions of Paschasius had by degrees won general acceptance, and any deviation from them was now regarded as an innovation on the faith.

In the beginning of the century, Leutheric, archbishop of Sens, who had been a pupil of Gerbert, was called in question for substituting for the usual form of address to communicants the words—"If thou art worthy, receive". The scanty notices of Leutheric leave it doubtful whether his offence consisted in holding that none but the worthy could really be partakers, or in giving the Eucharist the character of an ordeal; but, whatever it may have been, he was silenced by king Robert I, and quietly submitted to the sentenced Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, a friend of Leutheric, and one of the most eminent teachers of his age, while he maintained that the Eucharist was a pledge, would not, with Paschasius, affirm its identity with the body in which the Saviour was born and was crucified; and he speaks strongly against gross and material misconceptions on the subject. It is, however, doubtful in how far Fulbert would have agreed with the doctrines which were afterwards propounded by his pupil Berengar.

Berengar was born at Tours about the year 1000, and was educated under Fulbert, in the cathedral school of Chartres. His opponents afterwards described him as having in his early days exhibited a passion for novelty, as having despised books and criticized his teacher. William of Malmesbury adds that, as Fulbert was on his death-bed, he singled out Berengar from the crowd which filled the chamber, and, declaring that he saw beside him a devil enticing people to follow him, desired that he might be thrust out. But even the less improbable of these stories appears to be refuted by the tone in which an old fellow-pupil of Berengar reminded him of the days when they had studied together under the venerated bishop of Chartres. In 1031 Berengar returned to his native city, where he became schoolmaster and treasurer of the cathedral. The reputation of the school was greatly raised by him, and his authority as a theologian stood high. Eusebius Bruno, bishop of Angers, out of respect for his character and learning, bestowed on him the archdeaconry of that city, which Berengar held without relinquishing his preferments at Tours.

It appears to have been in 1045, or soon after, that Berengar began to make himself noted by advocating a doctrine which he professed to have derived from Scotus Erigena, under whose name Ratramn’s treatise appears to have been really intended. The earliest notices of the novelties imputed to Berengar are contained in letters of expostulation addressed to him by two other old pupils of Fulbert—Hugh, bishop of Langres, whose deposition at the council of Reims for gross offences has been already mentioned, and Adelman, schoolmaster of Liège, who afterwards became bishop of Brixen. These writers entreat Berengar to abandon his dangerous speculations. Adelman tells him that in countries of the German as well as of the Latin tongue he was reported to have forsaken the unity of the church.

In 1049, Berengar addressed a letter to Lanfranc, master of the monastic school of Bee in Normandy. Lanfranc was born at Pavia about the year 1005. He received a legal education and, while yet a young man, became distinguished as an advocate. But the spirit of adventure led him to leave his country; he travelled through France, attended by a train of pupils, and, after having taught for a time at Avranches, was on his way to Rouen, when he was attacked by robbers, who plundered, stripped, and bound him. In his distress he made a vow to amend his life, and when, on the following day, he was set free by some travellers, he asked them to direct him to the humblest monastery with which they were acquainted. They answered that they knew of none poorer or less esteemed than the neighbouring house of Bee (or Le Bec), which Herluin, an old soldier who had turned monk, was then building. Lanfranc found the abbot labouring with his own hands at the work, and was admitted into his society in 1042. The poor and despised little monastery soon became famous as a seminary of learning, and it is not impossible that, among the motives by which Berengar was led to attack Lanfranc's doctrine, there may have mingled some feeling of jealousy at this unexpected and successful rivalry of his own fame as a teacher. In the letter which he now wrote, he expresses surprise that Lanfranc should (as he heard) have espoused the Eucharistic doctrine of Paschasius, and should have condemned that of Scotus as heretical; such a judgment, he says, is rash, and unworthy of the "not despicable wit" which God had bestowed on Lanfranc. He taxes him with insufficient study of the Scriptures, while, for himself he professes to be still but imperfectly acquainted with them. He proposes a conference on the point in question, and in the meantime tells Lanfranc that, if he considers Scotus heretical, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome must be included in the same sentence.

When this letter reached Bec, Lanfranc was absent; and there is some uncertainty as to the next part of the story. Lanfranc states that he had gone to Italy— apparently after having attended the council of Reims, and in the train of Leo IX and that the letter, having been opened by some clerks, brought his own orthodoxy into suspicion. To this Berengar answers that it could not have had such an effect, inasmuch as it showed that the opinions of the person addressed were different from those of the writer, and agreeable to the doctrine which Lanfranc described as being generally held and on the strength, chiefly, of this reply some modern writers have charged Lanfranc with a complication of intrigue and falsehood, and have supposed that he went to Rome for the express purpose of denouncing Berengar. If; however, we look to probability only, without claiming any consideration for Lanfranc's character, we may fairly see reason to question these inferences. Lanfranc could not but have foreseen Berengar’s obvious and plausible answer, and would hardly have provoked it, unless he were conscious that his own story was nevertheless true. The mere rumour that a reputed heretic had written to him would naturally raise suspicions; and it would circulate far more widely than the contents of the letter. Nor was it necessary that Lanfranc should act the part of an informer; for Leo had in all likelihood heard of Berengar while yet bishop of Toul—situated as that see is in a district where Berengar’s opinions had early excited attention, and on the direct road between the cities from which Adelman and Hugh had sent forth their remonstrances; and it is now known that the pope had spoken of Berengar’s alleged errors before leaving Rome for his late circuit beyond the Alps.

A synod was held at Rome, where, after his letter to Lanfranc had been read, Berengar was excommunicated—a suitable punishment, say his opponents, for one who wished to deprive the church itself of its communion in the Saviour’s body and blood. Lanfranc was then required to give an account of his faith, which he did to the satisfaction of the assembly; and Berengar, in order that he might have an opportunity of defending himself was cited to a synod which was to meet at Vercelli in the following September. He was disposed to obey the summons, although some friends urged on him that, according to the canons, the pope’s jurisdiction was limited to the case of appeals, and that questions ought to be decided in the province where they arose. But the king, Henry I, to whom he applied as the head of St. Martin's monastery, instead of aiding him in his journey, committed him to prison, seized his property, and laid on him a fine which, according to Berengar, was greater in amount than all he had ever possessed. Being thus detained from attending the council, he was again condemned in his absence. A passage was read from the book ascribed to Scotus, in which the Eucharist was spoken of as a figure, a token, a pledge of the Saviour’s body and blood. On this, Peter, a deacon of the Roman church (most probably Peter Damiani), exclaimed—“If we are still in the figure, when shall we get the reality?”. Scotus was condemned, with his admirer, and the book was committed to the flames. One of Berengar’s brother canons, who had been sent by the church of Tours to request the pope's intercession for his release, on hearing him styled a heretic, cried out to the speaker—“By the Almighty God, you lie!”. Another clerk, indignant at the summary condemnation of Scotus, protested that by such inconsiderate haste St. Augustine himself might be condemned; and the pope ordered that these two should be imprisoned, in order to protect them from the fury of the multitude.

Through the influence of Bruno and other friends, Berengar recovered his liberty. He protested loudly against the injustice done him by the pope, who ought, he said, rather to have resented the imprisonment of one who was on his way to the papal judgment-seat than to have taken advantage of it in order to condemn him in his absence; and he desired an opportunity of maintaining his opinions before a council.

It would seem to have been in 1051 that Berengar appeared in Normandy, and was condemned by a council held at Brionne in the presence of duke William; and in the same year a council was summoned to meet at Paris for the consideration of his opinions. On this Theotwin, the successor of Wazo in the see of Liège, addressed a letter to king Henry. After stating that Berengar, in addition to his errors on the Eucharist, was accused of “destroying lawful marriage” and of denying infant-baptism—charges which seem to have been altogether groundless—he speaks of the difficulty arising from the circumstance that Bruno, one of Berengar’s chief partisans, was a bishop, and therefore subject to the pope's judgment alone; and he suggests that, in order to overcome this difficulty, the king should not allow any discussion of the question, but should proceed against the Berengarians as heretics already condemned. The council was held in October; Berengar, deterred by rumours which reached him, did not appear, and it is said that the assembly, not content with condemning his doctrine and that of Scotus, decreed that he and his followers should be forcibly seized, and, in case of obstinacy, should be put to death.

In 1054 Berengar was cited to appear before a council which was to be held at Tours under Hildebrand, as papal legate. He looked forward to this as an opportunity of vindicating himself, and, before the meeting of the assembly, he showed the legate a collection of authorities for his doctrine. To the charge of asserting that the elements after consecration in no respect differed from what they were before it, he answered that such was not his opinion; that he believed them, when consecrated, to be the very body and blood of Christ. Hildebrand, satisfied with this statement, proposed that Berengar should accompany him to Rome, and should there clear himself before the pope; and that in the meantime he should give such explanations as might satisfy the assembled bishops. These explanations were received with some distrust; it was suggested that perhaps Berengar might say one thing with his mouth and hold another thing in his heart. He therefore confirmed the sincerity of his profession by an oath—that the bread and wine are, after consecration, the body and blood of Christ. But the serious illness of Leo obliged Hildebrand to return in haste to Rome, and the arrangement which had been made was not carried out. 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 the real nature of his doctrine. The controversy rested throughout the pontificates of Victor and of Stephen, until 1059, when Berengar appeared at Rome before the synod held by Nicolas II. This appearance would seem to have been voluntary; he probably relied on the favour of Hildebrand, to whom he carried a letter from his only lay supporter whose name is known to us—Geoffrey, count of Anjou—requesting that the cardinal would not temporize, as at the council of Tours, but would openly befriend the accused. But the majority of the council proved to be strongly hostile, and Berengar’s friends were afraid to speak, while Hildebrand was unwilling to imperil his own influence, and the cause which he had most at heart, by encumbering himself with the defense of the suspected hectic. Berengar complains that the council behaved to him not only without Christian kindness, but without reason. They stopped their ears when he spoke of a participation in the Eucharist; and, when he proceeded to argue in the dialectical form, they desired him to produce authority rather than arguments which they dreaded as sophisms. He reproached the pope for exposing him to beasts, instead of instituting a deliberate inquiry by competent persons; to which Nicolas only replied that he must blame Hildebrand. Finding his attempts at a defence hopeless, Berengar desisted. A confession drawn up by cardinal Humbert, and embodying a strong and unequivocal assertion of a material change in the sacrament, was produced; and Berengar, overpowered (as he tells us) by the fear of death and by the tumult of his opponents, took the document into his hands, prostrated himself in token of submission, and cast his own writings into the fire.

But on returning to his own country Berengar again openly taught his old opinions, and they were widely spread by the agency of poor students. He denounced the treatment which he had received from the late council, to which (he said) he had gone, not as a culprit, but of his own free will; he reflected severely on Leo, Nicolas, Humbert, and the Roman church; he maintained that his own doctrine was that of St. Augustine, while the doctrine of Lanfranc and Paschasius was no better than “a dotage of the vulgar”. Lanfranc wrote to reproach him, Berengar rejoined, and a controversy ensued in which the opinions of each party were brought out into greater distinctness than before.

Lanfranc’s treatise Of the Body and Blood of the Lord was written between 1063 and 1070. The work opens by blaming Berengar for spreading his errors in an underhand manner, and for declining to argue before competent judges. Lanfranc then gives an account of the proceedings under Leo and Nicolas. He remarks on his opponent’s dialectical subtleties. He asserts the doctrine of Paschasius, and supports it by quotations from ecclesiastical writers. That the elements after consecration are still styled bread and wine, he accounts for by saying that in Scripture things are often called by the name of that from which they are made; thus man is spoken of as earth, dust, ashes; or they are named after something which they resemble—as Christ is styled a lion and a lamb. He represents Berengar as holding the sacrament to be nothing more than a figure and a memorial.

Berengar replied in a treatise which, after having been long unknown, has in late times been partially recovered, and has thrown a new and important light on his opinions. He gives (as we have seen) a version of the previous history different in many respects from that which had been given by Lanfranc. His fault in the synod under Nicolas consisted (he says) not in having sworn—(for that was not required of him)—but in having been silent as to the truth. He had yielded to the fear of death and of the raging multitude, and in behalf of this weakness he cites the examples of Aaron and of St. Peter; to have adhered to the confession extorted from him would have been as if the apostle had persisted in the denial of his Lord. There is something like effrontery in the tone of contempt and defiance which Berengar assumes after having submitted to such humiliations; but, while we cannot give him credit for the spirit of a martyr, his words are a valuable evidence of the uselessness of force as a means of religious conviction. He strongly protests against the employment of swords and clubs and uproar by way of argument he declares against the principle of being guided by the voice of a majority, while he yet states that the supporters of his own views are very many, or almost innumerable, of every rank and dignity. He defends his use of dialectics, and denies the charge of despising authority, although he holds reason to be “incomparably higher” as a means for the discovery of truth. He complains that he had been condemned, not only without a hearing, but even without a knowledge of his doctrines—especially at the council of Vercelli, when he had not set forth his opinions, nor had attained to such clearness in them as persecution and study had since brought to him. The doctrine which he lays down is very different from that which was imputed to him; he distinguishes between the visible sacrament and the inward part or thing signified it is to the outward part only that he would apply the terms for which he had been so much censured—sign, figure, pledge, or likeness. He repeatedly declares that the elements are "converted" by consecration into the very body and blood of the Saviour; that the bread, from having before been something common, becomes the beatific body of Christ—not, however, by the corruption of the bread, or as if the body which has so long existed in a blessed immortality could now again begin to be; that consecration operates, not by destroying the previous substance, but by exalting it. It is not a portion of Christ's body that is present in each fragment, but He is fully present throughout.

On the side of Rome, the pontificate of Alexander II was a season of peace for Berengar. The pope wrote to him in friendly terms, urging him to forsake his errors; but, although he replied by declaring himself resolved to adhere to his opinions, no measures were taken against him, and, when he was persecuted by the nephews and successors of his old patron, Geoffrey of Anjou, Alexander befriended him and interceded for him.

In 1075, under the pontificate of Gregory, Berengar was brought before a council held under the presidency of a legate at Poitiers; and such was the tumult that he hardly escaped with his life. About the same time, Guitmund, a pupil of Lanfranc, and only second to him in fame as a teacher, wrote against Berengar a dialogue Of the Verity of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. The tone of this work is very bitter. Guitmund repeats, with additions, the charges of error which had been brought by Theotwin; he asserts that Berengar denied the possibility of our Lord's having entered through closed doors; it was, therefore, no wonder if he and his followers disbelieved the miracles of the church. The most remarkable passage of the book is one in which the writer draws a distinction between various kinds of Berengarians. All, he says, agree that there is no essential change in the elements; but some deny any presence, and allow only shadows and figures : some—which is said to be the "very subtle opinion" of Berengar himself—admit that the Saviour’s body and blood are really and latently contained in the elements, and are, so to speak, impanated; others, who are strongly opposed to Berengar, maintain that the elements are changed in part, and in part remain; while others, again, admit the entire change, but think that, when unworthy communicants approach, the bread and wine resume their natural substance.

BERENGAR AT ROME.

Berengar was once more cited to Rome. The pope received him kindly, and, at a council in 1078, endeavoured to provide for his escape by a confession, which, while it avowed a change in the Eucharistic elements, would have permitted him to retain his own opinions and against the authority of Lanfranc he cited that of Peter Damiani. Berengar remained at Rome nearly a year; but the opposite party was vehement, and he was required to undergo the ordeal of hot iron. While, however, he was preparing for it by prayer and fasting, the pope intimated to him that the trial was not to take place; a monk, whom Gregory had desired to address himself by special devotion to the blessed Virgin for instruction on the subject, had received a revelation that nothing ought to be added to the declarations of Scripture, and that Berengar’s doctrine was sufficient. But his opponents pressed for stronger measures, the imperialists broadly impeached the pope’s orthodoxy, and Berengar was alarmed by a rumour that Gregory, to save his own reputation, was about to imprison him for life. At the Lent synod of 1079, which consisted of a hundred and fifty bishops and abbots, Berengar was required to sign a confession that the elements are “substantially” changed into the real, proper, and life-giving body and blood of Christ. A bold evasion suggested itself to his mind—that substancially might be interpreted to mean while retaining their substance!—and he professed himself ready to subscribe. In answer to a question whether he understood the form in the same sense as the council, he said that he understood it agreeably to the doctrine which he had privately explained to the pope some days before. Such a speech was not likely to be acceptable to Gregory, who thereupon told him that he must prostrate himself in token of unreserved submission, and must own that he had hitherto sinned in denying a substantial change. Berengar, in fear of anathema and of violence, obeyed—as God (he says) did not give him constancy and, after having been charged to refrain from teaching, except for the purpose of recovering those whom he had misled, he was dismissed with a commendatory letter, addressed to all the faithful, in which the pope ordered that no one should injure him in person or in property, and that no one should reproach him as a heretic, forasmuch as he had been acknowledged as a son of the Roman church.

After returning to France, Berengar regretted his late compliance, and once more openly professed his real opinions. In 1080, he was summoned before a council at Bordeaux, where his statements seem to have been accepted; and in the same year Gregory wrote to desire that the archbishop of Tours and the bishop of Angers would protect him against the count of Anjou, who had been incited by his enemies to persecute him. Berengar was allowed to spend his last years unmolested in an island of the Loire near Tours, where he died in 1088. The latest of his known writings is a letter addressed to a friend on the occasion of Gregory’s death, in which he speaks of the pope with regard, expresses a conviction of his salvation, and excuses his behaviour towards himself.

The memory of Berengar was reverenced in the district of Tours, and there was, down to late times, a yearly solemnity at his tomb. Hence it has been argued that he finally renounced his heresy, having, as was supposed, been converted by Lanfranc’s book. But the groundlessness of that supposition has been abundantly shown by the discovery of his answer to Lanfranc; nor is there any reason to question the statement of his contemporary Bemold that he persevered in his opinions to the last.

The recovery of his treatise, and of other writings, has placed his doctrines in a clearer light, and it is now acknowledged, even 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 distinctive of their own communion.

  CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE DEATH OF GREGORY VII TO THAT OF THE EMPEROR HENRY IV.—THE FIRST CRUSADE.

A.D. 1085-1106.

GREGORY VII left behind him a powerful and resolute party. It could reckon on the alliance of the Normans, for whom it was important that the pope should be favourable to their own interest rather than to that of the emperor; and it was supported by the devoted attachment of the countess Matilda. On the other hand, the emperor’s strength in Italy was greater in appearance than in reality; for, although many of the chief cities were with him, a strong desire of independence had arisen among them, and he could not safely rely on them unless in so far as his interest coincided with their private objects.

When asked on his death-bed to recommend a successor, Gregory had named Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, and first cardinal-presbyter of the Roman church, and had desired that, if the abbot should refuse the papacy, either Otho, bishop of Ostia, Hugh, archbishop of Lyons (the same who, as bishop of Die, had been legate in France), or Anselm, bishop of Lucca, the chaplain and chief counsellor of Matilda, should be chosen. The general wish was for Desiderius, but he obstinately refused—perhaps from unwillingness to exchange his peaceful dignity for one which, although loftier, must involve him in violent contentions with the emperor and the antipope. A year had elapsed, when at Whitsuntide 1086 he was persuaded to go to Rome, supposing that he was then no longer in danger of having the popedom forced on him. Preparations were made for an election, and, by the advice of Desiderius, Otho was about to be chosen, when an objection was raised that he was canonically disqualified, as being already a bishop. Although this impediment had in later times been often disregarded, the mention of it served to divert the multitude, who cried out for Desiderius. The abbot, struggling, and refusing to put on a part of the pontifical dress, was enthroned, and greeted as Victor III; but immediately afterwards he left the city, and, renouncing the dignity which had been thrust on him, withdrew to his monastery.

Ten months more passed away, and in March 1087 Desiderius summoned a council to meet at Capua, with a view to a new election. At this meeting Roger, son of Robert Guiscard, and Jordan, prince of Capua, with a number of bishops, threw themselves at his feet, and entreated him to retain the papacy; but Hugh of Lyons and Otho of Ostia objected to him, and required an examination into his conduct. By this opposition Desiderius was determined to accept the office which he had so long declined. He repaired to Rome under the protection of a Norman force, which wrested St. Peter's from the antipope; and on the 9th of May he was consecrated. The partisans of Guibert, however, soon after recovered possession of the church, and, after the fashion of the ancient Donatists, they washed the altars in order to cleanse them from the pollution of the Hildebrandine mass.

Although the new pope had been among the most devoted of Gregory’s adherents, it would seem that he was now weary of conflict, and desirous to gratify his natural inclination for peace. Of his late opponents, Otho submitted to him : but Hugh, who himself aspired to the papacy, addressed to Matilda two letters, in which he charged him with apostasy from Gregory’s policy, and with a disposition to grant unworthy concessions to the emperor. By this letter Victor was greatly exasperated, and at a synod at Benevento, in the month of August, he excommunicated the archbishop. The synod renewed the anathema against the antipope and the decrees against investiture. After three sessions had been held, the pope was struck with palsy; and, having been removed to Monte Cassino, he died there on the 16th of September. Victor has left three books of Dialogues, which are valuable as throwing light on the history of his time, while, by the excessive credulity which he displays, as well as by their form, they remind us of his model, the Dialogues of Gregory the Great.

Another long vacancy in the popedom followed. The antipope had possession of Rome, and the emperor’s power was formidable to the inheritors of Gregory’s principles. But they were encouraged by the resolution of Matilda; and in March 1088 a council met at Terracina for the appointment of a successor to Victor. In consideration of the difficulties of the time, the form of election prescribed by Nicolas II was set aside. About forty bishops and abbots were present, together with envoys from the Great Countess, and from some prelates beyond the Alps. The clergy of Rome were represented by the cardinal of Porto; the people, by the prefect of the city; and Otho, bishop of Ostia, who had again been recommended by Victor on his death-bed, was unanimously chosen.

The new pope, who took the name of Urban II, was a Frenchman of noble family. He was educated at Reims, under Bruno, afterwards famous as the founder of the Carthusian order, and became a canon of that city; but he resigned his position to enter the monastery of Cluny. In consequence of a request which Gregory had made, that the abbot would send him some monks who might be fit for the episcopate, Otho left Cluny for Rome in 1076; he was employed by the pope in important business, and was advanced to the sec of Ostia. Urban’s principles were the same with those of Gregory, and, if he had not the originality of his master, he was not inferior to him in firmness, activity, or enterprise; while with these qualities he combined an artfulness and a caution which were more likely to be successful than Gregory's undisguised audacity and assumption.

At the time of the election, Rome was almost entirely in the hands of the antipope, so that Urban, on visiting it, was obliged to find shelter in the island of the Tiber; while such was his poverty that he was indebted to one of the Frangipani family, and even to some women of the humblest class, for the means of subsistence. The city was a scene of continual struggles between the opposite parties. Their mutual exasperation may be imagined from an instance on each side : that Bonizo, a vehement partisan of Urban, on being appointed to the see of Piacenza, after having been expelled from that of Sutri, was blinded and was put to death with horrible mutilation by the imperialists of his new city and that Urban declared it lawful to kill excommunicate persons, provided that it were done out of zeal for the church.

Henry, when compelled by Robert Guiscard to retire from Rome, had returned to Germany in 1084. He found the country in great disorder, and in August 1o36 he was defeated by the Saxons and their allies, at the Bleichfeld, near Wurzburg. But by degrees he was able to conciliate many of his old opponents and his strength increased; in the following year he received the submission of his rival Herman, and in 1088 he reduced the Saxons to tranquillity. In consequence of these successes, the bishops of the opposite party were expelled from their sees, so that Urban had only four adherents among the prelates of Germany. While the warriors fought the battles of the papacy and the empire with the sword, the theologians of the parties carried on a fierce controversy with the pen—some of them with learning, decency, and Christian feeling; others with outrageous violence, reckless falsehood, and disgusting buffoonery. In 1089, Urban issued a decree by which the sentences of Gregory were somewhat modified. Anathema was denounced in the first degree against the emperor and the antipope; in the second degree, against such as should aid them, or should receive ecclesiastical dignities from them; while those who should merely communicate with them were not anathematized, but were not to be admitted to catholic fellowship except after penance and absolutions. In the same year the antipope Clement was driven out of Rome by the citizens, who are said to have exacted from him an oath that he would not attempt to recover his dignity. A negotiation was soon after opened between the parties, on the condition that Henry should be acknowledged as emperor, and Urban as pope. But it was abandoned through the influence of the imperialist bishops, who naturally apprehended that they might be sacrificed to the proposed reconciliation.

Urban now persuaded Matilda, at the age of forty-three, to enter into a second marriage, with a youth of eighteen—the younger Welf, son of the duke of Bavaria. The union was one of policy; the pope hoped to secure by it a male head for his lay adherents, to fix the allegiance of Matilda, who had now lost the guidance not only of Gregory but of Anselm of Lucca, and to engage the elder Welf to exert all his influence in Germany against the emperor. On hearing of the event, which had for some time been kept secret from him, Henry crossed the Alps in the spring of 1090, and for three years ravaged Matilda’s territories. Mantua, after a siege of six months, was surrendered to him by treachery. The countess, reduced to great distress, entered into negotiations at Carpineto, and was about to yield, even to the extent of acknowledging Clement as pope, when the abbot of Canossa, starting up with the air of a prophet, declared that to conclude peace on such terms would be a sin against every Person of the Divine Trinity, and the treaty was broken off! Henry attempted to take Canossa, the scene of his memorable humiliation; but he was foiled, partly through the dense gloom of the weather, and lost his standard, which was hung up as a trophy in the castle-chapel.

The antipope had found means of re-establishing himself at Rome, in 1091; but in 1094 Urban again got possession of the Lateran, through the treachery of the governor, who offered to surrender it for a certain sum. There were, however, no means of raising this until Godfrey, abbot of Vendome, who had arrived at Rome on a pilgrimage of devotion, by placing at the pope's disposal not only his ready money but the price of his horses and mules, enabled him to complete the bargain.

The empress Bertha had died in 1088, and in the following year Henry had married Adelaide or Praxedes, a Russian princess, and widow of Uto, marquis of Saxony. The marriage was unhappy, and Henry relapsed into the laxity of his early life. But worse infamies were now imputed to him; it was asserted that he had compelled Adelaide to prostitute herself to his courtiers, that he had required his son Conrad to commit incest with her, and that, when the prince recoiled with horror from the proposal, he had threatened to declare him a supposititious child. The empress was welcomed as an ally by Matilda, and her story was related before a synod at Constance, in 1094. What her motives may have been for publishing a tale so revolting, so improbable, and in parts so contradictory to itself—whether she were disordered in mind, or whether, in her ignorance of the language in which her depositions were drawn up, she subscribed them without knowing their contents—it is vain to conjecture. But the story furnished her husband's enemies with a weapon which they employed with terrible effect against him.

About the same time, Conrad appears to have been tampered with by some of the anti-imperialist clergy. This prince had grown up at a distance from Henry, and without experiencing his influence; for in early childhood he had been committed to the archbishop of Milan for education, and many years had passed before the troubles of Germany permitted the father and the son to meet again. To a character like Conrad’s—gentle, studious, devout, and dreamy—the long and hopeless contentions of the time, its rude hostilities, the schism of western Christendom, could not but be deeply distasteful; it would seem that the work of alienating him from his father was easy, and that he was preparing to leave the court when Henry, suspecting the intention, committed him to custody. Conrad, however, found means to escape, and sought a refuge with Matilda, who had perhaps been concerned in the practices by which he had been incited to rebel, and now received him with honour, while Urban released him from his share in the emperor’s excommunication. He was crowned at Monza as king of Italy, by Anselm, arch­bishop of Milan; and many Lombard cities declared in his favour. How little the prince's own will concurred in the movements of which he was the nominal head, appears from the fact that he always continued to style Henry his lord and emperor, and would not allow him to be spoken of with disrespect. The rebellion of his son inflicted on Henry a blow in comparison of which all his earlier sufferings had been as nothing. He cast off his robes, secluded himself in moody silence, and, it is said, was with difficulty prevented from putting an end to his own life.

But a new movement, which now began, was to be far more valuable to Urban and to the papacy than any advantages which could have resulted from the contest with the emperor.

For many years the hardships inflicted on pilgrims by the Mahometan masters of the Holy Land had roused the pity and the indignation of Christendom. The stream of pilgrimage had continued to flow, and with increasing fulness. Sometimes the pilgrims went in large bodies, which at once raised the apprehensions of the Mussulmans that they might attempt to take possession of the country, and, by the wealth which was displayed, excited their desire of plunder. A company headed by Lietbert, bishop of Cambray, in 1054, was so numerous that it was styled “the host of the Lord”; but the bishop and his followers had the mortification of finding that Jerusalem was for the time closed against the entrance of Christians. Ten years later, on a revival of the belief that the day of judgment was at hand, a still greater expedition set out under Siegfried of Mayence, whose mean and tortuous career was varied from time to time by fits of penitence and devotion. The pilgrims were repeatedly attacked, and, out of 7000 who had left their homes, 5000 fell victims to the dangers, the fatigues, and the privations of the journey.

A fresh race of conquerors, the Seljookian Turks, had appeared in the east. They carried their arms into Asia Minor, wrested all but the western coast of it from the Greeks, and in 1071 humiliated the empire by taking prisoner its sovereign, Romanus Diogenes. Their conquests were formed into a kingdom to which they insolently gave the name of Roum (or Rome), with Nicaea, the city venerable for the definition of orthodox Christianity, for its capital and in 1076 they gained possession of Palestine. Under these new masters the condition of the Christian inhabitants and pilgrims was greatly altered for the worse. With the manners of barbarians the Turks combined the intolerant zeal of recent converts to Islam; and the feelings of European Christians were continually excited by reports of the exactions, the insults, and the outrages to which their brethren in the east were subjected.

The idea of a religious war for the recovery of the Holy Land was first proclaimed (as we have seen) by Sylvester II. Gregory VII, in the beginning of his pontificate, had projected a crusade, and had endeavoured to enlist the emperor and other princes in the cause; but as the object was only to succour the Byzantine empire, not to deliver the Holy Land, his proposal failed to excite any general enthusiasm, and led to no result. His successor, Victor, had published an invitation to a war against the Saracens of Africa, with a promise of remission of all sins to those who should engage in it; and a successful expedition had been the consequence. But now a greater impulse was to be given to such enterprises.

Peter, a native of Amiens, had been a soldier in his youth. He was married, but withdrew from the society of his wife into a monastery, and afterwards became a hermit. In 1093 he visited Jerusalem, where his spirit was greatly stirred by the sight of the indignities which the Christians had to endure. He suggested to the patriarch Symeon an application for aid to the Byzantine emperor; the patriarch replied that the empire was too weak to assist him, but that the Christians of the west could help effectually, by prayers if not by arms. On his return to Europe, Peter presented himself before the pope, related his interview with Symeon, and enforced the patriarch's request by a story of a vision in the church of the holy sepulchre, where the Saviour had appeared to him, and had charged him to rouse the western nations for the delivery of the Holy Land. Urban listened with approbation, but, instead of at once committing himself to the enterprise, he desired Peter to publish it by way of sounding the general feeling. The hermit set forth, roughly dressed, girt around his waist with a thick cord, having his head and feet bare, and riding on a mule. Short of stature, lean, of dark complexion, with a head disproportionately large, but with an eye of fire, and a rude, glowing eloquence, he preached to high and to low, in churches and on highways, the sufferings of their brethren, and the foul desecrations of the land which had been hallowed by their Redeemer’s birth and life. He read letters from the patriarch of Jerusalem and other Christians, with one which he professed to have received from heaven. When words and breath failed him, he wept, he groaned, he beat his breast, and pointed to a crucifix which he kissed with fervent devotion. Some, it is said, regarded him as a hypocrite; but the vast mass listened with rapture. The hairs which fell from his mule were treasured up as precious relics. Gifts were showered on him, and were distributed by him as alms. He reconciled enemies; he aroused many from lives of gross sin, and others from a decent apathy; he reclaimed women from a course of profligacy, portioned them, and provided them with husbands. In no long time he was able to return to the pope, with a report that everywhere his tale had been received with enthusiasm, so that he had even found it difficult to restrain his hearers from at once taking arms and compelling him to lead them to the Holy Land.

The pope appears to have been sincerely interested in the enterprise for its own sake; yet he can hardly have failed to apprehend something of the advantages which he was likely to reap from it. It opened to him the prospect of uniting all Christian Europe in one cause; of placing himself at the head of a movement which might lift him triumphantly above the antipope, and might secure for the church a victory over the temporal power; of putting an end to the schism which had so long divided the Greek from the Latin Christianity. And while the greater part of his own city was still in the hands of a rival—while he was embroiled in deadly hostility with the most powerful sovereign of the west—Urban boldly resolved to undertake the great work.

A council was assembled in March 1095 at Piacenza, where the pope appeared surrounded by two hundred bishops, four thousand clergy, and thirty thousand laity; and, as no building was large enough to contain this multitude, the greater sessions were held in a plain near the city. The project of a holy war was set forth; ambassadors from the Greek emperor, Alexius Comnenus, stated the distress of the eastern Christians, and the formidable advances of the Turks. The hearers were moved to tears by these details; the pope added his exhortations, and many bound themselves by oath to engage in the crusade. But the Italians of that day possessed neither the religious enthusiasm nor the valour which would have fitted them to sustain the brunt of such an enterprise; and Urban resolved that the grand inauguration of it should take place in his native country.

Other affairs were also transacted at Piacenza. Canons were passed against Simoniacs, Nicolaitans, and Berengarians; the antipope was solemnly anathematized; and the empress Adelaide was brought forward to excite indignation and revolt against her husband by the story of his alleged offences.

In his progress towards France, Urban was received at Cremona by Conrad, who obsequiously held his stirrup. The prince was rewarded by a promise of Germany and the imperial crown, and was yet further bound to the papal interest by a marriage which Urban and Matilda arranged for him with a wealthy bride, the daughter of Roger, grand count of Sicily. On entering France the pope was met by the gratifying information that Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, had at length succeeded in procuring for him the acknowledgment of his title in England.

The case of Philip, king of France, divided the pope’s attention with the crusade. Philip, whose increasing sloth and sensuality had continued to lower him in the estimation of his feudatories and subjects, had in 1092 separated from his queen Bertha, and married Bertrada, wife of Fulk, count of Anjou. There was no formal divorce in either case; but the separation and the marriage were justified on the ground that both Bertha and Bertrada were within the forbidden degrees of relationship to their first husbands—a pretext which, between the extension of the prohibitory canons and the complicated connexions of princely houses, would have been sufficient to warrant the dissolution of almost any marriage in the highest orders of society. No one of Philip's immediate subjects would venture to officiate at the nuptial ceremony, which was performed by a Norman bishop; but the union had been sanctioned by a council at Reims in 1094, when the death of Bertha appeared to have removed one important obstacle to it. Ivo, bishop of Chartres, a pious and honest prelate, who was distinguished above all his contemporaries for his knowledge of ecclesiastical law, alone openly protested against it; he disregarded a citation to the council, and was not to be moved either by the king’s entreaties, or by imprisonment and the forfeiture of his property. Hugh, archbishop of Lyons, who had been reconciled with Urban and restored to his office of legate, excommunicated the king in a council at Autun, which was not then within the kingdom of France; but Philip obtained absolution from Rome by swearing that, since he had become aware of the pope’s objections to his marriage, he had abstained from conjugal intercourse with Bertrada. Urban, however, now knew that this story was false, and was resolved to strike a decisive blow.

A council had been summoned to meet at Clermont in Auvergne. The citations to it were urgent, and charged the clergy to stir up the laity in the cause of the crusade. Among the vast assemblage which was drawn together were fourteen archbishops, two hundred and twenty-five bishops, and about a hundred abbots; the town and all the neighbouring villages were filled with strangers, while great numbers were obliged to lodge in tents. The sessions lasted ten days: the usual canons were passed in condemnation of simony, pluralities, and impropriations; the observation of the truce of God was enjoined and Urban ventured to advance a step beyond Gregory, by forbidding not only the practice of lay investiture, but that any ecclesiastic should swear fealty to a temporal lord—a prohibition which was intended entirely to do away with all dependence of the church on the secular power. Philip, the suzerain, although not the immediate ruler of the country in which the council was held, was excommunicated for his adultery with Bertrada; and, startling as such an act would have been at another time, it was not only allowed to pass, but even was unnoticed, amid the engrossing interest of the greater subject which filled the minds of all.

At the sixth session the crusade was proposed. Urban ascended a pulpit in the market-place and addressed the assembled multitude. He dwelt on the ancient glories of Palestine, where every foot of ground had been hallowed by the presence of the Saviour, of his virgin mother, of prophets and apostles. Even yet, he said, God vouchsafed to manifest his favour to it in the yearly miracle of the light from heaven, by which the lamps of the holy sepulchre were kindled at the season of the Saviour’s passion—a miracle which ought to soften all but flinty hearts. He enlarged on the present condition of the sacred territory—possessed as it was by a godless people, the children of the Egyptian handmaid; on the indignities, the outrages, the tyranny, which they inflicted on Christians redeemed by Christ’s blood. He appealed to many of those who were present as having themselves been eyewitnesses of these wrongs. Nor did he forget to speak of the progressive encroachments of the Turks on Christendom—of the danger which threatened Constantinople, the treasury of so many renowned and precious relics. “Cast out the bondwoman and her son!” he cried; “let all the faithful arm. Go forth, and God shall be with you. Turn against the enemies of the Christian name the weapons which you have stained with mutual slaughter. Redeem your sins by obedience—your rapine, your burnings, your bloodshed. Let the famous nation of the Franks display their valour in a cause where death is the assurance of blessedness. Count it joy to die for Christ where Christ died for you. Think not of kindred or home; you owe to God a higher love; for a Christian, every place is exile, every place is home and country”. He insisted on the easiness of the remedy for sin which was now proposed—the relaxation of all penance in favour of those who should assume the cross. They were to be taken under the protection of the church; their persons and their property were to be respected, under the penalty of excommunication. For himself he would, like Moses, hold up his hands in prayer for them, while they were engaged in fighting the Amalekites.

The pope’s speech was interrupted by an enthusiastic cry from the whole assemblage—“God wills it!”—words which afterwards became the war-cry of the crusaders; and when he ceased, thousands enlisted for the enterprise by attaching the cross to their shoulders. The most important promise of service was that of Raymond of St. Gilles, the powerful count of Toulouse, who was represented at the council by envoys. Adhemar of Monteil, bishop of Le Puy, who had already been a pilgrim to Jerusalem, stepped forward with a joyous look, declared his intention of joining the crusade, and begged the papal benediction. A cardinal pronounced a confession of sins in the name of all who were to share in the expedition, and the pope bestowed his absolution on them. Adhemar was nominated as legate for the holy war; the pope, in answer to a request that he would head the Christian army, excused himself on the ground that the care of the church detained him; but he promised to follow as soon as circumstances should allow. It was believed that the resolution of the council was on the same day known throughout the world, among infidels as well as among Christians.             

Urban remained in France until August of the year 1096, and held many councils at which he enforced the duty of joining the holy war. The bishops and clergy seconded his exhortations, and everywhere a ferment of preparation arose. Famines, pestilences, civil broils, portents in the heavens, had produced a general disposition to leave home and to engage in a career of adventure. Women urged their husbands, their brothers, and their sons to take the cross; and those who refused became marks for universal contempt. Men who on one day ridiculed the crusade as a chimera, were found on the next day disposing of their all in order to join it. Lands were sold or mortgaged, to raise the means of equipment for their owners; artisans and husbandmen sold their tools; the price of land and of all immoveable property fell, while horses, arms, and other requisites for the expedition became exorbitantly dear. A spirit of religious enthusiasm animated all ranks, and with it was combined a variety of other motives. The life of war and adventure in which the nations of the west found their delight was now consecrated as holy and religious; even the clergy might without scruple fight against the enemies of the faith. The fabulous splendours and wealth of the east were set before the imagination, already stimulated by the romantic legends of Charlemagne and his peers. There was full forgiveness of sins, commutation of all penances. God, according to the expression of a writer of the time, had instituted a new method for the cleansing of sins. Penitents, who had been shamed among their neighbours by being debarred from the use of arms, were now at liberty to resume them. For the peasant there was an opportunity to quit his depressed life, to bear arms, to forsake the service of his feudal lord, and to range himself under the banner of any leader whom he might choose. For the robber, the pirate, the outlaw, there was amnesty of his crimes, and restoration to society; for the debtor there was escape from his obligations; for the monk there was emancipation from the narrow bounds and from the monotonous duties of his cloister; for those who were unfit to share in the exploits of war, there was the assurance that death on this holy expedition would make them partakers in the glory and bliss of martyrs. The letter which Peter the Hermit professed to have received from heaven was not the only thing which claimed a supernatural character. Prophets were busy in preaching the crusade, and turned it to their own advantage. Many deceits were practised, nor did they always escape detection. It was common among the more zealous crusaders to impress the cross on their flesh; but some impostors professed to have received the mark by miracle. Among them was a monk who found himself unable to raise money for his outfit by other means, but who, by displaying the cross on his forehead and pretending that it had been stamped by an angel, succeeded in collecting large contributions. The fraud was detected in the Holy Land; but his general conduct on the expedition had been so respectable that he afterwards obtained promotion, and eventually became archbishop of Caesarea.

The festival of the Assumption (August 15) had been fixed on for the commencement of the expedition; but long before that time the impatience of the multitude was unable to restrain itself Peter was urged to set out, and in the beginning of March he crossed the Rhine at Cologne, at the head of a motley host, of which the other leaders were a knight named Walter of Pacy, and his nephew Walter “the Pennyless”. A separation then took place; the military chiefs went on, with the more vigorous of their followers, and promised to wait for Peter and the rest at Constantinople. A second swarm followed under a priest named Gottschalk, and a third under another priest named Folkmar, with whom was joined count Emicho, a man notorious for his violent and lawless character. Each successive crowd was worse than that which had preceded it; among them were old and infirm men, children of both sexes, women of loose virtue—some of them in male attire; they were without order or discipline, most of them unprovided with armour or money, having no idea of the distance of Jerusalem, or of the difficulties to be encountered by the way. Emicho’s host was composed of the very refuse of the people, animated by the vilest fanaticism. It is said that their march was directed by the movements of a goose and a goat, which were supposed to be inspired. Their passage through the towns of the Moselle and the Rhine, the Maine and the Danube, was marked by the plunder and savage butchery of the Jewish inhabitants, who in other quarters also suffered from the fury excited among the multitude against all enemies of the Christian name. Bishops endeavoured to rescue the victims by admitting them to a temporary profession of Christianity; but some of the more zealous Jews shut themselves up in their houses, slew their children, and disappointed their persecutors by burning themselves with all their property.

No provision had been made for the subsistence of these vast hordes in the countries through which they were to pass. Their dissoluteness, disorder, and plundering habits raised the populations of Hungary and Bulgaria against them and the later swarms suffered for the misdeeds of those who had gone before. Gottschalk and his followers were destroyed in Hungary, after having been treacherously persuaded to lay down their arms. Others were turned back from the frontier of that country, or struggled home to tell the fate of their companions, who had perished in battles and sieges; while want and fatigue aided the sword of their enemies in its ravages. The elder Walter died at Philippopoli; but his nephew and Peter the Hermit struggled onwards, and reached Constantinople with numbers which, although greatly diminished, were still imposing and formidable.

The emperor Alexius was alarmed by the unexpected form in which the succour which he had requested presented itself; and the thefts and unruliness of the strangers disturbed the peace of his capital. It is said that he was impressed by the eloquence of Peter, and urged him to wait for the arrival of the other crusaders; but the hermit's followers were resolved to fight, and the emperor was glad to rid himself of them by conveying them across the Bosphorus. A great battle took place under the walls of Nicaea, the city which had been hallowed for Christians by the first general council, but which had become the capital of the Turkish kingdom. Walter the Pennyless, a brave soldier, who had energetically striven against the difficulties of his position, was slain, with most of his followers. Many were made prisoners, and some of them even submitted to apostatize. The Turks, after their victory, fell on the camp, where they slaughtered the unarmed and helpless multitude; and the bones of those who had fallen were gathered into a vast heap, which remained as a monument of their luckless enterprise. The scanty remains of the host were rescued by Alexius, at the request of Peter, who had returned to Constantinople in disgust at the disorderly character of his companions; they sold their arms to the emperor, and endeavoured to find their way back to their homes. It is reckoned that in these ill-conducted expeditions half a million of human beings had already perished, without any other effect than that of adding to the confidence of the enemy, who dispersed the armour of the slain over the east in proof that the Franks were not to be dreaded.

In the meantime the more regular forces of the crusaders were preparing. Every country of the west, with the exception of Spain, where the Christians were engaged in their own continual holy war with the infidels, sent its contributions to swell the array. Germany, at enmity with the papacy, had not been visited by the preachers of the crusade, and, when the crowds of pilgrims began to stream through the country, the inhabitants mocked at them as crazy, in leaving certainties for wild adventure; but by degrees, and as the more disciplined troops appeared among them, the Germans too caught the contagion of enthusiasm. Visions in the sky—combats of airy warriors, and a beleaguered city—added to the excitement. It was said that Charlemagne had risen from his grave to be the leader, and preachers appeared who promised to conduct those who should follow them dry-shod through the sea.

Of the chiefs, the most eminent by character was Godfrey of Bouillon, son of Count Eustace of Boulogne, who had accompanied William of Normandy in the invasion of England, and descended from the Carolingian family through his mother, the saintly Ida, a sister of Godfrey the Hunchbacked. In his earlier years, Godfrey had been distinguished as a partisan of the emperor. It is said that at the Elster, where he carried the banner of the empire, he gave Rudolf of Swabia his death wound by driving the shaft into his breast, and that he was the first of Henry’s army to mount the walls of Rome. His services had been rewarded by Henry with the marquisate of Antwerp after the death of his uncle Godfrey, and to this was added in 1089 the dukedom of Lower Lorraine, which had been forfeited by the emperor’s rebel son Conrad. A fever which he had caught at Rome long disabled him for active exertion; but at the announcement of the crusade he revived, and—partly perhaps from a feeling of penitence for his former opposition to the pope—he vowed to join the enterprise, for which he raised the necessary funds by pledging his castle of Bouillon, in the Ardennes, to the bishop of Liège. Godfrey is described by the chroniclers as resembling a monk rather than a knight in the mildness of his ordinary demeanour, but as a lion in the battle-held—as wise in counsel, disinterested in purpose, generous, affable, and deeply religious. Among the other chiefs were his brothers Eustace and Baldwin; Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the king of France; the counts Raymond of Toulouse, Robert of Flanders, Stephen of Blois and Chartres; and Robert duke of Normandy, the brave, thoughtless, indolent son of William the Conqueror. Each leader was wholly independent of the others, and the want of an acknowledged head became the cause of many disasters.

In order that the passage of the army might not press too severely on any country, it was agreed that its several divisions should proceed to Constantinople by different routes. Godfrey, at the head of 10,000 horse and 80,000 foot, took the way through Hungary, where his prudence was successfully exerted in overcoming the exasperation raised by the irregular bands which had preceded him. The crusaders from Southern France in general went through Italy, and thence by sea either to the ports of Greece and Dalmatia, or direct to Constantinople. A large force of Normans, under Roger of Sicily and Bohemund, the son of Robert Guiscard by his first marriage, were engaged in the siege of Amalfi, when Hugh of Vermandois with his crusaders arrived in the neighbourhood. The enthusiasm of the strangers infected the besiegers, and Bohemund, who had been disinherited in favour of his half-brother, and had been obliged to content himself with the principality of Tarentum, resolved to turn the enterprise to his own advantage. He raised the cry of "God wills it!" and, sending for a mantle of great value, caused it to be cut up into crosses, which he distributed among the eager soldiers, by whose defection Roger found himself compelled to abandon the siege. The new leader was distinguished by deep subtlety and selfishness; but with him was a warrior of very opposite fame—his cousin or nephew Tancred, whose character has (perhaps not without some violence to facts) been idealized into the model of Christian chivalry.

The gradual appearance of the crusading forces at Constantinople renewed the uneasiness of Alexius, and the accession of Bohemund, who had been known to him of old in Guiscard's wars against the empire, was especially alarming. That the emperor treated his allies with a crafty, jealous, distrustful policy, is certain, even from the panegyrical history of his daughter Anna Comnena; but the statements of the Latin chroniclers are greatly at variance with those of the Byzantine princess, and it would seem that there is no foundation for the darker charges of treachery which they advance against Alexius. Godfrey was obliged to resort to force in order to establish an understanding with him; and the emperor then took another method of proceeding. While obliged to entertain his unwelcome visitors during the remainder of the winter season, he plied the leaders with flattery and with gifts, and obtained from one after another of them to him such parts of their expected conquests as had formerly belonged to the empire; in return for which he promised to provide for their supply on the march, and to follow with an army for their support. He skilfully decoyed one party across the Bosphorus before the arrival of another; and by Whitsuntide 1097 the whole host had passed into Asia. They had been joined at Constantinople by Peter the Hermit, and were accompanied by an imperial commissioner, whose golden substitute for a nose excited the wonder and distrust of the Franks.

The Turks of Roum were now before them, and, on approaching the capital of the kingdom, their zeal and rage were excited by the sight of the hill of bones which marked the place where Walter and his companions had fallen. Nicaea was besieged from the 14th of May to the 20th of June, but on its capture the Latins were disappointed of their expected plunder by finding that the Turks, when it became untenable, had been induced by the imperial commissioner to make a secret agreement for surrendering it to Alexius. The discovery filled them with disgust and indignation, which were hardly mitigated by the presents which the emperor offered by way of compensation; and they eagerly looked for an opportunity of requiting their perfidious ally. A fortnight later was fought the battle of Dorylaeum, in which the fortune of the day is said to have been turned by heavenly champions, who descended to aid the Christians. The victory was so decisive that the sultan of Roum was driven to seek support among the brethren of his race and religion in the east.

The army had already suffered severely, and, as it advanced through Asia Minor, it was continually thinned by skirmishes and sieges, by the difficulties of the way, and by scarcity of food and water. The greater part of the horses perished, and their riders endeavoured to supply their place by cows and oxen—nay, it is said, by the large dogs and rams of the country. Godfrey was for a time disabled by wounds received in an encounter with a savage bear. Disunion appeared among the leaders, and some of them began to show a preference of their private interests to the great object of the expedition. Baldwin, disregarding the remonstrances of his companions, accepted an invitation to assist a Christian prince or tyrant of Edessa, who adopted him and promised to make him his heir. The prince's subjects rose against him, and, in endeavouring to escape by an outlet in the wall of the city, he was pierced with arrows before reaching the ground, whereupon Baldwin established himself in his stead. But the great mass of the crusaders held on their march for Jerusalem.

At length they arrived in Syria, and on the 18th of October laid siege to Antioch. The miseries endured during this siege, which lasted eight months, were frightful. The tents of the crusaders were demolished by the winds, or were rotted by the heavy rains, which converted their encampment into a swamp; their provisions had been thoughtlessly wasted in the beginning of the siege, and they were soon brought to the extremity of distress; the flesh of horses, camels, dogs, and mice, grass and thistles, leather and bark, were greedily devoured; and disease added its ravages to famine. Parties which were sent out to forage were unable to find any supplies, and returned with their numbers diminished by the attacks of the enemy. The horses were reduced from 70,000 to less than 1000, and even these were mostly unfit for service. Gallant knights lost their courage and deserted; among them was Stephen of Blois, who, under pretence of sickness, withdrew to Alexandretta, with the intention of providing for his own safety if the enterprise of his comrades should miscarry. The golden-nosed Greek commissioner, looking on the ruin of the crusaders as certain, obtained leave to depart by promising to return with reinforcements and supplies, but was careful not to reappear. Peter the Hermit, unable to bear the privations of the siege, and perhaps the reproaches of the multitude, ran away, with William, count of Melun, who, from the heaviness of his blows, was styled “the Carpenter”; but the fugitives were brought back by order of Bohemund, who made them swear to remain with the army. Yet in the midst of these sufferings the camp of the crusaders was a scene of gross licentiousness, until the legate Adhemar compelled them to remove all women from it, to give up gaming, and to seek deliverance from their distress by penitential exercises. As the spring advanced, the condition of the army improved; supplies of provisions were obtained from Edessa, and from Genoese ships which had arrived in the harbour of St. Symeon; most of the deserters returned; and on the 2nd of June, through the treachery of one Firuz, who had opened a negotiation with Bohemund, and professed to embrace Christianity, the crusaders got possession of the city, although the fortress still remained in the hands of the enemy.

The capture of Antioch was marked by barbarous and shameful excesses. All who refused to become Christians were ruthlessly put to the sword. The crusaders, unwarned by their former distress, recklessly wasted their provisions, and when, soon after, an overwhelming force of Turks appeared, under Kerboga, prince of Mosul, who had been sent by the sultan of Bagdad to the relief of Antioch, they found themselves shut up between these new enemies and the garrison of the fortress. Their sufferings soon became more intense than ever. The most loathsome food was sold at exorbitant prices; old hides, thongs, and shoe-leather were steeped in water, and were greedily devoured; even human flesh was eaten. Warriors were reduced to creep feebly about the silent streets, supporting themselves on staves. The cravings of famine levelled all ranks; nobles sold their horses and arms to buy food, begged without shame, or intruded themselves unbidden at the meals of meaner men; while some, in despair and indifference to life, withdrew to hide themselves and to die. Many deserted,—William the Carpenter being especially noted among them for the violation of his late oath; and while some of these were cut off by the enemy, others surrendered themselves and apostatized. Rumours of the distress which prevailed, even exaggerated (if exaggeration were possible), reached Stephen of Blois in his retreat; regarding the condition of his brethren as hopeless, he set out on his return to the west, and, on meeting Alexius, who was advancing with reinforcements, he gave such a representation of the case as furnished the emperor with a pretext for turning back, and leaving his allies to a fate which seemed inevitable.

In the extremity of this misery, Peter Bartholomes, a disreputable priest of Marseilles, announced a revelation which he professed to have thrice received in visions from St. Andrew—that the lance which pierced the Redeemer's side was to be found in the church of St. Peter. The legate made light of the story; but Raymond of Toulouse, to whose force Peter was attached, insisted on a search, and, after thirteen men had dug a whole day, the head of a lance was found. The crusaders passed at once from despair to enthusiasm. Peter the Hermit was sent to Kerboga, with a message desiring him to withdraw; but the infidel scornfully replied by vowing that the invaders should be compelled to embrace the faith of Islam, and the Christians resolved to fight. After a solemn preparation by prayer, fasting, and administration of the holy Eucharist, all that could be mustered of effective soldiers made a sally from the city, with the sacred lance borne by the legate’s chaplain, the chronicler Raymond of Agiles. The Saracens, divided among themselves by fierce dissensions, fled before the unexpected attack, leaving behind them an immense mass of spoil; and again the victory of the Christians was ascribed to the aid of celestial warriors, who are said to have issued from the neighbouring mountains in countless numbers, riding on white horses, and armed in dazzling white. The fortress was soon after surrendered into their hands; but the unburied corpses which poisoned the air produced a violent pestilence, and among its earliest victims was the pious and martial legate Adhemar. Fatal as this visitation was to those who had been enfeebled by the labours and privations of the siege, it was yet more so to a force of 1500 Germans, who arrived by sea soon after its appearance, and were cut off almost to a man. Godfrey, fearing a return of the malady which he had caught at Rome, sought safety from the plague by withdrawing for a time into the territory of his brother, Baldwin of Edessa.

A report of the capture of Antioch and of the legate’s death was sent off to Urban, with a request that he would come in person to take possession of St. Peter’s eastern see, and would follow up the victory over the unbelievers by reducing the schismatical Christians of the east to the communion of the Roman church. In the meantime the Greek patriarch was reinstated, although he soon found himself compelled to give way to a Latin; and, after much discussion between the chiefs who asserted and those who denied that the conduct of Alexius had released them from their promise to him, Bohemund, in fulfilment of a promise which he had exacted as the condition of his obtaining the surrender of the city, was established as prince of Antioch.

Although the discovery of the holy lance had been the means of leading the crusaders to victory, the imposture was to cost its author dear. The Normans, when offended by his patron Raymond of Toulouse in the advance to Jerusalem, ridiculed the idea of St. Andrew’s having chosen such a man for the medium of a revelation, and declared that the lance, which was clearly of Saracen manufacture, had been hidden by Peter himself. Peter offered, in proof of his veracity, to undergo the ordeal of passing between two burning piles, and the trial took place on Good Friday 1099. He was severely scorched; but the multitude, who supposed him to have come out unhurt, crowded round him, threw him down in their excitement, and, in tearing his clothes into relics, pulled off pieces of his flesh with them. In consequence of this treatment he died on the twelfth day; but to the last he maintained the credit of his story, and it continued to find many believers.

The ravages of the plague, and the necessity of re­cruiting their strength after the sufferings which they had undergone, detained the crusaders at Antioch until March of the following year. Three hundred thousand, it is said, had reached Antioch, but famine and disease, desertion and the sword, had reduced their force to little more than 40,000, of whom only 20,000 foot and 1500 horse were fit for service and on the march to Jerusalem their numbers were further thinned in sieges and in encounters with the enemy, so that at last there remained only 12,000 effective foot-soldiers, and from 1200 to 1300 horsed. Aided by the terror of the crusade, the Fatimite Arabs had succeeded in recovering Jerusalem from the Turks; and before Antioch the Christian leaders had received from the caliph an announcement of his conquest, with an offer to rebuild their churches and to protect their religion, if they would come to him as peaceful pilgrims. But they disdained to admit any distinction among the followers of the false prophet, and replied that, with God’s help, they must win and hold the land which He had bestowed on their fathers. On the 6th of June, after a night during which their eagerness would hardly allow them to rest, they arrived in sight of the holy city. A cry of “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! It is the will of God!” burst forth, while with many the excess of joy could only find vent in tears and sighs. All threw themselves on their knees, and kissed the sacred ground. But for the necessity of guarding against attack, they would have continued their pilgrimage with bare feet; and they surveyed with eager credulity the traditional scenes of the Gospel story, which were pointed out by a hermit of Mount Olivet. The Christians who had been expelled from the city, and had since been miserably huddled together in the surrounding villages, crowded to them with tales of cruelty and profanation, which raised their excitement still higher. Trusting in their enthusiasm, and expecting miraculous aid, they at once assaulted the walls; but they were unprovided with the necessary engines, and met with a disastrous repulsed.

During the siege of forty days which followed, although those who could afford to buy were well supplied with food and wine, the crusaders in general suffered severely from hunger, and yet more from the fierce thirst produced by the heats of midsummer, and from the burning south wind of that parched country. The brooks were dried; the cisterns had been destroyed or poisoned, and the wells had been choked up by the enemy; water was brought in skins from a distance by peasants, and was sold at extravagant prices, but such was its impurity that many died of drinking it; the horses and mules were led six miles to water, exposed to the assaults of the Arabs; many of them died, and the camp was infected by the stench of their unburied bodies. The want of wood was a serious difficulty for the besiegers. In order to remedy this, the buildings of the neighbourhood were pulled down, and their timber was employed in constructing engines of war; but the supply was insufficient, until Tancred (according to his biographer) accidentally found in a cave some long beams which had been used as scaling-ladders by the Arabs in the late siege, and two hundred men under his command brought trees from a forest in the hills near Nablous. All—nobles and common soldiers alike—now laboured at the construction of machines, while the defenders of the city were engaged in similar works, with better materials and implements. But the Christians received an unexpected aid by means of a Genoese fleet which opportunely arrived at Joppa. The sailors, finding themselves threatened by an overwhelming naval force from Egypt, forsook their ships and joined the besiegers of Jerusalem, bringing to them an ample supply of tools, and superior skill in the use of them. At length the works were completed, and the crusaders, in obedience, it is said, to a vision of the legate Adhemar, prepared by solemn religious exercises for the attack of the city. After having moved in slow procession around the walls, they ascended the Mount of Olives, where addresses were delivered by Peter the Hermit and Arnulf, a chaplain of Robert of Normandy. The princes composed their feuds, and all confessed their sins and implored a blessing on their enterprise, while the Saracens from the walls looked on with amazement, and endeavoured to provoke them by setting up crosses, which they treated with every sort of execration and contempt. On the 14th of July a second assault was made. The besiegers, old and young, able-bodied and infirm, women as well as men, rushed with enthusiasm to the work. The towering structures, which had been so laboriously built, on being advanced to the walls, were opposed by the machines of the enemy; beams and long grappling-hooks were thrust forth to overthrow them; showers of arrows, huge stones, burning pitch and oil, Greek fire, were poured on the besiegers; but their courage did not quail, their engines stood firm, and the hides with which these were covered resisted all attempts to ignite them. The fight was kept up for twelve hours, and at night the Christians retired. Next day the contest was renewed, with even increased fury. As a last means of disabling the great engine which was the chief object of their dread, the Saracens brought forward two sorceresses, who assailed it with spells and curses; but a stone from the machine crushed them, and their bodies fell down from the ramparts, amid the acclamations of the besiegers. In the end, however, the crusaders were repulsed, and were on the point of yielding to despair, when Godfrey saw on the Mount of Olives a warrior waving his resplendent shield as a signal for another effort. Adhemar and others of their dead companions are also said to have appeared in front of the assailants, and after a fierce struggle they became masters of the holy city—the form of the legate being the first to mount the breach. It was noted that the capture took place at the hour of three on the afternoon of a Friday—the day and the hour of the Saviour’s passion.

The victory was followed by scenes of rapine, lust, and carnage, disgraceful to the Christian name. The crusaders, inflamed to madness by the thought of the wrongs inflicted on their brethren, by the remembrance of their own fearful sufferings, and by the obstinate resistance of the besieged, spared neither old man, woman, nor infant. They forced their way into houses, slew the inhabitants, and seized all the treasures that they could discover. Seventy thousand Mahometans were massacred; many who had received a promise of life from the leaders were pitilessly slaughtered by the soldiery. The thoroughfares were choked up with corpses; the temple and Solomon's porch, where some of the Saracens had made a desperate defence, were filled with blood to the height of a horse's knee; and, in the general rage against the enemies of Christ, the Jews were burnt in their synagogue. Godfrey, who in the assault had distinguished himself by prodigious acts of valour, took no part in these atrocities, but, immediately after the victory, repaired in the dress of a pilgrim to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, to pour out his thanks for having been permitted to reach the sacred city. Many followed his example, relinquishing their savage work for tears of penitence and joy, and loading the altars with their spoil; but, by a revulsion of feeling natural to a state of high excitement, they soon returned to the work of butchery, and for three days Jerusalem ran with blood. When weary of slaying, the crusaders employed the surviving Saracens in clearing the city of the dead bodies and burning them without the walls; and, having spared them until this labour was performed, they either killed them or sold them as slaves.

Eight days after the taking of the city, the victors met for the election of a king. The names of various chiefs—among them, Robert of Normandy—were proposed, and, as the surest means of ascertaining their real characters, their attendants were questioned as to their private habits. Against Godfrey nothing was discovered, except that his devotion was such as sometimes to detain him at the accustomed hours of food—a charge which the electors regarded as implying not a fault but a virtue. The duke of Lorraine, therefore, was chosen king of Jerusalem; but he refused to wear a crown of gold where the King of kings had been crowned with thorns, and contented himself with the style of “Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre”.

Godfrey had hardly been chosen when he was again summoned to arms by the appearance of a more numerous force of Saracens from Egypt, which had arrived too late to succour the garrison of Jerusalem.

The crusaders were victorious in the battle of Askelon; and, having thus secured the footing of their brethren in the Holy Land, the great body of them returned to Europe, after having bathed in the Jordan, carrying with them palm-branches from Jericho, and relics of holy personages who, for the most part, had before been unheard of in the west. Among those who returned was Peter the Hermit, who spent the remainder of his days in a monastery of his own foundation at Huy, near Liège, until his death in 1115. The new kingdom was at first confined to the cities of Jerusalem and Joppa, with a small surrounding territory, but was gradually extended to the ancient boundaries of Palestine. The French language was established; and, Godfrey, with the assistance of the most skilful advisers whom he could find, laid the foundation of a code of laws, derived from those of the west, and afterwards famous under the name of the “Assizes of Jerusalem”. After having held his dignity for little more than a year, Godfrey died amidst universal regret, and by his recommendation his brother, Baldwin of Edessa, was chosen to succeed him as king; for the scruple which the hero of the crusade had felt as to this title was now regarded as unnecessary. Crusaders and pilgrims continued to flock towards the Holy Land, excited less by the triumphs of their brethren than by sympathy for their sufferings; and in these expeditions many perished through the difficulties and dangers of the way.

The patriarch of Jerusalem, who had been sent out of the city by the Arabs before the siege, had since died in Cyprus. As at Antioch, a Latin patriarch was established; and the Greek Christians, who found themselves persecuted as schismatics, were reduced to regret the days when they had lived under the government of the infidels. Nor were the Latins free from serious dissensions among themselves. Arnulf, who has been already mentioned as having shared in animating the crusaders to the final assault, a man of ability, but turbulent, ambitious, and grossly immoral, had contrived to get himself hastily elected to the patriarchate on the taking of Jerusalem, and had endeavoured to prevent the appointment of any secular head for the community. He was set aside in favour of Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, who arrived from Rome with a commission as legate in succession to Adhemar, and is said to have obtained the support of the chiefs by means of wealth which he had acquired on a mission in Spain; but Daimbert was no less bent on establishing the supremacy of the hierarchy. Not content with persuading Godfrey and Bohemund to take investiture at his hands, he advanced claims of territory for the church which would have left the new royalty almost destitute; and Godfrey was glad, in the difficulties of his situation, to make a provisional compromise with the patriarch’s demands. The troubles thus begun continued to divide the kings and the patriarchs of Jerusalem, while the patriarchate itself was the subject of intrigues which led more than once to the deposition of its possessors. The patriarch also had to contend with his brother of Antioch for precedence and jurisdiction; and his authority was boldly defied by the great military orders which soon after arose.

The diminished kingdom of Roum, of which Iconium became the capital, was now isolated between the Latins of Syria and the Byzantine empire. But although the crusaders had saved the empire of Alexius, his relations with them were of no friendly kind. They taxed him with perfidy, with deserting them in their troubles, with secretly stirring up the infidels against them. They held themselves released by his conduct from the feudal obligations which they had contracted to him; Bohemund, who, after a captivity in the east, had revisited Europe, and had married a daughter of Philip of France, even for a time alarmed the empire by a renewal of his father's projects against it. Instead of effecting, as had been expected, a reconciliation between the eastern and the western churches, the crusade had the effect of embittering their hostility beyond the hope of cure.

In endeavouring to estimate the crusades—the Trojan war of modern history (as they have been truly styled)—we must not limit our consideration to their immediate purpose, to the means by which this was sought, or to the degree in which it was attained. They have often been condemned as undertaken for a chimerical object; as an unjust aggression on the possessors of the Holy Land; as having occasioned a lavish waste of life and treasure; as having inflicted great hardships on society by the transference of property, the impoverishment of families, and the heavy exactions for which they became the pretext; as having produced grievous misrule and disorder by drawing away prelates, nobles, and at length even sovereigns, from their duties of government at home to engage in the war with the infidels. Much of this censure, however, seems to be unfounded. The charge of injustice is a refinement which it is even now difficult to understand, and which would not have occurred to either the assailants or the assailed in an age when the feeling of local religion (however little countenanced by the new Testament) was as strong in the Christian as in the Jew or the Moslem—when the Christians regarded the holy places of the east as an inheritance of which they had been wrongfully despoiled, and which they could not without disgrace, or even sin, leave in the hands of the unbelievers. But in truth the crusades were rather defensive than aggressive. They were occasioned by the advance of the new tribes which with the religion of Mahomet had taken up that spirit of conquest which had cooled and died away among the older Mahometan nations. They transferred to the east that war in defence of the faith which for ages had been carried on in Spain. And while this was enough to justify the undertaking of the crusades, they led to results which were altogether unforeseen, but which far more than outweighed the temporary evils produced by these expeditions.

The idea of a war for the recovery of the land endeared to Christians by the holiest associations was of itself a gain for the martial nations of the west—raising, as it did, their thoughts from the petty quarrels in which they had too generally wasted themselves, to unite their efforts in a hallowed and ennobling cause. It was by the crusades that the nations of Europe were first made known to each other as bound together by one common interest. Feudal relations were cast aside; every knight was at liberty to follow the banner of the leader whom he might prefer; instead of being confined to one small and narrow circle, the crusaders were brought into intercourse with men of various nations, and the consequences tended to mutual refinement. And, while the intercourse of nations was important, the communication into which persons of different classes were brought by the crusades was no less so; the high and the low, the lord and the vassal or common soldier, the fighting man and the merchant, learned to understand and to value each other better. The chivalrous spirit, of which France had hitherto been the home, now spread among the warriors of other countries, and the object of the crusades infused into chivalry a new religious character. Nor was chivalry without its effect on religion, although this influence was of a more questionable kind. In the cause of the cross, the canons against clerical warriors were suspended and the devotion which knights owed to their ladies tended to exalt the devotion of the middle ages to her who was regarded as the highest type of glorified womanhood. The Christians of the west were brought by the crusades into contact with the civilization of the Arabs, new to them in its character, and on the whole higher than their own. After the first blind fury of their enmity had passed away, they learned to respect in their adversaries the likeness of the virtues which were regarded as adorning the character of a Christian knight; and they were ready to adopt from them whatever of knowledge or of refinement the Orientals might be able to impart. Literature and science benefited by the intercourse which was thus established. Navigation was improved; ships of increased size were built for the transport of the armaments destined for the holy wars. Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Marseilles were enriched by the commerce of the east; the gems, the silks, the spices, and the medicines of Asia became familiarly known in Europe; new branches of industry were introduced; and the inland trading cities gained a new importance and prosperity by aiding to distribute the commodities and luxuries which they received through the agency of the great seaports.

The political effects of the crusades on the kingdoms of western Europe were very important. They tended to increase the power of sovereigns by lessening the number of fiefs. As many of the holders of these were obliged to sell them, in order to find the means of equipment for the holy war, the feudal power became lodged in a less number of hands than before, and kings were able to make themselves masters of much that had until then been independent of their authority. At the same time the class of citizens was rising in importance and dignity. As the wealth of towns was increased by commerce, they purchased or otherwise acquired privileges, and became emancipated from their lay or ecclesiastical lords. It was the interest of kings to favour them, as a counterpoise to the power of the nobles; and thus, more especially in France, the strength of the crown and the liberty of the trading class advanced in alliance with each other. And, although slowly and gradually, the crusades contributed towards the elevation of the peasantry, and the abolition of slavery in western Europe.

To the clergy the transfer of property occasioned by the crusades was very advantageous. Sees or monasteries could not permanently suffer by the zeal of crusading bishops or abbots, inasmuch as the incumbents could not dispose of more than a life-interest in their property. And, while they were thus secured against loss, the hierarchy had the opportunity of gaining immense profit by purchasing the lay estates which were thrown into the market at a depreciated value, while in such purchases they were almost without rivalry, as the Jews, the only other class which possessed the command of a large capital, were not buyers or cultivators of land.

But the popes were the chief gainers by the crusades. By means of these enterprises they acquired a control over western Christendom which they might otherwise have sought in vain. They held in their own hands the direction of movements which engaged all Europe; and their power was still further increased, when, in the second crusade, sovereign princes had shown the example of taking the cross. The spirit of the time then emboldened the popes to propose that emperors and kings should embark in a crusade; to refuse would have been disgraceful; and when the promise had been made, the pope was entitled to require the fulfilment of it whenever he might think fit. Nor would any plea of inconvenience serve as an excuse; for what was the interest of a prince or of his dominions to the general concern of Christendom? In the east, the popes extended their sway by the establishment of the Latin church, while they claimed the suzerainty of the territories wrested from the infidels. And while in the west the holy war afforded them a continual pretext for sending legates to interfere in every country, they also gained by means of it a large addition to their wealth. The contributions which had at first been a free offering towards the cause became a permanent tribute, which was exacted especially from the monks and clergy; and when this took the form of a certain proportion of the revenues, the popes were thus authorized to investigate and to control the amount and the disposal of the whole property which belonged to ecclesiastical or monastic foundations.

Urban felt the addition of strength which he had gained by the crusade. He compelled Conrad to renounce the power of investiture, which the prince had ventured to exercise at Milan; and in a council held at Bari, in 1098, with a view to a reconciliation with the Greeks, he would have excommunicated the king of England for his behaviour to the primate Anselm, had not Anselm himself entreated him to refrain. But to his surest allies, the Normans of the south, the pope was careful to give no offence. Roger, grand count of Sicily, had now firmly established himself in that island, and, while he allowed toleration to the Mahometan inhabitants, had restored the profession of Christianity, founded bishoprics, and built many churches and monasteries. In 1098 the grand count was offended by finding that the pope, without consulting him, had appointed the bishop of Trani legate for Sicily; and, in consequence of his remonstrances at a council at Salerno, a remarkable arrangement was made, which, from the circumstance that it lodged the ecclesiastical power in the same hands with the civil, is known as the “Sicilian Monarchy”. By this the pope invests Roger and his successors with the character of perpetual legates of the apostolic see; all papal mandates are to be executed through their agency, and they are to have the right of selecting such bishops and abbots as they may think fit to attend the papal councils. In explanation of a grant so unlike the usual policy of Rome, it has been conjectured that the pope, being aware that the Normans would be guilty of many irregularities in the administration of the church, yet being resolved not to quarrel with such valuable auxiliaries, devolved his authority on the prince with a view to rid himself of personal responsibility for the toleration of these irregularities.

In 1099, the antipope and his adherents were finally driven out from Rome, where they had until then kept possession of some churches; and Urban became master of the whole city. But on the 29th of July in that year he died—a fortnight after the taking of Jerusalem, but before he could receive the tidings of the triumph which had crowned his enterprise. The cardinals, assembled in the church of St. Clement, chose as his successor the cardinal of that church, Rainier, a Tuscan by birth, who had been a monk at Cluny, and, having been sent to Rome at the age of twenty, on the business of his monastery, had obtained the patronage of Gregory, by whom he was employed in important affairs and promoted to the dignity of cardinal. Rainier on his election assumed the name of Paschal II.

In the following year, Guibert or Clement III, the rival of four successive popes, died at Castelli. That he was a man of great abilities and acquirements, and was possessed of many noble qualities, is admitted by such of his opponents as are not wholly blinded by the enmity of party and his power of securing a warm attachment to his person is proved by the fact that in the decline of his fortunes, and even to the last, he was not deserted. His grave at Ravenna was said to be distinguished by miracles, until Paschal ordered his remains to be dug up and cast into unconsecrated ground. Three antipopes—Theoderic, Albert, and Maginulf, the last of whom took the name of Sylvester IV—were set up in succession by Guibert’s party; but they failed to gain any considerable strength, and Paschal held undisturbed possession of his see. Philip of France, after having been excommunicated at Clermont, had succeeded, through the intercession of Ivo of Chartres, in obtaining absolution, which was pronounced by the pope in a council at Nimes, on condition of his forswearing further intercourse wirth Bertrada. This promise, however, was soon violated, and in 1097 the king was again excommunicated by the legate, Hugh of Lyons. The pope, greatly to his legate’s annoyance, was prevailed on to grant a second absolution in the following year; but in 1100 the adulterous pair incurred a fresh excommunication at Poitiers. Four years later, on the king’s humble request, supported by the representations of Ivo and other bishops, who had met in a council at Beaugency, Paschal authorized his legate, Lambert bishop of Arras, to absolve them on condition that they should never thenceforth see each other except in the presence of unsuspected witnesses. At a synod at Paris in 1105, the king appeared as a barefooted penitent, and both he and Bertrada were absolved on swearing to the prescribed conditions yet it appears that they afterwards lived together without any further remonstrance on the part of the pope. Philip on his death-bed, in 1108, expressed a feeling that he was unworthy to share the royal sepulchre at St. Denys, and desired that he might be buried at Fleury, in the hope that St. Benedict, the patron of the monastery, would intercede for the pardon of his sins.

The marriage of Matilda with the younger Welf had been a matter of policy, not of affection. The countess, finding her political strength increase, treated her young husband with coldness and Welf was disgusted by discovering that the rich inheritance, which had been a chief inducement to the connexion, had already been made over in remainder to the church. A separation took place. Welf, as the only possible means of annulling the donation, invoked the emperor’s aid, and his father, the duke of Bavaria, hitherto Henry’s most formidable opponent in Germany, now joined him with all his influence. On returning to his native country, after a sojourn of nearly seven years in Italy, Henry met with a general welcome. He devoted himself to the government of Germany, and for some years the stormy agitation of his life was exchanged for tranquil prosperity. His conciliatory policy won over many of his old opponents, whose enmity died away as intercourse with him revealed to them his real character; and at a great diet at Cologne, in 1098, he obtained an acknowledgment of his second son, Henry, as his successor, in the room of the rebel Conrad, while, with a jealousy suggested by sad experience, he exacted from the prince an oath that he would not during his father's lifetime attempt to gain political power. The emperor’s ecclesiastical prerogative was acknowledged; although his excommunication was unrepealed, even bishops of the papal party communicated with him and were fain to take investiture at his hands. The Jews, who had suffered from the fury of the crusading multitudes, were taken under his special protection, and from that time were regarded as immediately dependent on the crown.

The death of the antipope Clement, and the substitution of Paschal for Urban, appeared to open a prospect of reconciliation with Rome; and circumstances were rendered still more favourable by the removal of Conrad, who died in 1101, neglected by those who had made him their tool, but who no longer needed him. Henry announced an intention of crossing the Alps, and submitting his differences with Rome to the judgment of a council. But—whether from unwillingness to revisit a country which had been so disastrous to him, from a fear to leave Germany exposed, and in compliance with the dissuasions of his bishops, or from an apprehension that the pope, elated by the success of the crusade, would ask exorbitant terms of reconciliation—he failed to make his appearance; and Paschal, at a synod in March 1102, renewed his excommunication, adding an anathema against all heresies, and especially that which disturbs the present state of the church by despising ecclesiastical censures. Yet the emperor’s clergy still adhered to him; among them, the pious Otho of Bamberg, afterwards famous as the apostle of Pomerania, who acted as his secretary and assisted him in his devotions.

Henry spent the Christmas of 1102 at Mayence, where he declared a resolution of abdicating in favour of his son, and setting out for the holy war, as soon as he should be reconciled with the pope. At the same time he proclaimed peace to the empire for four years,—that no one should during that time injure his neighbour, whether in person or in property; and he compelled the princes to swear to it. The decree was obeyed, and Germany by degrees recovered from the wounds inflicted by its long distractions. The peaceable classes—the merchant and trader, the husbandman and the artisan—carried on their occupations unmolested; the highways were safe for travellers, and the traffic of the rivers was unimpeded by the little tyrants whose castles frowned along the banks. But the discords of Germany were only laid to sleep for a time. Intrigue was busy among the clergy, with whom the principles of Gregory had made way in proportion as their utility for the interests of the class became more apparent. Many bishops were won over from Henry's party, and were ready to countenance a new movement against him. And a renewal of civil war was sure to be welcome to the nobles and their armed retainers, who fretted against the forced inaction which was so opposite to the habits of their former lives, while many of them, being no longer at liberty to resort to violence and plunder, found themselves reduced from splendour to poverty.

The younger Henry was now tampered with. The young nobles, with whom the emperor had studiously encouraged him to associate, were prompted to insinuate to him that he was improperly kept under—that if he should wait until his father's death, the empire would probably then be seized by another; and that the oath exacted of him by his father was not binding. These suggestions were too successful. In December 1104, as the emperor was on an expedition against a refractory Saxon count, his son deserted him at Fritzlar, and to all his overtures and entreaties made no other answer than that he could hold no intercourse with an excommunicate person, and that his oath to such a person was null and void. There is no evidence to show that the pope had been concerned in suggesting this defection; but the prince immediately asked his counsel, and was absolved from his share in the emperor's excommunication by the legate, Gebhard of Zahringen, bishop of Constance. On declaring himself against his father, the young Henry at once found himself at the head of a powerful party, among the most conspicuous members of which was Ruthard, archbishop of Mayence, who had been charged with misdemeanours as to the property of the Jews slain by the crusaders, and had found it expedient to abscond when the emperor proposed an inquiry into his conducts. For a year Germany was disquieted by the muster, the movements, and the contests of hostile armies. The prince, however, professed that he had no wish to reign—that his only motive in rebelling was to bring about his father's conversion; and, with consistent hypocrisy, he refused to assume the ensigns of royalty.

On the 21st of December 1105, an interview between the father and the son took place at Coblentz. The emperor’s fondness burst forth without restraint; he threw himself at the feet of his son, and confessed himself guilty of many offences against God, but adjured the prince not to stain his own name by taking it on himself to punish his father's misdeeds. The behaviour of the young Henry was marked throughout by the deepest perfidy. He professed to return his father's love, and proposed that they should dismiss their followers with the exception of a few knights on each side, and should spend the Christmas season together at Mayence. To this the emperor consented, and in his interviews with his son, as they proceeded up the bank of the Rhine, he poured forth all the warmth of his affection for him, while the prince professed to return his feelings, and repeatedly gave him the most solemn assurances of safety. But at Bingen Henry found himself made prisoner, and he was shut up in the castle of Bockelheim on the Nahe, under the custody of his enemy Gebhard of Urach, bishop of Spires, who had lately been promoted to that see by the rebel king. The emperor was rudely treated and ill fed ; his beard was unshorn; he was denied the use of a bath; at Christmas the holy Eucharist was refused to him, nor was he allowed the ministrations of a confessor; and he was assailed with threats of personal violence, of death or lifelong captivity, until he was persuaded to surrender the ensigns of his power—the cross and the lance, the crown, the sceptre, and the globe—into the hands of the rebel’s partisans. He entreated that an opportunity of defending his conduct before the princes of Germany might be granted him; but, although a great diet was about to meet at Mayence, he was not allowed to appear before it—under the pretext that his excommunication made him unfit, but in reality because it was feared that his appearance might move the members to compassion, while the citizens of Mayence, like the inhabitants of most other German cities, were known to be still firmly attached to him. On the 31st of December he was removed to Ingelheim, where he was brought before an assembly composed exclusively of his enemies. Worn out by threats and ill usage, he professed himself desirous to resign his power, and to withdraw into the quiet which his age rendered suitable for him. The papal legate and the fallen emperor's own son alone remained unmoved by his humiliation. In answer to his passionate entreaties for absolution, the legate told him that he must acknowledge himself guilty of having unjustly persecuted Gregory. Henry earnestly desired that a day might be allowed him to justify his conduct before the princes of the empire, but it was answered that he must at once submit, under pain of imprisonment for life. He asked whether by unreserved submission he might hope to obtain absolution; but the legate replied that absolution could only be granted by the pope himself The emperor, whose spirit was entirely broken, so that he was ready to catch at any hope, however vague, and to comply with any terms, promised to satisfy the church in all points; it is even said that he solicited, for the sake of a maintenance, to be admitted as a canon of Spires, a cathedral founded by his grandfather and finished by himself, and that the bishop harshly refused his request. On the festival of the Epiphany, the younger Henry was crowned at Mayence by archbishop Ruthard, who at the ceremony warned him that, if he should fail in his duties as a sovereign, his father’s fate would over­take him. The violence of his ecclesiastical abettors was shown by disinterring the bones of deceased imperialist bishops.

But serious outbreaks in favour of the dethroned emperor took place in Alsatia and elsewhere; and after a time, alarmed by rumours that his death or perpetual captivity was intended, he contrived to make his escape by the river to Cologne. At Aix-la-Chapelle he was met by Otbert, bishop of Liège, to whose affectionate pen we are chiefly indebted for the knowledge of his latest fortunes, and under the bishop's escort he proceeded to Liège. The clergy of that city had steadily adhered to him, and when Paschal desired count Robert of Flanders to punish them for their fidelity, one of their number, the annalist Sigebert of Gemblours, sent forth a powerful letter in defence of their conduct, and in reproof of the papal assumptions. From his place of refuge Henry addressed letters to the kings of France, England, and Denmark, in which he denounced the new claims of Rome as an aggression on the common rights of all princes, and pathetically related the story of his sufferings from the enmity of the papal party and from the treachery of his own son whom they had misled. He again offered to abide an examination of his conduct by the princes of Germany, and he requested his godfather, the venerable abbot of Cluny, to mediate with the pope. Other cities joined with Liège in declaring for him; he was urged to retract his forced resignation, and he once more found himself in a condition to contest the possession of the kingdom. The younger Henry was repulsed from Cologne, and the hostile armies were advancing towards each other, when the emperor's faithful chamberlain appeared in the king's camp, and delivered to him his father’s ring and sword. Henry IV had died at Liège, on the anniversary of his defeat at Melrichstadt, the 7th of August 1106, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the fiftieth of his reign—desiring on his death-bed that these relics might be carried to his successor, with a request (which proved fruitless) that his partisans might be forgiven for their adherence to him.

In surveying the long and troubled reign of this prince, it seems impossible to acquit the hierarchy of grievous wrongs towards him. His early impressions of the clergy were not likely to be favourable—derived as they must have been from the remembrance of his abduction by Hanno, and from the sight of that prelate’s sternness, ambition, pride, and nepotism, of Adalbert’s vanity and worldliness, and of the gross simony, misrule, rapacity, and corruption which disgraced the German church. Under his self-appointed ecclesiastical guardians, his education was neglected, and he was encouraged in licence and riot. The warnings of Gregory, however sound in their substance, were not conveyed in a manner which could be expected to influence him for good, since they were accompanied by new claims against the royal and imperial power. Gregory took advantage of his weakness; he surrounded him with a net of intrigues; he used against him the disaffection of his subjects, which had been in great part provoked by the encroachments of some ecclesiastics and was swollen by the industrious enmity of others; he humbled him to the dust and trampled on him. The claims of the papacy, whether just or unjust, were novel; it was the pope that invaded the emperor's traditional power, while Henry asserted only the prerogatives which his predecessors had exercised without question. “It was his fate”, says William of Malmesbury, “that whosoever took up arms against him regarded himself as a champion of religion”. By the hierarchy his troubles were fomented, and atrocious calumnies were devised against him; it was under pretence of religion that his sons, one after the other, rebelled, and that that son on whom he had lavished his tenderness, to whom he was even willing to transfer all his power, forced from him a premature resignation by the most hateful treachery and violence. Yet Henry, among all the faults which are imputed to him, is not taxed by his very enemies with any profanity or irreligion; his contests were not even with the papacy itself but with its occupants, and with the new pretensions by which they assailed his crown.

The conduct of Henry as a ruler must be viewed with allowance for the unfortunate training and circumstances of his youth. The faults of other men were visited on him; the demands of his subjects were frequently unreasonable, and were urged in an offensive style; and if his breach of engagements was often and too justly charged against him, it may be palliated by the consideration that the opposition to him was animated by a power which claimed authority to release from all oaths and obligations. Adversity drew forth the display of talents and of virtues which had not before been suspected; from the time of his humiliation at Canossa, he appeared to have awakened to a new understanding of his difficulties and of his duties, and exhibited a vigour, a firmness of purpose, and a fertility of resource, of which his earlier life had given little indication. His clemency and placability were so remarkable as even to extort the acknowledgments of hostile writers. The troubles of his last days were excited, not by misgovernment, but by his having governed too well.

To the needy and to the oppressed classes Henry was endeared by his warm sympathy for them, by his support of them against the tyranny of the nobles, by the charity not only of bountiful almsgiving, but of personal kindness in administering to their reliefs. The poor, the widows, the orphans crowded around his bier, pouring forth their tears and prayers, kissing the hands which had distributed his gifts, and commemorating his kind and gentle deeds. The loyal Otbert buried his master with the rites of the church, but was soon after compelled, as a condition of receiving absolution, to disinter the body, which was then carried to Spires, where Henry himself had desired to be buried in the cathedral which owed its completion to his bounty. But this was not to be permitted; the cathedral, in consequence of having been polluted by the corpse, was interdicted by bishop Gebhard; and for five years the remains of the excommunicated emperor were kept in the unconsecrated chapel of St. Afra, where, like the relics of a saint, they were visited by multitudes who affectionately cherished his memory.

CHAPTER V.

ENGLAND FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF ST. ANSELM.

A.D. 1066-1108.

THE successful expedition of William of Normandy produced important changes in the English church. At his coronation, which was performed by Aldred, archbishop of York, William, as heir of Edward the confessor, swore to administer equal justice to all his subjects but the necessity of providing for his followers soon led him to disregard this pledge, while a pretext was afforded by the obstinate resistance which he met with in completing the subjugation of the country, and by the frequent insurrections of the Saxons. Much property of churches and monasteries was confiscated, together with the treasures which the wealthier English had deposited in the monasteries for security. During the reign of Edward, the Norman influence had for a time prevailed in England; many Normans had been advanced to high ecclesiastical stations, and the system of alien priories—i.e. of annexing priories and estates in England to foreign religious houses—had been largely practised. But under the ascendency of Earl Godwin, Robert of Jumièges, the Norman archbishop of Canterbury, had been obliged to leave the kingdom, and the primacy had been conferred on Stigand, bishop of Winchester, who, after having unsuccessfully applied for the pall to Leo IX, received it from the antipope John of Velletri, and held his see in defiance of Alexander II. Stigand, according to some writers, refused to officiate at the coronation of the Conqueror, while others state that William refused his services; in any case, he was obnoxious as a Saxon. William for a time affected to treat him with great honour; but at a council held at Winchester under two papal legates in 1070, he was charged with having intruded into the seat of a living bishop; with having irregularly held at once the sees of Winchester and Canterbury; with the want of a properly-conferred pall, and with having used for a time that of his ejected predecessor. These pretexts served for the deprivation of the archbishop, which was followed by that of other native prelates, so that, with a jingle exception, the English sees were soon in the hands of Normans, who either had been appointed under Edward or were now promoted by the Conqueror. The system of preferring foreigners was gradually extended to the abbacies and lower dignities, and for a long series of years it was hopeless for any Englishman, whatever his merit might be, to aspire to any considerable station in the church of his own land. One Norman only, Guitmund, the opponent of Berengar, is recorded as having ventured to refuse an English bishopric, and to protest against a system so adverse to the interests of the church and of the people.

The later Anglo-Saxon clergy are very unfavourably represented to us by writers after the conquest. It is said that they were scarcely able to stammer out the forms of Divine service—that any one who knew “grammar” was regarded by his brethren as a prodigy; and religion as well as learning had fallen into decay. But, although the increase of intercourse with other countries eventually led to an improvement in the English church, it seems questionable whether the immediate effect of the change introduced by the conquest was beneficial. The new prelates were in general chosen for other than ecclesiastical merits; they could not edify their flocks, whose language they would have scorned to understand : the Anglo-Saxon literature, the richest by far that any Teutonic nation as yet possessed, fell into oblivion and contempt; the traditions of older English piety were lost; and there was no love or mutual confidence to win for the new hierarchy the influence which the native pastors had been able to exert for the enforcement of religion on their peopled

But while the dignities of the church were commonly bestowed on illiterate warriors or on court-chaplains, the primacy was to be otherwise disposed of Lanfranc had been sentenced by William to banishment from Normandy for opposing his marriage with Matilda, as being within the forbidden degrees; but, as he was on his way to leave the country, an accidental meeting with the duke led to a friendly understanding, so that Lanfranc was employed to obtain the pope’s sanction for the union, and a removal of the interdict under which William’s territories had been laid. His success in this commission recommended him to the duke’s favour; he was transferred from Bec to the headship of St. Stephen’s at Caen, the noble abbey which William was required to found in penance for the irregularity of his marriage, and, after having already refused the archbishopric of Rouen, he was now urged to accept that of Canterbury. It was not without much reluctance that he resolved to undertake so onerous a dignity among a people of barbarous and unknown language; and the difficulties which he experienced and foresaw in the execution of his office speedily induced him to solicit permission from Alexander II to return to his monastery; but the pope refused to consent, and Lanfranc thereupon requested that the pall might be sent to him. The answer came from the archdeacon Hildebrand—that, if the pall could be granted to any one without his personal appearance at Rome, it would be granted to Lanfranc; but that the journey was indispensable. On his arrival at Rome, the archbishop was treated with extraordinary honour. The pope, who had formerly been his pupil at Bec, rose up to bestowed on him two palls, as a mark of signal consideration—a compliment of which it is said that there has never been another instance—and invested him with the authority of legate. A question as to precedence was raised by Thomas, archbishop of York, who had accompanied Lanfranc to Rome and contended that, by the terms of Gregory’s instructions to Augustine, the primacy of England ought to alternate between Canterbury and the northern see, for which he also claimed jurisdiction over Worcester, Lichfield, and Lincoln. The pope declined to give judgment, and remitted the questions to England, where, after discussions in the king’s presence at Winchester and at Windsor, they were decided in favour of Lanfranc on the ground of ancient custom. The archbishop of York was required to promise submission to Canterbury, and, with his suffragans, to attend councils at such places as the archbishop of Canterbury should appoint.

Lanfranc exerted himself to reform the disorders of the English church (which it is very possible that, as a man trained in entirely different circumstances, he may have somewhat overrated), and in his labours for this purpose he was effectually supported by the king, who bestowed on him his full confidence, and usually entrusted him with the regency during his own absence on the continent. The primate used his influence to obtain the promotion of deserving men to bishoprics. Many churches which had fallen into ruin were rebuilt—among them the primate's own cathedral. Sees which had been established in villages or small towns were removed to places of greater importance; thus the bishopric of Selsey was transferred to Chichester, that of Sherborne to Sarum, Elmham to Thetford, Dorchester (in Oxfordshire) to Lincoln, Lichfield to Chester—a change agreeable to the ancient system of the church, but perhaps suggested by the policy of William, who, by thus placing the bishops in fortified cities, secured their assistance in preserving the subjection of the people. Lanfranc—“the venerable father and comfort of monks”, as he is styled by the Anglo-Saxon chronicler—was zealous for celibacy and monasticism. The effects of Dunstan’s labours had passed away, and the English clergy had again become accustomed to marry freely; but the Italian primate renewed the endeavour to substitute monks for secular canons in cathedrals, and serious struggles arose in consequence. Nor was the enforcement of celibacy on the clergy complete; for, although a council at Winchester in 1076 enacted that no canon should have a wife, and that for the future no married man should be ordained priest or deacon, the rural clergy were, in contradiction to the regulations which Gregory VII was labouring to enforce elsewhere, allowed by the council to retain their wives. William was greatly indebted to Rome. His expedition had been sanctioned by a consecrated banner, the gift of Alexander II, and he had found the papal support valuable in carrying out his plans as to the English church. But he was determined to make use of Rome—not to acknowledge her as a mistress. He held firmly in his own grasp the government of the church. By retraining from the sale of preferment—however he may have been guilty of simony in that wider definition which includes the bestowal of benefices for service or by favour—he earned the commendation of Gregory but he promoted bishops and abbots by his own will, invested them by the feudal forms, and took it upon himself to exempt the abbey which was founded in memory of his victory near Hastings from all episcopal and monastic jurisdiction. No pope was to be acknowledged in England, except by the king’s permission; nor, although William allowed legates to hold synods in furtherance of his own views, was anything to be treated or enacted at these meetings without his previous sanction. The bishops were forbidden to obey citations to Rome; they were forbidden to receive letters from the pope without showing them to the king; nor were any of his nobles or servants to be excommunicated without his licence. The bishop was no longer to sit in the same court with the sheriff but his jurisdiction was confined to spiritual matters. The tenure of frank-almoign (or free alms), under which the bishops had formerly held their lands, was exchanged for the feudal tenure by barony; and the estates of the clergy became subject to the same obligations as other lands.

In his ecclesiastical policy William was willingly seconded by the primate. Lanfranc was indeed no devoted adherent of Gregory, with whom he was probably dissatisfied on account of the indulgence which the pope had shown to his antagonist Berengar. In a letter to a partisan of the antipope, he professes neutrality as to the great contest of the time, and even shows an inclination towards the imperial side. After censuring the unseemly language which his correspondent had applied to Gregory, he adds—“Yet I believe that the emperor has not undertaken so great an enterprise without much reason, nor has he been able to achieve so great a victory without much aid from God”. And, while he advises Guibert’s agent not to come to England, it is on the ground that the king's leave ought first to be obtained—that England has not rejected Gregory, or given a public adhesion to either pope, and that there is room for hearing both parties before coming to a decisions. If such was the archbishop's feeling as to the controversy between the pope and the emperor, he could hardly fail to be wholly with his own sovereign in any questions between England and Rome.

Gregory, in his letters to William and to Lanfranc, spoke of the king with profuse expressions of the deepest respect, as incomparably superior to all other princes of the age; and, when obliged to censure any of his acts, he was careful to season the censure with compliments to the king’s character, with remembrances of their old mutual regard, and of the services which he had rendered to William in former days. But these blandishments were thrown away on a sovereign whose policy was as decided, and whose will was as strong, as those of Gregory himself. When, in 1079, the pope required William to see to the payment of Peter-pence from England, and to swear fealty to the apostolic see, the reply was cool and peremptory—“Your legate has admonished me in your name to do fealty to you and your successors, and to take better order as to the money which my predecessors have been accustomed to send to the Roman church; the one I have admitted; the other I have not admitted. I refused to do fealty, nor will I do it, because neither have I promised it, nor do I find that my predecessors have performed it to yours”. The payment was to be made, not as a tribute, but as alms. On receiving this answer, the pope declared that money without obedience was worthless, and at the same time he complained of the king's conduct in other respects; that, by a presumption which no one even among heathen princes had ventured on, he prevented the prelates of his kingdom from visiting the apostle's city; that he had promoted to the see of Rouen the son of a priest—an appointment to which Gregory was resolved never to consent. His legate was charged to threaten William with the wrath of St. Peter unless he should repent, and to cite certain representatives of the English and Norman bishops to a synod at Rome. No heed was paid to this citation; but the pope submitted to the slight; and it is certain that, but for the voluntary retirement of William's nominee, Guitmund, the ally of Lanfranc in the Eucharistic controversy, the objection in the case of Rouen would have been withdrawn. Equally unsuccessful were the pope's attempts on Lanfranc. Again and again invitations, becoming by degrees more urgent, required the archbishop to appear at Rome, where he had not been since Gregory's election. After a time the pope expresses a belief that he is influenced by fear of the king, but tells him that neither fear, nor love, nor the difficulties of the journey, ought to detain him. Lanfranc, in his answer, showed no disposition to comply; and he alluded, with an indifference which must have been very annoying, to the failure of the pope's claim to fealty. At length Gregory summoned the archbishop to set out for Rome within four months after receiving his citation, and to appear there on a certain day, under pain of deposition, but the citation was as vain as those before it, and the threat was never followed up.

Gregory again found himself obliged to remonstrate in the case of William’s half-brother, Odo, bishop of Bayeux. Odo, deluded (it is said) by the arts of sooth­sayers, who assured him that a person of his name was to be pope, sent large sums of money to Rome for the purpose of securing himself an interest there, and enlisted a considerable force with which he intended to make his way to Italy. But William, on discovering the project, arrested and imprisoned him; and, in answer to an objection as to the bishop's spiritual character, declared that he had proceeded against him, not as bishop, but as earl of Kent. Gregory expostulated with the king, insisting on the immunities of the clergy, with the pretended saying of St. Ambrose, that royalty is less comparable to the episcopal dignity than lead to gold, and quoting the text—“He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of Mine eye”; but Odo remained in prison until his brother, when dying, reluctantly ordered his release; and here, as in the other cases, conduct which would have drawn down the most awful thunders of Rome on the head of a weaker prince, was allowed to pass unpunished in the stern, able, powerful, and resolute master of England and Normandy.

In 1087 the Conqueror was succeeded by William Rufus. For a time the new king was kept within some degree of restraint by the influence of Lanfranc, who had been his tutor; but on the archbishop’s death, in 1089, his evil dispositions were altogether uncontrolled. William, according to an ancient writer, “feared God but little, and men not at all”. His character was utterly profane; his coarse and reckless wit was directed not only against the superstitions of the age, or against the clergy, whom he despised and hated, but against religion itself. The shameless debaucheries in which he indulged gave an example which his subjects were not slow to imitate. The rapacity by which he endeavoured to supply his profuse expenditure fell with especial weight on the property of the church. In former times the revenues of a vacant abbey had been committed to the bishop, and those of a vacant bishopric to the archbishop, under whose superintendence they were applied to religious or charitable uses; under the Conqueror, they were administered by a clerk, who was accountable for his stewardship to the next incumbent. But William's chosen adviser, a Norman ecclesiastic of low birth, named Ralph Passeflaber or Flambard, devised the idea that, as bishoprics and abbacies were fiefs of the crown, the profits of them during vacancy belonged to the sovereign. Under this pretext William kept bishoprics long vacant; while the diocese was left without a pastor, he extorted all that was possible from the tenants of the see, by means alike oppressive to them and injurious to the future bishop and the most unblushing simony was practised in the disposal of ecclesiastical preferments.

After the death of Lanfranc, the primacy remained vacant for nearly four years. In answer to entreaties that he would nominate a successor, William swore, as he was wont, “by the holy face of Lucca”, that he would as yet have no archbishop but himself; and when public prayers were offered up for the direction of his choice, he said that the church might ask what it pleased, but that he was resolved to take his own way. A severe illness, which followed soon after, was regarded as a judgment of heaven, and the king was earnestly urged to show his penitence by filling up the primacy, and by redressing the grievances of his government. He consented, promised amendment, and made choice of Anselm as archbishop.

Anselm was born of an honourable family at Aosta, in 1033 or the following year. His boyhood was devout, but was succeeded by a somewhat irregular youth, more especially after the death of his pious and gentle mother, to whom he had been deeply attached. The harshness with which his father treated him produced a resolution to leave his home; he crossed the Alps, and, after having, like Lanfranc, resided for some time at Avranches, he became, at the age of twenty-seven, a monk at Bec, where the founder, Herluin, was still abbot, while Lanfranc was prior and master of the school. On the removal of Lanfranc to Caen in 1063, Anselm succeeded him in his offices, and at the death of Herluin, in 1078, he was elected to the abbacy. With each dignity which he attained, his anxious feeling of responsibility increased, and he would have returned to the condition of a simple monk, but for the authority of Mauritius, archbishop of Rouen. His fame speedily even surpassed that of Lanfranc, and his name was widely spread by treatises on philosophical, theological, and grammatical subjects. Pupils flocked to his instructions; questions were addressed to him from all quarters, and his friend and biographer, Edmer, tells us that his answers were received as oracles from heaven. Since the time of St. Augustine, the church had produced no teacher of equal eminence with Anselm, or so powerful in his influence on later ages. He has been described as the founder of natural theology; but if this title is to be applied to him, the term must be understood as signifying a theology which aimed at bringing the aid of philosophical thought to the support of the most rigid orthodoxy of the church. Whereas John Scotus had made philosophy his foundation, and had endeavoured to reduce religion into accordance with it, the method of Anselm was exactly the opposite; its character is expressed in the title originally given to his ‘Proslogion’—‘Faith in search of Understanding’. The object of that work is to prove the existence and attributes of the Deity by a single argument. Edmer relates that, when the idea of such a proof had entered into Anselm’s mind, he was unable to eat, drink, or sleep; it disturbed him at his devotions, and, although he endeavoured to resist it as a temptation of the devil, he could not rest until, in the watches of the night, a light broke in on him a—“God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived; and he who well understands this will understand that the Divine Being exists in such a manner that His non-existence cannot even be conceived”. A monk named Gaunilo wrote a short tract in reply, objecting that the conception of a thing does not imply its existence, and exemplifying this by the fabulous island of Atlantis to which Anselm rejoined that the illustration was inapplicable to the question, since existence is a part of the perfections which are conceived of as belonging to the Deity.

The character of Anselm was amiable, gentle and modest. Simple and even severe, in his own habits, he was indulgent to others, and the confidence which he placed in those below him, with his indifference to the vulgar interests of the world, was often abused. Edmer draws a very pleasing picture of his familiar intercourse, and relates many stories which illustrate his wisdom, his kindly temper, his mild, yet keen and subtle humour, e In one of these stories, an abbot “who was accounted very religious” applies in despair for advice as to the treatment of the pupils in his monastery; he had flogged them indefatigably both by day and by night, but, instead of amending, they only grew worse. Anselm by degrees leads him to understand that so brutal a discipline could only be expected to brutalize its objects, and the abbot returns home to practise a gentler and a wiser system. But as the exercise of Anselm’s philosophical genius was subordinated to the strictest orthodoxy, so with his calm and peaceful nature he combined the most unbending resolution in the cause of the hierarchical system. To this he seems to have adhered, not from any feeling of interest or passion, or even of strong personal conviction, but because it was sanctioned by the church, while the scandalous abuses perpetrated by such sovereigns as William Rufus tended to blind him to the existence of dangers on the other side; and his assertion of it was marked by nothing of violence or assumption, but by an immoveable tenacity and perseverance.

Anselm was already known and honoured in England, which he had visited for the purpose of superintending the English estates of his abbey. He had been acquainted with the Conqueror, who, in conversing with him, laid aside his wonted sternness; and he had been the guest of Lanfranc, who had profited by his advice to deal tenderly with the peculiarities and prejudices of the people committed to his care. It was with great reluctance that, during the vacancy of the archbishopric, he yielded to the repeated invitations of Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, who desired to see him in a sickness which was supposed to be mortal: for he knew that popular opinion had designated him as the successor of his old master; he was unwilling to exchange his monastery, with its quiet opportunities of study and thought, and his position of influence as a teacher, for the pomp and troubled dignity of the English primacy; and, honouring royalty, disliking contention, but firmly resolved to maintain the cause of the church, he shrank from the connexion with such a prince as William—a connexion which he compared to the yoking a young untamed bull with an old and feeble sheep. He therefore endeavoured, with a sincerity which cannot reasonably be questioned, to decline the offer; but he was carried into the sick king's chamber at Gloucester, the crosier was forced into his hands, and notwithstanding his struggles he was hurried away to a neighbouring church, where the people received him with acclamations as archbishop, and the clergy sang Te Deum for the election. He did not, however, consider himself at liberty to accept the primacy until he had been released from his obligations to his monks, to the archbishop of Rouen, and to his sovereign, duke Robert of Normandy.

The king recovered, and relapsed into courses even worse than before. The works of amendment which he had begun were undone, and when Gundulf, bishop of Rochester, ventured gently to remind him of his late promises, he disavowed the obligation in a speech of outrageous profanity. Anselm waited on him at Dover, and stated the terms on which only he would consent to be archbishop—that he should be allowed to enjoy all the rights of his see which Lanfranc had possessed, with such portions of its alienated property as he might be able to recover; that William should pay him the same regard in spiritual matters which the king claimed from the archbishop in temporal things; and that no offence should arise as to his acknowledgment of pope Urban, who had not yet been recognized in England. The answer was, that he should have all which Lanfranc had had, but that the other points must remain undecided for the present. The archbishop was invested in September 1093, but his consecration did not take place until the 4th of December. At this ceremony the archbishop of York, who took the chief part in it, objected to the title of "”metropolitan of all England"” on the ground that it implied a denial of the metropolitan dignity of his own Bec. The objection was allowed, and the title of primate was substituted.

The first entrance of Anselm into his city had been disturbed by the appearance of Flambard, who in the king’s name instituted against him a suit of which the subject is not recorded and other events soon occurred to justify the apprehensions with which he had undertaken his office. William was busy in raising subsidies for an intended expedition into Normandy, and the archbishop, after his consecration, was advised by his friends to send him a contribution of five hundred pounds, in the hope that it might render the king favourable to the church. William was at first pleased with the gift, but some of his advisers persuaded him that it was too little—that the archbishop, in consideration of his promotion, ought to have given twice or four times as much. Anselm replied that he could not raise more without distressing his tenants; that it should not be his last gift; that a little freely given was better than a larger sum extorted : and, as William persevered in refusing the money, he bestowed it on the poor for the benefit of the king's soul, comforting himself with the thought that he could not be charged with even the appearance of simony. The king was deeply offended. He evaded the fulfilment of his promise as to the restoration of the archbishop’s estates. He refused him leave to hold a council for the suppression of disorders among the clergy and monks, and for the general reformation of morals; and when Anselm urged the necessity of filling up the vacant abbacies, he asked, “What is that to you?—are not the abbeys mine?”. “They are yours” replied the primate, “to defend and protect as advocate, but they are not yours to invade and to devastate”. The knowledge of the royal disfavour naturally raised up or encouraged a host of lesser enemies, who industriously persecuted Anselm by their encroachments on his property and by other annoyances. The bishops advised him to propitiate William by a new offering of five hundred pounds; but he declared that he would not oppress his exhausted tenants, and that such a proceeding would be alike unworthy of the king and of himself.

Notwithstanding all discouragements, the archbishop set vigorously about the work of reform. In the beginning of Lent, when the court was at Hastings, he refused to give the customary ashes and benediction to the young nobles who affected an effeminate style of dress and manners—wearing long hair, which they curled and adorned like women. It is not to be supposed that he regarded for their own sake these follies, or the fashionable shoes in which the invention of Fulk of Anjou had been developed by one of William’s courtiers, who twisted their long points into the likeness of a ram's horn. But he dreaded the tendency of such fashions to extinguish a high and active spirit, and he denounced them from a knowledge that they were connected with habits of luxury and gaming, and with the unnatural vices which had become rife in England since the conquest.

Since the death of Gregory VII neither of the rival popes had been acknowledged in England. The king had come to regard it as a special prerogative of his crown, distinguishing him from other sovereigns, that within his dominions no pope should be recognized except by his permission; and this opinion had been encouraged by courtly prelates. The right of Urban had, however, been admitted in Normandy, and Anselm, as we have seen, had stipulated that he should be allowed to adhere to the profession which, as abbot of Bec, he had made to that pontiff. He now, on William’s return from the Norman expedition, requested leave to go to Rome, and to receive his pall from the pope. “From which pope?” asked the king; and, on Anselm’s replying “From Urban”, he angrily declared that neither his father nor himself had ever allowed any one to be styled pope in England without their special warrant; as well might the archbishop attempt to deprive him of his crown. .

Anselm on this desired that the question whether his duty to the pope were inconsistent with his duty to the king might be discussed at a council; and an assembly of bishops and nobles met for the purpose at Rockingham, in March 1095.

The archbishop took his stand on the principle that God ought to be obeyed rather than man. Two only of his own order, the bishops of Rochester and Chichester, supported him. William of St. Calais, bishop of Durham, and Herbert of Norwich, who from his character was styled the Flatterer, were vehement in their opposition; while the rest, accustomed as they had been to the Conqueror’s ecclesiastical supremacy, and perplexed by the discord between powers which had until then acted in concert, behaved with timidity and indecision. The king maintained that it was an invasion of his rights for a subject to look to any other authority, even in spiritual things. The bishops advised the archbishop to make full submission; but, when William asked them to disown him, they answered that they could not venture on such a step against the primate, not only of England, but of Scotland, Ireland, and the adjacent islands. Anselm, who throughout retained his composure, and at one time even fell asleep while the bishops had withdrawn for a consultation, professed his readiness to answer for his conduct in the proper place; and his enemies were alarmed at the words, which they rightly understood to imply that, as metropolitan, he was amenable to the pope's jurisdiction only. The bishop of Durham, after having in vain attempted to influence Anselm, told the king that, as the archbishop had Scripture and the canons in his favour, the only way to deal with him was by force—that he should be stripped of the ensigns of his dignity, and should be banished from the realm. On being again asked by William whether they renounced the archbishop, some of the prelates replied that they did so absolutely; others, that they renounced him in so far as he pretended to act by Urban’s authority. The king was indignant at the qualified answer, and those who had made it were afterwards obliged to pay heavily for the recovery of his favour. The nobles behaved with greater spirit than the bishops, declaring that, although they had not taken any oath to the primate, they could not disown him, especially as he had committed no offence; while the people, who surrounded the place of meeting, were zealous in his cause, and loudly exclaimed against his cowardly brethren as Judases, Pilates, and Herods. At length it was resolved that there should be a truce until the octave of Whitsunday. Anselm was ordered in the meantime to confine himself to his diocese; but the truce was broken on the king's side by the pillage of the archbishop's estates, by attacks on his train, and by the banishment of some of his confidential friends.

William took advantage of the interval to send two ecclesiastics to Rome, with instructions to inquire into the claims of the rival popes, to make terms with the claimant whom they should find to be legitimate, and to obtain from him a pall for the archbishop of Canterbury, without naming Anselm, for whom the king hoped by this means to substitute another. The decision of the envoys was in favour of Urban, from whom a pall was brought to England by Walter, bishop of Albano. The king agreed to acknowledge Urban; but when he asked the legate to depose Anselm, he was told that it was impossible. The archbishop was summoned to court, and was desired to receive the pall from William's own hands. He replied that it was not for any secular person to give the pall; and, as he persevered in his refusal, it was agreed that the pall should be laid by the legate on the high altar at Canterbury, and that the archbishop should take it thence, as from the hand of St. Peter.

Robert of Normandy was now about to set out for the crusade, and had agreed to pledge the duchy to his brother in consideration of a sum of money for the expenses of his expedition. In order to make up this payment, William had recourse to severe exactions. He seized the plate of monasteries; and when the monks remonstrated, he met them in his usual style by asking— “Have ye not shrines of gold and silver for dead men’s bones?”. Anselm contributed liberally; but he was soon after required to answer in the king's court for having failed in the proper equipment of some soldiers whom he had supplied for an expedition against the Welsh. In this summons the archbishop saw a design to bring him under feudal subjection, and he knew that he could not look for justice, while the hopelessness of any satisfactory relations with such a prince as William became continually more and more evident. He therefore resolved to lay his case before the pope, and requested leave to go to Rome that he might represent the state of the English church. William met the application by telling him that he had no need to make such a journey, since he had done nothing to require absolution, and, as for advice, he was fitter to give it to the pope than the pope to him. The suit was thrice urged in vain. Anselm declared that he must obey God rather than man; and that, even if leave were refused, he must go to Rome. The bishops whom he requested to support him, told him that they reverenced his piety and heavenly conversation, but that it was too far above them; that, if he would descend to their level, they would gladly give him their assistance; but that otherwise they must decline to do anything inconsistent with their duty to the king. William required him either to renounce his design, and swear that he would never apply to St. Peter, or to quit the kingdom for ever, but Oct. 15, finally, at Winchester, yielded an ungracious consent. The archbishop offered to give him his blessing unless it were refused; and, on William’s replying that he did not refuse it, they parted with a solemn benediction.

At Canterbury the archbishop took from the altar the staff and the dress of a pilgrim. When about to embark at Dover, he was subjected to the indignity of having his baggage publicly searched by William of Warelwast, one of the king’s chaplains, in the vain hope of finding treasures; and after his departure his archiepiscopal acts were annulled, the property of his see was confiscated, and his tenants were oppressed by the king’s officers more mercilessly than ever.

Anselm had been forbidden to take his way through Normandy. The earlier part of his journey was a triumphant progress; the latter part was, from the fear of antipapalists and of robbers, performed in the garb of a simple monk, undistinguished by appearance from his companions, Baldwin and the biographer Edmer, precentor of Canterbury, whom in one of his epistles he describes as “the staff of his old age”. On arriving at Rome, he was received with extraordinary distinction by Urban, who declared that he ought to be treated as an equal—as “pope and patriarch of another world”—and wrote to the king of England, desiring that the archiepiscopal property should be released from confiscation. After a stay of ten days in the city, Anselm withdrew to a monastery near Telese, incompliance with an invitation from the abbot, who was a Norman and had formerly been his pupil. In order that he might escape the extreme heat of summer, his host conveyed him to a retreat among the neighbouring hills; and here he finished a treatise which he had begun in England, on the purpose of the Saviour’s incarnation—a treatise of which the doctrine has become a standard of orthodoxy even in communions where the obligation to Anselm is little suspected. In the opening of it, he states that the subject was engaging the attention not only of the learned, but of many uneducated Christians. He shows the necessity of a satisfaction for sin in order that man might become capable of that blessedness for which he was originally created; the impossibility that this satisfaction should be rendered except by God, while yet it must be made by man, from whom it was due; and the consequent necessity that the Mediator, who was to effect the reconciliation by his voluntary death, should at once be perfect God and perfect man.

Anselm in his retreat was regarded with veneration by all who saw him—even by the Saracens of the Apulian army. He thought of resigning his dignities, and of devoting himself to labour in this new sphere; but the pope rejected the proposal, and required him to attend a council which was to be held at Bari, before the body of St. Nicolas, with a view to the reconciliation of the Greek and Latin churches. At this assembly, when the question of procession of the Holy Ghost was proposed, Urban, after arguing from one of Anselm’s treatises, desired the archbishop himself to stand forward, and pronounced a high eulogium on his character and sufferings. Anselm was ready to discuss the subject, but was requested to defer his argument until the following day, when he spoke with a clearness and an eloquence which won universal admiration. The pope then entered on the grievances of the English church; the council was unanimous for the excommunication of William; and, Urban, inspirited by his success in the great movement of the crusade, was about to pronounce the sentence, when Anselm, throwing himself at his feet, entreated him to forbear, and gained fresh admiration by this display of mildness towards his oppressor.

The archbishop accompanied Urban to Rome, where he was treated with a reverence second only to the pope, while the people, impressed by his demeanour, spoke of him not as “the man” or “the archbishop”, but as “the man”. About Christmas envoys from England appeared—William of Warelwast being one. The pope told them that their master must restore everything to the archbishop on pain of excommunication; but in private interviews they were able, by means of large presents, to obtain a truce until Michaelmas. At the synod of the following Lent, the decrees against investitures and homage were renewed, and were received with general acclamation. Reginger, bishop of Lucca, introduced the subject of Anselm's wrongs in an indignant speech, to which he added emphasis by striking the floor with his pastoral staff; and it was with difficulty that the pope prevailed on him to desist, while Anselm, to whom the mention of his case was unexpected, took no part in the scene. It was, however, now evident to him that he could not expect any strenuous assistance from Urban, and he withdrew to Lyons, where for a year and a half he was entertained with the greatest honour by archbishop Hugh. During this residence at Lyons he was informed of the pope's death, in July 1099, and of William's mysterious and awful end, in August 1100.

Henry I, at his coronation, promised to redress the grievances in the church and in the civil administration from which his subjects had suffered during the late reign. Flambard, who had succeeded William of St. Calais as bishop of Durham, was committed to the Tower. The king resolved to fill up the vacant bishoprics and abbeys; he urgently invited Anselm to return, and, on his arrival, apologized for having been crowned in the primate's absence. But a subject of difference soon arose.

The custom of investiture and homage, which were regarded as inseparable, was so firmly settled in England, that Anselm, notwithstanding his lofty ecclesiastical principles, had without scruple submitted to it at his elevation to the primacy. But when he was now required to repeat his engagements, in acknowledgment of the new sovereign, he answered that it was forbidden by the Roman council which he had lately attended. He declared that, although the objection to the ceremony was not his own, he held himself bound to maintain the council’s decrees, and that, if the king would not admit them, he could not communicate with him or remain in England. He suggested, however, that Henry might ask the pope to dispense with the enforcement of them in his dominions. A truce until Easter was agreed on, and, soon after it had expired, the king received an answer to a letter which he had written to the pope. In this answer Paschal dwelt on the distinction between ecclesiastical and secular power, but without touching the question whether investiture and homage were really an invasion of the church's spiritual rights.

The king found it necessary to temporise. He feared the influence of his brother Robert, who had returned from the east, adding to the charm of his popular manners the fame of a brave warrior who had borne a conspicuous share in the delivery of the holy sepulchre from the infidels. Henry, therefore, could not afford to alienate the clergy, while he was unwilling to give up so important a part of his prerogative as that which was now assailed. The nobles in general were opposed to the ecclesiastical claim, and the bishops joined them in declaring that, rather than yield the national rights, they would expel the primate from the realm, and renounce their connexion with Rome. Gerard, archbishop of York, Herbert of Norwich, and Robert of Coventry, were sent to Rome on the part of the king; Baldwin and another monk on that of Anselm. The bishops were charged with a letter, in which Henry, while professing his desire to respect the pope as his predecessors had done, declared himself resolved to uphold the rights of his crown; if, he said, he were to abase himself by suffering them to be diminished, neither his nobles nor his people would endure it; and he desired Paschal to choose between a relaxation of the decrees and a loss of England from his obedience.

In answer to the solicitations of the bishops, the pope declared that, even to save his life, he would not recede from the decrees; he wrote to the king that his treatment of the church was as if an unnatural son should reduce his mother to bondage; and he addressed to Anselm a letter of commendation and encouragements The bishops, however, who brought back the letter for Henry, professed to have been verbally assured by the pope that, if the king would in other respects discharge his duties well, he should not be troubled on the subject of investiture. The archbishop’s envoys said that they had received no such communication : but the bishops rejoined that it had been made in secret; that the pope would not commit it to writing, lest it should come to the knowledge of other princes, who might thereupon claim a like allowance. A vehement dispute followed. Baldwin indignantly insisted that he and his companion ought to be believed, supported as they were by the pope’s letters. It was replied that the word of an archbishop and two bishops ought to outweigh that of two monklings, who by their very profession were disqualified for bearing witness in secular courts; that it was far superior to sheepskins bescribbled with ink, and with a lump of lead appended to them : to which Baldwin rejoined that the question was not secular but spiritual. A fresh reference was made to Rome, for the purpose of ascertaining the pope's real sentiments, and in the meantime Anselm agreed that he would not suspend communion with the king, or with those who were invested by him. But he refused to consecrate some clergy of the court who were nominated to bishoprics; and, although the archbishop of York was willing to take the chief part in the rite, two of the nominees declined to receive consecration on such terms

At Michaelmas 1102, a council was held at London, and, by Anselm’s desire, it was attended by the nobles of the realm, in order to add force to its decisions. A number of abbots were deprived for simony or other irregularities; the obligation of celibacy was now for the first time extended to the parochial clergy of England; and the other canons bear sad evidence to the condition into which religion, discipline, and morality had sunk under the misgovernment of William Rufus. The enforcement of celibacy met with strong opposition, especially in the province of York, where many of the priests preferred the alternative of shutting their church-doors, and giving up the performance of all Divine service. The king and the archbishop received answers from the pope; but Henry refused to make known the contents of that which was addressed to him, and Anselm refrained for a time from opening the other, lest it should involve him in fresh difficulties. The king made an opportunity of visiting him at Canterbury, and proposed that the archbishop should himself go to Rome with a view of obtaining a relaxation of the decrees. Anselm replied that, although old and infirm, he was willing to undertake the journey, but that he would not do anything to the injury of the church, or to his own discredit; whereupon he was assured that he would only be expected to confirm the evidence of the king's own envoys as to the state of English affairs.

The archbishop set out, and, on arriving at Bec, opened the pope’s letter, by which he found that Paschal solemnly disavowed the words imputed to him by Henry's late envoys, and placed the three prelates under censure until they should make satisfaction. After a journey in which honours everywhere waited on him, he reached Rome, where about the same time William of Warelwast arrived as representative of the king. At an audience of the pope, the envoy declared that his master would rather lose his crown than abandon the right of investiture. Paschal replied that he himself would die rather than yield up his claim; but, by way of conciliation, he confirmed in some other points the usages which had been introduced by William the Conqueror. Anselm soon discovered that his opponents were employing the pecuniary arguments which were generally successful at Rome; and, after having received the papal blessing, with a vague confirmation of the privileges of his see, he again withdrew to the hospitality of Hugh of Lyons, who, since his former visit, had performed the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On the way he was overtaken by William of Warelwast, who travelled for some time in his company, and at parting told him that the king would gladly see him back, if the archbishop would do as his predecessors had done to the crown. Anselm considered this as forbidding his return, unless he would agree to terms which the late Roman canons had rendered impossible; and he wrote from Lyons to warn the king that on him must be the guilt of any mischiefs which might follow. Henry committed the property of the archbishopric to the care of two of Anselm’s retainers, who, as would appear from a hint of Edmer, did not exercise their stewardship very faithfully. He repeatedly desired the primate to return, but without offering any mitigation of his conditions; while Anselm, in answer to letters from some of the clergy, who urged him to redress the disorders of the church, steadily declared that he could not return unless the king would make concessions. The archbishop attempted by frequent messages to urge the pope to a more decided course; but although he prevailed on Paschal to excommunicate the Norman counsellors who had maintained the principle of investiture, and the ecclesiastics who accepted it, no sentence was uttered against the king himself. At length Anselm resolved to take further steps on his own responsibility. In the spring of 1105, he visited Henry's sister, the countess of Blois, and told her that he was about to excommunicate the king. The countess was greatly alarmed by this information, as such a sentence might have dangerous effects at a time when Henry was at war with his brother Robert, and when his subjects were discontented on account of its cost. She therefore earnestly endeavoured to mediate between the king and the archbishop, and succeeded in bringing them to a conference at the castle of L'Aigle in Normandy, on the eve of St. Mary Magdalen (July 21). But although at this meeting Henry professed himself willing to give up the revenues of Canterbury, the question of homage and investiture was still a bar to reconciliation; and again a reference to Rome was necessary.

Many of the English clergy had taken advantage of the primate's absence to defy the late canons as to celibacy, and Henry conceived the idea of turning their irregularities to profit by imposing a fine on them. As, however, the produce of this measure fell short of his expectations and of his necessities, he proceeded to levy a fine on every parish-church, holding the incumbents answerable for the payment. It was in vain that two hundred of the clergy, arrayed in their robes of ministration, waited on him with a petition for relief; and Anselm found himself obliged to address to the king a remonstrance against his usurpation of ecclesiastical discipline. The primate received fresh letters, detailing the increased confusion which prevailed among his flock, and earnestly entreating him to return. Gerard of York, and other prelates who had formerly been his opponents, now wrote to acknowledge their error, and declared themselves ready not only to follow but to go before him in the endeavour to heal the wounds of the church.

At length William of Warelwast and Baldwin, who had been sent to Rome as representatives of the king and of the archbishop respectively, returned with the proposal of a compromise—that the king should forego investiture, but that, until he should come to a better mind, bishops and abbots should be permitted to do homage, while those who had been invested by him were to be admitted to communion on such terms as the two envoys should agree on. These conditions were ratified at Bec on the 25th of August 1106, when the king promised to restore to Anselm the profits of the see during his absence, to abstain from the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and to remit all fines to the clergy. The victory over Robert at Tenchebray, on the 28th of September, was regarded by many as a blessing on the peace which had been concluded with the church.

Anselm was received in England with enthusiasm. The queen, “Maud the Good”, who had always regarded him with the highest reverence and had corresponded with him in his exile, went before him from stage to stage, to direct the preparations for his entertainment. He soon after joined with the archbishop of York in consecrating five bishops, among whom were his old antagonist William of Warelwast and the two who had refused to be consecrated in the primate’s absence.

A council was held at Westminster in 1107, when the king formally relinquished the privilege of investiture, and the archbishop promised to tolerate the ceremony of homage, notwithstanding the condemnation which Urban had pronounced against it. The king had conceded, and Anselm was congratulated by his correspondents as victorious; yet in truth Henry, by giving up an indifferent formality, was able to retain the old relations of the crown with the hierarchy, and even the nomination of bishops. At this council, and at one held in the following year, the canons against the marriage of ecclesiastics were renewed with great strictness; but the pope consented for a time that the sons of clergymen might be admitted to orders, on the remarkable ground that “almost the greater and the better part of the English clergy” were derived from this class.

During the short remainder of his life, Anselm enjoyed the friendship and respect of Henry. Notwithstanding his growing infirmity, he continued to write on theological and philosophical subjects; on his death-bed he expressed a wish that he might be permitted to live until he had solved a question as to the origin of the soul—because he feared that no other person would be able to give a right solution. After his death, which took place in April 1109, the primacy was allowed to remain vacant until 1114, when it was conferred on Ralph, bishop of Rochester, who had administered its affairs during the interval.

CHAPTER VI.

FROM THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR HENRY IV TO THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS.

A.D. 1106-1122.

So long as his father lived, Henry V had been unmeasured in his professions of obedience to the Roman see; and, now that the elder emperor was removed, the pope supposed that he might make sure of compliance with the claims which from the time of Gregory had been advanced on behalf of the church. In October 1106, Paschal held a council at Guastalla, which renewed the decrees against lay investiture; while, with a view to the restoration of peace, it was provided that such bishops and clergy of the imperialist party as had received ordination from schismatics, should, unless guilty of simony or usurpation, be suffered to retain their preferments. Before the opening of the council, envoys had arrived from Henry, requesting the papal confirmation of his title, and inviting the pope to spend the Christmas season with him at Augsburg. The message appeared to promise the fulfillment of all Paschal’s wishes; but, as he proceeded towards Germany, some expressions reached him which suggested a suspicion as to Henry's designs, and induced him to turn aside into France, in the hope of engaging Philip and his son Lewis, who for some years had been associated in the kingdom, to take part with him against the German sovereign. He was, however, unable to obtain from the French princes anything beyond vague promises, and was to pay severely for the encouragement which he had given to Henry's rebellion against his father. The new king was bent on recovering all the authority which his crown had lost or risked in the contests of the preceding years, and for this purpose he was ready to employ all the resources of a character bold, crafty, persevering, and utterly unprincipled.

In April 1107, a conference was held at Châlons on the Marne between the pope and some ambassadors of Henry, headed by Bruno, archbishop of Treves, and Welf, duke of Bavaria. The king had now thrown off all disguise, investing bishops and compelling the prelates of Germany to consecrate them. The envoys, emboldened by Paschal’s late concessions to Henry of England, demanded, with a confident air, that the right of investiture should be acknowledged, and, with the exception of the archbishop of Treves, are said to have behaved as if they intended rather to frighten the pope by clamour than to discuss the question—especially Welf, the nominal husband of Matilda, a large, burly, noisy man, who always appeared with a sword carried before him. The argument on the imperial side was left to archbishop Bruno, who eloquently and skillfully contended that from the time of Gregory the Great it had been customary that the vacancy of a bishopric should be notified to the sovereign, and that his leave to elect a successor should be obtained; after which the new bishop was to be chosen by the clergy and people, and invested by the sovereign with ring and staff. The bishop of Piacenza replied, on the part of the pope, that this reduced the church to the condition of a handmaid, and annulled the effect of the Redeemer's blood. At this speech the envoys gnashed their teeth and declared that they would waste no more words; that the question must be determined at Rome and with the sword. A few weeks later a council was held at Troyes, where the pope condemned simony and investitures, but Henry's representatives declared that their master would not be bound by the judgment of a synod assembled in a foreign kingdom.

It was not until 1110 that the internal troubles of Germany, and the wars in which he was engaged with his neighbours of Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary, allowed Henry to attempt the fulfillment of his threat. He then, after having concluded a treaty of marriage with the princess Matilda of England, crossed the Alps at the head of 30,000 cavalry, with a great number of infantry and other followers; and for the purposes of controversial warfare he was attended by a body of learned men, while a chaplain named David, a Scotsman by birth and afterwards bishop of Bangor, was charged with the task of writing the history of the expedition. The cities of Italy, which had shown an insubordinate spirit, submitted, with the exception of Novara and Arezzo, which paid dearly for their resistance. Even the countess Matilda did homage by proxy for the fiefs which she held under the crown, and promised to support the king against all men except the pope. Paschal, who in the two preceding years had sent forth fresh denunciations of investiture as a sacrilege, had engaged the Normans by a special promise to assist him; but, dispirited as they now were by the recent deaths of their leaders Roger of Apulia and Bohemund, they were altogether unable to cope with so overwhelming a force. They answered the pope's supplications with excuses, and were even afraid lest they should be driven out of their Italian conquests. From Arezzo Henry sent envoys to the pope, requiring him to bestow on him the imperial crown and to allow the right of investiture. In reply he received a startling proposal of a compromise— that, in consideration of his relinquishing investiture, the bishops and abbots should resign all the endowments and secular privileges which they had received from his predecessors since Charlemagne, and on which the royal claim was founded. The pope expressed an opinion that, as the corruptions of the clergy had chiefly arisen from the secular business in which these 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. The sincerity of this offer, so prodigiously favourable to the king, has been questioned, but apparently without reason, although it is difficult to imagine how the pope could have expected to obtain the consent of those whose interests were chiefly concerned. Henry foresaw their opposition—more especially as the pope, instead of employing clerical commissioners, had entrusted the proposal to a layman, Peter, the son of a convert from Judaism named Leo; and at Sutri he accepted the terms on condition that the cession of the "royalties" should be ratified by the bishops and the church. The engagements were to be exchanged at the imperial coronation, which the pope was to perform at Rome.

Henry reached the city on the 12th of February 1111, and was received with great magnificence. In St. Peter’s, as if to throw all the odium of the proposed arrangement on the pope, he declared that it was not his wish to deprive the clergy of anything which his predecessors had given them. On this the German and Lombard prelates broke out violently against Paschal, whom they charged with sacrificing their rights, while he had taken care to secure his own lordship not only over the patrimony of St. Peter, but over Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. The nobles, alarmed at the prospect of losing the fiefs which they held under the church, were furious. Long conferences and delays took place. The king said that, as the pope could not fulfill his part of the compact, it must be given up, and required to be crowned at once. A German started forth and roughly told the pope that there was no need of further words; that the Germans would have their master crowned, like Pipin, Charlemagne, and Lewis. The day had worn away, and, as night was coming on, Henry, by advice of his chaplain Adalbert, arrested the pope and cardinals, with a number of clergy and others, and the palaces of the high ecclesiastics were plundered by the soldiery. Immediately Rome was in an uproar; the people murdered such of the Germans as were found straggling about the streets; and on the next day bloody fights took place. The king himself, after having slain five Romans with his lance, was unhorsed and wounded in the face; a Milanese noble, who gave up his horse to him, was torn in pieces, and his flesh was cast to dogs. Exasperated by these scenes, Henry carried off the pope and cardinals, and for sixty-one days kept them prisoners in the castles of the neighbourhood, while the country was fearfully devastated by the German troops. Henry was master only of the quarter beyond the Tiber; the rest of Rome was held out by the inhabitants, whom John, cardinal bishop of Tusculum, animated to resistance by the offer of forgiveness for all their sins. By some it is said that the pope was treated with personal respect; by others, that he was stripped of his robes, chained, and threatened with death unless he would comply with Henry's desires. It was in vain that the king endeavored to bend him by representing that, in granting the right of investiture, he would not bestow offices or churches, but only royal privileges. But the cardinals who were with Paschal urged also that investiture was a mere external ceremony; the Romans, distressed by the ravages of the troops, and dreading the capture of their city, earnestly entreated him to make peace; and at last he yielded, declaring that for the deliverance of the church and of his people he made a sacrifice which he would not have made to save his own life. He swore, with thirteen cardinals, to allow investiture by ring and staff, after a free election and as a necessary preliminary to consecration; never to trouble the king either on this subject or as to his late treatment of him; and never to excommunicate him. Henry then released his prisoners, and on the 13th of Aprils was crowned emperor in St. Peter’s—the gates of the Leonine city being shut from an apprehension of tumults. The pope was reluctantly obliged during the ceremony to deliver to the emperor with his own hand a copy of his engagement, as evidence that he adhered to it after the recovery of his liberty. At the celebration of the Eucharist he divided the host into two parts, of which he himself took one, and administered the other to Henry, with a prayer that, as that portion of the life-giving body was divided, so whosoever should attempt to break the compact might be divided from the kingdom of Christ and of God. The courtly historiographer David found a precedent for his master's treatment of the pope in Jacob’s struggle with the angel, and in the speech, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”.

The emperor returned to Germany in triumph, and on the way spent three days with the Countess Matilda, whom he treated with high respect and appointed governor of Lombardy. He signalized his victory by nominating and investing his chaplain Adalbert to the archbishopric of Mayence; and he proceeded to celebrate the funeral of his father. Urged by the general feeling of the Germans, he had endeavored at Sutri to obtain the pope’s consent to the interment; but Paschal refused on the ground that it was contrary to Scripture, and that the martyrs had cast out the bodies of the wicked from their churches. The pope, however, afterwards found it convenient to believe an assertion of the late emperor’s repentance : and the body, which for five years had been excluded from Christian burial, was now laid in the cathedral of Spires with a magnificence unexampled in the funeral of any former emperor.

No sooner had the terror of Henry's presence been removed from Italy than voices were loudly raised against the pope’s late compliances. The Hildebrandine party, headed by Bruno, bishop of Segni and abbot of Monte Cassino, reproached him with a betrayal of the church, and urged him to recall his unworthy act; at an assembly held in his absence they renewed the decrees of his predecessors against investiture, and declared the compact with the emperor to be void. The feeble pleas which Paschal advanced, in conjunction with the cardinals who had been his fellow-prisoners, were disallowed, and in a letter to the cardinal bishops of Tusculum and Velletri, who, as they had themselves escaped captivity, were conspicuous in the agitation against him, he promised to amend what he had done. An envoy whom he sent into Germany, to request that Henry would give up investitures, returned, as might have been expected, without success; and at the Lenten synod of 1112, which was held in the Lateran, the pope found himself obliged to condemn his own engagement, to which he said that he had consented under constraint, and solely for the peace of the church. He asked the advice of the prelates as to the means of retrieving his error. They loudly declared the compact to be condemned and annulled, as contrary to the Holy Ghost and to the laws of the church; but even this was not enough for the more zealous members of the assembly, who urged Paschal to annul it by his own authority. It seemed as if the papacy were to be set up against the pope. Paschal, in the hope of weakening Bruno’s influence, obliged him to resign the great abbacy which he held in conjunction with his see; but such were the strength and the clamour of the party that the pope thought of hiding his shame in a hermitage, and withdrew for a time to the island of the Tiber, from which he only returned to resume his office at the urgent entreaty of the cardinals. While thus pressed on one side by the high ecclesiastical party, he had to resist, on the other side, the desire which the king of England and other princes manifested, that the same privileges which he had granted to the emperor might be extended to themselves.

Paschal was determined to observe his engagement not to excommunicate Henry, although he complained that the emperor had not been equally scrupulous; and on this head he withstood all importunities. But Guy, archbishop of Vienne, who in the end of 1111 had obtained from him a letter annulling the compact, and had since attended the Lateran synod, drew him into an extraordinary proceeding. In a council held at Vienne, within Henry’s own kingdom of Burgundy, in September 1112, the archbishop declared investiture to be a heresy, renewed the Lateran condemnation of the compact, and anathematized the emperor for extorting it and for his other outrages against the pope. He then wrote to Paschal, asking him to confirm the decrees, and announcing that, in case of his refusal, the members of the synod must withdraw their obedience from him. Thus threatened, the unfortunate pope answered by granting the required confirmation; yet while by this sanction he made the excommunication his own, he considered that, so long as he did not directly pronounce it, he was not guilty of violating his oath.

In the meantime Germany was a scene of great agitation. Henry, as if the cession proposed at Sutri had taken effect, seized on the revenues of many churches and monasteries, assumed an entire control over ecclesiastical affairs, and excited the general detestation of the clergy. Conon, bishop of Palestrina, a cardinal and legate, who was at Jerusalem when he heard of the pope’s captivity, immediately pronounced an anathema against the emperor, which he repeated in many cities of Greece, Hungary, Germany, and France. The new primate, Adalbert, the creature of Henry and the adviser of his outrage against the pope, turned against his master under pretence of his being excommunicate, and craftily endeavored to undermine him. For this Adalbert was imprisoned on a charge of treason, but, after he had been kept in confinement nearly three years, the emperor was obliged to give him up to the citizens of Mayence, when his miserable appearance bore witness to the sufferings and privations which he had endured, and excited general indignation. The archbishop was bent on vengeance; although he had sworn and had given hostages to answer to a charge of treason, he cast off the obligation, and became the soul of the anti-imperialist party. Germany was distracted by a civil war, and such was the exasperation of feeling that when, in 1115, the emperor was defeated at Welfesholz, the bishop of Halberstadt refused to allow the burial of his fallen soldiers, under the pretext that they had fought in the cause of an excommunicate person.

In 1116 Henry again crossed the Alps, in order to take possession of the inheritance of Matilda, who had died in the preceding summer, and to counteract some negotiations which aimed at the acknowledgment of Alexius Comnenus, or of some prince of the Byzantine family, as emperor of Rome. His appearance put an end to this scheme, and he seized on all that had belonged to the great countess—on the fiefs in his character of suzerain, and on the allodial territories as heir,—while the pope did not venture even to raise a protest in behalf of the donations by which her possessions had been twice bestowed on the Roman see.

While the emperor was at Venice, in March 1116, Paschal held a council in the Lateran, at which he desired the bishops to join with him in condemning the compact which he had executed while Henry's prisoner. On this Bruno of Segni burst forth into triumph at the pope's having with his own mouth condemned his heretical act. “If it contained heresy” exclaimed a member of the council, “then the author of it is a heretic”. But cardinal John of Gaeta and others of the more moderate party reproved Bruno for the indecency of his speech, and declared that the writing, although blamable, was not heretical. Conon of Palestrina detailed the anathemas which he had pronounced against the emperor from Jerusalem to France, and asked the approbation of the pope and of the council, which was granted.

On his way to Rome Henry made overtures to the pope—partly in consequence of the impression produced by a dreadful earthquake which took place at the time. Paschal replied that he would himself observe his oath not to excommunicate the emperor; that he had not authorized the excommunications which Conon and another legate had pronounced in Germany; but that decrees passed by the most important members of the church could not be annulled without their consent, and that the only means of remedy was a general council. At the emperor’s approach he fled from Rome, and took refuge at Monte Cassino.

Henry arrived at Rome in March 1117. The people received him with acclamations, but the cardinals and clergy stood aloof, and the attempts to negotiate with them were unsuccessful. At the great ceremonies of Easter, the only dignified ecclesiastic connected with the pope who could be found to place the crown on the emperor’s head was Maurice Burdinus or Bourdin, a Limousin by birth, and archbishop of Braga in Portugal, who had formerly been employed by Paschal on a mission to the German court. For this act Burdinus was deposed and excommunicated by the pope in a synod at Benevento. But although the clergy in general remained faithful to Paschal, the Romans were discontented with him on account of an appointment to the prefecture of the city, and on his return, after Henry’s departure, they refused to admit him. He was only able to get possession of the castle of St. Angelo, where he died on the 2ist of January 1118.

The cardinals chose as his successor one of their own number, the deacon John of Gaeta, who had been a monk of Monte Cassino, and had held the chancellorship of the Roman church since the pontificate of Urban. But as the new pope, who took the name of Gelasius II, was receiving homage in the church of a monastery on the Palatine, Cencius Frangipani, one of the most powerful among the Roman nobles, broke in with a troop of armed followers, seized him by the throat, struck and kicked him, wounding him severely with his spurs, dragged him away to his own house, and loaded him with chains. By this outrage the Romans of every party were roused to indignation. Frangipani, like the Cencius of Gregory VII’s time, was compelled to release his prisoner, and to cast himself at his knees with an entreaty for pardon; and Gelasius, mounted on a horse, was escorted in triumph to the Lateran. Some weeks later, however, in the dead of night, the rites of his ordination to the priesthood were interrupted by tidings that the emperor was in Rome, and had possession of St. Peter’s. The news of pope Paschal’s death had recalled Henry in haste from the north of Italy, with a view to the exertion of the prerogative which he claimed in appointments to the apostolic chair. Gelasius fled, and, after serious dangers both by land and by sea, reached his native city of Gaeta, where the ordination and consecration were completed. The emperor endeavored to draw him to a conference; but Gelasius, who had been a companion of Paschal’s imprisonment, regarded the proposal as a snare, and suggested that their differences should be discussed in a council at Milan or Cremona, where he had reason to hope that he might be safe. The proposal to transfer the important business to these northern cities excited the jealousy of the Romans, to whom Henry caused the pope’s letter to be read in St. Peter’s; and their spirit was fostered by the celebrated jurist Irnerius, the founder of the law-school of Bologna, who urged them to exert their rights in the election of a pope, agreeably to the ancient canons, which were publicly recited from the pulpit. Under the advice of Irnerius and other lawyers, Burdinus was chosen by the people, and was confirmed by the emperor, on whose head he again placed the crown at Whitsuntide.

Gelasius, at a synod at Capua, anathematized the emperor and the antipope, who had assumed the name of Gregory VIII. On returning to Rome he found the people turbulent, and, while celebrating mass in the church of St. Praxedes, was again attacked by the Frangipanis. He declared that he would leave the bloody city—the new Babylon and Sodom; that he would rather have one emperor than many; and his words were hailed with applause by the cardinals. The pope made his way into France, where he was received with honour; and, after having visited several of the principal cities, he was about to hold a council at Reims, when he died at the abbey of Cluny on the 29th of January 1119.

Conon of Palestrina had been selected by Gelasius as his successor, but had suggested to him that Guy, archbishop of Vienne and cardinal of St. Balbina, should be preferred, as more likely, from his character and position, to serve the church effectually. Guy was son of a duke or count of Burgundy, and was related to the sovereigns of Germany, France, and England. The zeal which he had displayed in excommunicating the emperor, and the skill for which he was noted in the conduct of affairs, marked him out as a champion to whom the Hildebrandine party might look with hope and confidence. In consequence of Conon’s suggestion, the archbishop was summoned to Cluny; but he did not arrive until after the death of Gelasius. The cardinals, five in number, who had accompanied the late pope from Italy, were unanimous in choosing Guy for his successor; but it was with the greatest unwillingness, and only under condition that his election should be ratified by the Romans, that he was persuaded to accept the office; and when the result of the election became known, the conclave was invaded by a body of his kinsmen, retainers, and soldiery, who tore off his pontifical robes, and dragged him away, crying out that they would not part with their archbishop—the Romans might find a pontiff for themselves. The violence of these adherents, however, was, with some difficulty, appeased; the consent of the Romans was readily obtained, and Guy was inaugurated as pope Calixtus II in his own cathedral at Vienne.

Calixtus spent the spring and the summer of 1119 in France, and on the 20th of October he opened at Reims the synod which his predecessor had projected. Fifteen archbishops and more than two hundred bishops were present; among them was the German primate Adalbert, with his seven suffragans and a brilliant train of three hundred knights. There were four bishops from England, whom the king, in giving them permission to attend, had charged not to complain against each other, because he was resolved to do full justice to every complaint within his own kingdom, and had warned not to bring back any “superfluous inventions”. The pope, although elected by a handful of exiles, appeared in splendid state, and in all the fullness of his pretensions. Lewis the Fat, who since 1008 had been sole king of France, brought charges before the council against Henry of England for violations of his feudal duty as duke of Normandy, and for his treatment of his brother Robert; and these charges, relating purely to matters of secular policy, he referred to the pope as arbiter. The Norman primate, Godfrey of Rouen, attempted to justify his sovereign, but was put down by the general disapprobation of the assembly.

During the emperor’s absence in Italy, Germany had been a prey to anarchy and confusion, and since his return it had been immersed in the horrors of civil war. Conon, after having passed in disguise through the territories occupied by the imperialists, had again appeared, denouncing excommunications against Henry and deposition against all prelates who refused to obey his citations; while Adalbert of Mayence stirred up the Saxons, and consecrated bishops in contempt of the imperial claims. Henry had made overtures for a reconciliation with the pope, and William of Champeaux, bishop of Châlons on the Marne, with Pontius, abbot of Cluny, had been sent by Calixtus to confer with him at Strasburg. The bishop assured the emperor that he need not so strongly insist on the privilege of investiture, since in France no such ceremony was then used, and yet he himself performed the duties of feudal service as faithfully as any of his German brethren. The cases were not indeed parallel; for the French sovereigns had always retained a control over the church, which rendered the position of their bishops very unlike that of the great German prelates since the minority of Henry IV. But the emperor professed himself satisfied, and a second commission arranged with him the terms of an accommodation—that he should give up investitures, that bishops should do homage for their royalties, and that he should be released from his excommunication.

The pope left Reims with the intention of meeting the emperor, and sent commissioners before him for the conclusion of the treaty. But the report that Henry had with him a force of 30,000 men raised a feeling of distrust, and Calixtus halted at the castle of Mousson to await the result of the negotiations. A dispute arose between Henry and the commissioners as to the sense of certain articles. The emperor, finding himself strong, was disposed to evade his engagements; he pretended a wish to consult the princes of Germany, and declared that he would not stand barefooted to receive absolution. The commissioners promised to do their utmost that this point might be waived, and that the ceremony should be as private as possible. But on their reporting the negotiations to the pope, he left Mousson in indignation at Henry’s conduct, and returned to Reims, where he signalized his arrival by consecrating a popularly-elected bishop for Liège, in opposition to one who had been invested by the emperor. The council passed the usual canons against investiture, simony, and clerical marriage; and on the sixth and last day the church’s curse was denounced in the most solemn manner against the emperor and the antipope—each of the bishops and abbots, 427 in number, standing up, with his pastoral staff in one hand, and with a lighted taper in the other. Henry's subjects were declared to be absolved from their allegiance until he should be reconciled to the church.

In fulfillment of an intention which he had announced at the council, the pope proceeded into Normandy, and held an interview with Henry of England at Gisors. One subject of discussion between them related to the employment of legates. Calixtus himself, while archbishop of Vienne, had been sent by Paschal with the character of legate for all England in 1100, within a few months after Anselm’s return from his first exile. His visit caused a great excitement; for, although legates had before appeared in this country, their visits had been very rare, and their authority had been limited to special business, so that an outcry was raised against the new commission as a thing without example, and it was declared that no one but the archbishop of Canterbury could be acknowledged as a representative of the pope. Anselm asserted the privilege of Canterbury; the legate returned without obtaining a recognition of his power; and the primate procured from the pope, although for his own person only, a promise that no legate should be sent to supersede him. At a later time, the independent character of the English church, and its disposition to settle its own affairs without reference to Rome, were complained of by Paschal II on the translation of Ralph from Rochester to Canterbury; while the king was offended at Conon’s having ventured, as papal legate, to excommunicate the Norman bishops for refusing to attend a council. William of Warelwast, now bishop of Exeter, was once more sent to Rome to remonstrate against Conon’s proceedings; and the pope despatched a new legate into England—the abbot Anselm, who was chosen as being nephew of the late archbishop, and as being himself known and popular among the English. But although Henry ordered that the legate should be treated with honour in Normandy, he would not permit him to cross the sea, and sent Ralph himself to Rome, to assert the rights of his primacy. The archbishop was prevented by illness from following the pope, who had withdrawn to Benevento; but he returned with a general and vague confirmation of the privileges of Canterbury.

Another question related to the pretensions of the see of York. Anselm, in the beginning of the reign, had exacted from Gerard, on his translation to the northern archbishopric, a promise of the same subjection to Canterbury which he had sworn when consecrated as bishop of Hereford. The next archbishop of York, Thomas, renewed the pretensions which his predecessor of the same name had raised in opposition to Lanfranc; but the measures which Anselm took to defeat him were successful, although Anselm did not himself live to witness their success. Thurstan, who was nominated to York in 1114, declined to receive consecration at Canterbury, from an unwillingness to swear subjection to the archbishop; and, in violation both of his own solemn promise and of assurances which the pope had given to Henry, he contrived to get himself consecrated by Calixtus at Reims, before the arrival of a bishop who was specially charged to prevent his consecration, although the English bishops who were present protested against it.

The pope was easily satisfied with the explanations which Henry gave of his behaviour towards Robert and the king of France. He promised that no legate should be sent into England except at the king's request, and for the settlement of such things as could not be settled by the English bishops; and he requested that Thurstan might be allowed to return to England. The king replied that he had sworn to the contrary. “I am apostolic pontiff”, said Calixtus, and offered to release him from the oath; but Henry, after consideration, declined to avail himself of the absolution, as being unworthy of a king, and an example which would tend to produce universal distrust between men; and he refused to readmit Thurstan, except on condition that he should make the same submission to Canterbury which had been made by his predecessors.

Having established his authority to the north of the Alps, the pope proceeded into Italy. His rival Burdinus, abandoned by the emperor, fled from Rome at the approach of Calixtus and took refuge within the walls of Sutri. St. Peter’s, which had been strongly fortified, was given up to the friends of Calixtus in consideration of a sum of money. Burdinus himself was betrayed into the hands of the pope, and, after having been paraded about Rome, mounted on a camel, arrayed in bloody sheepskins by way of a pontifical robe, and holding the camel’s tail in his hands, he was thrust into a monastic prison. He lived to an advanced age, but his remaining years were varied only by removals from one place of confinement to another.

In the meantime the discords of Germany were unabated. Hostile armies moved about the country—the one commanded by the emperor, the other by the primate Adalbert, to whom the pope had given a commission as legate : and it seemed as if their differences must be decided by bloodshed. But circumstances had arisen which tended to suggest a compromise. The contest of fifty years had exhausted all parties, and a general desire for peace began to be felt. The princes of Germany had come to see how their own interest was affected by the rival pretensions of the papacy and the crown. While desirous to maintain themselves against the emperor, and to secure what they had won for their order, they had no wish to subject him, and consequently themselves, to the pope—to degrade their nationality, to lose all hold on the offices and endowments of the church. Thus patriotic and selfish motives concurred in rendering the leaders of the laity desirous to find some means of accommodation. And from France, where the difficulty as to investiture had not been felt, persuasives to moderation were heard. There the learned canonist Ivo, bishop of Chartres, had throughout maintained the lawfulness of investiture by laymen, provided that it were preceded by a canonical election. He held that the form of the ceremony was indifferent, inasmuch as the lay lord did not pretend to confer any gift of a spiritual kind; that, although it was schismatical and heretical to maintain the necessity of lay investiture, yet such investiture was in itself no heresy. Ivo strongly reprobated the agitation excited by the Hildebrandine party against Paschal, and he was able to persuade the archbishop of Sens, with other prelates, to join him in a formal protest against the councils which took it on themselves to censure the pope. Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, Hugh, a monk of Fleury, and other eminent ecclesiastics gave utterance to somewhat similar views; and at length abbot Godfrey of Vendome—who had been long known as one of the most uncompromising asserters of the ecclesiastical claims, and had published two tracts in which he declared lay investiture to be heresy—sent forth a third tract, composed in an unexpected spirit of conciliation. Laymen, he said, may not confer the staff and the ring, since these are for the church to give; but there are two kinds of investiture—the one, which makes a bishop, the other, which maintains him; and princes may without offence give investiture to the temporalities by some symbol, after canonical election and consecration. Godfrey speaks strongly against the mischief of contentiousness on either side, and (in direct contradiction to the Hildebrandine principle that kings ought to be treated by the church as freely as other men) he quotes St. Augustine’s opinion that one ought seldom or never to be excommunicated who is backed by an obstinate multitude, “lest, while we strive to correct one, it become the ruin of many”.

The effect of such writings was widely felt, and contributed to swell the general eagerness for peace. As the hostile armies of the Germans were encamped in the neighbourhood of Wurzburg, negotiations were opened between them. The preliminaries were settled in October 1121; a formal compact was then drawn up by commissioners at Mayence; and on the 23rd of September 1122, the terms of the agreement between the empire and the hierarchy were read before a vast multitude assembled in a meadow near Worms. 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 all investiture by ring and staff, and engaged to allow free election and consecration throughout 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. These conditions were solemnly exchanged at Worms; the legate, Lambert, cardinal of Ostia, celebrated mass, and gave the kiss of peace to the emperor; and in the following year, 1123, the concordat of Worms was ratified by the first council of the Lateran, which in the Roman church is reckoned as the Ninth General Council. The contest, which for half a century had agitated Italy and Germany, was ended for a time.

The apparent simplicity of the solution—although, indeed, its terms contained the seeds of future differences as to their interpretation—strikes us with surprise, as contrasted with the length and the bitterness of the struggle. 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 domination 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; but it was not until this experience had reduced the real question within the bounds of its nominal dimensions that any accommodation was possible.

The emperor ceded the power of nomination to bishoprics, and, as to those which were beyond the limits of Germany, he appears to have given up all control over the appointments. But in Germany it was otherwise. The imperial claim to nominate was, indeed, acknowledged to be unlawful; but as this had never been defended on grounds of law, and as the provision that bishops should be chosen in the presence of the emperor or of his commissioners allowed the exercise of an important influence in the choice, the emperor’s legal prerogative was really rather increased than lessened. And as, in the case of German bishops, the investiture was to precede consecration, there was thus an opportunity of interposing a bar to the promotion of any person unacceptable to the sovereign. The right of exacting homage was unquestioned, and, by a mere change in the outward symbol, the emperor secured the substance of the investiture that the bishops should be vassals of the crown, not of the papacy; that they should be subject to the feudal obligations, and that the connection of the church with the state should be maintained.

On the part of the pope, the concordat appears to be a serious sacrifice. Urged by the representations of the German estates, both lay and ecclesiastical, who told him that, if peace were not made, the responsibility would rest on him, he had ceded the pretensions of Gregory and Urban as to investitures and homage; the condition on which Godfrey of Vendome had insisted in his conciliatory proposals—that consecration should precede investiture—was relinquished as to German bishoprics; and the party of which Calixtus had hitherto been the foremost representative was deeply dissatisfied with the terms of the compromise. But his consent to these terms is to be explained by the change which had taken place in the position of the papacy since Hildebrand entered on his career. The imperial claim to control elections to St. Peter’s chair was abandoned, and whereas Henry III had aimed at making himself master of the hierarchy, his son and his grandson had found it a sufficient labour to defend themselves against its encroachments. The bold assertions of Gregory, continued by his successors, and, above all, the great movement of the crusades, had raised the pope to a height before unknown; and, when on the whole his substantial gain had been so great, he could afford to purchase the credit of moderation by yielding in appearance and in matters of detail.

CHAPTER VII

MONASTICISM—NEW ORDERS—THE TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS.

IN the history of Monasticism, decay and reformation are continually alternating. This alternation is a natural result of laying down as a permanent rule for a numerous succession of men the system which has been found to meet the particular circumstances of a few. When the rule has been some time in operation, no test that can be established by requiring a profession of vocation will be found effectual for the exclusion of unqualified persons; and, even where there are the same dispositions which originally gave birth to the rule and won popularity for it, the difference of times or circumstances may render it no longer suitable as a discipline for them. Hence, as a great monk of the twelfth century remarked, it was easier to found new religious societies than to reform the old. Moreover, as the poverty and devotion of monks never failed to bring them wealth and honour, the effect 0f these was too commonly a temptation to abandon the virtues by which they had been procured.

The spirit which produced the endeavour to reform the church led at the same time to a reform of monachism; and the anarchy, the insecurity, the manifold miseries of the age tended to excite an enthusiasm for the life which promised tranquillity and the opportunities of conversing with a better world. Bernold of Constance tells us that, in the great distractions between the papacy and the empire, multitudes rushed into the monasteries of Germany; that some who had been counts and marquises chose to be employed in the lowest offices, such as baking and cooking; that many, without putting on the monastic habit, devoted themselves to the service of certain monasteries; that many young women renounced marriage, and that the whole population of some towns adopted a monastic system of life.

Among the reformers of German monachism, the most eminent was William, who in 1071 was promoted from the priory of St. Emmeran’s, at Ratisbon, to the abbacy of Hirschau, in the Black Forest. He raised the number of inmates from fifteen to a hundred and fifty, founded some new monasteries, reformed more than a hundred, and united his monks into a congregation after the pattern of Cluny, adopting the system of lay-brethren from Vallombrosa. 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 manners, for his encouragement of arts and learning. He provided carefully for the transcription of the holy scriptures and of other useful books, and instead of locking them up in the library of his abbey, he endeavoured to spread the knowledge of their contents by presenting copies to 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. In the general affairs of the church, the abbot of Hirschau was, by his exertions and by his influence, one of the most active and powerful supporters of the hierarchical or Hildebrandine party in Germany. He died in 1091, at the age (as is supposed) of sixty-five.

The congregation of Cluny, which had led the way in the reformation of an earlier period, maintained its preeminence under the sixty years’ abbacy of Hugh, whose influence in the affairs of the church has often been mentioned in the preceding chapters. The Cluniacs received additions to their privileges : Paschal exempted them from the operation of such interdicts as might be pronounced against any province in which they should be; Calixtus, on a visit to the great monastery in 1120, conferred on its abbots the dignity of the Roman cardinalate. But under Hugh’s successor, Pontius, to whom this honour was granted, dissensions and scandals arose in the order. The abbot, on finding that he was charged at Rome with dissipating the property of his monastery, hurried to the pope, resigned his office, and went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with the intention, as he professed, of spending the remainder of his days there; but he afterwards returned to disturb the peace of the monastery. Another Hugh was appointed in his room, but died within three months: and on the renewed vacancy the order again chose a head who sustained the greatness of its reputation—Peter Maurice, “the Venerable”. The Vallombrosan, Camaldolite, and other communities were also still in vigour; but the piety of the age was not content with adding to the numbers enrolled under the rules which already existed, and during the fifty years which followed the election of Gregory VII several orders took their beginning. Although the founders of these were not all of French birth, it was in France, which had become the centre of religious and intellectual movement, that the new institutions arose.

I.             

ORDER OF GRAMMONT.

The earliest of them was the order of Grammont. The founder, Stephen, son of a count of Thiers in Auvergne, was born about 1045. His parents, who believed him to have been granted to them in return for many prayers and other exercises of devotion, were careful to train him religiously from his infancy, and at the age of twelve he accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to the relics of St. Nicolas, which had lately been translated from Myra, in Lycia, to Bari, in the south of Italy. Stephen fell ill at Benevento, and was left there in the care of the archbishop, Milo, who was his countryman, and perhaps a kinsman. The praises which the archbishop bestowed on an ascetic society of monks in Calabria excited the boy to resolve on embracing the monastic life, and he steadily adhered to his resolution. After having spent four years at Rome, he obtained, in              the first year of Gregory's pontificate, the papal sanction for the formation of a new order—a document in which Gregory bestows on him his blessing, and expresses a wish that he may find companions innumerable as the stars of heaven.

Before proceeding to act on this privilege, Stephen paid a farewell visit to his parents, but ended it by secretly leaving his home, with a determination never to return, and took up his abode at Muret, near Limoges, where he built himself a hut of branches of trees in a rocky and wooded solitude. Here, putting on a ring, the only article which he had reserved out of his property, he solemnly devoted himself to the holy Trinity and to the virgin Mother. The rigour of his diet was extreme; he wore an iron cuirass, like Dominic of Fonte Avellano, and over it a thin dress, which was alike throughout all the changes of the season; his bed was formed of boards sunk in the earth, so that it resembled a grave, nor did he allow himself even straw to soften it; his devotional exercises were frequent, and such was his fervour that, while engaged in them, he sometimes forgot food and sleep for days together. He always prayed kneeling, and his prayers were accompanied by frequent obeisances and kissing of the earth, so that not only did his hands and knees become callous like those of a camel, but his nose was bent by the effect of his prostrations.

After a year, during which he was known only to the neighbouring shepherds, Stephen was joined by two companions; and the number was soon increased. His disciples were treated with an indulgence which he denied to himself and he desired them to call him not abbot or master, but corrector. It was believed that he had the power of reading their hearts; tales are related of 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. After having spent fifty years in his retirement, Stephen died in 1124.

At his death, the place where he had so long lived unmolested was claimed by a neighbouring monastery. His disciples, unwilling to engage in any contention, prayed for direction in the choice of another habitation; and as they were at mass, the answer was given by a heavenly voice, which thrice pronounced the words—“To Grammont!”. The new home thus pointed out was but a league distant, and the monks removed to it, carrying with them the relics of their founder. They studiously concealed the spot where the body was deposited; but its presence was betrayed by a great number of miracles. On this the prior addressed the spirit of his former master in a tone of complaint and reproach, threatening that, if Stephen continued to regard his own fame for sanctity so as to turn the solitude of his disciples into a fair, his relics should be thrown into the river; and from that time the saint was content to exert his miraculous power in such a manner as not to expose his followers to the distractions which had before endangered their quiet and their humility. Sixty-five years after his death, he was canonized by Clement III.

Although, in the privilege which Gregory had granted to Stephen, it was supposed that the Benedictine rule would be observed by the new order, the discipline of the Grandimontans was more severe than that of St. Benedict. Stephen professed that his only rule was that of Christian religion, and the code of his order was unwritten until the time of his third successor, Stephen of Lisiac (A.D. 1141). Obedience and poverty are laid down as the foundations. The monks were to accept no payment for Divine offices : they were to possess no churches, and no lands beyond 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”. They were never to go to law for such property as might be bestowed on them. The founder assured them on his death-bed that, if they kept themselves from the love of earthly things, God would not fail to provide for them; when reduced to such necessity as to have had no food for two days, they might send out brethren to beg, but these were bound to return as soon as they had secured one day’s provisions. They were to go out in parties of two or more; they were not to fall into company with travellers, and were to avoid castles. They must not leave the wilderness to preach; their life there was to be their true sermon. Their monasteries were to be strictly shut against all but persons of great authority; they were charged altogether to shun intercourse with women. Even the sick were forbidden to taste flesh; but they were to be carefully tended, and, rather than that they should lack what they needed, even the ornaments of the church were to be sold. The members of the order were bound to silence at times, and were to communicate by signs, of which a detailed system is laid down; and it was directed that when they spoke, their discourse must be of an edifying kind. The monks were to devote themselves entirely to spiritual things, while their temporal affairs were to be managed by “bearded” or lay brethren.

Under Stephen of Lisiac the order of Grandimontans, or “Good men”, as they were popularly called, became numerous; and eventually it had about 140 “cells”, subject to the “prior” of the mother community. So long as the austerity of its discipline remained, it enjoyed a high reputation, but the relaxations of its rules, although sanctioned by popes, and internal quarrels between the monks and the lay brethren led to its decline.

II.

BRUNO, CARTHUSIAN ORDER.

Ten years later than the order of Grammont, that of the Carthusians was founded by Bruno, a native of Cologne, who had been distinguished as master of the cathedral school at Reims. The popular legend ascribes his retirement from the world to a scene which he is supposed to have witnessed at Paris, on the death of a doctor who had been greatly esteemed for piety as well as for learning. As the funeral procession was on its way to the grave, the corpse (it is said) raised itself from the bier, and uttered the words, “By God’s righteous judgment I am accused!”. The rites were suspended for a day; and when they were resumed, the dead man again exclaimed, “By God’s righteous judgment I am judged!”. A second time the completion of the ceremony was deferred; but on the third day the horror of the spectators was raised to a height by his once more lifting up his ghastly head, and moaning forth, in a tone of the deepest misery, “By God’s righteous judgment I am condemned!”. Bruno, struck with terror, and filled with a sense of the nothingness of human reputation by this awful revelation as to one who had been so highly venerated, resolved, as the only means of safety, to hide himself in the desert.

Such was the tale which was adopted by the Carthusian order; but the real motives of Bruno’s withdrawal appear to have been partly a conviction of the unsatisfying nature of worldly things, and partly a wish to escape from the tyranny of Manasses, archbishop of Reims, a violent, grasping, and ambitious prelate, whose character may be inferred from a saying recorded of him—that “The archbishopric of Reims would be a fine thing, if one had not to sing masses for it”. By the advice of Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, Bruno with six companions took up his abode among the wild and solemn rocky solitudes of the Chartreuse, from which his order derived its name; and so much was the bishop pleased with the system, that he often withdrew for a time from the world, to live with the Carthusians in the strict observance of their usages. The community, to which no one was admitted under the age of twenty, consisted of monks and lay brethren; the number of the former being limited to thirteen (or at the utmost, to fourteen), and that of the lay brethren to sixteen, on the ground that the wilderness could not support a larger company without the necessity of their being entangled in the affairs of this world. They were forbidden to possess any land, except in the neighbourhood of their monastery, and the number of beasts which they were allowed to keep was limited. The object of their retreat was declared to be the salvation of their own souls,—the part of Mary, not that of Martha; hence the intrusion of poor strangers into their wilderness was discouraged, and, although the monks were not absolutely forbidden to relieve such strangers, they were charged rather to spend any superfluities which they might have on the poor of their own neighbourhood. Their manner of life was extremely rigid. They wore goatskins next to the flesh, and their dress was altogether of the coarsest kind. For three days in the week their food was bread and water; on the other days they added pulse; the highest luxuries of festivals were cheese and fish; and the small quantity of wine allowed by the Benedictine rule was never to be drunk undiluted. The only greater relaxation as to diet was at the periodical bleedings, which took place five times in the year. They confessed every week, and underwent a weekly flagellation; but it was a part of their obedience that no one should impose any extraordinary austerity on himself without the leave of the prior. They ordinarily spoke on Sundays and festivals only; the lay brethren alone were allowed to relieve their silence by signs : and it was required that these signs should be of a “rustic” character, without any “facetiousness or wantonness”; that they should not be taught to strangers, and that no other code of signals should be learnt. When, however, any monks were employed together in copying or binding books, or in any other common labour, they were at liberty to converse among themselves, although not with others. Each monk was to cook for himself in his cell, which he was very rarely to leave; and in the cells most of the offices of religion were to be performed, except on Sundays, when the brethren met in the church and in the refectory. If any present were sent to a member of the society, the prior was not only authorized (as in the Benedictine rule) to give it to another, but, in order to eradicate the idea of individual property, it was even ordered that the present should not be given to the person for whom it had been intended. In the service of their churches everything was to be plain and severe; no processions were allowed, and all ornament was forbidden, with the exception of one silver chalice, and a silver tube for drinking the eucharistic wine. Notwithstanding their poverty, Guibert of Nogent found the Carthusians possessed of a valuable library; and much of their time was devoted to transcription and other literary labours. After having spent six years at the Chartreuse, Bruno reluctantly complied with an invitation to Rome from Urban II, who had formerly been his pupil at Reims but he soon became weary of the city, and, after having refused the bishopric of Reggio, he founded, under the patronage of the grand count Roger, a second Chartreuse (Sto. Stefano del Bosco) in the diocese of Squillace, where he died in 1101. In the meantime the original foundation had been carried on by his disciples, who, after having accompanied him into Italy, had returned at his desire, and re-established themselves under Landuin as prior. The “customs” of the order were digested into a written code by the fifth prior, Guigo I, in 1128; the founder was canonized by Leo X in 1513.

The rigour of the Carthusian institutions rendered the progress of the order slow; yet it gradually made its way. There were also Carthusian nuns; but the discipline was too severe for the female sex, and in the eighteenth century only five convents of women professed the rule. Although the Carthusians became wealthy, and built magnificent houses (the Certosa near Pavia being perhaps the most splendid monastery in the world), they preserved themselves from personal 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.

III.

ORDER OF FONTEVRAUD.

The next in time of the new orders was founded by Robert, a native of Arbrissel or Albresec, near Rennes. Robert was born about 1047, and, after having studied at Paris, where he became a teacher of theology, he accepted in 1086 an invitation to act as vicar to Sylvester, bishop of Rennes, a man of high birth, who, although himself illiterate, respected learning in others. Here he for four years exerted himself to enforce the Hildebrandine principles as to celibacy, simony, and emancipation of the church from lay control; but after his patron’s death he found it expedient to withdraw from the enmity of the canons, whom he had provoked by his endeavours to reform them. For a time he taught theology at Angers, and in 1091 he withdrew to the forest of Craon, on the confines of Anjou and Brittany, where he entered on a course of extraordinary austerity. Disciples and imitators soon gathered around him, and for these, whom he styled “the poor of Christ”, he founded in 1094 a society on the principles of the canonical life.

Pope Urban, on his visit to France, in 1096, sent for Robert, and, being struck with his eloquence, bestowed on him the title of “apostolical preacher”, with a charge to publish the crusade. The zeal with which Robert executed this commission, in cities, villages, and hamlets, was the means of sending many to fight the battles of Christendom in the east; while others were persuaded by his discourse to forsake their homes and attach themselves to him as their master. In 1100 he laid the foundation of a great establishment at Fontevraud, in the diocese of Poitiers—then a rough tract, overgrown with thorns and brushwood. His followers were of both sexes; the men were committed to two of his chief disciples, while he himself especially took care of the women. From time to time he left Fontevraud for the labours of his office as apostolical preacher, which gave him opportunities of making his institutions known, and of founding similar communities in various parts of France. His preaching was addressed with great effect to unhappy women who had fallen from virtue; among his converts was the notorious queen Bertrada, whom he persuaded, after the death of Philip, to live for a time at Fontevraud under the severe discipline of his community. He had three nunneries—one for virgins and widows, one for the sick and lepers, and the third for women whom he had reclaimed from a life of sin. The rule was very strict; the female recluses were not allowed to speak except in the chapter-house, because, it is said, Robert knew that they could not be restrained from idle talk except by an entire prohibition of speech. But it was rumoured that Robert laid himself open to scandal by reviving a kind of fanaticism which had been practised in the early African church. Godfrey of Vendome remonstrates with him on this subject, and mentions that he was charged also with partiality in his behaviour towards his female disciples—treating some with indulgence, while to others he was harsh in language, and mercilessly subjected them to cold, hunger, and nakedness. Marbod, bishop of Rennes, likewise addressed to him a letter of admonition—censuring him for the affectations which he practised for the sake of influence over the simple, but which, in the bishop’s opinion, were more likely to make his sanity suspected—the long beard, the naked feet, the old and tattered garments; and telling him that, by attacking the clergy in his sermons, he excited the people to the sin of despising their pastors. It appears also that Roscellin (whose peculiar opinions will hereafter engage our attention) attacked Robert for receiving into his society women who had fled from their husbands, and for detaining them in defiance of the bishop of Angers.

The institute of Fontevraud was confirmed by Paschal II in 1106, and again in 1113. Robert, finding his strength decay, in 1115 committed the superintendence of his whole order—men as well as women—to a female superior—an extraordinary arrangement, for which he alleged the precedent that the Saviour on the cross commended St. John to the care of the blessed Virgin as his mother. At the founder’s death, in 1117, the number of nuns at Fontevraud already amounted to 3,000; and soon after it was between 4,000 and 5,000. The order spread, so that it had establishments in Spain and in England, as well as in France, and some smaller orders, as those of Tiron and Savigny, branched off from it.

IV.

ROBERT OF MOLESME, CISTERCIAN ORDER.

Of the orders which had their origin about this time the most widely extended and most powerful was the Cistercian. The founder, Robert, was son of a nobleman in Champagne, and entered a monastery at fifteen. After having lived in several religious houses without finding any one sufficiently strict for his idea of the monastic profession, he became the head of a society at Molesme, in the diocese of Langres. They were at first excessively poor, and underwent great privations; but the sight of their rigid life soon drew to them a profusion of gifts, which led to a relaxation of their discipline, and Robert, after having in vain remonstrated, left them in indignation. In compliance with their urgent requests he consented to return; but he soon had the mortification of discovering that their invitation had been prompted by no better motive than a wish to recover the popular esteem and bounty which had been withdrawn from them in consequence of his departure. Discords arose on the subject of dispensations from the Benedictine rule; and in 1098, Robert, with the sanction of the legate Hugh of Lyons, withdrew with twenty companions to Cistercium or Citeaux, a lonely and uncultivated place in the neighbourhood of Dijon. The duke of Burgundy bestowed on the infant community a site for buildings, with land for tillage, and contributed to its support. In the following year, Robert was once more desired to return to Molesme by the authority of Urban II, on the representation of the monks that their society had fallen into disorder and that they were persecuted by their neighbours, and he continued to govern his earlier foundation until his death, in 1110.

His successor at Citeaux, Alberic, laid down the rule for the new order, and it was afterwards carried out with greater rigour by the third abbot, Stephen Harding, an Englishman and one of Robert’s original companions, whose code, entitled the "Charter of Love", was sanctioned by pope Calixtus in 1119. The Cistercians were to observe the rule of St. Benedict, without any glosses or relaxations. Their dress was to be white, agreeably to a pattern which the blessed Virgin had shown to Alberic in a vision. They were to accept no gifts of churches, altars, or tithes, and were to refrain, from intermeddling with the pastoral office. From the ides of September to Easter, they were to eat but one meal daily. Their monasteries, which were all to be dedicated to the blessed Virgin, were to be planted in lonely places they were to eschew all pomp, pride, and superfluity; their services were to be simple and plain, and all vocal artifices were forbidden in their chanting; some of the ecclesiastical vestments were discarded, and those which were retained were to be of fustian or linen, without any golden ornaments. They were to have only one iron chandelier; their censers were to be of brass or iron; no plate was allowed, except one chalice and a tube for the eucharistic wine, and these were, if possible, to be of silver gilt, but not of gold. Paintings, sculpture, and stained glass were prohibited, as being likely to distract the mind from spiritual meditation; the only exception as to such things was in favour of painted wooden crosses. The monks were to give themselves wholly to spiritual employments, while the secular affairs of the community were to be managed by the “bearded” or lay brethren. No serfs were allowed, but hired servants were employed to assist in labour. In the simplicity of their church-services and furniture the Cistercians differed from the Cluniacs, whose ritual was distinguished for its splendour; the elder order regarded the principle of the younger as a reproach against itself and a rivalry soon sprang up between them. The white dress, which, although already adopted at Camaldoli, was a novelty in France, gave offence to the other monastic societies, which had worn black habits as a symbol of humility and regarded the new colour as a pretension to superior righteousness; but the Cistercians defended it as expressive of the joy which became the angelic life of the cloister.

In 1113 the order of Citeaux received the member from whose reputation it was to derive its greatest lustre and popularity—St. Bernard. The same year saw the foundation of La Ferté, the eldest daughter society; Pontigny followed in 1114, Clairvaux (of which the young Bernard was the first abbot) and Morimond in 1115. The rule of the Cistercians was approved by the bishops in whose dioceses these monasteries were situated; and Stephen Harding required that, before the foundation of any monastery, the bishop of the place should signify his assent to the rule, so that no difficulty might afterwards arise from a conflict between the duties of the monks towards their order and that obedience to episcopal authority which was an essential part of the system. While the government of the Cluniacs was monarchical, that of the Cistercians was aristocratic; the four chief “daughters”—those which have just been named—were allowed a large influence in the affairs of the order; their abbots took the lead in electing the abbot of Citeaux, who was subject to their visitation and correction. But the most remarkable feature in the system was that of the annual general chapters, the first of which was held in 1116. For these meetings every abbot of the order was required to appear at Citeaux, unless prevented by illness, in which case he was represented by a deputy. From the nearer countries, the attendance was to be every year; from the more remote, it was, according to their distance, to be once in three, four, five, or seven years. Such meetings had been held occasionally in other orders, as in that of Grammont; but it was among the Cistercians that they were for the first time organized as a part of the regular government, and from them they were copied by the Carthusians and others. The effect of this arrangement was found to be beneficial, not only in securing a general superintendence of the community, but as a means of preventing jealousies by allowing the affiliated societies a share in the administration of the whole.

After having thrown out its first swarms, the Cistercian order rapidly increased. At the general chapter in 1151 it numbered upwards of 500 monasteries, and it was resolved that no further additions should be admitted. But in the following century the number had advanced to 1800, and eventually it was much greater. The Cistercians grew rich, and reforms became necessary among them; but until the rise of the mendicant orders, they were the most popular of all the monastic societies.

V.

NORBERT.

The canonical life had fallen into great decay. Nicolas II, in the council of 1059, attempted a reformation, by which canons were to have a common table and a common dormitory, and, although they were not required to sacrifice their private property, were enjoined to hold their official revenues in common. But a new system, which resembled that of monasticism in the renunciation of all individual property, was also introduced during the eleventh century, the first example of it having apparently been given by some clergy of Avignon, who in 1038 established themselves at the church of St. Rufus. The canons of this system were styled regular, and took their name from St. Augustine, who had instituted a similar mode of life among his clergy, and from whose writings their rule was compiled.

In the twelfth century a new order of canons was founded by Norbert, who was born of a noble family at Xanten, on the lower Rhine, about 1080. In early life he obtained canonries both at his native place and at Cologne. He attached himself to the court of Henry V, with whom he enjoyed great favour, and his life was that of a courtly ecclesiastic, devoted to the enjoyments of the world, and altogether careless of his spiritual duties. In 1111 he accompanied the emperor to Italy, where the first impulse to a change was given by his horror at the outrages and imprisonment to which the pope was subjected. A scruple as to investiture led him soon after to refuse the see of Cambray; and his conversion was completed by a thunder-storm, in which he appears to have been thrown from his horse, which was startled by a flash of lightning, and to have been rendered for a time insensible; while the voice which he is said to have heard from heaven, and other circumstances more closely assimilating his case to that of St. Paul, may be ascribed either to his imagination or to inventions

After this Norbert withdrew for a time to a monastery; and, as he was yet only a subdeacon, he presented himself before the archbishop of Cologne, with a request that the orders of deacon and priest might be conferred on him in one day. The archbishop, finding that this request proceeded from an excess of zeal, consented to dispense with the canons which forbade such ordinations; and Norbert, exchanging his gay dress for a rough sheepskin, girt around him with a cord, set out on the career of a preacher and a reformer. His appearance in this character displeased his brethren, and, at a council held by the legate Conon at Fritzlar in 1118, some of them charged him with turbulence, assumption, and eccentricities unbecoming both his birth and his ecclesiastical station. As the attempt to do good in his own country seemed hopeless, he resigned his benefices, sold all that he possessed, gave away the price, and went forth with two brethren to preach the gospel in apostolical poverty. At St. Giles, in Provence, he became known to pope Gelasius, who wished to retain him in his company; but Norbert was bent on continuing his labours, and obtained from the pope a licence to preach wheresoever he would. He made his way through France, barefooted and thinly clad, disregarding the roughness of the ways, the rain, the ice and the snow. At Valenciennes, finding that his knowledge of French was insufficient for preaching, while the people could not understand his German, he prayed for the gift of tongues, and we are told that his prayer was heard. At Cambray, the city of which he had refused to be bishop, he fell dangerously ill, and his two original companions, with a third who had joined him at Orleans, died; but he found a new associate in the bishop’s chaplain, Hugh. The effect of his preaching was heightened by miracles, and wherever he appeared he was received with veneration.

In company with Hugh, Norbert repaired to the council of Reims, with a view of soliciting from Calixtus a renewal of the general licence to preach which had been bestowed on him by Gelasius. On account of their mean appearance, they were unable to obtain an audience of the pope; and they left the city in despair. But on the road they met with Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, who persuaded them to return with him to Reims, and not only obtained for them the licence which they sought, but, by the pope’s permission, carried them with him to Laon, with a view of employing them in a reform of his canons. Norbert, however, found the task of reform beyond his power; he refused an abbacy in the city of Laon, but, at Bartholomew’s entreaty, he consented to remain within the diocese; and, after having been conducted by the bishop from one spot to another, with a view of fixing on a site, he at length chose Prémontré, a secluded and marshy valley in the forest of Coucy, from which his order took the name of Premostratensian.

A little chapel was already built there, and Norbert, on passing a night in it, had a vision of the blessed Virgin, who showed him a white woollen garment, as a pattern of the dress which his order was to assume.

Having chosen a situation, Norbert went forth in the beginning of Lent to gather companions, and by Easter he returned to Prémontré with thirteen, whose number was speedily increased. For a time, like Anthony and Benedict, he was much vexed by the devices of the devil; but he was victorious in the contest. Thus we are told that once, when the enemy was rushing on him in the shape of a bear, he compelled him to vanish; and that by a like power he obliged the wolves of the neighbourhood to perform the duty of sheepdogs. In the rule of the Premonstratensians 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 three houses of the order which ranked next in dignity after Prémontré were invested with privileges resembling those enjoyed by the four “chief daughters” of Citeaux. The order was not allowed to possess tolls, taxes, or serfs; and the members were specially forbidden to keep any animals of the more curious kinds—such as deers, bears, monkeys, peacocks, swans, or hawks. The new establishment met with favour and liberal patronage, and Norbert founded other monasteries on the same model in various parts of France and Germany. Theobald, count of Champagne, was desirous to enter into the society of Prémontré; but the founder told him that it was God’s will that he should continue in his life of piety and beneficence as a layman, and that he should marry in the hope of raising offspring to inherit his territories. The fame of Norbert was increased by the victory which he gained in 1124 over the followers of a fanatic of Antwerp named Tanchelm, whose system appears to have been a mixture of impiety and immorality; and in 1126 the discipline and the possessions of the Premonstratensians were confirmed by Honorius II.

In the same year, Count Theobald married a German princess. Norbert was invited to the nuptials, and had proceeded as far as Spires, where the emperor Lothair III and two papal legates happened to be. The clergy of Magdeburg, being unable to agree in the choice of an archbishop, had resolved to be guided by the advice of these legates; and on Norbert’s entering a church where their deputies were in conference with the representatives of Rome, his appearance was hailed as providential, and the legates recommended him for the vacant dignity. The emperor, who had been struck by his preaching, con Armed the choice, and it was in vain that Norbert endeavoured to escape by pleading that he was unfit for the office, and that he was involved in other engagements. At Magdeburg he was received with great pomp; but he had altered nothing in his habits, and when he appeared last in the procession, barefooted and meanly dressed, the porter of the archiepiscopal palace was about to shut him out as a beggar. On discovering the mistake, the man was filled with dismay; but Norbert told him that he had understood his unfitness better than those who had forced him to accept the see. As archbishop, Norbert took an active part in the affairs of the church. Notwithstanding much opposition, he established a college of Premonstratensians instead of the dissolute canons of St. Mary at Magdeburg. In 1129 he resigned the headship of his order to his old companion Hugh; and, on revisiting Prémontré two years later, in company with pope Innocent II, he had the satisfaction of finding that his rule was faithfully observed by a brotherhood of about 500.

Norbert died in 1134. The Premonstratensians spread widely; even in the founder's lifetime they had houses in Syria and Palestine; and the order was divided into thirty provinces, each of which was under a superintendent, styled circator. 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. The founder was canonized by Gregory XIII in 1582.

VI.

CANONS OF ST. ANTONY.

Some orders were established for the performance of special acts of charity, as the canons of St. Antony, founded in the end of the eleventh century by Gaston, a nobleman of Dauphiny, in thankfulness for his recovery from the pestilence called St. Antony's fire. And to such an institution is to be traced the origin of one of the great military orders which are a remarkable feature of this time.

A monastery for the benefit of Latin pilgrims had been founded at Jerusalem about the middle of the eleventh century, chiefly through the bounty of merchants of Amalfi. To this was attached a hospital for each sex—that for men having a chapel dedicated to St. John the Almsgiver, who was afterwards superseded as patron by the more venerable name of St. John the Baptist; and relief was given to pilgrims who were sick, or who had been reduced to destitution, whether by the expenses of their journey or by the robbers who infested the roads. From the time of the conquest by the crusaders, the brethren of the hospital became independent of the monastery, and formed themselves into a separate order, distinguished by a black dress, with a white cross on the breast, and living monastically under a rule which was confirmed by Paschal II in 1113. The piety and charity of these brethren attracted general reverence; they were enriched by gifts and endowments, both in Asia and in Europe, from kings and other benefactors; and many knights who had gone to the Holy Land as crusaders or as pilgrims enrolled themselves among them. Among these was Raymond du Puy, who in 1118 became master of the hospital, and soon after drew up a rule which was sanctioned by pope Calixtus in 1120. The Hospitallers were to profess poverty, obedience, and strict chastity; they were to beg for the poor, and, whenever they went abroad for this or any other purpose, they were not to go singly, but with companions assigned by the master. No one was to possess any money without the master’s leave, and, when travelling, they were to carry a light with them, which was to be kept burning throughout the night.

About the same time arose the military order of the Temple. In 1118, Hugh des Payens and seven other French knights, impressed by the dangers to which Christianity was exposed in the east, and by the attacks to which pilgrims were subject from infidels and robbers, vowed before the patriarch of Jerusalem to fight for the faith against the unbelievers, to defend the highways, to observe the three monastic obligations, and to live under a discipline adopted from the canons of St. Augustine.

By the formation of this society the Hospitallers were roused to emulation. The martial spirit revived in some of the brethren, who had formerly been knights; and as the wealth of the body was far more than sufficient for their original objects, Raymond du Puy offered their gratuitous services against the infidels to king Baldwin. The Hospitallers were now divided into three classes—knights, clergy, and serving brethren—the last consisting of persons who were not of noble birth. Both the knights and the servitors were bound, when not engaged in war, to devote themselves to the original purposes of the order. They soon distinguished themselves by signal acts of valour, and in 1130 their institution was confirmed by Innocent II. But by degrees they cast off the modesty and humility by which they had been at first distinguished; they defied and insulted the patriarchs of Jerusalem, and claimed immunity from the payment of ecclesiastical dues. When expelled from the Holy Land, they settled successively in Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta; and in the last of these seats they continued almost to our own time.

The career of the Templars was shorter, but yet more brilliant. At first they were excessively poor, although the seal of the order, which displays two knights seated on one horse, may perhaps be better interpreted as a symbol of their brotherly union than as signifying that the first grand master and Godfrey of St. Omer possessed but a single charger between them. In 1127, Hugh des Payens and some of his brethren returned to Europe. St. Bernard, who was nephew to one of the members, warmly took up their cause, and addressed a letter to Hugh, in which he enthusiastically commended the institution, exhorted the Templars to the fulfillment of their duties, and dilated on the holy memories connected with Jerusalem and Palestine. At the council of Troyes, held by a papal legate in 1128, Hugh appeared and gave an account of the origin of his order and he received for it a code of statutes, drawn up under the direction of Bernard. These no longer exist in their original form, but their substance is preserved in the extant rule, which is divided into 72 heads. The Templars were charged to be regular in devotion, self-denying, and modest. Each knight was restricted to three horses—the poverty of God’s house for the time not allowing of a greater number. No gold or silver was to be used in the trappings of their horses; and if such ornaments should be given to them, they were ordered to disguise the precious metals with colour, in order to avoid the appearance of pride. They were to have no locked trunks; they were not to receive letters, even from their nearest relations, without the master's knowledge, and were to read all letters in his presence. They were to receive no presents except by leave of the master, who was entitled to transfer presents from the knight for whom they were intended to another. They were forbidden to hawk and to hunt, nor might they accompany a person engaged in such amusements, except for the purpose of defending him from infidel treachery. They were charged “always to strike the lion”—a charge which seems to mean that they were bound to unceasing hostility against the enemies of the faith. Individual property in lands and men was allowed. Married brethren might be associated into the order; but they were not to wear its white dress, and they were bound to make it their heir. The Templars were forbidden to kiss even their mothers or sisters, and were never to walk alone. The habit of the order was white, to which Eugenius III added a red cross on the breast the banner, the Beauseant, was of black and white, inscribed with the motto, “Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam”.

Although at the time of the council of Troyes the order had already been nine years in existence, the number of its members was only nine; but when thus solemnly inaugurated, and aided by the zealous recommendations of the great saint of Clairvaux, it rapidly increased. There were soon three hundred knights, of the noblest families, a large body of chaplains, and a countless train of servitors and artificers. Emperors, kings, and other potentates enriched the order with lands and endowments, so that, within fifty years after its foundation, it already enjoyed a royal revenue, derived from possessions in all parts of Europe. But, according to the writer who states this, it had even then begun to display the pride, insolence, and defiance of ecclesiastical authority which, afterwards rendered it unpopular, and prepared the way for its falling undefended and unlamented, although probably guiltless of the charges on which it was condemned.

By the rise of the new orders the influence of monachism in the church was greatly increased. They 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 or other ecclesiastical 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 communities became better able to defend themselves against oppression, and as, consequently, the original pretext for exemptions no longer existed. If bishops had formerly found it difficult to contend with the abbots of powerful individual monasteries, it was now a far more serious matter to deal with a member of a great order, connected with brethren everywhere, closely allied with the pope, and having in the abbot of Cluny or of Citeaux a chief totally independent of the bishop, and able to support his brethren against all opposition. The grievance of which bishops had formerly complained, therefore, was now more rarely inflicted by the privileges bestowed on monasteries; yet the monks were, although without it, in a higher position than ever.

The monastic communities not only intercepted the bounty which would otherwise have been bestowed on the secular clergy, but preyed very seriously on the settled revenues of the church. Laymen, who were moved by conscience or by compulsion to resign tithes which they had held, were inclined to bestow them on monasteries rather than on the parish churches to which they rightfully belonged. And as, by an abuse already described, it had often happened that a layman possessed himself of the oblations belonging to a church, assigning only a miserable stipend to the incumbent, these dues, as well as the tithes, were, in case of a restitution, transferred to the monks. Although some abbots refused to enrich their monasteries by accepting tithes or ecclesiastical dues, and although some of the new monastic rules contained express prohibitions on the subject, it was with little effect that synods attempted to check such impropriations; nor did they perfectly succeed in forbidding monks to interfere with the secular clergy by undertaking pastoral and priestly functions.

The monks of Monte Cassino, the “head and mother of all monasteries”, claimed liberties even against the papacy itself. An abbot named Seniorectus (Signoretto), elected during the pontificate 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 or schism, but Monte Cassino had always been pure. Honorius 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 vehement opposition of the monks, Innocent II insisted on an oath of obedience as a condition of their reconciliation to the Roman church.

New privileges were conferred on orders or on particular monasteries. According to the chroniclers of St. Augustine’s, at Canterbury, the use of the mitre was granted to Egilsin, abbot of that house, by Alexander II in 1063, although they admit that, through the “simplicity” of the abbots and the enmity of the archbishops, the privilege lay dormant for more than a century. The earliest undoubted grant of the mitre, however, is one which was made to the abbot of St. Maximin’s, at Treves, by Gregory VII. Among other privileges granted to monasteries were 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, and should not be bound to attend any councils except those summoned by the pope himself. The abbots of Cluny and Vendome were, by virtue of their office, cardinals of the Roman church.

In addition to the genuine grants, forgery was now very largely used to advance the pretensions of monastic bodies. Thus we are told that Leo IX, on visiting Subiaco in 1051, found many spurious documents and committed them to the flames. Even Monte Cassino did not disdain to make use of the forger’s arts. The monks of St. Medard’s at Soissons were notorious for impostures of this kind; one of them, named Guerno, confessed on his death-bed that he had travelled widely, supplying monasteries with pretended “apostolic” privileges, and that among those who had employed him in such fabrications was the proud society of St. Augustine’s, at Canterbury.

CHAPTER VIII.

FROM THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS TO THE DEATH OF POPE ADRIAN IV.

A.D. 1122-1159

1

BERNARD DE CLAIRVAUX

ALTHOUGH the concordat of Worms had been welcome both to the papal and to the imperialist parties as putting an end to the contest which had long raged between them, the terms of the compromise embodied in it did not remain in force beyond the death of Henry V, which took place at Utrecht in May 1125. Henry had not taken the precaution of providing himself with a successor to the empire or to the German kingdom, nor was there any one who could pretend to election as being his natural heir; and the princes of Germany saw in the circumstances of the vacancy an opportunity for gaining advantages at the expense of the crown. A letter is extant, addressed by such of them as had assembled for the emperor's funeral at Spires to their absent brethren, whom they exhort to remember the oppressions under which both the church and the kingdom had suffered, and to take care that the future sovereign should be one under whom both church and kingdom might be free from “so heavy a yoke of slavery”. It is supposed that this letter was drawn up by Archbishop Adalbert of Mayence, the bitter and vindictive enemy of the late emperor, and in the election of a new king this prelate’s influence was exerted in the spirit which the document had indicated. For this election sixty thousand men of the four chief nations of Germany—the Franconians, the Saxons, the Swabians, and the Bavarians—assembled near Mayence, in the month of August, encamping on both sides of the Rhine, while the conferences of their leaders were held within the city. The attendance of prelates and nobles was such as had not been seen within the memory of living men; and under the direction of a papal legate, who was present, it was settled that the election should be conducted in a form analogous to that of a pope—that, as the pope was chosen by the cardinals, and the choice was ratified by the inferior clergy, so the king should be elected by ten representatives from each of the four chief nations, and their choice should be confirmed by the rest. Three candidates were proposed— Frederick, duke of Swabia, Lothair, duke of Saxony, and Leopold, marquis of Austria; to whom some authorities add the name of a fourth—Charles “the Good”, count of Flanders. Both Lothair and Leopold, however, professed, with strong protestations, a wish to decline the honour; and it appeared as if the election were about to fall on Frederick, the son of Frederick of Hohenstaufen, who in the reign of Henry IV had suddenly emerged from the undistinguished crowd of German nobles, and had been rewarded for his services with the dukedom of Swabia and the hand of the emperor s daughter. But the younger Frederick was obnoxious to the hierarchical party on account of his connection with the Franconian emperors, whose family estates he had inherited; while many of the lay princes, as well as the clergy, were unwilling to give themselves a king who was likely to assert too much of independence. Through Adalbert’s artful policy it was contrived that the election should fall on Lothair, who, while he still protested, struggled, and threatened, was raised on the shoulders of his partisans and proclaimed as king.

Lothair, who was already advanced in life, had been conspicuous for the steadiness of his opposition to the late dynasty, and on that account was popular with its enemies; he was respected for his courage and honesty; and, after a slight display of opposition in some quarters, his election was received with general acquiescence. But, although he had always professed himself a champion of the church, the clerical party, which had borne so large a part in his advancement, held it necessary to bind him by new conditions. It was stipulated that the church should have full liberty of election to bishoprics, without being controlled, “as formerly”, by the presence of the sovereign, or restrained by any recommendation; and that the emperor, after the consecration of a prelate so elected, should, without any payment, invest him with the regalia by the sceptre, and should receive of him an oath of fidelity “saving his order”— a phrase which was interpreted as excluding the ancient feudal form of homage. No mention was made of the concordat of Worms, by which the presence of the prince at elections had been allowed, and, while the formality of homage had been left untouched, it had been provided that, in the case of German bishops, investiture should precede consecration; and this disregard of the reservations made at Worms in behalf of the crown was justified by the hierarchical party under the pretence that they had been granted to Henry V alone, and not to his successors. A further proof of the change which had taken place in the relations of the papal and the imperial powers is furnished by the circumstance that two bishops were sent to Rome, with a prayer that the pope would confirm the election of the king.

The pontificate of Calixtus II was distinguished by the vigour of his home administration. At the Lateran Council of 1123, he enacted canons against the invasion of ecclesiastical property and the conversion of churches into fortresses. He suppressed the practice of carrying arms within the city, which had grown up during the long contest with the empire, and had become the provocation to continual and bloody affrays; and in other ways he exerted himself successfully against the lawlessness and disorder which had prevailed among the Romans. On the death of Calixtus, in December 1124, a cardinal named Theobald Buccapecus (or Boccadipecora) was chosen as his successor, and assumed the name of Celestine; but, after he had been invested with the papal robe, and while the cardinals were engaged in singing the Te Deum for the election, Robert Frangipani, the most powerful of the Roman nobles, burst with a band of armed men into the church where they were assembled, and insisted that Lambert, cardinal bishop of Ostia (a prudent and learned man, who had acted as the late pope’s legate at Worms), should be chosen. Theobald, although his election was unimpeachable, and although he had received the vote of Lambert himself, thought it well to prevent a schism by voluntarily withdrawing from the contest; and Lambert, having some days later been elected in a more regular manner, held the papacy, under the name of Honorius II, until 1130. But on his death a serious schism arose, through the rival elections of Gregory, cardinal of St. Angelo, and Peter Leonis, cardinal of St. Mary in the Trastevere, the grandson of a wealthy Jew, who had been baptized under the pontificate of Leo IX, and had taken at his baptism the name of that pope. The “Leonine family”, or Pierleoni (as they were called), had since risen to great power in Rome; their wealth had been increased by the continued practice of those national arts which they had not renounced with the faith of their forefathers; while their political ability had been displayed in high offices, and in the conduct of important negotiations. For a time the Jewish pedigree seems to have been almost forgotten, and their genealogy (like that of other great medieval families, and probably with equal truth) was afterwards deduced from the illustrious Anicii and the imperial Julii of ancient Rome. The future anti­pope himself had studied at Paris, had been a monk of Cluny, had been raised to the dignity of cardinal by Paschal II, and had been employed as a legate in England and in France—on one occasion as the colleague of his future rival, Gregory. The circumstances of the election are variously reported; but from a comparison of the reports it would appear that Gregory (who styled himself Innocent II) was chosen in the church of St. Gregory on the Caelian, immediately after the death of Honorius, with such haste that the proper formalities were neglected; whereas the election of Peter, which took place in St. Mark's at a later hour of the same day, was more regular, and was supported by a majority of the cardinals. And the inference in favour of Peter (or Anacletus II) is strengthened by the circumstance that his opponent's partisans, while they continually insist on the question of personal merit, are studious to avoid that of legality as to the circumstances of the election.

The rival popes were not, as in former cases, representatives of opposite principles, but merely of the rival interests of the Frangipani and the Leonine factions. Each of them, at his election, had gone through the pretence of professing unwillingness to accept the papacy; and each of them now endeavoured to strengthen himself for the assertion of his title to it. In Rome itself Anacletus prevailed. His enemies tell us that not only was he supported by the power and wealth of his family, but that he had formerly swelled his treasures by all the corrupt means which were open to him as a cardinal or a legate; that he plundered the treasury, that he compelled pilgrims by imprisonment and hunger to submit to merciless exactions, that he melted down the plate of churches, even employing Jews to break up chalices and crucifixes when Christian tradesmen shrank from such impiety. His connection with the hated and unbelieving race is eagerly caught up as matter of reproach; and he is charged with scandalous and even revolting dissoluteness. That Innocent is not assailed by similar reproaches may have been the effect either of superior character in himself or of greater forbearance in the party which opposed him. The wealth of Anacletus was employed in raising soldiers and in corrupting the venal Romans; he got possession of St. Peter’s by force; and in no long time the nobles who had adhered to Innocent, and had sheltered his partisans in their fortified houses—even the Frangipani themselves—were gained over by the rival pope or were terrified into submission. Finding himself without support in his own city, Innocent resolved to throw himself on that kingdom which had lately afforded a refuge to his predecessor Gelasius; he therefore left Conrad, cardinal-bishop of Sabina, as his representative at Rome, sailed down the Tiber in the end of May, and after having spent some time at Pisa and at Genoa, he landed in September at St. Gilles in Provence. The course which the king and the church of France were to take in the dispute as to the papacy was mainly determined by two abbots, who stood in the highest repute for sanctity, Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter of Cluny. 

Bernard, the third son of a knight named Tesselin, was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in 1091. His mother, Aletha, or Alice, was a woman of devout character, and dedicated her children—six sons and one daughter—in their infancy to God; but Bernard—a gentle, thoughtful, studious, and silent boy—was the one in whom she placed the strongest hope of seeing her desire fulfilled. As he was entering on youth, Aletha died, taking part to the last moment of her life in the devotions of the clergy who were gathered around her bed; but her influence remained with him. The earnestness of his resistance to the temptations of youth was shown by standing for hours up to the neck in chilling water; and other stories to the same purpose are related of him. He believed that his mother often appeared to him in visions, for the purpose of warning him lest his studies (like those of many others in that time) should degenerate into a mere pursuit of literature, apart from the cultivation of religion; and, after much mental distress, the crisis of his life took place as he was on his way to visit his brothers, who were engaged in a military expedition under the duke of Burgundy. Entering a church by the wayside, he “poured out his heart like water before the sight of God”; he resolved to devote himself to the monastic state, and forthwith endeavoured to bring his nearest relations to join in the resolution. The first of his converts was his uncle Waldric, a distinguished and powerful warrior; and one by one his five brothers also yielded. The eldest, Guy, who was married and had children, was restrained for a time by his wife’s unwillingness; but a sudden illness convinced her that it “was hard for her to kick against the pricks”. To another brother, Gerard, who was strenuous in his refusal, Bernard declared that nothing but affliction would bring him to a right mind, and, laying his finger on a certain place in his side, he told him that even there a lance should penetrate. The prophecy was fulfilled by Gerard’s being wounded and made prisoner; and, on recovering his liberty (not without the assistance of a miracle) he joined the company which Bernard was forming. As Bernard at the head of his converts was leaving the family mansion in order to fulfill their resolution, the eldest brother observed the youngest, Nivard, at play, and told him that the inheritance would now all fall to him;—“Is it, then, heaven for you and earth for me?” said the boy, “that is no fair division”; and he too, after a time, broke away from his father to join the rest. The old man himself followed, and at length the devotion of the family to the monastic life was completed by the adhesion of the sister, who renounced the married state, with the wealth and the vanities in which she had delighted. For six months the brothers resided in a house at Chatillon, for the purpose of settling their worldly affairs before entering the cloister. Others in the meantime were induced to join them, and in 1113 Bernard, with more than thirty companions, presented himself for admission at Citeaux—a monastery which he chose for the sake of its rigour, and as offering the best hope of escaping the notice of men. The progress of the Cistercian order had been slow, on account of the severity of its discipline, so that Stephen Harding, the third abbot, had almost despaired of spiritual offspring to carry on his system. But the vision by which he had been consoled, of a multitude washing their white garments in a fountain was now to be rapidly fulfilled.

By the accession of Bernard and his company, the original monastery became too narrow to contain its inmates, and in the same year the “eldest daughter”, the monastery of La Ferté, was founded. This was followed in 1114 by the foundation of Pontigny; and in 1115 Bernard himself was chosen to lead forth a fresh colony to a place which had been the haunt of a band of robbers, and known as “The Valley of Wormwood”, but which now exchanged its name for that of Clairvaux—The Bright Valley. For a time, the hardships which the little community had to bear were excessive. They suffered from cold and from want of clothing; they were obliged to live on porridge made of beech-leaves; and when the season of necessity was past, their voluntary mortifications were such as to strike all who saw them with astonishment. Their bread, wrung by their labour from an ungracious soil, was “not so much branny as earthy”; their food (it is said) had no savour but what was given to it by hunger or by the love of God; everything that could afford pleasure to the appetite was regarded as poison. A monk of another order, who visited Clairvaux, carried off a piece of the bread as a curiosity, and used to show it with expressions of wonder that men, and yet more, that such men, could live on such provisions. But we are told that miracles came to the aid of the monks. When they were in the extremity of need, opportune supplies of money unexpectedly arrived; in a famine, when they undertook to feed the poor of the neighborhood, their corn was miraculously multiplied; and from these assistances they drew a confidence in the Divine protection, so that they ceased to disturb their abbot with anxieties about worldly things.

Bernard himself carried his mortifications to an extreme of rigour. He prayed standing, until his knees and his feet failed him through weariness; he fasted until his digestion was so deranged that to eat was a torture to him; he grudged the scanty time which he allowed himself for sleep, as being wasted in a state of death. He shared beyond his strength in the ruder labours of the monks, such as the work of the fields and the carry­ing of wood. “It was”, says one of his biographers, “as if a lamb were yoked to the plough and compelled to drag it”. Much of his time was spent in study; but, 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. By the severity of his exercises, it is said that he had extinguished his bodily senses; for many days together he ate blood, supposing it to be butter; he drank oil without knowing it from water; after having spent a year at Citeaux, he could not tell whether the roof of the novices chamber was vaulted or not, nor whether the east end of the church had two windows or three; and for a whole day he walked along the shore of the Leman lake without being aware that any water was near. Hearing that his life was in danger from his excessive mortifications, William of Champeaux, bishop of Châlons on the Marne, by whom he had been ordained, repaired to Citeaux, and, prostrating himself before the abbots of the order, who were assembled in a general chapter, requested that Bernard might be committed to his care for a year. The request was granted, and the bishop placed the abbot in a small hut outside his monastery, “like those usually made for lepers at the crossings of the highways”, with orders that he should not be disquieted with business or allowed to indulge in his usual austerities. By this (although the bishop’s orders were but imperfectly obeyed) Bernard’s life was probably saved; but, when the year was at an end, he plunged into ascetic exercises more violently than before, as if to compensate for his forced relaxations. In later years, Bernard expressed disapprobation of such excess in mortification as that by which he had weakened his own body and impaired his vigour yet the appearance of his pale face and mace­rated form, the contrast of bodily weakness with inward strength, contributed greatly to enhance the effect of his powerful voice and his gushing flow of language, his strong conviction, and the burning fervour with which he spoke. To persons of every class he knew how to address himself in the style most suitable to their understanding and feelings and over all kinds of men, from the sovereign to the serf, he exercised an irresistible power. Whenever he went forth from his solitude, says a biographer, he carried with him, like Moses, from his intercourse with heaven, a glory of more than mortal purity, so that men looked on him with awe, and his words sounded to them as the voice of an angel. To his other means of influence was added the reputation of prophetic visions and of miraculous gifts. Not only is it said that he healed by his touch, but there are many such stories as that bread which he had blessed produced supernatural effects both on the bodies and on the minds of those who ate it; that water in which he had washed his hands cured the ailment of a man who had been charged in a vision to drink it; that his stole cast out a devil; and that a blind man recovered his sight by placing himself on a spot where the saintly abbot had stood. Of the reality of his miracles Bernard himself appears to have been convinced, and we are told that they were a matter of perplexity to him; but that, after much consideration, he concluded that they were granted for the good of others, and were no ground for supposing himself to be holier or more favoured than other men. When recommended by such a man, the rigour which at first had deterred from the Cistercian order became a powerful attraction; Clairvaux was beset by candidates for admission; the number of its inmates rose to seven hundred, among whom the king’s brother Henry, afterward archbishop of Reims, was to be seen submitting to the same severe discipline as the rest; and the number of monasteries founded by Bernard, in person or through his disciples, amounted to a hundred and sixty, scattered over every country of the west, but subject, as was believed, to a preternatural knowledge of their affairs which enabled him to watch over all. Wives were afraid for their husbands, and mothers hid their sons, lest they should fall under the fascination of Bernard’s eloquence, and desert the world for the cloister. 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 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 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.

In the schism which had now arisen, Bernard zealously espoused the interest of Innocent. At a council which king Lewis summoned at Étampes for the consideration of the question, the abbot of Clairvaux is said to have spoken as if by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and the assembly, in accordance with his opinion, pronounced in favour of Innocent—not, apparently, as having been the most regularly elected (for it is said that the notorious disorderliness of Roman elections led them to pay little regard to this point), but mainly on the ground of his superior personal merit.

Unequalled as Bernard’s influence became, however, perhaps that of Peter “the Venerable” was at this time yet more important to Innocent. For Anacletus had himself been a monk of Cluny, and had reckoned on the support of his order; so that the ready and spontaneous declaration of the abbot in behalf of Innocent inflicted the severest blow on the rival claimant of the papacy. And 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 Cluny 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 Cluny 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. At Cluny Innocent spent eleven days, and on the 25th of October, the anniversary of the dedication of the high altar by Urban II, he consecrated the new church of the monastery. There he was welcomed in the name of the French king by Suger, abbot of St. Denys; and in the beginning of 1131 he was received by Lewis himself at Fleury, with the deepest demonstrations of respect. With a view of enlisting Henry of England in the same cause, Bernard had undertaken a journey into his continental territory; and, notwithstanding the opposition of many prelates, who are said to have represented that Innocent, as a fugitive, would be a burden to the king and to his people, the abbot had met with his wonted success. On Henry's hesitating,—“Are you afraid”, asked Bernard, “that you may sin by giving your obedience to Innocent? Think how you may answer for your other sins, and let this rest on me!”. The king’s reluctance was overcome, and he accompanied Bernard to Chartres, where Innocent received his assurances of support, with the magnificent presents which accompanied them.

Anacletus had proposed that the question between himself and his rival should be decided by an ecclesiastical council or by the emperor; but the proposal was declined by Innocent, on the ground that he was already rightful pope. Each party continued, by strenuous exertions, to endeavour to enlist adherents. The cardinals who supported Innocent wrote to Lothair, that, after their election had been made at the third hour, the Jewish antipope was chosen at the sixth—the hour when the Redeemer was crucified by the Jews, and when a thick darkness overspread the world. They dwell on his alleged impieties and other misdeeds; they assure Lothair that the whole East joins in anathematizing the pretender, and they entreat the king of the Romans himself to support their caused

With no less eagerness and confidence, Anacletus endeavored to make interest in all quarters. He insisted on the validity of his election, which he described as unanimous, although he admitted that he was opposed by a few sons of Belial, on whom he lavishes all the treasures of ecclesiastical abuse. He reminds some to whom he writes of their ancient friendship with his father; to others he recalls his own friendly relations with them; to the Cluniacs, his connection with their order and its chief monastery. He, too, boasts of his powerful supporters—that he is acknowledged throughout the whole of Rome, and that the East is with him and it would seem that he endeavoured to verify this boast by a letter to the king of Jerusalem, in which he vaguely promises to do great things for the holy city. But the success of these endeavours was very small. For a time bishops of the opposite parties contended in dioceses, and rival abbots disputed the headship of monasteries but the great orders all declared in favour of Innocent. The letters which Anacletus addressed to princes and prelates remained without acknowledgment, and the only secular power which he was able to secure to his side was that of the southern Normans. The position of the rivals was expressed by a verse which spoke of Peter as having Rome, while Gregory had the whole world.

Although Anacletus had declared himself in favour of Lothair, instead of throwing himself into the interest of the Hohenstaufen family, and although Lothair had been importuned in his behalf by a letter written in the name of the Romans, Germany was won to the side of Innocent by legates who appeared before a diet at Wurzburg, and it was arranged that the king should meet the pope at Liège. The assemblage collected in that city for the occasion was imposing from the number of prelates and nobles who attended. Lothair received the pope with the greatest reverence, held the rein of his horse while he rode through the streets, and, with his wife Richenza, was crowned by his hands in the cathedral. The king promised to go into Italy, and to seat Innocent in St. Peter’s chair; but when, in consideration of this aid, he desired that the privilege of investiture should be restored to him,—representing, it is said, that the weakening of the imperial power by the cession of this was a weakening of the papacy itself—a serious difference arose. To the Romans who were present, the proposal appeared to involve evils even worse than the ascendency of the antipope in Rome; but their repugnance might have been unavailing if it had not been reinforced by the authority of Bernard, to whose firm opposition Lothair found himself obliged to yield. But in questions which soon after arose as to various sees—especially those of Treves and Verdun—he showed that he was no longer disposed, as at the time of his election, to give up the privileges which had been reserved to the crown by the concordat of Worms, but, agreeably to the terms of that treaty, he insisted that the bishops should receive investiture before consecration.

Returning into France, Innocent spent the Easter season at Paris and St. Denys, where he was received with splendid hospitality, and in October he held a council at Reims, which was attended by thirteen archbishops and two hundred and sixty-three bishops. Norbert, the founder of the Premonstratensians, and now archbishop of Magdeburg, appeared on the part of the German king, to renew his promises of assistance, and to efface the remembrance of the late disputes. The kings of England, of Aragon, and of Castile were also represented by prelates who tendered in their names assurances of obedience and support. Lewis of France was present in person; and, as his son and colleague, Philip, had lately been killed by a fall from his horse in a street of Parish a younger son, Lewis, at that time ten years old, was crowned in his stead. Bernard had by his personal intercourse acquired an unbounded influence over Innocent, so that although the pope still appeared to consult in public with his cardinals, it was known that he was really under the guidance of the abbot of Clairvaux, to whom all who desired any favour from the pope addressed themselves. From Reims Innocent proceeded to visit Clairvaux, where he was the more deeply impressed by the austerity of the Cistercian system from its contrast with the magnificence of Cluny. The “poor of Christ”, according to Bernard’s biographer, received him, not in purple and fine linen, not with the display of gilded books and splendid furniture, not with the loud blare of trumpets; but their coarsely-attired procession carried a cross of stone, and greeted him with a low chant of psalms. The pope and his attendant bishops were moved to tears at the sight, while the monks, with their eyes fixed on the ground, would not allow themselves to look at their visitors. It was with awe that these beheld the simple oratory with its naked walls, the refectory with its bare earthen floor, the rude and scanty provisions of the brotherhood—even fish being served up for the pope’s table only. The solemnities of the choir were painfully disturbed by a monk who suddenly exclaimed, “I am the Christ!”, but we are told that the demon who had prompted this outbreak was immediately quelled by the prayers of Bernard and his brethren.

In April 1132, Innocent crossed the Alps on his re­turn to Italy, having addressed from Lyons a letter to Bernard, by which, in acknowledgment of his services, the pope bestowed exemptions and other privileges on Clairvaux and on the whole Cistercian order. After having spent the summer in Lombardy, he met Lothair in the plains of Roncaglia in November. Since the election of the German king, the interest of the Hohenstaufen had been strengthened by the return of Frederick’s brother Conrad from the Holy Land; and as Conrad had taken no oath of fealty to Lothair, he was now set up as the head of the party. In 1128 he was crowned as king of Italy at Monza by Anselm, archbishop of Milan, who, on the ground of his church's independence, had refused the pall from pope Honorius. In consequence of having officiated at the coronation, Anselm had been declared by Honorius to be deposed, and, having afterwards accepted the pall from Anacletus, he was excommunicated by Innocent and driven from his city, while Conrad was excommunicated by both the claimants of the papacy. Yet the opposition of the Hohenstaufen was still so formidable in Germany that Lothair, when he proceeded into Italy, in fulfillment of the promise which he had made at Liège, could only take with him a body of 1,5oo or 2,000 horse, which excited the mockery of the Italians. With this small force, however, he conducted the pope to Rome, where they arrived on the 30th of April 1133.

Attempts were made by Anacletus (who still held possession of a great part of the city) to obtain an inquiry into his pretensions; but Lothair, under the influence of the opposite party, rejected his overtures, and issued an edict in condemnation of him. On the 4th of June, Lothair and Richenza were crowned in the Lateran by Innocent; for St. Peter’s, the usual scene of the imperial coronations, was in the hands of the antipope. Before entering the church, the emperor swore, in the presence of the Roman nobles, 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 towards the recovery of the rest. A compromise was arranged as to the inheritance of the countess Matilda, which, in consequence of Henry V’s refusal to admit her donation, had become a subject of dispute between the papacy and the empire. Lothair was invested with the lands by the ceremony of the ring, and was to hold them under the Roman see on payment of a hundred pounds of silver yearly; and after him they were to be held on like terms by his son-in-law Henry, duke of Bavaria, at whose death they were to revert to the papacy. In this arrangement it is evident that Lothair was more eager to secure the interest of his own family than that of the elective imperial crown. But beyond the temporary settlement of this question and his formal acknowledgment as emperor, Lothair’s expedition to Italy had no results. His declaration in favour of Innocent was not supported either by the force which would have suppressed opposition, or by the wealth which would have bought over the Romans; and he found himself obliged to retire before the dangers of the climate, leaving Rome a prey to its exasperated factions. Innocent was speedily again driven out, and withdrew to Pisa, where he remained until the beginning of 1137.

At Pisa a great council was held in May 1136, when Anacletus was excommunicated, and the sentence of deposition, without hope of restoration, was pronounced against his partisans. At this assembly Bernard was the person most remarkable for the influence which he exerted, and for the reverence which was paid to him : but we are assured by his biographer that he remained unmoved by all the honours which were pressed on him. From Pisa he proceeded to Milan, in order to complete the work of reclaiming the citizens from their adhesion to the antipope and Conrad. When his approach was known, almost the whole population poured forth to meet him at a distance of some miles. They thronged to touch him; they pulled out threads from his clothes, to be treasured as relics or employed for the cure of the sick. Bread and water were brought from a distance for his blessing, from which they were believed to derive a sacramental virtue; and a vast number of miracles was wrought, which were ascribed by the Milanese to his sanctity, and by himself to the willing and eager faith of the people. The turbulent city submitted implicitly to his words; the ornaments of the churches were put away, sackcloth and coarse woollen garments were generally worn, and women as well as men manifested their repentance by submitting to be shorn of their hair. Bernard was entreated to accept the archbishopric, which he did not absolutely refuse; but he declared that he would leave the matter to be decided by the course which his palfrey should take on the morrow, and in obedience to this sign he rode away from Milan. A new archbishop, Robald, was soon afterwards elected, and, at Bernard's persuasion, the Milanese consented to his accepting the pall from Innocent, and taking an oath to the pope by which, in the words of the chronicler Landulf, “he turned the liberty of the church of Milan into the contrary”. The jurisdiction of the see had lately been diminished by the erection of an archbishopric of Genoa, with metropolitan authority over some dioceses which were withdrawn from the province of Milan.

On Bernard’s return to France, his influence was again remarkably manifested. Gerard, bishop of Angouleme, who had taken a prominent part in forcing Pope Paschal to recall his compact with Henry V, had been employed by successive popes as legate for Aquitaine and the adjoining provinces of Spain. He had written to the council of Étampes a letter in favour of Innocent, but, having been unable to obtain from that pope a renewal of his legation, he had espoused the party of Anacletus, and had received from him a fresh commission. It was in vain that he attempted to draw Henry of England and some princes of Spain and Brittany into the antipope’s interest; but he was able to secure the adherence of William IX, count of Aquitaine, and, relying on the count’s support, he seized on the see of Bourges, and ejected several bishops and abbots, filling their places with men whose birth is said to have been their only qualification for such office. Peter of Cluny had endeavored to reclaim the count of Aquitaine, but without success; but at the request of Innocent’s legate, Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, Bernard undertook the task. After having listened to his arguments, the count, who was really indifferent as to the claims of the rival popes, professed himself willing to join the party of Innocent. But as to the deprived bishops, he declared that he would not and could not restore them, because they had offended him beyond forgiveness, and he had bound himself by an oath to the contrary; nor could he be persuaded by Bernard's assurances that such oaths were not to be regarded as valid. The abbot proceeded to the celebration of mass, while William, as an excommunicate person, remained without the church-door, until Bernard again came forth, with a sternness of countenance, a fire in his eyes, and an awful solemnity in his whole demeanour, which appeared more than human, and bearing the consecrated host in his hands. “Often”, he said, “have we entreated you, and you have despised us, the servants of God. Lo, here comes to you the Son of the Virgin, the Lord and Head of the church which you persecute. Here is your Judge, at whose name every knee shall bow of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth—your Judge, into whose hands your soul will fall. Will you despise Him too, as you have despised His servants?”. At these words, while all around were in trembling expectation of the event, the count fell on the earth, foaming at the mouth, and apparently senseless. He was raised up by some soldiers of his guard, but his limbs refused to support him, until Bernard, touching him with his foot, desired him to stand up, and hear God's sentence. The demand that he should restore the ejected prelates was immediately obeyed, and his reconciliation with the church was signed with the kiss of peace. Gerard of Angouleme still resisted all attempts to gain him; but it is said that he was soon after found lifeless in his bed, having died excommunicate and without the last sacraments. His body was torn from the grave by order of the legate Geoffrey of Chartres, the altars which he had consecrated were thrown down, all who had been promoted by him to ecclesiastical offices were ejected, and the schism was suppressed in France.

In 1137, Bernard, in compliance with a request from Innocent and his cardinals, undertook another journey into Italy, for the purpose of labouring against the antipope. The interest of Anacletus had by this time greatly declined; his money was exhausted, his state was diminished, even the service of his table had fallen into a condition of meanness and neglect; and Bernard, on arriving at Rome, discovered that most of the anti­pope’s adherents were inclined to a reconciliation with Innocent, although many of them were withheld by oaths, by family ties, or by other private considerations. The whole strength of the party now rested on Roger II of Sicily. Roger, an able, stern, and ambitious prince, had undertaken, on the extinction of Robert Guiscard’s line by the death of William of Apulia in 1127, to unite under his own power the whole of the Norman acquisitions in Italy, and, in addition to the possessions both of the Hauteville family and of the earlier settlers in Campania, he had seized on the duchy of Naples, which until then had been connected with the Greek empire. Pope Honorius, after having thrice denounced him excommunicate, and after having vainly endeavoured to resist his progress by an armed alliance, was compelled in 1228 to invest him in his new conquests with the title of duke; and two years later, Roger, having assumed the title of king, received a confirmation of it from Anacletus, by whom he was crowned at Palermo.

The pope had joined with the dispossessed princes of the south in entreating the emperor’s intervention; and Lothair, after having established peace in Germany by a reconciliation with Frederick and Conrad of Hohenstaufen (in which Bernard's mediation was added to that of the empress Richenza), again crossed the Alps at the head of a powerful force. In a single campaign, with the aid of the fleets of Genoa and Pisa, he deprived Roger of all his late acquisitions on the mainland. But dissensions arose between the allies. In a question as to the reconciliation of the abbey of Monte Cassino, which had been drawn by the Sicilian power into the antipope’s interest, the emperor bitterly reproached the pope’s representatives for their master’s ingratitude to him, and even threatened to forsake his party; and when a new prince, Rainulf, was to be invested at Salerno, after a month’s discussion whether the suzerainty belonged to the pope or to the emperor, the difficulty was for the time overcome by an arrangement that both should at the ceremony hold the banner by means of which the investiture was performed. Having restored Innocent to Rome, and apparently pacified Italy, Lothair set out homewards; but at Trent he fell sick, and on the 3rd of December he died at Breitenwang, an obscure place between the rivers Inn and Lech. A diet was summoned to meet at Whitsuntide 1138 for the election of a successor, and it was expected that the choice of the Germans would fall on Henry, duke of Bavaria, the son-in-law and representative of the late emperor. But Henry, by conduct which had gained for him the epithet of “The Proud”, had offended many of the electors, and the influence of the pope, who dreaded a too powerful emperor, was exerted in opposition to the family which had restored him to the possession of his capital. Without waiting, therefore, for the appointed diet, a small party of the electors, headed by the archbishops of Treves and Cologne (Mayence being vacant in consequence of the death of Adalbert), chose Conrad of Hohenstaufen—once an excommunicated pretender to the Italian kingdom—as king of Germany, and he was crowned by the papal legate, cardinal Theotwin, at Aix-la-Chapelle. For some years which followed, Germany was again a prey to the contests of parties struggling for supremacy, and it is said that in the course of these contests—at the battle of Weinsberg, in 1140—the names of Welf and Waiblingen (Guelf and Ghibelline), “those hellish names”, as a Genoese chronicler calls them, which afterwards became so notorious in the feuds of Italy, were first heard as the rallying cries of the opposite parties.

While Lothair was yet on his way towards the Alps, Roger again appeared in Italy, and speedily recovered a large portion of his conquests. In answer to overtures from Innocent, which were made through Bernard, he proposed a conference between representatives of the rival popes,—in the hope, it is said, that Peter of Pisa, one of the ablest partisans of Anacletus, would by his learning and rhetorical skill prove superior to the abbot of Clairvaux. After Peter had stated the claims of Anacletus, Bernard began his reply by insisting on the unity of the church, and then proceeded to apply the doctrine by asking whether it could be thought that Roger alone was in the one ark of salvation, while all other Christian nations, and all the holy orders of monks, were to perish? Then, seeing the impression which his words had made on his hearers, “Let us”, he said to Peter, taking him by the hand, “enter into a safer ark”. The antipapal champion, whether really convinced, or gained by a promise that his dignities should be secured to him, yielded to the appeal and returned with Bernard to Rome, where he professed his submission to Innocent; but Roger still held out with a view of making conditions as to some property of the Roman see which he had seized.

The death of Lothair was followed within a few weeks by that of Anacletus, who, notwithstanding , the decay of his power, had to the last kept possession of the Vatican. His body was secretly buried, lest it should be treated like that of Pope Formosus; and, although a successor was set up, under the name of Victor the Fourth, this was rather with a view to making favourable terms of reconciliation than with any serious hope of prolonging the schism. Innocent spent large sums in buying over the adherents of Anacletus,—among them the members of the late antipope’s own family, who humbled themselves at his feet, and took the oath of fealty to him; and such was Bernard's influence that the new antipope went to his lodging, by night, renounced his claims, stripped off his insignia, and was led by the abbot in triumph to prostrate himself at the feet of Innocent. The joy of the Romans at the restoration of peace was unbounded; but Bernard, to whom they ascribed the merit of it, escaped with all speed from their demonstrations of gratitude, and returned to resume in the quiet seclusion of Clairvaux his mystical exposition of the Canticles.

In April 1139, Innocent, now undisputed master of Rome, assembled at the Lateran a general council, which was attended by a thousand archbishops and bishops. The pope in his opening speech asserted the feudal authority of St. Peter's successor over all other members of the hierarchy, as the superior under whom all ecclesiastical power is held. The ordinations and other acts of Anacletus and his partisans, such as Gerard of Angouleme, were annulled, and some bishops who had received schismatic consecration were severely rebuked by the pope, who forcibly snatched their pastoral staves from their hands, plucked off their robes, and took from them their episcopal rings. Roger of Sicily, although he had given in his adhesion to Innocent, was denounced excommunicate, with all his followers canons relating to discipline were passed; and the Truce of God, in its fullest extent, was re-enacted. Yet the remainder of the pope’s own life was almost entirely spent in war—partly against his immediate neighbours, and partly against the Sicilian king. Roger was carrying on the war in the south with great barbarity—slaughtering defenseless people, plundering, destroying trees and crops, tearing from the grave and treating with the basest indignities the body of Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, who had accompanied Lothair on his last expedition, and that of duke Rainulf of Salerno, who had died at Troja about the time of the Lateran council. In June 1139 Innocent set out against the invader, at the head of an armed force, accompanied by Robert, prince of Capua, who had been again dispossessed of his territories. But, like Leo IX, the pope fell into the hands of the Normans, and, as in Leo’s case, the victors contented themselves with exacting the papal sanction for their conquests, with the confirmation of Roger’s kingly title.

The contest for the papacy had long diverted Bernard’s attention from the studies in which he most delighted. We shall next find him engaged in a conflict of a different kind; but before proceeding to this, it is necessary to trace in some degree the intellectual movements of the age, and the history of the celebrated man to whom Bernard was now to be opposed.

During the latter part of the eleventh century, a fresh impulse had been given to intellectual activity by the labours of Lanfranc, Berengar, Anselm, and other eminent teachers. The old cathedral schools were developing into seminaries of general learning, frequented by numbers beyond the example of former times, and exercising an important influence. And the monastic discipline, which for some was merely a mechanical rule, while for spirits of a mystical tendency it offered the attractions of contemplation and devotion, stimulated minds of a different character to exercise themselves in speculations which often passed the boundaries of orthodoxy.

The question as to the existence of universals—such as genus, species, differentia, proprium, accidens,—which had divided the schools of ancient philosophy, had been generally ruled in the church by the authority of St. Augustine, who held with Plato the real existence of universals; yet there had been some who, with Aristotle, asserted that they were mere names or ideas. This nominalism (as it was styled) was now taken up by Roscellin, a canon of Compiègne, and perhaps a Breton by birth, who is said to have taught that universals were nothing more than words, and to have denied the existence of anything but individuals—of collective wholes, because they are made up of individuals; of parts, because they are not entire individuals. It was, however, by the application of his system to the doctrine of the Trinity that Roscellin became most famous. If, he said, we would avoid the error of supposing the Father and the Holy Ghost to have been incarnate with the Son, we must believe the divine Persons to be three real beings, as distinct from each other as three angels or three souls, although the same in power and in will. This proposition, although advanced not in opposition to the doctrine of the church, but with a view to explain and support it, naturally gave rise to a charge of tritheism, for which Roscellin was cited to answer before a council at Soissons, in 1092. Anselm, then abbot of Le Bec, on being informed by a monk named John that Roscellin claimed for his opinion the authority of Lanfranc and his own, strongly denied the imputation, declaring that Roscellin either was a tritheist, or did not understand his own words; and he requested Fulk, bishop of Beauvais, who was about to attend the council, to clear both himself and Lanfranc from the charge. He also began a treatise on the subject, but broke it off on hearing that Roscellin had retracted at Soissons; although he afterwards completed it on being told that Roscellin, like Berengar, had only yielded for a time out of fear, and had since resumed the profession of his old opinions. Finding himself unsafe in France, Roscellin withdrew into England; but his opposition to Anselm, who was now archbishop of Canterbury, and his maintenance of the strict Hildebrandine view as to the unfitness of the sons of clergy for ordination, combined to render him unpopular, so that in 1097 he was compelled to leave the country. He was, however, kindly received by Ivo of Chartres, who appears to have reconciled him with the church, and, probably through his interest, he became a canon of St. Martin's at Tours but his unfortunate application of nominalism to theology had excited such a prejudice against the theory altogether, that John of Salisbury speaks of it as having almost disappeared with Roscellin.

Among Roscellin’s pupils was Peter Abelard, born in 1079 at Palais or Le Pallet, near Nantes. In the “History of his Misfortunes” (an autobiographical epistle which abundantly displays his vanity and indiscretion), he tells us that, although the eldest son of Berengar, who was lord of the place, he very early preferred “the conflicts of disputation to the trophies of arms”, and, resigning the family inheritance to his brothers, he betook himself to the life of a scholar. He had already travelled over many provinces of France, displaying his dialectical skill in disputes with all who chose to encounter him, when, at the age of twenty-one, he became a pupil of William of Champeaux, archdeacon of Paris and master of the cathedral school, who was in enjoyment of the highest reputation as a teacher. William was at first charmed with the pupil’s abilities; but when Abelard began to question his doctrines, to argue with him, and sometimes to triumph over him, both the master and the other scholars were not unnaturally disgusted. Notwithstanding the endeavours of William to prevent him, Abelard opened a school of his own at Melun, then a royal residence, and, after a time, removed to Corbeil, with a view of being nearer to the capital. The fame and the popularity of William began to wane before the new teacher, whose eloquence, boldness, clearness of expression, and wit drew crowds of admiring hearers. An illness brought on by study compelled Abelard to withdraw to his native province; and, on returning to Paris, after an absence of some years, he found that William of Champeaux had resigned his archdeaconry and school, and had become a canon regular at the abbey of St. Victor, without the city walls, where, however, he had resumed his occupation as a teacher. Notwithstanding their former rivalry, Abelard became a pupil of William in rhetoric; but the old scenes were renewed; for Abelard not only controverted an opinion of his master on the subject of universals, but obliged him to renounce it, or, at least, the form in which it was expressed. By this defeat William’s credit was greatly impaired; many of his pupils deserted to Abelard, who now gained a more regular position, being invited by William’s successor to teach in the cathedral school; but through the envy of William (as the case is represented to us), this master was ejected, and Abelard was again driven to teach independently at Melun. After a time, William retired to the country, and Abelard thereupon returned to Paris, where (in his own language) he “pitched his camp on the Mount of St. Genevieve, without the city, as if to besiege the teacher who had taken possession of his place”. On hearing of this, William again began to lecture at Paris; the cathedral school was deserted; and the students were divided between William and Abelard, while both the masters and the pupils of the rival schools engaged in frequent conflicts. Abelard, however, was again obliged to go into Brittany, in order to take leave of his mother, who was about to enter a cloister, as her husband had done before; and on his return to Paris, as the old rivalry had been ended by the promotion of William to the bishopric of Châlons on the Marne, he resolved to turn from the study of philosophy to that of theology.

For this purpose he repaired to the school of Laon, which had long flourished under Anselm, a pupil of Anselm of Canterbury. It was said of Anselm of Laon that he had argued a greater number of men into the catholic faith than any heresiarch of his time had been able to seduce from it; pupils flocked to him, not only from all parts of France but from foreign countries; and among them were many who, like Abelard, had themselves been teachers of philosophy before placing themselves at the feet of the theologian of Laon. But to Abelard the plain, solid, and traditional method of Anselm appeared tame and empty. It seemed to him that the old man's fame was founded rather on his long practice than on ability or knowledge; that he had more of smoke than of light; that if any one came to him in uncertainty as to any question, the uncertainty was only increased by Anselm’s answer; that he was like the barren fig-tree which the Saviour cursed. “Having made this discovery”, he adds, “I did not idle away many days in lying under his shadow”; and the rareness of his attendance at Anselm's lectures began to be noted as disrespectful towards the teacher. In consequence of having expressed contempt for the traditional glosses on Scripture, he was challenged by some of his fellow-students to attempt a better style of exposition; whereupon he undertook the book of Ezekiel, as being especially obscure, and, declining the offer of time for preparation, began his course of lectures next day. The first lecture found but few hearers; but the report which these spread as to its brilliancy drew a greater audience to the second, and the few soon became an eager multitude. Anselm, on receiving reports as to the lectures from two of his chief pupils, Alberic and Letulf, was alarmed lest he should be held accountable for any errors which might be vented in them, and made use of a privilege which belonged to his office by forbidding Abelard to teach at Laon; whereupon Abelard once more returned to Paris. He now got uncontrolled possession of the principal school, from which he had formerly been ejected, and his theological lectures became no less popular than those which he had before delivered in philosophy. Even Rome, it is said, sent him pupils. Wealth as well as fame flowed in on him; his personal graces, his brilliant conversation, his poetical and musical talents, enhanced the admiration which was excited by his public teaching; but now, when all went prosperously with him, the passions which he represents himself as having before kept under strict control, began to awake. He tells us that he might have won the favour of any lady whom he might have chosen; but he coolly resolved on the seduction of Heloisa, a beautiful maiden of eighteen, whose extraordinary learning and accomplishments were already famous. With a view to this, he insinuated himself into the confidence of her uncle, with whom she lived,—a canon named Fulbert; and, by lamenting to Fulbert the troubles of housekeeping, he drew him into an arrangement agreeable both to the canon's love of money and to his affection for his niece—that Abelard should board in Fulbert’s house, and should devote his spare hours to the culture of Heloisa’s mind, for which purpose he was authorized to use even bodily chastisement. “I was no less astonished at his simplicity”, says Abelard, “than if he were to entrust a tender lamb to a famished wolf”; and the result was such as might have been expected.

In the meantime, Abelard’s scholars could not but remark a change in their master. The freshness and life of his teaching were gone; he contented himself with listlessly repeating old lectures; and his mental activity was shown only in the production of amatory verses, which, as he complacently tells us, were long afterwards popular. At length the rumours which had been generally current reached Fulbert himself. The lovers were separated; but on Heloisa’s announcing to Abelard, “with the greatest exultation”, that she was pregnant, he contrived to steal her from her uncle’s house, and sent her to his sister in Brittany, where she gave birth to a son, Astrolabius. Fulbert furiously insisted on a marriage, to which Abelard consented, on the condition that, for the sake of his reputation and of his prospects, it should be kept secret. But against this Heloisa remonstrated vehemently and in an unexpected strain. She assured Abelard that her uncle would never be really appeased. She entreated her lover not to sacrifice his fame, in which she considered herself to have an interest. She strongly put before him the troubles of married life—the inconveniences which children must cause in the modest dwelling of a philosopher—fortifying her argument with a host of quotations from writers both sacred and profane. For herself, she said, she would rather be his friend, having no hold on him except by favour, than connected with him by the bonds of wedlock. She was, however, brought back to Paris, and the marriage was secretly performed. But no sooner was the ceremony over than Fulbert broke his promise of silence, while Heloisa with oaths and even with curses denied the marriage; and Abelard, in order to withdraw his wife from her uncle's cruelty, placed her in the convent of Argenteuil, where she had been brought up. Here he continued to carry on his intercourse with her; but as she wore the monastic dress, Fulbert began to fear that Abelard might rid himself of her by persuading her to take the vows, and resolved on a barbarous revenge. Abelard’s servant was bribed to admit into his lodging some ruffians whom the canon had hired; and entering his chamber at night, they inflicted on him a cruel and disgraceful mutilation

The report of this atrocity excited a general feeling of indignation. Two of the agents in it, who were caught, were subjected to a like penalty, with the addition of the loss of their eyes; and Fulbert was deprived of his preferments, although sheltered by his clerical character from further punishment. Abelard, overwhelmed with shame and grief, retired to St. Denys, where—more, as he confesses, from such feelings than from devotion—he took the monastic vows; Heloisa having at his command already put on the veil at Argenteuil.

But although Abelard profited by the opportunities of study which his monastic retirement afforded, it was not to give him peace. He soon made himself unpopular by censuring the laxity of the abbot and his brethren, and by their contrivance he was removed to a dependent cell, where he resumed his occupation of teaching both in philosophy and in theology, with such success that, as he tells us, “neither the place sufficed for their lodging, nor the land for their support”. The audiences of other professors were thinned; their envy was aroused, and they beset bishops, abbots, and other important persons with complaints against their successful rival—that the cultivation of secular learning was inconsistent with his duty as a monk, and that, by teaching theology without the sanction of some accredited master, he was likely to lead his pupils into error. And in no long time an opportunity for attacking him was given by an “Introduction to Theology”, drawn up at the desire of his pupils, who had requested him to illustrate the mystery of the Trinity in words which might be not only pronounced, but understood. Roscellin, who had made his own peace with the church, denounced Abelard as a Sabellian, and in the grossest terms reflected on him for the errors and misfortunes of his life, while Abelard in his turn reproached his former master as alike infamous for his opinions and for his character. At the instance of his old opponents, Alberic and Letulf, who were now established as teachers, at Reims, he was cited by the archbishop of that city before a council at Soissons. At this assembly he delivered his book to the legate Conon of Palestrina, who presided, and professed himself willing to retract anything in it which might be regarded as contrary to the catholic faith. The book was handed to his accusers for examination, and in the meantime Abelard daily expounded his opinions in public, with such effect that, although he and his disciples, on their arrival, had been in danger of being stoned as tritheists, a great reaction took place in his favour.

On the last day of the council, to which the further consideration of the case had been deferred, Geoffrey of Chartres, the most eminent of the bishops present, after having reminded the assembly of Abelard’s fame, and of the necessity of dealing cautiously, proposed that the charge against him should be clearly stated, and that he should be allowed to reply. On this an outcry was raised that no one could withstand such a sophist; that his book deserved condemnation, if it were only because he had allowed it to be copied without the sanction of Rome. He was condemned, not for tritheism, but for the opposite error of Sabellianism; he was required to read aloud the Athanasian creed, which he did with a profusion of tears, and to throw his book into the fire. The bishop of Chartres in vain endeavoured to obtain that he might be sent back to St. Denys; the accusers insisted that he should be detained within the jurisdiction of Reims, and he was committed to the custody of Goswin, abbot of St. Medard's, at Soissons. But the severity of this judgment excited such general reprobation, that those who had shared in it endeavoured to excuse themselves by throwing the blame on each other, and after a time Abelard was allowed to return to St. Denys.

It was not long, however, before he again brought himself into trouble by denying, on the authority of a passage in Bede's works, the identity of Dionysius the Areopagite with the patron saint of the monastery. Such an opinion, after the labours of abbot Hilduin, who was supposed to have settled the matter by long inquiries in Greece, was regarded as not only profane but treasonable; for St. Denys was the patron of the whole kingdom, and Abelard was even denounced to the king. It was in vain that he addressed to the abbot a letter intended to reconcile the different accounts : he was placed under guard, and, “almost in desperation, as if the whole world had conspired against him”, he escaped from the abbey by night, and found refuge with a friend, who was prior of a cell near Provins. Abbot Adam of St. Denys refused to release him from his monastic obedience; but as the old man died soon after, a release was obtained from his successor, Suger, on condition that Abelard should not attach himself to any other monastery; for St. Denys was proud of so famous a member, and wished to retain the credit of reckoning him as its own.

He now fixed himself in company with a single clerk, in the neighbourhood of Nogenton the Seine, where, on a site granted to him by Theobald, count of Champagne, he built himself an oratory of reeds and straw. But even in this retreat he soon found himself surrounded by disciples, who, for the sake of his instructions, were willing to endure all manner of hardships. By their labour the little oratory was enlarged into a monastery, with its church, to which he gave the name of the Divine Comforter or Paraclete—a novelty which, in addition to his popularity as a teacher, excited his enemies afresh, as it had not been usual to dedicate churches to any other Person of the Trinity than the Second. Among those enemies he mentions two “new apostles, in whom the world very greatly trusted”—Bernard and Norbert. These, he says, talked and preached against him everywhere, and such was the obloquy raised that, whenever he heard of a synod, he apprehended that it might be summoned for his own condemnation. He declared that he often thought even of withdrawing into some country of unbelievers, in the hope of finding that toleration which was denied him by his fellow Christians.

At this time he was chosen abbot of the ancient monastery of St. Gildas, at Ruys, on the coast of Morbihan, and, with the consent of Suger of St. Denys, he accepted the office as promising him a quiet refuge. But his hopes were bitterly disappointed. The country was wild and desolate, and, with the ocean filling the whole view beyond it, appeared to be the extremity of the world. The very language of the people was unintelligible; the monks were utterly disobedient and unruly, and met his attempts at reform by mixing poison for him, even in the eucharistic cup, and by setting ruffians in ambush to murder him. There were quarrels, too, with a rude and powerful neighbour, who had invaded the property of the monastery; and such was the lawlessness of the country that no redress of wrongs was to be had. In such circumstances, moreover, Abelard could not but feel that his intellectual gifts were altogether useless and wasted.

Abbot Suger, of St. Denys, on the authority of old documents, brought forward a claim to the nunnery of Argenteuil, which was also denounced as a place of gross licentiousness; and his claim was admitted by a council held at Paris under a legate, whose decision was confirmed by Honorius II, and also by his successor Innocent. The charges against the nuns, however, do not appear to have extended to Heloisa, who had become prioress and was held in general veneration; and Abelard, on hearing that she was about to lose her home, offered the deserted Paraclete to her and such of her sisters as she might choose for companions. The gift was confirmed by Innocent II, and the Paraclete received privileges from other popes, and became the mother of a small orders. Abelard had drawn up the History of his Calamities, in the form of a letter to a (perhaps imaginary) friend; and it fell into the hands of Heloisa, who was thus induced to write to him. Her letters are full of the most intense and undisguised passion; the worship of genius mingles in them with the glow of carnal love. In the freest language she reminds her husband of their former intercourse; she declares that by him she and all her family had been raised to eminence; she charges herself with having caused his ruin, and declares that she would rather be his friend than his wife—rather his concubine, his harlot, than an empress. She avows that, however those who know her not may think of her, she is at heart a hypocrite; that she still cares more for her lover than for God; that beneath the monastic dress there burns in her an unabated and unquenchable passion which disturbs her in her dreams, at her prayers, even at the most solemn devotion of the mass. Abelard’s replies are in a very different strain; he coldly points out to her the sinfulness of her former life, and urges her to seek for pardon and peace in the duties of the cloister. He furnished her and her sisterhood with prayers and hymns, with a rule which as to externals was conceived in a spirit of Cistercian severity, and with directions for their studies borrowed in a great part from St. Jerome. From time to time he visited the Paraclete; but as even these visits excited scandal, they became infrequent. In 1134, apparently, he finally quitted Ruys, although he still retained the abbacy; and once more he taught on the Mount of St. Genevieve, where John of Salisbury afterwards famous for his achievements in literature and for his connexion with Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, was one of his pupils.

On many important subjects—the mutual relations of the Divine Persons and other points connected with the doctrine of the Trinity; the Divine attributes; the work and merits of the Saviour; the operations of the Holy Ghost; the sinfulness of man; the gift of prophecy; the inspiration and the integrity of the Scriptures; the eucharistic presence; the character of miracles altogether, and the reality of those which were reported as of his own time; the relations of faith, reason, and church authority; the penitential system, and the absolving powers of the priesthood—Abelard had vented opinions which were likely to draw suspicion on him. To this was added the irritation produced by his unsparing remarks on the faults of bishops and clergy, of monks and canons; and, in addition to the books which he had himself published, the circulation of imperfect reports of his lectures tended to increase the distrust of him which was felt. Yet while he bitterly complained of this distrust, it seems as if he even took a pride in exciting it. Without apparently intending to stray from the path of orthodoxy, he delighted to display his originality in peculiarities of thought and expression; and hence, instead of a harmonious system, there resulted a collection of isolated opinions, which, stated as they were without their proper balances and complements, were certain to raise misunderstanding and obloquy. Ignorant as he was of Greek (for he owns that on this account he was unacquainted with Plato’s writings), and having little knowledge of antiquity even at second hand, he idealized the sages of heathenism—not only the Greek philosophers, but the Brahmans of India—whom he invidiously contrasted with the monks and clergy of his own day. While he regarded the knowledge of the Saviour as necessary for all men, he held that the ancient sages had received this knowledge through the Sibyls; and he supposed them to have attained to the doctrine of the Trinity, partly by the exercise of their reason, and partly as the reward of their pure and self-denying lives. He supposed them to have had saving faith, and all but a historical knowledge of Christianity; he supposed their philosophy to have been nearer akin than Judaism to the gospel; and he supposed the rites of the old law to have been needless for them, because these were not, like the gospel, intended for all mankind. In a book which bore the title of “Yes and No”, he had arranged under 158 heads the opinions of earlier Christian writers on a like number of subjects; not (as had been usual) for the purpose of exhibiting their agreement, or of harmonizing their differences, but in order that, by displaying these differences, he might claim for himself a like latitude to that which the teachers of older times had enjoyed without question. It was not to be wondered at that such a claim, with the novelty and strangeness of the opinions which he had advanced, should excite a general alarm. This feeling found expression through William, formerly abbot of St. Thierry, and now a Cistercian monk in the diocese of Reims, who addressed a letter to Bernard, and to Abelard’s old patron, Geoffrey of Chartres, who was now papal legate for France. William professes much affection for Abelard, but desires to draw attention to his errors—errors (he says) the more dangerous on account of his vast reputation, which is described as such that his works were carried across the Alps and the seas, and even in the Roman court were regarded as authoritative. He also mentions the “Yes and No”, and a work entitled “Know Thyself”; but, as he had not seen these, he could only conjecture that their contents were probably as monstrous as their names.

Bernard and Abelard were not unacquainted with each other. They had met in 1131, at the consecration of an altar for the abbey of Maurigny by Pope Innocent, and somewhat later, in consequence of a visit which Bernard had paid to the Paraclete, and of some remarks which he was reported to have made on usages which struck him as novel in that place, Abelard had addressed to him a letter, which by its want of deference to the popular saint, and by its somewhat satirical tone, was not likely to be acceptable. The old enmities between Abelard and some of Bernard’s friends—William of Champeaux, Anselm of Laon, Alberic—and the fact that Arnold of Brescia, who had become notorious as the agitator of Rome, had once been Abelard’s pupil—may have contributed to increase the abbot’s dislike of him. The two men were, indeed, representatives of opposite tendencies. Bernard felt none of Abelard’s intellectual cravings. Although not an enemy of learning, he valued knowledge only with a view to practical good; he distrusted and dreaded speculation; and, while Abelard taught that “by doubt we come to inquiry, and by inquiry we ascertain the truth”,—thus making doubt his starting-point,—it was Bernard’s maxim that “The faith of the godly believes instead of discussing”. We may, therefore, easily understand that he was ready to listen to charges against a man so different from himself as Abelard; he felt instinctively that there was danger, not so much in this or that individual point of his teaching, as in the general character of a method which seemed likely to imperil the orthodoxy of the church.

On receiving William of St. Thierry’s letter, Bernard sought an interview with Abelard, and endeavoured to persuade him to a retractation. Abelard, according to Bernard’s biographer, consented to retract, but was afterwards induced by his disciples to depart from his promise; in any case, he requested that the matter might be brought before a council which was to meet at Sens in the Whitsun-week of 1140. The king of France was present, with a great number of bishops and other ecclesiastics; and the chief occasion of the meeting—the translation of the patron saint’s relics—was of a nature to produce an excitement against anyone who was supposed to impugn the popular religion, so that Abelard’s life seems to have been in danger from the multitude. Bernard had at first declined a summons to attend, on the ground that the question did not especially concern him, and also that he was but as a youth in comparison with such a controversial Goliath as Abelard. He wrote, however, to the pope and to the Roman court, in strong denunciation of Abelard, both for his particular errors and for his general enmity to the established faith of the Church and at length the urgency of his friends prevailed on him to appear at the council. The representatives of intellect and of religious feeling, of speculative inquiry and of traditional faith, were now face to face. Seventeen articles were brought forward against Abelard, and Bernard, as the promoter of the charge, desired that they might be read aloud. But scarcely was the reading begun when Abelard,—losing courage, it would seem, at the thought of the influence and the prejudices arrayed against him,—surprised and disappointed the spectators by appealing to the pope. Such an appeal, from judges of his own choosing, and before sentence, was a novelty unsanctioned by the laws of the church; but the bishops admitted it, lest, by contesting the papal privileges, they should create a prejudice in favour of the appellant. While, however, they refrained from condemning Abelard's person, they proceeded to examine the propositions imputed to him, and pronounced fourteen out of the seventeen to be false and heretical.

A ludicrous account of the scene is given by one of Abelard’s disciples named Berengar, in a letter addressed to Bernard himself and marked throughout by the ostentatious contempt with which Abelard and his followers appear to have regarded the most admired saint and leader of the age. Berengar treats Bernard as a mere idol of the multitude—as a man gifted with a plentiful flow of words, but destitute of liberal culture and of solid abilities; as one who by the solemnity of his manner imposed the tritest truisms on his votaries as if they were profound oracles. He ridicules his reputation for miraculous power; he tells him that his proceedings against Abelard were prompted by a spirit of bigotry, jealousy, and vindictiveness, rendered more odious by his professions of sanctity and charity. Of the opinions imputed to his master, he maintains that some were never held by Abelard, and that the rest, if rightly interpreted, are true and catholic. The book, he says, was brought under consideration at Sens when the bishops had dined, and was read amidst their jests and laughter, while the wine was doing its work on them. Any expression which was above their understanding excited their rage and curses against Abelard. As the reading went on, one after another became drowsy; and when they were asked whether they condemned his doctrines, they answered in their sleep without being able fully to pronounce their words. The council reported the condemnation to the pope, with a request that he would confirm it, and would prohibit Abelard from teaching; and a like request was urged by Bernard in letters addressed to Innocent and to some of the most important cardinals.

Abelard’s hopes of finding favour at Rome were disappointed. His interest in the papal court was far inferior to Bernard's, and his connection with the revolutionary Arnold of Brescia, who had attended him at the council—a connexion which Bernard had carefully put forward—could not but weigh heavily against him. On reaching Lyons, on the way to prosecute his appeal, he was astounded to find that the pope, without waiting for his appearance, without any inquiry whether Abelard had used the language imputed to him, or whether it had been rightly understood, had condemned him, with all his errors (which, however, were not specified), and had sentenced him and Arnold to be shut up in separate monasteries. But in this distress, the “venerable” Peter, a man of wider charity than Bernard, not out of indifference to orthodoxy, but from respect for Abelard’s genius and from pity for his misfortunes, offered him an asylum at Cluny, where, with the pope's sanction, Abelard lived in devotion, study, and in the exercise of his abilities as a teacher. Here he drew up two confessions (one of them addressed to Heloisa), in which he disowned some of the things imputed to him, “the words in part, and the meaning altogether”, and strongly declared his desire to adhere to the catholic faith in all points. Yet there is reason to suppose that he would not have admitted himself to have erred, except to the extent of having used words open to misconstruction; and, although he had been reconciled with Bernard through the good offices of the abbots of Cluny and Citeaux, he still blamed him for interfering in matters which he had not been trained to understand, and declared that the charges against himself had been brought forward out of malice and ignorance.

Finding that his guest’s health was failing, Peter removed him, in the hope of recovery, from Cluny to the dependent monastery of St. Marcel, near Châlons on the Saone; and there Abelard ended his agitated life in 1142. His body, in compliance with the desire which he had expressed, was sent to the Paraclete for burial. At Heloisa’s request, the abbot of Cluny pronounced him absolved from all his sins, and the absolution was hung on his tomb; and Peter, who, in announcing his death to Heloisa, had highly praised his piety, humility, and resignation, composed an epitaph in which he was celebrated at once for his intellectual gifts and for that better philosophy to which his last days had been devoted. Heloisa survived her husband until the year 1163.

2

THE SECOND CRUSADE

A.D. 1122-1159, STATE OF ITALY. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA

Ever since the beginning of the contest between the papacy and the empire a spirit of independence had been growing among the Italian cities. The emperors were rarely seen on the southern side of the Alps, and although their sovereignty was admitted, it was practically little felt. Most of the Lombard cities set up governments of their own, under a republican form; and, with that love of domination which generally accompanies the republican love of liberty, the stronger endeavoured to reduce the weaker to subjection. In this movement towards independence, the claims of the bishops were found to stand in the way of the inhabitants of the cities; and this, with other circumstances, had prepared the people to listen to any teachers who might arise to denounce the hierarchy. Such a teacher, named Arnulf, had appeared at Rome in 1128, professing a divine commission to preach against the pride and luxury, the immorality and greediness, of the cardinals and of other ecclesiastics. Arnulf, after having disregarded warnings, met with the death which he had expected and courted—being seized and thrown into the Tiber by night; but in no long time a more formidable successor arose in Arnold of Brescia.

Arnold was born at Brescia, probably about the year 1105, and grew up amid the agitations and struggles which marked the rise of Lombard independence, and in which his native city largely shared. That he was a pupil of Abelard appears certain, although the time and the place are matters for conjectured. But although the master and the scholar were both animated by a spirit of independence, it would seem that Arnold had nothing of Abelard's speculative character (for he is not even distinctly charged with any heresy), but was bent entirely on practical measures of reform. After having officiated for a time as a reader in the church of Brescia, Arnold separated himself from the secular clergy, embraced a strict monastic life, and began to inveigh unsparingly against the corruptions of both clergy and monks in a strain which resembled at once the extreme Hildebrandine party and their extreme opponents. There had been much in the late history of Brescia to produce disgust at the assumption of temporal power by ecclesiastics; and Arnold, filled with visions of apostolical poverty and purity,—of a purely spiritual church working by spiritual means alone,—imagined that the true remedy for the evils which 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 free­will offerings of the laity. These doctrines were set forth with copious eloquence, in words which, as Bernard says, were “smoother than oil, and yet were they very swords”. Nor can we wonder that they were heard with eagerness by the multitude, who, according to the preacher’s scheme, were both to be enriched with the spoils of the church and for the future were to hold the clergy in dependence. The bishop of Brescia complained to the pope; and the Lateran council of 1139, without having called Arnold before it, condemned him to silence and to banishment beyond the Alps. On this he withdrew into France, and in the following year he appeared at Sens as Abelard's chief supporter—“the shield-bearer of that Goliath”, as Bernard styles him. Although, however, he was sentenced by the pope in consequence to imprisonment in a monastery, it would seem that the French bishops did not feel themselves concerned to carry out the sentence; and for some years Arnold lived and taught at Zurich unmolested, being tolerated by Herman, bishop of Constance, and even admitted as an inmate into the house of the papal legate, Guy of Castello, although Bernard, by applications both to the legate and to the bishop, endeavoured to dislodge him.

In the meantime his principles had made way at Rome—although rather in their political than in their religious character—and the more, perhaps, on account of the attention which had been drawn to him by the Lateran condemnation. Provoked by the pope's having concluded peace with Tivoli in his own name alone, and having granted too favourable terms, the Romans in 1143 burst into insurrection, displaced the government, and established in the Capitol a senate on the ancient Roman models They resolved 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. As the popes were connected with the southern Normans, the revolutionary party felt themselves obliged to look for an alliance in some other direction. They therefore turned towards Conrad, king of the Romans; and perhaps it was at this time that they addressed to him a letter in which they profess themselves devoted to his interest, represent their services in opposition to his and their common enemies,—the clergy and the Sicilians,—and entreat him to receive the imperial crown at Rome, and to revive the glories of the empire by ruling as a new Constantine or Justinian, with the assistance of the senate, in “the city which is the capital of the world”. Conrad, however, would seem to have suspected that these proposals were not so much intended for his interest as for that of the party from which they came; and he preferred an alliance with the pope, whose envoys waited on him at the same time.

The revolt of the Romans was fatal to Innocent II, who died in September 1143, and was succeeded by Celestine the Second, the same who, as Cardinal Guy of Castello, had been the pupil of Abelard and the protector of Arnold. Celestine was a man of high character, both for learning and for moderation; but his pontificate of less than six months was marked by no other considerable act than the removal of an interdict under which Lewis “the Young” of France had lain for some years on account of some differences as to the archbishopric of Bourges. The royal power had been rapidly growing in France. The number of the great fiefs had been diminished through the failure of male heirs, in consequence of which many of them had passed into new families by the marriage of the heiresses; the kings had made it their policy to raise the commons, and had strengthened themselves by allying themselves with them against the nobles; agriculture was greatly extended; population, industry, and wealth were increased. Lewis VII, who had become sole king by the death of his lather in 1137, had very greatly extended the royal territory by his marriage with Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine, and the successful outset of his reign had gained for him a reputation which was ill maintained by his conduct in later years. For a time he showed himself indifferent to the ecclesiastical sentence which had been pronounced against him; but in 1143 a change was produced in him by a terrible incident which took place in the course of a war between him and Theobald, count of Champagne—the burning of 1300 men, women, and children, who had taken refuge in a church at Vitry. Deeply struck with horror and remorse on account of the share which he considered himself to have had in their death, he solicited absolution, which Celestine readily bestowed—the questions in dispute between the crown and the church being settled by a compromise.

Under Celestine’s successor, a Bolognese who exchanged his name of Gerard de' Caccianemici for that of Lucius II, the republicans of Rome ventured further than before. Arnold himself appears to have been now among them, having perhaps repaired to Rome in reliance on Celestine's kindness, although the time of his arrival is uncertain. The constitution was developed by the creation of an equestrian order, and by the election of tribunes. A patrician named Jordan, who appears to have been a brother of the late antipope Anacletus, was substituted for the papal prefect of the city, and, as a matter of policy, this patrician was theoretically regarded as a representative of the emperor, whose lordship the revolutionary government affected to acknowledge. The palaces and houses of cardinals and nobles were destroyed; some of the cardinals were personally assaulted; and the pope was required to surrender his royalties, and to content himself and his clergy with tithes and voluntary offerings. Lucius, who was supported by a powerful party of nobles (among whom were the patrician's own brothers), resolved to put down the republic, and, at the head of a strong force, proceeded to the Capitol with the intention of dispersing the senators; but the senate and the mob combined to resist, and in the tumult which ensued the pope was wounded by a stone, which caused his death.

The vacant throne was filled by the election of Peter Bernard, a Pisan by birth, who had been a pupil of Bernard of Clairvaux, and had been appointed by Innocent II to the abbacy of St. Anastasius at the Three Fountains, near Rome—a monastery which that pope rebuilt, and, in gratitude for Bernard’s services, bestowed on the Cistercian order. The character of the new pope, who styled himself Eugenius III, had been chiefly noted for an extreme simplicity, so that his old superior, while he congratulated him on his election and expressed the fullest confidence in his intentions, thought it necessary almost to blame the cardinals for the choice which they had made, and to bespeak their forbearance and assistance for him; but Eugenius, to the surprise of all who had known him, now displayed an eloquence and a general ability which were referred to miraculous illumination. The rites of his consecration were disturbed by an irruption of the citizens, demanding that he should acknowledge their republican government; and he withdrew to the monastery of Farfa, where the ceremony was completed. The anathemas which he pronounced against his contumacious people were unheeded; but after residing for some time at Viterbo, he was enabled to effect a re-entrance into Rome, where he agreed to acknowledge the senate on condition that its members should be chosen with his approval, and that he should be allowed to nominate a prefect instead of the patrician. But the Romans, finding that he refused to gratify their enmity against the inhabitants of Tivoli, to whom he had been chiefly indebted for his restoration, drove him again from the city, and the people, excited by the              harangues of Arnold, who had brought with him a body of two thousand Swiss, continued their attacks upon the nobles and the clergy; they fortified St. Peter's and plundered the pilgrims, killing some of them in the church itself Bernard strongly remonstrated with the Romans on the expulsion of Eugenius, and urged the emperor elect to interfere for his restoration. But during the pope's residence at Viterbo tidings had been received from the East which for the time superseded all other interests.

The Latins had kept their footing in the East chiefly in consequence of the dissensions of their enemies, but had failed to learn from them the necessity of union among themselves. The great feudatory princes of Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli quarrelled with the kings of Jerusalem and with each other. The barons were defiant and unruly, and their oppressive treatment of their inferiors rendered them more hateful to the Christians than they were to the infidels. The patriarchs quarrelled with the kings and with the popes; the patriarchs of Jerusalem quarrelled with those of Antioch; while the archiepiscopal province of Tyre, which, on the acquisition of that city in 1127, had been assigned by Pope Honorius to Jerusalem, but was claimed by Antioch, suffered under the tyranny of both. The military orders already began to display an intolerable pride and a contempt of all external authority. The relations of the Latins with the Greek empire, although improved since the days of Alexius Comnenus, were still uneasy. The religious motive which had given birth to the Latin kingdom was forgotten, so that pilgrims were objects of mockery in the Holy Land, and were disliked as intruders. The successors of the crusaders had in general settled down into a life of ease and luxury, in which the worst features of oriental life were imitated; and a mongrel race, the offspring of European fathers and of eastern mothers, had grown up, who were known by the name of              Poulains, and are described as utterly effeminate and depraved—“more timid than women, and more perfidious than slaves”.

In December 1144, Zenghis, prince of Mosul and Aleppo, taking advantage of the enmity between the Frank rulers of Edessa and Antioch, made himself master of Edessa, chiefly through the assistance of an Armenian whose daughter had been debauched by the count, Jocelin. The archbishop, who is said to have allowed the capture to take place rather than expend his treasures in the payment of soldiers, was crushed to death. A frightful slaughter of the Christian inhabitants was carried on, until it was stopped by the command of Zenghis, and a multitude of captives were sold as slaves. Zenghis himself was soon after assassinated, and during the absence of his son Noureddin the Christians regained possession of the place through an agreement with the Armenian inhabitants; but when they had held it a few days, Noureddin recovered it with great slaughter, punished the inhabitants with terrible severity, and, after having enriched himself by the plunder of the city, utterly destroyed it.

The exultation of the Mussulmans at this great success was boundless; and not less intense were the feelings of grief and indignation with which the tidings of their triumph were received among the Christians of the west. The city of King Abgarus, who had been honoured by a letter from the Saviour himself; the city where the miraculously-impressed image of the Saviour’s countenance, his gift to Abgarus, had been preserved for centuries, and had served as a protection against the attacks of infidel besiegers; the city where the apostle St. Thaddeus had preached, which still possessed his body, and that of St. Thomas, the apostle of the Indies; the city which had maintained its Christianity while all around it fell under the Mussulman yoke, was now in the hands of the unbelievers ; thousands of Christians had been slain, and the enemy of the cross was pressing on, so that, unless speedy aid were given, the Latins would soon be altogether driven from the Holy Land. Eugenius resolved to stir up a new crusade; and on the 1st of December 1145 he addressed to the king, the princes, and the people of France, a letter summoning them to the holy war. The privileges formerly offered by Urban II were renewed—remission of sins for all who should engage in the expedition; the protection of the church for their families and property; no suits were to be brought against them until their return; those who were in debt were discharged from payment of interest, and it was allowed that the possessors of fiefs should pledge them in order to raise the expenses of the war.

It was natural that such a call should be first addressed to France, the chosen refuge of expelled popes, the country which had given princes, and laws, and language to the crusading colonies of the East. And Lewis VII, then about twenty-six years of age, was ready to take the cross—from feelings of devotion, from remorse for the conduct which had drawn on him the censures of the church and for his guilt in the calamity of Vitry, from a belief that he was bound by a promise which his brother Philip had been prevented by death from fulfilling; perhaps, too, by the hope of sharing in the saintly glory which crowned the names of Godfrey and Tancred. At a parliament which was held at Bourges, at Christmas 1145, he proposed the subject to his nobles, and the bishop of Langres excited them by a description of the scenes which had taken place in the East; but as the number of those who were present was not great, the business of a crusade was adjourned to a larger meeting, which was to be held at Vezelay at the following Easter. To this Lewis summoned all the princes of Gaul, and, as neither the abbey church nor the marketplace of Vezelay could hold the assembled multitude, they were ranged along the declivity of the hill on which the little town is built, and in the valley of the Cure below. The pope had been requested to attend, but had been compelled by the renewed troubles of Rome to excuse himself and had delegated the preaching of the crusade to Bernard, who, although for some years he had been suffering from sickness, enthusiastically took up the cause. At Vezelay, Bernard set forth with glowing eloquence the sufferings of the eastern Christians, and the profanation of the holy places by the infidels. His speech was interrupted by loud and eager cries of “The cross! The cross!”. Lewis and his queen were the first to take the sign of enrolment in the sacred cause; princes, nobles, and a multitude of others pressed forward, until the crosses which had been provided were exhausted, when the abbot, the king, and others gave up part of their own dresses in order to furnish a fresh supply. It was agreed that the expedition should be ready to set out within a year, and the great assembly of Vezelay was followed by meetings in other towns of France, at which Bernard's eloquence and the prophet-like authority which he had gained, were everywhere triumphant, and enlisted crowds of zealous followers. At Chartres he was urged to become the leader of the crusade; but, warned by the failure of Peter the Hermit, he felt his unfitness for such a post, and told the assembly that his strength would not suffice to reach the distant scene of action; that they should choose a leader of a different kind. “There is more need there”, he told the abbot of Morimond, “of fighting soldiers than of chanting monks”.

The scenes of the first crusade were renewed. Miracles, prophecies, promises of success drawn out of the Sibylline oracles, contributed to stir up the general enthusiasm. Bernard tells us that cities and castles were emptied; that the prophecy of “seven women taking hold of one man” was almost fulfilled among those who remained behind. Many robbers and other outcasts of society embraced the new way of salvation which was opened to them; hymns took the place of profane songs; violence ceased, so that it was considered wrong even to carry arms for the sake of safety. Yet amid the general excitement and zeal, many bitter complaints were raised (especially from the monastic societies) against the heavy taxation by which the king found it necessary to raise money for his expedition.

From France Bernard proceeded into Germany, where an ignorant and fanatical monk, named Rudolf had been preaching the crusade with much success, but had combined with it a denunciation of the Jews, of whom great numbers had been slaughtered in consequence. At such times of excitement against the enemies of Christ the Jews were generally sufferers. Even Peter of Cluny on this occasion wrote to the French king, denouncing them as more distant from Christianity and more bitter against it than the Saracens, and advising that, although they ought not to be slain, their wealth should be confiscated for the holy enterprise. But Bernard was against all measures of violence towards them, and wished only that they should be forbidden, as the pope had forbidden all Christians, to exact usury from the crusaders. He therefore reprobated Rudolf's preaching in the strongest terms, and, as the monk disowned submission to any ecclesiastical authority, Bernard, at the request of the archbishop of Mayence, undertook a journey into Germany for the purpose of counteracting his influence. In an interview at Mayence, Rudolf was convinced of his error; filled with shame and sorrow for the effects of his preaching, he withdrew into a cloister; and although such was the exasperation which he had produced among the people that Bernard was almost stoned on attempting to dissuade those of Frankfort from violence and plunder against the Jews, the abbot’s humane exertions were successful in arresting the persecution.

At Frankfort Bernard had interviews with Conrad, whom he endeavored to draw into the crusade. In Germany, where there was not that special connection with the eastern Latins which had contributed to rouse the French to their assistance, less of sympathy was to be expected than in France; and the king’s age, his knowledge of the difficulties, acquired in an earlier pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and most especially the political state of Germany, of Italy, and of Rome, combined to dissuade him from the expedition. Although, therefore, Bernard was able to remove some of the obstacles by reconciling him with princes who might have been likely to take advantage of his absence, Conrad steadily resisted his solicitations, and Bernard was about to return to Clairvaux, when he was invited by Herman, bishop of Constance, to wait for a diet which was to be held at Spires, and in the meanwhile to preach the crusade in the diocese of Constance.

The fame of Bernard and his reputation for miracles were already well known in Germany, and, as he journeyed up the Rhine, crowds everywhere flocked to him, entreating his pity for the cure of the sick, the blind, the lame, and the possessed. His own enthusiasm (for, although he disavowed all credit on account of his miracles, he believed them to be real, and to be attestations of his cause) and the enthusiasm of the people were raised to the highest degree; every day, says a biographer who had accompanied him on his mission, he did some miracles, and on some days as many as twenty. As he was unacquainted with the language of the country, his discourses were explained by an interpreter; but his looks and tones and gestures penetrated to the hearts of the Germans far more than the chilled words of the translator; they wept and beat their breasts, and even tore the saint's clothes in order that they might take the cross. Returning to Spires, Bernard there again urged his cause on Conrad with such force that the king promised to consult his advisers, and to answer on the morrow. But at the mass which followed immediately after this interview, Bernard, contrary to custom and without notice, introduced a sermon, which he wound up by a strong personal appeal to Conrad—representing him as standing before the judgment-seat, and as called by the Saviour to give an account for all the benefits which had been heaped on him. The“miracle of miracles”, as Bernard styled it, was wrought. Conrad burst into tears, and declared himself ready to obey the call to God's service; and, amid the loud shouts of all who were present, Bernard, taking the banner of the cross from the altar, delivered it to the king as the token of his engagement. Among the chiefs who followed Conrad’s example in taking the cross were his nephew Frederick of Hohenstaufen, Welf of Bavaria, Henry, marquis of Austria, and the chronicler Otho, bishop of Freising, uterine brother of Conrad, and formerly a pupil of Abelard. The Saxons declined the expedition, on the ground that their duty called them rather to attack their own idolatrous neighbours, and for this purpose they engaged in a home crusade against the pagans on their northern border. But from all other parts of Germany recruits poured in; and Bernard left the abbot of Eberach to take his place in organizing the expedition.

Returning home by way of Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cambray, Bernard everywhere produced the greatest effect by his eloquence and his miracles; and he reappeared at Clairvaux with thirty followers, whom, with an equal number of others, he had persuaded to embrace the monastic life. In February 1147 a great meeting was held at Étampes, and Bernard was eagerly listened to as he reported the success of his late journey. On the second day of the meeting, the question of the route which should be taken by the French crusaders was discussed. Letters or envoys had been received by the king from various sovereigns to whom he had announced his expedition. Roger of Sicily advised him to proceed by sea, and offered him a resting-place by the way. Conrad of Germany and Geisa of Hungary, wishing to divert the stream from their own territories, advised that the French should take ship; but Manuel of Constantinople made flattering promises of aid and furtherance, and Lewis, disdaining the doubts which were raised as to the Greek’s sincerity, and the representations which were offered as to the difficulties of the way, decided on making the journey by land.

On the following day the question of a regency was proposed. The king left the choice to his nobles and prelates, and Bernard announced that it had fallen on the count of Nevers, and Suger, abbot of St. Denys. “Behold”, he said, “here are two swords; it is enough”. The count, however, declined the office on the ground that he was about to become a Carthusian; and the regency was committed to Suger, with two colleagues whose share in it was little more than nominal.

Eugenius now appeared in France, and was met at Dijon by Lewis, who displayed the greatest reverence towards him. The two celebrated Easter at St. Denys, where the pope overruled Suger’s reluctance to undertake the regency. The king took from the altar the —the banner of the county of the Vexin, which he held under the great abbey—and, as a feudal vassal, received Suger’s permission to engage in the crusade, with the pope’s blessing on his enterprise.

It had been agreed that the forces of France and of Germany should proceed separately, as well for the sake of avoiding quarrels among the soldiers as for greater ease in obtaining provisions. In the spring of 1147, Conrad set out from Ratisbon, after having endeavored to secure the peace of Germany by the election and coronation of his son Henry as king of the Romans. His force consisted of 70,000 heavy-armed cavalry, with a huge train of lighter horsemen, footmen, women and children; and Lewis was to follow with an equal number. The Germans embarked on rafts and in boats which conveyed them safely down the Danube; but in Hungary they were met by envoys from the Greek emperor, who required them to swear that they had no designs against him; and on entering the imperial territory they found difficulties on every side. Manuel is accused by the Latins of treachery, and the Greek Nicetas joins in the charge, while other Greeks charge the crusaders with the blame of the differences which arose. There was plundering by the strangers, and attacks were often made on them by the Greek soldiery. Although markets for provisions had been promised, the Greeks shut themselves up in their towers, and let down their supplies over the walls in buckets; they insisted on being paid beforehand, and it is complained that their provisions were shamefully adulterated, that sometimes they gave nothing in return for the payment, and that in exchanges they cheated the Latins by means of false money which Manuel had coined for the purpose. By a sudden rising of the river Melas in the night, a considerable part of Conrad's force was swept away, with his tents and camp equipage. On reaching Constantinople, the scenes of the first crusade were renewed. The Byzantines were shocked by the rudeness of the Germans, and especially by the sight of women armed and riding in male fashion, “more masculine than Amazons”. There were quarrels about markets; the Germans, in indignation at the treatment which they met with, plundered and destroyed many splendid villas near the city; there were irreconcilable and interminable disputes as to matters of precedence and ceremony. Although the two emperors were brothers-in-law, Conrad left Constantinople without having seen Manuel, and crossed the Bosphorus with a host which, after all the reduction that it had suffered, was still reckoned to exceed 90,000 men.

In the meantime a force composed of men from Flanders, England, and other northern countries, assembled in the harbour of Dartmouth, and sailed for Portugal, where they wrested Lisbon from the Saracens in October 1147. But it would seem that they were content with their successes in the Spanish peninsula, and did not proceed onwards to join in the attempts to deliver the Holy Land.

The French crusaders assembled at Metz, where a code of laws was drawn up for their conduct in the expedition; but a chronicler declines to record these laws, inasmuch as they were not observed by the nobles who had sworn to them. The host passed through Germany and Hungary without any considerable misfortune, although even from the Hungarian frontier the king found it necessary to write to Suger for a fresh supply of money; and at Constantinople their superior refinement at once made them more acceptable than the Germans, and enabled them better to conceal their dislike and distrust of the Greeks. But the hollowness of the oppressive civilities with which Manuel received Lewis was deeply felt; the Greeks were found to be false and fraudulent in all their dealings; and the exasperation of the crusaders was increased by religious differences, so bitter that the Greek clergy thought it necessary to purify the altars on which the Latins had celebrated, and even to rebaptize a Latin before allowing him to marry a wife of the Greek communion. The bishop of Langres proposed to seize the city, by way of punishing them for their schism and their perfidy; and but for the eagerness of the crusaders to go onwards, his counsels would probably have been acted on. After reaching the Asiatic shore, Lewis did homage to the eastern emperor; but an eclipse of the sun, which took place on the same day, was interpreted as portending some diminution of the king’s splendour.

Lewis had reached Nicaea in safety when he was met by Frederick of Hohenstaufen with tidings of disasters which had befallen the Germans. The main body of these, under Conrad, had intended to march by Iconium, while the rest, under the bishop of Freising, were to take the less direct way by the coast; but, before Conrad and his division had advanced far, it was found that they had miscalculated, and had been deceived by the Greeks, both as to the distance and as to the difficulties of the way. Encumbered as they were by helpless women and children, they advanced but slowly. Their provisions were nearly exhausted, and no more were to be procured; the Greek guides who had led them into the desert country, after having deluded them with falsehoods of every kind, deserted them during the night, and returned to deceive the French with romantic fables as to the triumphs of the crusading arms. Squadrons of Turks, lightly armed and mounted on nimble horses, hovered about them, uttering wild cries, and discharging deadly flights of javelins and arrows, while the Europeans, worn out with hunger and toil, loaded with heavy armour, and having lost their horses, were unable to bring them to close combat: and, as they were still within the imperial territory, there was reason to believe that the enemies of the cross had been incited to attack them by the treachery of Manuel. At Nicaea Conrad himself appeared in retreat, with less than a tenth of the force which he had led onwards from that city. The Greeks refused to supply his hungry followers with food, except in exchange for their arms : and most of them returned in miserable condition towards Constantinople, whence a scanty remnant found its way back to Germany. In order that Conrad might not appear without a respectable force, Lewis ordered the Lorrainers, Burgundians, and Italians, who were feudally subject to the empire, to attach themselves to him; and, having resolved to proceed by the longer but less hazardous road, the army reached Ephesus. But quarrels had arisen between the nations of which it was composed a coolness took place between the two leaders; and Conrad, under pretext of illness, gladly accepted an invitation from his imperial brother-in-law, and returned to winter at Constantinople.

After having spent Christmas at Ephesus, Lewis directed his march towards Attalia (Satalia). The crusaders crossed the Maeander, after a victory over a Turkish force which opposed their passage. But as they advanced they found themselves unable to obtain food, and the treachery of the Greeks became continually more manifest. In a narrow defile, where the van and the rear had been accidentally separated, the army was attacked, and suffered heavy loss both in slain and in prisoners; the king’s own life was in great danger. The survivors continued their march in gloomy apprehension, and dangers seemed to thicken around them. In their extremity, it was proposed by Lewis that a brotherhood of five hundred horsemen should be formed for the protection of the rest. A knight named Gilbert, of whom nothing is known except the skill and valour which he displayed on this occasion, was chosen as its head, and even the king himself served as a member of the band. By Gilbert’s generalship, two rivers were successfully crossed in the face of the enemy, who were afterwards attacked and routed with great slaughter; and, although the crusaders were in such distress for provisions that they were obliged to eat most of their horses, they reached Attalia on the fifteenth day of their march from Ephesus.

From Attalia Lewis embarked for Syria, by advice of his counsellors, taking with him part of the force, and having, as he thought, secured a safe advance for the rest under the protection of an escort. But the Greeks who had been hired for this purpose abandoned them; and the crusaders, after having fought bravely against an assailing force of Turks, were driven to fall back on Attalia. There, however, the inhabitants who, during the king’s stay in the city, had used every kind of extortion against the Franks, shut the gates on them, and they found themselves obliged to crouch under the walls, hungry and almost naked, while violent storms of wind and rain increased their misery. At length, in utter desperation, they attempted again to march onward. But the Turks surrounded them in overpowering numbers, and the whole remnant of the unhappy force was cut off with the exception of three thousand, who surrendered themselves into slavery. Some of them apostatized, although their masters did not put any force on them as to religion.

Lewis landed at the mouth of the Orontes, and proceeded to Antioch, where he was received by his wife’s uncle, prince Raymond; but he declined the prince’s invitation to join in an expedition against Noureddin, and continued his way to Jerusalem, where he arrived towards the end of June, in a guise befitting a penitential pilgrim rather than a warrior who had set out at the head of a powerful army, and with an assured hope of victory and conquest. In July, a meeting of the Frank chiefs, both lay and ecclesiastical, was held at Acre, and among those present was Conrad, who, after having been hospitably entertained at Constantinople through the winter, had reached Jerusalem at Easter, with a very few soldiers in his train. An expedition against Damascus was resolved on, and the siege of that city was begun with good hope of success. But jealousies arose among the Franks, and some of them—it is said the Templars—were bribed by the enemy's gold, so that the expedition was defeated. Sick in body, depressed in mind, and utterly disgusted with the Christians of the Holy Land, Conrad embarked for Constantinople in September, and thence, by way of Greece and Istria, made his way to Ratisbon, where he arrived in Whitsun week 1149. Lewis, ashamed and penitent, lingered in the Holy Land until July of that year, when, yielding at length to Suger’s earnest solicitations, he took ship for Sicily—his queen following separately. In passing through Italy he had an interview with the pope, and he soon after reached his own dominions. But of the vast numbers which had accompanied him towards the East, it is said that not so many as three hundred returned.

The miserable and shameful result of this expedition, which, while it had drained Europe of men and treasure, had only rendered the condition of the Christians in the Holy Land worse than before, excited loud murmurs against Bernard, as the man by whose preaching, prophecies, and miracles, it had been chiefly promoted; and all his authority was needed in order to justify himself. We are told that, when the dismal tidings from the East were filling all France with sorrow and anger, a blind boy was brought to him for cure. The abbot prayed that, if his preaching had been right, he might be enabled to work the miracle; and this attestation of his truth was granted. He referred to his earlier miracles as certain signs that his preaching of the crusade had been sanctioned by Heaven; he declared himself willing to bear any blame rather than that it should be cast on God. He regarded the failure of the expedition as a fit chastisement for the sins of the crusaders; and an Italian abbot assured him that St. John and St. Paul had appeared in a vision, declaring that the number of the fallen angels had been restored from the souls of those who had died in the crusade.

During the absence of Lewis in the East, his kingdom had been successfully administered by Suger. Suger was born of humble parents in 1081, and at an early age entered the monastery of St. Denys, where he became the companion of Lewis VI in his education, and so laid the foundation of his political eminence. His election as abbot in 1122 was at first opposed by Lewis, because the royal permission had not been previously asked; but this difficulty was overcome, and Suger became the king’s confidential adviser. In the midst of the political employments which continually increased on him, notwithstanding his endeavours to withdraw from them, he performed his monastic duties with the most scrupulous attention. He reformed the disorders which Abelard had censured among the monks of the abbey; he skillfully improved its finances, and extended its property; he rebuilt the church and furnished it magnificently.  In his own person he had always been rigidly monastic; and although it is supposed that he was the abbot whom Bernard censures for going about with upwards of sixty horses, and a train more than sufficient for two bishops, he afterwards reformed his pomp, and received Bernard’s warm congratulations on the change. Under Lewis VII Suger’s influence became greater than ever. While left as regent of the kingdom, he employed not only his secular authority, but the censures of the church, which the pope authorized him to wield, in checking the violent and lawless tendencies of such nobles as had remained in France. He defeated the attempts of Robert of Dreux, who had returned from the crusade before his brother Lewis, to supplant the absent king, and he exerted himself diligently to raise and transmit the supplies of money for which Lewis was continually importuning him by letters. When the unhappy expedition was projected, Suger had opposed the general enthusiasm for it. But after its failure, the tidings which arrived from the East stirred him with new feelings. Raymond of Antioch had been slain, and other chiefs were taken prisoners. Jerusalem itself was threatened by the infidels, while within its walls a bitter contest for power was raging between the young king Baldwin III and his mother Melisenda. It seemed as if the Latins were about to be swept from the Holy Land. Suger was excited to attempt to raise a fresh crusade, which Bernard advocated with his old enthusiasm. Meetings for the purpose were held at Laon and at Chartres; but both nobles and bishops received the project with coldness, and when it was proposed that Bernard himself should go to Jerusalem, in order to provoke others to emulation, the Cistercians refused to allow him. Suger, however, resolved to devote to this purpose the treasures with which St. Denys had been enriched by his administration. He sent large sums of money to the East, and intended to follow with a force of his own raising. But his death in 1151 put an end to the projected expedition.

It has been mentioned that the queen of the French accompanied her husband to the crusade, and that she returned in a separate vessel. Eleanor's haughty and unbending character was ill suited to that of Lewis, and she scornfully declared that she had married, not a king, but a monk. Differences had broken out between them at Antioch, and had been fomented by her uncle Raymond, who was provoked by the king’s refusal to assist him in his designs against Aleppo. She is charged with infidelity to her husband, whom it is even said that she had intended to desert for the embraces of an infidel chief. The marriage was open to a canonical objection, of which Bernard had spoken strongly during the quarrel between the king and the church; and although the pope had overruled this objection, it was now brought before a council at Beaugency, which pronounced for a separation on the ground of consanguinity. Immediately after, Eleanor entered into a second marriage with Henry, duke of Normandy, count of Anjou, and afterwards king of England, who thus became master of her extensive territories; and, by this marriage, the foundation was laid for a life-long jealousy and rivalry between Lewis and the great vassal whose territory in France exceeded the king’s own.

The presence of the pope, and the good understanding between him and Suger, had contributed greatly to the preservation of peace in France during the crusade; and by corresponding with the archbishop of Mayence, and Wibald, abbot of Stablo, whom Conrad had left as guardians of his son, Eugenius conferred a like benefit on Germany. In November 1147 he was induced by an invitation from Albero, archbishop of Treves, to visit that city, where he remained nearly three months. Among the matters there brought before him were the prophecies of Hildegard, head of a monastic sisterhood at St. Disibod’s, in the diocese of Mayence. Hildegard, born in 1098, had from her childhood been subject to fits of ecstasy, in which it is said that, although ignorant of Latin, she uttered her oracles in that language; and these oracles were eagerly heard, recorded, and preserved. With the power of prophecy she was believed to possess that of miracles; she was consulted on all manner of subjects, and among her correspondents were emperors, kings, and popes. Her tone in addressing the highest ecclesiastical personages is that of a prophetess far superior to them, and she denounces the corruptions of the monks and clergy in a strain, which has made her a favourite with the fiercest opponents of the papal church. Bernard, when in Germany, had been interested by Hildegard's character, and at his instance the pope now examined her prophecies, bestowed on her his approval, and sanctioned her design of building a convent in a spot which had been marked out by a vision, on St. Rupert's Hill, near Bingen.

From Treves Eugenius proceeded to Reims, where, on the 21st of March 1148, a great council met under his presidency. This council is connected with English history, not only by the circumstance that Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, attended it in defiance of a prohibition from king Stephen (for whom, however, he charitably obtained a respite when the pope was about to pronounce a sentence of excommunication), but because among the matters which came before it was a contest for the see of York between William, a nephew of the king, and Henry Murdac, abbot of Fountains. In this question, Bernard, influenced by partiality for Henry, as a member of his order and formerly his pupil, took a part which is universally acknowledged to have been wrong; for William had been elected by a majority of votes, and had been consecrated by his uncle, Henry, bishop of Winchester. The affair had already been discussed at Paris in 1147, and was now, through Bernard's influence, decided by the pope against William, who was excommunicated; but he found a refuge with the bishop of Winchester, until, after the death of his rival, he was again elected to York, and, with the sanction of Anastasius IV, resumed possession of the see in 1154. His return was, however, opposed by some of his clergy, and his death, which took place in the same year, is said to have been caused by poison administered in the eucharistic chalice. William's sanctity was attested by miracles at his tomb, and in the next century the archbishop whom Bernard had branded as a simoniac, and whom Eugenius, at Bernard's dictation, had deposed, was canonized by Nicholas III.

Another question which came before the council at Reims related to the opinions of Gilbert de la Porrée, who, after having been long famous as a teacher, had been raised in 1141 to the bishopric of Poitiers. Gilbert was, like Abelard, one of those theologians who paid less than the usual reverence to the traditions of former times. Otho of Freising, his pupil and admirer, tells us that his subtlety and acuteness led him to depart in many things from the customary way of speaking, although his respect for authority was greater than Abelard's, and his character was free from the vanity and the levity which had contributed so largely to Abelard's misfortunes.

Gilbert had been present at the council of Sens in 1140, and it is said that Abelard, after having heard himself condemned, turned to the theologian of Poitiers, and warned him in a well-known verse of Horace that his turn of persecution would come next. The pope, when on his way to France, was met at Siena by two archdeacons of Gilbert's diocese, who presented a complaint against their bishop; but when he attempted to investigate the charge at the council of Paris in 1147, Gilbert was saved from condemnation by the obscurity of the subject to which his alleged errors related, and by his own dialectical acuteness. The inquiry was adjourned to a greater assembly, but the difficulties which had baffled the council of Paris were equally felt at Reims. The chief errors imputed to Gilbert related to the doctrine of the Godhead. He was charged with denying that the Divine essence is God, and consequently with denying that it could have been incarnate; with holding that God is pure Being, without any attributes, although including in his perfect Being all that we conceive of as His attributes and to this it was added that he denied the efficacy of the Sacraments—maintaining that none were really baptized but such as should eventually be saved. Gilbert defended himself at great length, and cited many passages from the fathers in behalf of his opinions. “Brother”, said the pope at last, “you say and read a great many things which perhaps we do not understand; but tell us plainly whether you own that supreme essence by which the three Persons are God to be itself God”. Gilbert, wearied with the disputation, hastily answered “No”, and his answer was recorded, after which the council adjourned. On the following day, Gilbert, who in the meantime had held much earnest conference with such of the cardinals as favoured him, endeavored by distinctions and explanations to do away with the effect of his hasty reply. Bernard, in speaking against him, made use of some words which gave offence to the cardinals—"Let that, too, be written down", said Gilbert. “Yes”, cried the abbot, “let it be written down with an iron pen, and with a nail of adamant!”. As Gilbert’s party among the cardinals was strong, Bernard endeavoured to counteract their influence by assembling a number of French prelates and other ecclesiastics, and producing at the council a set of propositions on which these had agreed in opposition to the errors imputed to the bishop of Poitiers. On this, the jealousy of the cardinals, who had long been impatient of his ascendency over Eugenius, burst forth. They denounced the French clergy as attempting to impose a new creed—a thing, they said, which all the patriarchs of Christendom could not presume to do without the authority of Rome; they loudly blamed the pope for preferring the French church to the Roman—for preferring his private friendships before the advice of those legitimate counsellors to whom he owed his elevation. Eugenius, unwilling to offend either party, desired Bernard to make peace; whereupon Bernard declared that he and his friends had not intended to claim any undue authority for their paper; but that, as Gilbert had demanded a written statement of his belief, he had desired to fortify himself by the consent of the French bishops. Gilbert was at length allowed to depart unharmed, on professing his agreement with the faith of the council and of the Roman church; he was reconciled with his archdeacons, by whom the charges had been brought against him; and his friends represented the result of the inquiry as a triumph.

Eugenius was now able, by the assistance of the Sicilian king, to return to Rome, where he arrived in November 1149, and he requested Bernard, as their personal intercourse could no longer be continued, to draw up some admonitions for his benefit. The result was a remarkable treatise“On Consideration”, which shows how far Bernard’s reverence for the papacy was from implying an admiration of the actual system of Rome, and how nearly in some respects the views of the highest hierarchical churchmen agreed with those of such reformers as Arnold of Brescia. With professions of deep humility and deference, the abbot writes as if the pope were still a monk of Clairvaux. The great object of the book is to exhort Eugenius to the spiritual duties of his office, and to warn him against the dangers of secularity. Bernard complains of the manifold business in which popes were engaged; of their employment in hearing of suits which were rather secular than ecclesiastical, and fell rather under the laws of Justinian than under those of the Saviour. These engagements, he says, were so engrossing as to allow no time for consideration; and the pope is advised to extricate himself from them as far as possible by devolving some part of his jurisdiction on others, by cutting short the speeches and the artifices of lawyers, and by discouraging the practice of too readily appealing to Rome. There is much of earnest warning against pride and love of rule; Bernard declares that the pomp of the papacy is copied, not from St. Peter, but from Constantine; that the Roman church ought not to be the mistress of other churches, but their mother; that the pope is not the lord, but the brother, of other bishops. He denounces the frequent exemption of abbots from the authority of bishops, and of bishops from the authority of their arch­bishops, the greed, the venality, the assumption of the papal court; he desires Eugenius to be careful in the choice of his officials and confidants, to avoid all acceptance of persons—(as to money, he acknowledges the pope’s utter indifference)—and to advance resolutely, although gradually, towards a reformation of the prevailing abuses. There is no reason to doubt that this treatise was received by Eugenius with the respect which he always paid to Bernard; but the abuses which it denounced were too strong and too inveterate to be cured by the good intentions of any pope. In it, however, the great saint of Clairvaux, by the unreserved plainness of his language and by the weight of his authority, had supplied a weapon which, from age to age, was continually employed by those who desired to reform the church and the court of Rome.

Although Eugenius was received by the Romans with submission to his spiritual authority, his temporal claims were not admitted, and after a few months he was again compelled to leave the city. In the hope of aid against the rebels, he entreated Conrad to come to Italy and receive the imperial crown, while the Romans requested the king to take part with them against the clergy, and Manuel of Constantinople urged the fulfillment of an agreement which had been made as Conrad was returning from the East, for a joint expedition against the pope's Sicilian allies. To each party Conrad replied that he was preparing for an Italian expedition, and he assured the pope that no evil was intended against the Roman church. But in the midst of his preparations he was seized by an illness, which carried him off in February 1152. In the end of that year, Eugenius, whose bounty and mildness had done much to conciliate the Romans, was allowed to return to his capital; but he survived little more than six months, dying on the 8th of July 1153. And on the 20th of August in that year Bernard died at Clairvaux— “ascending”, says a chronicler of the time, “from the Bright Valley to the mountain of eternal brightness”.

3

ADRIAN IV AND FREDERICK BARBAROSSA.

Henry, king of the Romans, had died about a year and a half before his father; and, although Conrad still had a son surviving, his feeling for the public good induced him to choose an heir of maturer age, his nephew Frederick, son of that Frederick of Hohenstaufen who had been Lothair’s competitor for the empire. A week after his uncle’s death, Frederick was elected at Frankfort, and five days later he received the German crown at Aix-la-Chapelle from Arnold, archbishop of Cologne. On the very day of his coronation the stern determination of his character was remarkably displayed. In the minster, where the ceremony took place, one of his officers, who had been dismissed for misconduct, threw himself at his feet, in the hope that the circumstances of the day might secure his pardon. But Frederick declared that, as he had disgraced the man not out of hatred but for justice sake, neither the festive occasion nor the intercessions of the princes who were present could be allowed to reverse the sentence. Frederick, who was now thirty-one years of age, had distinguished himself in the late crusade; he was a prince of extraordinary ability and indomitable perseverance, filled with a high sense of the dignity to which he had been elevated, and with a firm resolution to maintain its rights according to the model of Charlemagne. Yet, although his struggle for the assertion of the imperial privileges was to be chiefly against the hierarchy, he appears to have been sincere in his profession of reverence for the church, and not immoderate in his conception of the relations between the secular and the ecclesiastical powers. Descended as he was from the houses of both Welf and Waiblingen, the feud of those houses was dormant throughout his reign, although it afterwards revived, when the names became significant of the papal and the imperial parties respectively.

In the very beginning of his reign, Frederick was drawn into a collision with the papacy with regard to the see of Magdeburg. Some of the clergy had wished to elect the dean as archbishop, while others were for the provost; but Frederick persuaded the dean and his partisans to accept Wichmann, bishop of Zeitz, as their candidate, and, by the power which the Worms concordat had allowed to the sovereign in cases of disputed elections, he decided for Wichmann, and invested him with the regalia. The provost on this carried a complaint to Eugenius, who, in letters to the chapter of Magdeburg and to the German bishops, ordered that Wichmann should not be acknowledged as archbishop; it is, however, remarkable that he rested his prohibition on the canons which forbade translation except for great causes (such as, he said, did not exist in this case), but did not hint as yet that the translation of bishops was a matter reserved to the Roman see. Frederick continued firm in the assertion of his pretensions, against both Eugenius and his successor, Anastasius IV. A legate whom Anastasius sent into Germany for the settlement of the question found himself resisted in his assumptions, and was obliged to return without having effected anything; and Wichmann, whom Frederick soon after sent to Rome, received from Anastasius the confirmation of his election, with the archiepiscopal pall. By the result of this affair Frederick's authority was strengthened in proportion to the loudness with which the Roman court had before declared itself resolved to abate nothing of its pretensions.

The long absence of the emperors from Italy had encouraged the people of that country, which was continually advancing in commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, in wealth and in population, to forget their allegiance to the imperial crown. The feudatories came to regard themselves as independent; the cities set up republican governments of their own, under consuls who were annually elected, and the right of investing these magistrates was the only shadow which the bishops were allowed to retain of their ancient secular power. The cities were engaged in constant feuds with each other, and each subdued the nobles of its neighbourhood, whom the citizens in some cases even compelled to reside within the city walls for a certain portion of the year.

Frederick was resolved to reassert the imperial rights, and applications from various quarters concurred with his own inclination in urging on him an expedition into Italy. With the Greek emperor he formed a scheme of combination against the Sicilian Normans and while Eugenius entreated his aid against the republican and Arnoldist faction, which the pope represented as intending to set up an emperor of its own, another writer addressed him on the part of the Romans, assuring him that the story of Constantine’s donation had now lost all credit even among the meanest of the people, and that the pope with his cardinals did not venture to appear in public. At his first German diet, in 1152, Frederick proposed an expedition into Italy, for which he required the princes to be ready within two years; and in October 1154 he entered Lombardy by way of Trent, at the head of the most splendid army that had ever crossed the Alps. A great assembly was summoned to the plains of Roncaglia, the place in which the German kings, on their way to receive the imperial crown, had been accustomed to meet their Italian subjects. The vassals who failed to appear—among them, some ecclesiastics—were declared to have forfeited their fiefs. The mutual complaints of the Italian cities were heard, and severe sentences were pronounced against those who were found guilty, especially against the powerful and turbulent Milanese, who had treated Frederick’s admonitions with contempt, and had now added to their offences by offering to bribe him into sanctioning their tyranny over their neighbours. Tortona, which had shown itself contumacious, was taken after a siege of two months, and destroyed; and at Pavia the king was received with a magnificence which expressed the joy of the citizens in the humiliation of their Milanese enemies.

In March 1153 Frederick had entered into a compact with Eugenius, binding himself to make no alliance with the Romans or with Roger of Sicily unless with the pope’s consent, and to maintain the privileges of the papacy; while the pope promised to support the power of Frederick, and to bestow on him the imperial crown, and both parties pledged themselves to make no grant of Italian territory to “the king of the Greeks”. Since the date of that compact, Eugenius had been succeeded by Anastasius IV, and Anastasius, in December 1154, by Nicholas Breakspear, an Englishman, who took the name of Adrian IV. Breakspear, the son of a poor clerk, who had afterwards become a monk of St. Albans, is said to have been refused admission into that house on account of his insufficiency in knowledge, and was driven to seek his fortune in France, where he distinguished himself by his diligence in study at Paris, and rose to be abbot of the regular canons of St. Rufus, near Avignon. In this office he became unpopular with his canons, who carried their complaints against him to Eugenius III; and the pope at once put an end to the strife and marked his high sense of the abbot's merit by appointing him cardinal-bishop of Albano. As cardinal, he was sent on an important legation into the Scandinavian kingdoms, from which he returned during the pontificate of Anastasius and now the poor English scholar, whose Saxon descent would probably have debarred him from any considerable preferment in his native land, was elected to the chair of St. Peter. “He was”, says a biographer, “a man of great kindness, meekness, and patience, skilled in the English and in the Latin tongues, eloquent in speech, polished in his utterance, distinguished in singing and an eminent preacher, slow to anger, quick to forgive, a cheerful giver, bountiful in alms and excellent in his whole character”. If, however, we may judge by his acts, it would seem that Adrian’s temper was less placid than it is here represented; and his ideas as to the papal dignity were of the loftiest Hildebrandine kind. Immediately after his election, he refused to acknowledge the republican government, and issued an order that Arnold of Brescia should be banished from Rome. To this it was answered that the pope ought to confine himself to spiritual affairs; and the insolence of Arnold’s partisans increased until it reached a height which gave the pope an advantage against them. A cardinal was attacked and mortally wounded in the street; Adrian placed the city under an interdict; and the severity of this sentence, which had never before been known at Rome, was the more strongly felt from its being issued in Lent, a time when the Romans had been accustomed to the pomp and the religious consolations of especially solemn services. By the absence of these the people were so intensely distressed that, in the holy week, they compelled the senators to submit to the pope, who consented to take off his censure on condition that Arnold should be driven out. On this Arnold fled from the city, and, after having wandered for a time, he found a refuge among the nobles of the Campagna, by whom he was regarded as a prophet. But Frederick, as he advanced towards Rome with a rapidity which excited Adrian's suspicions, was met by three cardinals, who in the pope’s name requested that he would take measures against an incendiary so dangerous to the crown as well as to the church; and in consequence of the king's demand Arnold was surrendered by those who sheltered him. Frederick delivered him over to the pope, and, under the authority of the prefect of Rome, the popular leader was hanged, after which his body was burnt, and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber, lest they should be venerated as relics by the multitudes who had followed him. “Bad as his doctrine was”, says Gerhoh of Reichersperg, “I wish that he had been punished with imprisonment, or exile, or with some other penalty short of death, or at least that he had been put to death in such a manner as might have saved the Roman church from question”.

The negotiations which Adrian had opened through his cardinals were satisfactorily settled by Frederick’s swearing that his intentions were friendly to the pope, and receiving in turn a promise of the imperial crown. Having thus assured himself Adrian ventured into the camp at Nepi, where he was received with great honour; but, although Frederick threw himself at his feet, the pope took offence at the king's omitting to hold his stirrup—an act of homage which, although the first example of it had been given little more than half a century before, by Conrad, the rebellious son of Henry IV, was already deduced by the papal party from Constantine the Great, who was said to have performed it to Pope Sylvester. Adrian declared that he would not give the kiss of peace unless he received the same honour which his predecessors had always received, while Frederick declared that the omission was purely the effect of ignorance, but that he must consult his nobles on the subject. The cardinals in alarm withdrew to Civita Castellana, and a long discussion was carried on, which was at length settled by the evidence of some Germans who had accompanied the emperor Lothair to Rome; and, as this evidence was in the pope’s favour, Frederick next day submitted to do the service which was required, although it would seem that in the performance he intentionally gave it the character of a jest. Having overcome this difficulty, the king proceeded onwards in company with the pope, who strongly represented to him the disorders of Rome, and endeavored to draw him into an expedition against the Sicilians, with a view to recovering Apulia for the apostolic see. Frederick contrived to defer the consideration of this proposal; but it may be supposed that the pope’s representations had some share in producing the reception which the king gave to a deputation from the citizens, which waited on him near Sutri. After listening for a time to the bombastic oration which one of the envoys addressed to him in the name of Rome, dwelling on her glories, and endeavouring to make terms for the Romans in exchange for their consent to the imperial coronation, the king indignantly cut him short—“These”, he said, pointing to his German nobles and soldiers, “are the true Latins—the consuls, the senators, the knights. The glory of Rome and the Romans has been transferred to the Franks. Our power has not been conferred by you, as you pretend, but has been won by victory. Your native tyrants, such as Desiderius and Berengar, have been overcome by my predecessors, and died as captives and slaves in foreign lands. It is not for subjects to prescribe laws to their sovereign. It is not for a prince at the head of a powerful army, but for captives, to pay money; I will submit to no conditions of your making”.

On reaching Rome, Frederick took possession of the Leonine suburb, while the bridge of St. Angelo, the only means of communication with the opposite bank, was guarded by his soldiery; and on the 18th of June he was crowned by Adrian in St. Peter's amid the loud acclamations of the Germans. But after the ceremony, while the troops had withdrawn from the oppressive heat of the day, and were refreshing themselves in their tents, a body of Romans sallied across the bridge, attacking such of the Germans as they found in the streets or in the churches, and appeared to have a design of seizing the pope. The noise of this irruption penetrated to the emperor’s camp, and Frederick immediately ordered his troops to arms. A fierce conflict raged from four in the afternoon till nightfall; the assailants were driven back as far as the Forum; the Tiber ran with blood, and it is said that a thousand of the Romans were slain, and two hundred taken prisoners, while only one of the imperialists was killed and one captured. At the pope’s intercession the Roman captives were given up to the prefect of the city, and on St. Peter’s day Adrian pronounced the absolution of all who had taken part in the late slaughter. Frederick was soon after compelled by the pestilential air of the Roman summer to withdraw from the neighbourhood of the city, and, as the time for which his troops were bound to serve was drawing towards an end, he retired beyond the Alps—on the way taking and destroying Spoleto, the inhabitants of which had provoked him by their insolence. At Christmas 1155-6 a diet was held at Worms, where Arnold, archbishop of Mayence, Hermann, count palatine, and others were brought to trial for disturbing the peace of Germany during the emperor's absence. The archbishop was spared in consideration of his age and profession; but the count palatine and ten of his partisans were sentenced to the ignominious punishment of “carrying the dog”.

Frederick’s attention was soon again demanded by the affairs of Italy. William “the Bad”, the son and successor of Roger of Sicily, had in 1155 refused to enter into a treaty with the pope, or to admit his ambassadors to an interview, because Adrian, by way of claiming him as a vassal, had styled him not king, but lord. He besieged the pope in Benevento, laid waste the surrounding territory, and was denounced excommunicate. This sentence was not without its effect on the minds of William’s allies, and, in addition to the fear that these might desert him, the dread of a combination between the Greek emperor and the pope inclined him further to peace. His first overtures were refused, but Adrian, after having seen his own troops and allies defeated, was fain to sue in his turn, and received the most favourable terms. The king fell at his feet, and, on swearing fealty to the Roman see, was invested by Adrian with the kingdom of Sicily and the Italian territories of the Normans (including some which the popes had never before affected to dispose of); while, in consideration of this, he promised to aid the pope against all enemies, and to pay a yearly tribute for Apulia, Calabria, and his other continental dominions. Frederick, who had been exerting himself with energy and success to reduce Germany to tranquillity, was greatly displeased that the pope had without his concurrence entered into an alliance with the Sicilians—an alliance, moreover, which involved the disallowance of the imperial claims to suzerainty over Apulia. He signified his displeasure to Adrian, who on his side was dissatisfied on account of the emperor’s having divorced his wife under pretext of consanguinity, and having entered into another marriage, which was recommended to him by political considerations. At a diet at Wurzburg, in 1157, a fresh expedition into Italy was resolved on; but it was delayed by the necessity of attending to the affairs of Poland, and in the meantime an incident took place which led to a violent collision between the pope and the emperor.

Eskil, archbishop of Lund, in that part of modern Sweden which was then subject to Denmark, in returning from a visit to Rome, had been attacked, plundered, and imprisoned with a view to the exaction of ransom, by some robber knights in the neighbourhood of Thionville. No notice had been taken of this by Frederick, to whom Eskil had probably given offence by his exertions to render the Danish church independent of the metropolitans of Bremen and Hamburg. But Adrian, on hearing of it, addressed to the emperor a letter of indignant remonstrance against the apathy with which he had regarded an outrage injurious to the empire as well as to the church—reminding Frederick of his having conferred the imperial crown on him, and adding that, if it had been in his power, he would have bestowed on him yet greater favours. The letter was presented to the emperor by two cardinals at a great assembly at Besançon, where it was read aloud, and was interpreted by the chancellor Reginald of Dassel (who soon after became archbishop of Cologne). But the word beneficia which the pope had used to signify favours or benefits, was unluckily misunderstood by the Germans as if it had the feudal sense of benefices or fiefs. The pope was supposed to have represented the empire as a fief of the papacy; and it was remembered that Frederick, at his first visit to Rome, had been offended by a picture which, with its inscription, represented Lothair as receiving his crown from the pope’s gift, and as performing homage for it. A loud uproar arose at the supposed insolence of the pontiff, and the general feeling was still further exasperated when Cardinal Roland dared to ask “From whom, then, does the emperor hold his crown, if not from the pope?”. The palsgrave Otho of Wittelsbach, who carried the naked sword of state, was with difficulty prevented by the emperor from cleaving the audacious ecclesiastic’s head with it. “If we were not in a church”, said Frederick himself, “they should know how the swords of the Germans cut”. He burst forth into violent reproaches against the legates and their master; they were abruptly and ignominiously dismissed, and were charged to return home at once, without staying more than one night in any place of the imperial dominions, or burdening bishops or monasteries by their exactions. Frederick, whose exasperation was increased by some strong rebukes which Adrian had addressed to him on account of his divorce and second marriage, forthwith sent forth a letter to his subjects, in which he protested that he would rather hazard his life than admit the pope’s insolent assumptions; that he held his kingdom and the empire by the choice of the princes and under God alone, agreeably to our Lord's saying, that two swords are necessary for the government of the world. Orders were issued that no German ecclesiastic should go to Rome without the imperial license, and the passes into Italy were guarded in order to prevent all communication.

On hearing from his legates of the indignities to which they had been subjected, the pope wrote to the German bishops, urging them to bring the emperor to a better mind, and to persuade him to exact from archbishop Reginald and the palsgrave signal and public atonement for their“blasphemies” against the Roman church. But on this occasion the German prelates preferred their national to their hierarchical allegiance. They told the pope that they had admonished the emperor, and had received from him “such an answer as became a catholic prince” declaring his firm resolution, while paying all due reverence to the pope, to admit no encroachment of the church on the empire; and they entreated Adrian to soothe the high spirit of their sovereign. The pope began to be alarmed, and, at the instance of Henry, duke of Bavaria, he dispatched two envoys of a more politic character than the last, with a letter of explanation composed in a moderate and conciliatory style. The word beneficium he said, meant, not a fief, but simply a good deed (bonum factum) and surely the emperor would admit that to crown him was such a deed; and by the crown nothing more had been meant than the act of placing it on Frederick’s head. The letter was delivered at Augsburg, and was well received; and the picture which had given offence at Rome was removed, if not destroyed.

At length the projected expedition was ready, and Frederick, having settled the affairs of Germany, Hungary, and Poland, crossed the Alps in July 1158, at the head of a force composed of many nations, and which is reckoned at 100,000 infantry and 15,000 horsed Milan and other insubordinate cities were compelled to surrender, and felt his severity, while the enmity of the Italian towns against each other was shown in acts of cruelty committed by those in the imperial interest, to the astonishment and disgust of the Germans. Milan was deprived of the privileges which were known under the name of royalties and was required to submit the choice of its consuls to the emperor for confirmation. At Martinmas, a great assembly was held in the Roncaglian plains, where a city of tents was erected, the Germans and Italians encamping on the opposite banks of the Po. As the extent of the imperial powers in Italy had been hitherto undefined, Frederick, in an address to his assembled subjects, declared himself resolved that it should now be duly ascertained and determined, professing that he would rather govern by law than by his own caprice; and the matter was committed to four eminent professors of Bologna, together with twenty-eight judges of the Lombard cities. Filled with the lofty notions of the imperial dignity which had lately been produced by the revived study of ancient Roman law, these authorities declared that the emperor possessed autocratic power, and was entitled to exact a capitation from all his subjects. The rights of the Italian cities, to the possession of royalties were investigated, and those for which no authority could be shown were confiscated; a general tribute was imposed; and by these measures a revenue of 30,000 pounds of silver was added to the imperial treasury. A few cities were allowed by special favour to retain their consuls, who were to be appointed with the emperor's consent; but the ordinary system of government was to be by officers bearing the title of podestà, who were to be nominated by the emperor, and were also to be chosen from among strangers to the place over which they were appointed. Measures were also taken to bind the cities to mutual peace, to prevent them from combining into parties, and to suppress the private wars of the nobles.

On hearing of these proceedings, Adrian was greatly excited. The idea of the imperial prerogative which had been sanctioned at Roncaglia conflicted with the Hildebrandine pretensions of the papacy. The resumption of royalties which had been held not only by cities and by nobles, but by bishops and abbots—the imposition of a tribute from which ecclesiastics were not exempted—the investiture of Frederick’s uncle, Welf VI of Bavaria, in the inheritance of the countess Matilda—were circumstances which might well produce alarm and irritation in the pope’s mind; “it seemed to him”, says a writer of later date, “as if all that the emperor gained were taken from himself”. While engaged in settling the quarrels of the Lombard cities, Frederick received from the pope a letter peremptorily forbidding him to arbitrate in a difference between Bergamo and Brescia; and instead of being committed, as was usual, to an envoy of honourable station, this letter was delivered by a man of mean and ragged appearance, who immediately disappeared. About the same time Adrian gave additional provocation to the emperor by refusing to allow the promotion of Guy of Blandrata to the see of Ravenna, on the evidently trilling ground that he could not be spared from Rome, where he was a subdeacon of the church. Indignant at these slights, the emperor ordered his secretaries, in addressing the pope, to use the singular instead of the plural number, and to reverse the custom, which had prevailed since the time of Leo IV, of placing the pope’s name before that of the sovereign in the heading of letters. These changes drew forth a strong remonstrance from Adrian, who declared them to be a breach of the commandment that we should honour our parents, and of the fealty which Frederick had sworn to the see of St. Peter; and he further complained that the emperor exacted homage as well as fealty from bishops, that he took their consecrated hands between his own hands, that he closed not only the churches but the cities of his dominions against the legates of the apostolic see. An embassy was also commissioned to demand redress of alleged encroachments on the papacy—that the emperor sent messengers to Rome without the knowledge of the pope, to whom all power in the city belonged; that his envoys claimed entertainment in the palaces of bishops; that he exacted the allowance known by the name of the pope’s subjects on other occasions besides that on which it was admitted to be lawful—the expedition to receive the imperial crown; that he detained Matilda’s inheritance, and other territories which rightfully belonged to the apostolic see. To these complaints Frederick replied that he had been driven by the pope’s new assumptions to fall back on the older forms in writing to him; that he had no wish for the homage of bishops, unless they cared to retain the royalties which they had received from the crown; that the palaces of bishops stood on imperial ground, and therefore his ambassadors were entitled to enter them; that if he shut out cardinals from churches and from cities, it was because they were false to their profession, and were intent only on plunder; that if the pope were sovereign of Rome, the imperial title was a mockery: and he inveighed in strong terms against the pride and rapacity of the Roman court.

The exasperation of both parties rose higher and higher. A proposal of Frederick, that the matters in dispute should be left to the decision of six cardinals to be named by the pope, and six German bishops to be chosen by himself, was rejected by Adrian, on the ground that the pope could be judged by no man. The emperor, indignant at the discovery of letters exhorting the Lombard cities to revolt, received favourably a fresh embassy from the Roman senate and people, and entered into negotiations with them.

A rupture of the most violent kind between the papacy and the empire appeared to be inevitable, when, on the 1st of September 1159, Adrian died at Anagni.

CHAPTER IX.

ALEXANDER III.

A.D. 1159-1181.

THE higher clergy of Rome had during the late pontificate been divided into two parties, of which one adhered to the imperial, and the other to the Sicilian interest; and at the death of Adrian a collision took between these parties. The cardinals of the Sicilian faction elected Roland Bandinelli or Paparo, cardinal of St. Mark and chancellor of the Roman see, the same who had defied Frederick at Besançon; while the imperialists set up cardinal Octavian, of St. Cecilia, who is said to have been at one time excommunicated by the late pope, but had since rendered important services to the emperor. That Roland, although unsupported by the lower clergy, by the nobles, or by the people, had the majority of the cardinals with him, is allowed by the opposite party; but while these represent their own strength to have been nine against fourteen, the adherents of Roland claim for him all but three. The partisans of Octavian (who styled himself Victor IV) assert that, after the death of Adrian, the cardinals agreed at Anagni that no one should be declared pope except with the unanimous consent of the whole college; but that, on removing to Rome for the late pope’s funeral, the Sicilian party, trusting in their superior numbers, resolved to set this compact aside, and to elect from among themselves a pope hostile to the emperor; that they themselves proposed Octavian, as a man of religious character, who would study to promote the good of the church, and its agreement with the empire; that the Sicilian faction cried out for Roland, and were about to invest him with the papal mantle, but that, while he strove to avoid it, the act was prevented, and Octavian was solemnly invested and enthroned in St. Peter’s chair; whereupon Roland and his partisans withdrew without making any protest, and shut themselves up in the fortress of St. Peter. According to the other party, Roland (who assumed the name of Alexander III) had been duly invested with the mantle, when Octavian plucked it from his shoulders, and, after a struggle, huddled it on himself with the assistance of two clerks, but so awkwardly that the back part appeared in front; and that thereupon his partisans, rushing in with swords in their hands, drove out Alexander and his supporters. It is remarkable how much the formality as to the mantle is insisted on by the same party which, in the earlier schism between Innocent and Anacletus, had been careful to avoid all questions of form, and to rest its candidate's claims on his character alone; and in the present case the representations which are given by friends and by enemies as to the character of the rivals are utterly irreconcilable.

After having been kept as a prisoner beyond the Tiber for eleven days by some senators in Victor's interest, Alexander and his cardinals were delivered by the Frangipani faction, and passed through the city—in triumphant procession, as they assert, while they tell us that the antipope, on appearing in the streets of Rome, was jeered and hooted by women and boys.

On the 18th of September Alexander was invested with the mantle at Cisterna—a name from which his opponents took occasion for sneers as to “cisterns that could hold no water”; and on the following Sunday he was consecrated by the cardinal of Ostia, at Ninfa. The rival pope had also been compelled to leave Rome, and his consecration was performed at Farfa on the 4th of October by the cardinal of Tusculum, with two other bishops, whom Alexander's friends describe as banished from their sees. Victor was supported in his pretensions by the imperial commissioners Otho of Wittelsbach and Guy of Blandrata, and, while Alexander's partisans complained of this, his rival appealed to the emperor for a decision.

Frederick, on attempting to carry out the decrees of the Roncaglian assembly, had met with an obstinate resistance. In many cities the podestàs appointed by him had been turned out by the people; at Milan admittance was denied to them, although the Milanese had advised at Roncaglia that such magistrates should be appointed for the Italian cities; and the imperial chancellor, Reginald, archbishop elect of Cologne, was grossly insulted and driven from the city. Sieges and other military operations were carried on with fierce exasperation on both sides, and the imperialists reduced the country around Milan to a desert. It was while engaged in the siege of Crema that Frederick received the letter by which Alexander announced his election; and such was his indignation at the contents that he tossed it from him, refused to make any answer, and was with difficulty restrained from hanging the bearers of it. After advising with his bishops and his lawyers, he resolved to submit the question of the papacy to a council; and the rival claimants were summoned to appear before it. By writers of Alexander’s party it is asserted that, while Frederick continued to address him as chancellor Roland, Octavian was already acknowledged in the imperial letters as pope; but this seems very questionable.

The council, which had been originally summoned to meet in October, but had been delayed until after the fall of Crema, assembled at Pavia in February 1160. The emperor had invited the kings of France, England, Hungary, Spain, and other countries to send bishops as representatives of their churches; but the prelates who appeared, about fifty in number, were almost all from his own German and Lombard dominions. Alexander, although a homeless fugitive from his city, had refused in the loftiest style of papal dignity to attend, asserting that, as lawful pope, he could be judged by no man; that Frederick, by calling a council without his sanction, and by citing him to it as a subject, had violated the rights of the holy see. A second and a third summons were addressed to him, but met with the same disregard as the first.

At the opening of the council the emperor appeared, and, after a speech in which he asserted his right to convoke such assemblies, agreeably to the examples of Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, and Charlemagne, declared that he left the decision of the disputed election to the bishops, as being the persons to whom God had given authority in such matters. An objection was raised by the Lombard prelates against proceeding in the absence of Alexander; but this was overruled by their German brethren, who pleaded the length and the cost of their own journeys to attend the council, and said that, as Roland's absence was willful, he must bear the consequences of it. The question was therefore debated, and at the end of seven days the council pronounced in favour of Victor, who thereupon received the homage of all who were present, the emperor holding his stirrup, leading his horse by the rein, and showing him all other usual marks of reverence. Victor renewed an excommunication which he had pronounced against Alexander, to which Alexander replied by a counter­ excommunication; and while the emperor declared that the meeting at Pavia had been a full and legitimate council of the church, Alexander and his party spoke of it as a mere secular court. They dwelt on the small number of the bishops who had attended; on the intimidation which was said to have been practised, but which had been unable to prevent some show of dissent from the decrees; on the refusal of the English and French envoys to commit themselves to the decision; and they asserted that the antipope had abased himself by the unexampled humiliation of stripping off his insignia in the emperor's presence, and receiving investiture by the ring.

Although the partisans of Victor professed at the council of Pavia to have the support of England, Spain, Hungary, Denmark, Bohemia, and other countries, Alexander was soon acknowledged almost everywhere except in the empire. The kings of France and of England, with their bishops, after a separate recognition of his title in each country, combined to acknowledge him at a council at Toulouse, to which Alexander, being assured of his ground, had condescended to send representatives to confront those of his rival. The Lombard cities, engaged in a deadly struggle with the emperor, were Alexander’s natural allies. The strength of the great monastic orders was with him, although for a time the Cluniacs held with his opponents. By means of envoys he was able to win the favour of the Byzantine court; the Latins of the East, in a council at Nazareth, agreed to acknowledge him, and to anathematize the antipope; and Spain, Denmark, and others of the less important kingdoms gradually adhered to the prevailing side. Each party employed against the other all the weapons which it could command; the rival popes issued mutual anathemas; Alexander released the emperor’s subjects from their allegiance, while Frederick ejected bishops of Alexander's party, and banished the Cistercians from the empire for their adhesion to him. 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 skillful in dealing with men, and in shaping his course according to circumstances; and above all things he was remarkable 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 caused

In consequence of its renewed offences, Milan had been laid under the ban of the empire, and Frederick had sworn never to wear his crown until the rebellious city should be reduced. The siege had lasted three years, when, in the end of February 1162, the Milanese found themselves brought to extremity by the exhaustion of their provisions, while the emperor’s strength had been lately increased by powerful reinforcements from Germany. The besieged attempted to make conditions, but Frederick would admit nothing less than an absolute surrender; and in his camp at Lodi he gratified himself by beholding the abject humiliation of their representatives, who appeared before him in miserable guise, barefooted, with ropes around their necks, and holding naked swords to their throats, in acknowledgment that their lives were forfeit. Four days later a more numerous deputation appeared, having with them the carroccio,  or waggon on which the standard of Milanese independence had been displayed in battle. The great brazen war-trumpets were laid at the emperor’s feet; and at his command the mast, to which the flag was attached, was lowered, and thecarroccio was broken up in his presence. Frederick told the deputies that their lives should be spared, but declared himself resolved to root out their city from the earth. The inhabitants were marched out at the gates, and, after having endured much misery from the want of shelter, were distributed into four open villages, which they were compelled to build, each two leagues apart from the rest; and in these villages they lived under the inspection of imperial officers. The houses of the city were doomed to destruction, which was zealously and effectually executed by the men of Lodi and other hostile towns, to whom the work was entrusted. Churches and monasteries alone remained standing, amid masses of rubbish surrounded by shattered fragments of the walls which had so long defied the imperial power. Immense plunder was carried off; and among the losses which were most deplored by the Milanese was that of some relics of especial sanctity—the bodies of St. Felix and St. Nabor (famous in the history of the great archbishop Ambrose), and above all those of the Three Kings of the East, which were believed to have been presented by St. Helena to archbishop Eustorgius, and were now transferred by the imperial chancellor, Reginald of Cologne, to be the chief treasure of his own cathedral.

All Lombardy was subdued; the fortifications of some cities were destroyed, and all were put under the administration of podestàs, who, except in cases of special favour, as at Lodi, were always chosen from families unconnected with the places which they were to govern. Alexander in the meantime, after a residence of sixteen months at Anagni, had returned to Rome in April 1161; but, finding his residence there unsafe, he soon withdrew to Terracina; and at length he resolved, like so many of his predecessors, to seek a refuge in France. In April 1162 he landed at Montpellier, where he was received with great enthusiasm; and there he held a council, at which he renewed his excommunication of the antipope and the emperor, with their adherents. The conquest of Milan now enabled Frederick to return to Italy, and he invited the French king—whose adhesion to Alexander was still believed to be wavering—to a conference at St. Jean de Losne, in Burgundy, with a view to the settlement of the question as to the papacy. It was proposed that each sovereign should be accompanied to the place of meeting by the pope whose cause he espoused, and that the decision should be committed to an equal number of laymen and ecclesiastics. Alexander, however, as before, refused to submit to any judgment, and he endeavoured to prevent the meeting. In this, indeed, he was unsuccessful; but through his influence Lewis went into the negotiations with a disposition to catch at any occasion for withdrawing. On one occasion, after having waited for some hours on the bridge of St. Jean de Losne, while Frederick was accidentally delayed, the king washed his hands in the Saone, and rode off, declaring that his engagement was at an end; and, although he was persuaded by the emperor's representations to resume the negotiations, they ended in mutual dissatisfaction.

The pope was visited at the monastery of Dole in Aquitaine by Henry of England, who kissed his feet, refused to be seated in his presence, except on the ground, and presented him with rich gifts; and soon after he had an interview with Lewis and Henry at Toucy, on the Loire, where both kings received him with the greatest reverence, and each held a rein of his horse as they led him to his tent. It was agreed that a council should be held at Tours in the following year; and at Whitsuntide this assembly met. Seventeen cardinals, a hundred and twenty-four bishops, and upwards of four hundred abbots were present; among the most conspicuous of whom was Thomas Becket, lately promoted by Henry to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Alexander was solemnly acknowledged by this great assembly, and among its canons was one which annulled the ordinations of Octavian. Both by Henry and Lewis the pope was requested to choose for himself a residence within their dominions; and having fixed on the city of Sens, he settled there in October 1163.

The antipope Octavian or Victor died at Lucca, in 1164. It is supposed that Frederick was inclined to take advantage of this event in order to a reconciliation with Alexander, but that a fresh election was urged on by the chancellor, Reginald of Cologne, whom Alexander describes as “the author and head of the church’s troubles”. Two only of the cardinals who had sided with Octavian survived; and one of them, Guy of Crema, was chosen by the single vote of the other, and was consecrated by Henry, bishop of Liege. It was noted by the opposite party, as a token of Divine judgment, that the bishop who had ventured to perform this unexampled consecration, although he himself, as well as Hillin, archbishop of Treves, had refused to be set up as antipope, died within the year. Whatever the emperor’s earlier feelings may have been, he now resolved to give a strenuous support to the antipope, who styled himself Paschal III. It seemed likely that Henry of England, the most powerful sovereign in Europe, whose territories in France exceeded those of Lewis, might be won to the imperialist side; for archbishop Becket, in consequence of having set up in behalf of the clergy pretensions to immunity from all secular jurisdiction, had found himself obliged to flee from England, and had been received with open arms by Lewis and Alexander. In the hope, therefore, of profiting by the English king's resentment at the favour displayed towards one whom he regarded as the enemy of his royal rights, Frederick despatched Reginald of Cologne into England, with proposals for a matrimonial alliance between the families of the two sovereigns, and also with a charge to negotiate in order to detach Henry from Alexander’s party. But although Henry was willing to consider such proposals, the envoys found the English in general zealous for the cause of Becket and of the pope to such a degree that, in token of abhorrence of the schism, the altars on which the imperialist clergy had celebrated mass were thrown down, or were solemnly purified from the contamination of their rites. The king, however, agreed to send representatives to a great diet which was to meet at Wurzburg, under the emperor's presidency, at Whitsuntide 1165. At the second session of this diet Reginald appeared, with the English envoys, and his counsels swayed the judgment of the assembly. An oath of adhesion to Paschal was exacted; and not only were those present required to swear that they would never acknowledge Alexander or any of his line, and would never accept any absolution from their oaths, but it was provided that, at the emperor’s death, his successor should be obliged to swear in like terms before receiving the crown. This oath, however, was not taken so completely as Frederick had designed. A few only of the laity swore; of the prelates, some were absent, some refused it, some took it with qualifications which destroyed its force. And although the English envoys bound themselves by it, their act was afterwards disavowed by their master, as having been done in excess of his instructions.

Reginald of Cologne, who had hitherto remained in the order of deacon—apparently lest, by accepting consecration from schismatics, he should put a hindrance in the way of reconciliation with Alexander—was now compelled to pledge himself to the schism by receiving ordination to the priesthood at Wurzburg, and to the episcopate a few months later, in his own city; and other elect dignitaries were required to commit themselves in like manner. But Conrad, archbishop elect of Mayence, while passing through France on a pilgrimage to Compostella, was reconciled to Alexander and from that time steadily adhered to him. Eberhard, archbishop of Salzburg, had throughout been the chief supporter of Alexander's interest in Germany, and had received from him at once a reward for his fidelity and an increase of influence, in being invested with the office of legate. His successor, the emperor's uncle Conrad, after having for some time appeared doubtful, now declared openly in favour of Alexander, and was in consequence denounced as an enemy of the empire; his territory was laid waste, his city reduced to ashes, and the property of the see was distributed among Frederick’s followers.

The bishop of Palestrina, whom Alexander had left as his vicar in Rome, was dead, and his successor, cardinal John, by a skillful application of money, which had been raised by long and urgent begging in France, England, and Sicily, had succeeded in persuading the Romans to invite his master back. Alexander sailed from Maguelone in September 1165, and, after having visited the Sicilian king at Messina, landed at Ostia. His reception at Rome was a scene of extraordinary enthusiasm. The senate, the nobles, the clergy, and a vast multitude of people bearing olive-branches in their hands, pressed forth to meet him, and conducted him to the city with the liveliest demonstrations of joy; and at the Lateran Gate he was met by almost the whole of the remaining population, among whom the Jews, carrying the book of their law “according to custom” are especially mentioned as conspicuous. The antipope, Paschal, in the meantime resided at Viterbo, where he is described as making use of the emperor's soldiers to levy exactions from passing merchants and pilgrims.

The measures which the emperor had taken on his last visit to Italy had produced great dissatisfaction. The severities exercised against the Milanese excited general pity, so that even cities which had before been hostile to them received and harboured their fugitives. The podestàs harassed the people by a system of vexations alike cruel and petty, and are said, even by an imperialist writer, to have exacted seven times as much as they were entitled to. Some of these hated officials were murdered. Cities which had adhered to the emperor in his difficulties now found themselves subjected to the same oppression as others; and cries of discontent from all quarters were carried to the imperial court. Frederick resolved on a fresh expedition across the Alps, but was unprovided with a sufficient army, and found himself obliged to pay court to the princes of Germany, who were more and more disinclined to assist him. But at length, in the autumn of 1166, the emperor was able to lead a powerful army into Italy. After having crossed the Alps, he found himself beset with petitions from the Lombards, who had looked to his arrival as an opportunity for obtaining redress of their grievances; but he put these applications aside, and advanced towards Rome. The Byzantine emperor, Manuel, who feared that, if the western kingdoms were at peace, some crusading leader might be able to employ an irresistible force against his crown and the Greek church, had taken advantage of the discords between the papacy and the empire. He had proposed to Alexander that the imperial sovereignty of Rome should be united with that of Constantinople, and had held out a prospect of reunion between the Greek and the Latin churches, to which the pope had appeared favourable. The gold of Manuel had established a strong interest in Italy, and his troops held possession of Ancona. For three weeks Frederick besieged that town; but, while he was detained by its vigorous resistance, a great success was achieved by a part of his force which had been sent on before him, under the command of Reginald of Cologne, and of Christian, who had been substituted for Conrad in the see of Mayence. These war-like prelates encountered at Monte Porzio an army which the Romans had sent forth against their feudal enemies, the imperialist and antipapal citizens of Tusculum; and they defeated it with an amount of loss which, although very variously reported, is spoken of as the greatest calamity that had befallen Rome since the battle of Cannae. On hearing of this victory, Frederick concluded an accommodation with the defenders of Ancona, and advanced to Rome, where he gained possession of the Leonine city, while Pisan galleys made their way up to the bridge of St. Angelo for his assistance. The Romans had in great numbers fled for refuge to St. Peter's, which in those unquiet times had been converted into a fortification. For several days the emperor besieged it in vain, until at length a neighbouring church was set on fire. The flames speedily caught the porch of the great basilica; the defenders were driven from their posts by smoke and heat; the gates were broken in with axes, and within the holy building a slaughter ensued which reached even to the high altar. The antipope, Paschal, was brought from Viterbo, and was enthroned in St. Peter's, where, on the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula, the emperor and the empress were crowned by his hands. An oath of fealty was exacted of the Romans, while Frederick engaged to acknowledge the privileges of their senatorial government.

Alexander had taken refuge, under the protection of the Frangipanis, in a fortress constructed within the ruins of the Colosseum. It was proposed by the emperor that both popes should resign, on condition that the orders conferred by each should be acknowledged, and that a new successor of St. Peter should be chosen. The scheme was urged on Alexander by the Romans, whom both parties had been trying to conciliate by bribes; but he again declared that the Roman pontiff was subject to no earthly judgment, and refused to cede the office which God had conferred on him. At this crisis two Sicilian vessels arrived, bearing a large sum of money for his relief, and offering him the means of escape; but, although he gladly received the money, and distributed it among his adherents, he declined to embark, and, escaping from Rome in the disguise of a pilgrim, made his way to his own city of Benevento. There the scheme for reuniting the empires and the churches of East and West was again proposed to him by ambassadors from Manuel; but he declined to engage in it on account of its formidable difficulties.

Scarcely had Frederick established himself in possession of Rome, when a pestilence of unexampled violence broke out among the Germans. In one week the greater part of his army perished. Men were struck down while mounting their horses; some, who were engaged in burying their comrades, fell dead into the open graves. Unburied corpses tainted the air, and among the Romans themselves the ravages of the disease were terrible. The emperor’s loss is said to have amounted to 25,000; and the papal party saw a divine ratification of Alexander’s curses in a visitation which destroyed the power of the “new Sennacherib”, and carried off the chiefs of his sacrilegious host—among them, the indefatigable Reginald of Cologne, Frederick of Rothenburg, son of Conrad III, the younger Welf of Bavaria, and a multitude of other prelates and nobles. Stripped of his strength by this calamity, Frederick withdrew to the north of Italy, almost as a fugitive, and death further thinned his ranks as he went along. All Lombardy was now combined against him; for his neglect of the petitions which had been presented on his arrival in Italy had led the people to charge on the emperor himself the oppressions which they endured at the hands of his officers; and the exactions of these officers were even aggravated beyond their old measure. While Frederick was engaged in the siege of Ancona, the chief cities of Lombardy had entered into a league for twenty years, with the declared object of restoring the state of things which had prevailed under the emperor Henry. Even the imperialist Lodi was coerced by its neighbours into joining this league, and Pavia alone stood aloof. The confederates had contrived to rebuild the walls of Milan and to restore its inhabitants; and in this they were aided with money not only by the Greek emperor, but (which we read with some surprise) by Henry of England. The spirit of revolt was fanned by the tidings of the emperor’s great disaster. He summoned an assembly to meet at Pavia, but few attended; and in token of defiance to the Lombards, and of the vengeance which he was resolved to execute on them, he threw down his gauntlet as he denounced them with the ban of the empire. As he moved towards the Alps the people rose on him, and harassed him with straggling attacks which his reduced force was hardly sufficient to repel. At Susa his life was in danger, and he was driven to make his escape across the mountains in disguise. After this withdrawal, the confederate cities, with a view of keeping in check his only remaining allies—the citizens of Pavia and the marquis of Montferrat—built in a strong position, at the confluence of the Tanaro and the Bormida, a town to which, in honour of the pope, they gave the name of Alexandria. The population was brought together from all parts of the neighbouring country, and a free republican government was organized. Alexandria, although at first derided as a “city of straw”, made very rapid progress. At the end of its first year it could boast of fifteen thousand fighting men; and in its second year, Alexander, at the request of its consuls, erected it into an episcopal see. The first bishop was nominated by the pope, but he apologized for this on the ground of necessity, and assured the clergy that it should not prejudice their right of election in future. Eager as Frederick was to take vengeance on the Lombards for his late humiliation, seven years elapsed before he could again venture into Italy. In the meantime the pope was strengthening himself greatly. His alliance with the growing power of the Lombard cities was drawn closer, and he was careful to promote internal unity among them. The antipope Paschal died at Rome in September 1168, and, although an abbot named John of Struma was set up as his successor, under the name of Calixtus III, there was little reason to fear this new competitor. The contest between Henry II and Becket had ended in the archbishop’s return to England, after an exile of seven years, and his murder, in his own cathedral, by four knights of the royal household. The horror excited by this crime redounded principally to the advantage of Alexander. Popular enthusiasm was arrayed on the side of the hierarchy, and Henry’s enemies, lay as well as ecclesiastical, beset the pope with entreaties for vengeance on him. The king was fain to purchase reconciliation with the church by humble messages, and by submitting to terms dictated by two legates at Avranches in May 1172. His sons were stirred up by Queen Eleanor to rebellion, which was sanctified by a reference to the wrongs of St. Thomas the Martyr (for Becket had been canonized by Alexander in Lent 1173); and in the extremity of his danger the king repaired to Canterbury as a penitent, walked barefooted from the outskirts of the city to the cathedral, spent a night in prayer at the tomb of his late antagonist, and, after protesting his deep remorse for the hasty words from which the murderers had taken occasion for their crime, submitted to be scourged by every one of the monks.

Frederick, although he had required a profession of obedience to the antipope Calixtus, soon after made overtures to Alexander; but the pope steadily refused to enter into any treaty which should not include his Lombard and Sicilian allies. In Germany the emperor proceeded with vigour, and succeeded in enforcing general submission to his will, and in 1174 he was able to cross the Mont Cenis at the head of an army, which was in great measure composed of mercenaries or (as they were then styled) Brabançons. Susa, the first Italian city which he reached, was given up to the flames in revenge for the insults which it had formerly offered to him; and for four months he closely besieged Alexandria, from which, after having had his camp burnt by a sallying party of the defenders, he was at length driven off by the approach of a Lombard army. Archbishop Christian of Mayence, who had been sent on in advance, was equally unfortunate in a renewed siege of Ancona; for the inhabitants, after having been reduced to the extremity of distress, were delivered at the end of six months by allies whom the money of the Greek emperor had raised up to their assistance. Negotiations were renewed between the emperor and the pope; but each wished to insist on terms which the other party refused to accept. Frederick received reinforcements from Germany; but, through the refusal of his cousin, Henry the Lion, of Saxony, to yield him active support—although it is said that the emperor condescended to entreat it on his knees—he found himself unequally matched with his enemies; and on the memorable field of Legnano the leagued Italian cities, which a few years before he had despised and trampled on, were victorious. Frederick himself was unhorsed in the battle, and was missing until after some days he appeared again at Pavia. By this humiliation, and by the exhaustion of his forces, the emperor was reduced to treat for peace, which all his adherents combined to urge on him. After much negotiation certain preliminaries were agreed on, and it was arranged that the pope should meet him at Venice—the Venetians and their doge being required to swear that they would not admit the emperor into their city except with the pope’s consent. Alexander embarked at Viesti on the 9th of March 1177, and, after having been carried by stress of weather to the Dalmatian coast, where he was received with enthusiastic reverence, he arrived at Venice on the 24th of the same month. From Venice he proceeded to Ferrara, but on the 11th of May he returned, and in July Frederick arrived at Chioggia, where he remained until the terms of peace were agreed on. By these it was provided that the emperor should abjure the antipope, and that the imperialist bishops, on making a like abjuration, should be allowed to retain their sees. The Lombards were to yield the emperor the same obedience which they had paid to his predecessors from Henry V downwards, and admitted some of his claims as to allowances due to him when visiting Italy; while the emperor acknowledged their power to appoint their own consuls, to fortify their cities, and to combine for the defence of their liberties. Between the emperor and the papacy there was to be a perpetual peace; with the Lombards a truce of six years, and one of fifteen years with the king of Sicily.

The emperor was then allowed to approach Venice, and on the day after his arrival there, he performed his abjuration in the presence of two cardinals. On the same day his first meeting with the pope took place in the great square of St. Mark’s, where Alexander and his cardinals were seated in front of the gates of the church. The emperor, laying aside his outer robe, prostrated himself and kissed the pope’s feet; after which he led Alexander into the church, and conducted him up to the choir, where he bowed his head and received the pontifical blessing. On St. James’s day the kissing of the pope’s feet was repeated, and Frederick presented him with valuable gifts; and after mass, at which he himself officiated, Alexander was conducted to the door of the church by the emperor, who held his stirrup as he remounted his white palfrey, and, taking the bridle in his hand, would have led the horse, had not the pope courteously excused the performance of that ceremony. It is said that through the pressure of the crowd the pope was thrown off his horse, and that the emperor assisted him to remount. These meetings were followed by interviews of a less formal kind, at which the two unbent in familiar, and even playful, conversation; and the peace between the empire and the church was solemnly ratified at a council held in St. Mark’s on the 14th of August. At his parting interview with Alexander, the emperor agreed to give up all the property of St. Peter which had come into his hands, except the territories of the countess Matilda, and a similar but less important legacy which the count of Bertinoro had lately bequeathed to the papal see. Frederick had acquired a new interest in the inheritance of the great countess through the gift of his uncle Welf, marquis of Tuscany, who, after having lost his only son by the Roman pestilence of 1167, had made over to the emperor the claims of the Bavarian house. It had been agreed in the treaty that he should retain these territories for fifteen years longer; with regard to Bertinoro, he maintained that a vassal was not entitled to dispose of his fief except with the consent of his liege lord; and Alexander, at their last meeting, acquiesced in his proposal that this and other questions should be referred to three cardinals chosen by the emperor, and three German princes chosen by the pope.

The bishops who had been promoted in the schism were in general allowed to retain their positions, on condition of submitting to Alexander. Christian of Mayence burnt the pall which he had received from the antipope Taschal; and his predecessor, Conrad, who had been deprived by Frederick for desertion to Alexander, was provided for by an appointment to Salzburg, in place of archbishop Adalbert, to whose exclusion by the emperor Alexander was willing to consent. Calixtus was now generally abandoned, and in August 1178 submitted to Alexander, by whom he was received with kindness and presented to a rich abbacy at Benevento. A fourth antipope, Lando, or Innocent III, of the Frangipani family, was set up, but after having borne his unregarded title somewhat more than a year, he was brought to Alexander as a prisoner, and was confined for life in the monastery of La Cava. The increased power of Alexander, and the triumph which had crowned his long struggle against the emperor, were not without their effect on the Romans, who despatched a mission to him, praying him, in the name of all ranks, to return to the city. Alexander received the deputies at Anagni with visible satisfaction, but, reminding them of his former experience, required that the citizens should give him securities for their future conduct. It was therefore agreed that the senate should do homage and swear fealty to the pope, that they should surrender the royalties to him, and should bind themselves for his safety and for that of all who should resort to him; and in March 1178 he reentered Rome amidst an unbounded display of enthusiasm on the part of his fickle subjects. The crowds of people who eagerly struggled to kiss his feet rendered it almost impossible for his horse to advance along the streets, and his right hand was weary of bestowing benedictions.

In March 1179 a general council, attended by nearly three hundred bishops and by about seven hundred abbots and others, was held by Alexander in the Lateran church. Among the most important of its canons was a new order as to the election of popes. The share which had been reserved to the emperor by Nicolas 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 deprived 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 declared 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. At this council also a crusade against heretics was for the first time sanctioned.

During the last years of Alexander the affairs of the churches beyond the Alps were generally tranquil. The emperor was fully occupied in political business. Henry of England was disposed to maintain a good understanding with the pope, although he retained a virtual power of appointing to bishoprics, and used it in favour of persons who had been his strenuous supporters in the contest with Becket. He pathetically entreated the aid of Alexander against his rebellious sons; and we find the pope frequently mediating, by letters and by the agency of legates, between him and Lewis of France. Lewis became continually more and more absorbed in devotion. In 1179 he made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas the Martyr at Canterbury, in obedience to visions in which he had been warned by the saint himself to seek by such means the recovery of his son Philip from an illness brought on by exposure for a night in a forest where he had been huntings. Soon after his return the king was seized with paralysis, and on the 18th of September 1180 he died.

After a pontificate of twenty-two years—a time rarely equalled by any either of his predecessors or of his successors—Alexander, who had once more been obliged to leave Rome, died at Civita Castellana on the 30th of August 1181, leaving a name which is only not in the first rank among the popes who have most signally advanced the power of their see.

CHAPTER X.

FROM THE ELECTION OF POPE LUCIUS III TO THE DEATH OF CELESTINE III.

A.D. 1181-1198.

THE successor of Alexander, Humbald, bishop of Ostia, was chosen by the cardinals alone, in compliance with the decree of the late council, and styled himself Lucius III. The Romans, indignant at being deprived of their share in the election, rose against the new pope, and compelled him to take refuge at Velletri. For a time he obtained aid against his rebellious subjects from the imperial commander, archbishop Christian of Mayence; but this warlike prelate died in August 1183—it is said, of drinking from a poisoned well, which proved fatal to more than a thousand of his soldiers; and Lucius was never able to regain a footing in his city. The enmity of the Romans against him was of the bitterest kind. In 1184 they took twenty-six of his partisans at Tusculum, and blinded them all, except one, to whom they left one eye that he might serve as guide to the rest; they crowned them with paper mitres, each bearing the name of a cardinal, while the one-eyed chief's mock tiara was inscribed “Lucius, the wicked simoniac”, and, having mounted them on asses, they made them swear to exhibit themselves in this miserable condition to the pope.

In the meanwhile Frederick made a skillful use of the time of rest allowed him by the treaty of Venice. His behaviour towards the Lombards became mild and gracious. By prudent acts of conciliation, and especially by concessions as to the choice of magistrates, he won the favour of many cities—even that of Alexandria itself which in 1183 agreed that its population should leave the walls and should be led back by an imperial commissioner, and that its name should be changed to Caesarea. In June of that year, when the truce of Venice was almost expired, a permanent settlement of the relations between the empire and the cities was concluded at Constance. The cities were to retain all those royalties which they had before held, including the rights of levying war, and of maintaining their league for mutual support. They were to choose their own magistrates, subject only to the condition that these should be invested by an imperial commissioner. Certain dues were reserved to the emperor; and an oath of fidelity to him was to be taken by all between the ages of fifteen and seventy. By these equitable terms the emperor's influence in Italy was greatly strengthened, while that of the pope was proportionally diminished.

At Whitsuntide 1184 a great assemblage, drawn together not only from all Frederick’s territories but from foreign countries, met at Mayence, on the occasion of conferring knighthood on the emperor's two sons, Henry, who had reached the age of twenty, and Frederick, who was two years younger. A city of tents and wooden huts was raised on the right bank of the Rhine, and preparations were made for the festival with all possible splendour. But omens of evil were drawn from the circumstance that many of the slight erections were blown down by a violent wind, and a quarrel for precedence, which arose between the archbishop of Cologne and St. Boniface’s successor, the abbot of Fulda, excited a fear that the scenes of Henry the Fourth’s minority were about to be renewed. The difference was, however, allayed for the time by the prudence of Frederick and the young Henry, who, as the archbishop was withdrawing, hung on his neck and entreated him to return; and notwithstanding this untoward interruption, the festivities ended peacefully.

In the following August Frederick proceeded for the sixth time into Italy. The charm of his appearance and manner was universally felt. The cities were all eager in their welcome; even Milan, forgetting its old animosities and sufferings, received him with splendid festivities, and was rewarded with privileges which excited the jealousy of its neighbours. At Verona he had a meeting with the pope, who requested him to assist in reducing the Romans to obedience. But Frederick, who now had little reason to dread the influence of the pope in Lombardy, and was not attended by any considerable force, felt no zeal for the cause; and more than one subject of difference arose. On being asked to acknowledge the clergy who had been ordained by the late antipopes, Lucius at first appeared favourable, but said on the following day that such recognition had been limited by the treaty of Venice to certain dioceses, and that more could not be granted without a council. The old question of Matilda’s inheritance was again discussed, and documents were produced on both sides, without any satisfactory conclusion. Equally fruitless was a dispute as to the pretensions of two rival candidates for the archbishopric of Treves—Volkmar, who had secured the pope’s favour, and Rudolf, who had been invested by Frederick, agreeably to the concordat of Worms. The emperor's son Henry had exercised great severities towards Volkmar’s partisans, and it would seem that reports of these acts, with a suspicion of the designs which Frederick afterwards manifested as to Sicily, combined in determining Lucius to refuse to crown Henry as his father's colleague; but he professed to ground his refusal on the inconvenience of having two emperors, and added a suggestion which has the air of sarcasm—that, if Henry were to be crowned, his father must make way for him by resignation. The breach between the pope and the emperor appeared to have become hopeless, when Lucius died at Verona, on the 25th of November, 1185.

On the same day, Humbert Crivelli, archbishop of Milan, gathered together twenty-seven cardinals, under the protection of a guard, and was elected pope, with the title of Urban III. The new pope, whose name was slightly varied by his enemies so as to express the turbulence which they imputed to him, was of a Milanese family which had suffered greatly in the late contests; and private resentment on this account combined with his feelings as a citizen, and with the hierarchical opinions which had recommended him as a companion to Thomas of Canterbury in his exile in producing a bitter hostility against the emperor. The disputes between the secular and the spiritual powers became more and more exasperated. Urban, in contempt of an oath which he had sworn to the contrary, consecrated the anti-imperialist Volkmar as archbishop of Treves. As archbishop of Milan—for, out of fear that an imperialist might be appointed as his successor, he still retained that see—he refused to crown Henry as king of the Lombards ; he repeated his predecessor's refusal to crown him as a colleague in the empire; and he showed himself strongly opposed to those designs on Sicily which Lucius had suspected, and which were now openly declared.

AFFAIRS OF SICILY.

Roger II, king of Sicily, had been succeeded in 1154 by his son William the Bad, and this prince had been succeeded in 1166 by his son William the Good, then a boy of fourteen. The kingdom had been for many years a prey to barbarous and cruel factions. William the Good had married in 1177 a daughter of Henry of England, but the marriage proved childless, and the Norman dominions in the south were likely to fall to Constance, a posthumous daughter of king Roger. With this princess Frederick formed the scheme of marrying his son Henry, although nine years her junior—a match which promised greatly to increase tile imperial territory and power, and to deprive the pope of his chief supporter. The marriage was zealously promoted by Walter, an Englishman of obscure birth who had attained to the dignity of archbishop of Palermo; Urban’s opposition was vain, and his threats against all who should take part in the celebration were unheeded. At the request of the Milanese, who were eager to signalize their new­born loyalty, the nuptials were celebrated at Milan with great magnificence in January 1186, when Frederick was crowned as king of Burgundy by the archbishop of Vienne, Henry as king of Italy by the patriarch of Aquileia, and Constance as queen of Germany by a German bishop.

Other causes of difference concurred to inflame the pope. He complained of the emperor for detaining Matilda’s inheritance; for seizing the property of bishops at their death, keeping benefices vacant, and appropriating the income; for taxing the clergy and bringing them before secular courts; for having confiscated the revenues of some convents, under pretence that the nuns were of vicious life, instead of introducing a reform; and he denounced, apparently with justice, the cruelties and other outrages which the young Henry had committed towards some bishops.

Frederick was now in great power, while the pope was still an exile from his city. It was in vain that archbishop Philip of Cologne, who had been appointed legate for Germany, endeavoured to assert Urban’s pretensions, and to intrigue against the emperor; for the German bishops in general were on the side of their temporal sovereign. At an interview with Philip, Frederick declared that it was enough for the clergy to have got into their own hands the choice of bishops—a choice, he added, which they had not exercised so uprightly or with such good effect as the sovereigns who in former times had held the patronage; and that, although the imperial prerogative had been greatly curtailed as to the affairs of the church, he was determined to maintain the small remnant of it which he had inherited. The legate was forbidden to appear at a diet which was to be held at Gelnhausen in April 1186. There Frederick, in a forcible speech, declared that, in his differences with the pope, the pope had been the aggressor, and he inveighed against the Roman claims. It was, he said, ridiculous to pretend that no layman ought to hold tithes, inasmuch as the custom of thus providing for the necessary services of advocates of churches was so old as to have established a right. He asked his bishops whether they would render what was due both to Caesar and to God; to which the archbishop of Mayence (Conrad, who, on the death of Christian, had recovered the primacy) replied, in the name of the rest, that they owed a twofold duty; that it was not for them to decide the matters in dispute, but that they would write to the pope, advising him to proceed with moderation. They wrote accordingly, stating the emperor’s case and their own view of the question; and the pope, on receiving the letter, was astonished to find himself opposed by those whose rights he had supposed himself to be asserting. Frederick refused to admit Volkmar as archbishop of Treves, and shut up all the ways by which appeals could be carried to the pope; Henry continued his savage outrages, and endangered the pope’s person—keeping him almost a prisoner within the walls of Verona; and Urban, exasperated to the utmost, resolved to inflict the heaviest censures of the church on him. The citizens of Verona, where he had intended to pronounce his sentence, entreated that, “out of regard for their present service”, he would choose some other scene; and at their request he removed to Ferrara. But while he was there preparing for the final act, tidings arrived from the East, which once more set all Europe in commotion; and Urban died at Ferrara on the 20th of October 1187.

KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.

The course of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had been alike discreditable and unprosperous. The sympathies of western Christians for their brethren of the Holy Land had been greatly cooled by the experiences of the second crusade; the pilgrims were now few, and these were content to perform their pilgrimage without attempting or wishing to strengthen the Latin dominion, or to take part in the incessant contests with the infidels. In 1167 king Amaury brought disgrace on the Christian name by attempting, in conjunction with a Greek force, to seize on Egypt in violation of a treaty; and in this treachery he was abetted by the knights of the Hospital, although the Templars—whether from a feeling of honour and duty, or from jealousy of the rival order— held aloof. Baldwin IV, who in 1174 succeeded his father Amaury at the age of thirteen, had been carefully educated by the historian William, then archdeacon and afterwards archbishop of Tyre; but this young king's promise was soon clouded over by hopeless disease, and his sister Sibylla became presumptive heiress of the kingdom. Sibylla, then a widow, was sought in marriage by many princes; but she bestowed her hand on Guy of Lusignan, an adventurer from Poitou, whose personal beauty was unaccompanied by such qualities as would have fitted him to maintain the position which it had won for him. On the death of Baldwin IV, in 1185, the son of Sibylla’s first marriage was crowned as Baldwin V; but this boy died within a year, whereupon his mother and her husband, who before had met with much opposition, obtained possession of the kingdoms The princes of the Latins were distracted by jealousies and intrigues; the patriarchs and bishops were in continual strife with each other, with the chiefs, and especially with the two great knightly orders, which, relying on papal privileges and exemptions, defied all authority, ecclesiastical or secular. The Templars were especially detested for their pride, while they were charged with treachery to the Christian cause. The general state of morals was excessively depraved. In Acre alone it is said that there were 16,000 professed prostitutes. The clergy and the monks are described as infamous for their manner of life. Their chief, Heraclius of Jerusalem, who had been recommended to Sibylla by his fine person, and through her favour had been forced into the patriarchal throne, lived in open and luxurious profligacy with a tradesman’s wife of Nablous, who was generally styled the patriarchess.

The power of the Mussulmans was advancing. Noureddin, who died in 1173, was succeeded as their most conspicuous leader by Saladin, son of a Kurdish mercenary, and nephew of Siracouh, a distinguished general, who under Noureddin had been vizier of Egypt. Saladin, born in 1137, is celebrated, not only by Moslem but by Christian writers, for his skill in arms, his personal bravery, his accomplishments, his justice, his magnanimity, generosity, courtesy, and truth. In him, indeed, rather than in any Christian warrior of the age, may be found the union of some of the highest qualities which adorn the ideal character of chivalry. His piety and orthodoxy, although agreeable to the strictest Mahometan standard, were wholly free from intolerance. Yet, superior as he appears in many respects to the Christians of his time in general, Saladin will not endure to be measured by a standard which should make no allowance for the disadvantages of his training in the creed and the habits of Islam. The manner in which he superseded Noureddin’s minor son would have been unjustifiable, except on Oriental principles, nor did the humaneness of his general character prevent him from having occasional recourse to unscrupulous bloodshed for the accomplishment of his purposes.

“If Noureddin was a rod of the Lord’s fury against the Christians”, says a chronicler, “Saladin was not a rod but a hammer”. In his earlier career, while extending his conquests in every direction, he had treated them with remarkable forbearance; but at length he was roused to direct hostilities by the continual attacks of some, who plundered the borders of his territory, and seized on caravans of peaceful travellers. In 1187 he invaded the Holy Land at the head of 80,000 men, and the Christians sustained a terrible defeat at the battle of Hittim or Tiberias (July 5,1187)—fought within sight of the very scenes which had been hallowed by many of the gospel miracles. The cross on which the Saviour was believed to have died, having been brought from Jerusalem as a means of strength and victory, was lost. The king and many of the Frankish chiefs were taken, together with many templars and hospitallers, who, with the exception of the grand master of the Temple, were all beheaded on refusing to apostatize from the faith. Some of the captives, however, became renegades, and betrayed the secrets of the Latins to the enemy. Animated with fresh vigour by this victory, Saladin rapidly overran the land. Jerusalem itself was besieged, and, after a faint defence had been made for a fortnight by its scanty and disheartened garrison, it was surrendered on the 3rd of October. The cross was thrown down from the mosque of Omar amid the groans of the Christians who witnessed its fall, and the building, after having been purged with incense and rose water, was restored to Mahometan worship. Bells were broken into pieces, relics were dispersed, and the sacred places were profaned. Yet Saladin spared the holy Sepulchre, and allowed Christians to visit it for a fixed payment; he permitted ten brethren of the Hospital to remain for the tendance of the sick, and even endowed them with a certain income; and to the captives, of whom there were many thousands, he behaved with a generosity which has found its celebration rather among Christian than among Mussulman writers. The terms of ransom offered to all were very liberal; fourteen thousand were set free without payment; and at the expense of the conqueror and of the Alexandrian Saracens, many Christians received a passage to Europe, when their own brethren refused to admit them on shipboard except on condition of paying the full cost. The Syrian and other oriental Christians were allowed to remain in their homes, on submitting to tribute. All Palestine was soon in the hands of the infidels, except the great port of Tyre, where Conrad, son of the marquis of Montferrat, arrived after it had been invested by the enemy, and, by his courage and warlike skill, aided by money which Henry of England had remitted for the defence of the Holy Land, animated the remnant of the Christians to hold out. It was noted that the holy cross, which had been recovered from the Persians by the emperor Heraclius, was again lost under a patriarch of the same name; and that as Jerusalem had been wrested from the Saracens under Urban II, it was regained by them under Urban III.

From time to time attempts had been made by the princes and prelates of the Holy Land to enlist the western nations in a new enterprise for their assistance; but they had met with little success. The emperor, the king of France, and the king of England, were all engrossed by their own affairs; and, although frequent conferences took place between Henry and Lewis with a view to an alliance for a holy war, these did not produce any actual result beyond contributions of money, in which Henry’s liberality far exceeded that of the French king. In 1184 the patriarch Heraclius, accompanied by the grand master of the templars and the prior of the Hospital, bearing with them the keys of Jerusalem and of the holy Sepulchre, with the banner of the Latin kingdom, set out on a mission to enlist Europe to their aid. The templar died at Verona, but the patriarch and the hospitaller, fortified with a letter from pope Lucius, went on to Germany, France, and England. The general feeling, however, was lukewarm. King Henry was told by his prelates and nobles that his duties lay rather at home than in the East, and he could only offer money; whereupon Heraclius indignantly exclaimed : “We want a man without money, rather than money without a man!”. But the events which had now taken place aroused all Europe. The tidings of the calamity which had befallen the Christians of the East at once made peace between the emperor and the pope, between England and France, between Genoa and Pisa, between Venice and Hungary. Urban III is said to have been killed by the report of the capture of Jerusalem. His successor, Gregory VIII, issued letters urgently summoning the faithful to aid their brethren in the East; and on Gregory’s death, after a pontificate of less than two months, the cause was vigorously taken up by Clement III. The cardinals bound themselves to give up all pomp and luxury, to accept no bribes from suitors, never to mount on horse­back “so long as the land whereon the feet of the Lord had stood should be under the enemy’s feet”, and to preach the crusade as mendicants. The king of Sicily vowed to assist the holy enterprise to the utmost of his power. Henry of England, Philip of France, and Philip count of Flanders, met at the “oak conference” between Gisors and Trie, on St. Agnes’ day, and, with many of their followers, received the cross from the hands of the archbishop of Tyre. A heavy impost was laid on their subjects, under the name of “Saladin’s tithe”, and especial prayers for the Holy Land were inserted into the church-service. William of Scotland offered to contribute money, but his nobles strongly withstood the proposal that they should be taxed in the same proportion as the English.

In Germany also the crusade was preached with great success. A chronicler tells us that, at an assembly which was held at Strasburg, in December 1187, the cause of the Holy Land was at first set forth by two Italian ecclesiastics, but that their words fell dead on the hearers. The bishop of the city then took it up, and produced a general emotion; but still men hesitated to commit themselves to the enterprise. When, however, one had at length set the example of taking the cross, the bishop began the hymn “Veni Sancte Spiritus”; and forthwith such was the crowd of people who pressed forward to enlist, with an enthusiasm which found a vent in tears, that he and his clergy were hardly able to supply them with the badges of the holy war. In the following Lent a great diet, known as the “Court of Christ”, was held at Mayence, where cardinal Henry of Albano appeared as the preacher of the crusade; and, although he was unable to speak the language of the country, his words, even through the medium of an interpreter, powerfully excited the assembly. The emperor and his younger son, Frederick of Swabia, were the first to assume the cross, and were followed by an enthusiastic multitude of every class. Thus the three greatest princes of Europe were all embarked in the enterprise. Frederick Barbarossa was now sixty-seven years of age, but retained his full vigour of body; his long contests had been brought to a peaceable end; and he might hope, by engaging in the holy war, to clear himself of all imputations which had fallen on his character as a churchman, and even to adorn his name with a glory like that which rested on Godfrey of Bouillon and his comrades in the first crusade. Having accompanied his uncle Conrad on the second crusade, he was resolved to guard against a repetition of the errors by which that expedition had been frustrated. He ordered that no one should be allowed to join his force except such as were able-bodied, accustomed to bear arms, and sufficiently furnished with money to bear their own expenses for two years; carriages were provided for the sick and wounded, that they might not delay the progress of the army; and Frederick endeavored by embassies to the king of Hungary, to the Byzantine emperor, and to the Sultan of Iconium (whose adhesion to the Mussulman cause was supposed to be very slight) to assure himself of an unmolested passage and of markets for provisions along the route. From all he received favourable answers; and, having taken measures to secure the peace of his dominions during his absence, the emperor was ready to set out at the appointed time, in the spring of 1189.

From Ratisbon, where the forces were mustered, some proceeded down the Danube in boats into Hungary, where they waited for the emperor and the rest. Through Hungary their passage was prosperous. King Bela welcomed the emperor with all honour, and bestowed large gifts of provisions on the army; it is, however, complained that the natives took unfair advantages in the exchange of money. In Bulgaria provisions were refused at the instigation of the Greeks, and some of the crusaders were wounded by arrows; but Frederick by vigorous measures brought the Bulgarians to submission, while he restrained his own followers by strict discipline from plunder and other offensive acts. But on entering the Greek territories, more serious difficulties arose.

The old unkindly feeling between the Greeks and the Latins had not been lessened by late events. The interest which Manuel had laboured to create with the pope and the Italians had been destroyed by their reconciliation with Frederick. Under Andronicus, who in 1183 attained the Byzantine throne by the murder of the young Alexius, son of Manuel, a great massacre of the Latin residents had taken place at Constantinople. In this atrocity the mob was aided by the usurper’s forces; the clergy were active in urging on the murderers, and burst out into a song of thanksgiving when the head of the cardinal-legate was cut off and treated with indignity. Isaac Angelus, by whom Andronicus was dethroned in 1185, had carried on friendly negotiations with Saladin, to whom, in consideration of the cession of some churches in the Holy Land, he granted leave to erect a mosque in Constantinople itself. The Greeks, who from time to time had continued to attack the western sojourners at Constantinople, were naturally uneasy at the approach of a formidable host, under a commander so renowned as Frederick. Isaac himself was especially alarmed in consequence of predictions uttered by one Dositheus, who had acquired a strong influence over him by foretelling his elevation to the empire; and, with a view of impeding the Germans, recourse was had to the arts which had already been tried in the former crusades. The patriarch had excited the populace beforehand by denouncing the strangers as heretics and dogs. The bishop of Munster and other ambassadors whom Frederick sent to Constantinople were treated with slights, and committed to prison, where they were subjected to hunger and other sufferings; notwithstanding the assurances which had been given as to supplies and other assistance, cities were deserted or shut up as the crusaders approached them; and they were harassed by frequent and insidious attacks of Greek soldiery. It appears on Mussulman authority that the Greek emperor afterwards claimed credit with Saladin for having troubled the Germans on their expedition. Frederick, from a resolution not to waste his strength in Europe, was desirous to avoid all quarrels; but finding himself reduced to choose between perishing by hunger and the employment of force to gain the needful supplies, he took Philippopolis, Adrianople, and other towns, in which he got possession of great wealth, with abundant stores of food. The Greek emperor, on hearing of these successes, changed his policy, restored the bishop of Munster and his companions, and sent envoys of his own who were charged to offer all manner of redress and assistance if Frederick would consent to hold the west on condition of homage. The Byzantines renewed the old war of ceremony, treating Frederick as a petty prince of whose name they affected to be ignorant—as “king of the Germans”, while Isaac was styled “emperor of the Romans”. “Does your master know who I am?”, said Frederick indignantly to the Greek ambassadors at Philippopolis : “My name is Frederick; I am emperor of the Romans, crowned in the city which is mother and mistress of the world by the successor of the prince of the apostles, and have held without question for more than thirty years a sceptre which my predecessors have lawfully possessed for four hundred years, since it was transferred from Constantinople for the inertness of your rulers. Let your master style himself sovereign of the Romanians, and cease to use a title which in him is empty and ridiculous; for there is but one emperor of the Romans”. This firmness had its effect, and Isaac submitted to address Frederick as “emperor of the Germans” and at length as “most noble emperor of old Rome”.

After a stay of fourteen weeks at Adrianople, where vigorous measures were employed with imperfect success to counteract the enervating influence of the plenty which had succeeded to the former privations, the army again advanced, and at Easter it was conveyed from Gallipoli to the Asiatic coast in vessels furnished by the Greek emperor, who had agreed to make compensation for all injuries, and to bestow his daughter in marriage on Frederick's son Philip. The crossing of the Hellespont lasted seven days, and the whole number of those who crossed is reckoned at 83,000.

The first few days of the march through Asia Minor were prosperous; but it soon appeared that the Greek emperor and the sultan of Iconium (who had renewed his friendly assurances by ambassadors who waited on Frederick at Adrianople) were treacherous. No markets were to be found; the interpreters who had been furnished by the Greeks, and the sultan's ambassadors who accompanied the army, disappeared, after having lured the crusaders into a desert. The horses broke down from want of food, and their flesh was greedily eaten; while Turkish soldiers began to hover around in ever-increasing numbers, “barking around us like dogs”, says one who was in the expedition—threatening and harassing the army, but always declining an engagement. Yet Frederick was still able to maintain discipline. The festival of Pentecost was kept amidst danger and distress. The bishop of Wurzburg delivered an exhortation to the crusaders; all received the holy Eucharist, and on the following day they attacked and defeated a force commanded by the sultan’s son. On approaching Iconium, the emperor found that his advance was barred by a vast force of Turks, who refused him a passage except on the payment of a bezant for every soldier in his army, while the city was closed against him. But although his cavalry were now reduced below a thousand, and were worn out with severe sufferings from hunger and thirst, he boldly attacked the Turks, and defeated them with vast slaughter, while the younger Frederick assaulted the city, and compelled the perfidious sultan to surrender it. As in earlier days, it is said that the crusaders were aided by a troop of shining warriors, bearing the red cross on their white shields, and headed by the martial St. George, whose protection, with that of God, they had invoked before the fight. By these successes Frederick’s fame was raised to the highest pitch throughout the east. The army, refreshed with provisions and enriched by the spoil of Iconium (although even there he compelled the observance of order and moderation), made its way boldly through the rocky defiles of Cilicia, and was pressing onwards with hope of speedily achieving the object of the expedition; when the hopes of Christendom sank, and the confidence of the Moslems revived, as tidings were spread that the great leader had perished in attempting to cross the river Salef or Calycadnus, near Tarsus. The loss to his army was immense and irreparable. Discipline was no longer preserved. On reaching Antioch, multitudes fell victims to the heat of the climate, or to the intemperance with which they indulged in food and drink after their late privations. Many of the survivors abandoned the crusade and returned to Europe; and the younger Frederick died soon after his arrival at Acre, where his appearance at the head of a force reduced below 5,000 had rather brought discouragement than hope to the beleaguered garrison.

In the meantime some of the Germans, who had completed their preparations early, had taken ship for the Holy Land in anticipation of Frederick’s march. As in the second crusade, many adventurers from Scandinavia and the north of Germany had assembled in the English port of Dartmouth, from which they sailed again with increased numbers; and, although these for the most part contented themselves with some adventures against the Moors of the Spanish peninsula, some of them found their way to Palestine. William of Sicily dispatched a fleet to share the expedition. Henry of England, after having taken measures to secure himself a safe passage through Germany, Hungary, and Greece, had been prevented by a fresh rebellion of his son Richard, and by other political troubles, from carrying out his promise, and much of the money which had been collected for the holy war was spent in these unhappy contests at home. But Richard, who had been the first of all the western princes to take the cross, on succeeding to the crown in July 1189, embarked in the enterprise with all the eagerness of his impetuous character. He submitted to penance for having borne arms against his father after having bound himself to the crusade. To the money which was found in Henry’s coffers he added by all imaginable expedients, in order to raise means for the expedition. Bishoprics, abbacies, earldoms, and all manner of other offices and dignities, were sold. The late king's ministers were imprisoned, and large sums were extorted for their ransom. Some who repented of having taken the cross were made to pay heavily for license to stay at home. The plate and ornaments of churches were seized and were turned into money. Some fortresses and territories which had been taken from the Scots were restored to them for a certain payment and the Jews were not only drained by exactions, but, as usual, were plundered and slain in the general fury against misbelievers. The demesnes of the crown were reduced by sales, and Richard declared himself ready to sell London itself if he could find a purchaser. Both in England and in France the “Saladin’s tithe” was rigorously exacted, and there were loud complaints of the unfairness with which the collection was managed. The archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, was zealous in preaching the crusade, and was himself among those who joined it.

The kings of France and England had a meeting near Nonancourt on the 30th of December 1189, when they bound themselves by oath for mutual help and defence—Philip swearing to defend Richard’s territories as if they were his own city of Paris, and Richard swearing to defend those of Philip as he would defend the Norman capital, Rouen. The expedition was again delayed for a time by the death of Philip’s queen; but at midsummer 1190 the two kings, with the count of Flanders and the duke of Burgundy, assembled their forces at Vezelay, where the second crusade had been inaugurated by St. Bernard, and where Thomas of Canterbury had since made the great abbey-church resound with his denunciation of king Henry’s counsellors. The side of the hill which is crowned by the town, and the broad plain below, were covered by the tents of the crusaders. The nations were distinguished by the colour of the crosses which they wore; the French displayed the sacred symbol in red, the English in white, and the Flemings in green. At Lyons the host separated, and Richard proceeded to embark at Marseilles, while Philip, who had no Mediterranean seaport in his own dominions, went on by land to Genoa. On landing at Ostia Richard was invited by the cardinal-bishop of that place, in the pope’s name, to visit Rome; but, smarting from having been lately compelled to pay 1,500 marks for a legatine commission in favour of his chancellor, William de Longchamp, bishop of Ely, he scornfully declared that he would not visit the source of so much corruption, and proceeded by land along the coast to Terracina. The kings, as had been agreed between them, met again at Messina, where, during a stay of some months, Richard’s impetuous and overbearing temper continually embroiled him both with the French and with the Sicilians—who, indeed, were not backward in offering him provocation. At one time he even made himself master of the city, as a means of compelling Tancred, who had shortly before seized the government on the death of William the Good, to carry out the late king's direction as to a provision for his widow, the sister of Richard, and as to a legacy bequeathed to Henry II.

In the end of March 1191 Richard again embarked, and after having established Guy of Lusignan as king of Cyprus, instead of a petty tyrant of the Comnenian family, who styled himself emperor of the island, and had behaved with inhospitality and treachery to the crusaders, he entered the harbour of Acre on the 8th of June. Archbishop Baldwin, with a part of the English force, which had proceeded direct from Marseilles, and others who had made their way by the straits of Gibraltar, had reached Acre long before and the king of France had arrived there on Easter-eve (April 13).

Acre had been besieged by the Christians from the end of August 1189, but, placed as they were between the garrison on the one hand and Saladin's army on the other, the besiegers had suffered great distress through want of food and shelter. Horseflesh, grass, and unclean things were eaten; ships were broken up for fuel; many, unable to endure the miseries of the siege, had deserted to the enemy and apostatized; and scandalous vice and disorder prevailed throughout the camp. And now it was found that the general interest of Christendom was insufficient to overpower the jealousies of those who had allied themselves for the holy war. Richard and Philip, Leopold, duke of Austria (with whose troops the scanty remains of the emperor Frederick’s army had been united), and others, all refused to act in concert, or to submit to a common head; the Genoese and the Pisans had carried their mutual hatred with them to the crusade; and to these elements of discord were added the pretensions of the templars and hospitallers, and the rival claims which Guy of Lusignan and Conrad of Montferrat set up to the kingdom of Jerusalem on the strength of their having married daughters of the royal house, whose male heirs had become extinct. The siege of Acre lasted two years, during which it is reckoned that 120,000 Christians and 180,000 Mussulmans perished. At length, on the 12th of July 1191, the city was surrendered, on condition that the lives of the inhabitants should be forfeit, unless within forty days Saladin should restore the true cross, give up 1500 Christian captives, and pay a large sum as ransom. The fulfillment of these terms, however, was found impossible within the time, and, notwithstanding Saladin’s earnest entreaties for a delay, it was decided in a council of the princes that the forfeiture should be enforced. On the 20th of August, therefore, the prisoners—8000 in all, of whom Richard's share amounted to 2600—were led forth and remorselessly butchered in the sight of Saladin and his army, who could only look on in impotent distress. A few only of the more important Saracens were spared, in the hope that they might be the means of recovering the cross or the captives.

The English king’s assumption, and his continual displays of contempt for his associates, produced general irritation and disgusts. To Leopold of Austria he had offered unpardonable insults, by throwing down his banner and trampling on it, as unworthy to stand beside those of kings, and even, it is said, by kicking him. By this behaviour to their leader, all the Germans were offended; and both they and the Italians complained that the kings of France and England divided between themselves the spoils which had been taken, without allowing any share to the other crusading nations. The Germans and Italians, therefore, left the army in disgust, shortly after the taking of Acre. With Philip Augustus there were continual differences. The French king claimed half of Cyprus, on the ground that Richard had agreed to share with him whatever they might win in the crusade, while Richard denied that the conquest of the island, by his separate adventure, fell within the scope of the contract. Philip, jealous of his great vassal, not only for his superiority in prowess and in personal renown, but on account of the greater splendour which his hard-raised treasures enabled him to maintain, found an excuse in the state of his dominions at home for deserting the enterprise; and on the 31st of July—in the interval between the capture of the city and the slaughtering of the prisoners—he sailed for Europe. On his way homewards he visited the pope, from whom he solicited absolution from the oath which he had taken, and had lately renewed, to protect the English king’s dominions; but Celestine refused to release him. Yet Philip, on his return to France, invaded Richard’s continental territories, encouraged his brother John to intrigue against him, and charged him with having caused an illness by which the French king had suffered at Acre, and with having instigated the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, who, immediately after having been elected to the throne of Jerusalem, had been stabbed by two of the fanatical body known by the name of assassins.

Richard remained in the Holy Land more than a year after Philip’s departure. During this time the “lion-hearted” king displayed the valour of a knight-errant in a degree which excited the fear and the admiration both of Mussulmans and of Christians. A large part of the coast was recovered from the infidels; but the Christians were thinned by disease and by desertion as well as by war; their internal jealousies continued, and were so little concealed that the king of England and the duke of Burgundy hired ballad-singers to ridicule each other and the object of the crusade became more and more hopeless. Richard was entreated by urgent and repeated messages to return to his disturbed kingdom, while frequent and severe illnesses warned him to quit for a time the dangerous climate of Syrian The necessity of abandoning the enterprise became manifest; and, after having advanced within one day’s march of Jerusalem, the king found himself obliged to yield, with a swelling heart which vented itself in loud expressions of indignation, to the force of circumstances, and to the spiritlessness of his remaining allies. A truce for three years, three months, three days, and three hours, was concluded with Saladin in September 1192, on condition that pilgrims should be allowed to visit the holy places, and that the coast from Tyre to Joppa should remain in possession of the Christians. It is reckoned that in the crusade which was ended by this compromise more than half a million of Christians had perished.

On the 9th of October 1192 Richard sailed for Europe. From unwillingness to run the risk of passing through Philip’s dominions, he intended to take his route through Germany; but having been recognized in the neighborhood of Vienna, he was arrested and imprisoned by his enemy duke Leopold, who, in consideration of a large sum of money, made him over to the emperor Henry VI—a prince who with much of his father’s ability united a selfishness, a cunning, and a cruelty which were altogether foreign to Frederick’s lofty character.

After months of severe imprisonment, the king of England was brought by Henry before a diet at Worms, on charges of having thwarted the emperor in his claims on Sicily, of having instigated the murder of Conrad, of having wrongfully seized Cyprus, and of having insulted Leopold and the Germans. To these charges he answered in a strain of manly and indignant eloquence, which extorted the respect and pity even of those who were most hostile to him; but he was not yet set at liberty. Philip of France used all his influence with Henry to prolong his rivals captivity while the pope was urged by the importunities of the queen-mother Eleanor to interfere in behalf of her son. The emperor demanded a large sum by way of ransom, and in order to raise this Richard’s subjects—especially the clergy and monks—were again severely taxed. Chalices were melted down, shrines were stripped of their precious coverings and jewels, the golden ornaments were torn from the books employed in the service of the church. The impost was universal; even the Cistercians, who had, until then been exempt from all taxes, were obliged to contribute the wool of their flocks. After a confinement of nearly fourteen months, the king was able to return to his kingdom, which during his absence had been miserably distracted by feuds and intrigues; and in consequence of his complaints the pope excommunicated Leopold, and threatened the emperor and the French king with a like sentence. The miserable death of Leopold, which took place soon after in consequence of a fall from his horse at a tournament, was interpreted as a judgment of heaven on his outrage against a soldier of the cross. While Richard was in captivity the Christians of the east were delivered from their chief terror by the death of Saladin in March 1193.

Clement III had compromised the question as to the see of Treves by agreeing that both Volkmar and his opponent should be set aside, and that the canons should proceed to a new election, and in 1188 he had been able to establish himself in Rome, by means of an agreement with the citizens, who were inclined to peace by finding that without the pope their city could not be the capital of Christendom. But one condition of this compact, which must have been felt as especially hard—that Tusculum, the city so faithful to the popes and so odious to their unruly subjects, should be given up to the Romans—remained unfulfilled when Clement died, in March 1191. In his room was chosen Hyacinth, a man eighty-five years old, who had been a member of the college of cardinals for nearly half a century. At the time when the election took place, Henry VI was advancing towards Rome to claim the imperial crown, and it was resolved to take advantage of the occasion in order to gain some object at his hands. The pope deferred his own consecration, in order that he might be the better able to negotiate; a deputation of the Romans went forth to treat with Henry as he approached the city; and it was agreed that Tusculum should be given up. On Good Friday, Henry, without any warning to the Tusculans, withdrew the garrison with which, at their request, he had furnished them; whereupon the Romans rushed in through the open gates, razed the castle, destroyed the town so completely that no vestige of buildings later than the old imperial times is now to be seen, and glutted their hatred by deeds of savage cruelty. On Easter-day the pope was consecrated under the name of Celestine III, and on the two following days Henry and Constance were severally crowned by him in St. Peter's.

The emperor advanced towards the south, where, on the death of William the Good, in 1189, the inheritance of Constance had been seized by an illegitimate grandson of the first Norman king, Tancred, count of Lecce, who had received investiture from Pope Clement. Henry took Naples after a siege of three months, and reduced the continental part of the Norman territories; but his army was ravaged by a pestilence, and his own health was so seriously affected that he was compelled to retire to Germany, while his empress, who had fallen into the hands of the enemy, remained in captivity until she was at length delivered through the intercession of the pope. After the death of Tancred, who kept possession of his crown until 1193, Henry appeared in Sicily at the head of a large army, hired with the king of England's ransom, and chiefly composed of soldiers who had been enlisted for a new crusade. A Genoese fleet cooperated with his land force; the discords between the Saracen and the Norman inhabitants favoured his enterprise; and after a short resistance he made himself master of the island. His triumphal entry into Palermo was welcomed with a signal display of the wealth and luxury of the Sicilian Normans. But almost immediately after this a fearful series of severities began. Letters were produced which professed to implicate the leading men of the island in a conspiracy against the Germans; and Henry, in consequence, let loose without restraint the cruelty which was one of his most prominent characteristics. Clergy and nobles in great numbers were put to death by hanging, burning, and drowning, or were blinded or barbarously mutilated. William, the young son of Tancred, after having been deprived of his eyesight, was shut up in a castle of the Vorarlberg, where he died obscurely. His mother and sisters were committed to German prisons. The bodies of Tancred and his son Roger were plucked from their graves, and treated with revolting indignity. It was in vain that the pope, the queen-mother of England, and other important persons, remonstrated with Henry, and even (it is said) that Celestine denounced him excommunicate. The wealth of the Norman kings and of all who were accused as parties in the conspiracy was seized; and it is said that, after large gifts to Henry's numerous soldiery, the splendid robes, the precious metals, and the gems which remained were a load for 160 horses and mules. By means of this treasure, and of concessions to the princes of Germany, Henry formed a design of securing the crown as hereditary in his family. But although he succeeded in obtaining the con­sent of the electors to the succession of his son Frederick, who had been born at Jesi in December 1194, and was not yet baptized, the opposition to his further project was so strong that Henry found it expedient to withdraw the proposal.

The death of Saladin and the inferior capacity of his successor, Malek al Adel, held out inducements to a new crusade. With a view of stirring up the faithful, Celestine wrote letters and sent legates in all directions; and the emperor actively forwarded the enterprise, in the hope, probably, that he might thus clear his ecclesiastical reputation. He advocated the crusade eloquently in diets at Gelnhausen and Worms, where his exhortations were followed up by speeches from cardinals and bishops; princes and prelates responded by taking the cross, and their example was followed by knights, burghers, and men of humbler condition. In France, Philip Augustus made use of the crusade as a pretext for heavy exactions, but with the intention of converting the produce to his own purposes. But the truest crusader among the sovereigns of the age, Richard of England, although he had never laid aside the cross, and burned with desire to complete the work which he had before so reluctantly abandoned by a fresh campaign against the infidels, found himself so much hampered by the exhaustion of his people, and by the continual petty warfare in which he was engaged with Philip, that he could take no share in the enterprise. It was in vain that Celestine, in a letter to the English bishops, forbade the tournaments which had been instituted by the king with a view to military training; that he desired those who wished for martial exercise to seek it, not in festive contests unsuited to the sadness of the time, but in warring against the enemies of Christ.

In his ecclesiastical policy Henry showed himself resolved to yield nothing to the papacy. He forbade 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 bishoprics. In the case of a contest for Liege, he is supposed to have instigated the murder of a candidate who was favoured by the pope and had been consecrated by the archbishop of Reims. He refused to pay 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. The pope had ceased for a time to hold correspondence with him, but now addressed him in a strain of apology mixed with complaint, and urged him to forward the crusade. At Bari the emperor, at Easter 1195, entered into an engagement to maintain 1500 cavalry and a like number of foot in the Holy Land for a year; but the zeal with which he urged on his preparations had probably other objects—that of diverting the crusaders, as before, to his own purposes, and even of using them against the Byzantine empire. But these designs were unexpectedly cut short. Henry, after having crossed into Sicily, discovered a new conspiracy against him, and in vengeance for it resumed the cruelties which had made him so deeply detested in that island; but on the 28th of September 1197 he suddenly died, most probably in consequence of a chill produced by having drunk some water while heated by hunting. But as it is certain that Constance had been greatly shocked and offended by his severities towards her countrymen, and even towards some of her own near relations, it was generally believed that the emperor fell a victim to poison administered by his own wife. The crusade which Henry had contributed to set on foot was carried on without any religious enthusiasm. The Germans did not cooperate with the Latins of the East, but, “thinking only of the fertile coasts, and not heeding that Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles”, were wholly intent on gaining advantages for themselves. They achieved considerable successes, although not without loss, and recovered the sea-coast. But their conquests were fruitless, and they engaged in fierce quarrels with the Templars, each party charging the other with having sold the interests of Christendom. On receiving the tidings of Henry's death the crusaders resolved to return home; and, notwithstanding the pope's entreaties that they would not abandon the holy enterprise, they carried out their resolution, after having concluded a truce of six years with the infidels. In endeavouring to make their way homewards by way of Sicily and Apulia, many of them were slain by the inhabitants on account of their connection with the detested emperor.

Celestine III survived Henry only a few months, and died on the 8th of January 1198.

CHAPTER XI.

THE GREEK CHURCH—SPAIN—BRITISH CHURCHES—THE NORTH—MISSIONS.

THE Greek Church of the twelfth century hardly requires notice, except in so far as it was brought into contact with the Christians of the West. Its state was generally one of torpor. The clergy were held in strict subjection by the secular power, so that a patriarch, on attempting to withdraw a monk from secular judgment, was met by the declaration that “the emperor’s authority can do everything”. They were devoted to a system of forms which in great part had lost their significance. Among the monks there was very commonly a forgetfulness of the true meaning of their profession; yet there was much of fantastic asceticism, as among the dendrites or tree-monks, the pillar-monks (who, however, were not so called from living on the tops of pillars, like the stylites of earlier days, but from inhabiting narrow pillar­like cells, or from carrying little columns as a burden), the fanatics who buried their living bodies in the earth, and those who aimed at sanctity by a profession of more than the ordinary monastic filthiness. The Gnosimachi denounced all endeavour after knowledge in religion, on the ground that God requires nothing of man but good works, and prefers simplicity to curiosity. And while among the people there lingered, by the side of their Christianity, much of uneradicated heathen super­stition, there were some who, by the study of classical literature, were led back into an adoption of the old pagan creed. Thus we are told of an Italian named John, who in the reign of Alexius Comnenus became popular as a professor at Constantinople, and taught the transmigration of souls, and the Platonic doctrine of ideas. One of this man's disciples is said to have thrown himself into the sea, exclaiming, "Receive me, O Poseidon!". But the teacher himself, after having been subjected to the pressure of both ecclesiastical and imperial authority, consented to renounce his errors.

Those revivals and reformations of monachism which were continually renewed in the West had no parallel in the Greek church, where the only measures of reform were the occasional attempts of the emperors to recall the monks to their spiritual duties by means which had very much the nature of confiscation. Thus Manuel found fault with his predecessors for having enriched monasteries with lands, and revived an edict of Nicephorus Phocas against such endowments. And in order to exemplify what monachism ought to be, if freed from secular business, he removed a number of the best monks from the “Siren-like” temptations of Constantinople to a monastery which he had built in the gorges of Pontus—allowing them merely a sufficient supply for the necessities of food and clothing.

Yet it deserves to be mentioned, to the credit of the age, that under the Comnenian emperors a spirit of learning revived. A college of twelve professors presided over the studies of Constantinople, both in general literature and in theology : and the Greek church of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was adorned, if not by any original genius, yet by the industry and knowledge of such writers as the commentator Theophylact, Nicetas, bishop of Chonae or Colosse, Nicolas, bishop of Methone, Euthymius Zigadenus, Michael Psellus the younger, and Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica.

The imperial system had a tendency to encroach on the province of theology, and this was especially dangerous under those emperors who supposed themselves to be skilled in theological questions. They were not, says Nicetas, content to enjoy the pomps of empire, with the unrestrained power and privileges of despotism, unless they were also supposed to be, like Solomon, heaven-taught authorities on things divine and human. Thus, as we shall see hereafter, Alexius I disputed with the Paulicians and with the Bogomiles. His grandson Manuel, in addition to his warlike talents, was possessed of eloquence and literary accomplishments, and although he is charged with adultery, and even with incest, was especially fond of mixing in theological controversies. One of those in which he took part related to a passage in the public liturgy, where Christ was said to be at once priest and sacrifice. After much discussion, the emperor was persuaded to give his adhesion to the form, and many eminent ecclesiastics who took the opposite side were deprived. At another time Manuel started a question as to the words, “My Father is greater than I”, which he maintained to relate to the Saviour’s created humanity alone. A third question arose out of the emperor’s requiring the withdrawal of an anathema against the God of Mahomet from the catechetical tables. The patriarch Theodosius replied that the anathema was not directed against the true God, but against the imaginary deity whom Mahomet described as “neither begetter nor begotten, but holosphyrous”. On this the emperor drew up a form which he violently required the clergy to subscribe—threatening them with a council to which the pope of Rome should be invited; and some of them, among whom Eustathius of Thessalonica was conspicuous, were in danger on account of their opposition. But at length the matter was compromised by the subscription of an anathema against Mahomet with “all his doctrine and succession”. A later emperor, Andronicus, was so far from sharing in Manuel’s theological tastes that, on hearing a discussion as to the words”My Father is greater than I”, he threatened to throw the disputants into the river.

From time to time attempts were made to bring about a reconciliation between the Greek and the Latin churches. The council of Bari, under Urban II, at which Anselm of Canterbury played the principal part, has been already mentioned. In 1112 Paschal sent Peter Chrysolanus or Grosolanus, the dispossessed archbishop of Milan, to Constantinople, for the purpose of discussing the points of difference, and in 1115 the same pope addressed to the emperor Alexius a proposal for another conference, but with the unacceptable condition that the primacy of Rome should be acknowledged in all things. About the year 1135, Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, who had been sent by Lothair III as ambassador to the emperor John, engaged in discussions with Nicetas, bishop of Nicomedia, and one of the twelve principal teachers of Constantinople and in 1150, at the request of Eugenius III, he drew up a report of the conference. The chief points debated were the procession of the Holy Ghost, the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist, and the authority of the Roman see. On the first of these the disputants appear to have approached to an agreement by means of mutual explanations. On the question of the papacy, Nicetas is represented as strongly protesting against the Roman pretensions and he proposed a general council as the most hopeful means towards a reconciliation. Although Anselm’s report of the arguments is naturally favourable to the author and his cause, the Greek champion is allowed to acquit himself creditably; and they parted with expressions of mutual respect. Another discussion was held at Constantinople about 1179, by Hugh Eterianus, a Tuscan, whose conduct in it was approved by Alexander III; a Greek abbot named Nectarius maintained the Greek views at the Lateran synod of 1119, and on his return was hailed “like another Olympian victor”; and the subject of reunion often engaged the attention of the popes. But on the whole, the increasing claims of Rome, the invasion of the East by Latin patriarchs, bishops, and clergy, the collisions between the eastern and the western churches which took place in the crusades, and other political causes, contributed to render the Greeks less and less favourable to such proposals; and the massacre of the Latins under Andronicus was at once a fearful proof of the bitter feeling with which they were regarded by the Greeks, and a pledge of further hostilities.

The Nestorians continued to carry on their missionary work in the East, although the successes which they claimed may in many cases have been only nominal. About the middle of the eleventh century stories began to be circulated in Europe as to a Christian nation of north-eastern Asia, whose sovereign was at the same time king and priest, and was known by the name of Prester John. Amid the mass of fables with which the subject is encumbered, it would seem to be certain that, in the very beginning of the century, the khan of the Kerait, a tribe whose chief seat was at Karakorum, between Lake Baikal and the northern frontier of China, was converted to Nestorian Christianity—it is said, through the appearance of a saint to him when he had lost his way in hunting. By means of conversation with Christian merchants, he acquired some elementary knowledge of the faith, and, on the application of Ebed-Jesu, metropolitan of Maru, to the Nestorian patriarch Gregory, clergy were sent, who baptized the king and his subjects, to the number of 200,000. Ebed-Jesu consulted the patriarch how the fasts were to be kept, since the country did not afford any corn, or anything but flesh and milk; and the answer was, that, if no other Lenten provisions were to be had, milk should be the only diet for seasons of abstinence.

The earliest western notice of this nation is given by Otho of Freising, from the relation of an Armenian bishop who visited the court of pope Eugenius III. This report is largely tinctured with fable, and deduces the Tartar chiefs descent from the Magi who visited the Saviour in His cradle. It would seem that the Nestorians of Syria, for the sake of vying with the boasts of the Latins, delighted in inventing tales as to the wealth, the splendour, and the happiness of their convert’s kingdom; and to them is probably to be ascribed an extravagantly absurd letter, in which Prester John is made to dilate on the greatness and the riches of his dominions, the magnificence of his state and the beauty of his wives, and to offer the Byzantine emperor, Manuel, if he be of the true faith, the office of lord chamberlain in the court of Karakorum. In 1177 Alexander III was induced by reports which a physician named Philip had brought back from Tartary, as to Prester John’s desire to be received into communion with the pope, to address a letter to the king, recommending Philip as a religious instructor. But nothing is known as to the result of this; and in 1202 the Kerait kingdom was overthrown by the Tartar conqueror Genghis Khan.

In explanation of the story as to the union of priesthood with royalty in Prester John, many theories have been proposed, of which two may be mentioned here : that it arose out of the fact of a Nestorian priest’s having got possession of the kingdom on the death of a khan; or that, the Tartar prince's title being compounded of the Chinese wang (king) and the Mongol Khan, the first of these words was confounded by the Nestorians of Syria with the name John, and the second with cohen (a priest).

AFFAIRS OF SPAIN

Among the triumphs of Gregory VII was the submission of the Spanish church, which had until then been independent, and had looked to no higher authority than the primate of Toledo. The Spanish kings were induced to favour this submission by the wish to ally themselves with the rest of Christendom, as a means of strength against their unbelieving neighbours; and it was forwarded by the influence of many Frenchmen who had been promoted to ecclesiastical dignities in Spain. In consequence of the union, Gregory wrote to Alfonso VI of Castile and to Sancho of Aragon, exhorting them to adopt the Roman ritual as a symbol of unity; and it is said that Alfonso referred the question to an ordeal, by setting up champions to fight for the Roman and the Mozarabic liturgies respectively. The national champion was victorious, and this result was hailed with great delight by the people; but Alfonso, at his queen's instigation, declared that the decision must be made by fire, and the rival books were placed on a blazing pile, from which the Mozarabic office leaped out unhurt, while the Roman or Gallican was consumed. But, says the chronicler who relates this, “Laws go as kings will”, and notwithstanding its double victory, the national liturgy was abolished, except in a few monasteries. On the recovery of Toledo from the Saracens by Alfonso, Urban II              bestowed on that city the primacy over all Spain, which it had enjoyed under the Gothic kings; but the other Spanish metropolitans contested this primacy until the Lateran council of 1215.

The popes further interfered in the Spanish peninsula by acknowledging Portugal as an independent kingdom, under the especial protection of the Roman see, and professing to grant the kings a right over all that they might be able to rescue from the Saracens. In consideration of the connection with Rome, an annual tribute was paid to St. Peter's successors.

ENGLAND. REIGN OF STEPHEN.

In 1125 England was visited by a legate, John of Crema, cardinal of St. Chrysogonus, whose exactions and insolence excited general disgust. The primate, William of Corboyl, feeling himself injured by the precedence which this legate, although only a priest, assumed over archbishops and bishops, accompanied him on his return to Rome, with a view of vindicating the rights of his see; and the matter was accommodated by the pope's bestowing on the archbishop, for his own person, a commission as ordinary legate in England. William of Corboyl, in 1135, sanctioned the usurpation of the crown by Stephen; and it was remarked as a sign of the Divine displeasure that he died within a year. During the troubles of Stephen's reign much invasion of ecclesiastical and monastic property took place. Churches were burnt or were converted into fortresses, and the wealth of monasteries was violently plundered by the irregularly-paid mercenaries who held the country in terror. “Never yet had more wretchedness been in the land”, says the Saxon chronicler, in his striking description of the miseries of Stephen’s reign, “nor did heathen men ever do worse than they did; for everywhere at times they forbore neither church nor church­yard, but took all the property that was therein, and then burned the church and all together. Nor forbore they a bishop’s land, nor an abbot’s, nor a priest’s, but robbed monks and clerks, and every man another, who any­where could. The bishops and clergy constantly cursed them, but nothing came of it; for they were all accursed, and forsworn, and lost”. But on the other hand, the clergy were in such times a body whose support could not but be very valuable; and thus they were able to increase their privileges and their power. Henry, bishop of Winchester and brother of the king, had obtained the office of legate after archbishop William, and was the most powerful member of the episcopate, while he was devoted to high hierarchical principles. It is said that he had a design of erecting his see into an archbishopric, with seven suffragans and Stephen, although greatly indebted to him for assistance at the outset of his reign, found it necessary to balance the legate’s power by promoting Theobald, abbot of Le Bec, to Canterbury; whereupon Henry in disgust transferred himself to the party of the legitimate claimant of the kingdom, Matilda, daughter of Henry I, and widow of the emperor Henry V, pretending, at an assembly of the clergy in 1141, that the right of electing a sovereign belonged chiefly to that order. The new primate found himself greatly embarrassed by the position of the legate, who, although his own suffragan, claimed authority over him, and presided at councils as his superior, until Lucius II, on succeeding to the papacy, instead of renewing the bishop of Winchester's legation, gave Theobald a commission by which the archbishop of Canterbury for the time being was appointed legatus natus of the pope. By these legatine commissions the English church was brought into more direct connection with Rome; and it is to the time of Henry of Winchester’s legation that the frequency, if not the origin, of appeals from England to the pope is traced.

In the beginning of Stephen’s reign, the bishops, on swearing fealty to him, “so long as he should preserve the liberty of the church, and the rigour of discipline”, had exacted from him an oath that he would redress the grievances which had been inflicted on the Church by Henry I, with a very full assurance of privileges and immunities; but these promises were ill observed. The clergy, however, continued to make good their interest. When the bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and Salisbury had built themselves strong castles, which they held out against the king, Henry of Winchester, as legate, declared that these prelates ought not to be liable to any other than ecclesiastical judgment. The archbishop of Rouen maintained that, if bishops were allowed to possess castles, the king ought, as in other countries, to hold the keys, and to have the right of entering. But Stephen, in fear of Matilda’s growing power, submitted to appear by proxy when summoned before a council for his treatment of the three bishops, and did penance in obedience to its sentence.

The relations between Stephen and Theobald became less friendly than they had been at first. At the instance, it is said, of his brother, who had again changed sides, the king forbade the archbishop to attend the council held by Eugenius III at Reims in 1148. Theobald, however, resolved to disregard this; and, as the coasts were guarded, he crossed the sea in a small open boat. He was welcomed by the pope with the remark that he “had come rather by swimming than by sailing”; but on attempting to return, he was met by a sentence of banishment and confiscation, to which he replied by pronouncing an interdict. In 1152 the primate was again embroiled with the king, in consequence of having refused to crown his son Eustace; but peace was restored by the death of Eustace, and by the arrangement which secured the reversion of the crown to Henry II, the son of Matilda.

SCOTLAND—ST. MARGARET.

In Scotland the church was led during this time to discard the peculiarities of its earlier system, and was gradually assimilated to the church of southern Britain—chiefly through the influence of the Cistercians and of the Augustinian canons. The beginning of this change is ascribed to the influence of the English princess Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling, wife of Malcolm Canmore, and mother of David I of Scotland and of “Maud the Good”, the first wife of Henry Beauclerc. Margaret’s piety, charity, and ascetic life are celebrated with enthusiasm by her confessor and biographer, Turgot, a monk of Durham and afterwards bishop of St. Andrew’s. She built churches, redeemed captives, and provided hospitals for the use of pilgrims. Her husband's affection for her was unbounded; in token of it we are told that, although himself unable to read, he used to handle her books with interest, to kiss those which he observed that she loved most, and sometimes to surprise her by presenting her with one of her favourite volumes in a new and splendid binding. Under Margaret’s influence the Celtic element was depressed in Scotland, while the court took an English tone and character. Councils were assembled for the reformation of the church; and at one of these it is said that Margaret, almost unaided except by the presence and countenance of the king, who acted as interpreter, maintained for three days, with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”, the cause of opposition to the usages or abuses which prevailed in Scotland. The beginning of Lent had been reckoned forty days before Easter, without excepting Sundays; communion, even at Easter, had been disused, even by the clergy, who alleged that they were unworthy to receive the sacrament; and marriages had been allowed which the general law of the church denounced as incestuous. Against these and other irregularities Margaret contended, and she succeeded in doing away with them.

To this time is also referred the more thorough and regular division of the country into dioceses, which seems to have been in progress from the reign of Malcolm Canmore (A.D. 1057-93) to that of David I (A.D. 1124­54), whose munificence in the endowment of bishoprics and abbeys has earned him the zealous praise of the monastic writers, and has not wanted defenders in later times against those who have censured it as tending to the impoverishment of the crown and the oppressive taxation of the people. Nor did David, who had been educated in the English court, neglect, in his care for religion, to use other means of advancing the civilization of his subjects, who, notwithstanding the influence of many English and Norman settlers, were generally in a very rude condition. Among other changes which took place during this period may be mentioned the extinction of the ancient order of clergy styled Culdees, who, although not without a struggle, were superseded by canons living under the same rules as those of other western churches.

After the death of bishop Turgot, in 1115, a remarkable case of difference took place as to the see of St. Andrews, which had by this time become the seat of the primacy, so that its bishops were styled bishops or arch­bishops “of the Scots”. Alexander I of Scotland applied to Ralph, archbishop of Canterbury, on the ground that the bishops of St. Andrews had always been consecrated either by the archbishop of Canterbury or by the pope, until Lanfranc allowed them for a time to be consecrated at York. The vacancy continued until 1120, when Alexander again wrote to the archbishop, requesting that Edmer, the monk of Canterbury to whom we are chiefly indebted for the knowledge of St. Anselm's life and character, should be allowed to accept the see; and to this Ralph assented, and obtained the consent of Henry I. But after Edmer had been invested, although he was not yet consecrated, a serious disagreement arose. The Scottish king, who had intended nothing more than to evade the claims of York, was disgusted at finding that the monk asserted the title of Canterbury to jurisdiction over all Britain. Edmer, on the other hand, declared that he would not, for St. Andrews or for all Scotland, give up his connection with Canterbury; and, although a friend named Nicolas advised him to solve the difficulty by seeking consecration from the pope, it seemed to Edmer that all hope of usefulness in the northern church was shut out by his difference with the king. He therefore returned the episcopal ring to Alexander, laid his cross on the altar from which he had taken it, and returned to England. Robert, prior of Scone, an Englishman by birth, who was appointed in his stead, refused to profess obedience to York so long as Alexander lived: but after the king's death he submitted to be consecrated by archbishop Thurstan, with the understanding that there should be no prejudice to the rights of either see.

The claims of the see of York to jurisdiction over Scotland—claims which had no real foundation except in so far as concerned that part of Scotland which had formerly been within the Northumbrian kingdom—were now renewed and kept up, chiefly perhaps with a view of counterbalancing the increased greatness of the southern metropolitan. But as to the details of this question, there is a difference between the English and the Scottish writers, as the ancient chronicles of Scotland have perished, and the later Scottish authors charge the English chroniclers not only with falsehood but with forgery. On a vacancy in the see of Glasgow, the archdeacon Ingelram, having been sent by Malcolm IV to Alexander III, was consecrated by him at Sens, notwithstanding the opposition of envoys from the archbishop of York, and returned with an acknowledgment that the Scottish church was exempt from all jurisdiction except that of the pope. In 1175, according to the English writers, when William of Scotland had been taken prisoner at Alnwick, his bishops and abbots swore at York that they would pay such submission as was due and customary to the see of York, and that the bishops of Scotland should repair to that archbishop for consecration. But at a meeting at Northampton in the following year, under the legate Uguccio Pierleone, the Scottish bishops denied that there had ever been, either by right or in fact, any such subjection as was claimed. Roger of York produced documents in proof that the bishops of Candida Casa (Whitherne) and Glasgow had formerly been subject to York; but, fortunately for the Scots, a dispute arose between the two English archbishops as to the claims of their sees over Scotland, and the matter remained undecided. Both parties appealed to Rome, and in 1176 Vivian, cardinal of St. Stephen’s on the Caelian (who had formerly been employed as a commissioner in the differences between Henry II and Becket), was sent as legate into Scotland, where he is described by the Melrose chronicler as “treading down and breaking to pieces all that fell in his way—alert to take, and not slow to seize”. The bishop of Whitherne declined the legate’s summons to a council, on the ground that he was subject to the see of York; and a war of ecclesiastical censures followed, without any decisive result. Shortly after this a dispute arose as to the appointment of a bishop of St. Andrews, which brought the Scottish king into collision with the archbishop of York and with the pope. Roger of York, who had received a commission as legate for Scotland, issued a sentence of excommunication and interdict in 1181; but after the death of this turbulent prelate the question was settled by an arrangement favourable to William, who was absolved by Lucius III in 1182, and obtained from Clement III and Celestine III an acknowledgment of the freedom of the Scottish church from all jurisdiction but that of the pope himself or of legates specially commissioned by him.

IRELAND. MALACHY OF ARMAGH

In Ireland also this period is marked, even more strongly than in Scotland, by changes which obliterated the ancient peculiarities of the church, and reduced it under the same power which had mastered the rest of western Christendom. We have already seen that the Danes who had established themselves in that country were led, on embracing the Christian faith, to seek their pastors, not from among the natives whom they had dispossessed, but from their own Norman kindred who had become masters of England. It was to the archbishops of Canterbury that the bishops of the Danish cities, Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, repaired for consecration, and made profession of canonical obedience; and these bishops, although sometimes of Irish birth, were generally persons who had been trained in English monasteries. The connection thus begun, although at first it reached no further than England, could not fail in time to bring the Irish church into new relations with Rome.

A letter in which Gregory VII appears as addressing the Irish king Torlogh, and claiming Ireland for the Roman see, would seem to have had no effect. But in the beginning of the next century, Gille or Gilbert, bishop of Limerick (who had known Anselm as abbot of Le Bec, and had renewed his intercourse with him by letters after the conclusion of his struggle with Henry I), received a commission as legate for Ireland, perhaps through Anselm’s influence with the pope. As legate he presided over a synod at Rathbreasil, at which his influence was successfully exerted in favour of Roman customs. Ireland was to be portioned out into regular dioceses, instead of having bishops unlimited in number and without local jurisdiction; and the form of discipline and divine service was to be reduced to the Roman model—an object which Gille had before endeavored to promote by a treatise which is still extant. It is not to be wondered at that the clergy in general were glad, in the fearful miseries of their country, to catch at any scheme which appeared to promise strength to the Church; yet it would seem that Gille’s Romanizing policy was not universally acceptable.

In this policy Gille was followed by Maolmaodhog or Malachy, whose fame has been greatly enhanced by the circumstance that St. Bernard became his biographer. Malachy, of whom Bernard says that he was no more affected by the barbarism of his nation than fishes are by thesaltiness of the sea, was born about the year 1095 at Armagh, where his father, an ecclesiastic, was chief lecturer. After having acted as vicar under Kellach (or Celsus), archbishop of Armagh, he was consecrated to the see of Connor in 1125. “But”, says the biographer, “when he began to perform the duties of his office, then the man of God came to understand that he had been destined not to men but to beasts. Nowhere had he yet experienced such people, so shameless as to manners, so savage as to rites, so impious as to faith, so barbarous as to laws, so stiff-necked as to discipline, so filthy as to life”. But by the zealous labours of Malachy, who went throughout his diocese on foot, “distributing even to the ungrateful the measure of heavenly wheat”, we are told that “their hardness ceased, their barbarism was stilled; the barbaric laws were done away with, the Roman were introduced; everywhere the customs of the Church were received, and those contrary to them were rejected; churches were rebuilt, and clergy were ordained in them”.

In 1127 Celsus of Armagh on his death-bed recommended Malachy as his successor. But for five years the new bishop was kept out by Murtogh, a layman of a family which for fifteen successions had occupied the temporalities of the see—the last eight holders having moreover beenmarried men; and, after Murtogh’s death, he had for two years longer to encounter the opposition of one Niall, whose influence among the Irish was rendered formidable by the possession of the episcopal insignia. At length Malachy obtained peaceable possession of the see; and he then insisted on fulfilling a resolution that, whenever this should be achieved, he would resign. Returning to his old diocese of Connor, he restored the ancient division of it into two, and chose for himself the inferior of these, the bishopric of Down. Here he laboured with the same zeal and energy which he had displayed elsewhere—preaching, hearing confessions, founding monasteries, and endeavouring to enforce the observance of the regular hours and manner of psalmody, which in Ireland had hitherto been unknown beyond the monasteries.

The government of the church was still but imperfectly organized. The see of Armagh had retained a superiority in consideration of its connexion with St. Patrick; but there were no regular archbishops in other sees, and Malachy resolved to remedy the defect by asking for palls in favour of Armagh and the newly-founded see of Cashel. It was not without much difficulty that the Irish nobles and clergy would allow him to set out for Rome : but after lots had been thrice cast, and always with a result in favour of the expedition, their consent could not be withheld. At Rome he was received with great honour by Innocent II, who bestowed on him the legatine commission which Gille had resigned on account of age and infirmity. The pope also confirmed the archiepiscopal dignity of Cashel; but, in answer to Malachy’s proposal as to the palls, he said that it was a matter to be managed with greater solemnity—that an application ought to be made for them by a national council of bishops, clergy, and nobles. Malachy requested the pope's leave to become a monk at Clairvaux, which he had visited on his way to Rome; but was told that he must continue his more active labours. On his journey homewards he again visited the abbey, where he left some of his companions for instruction; and by these, and some of Bernard’s disciples who accompanied them on their return, the Cistercian order was introduced into Ireland.

Malachy carried out his legation rigidly as to the enforcement of the Roman usages, while in his personal habits he still retained his original simplicity and severity. But it would seem that Pope Innocent's caution as to the palls was borne out by the actual result—that the legate found his countrymen reluctant to submit to such an acknowledgment of the Roman superiority; for he allowed the matter to rest for several years. At length, in 1148, he resolved to take advantage of Pope Eugenius’s visit to France for the purpose of renewing his suit, in the hope that his friendship with St. Bernard might recommend it to a pontiff who had formerly been a monk of Clairvaux. The consent of an Irish council was obtained, although it was again with difficulty that Malachy was allowed to go abroad in person. In passing through England he was delayed by the suspicions of King Stephen, who had forbidden that any bishop should be allowed to embark for the continent; and thus he was unable to reach Clairvaux until the pope had already returned to Rome. He was received at Clairvaux, says St. Bernard, “like a real dayspring from on high visiting us”; but soon after his arrival he fell ill, and on All-Souls' day 1148 he died in the arms of the abbot—in the place which he had desired, and on the day which he had foretold.

It would seem that, notwithstanding Malachy’s death, the application of which he had been the bearer reached the pope; and in 1152 a cardinal-legate, John Paparo, held a synod at Kells, where palls were bestowed, not only on the archbishops of Armagh and Cashel, but also on those of Dublin and Tuam. “And this”, says Robert of Mont St. Michel, “was done contrary to the customs of the ancients, and to the dignity of the church of Canterbury, from which the bishops of Ireland had been wont to ask and to receive the blessing of consecration”.

Amongst the earliest acts of Adrian IV’s pontificate was the grant of a privilege to the sovereign of his native country, bestowed at the instance of John of Salisbury. In this document the pope asserts for himself a right to dispose of all islands “on which Christ, the Sun of righteousness, hath shined”; and in virtue of this right (which, as John of Salisbury informs us, was grounded on the donation of Constantine), he authorizes Henry to invade Ireland with a view to the extension of the church, and the increase of religion and virtue, on condition that a penny shall be yearly paid from each house to the see of Rome. In 1155, accordingly, the project of an expedition against the Irish—a project which had been entertained by William the Conqueror and by Henry I—was proposed by the king to his council, but, out of deference to the objections of his mother Matilda, it was abandoned. Many years had passed, when Dermod Macmurrogh, the expelled king of Munster, waited on Henry in Aquitaine, and entreated aid for the recovery of his kingdoms Henry, although too much engaged in other business to undertake the matter on his own account, gave license for his subjects to enlist under Dermod; and a body of adventurers, under Richard de Clare, earl of Strigul or Chepstow, who was known by the name of Strongbow, succeeded in restoring Dermod to his throne, and in winning for themselves a footing in Ireland. On the death of Dermod, in 1171, Strongbow, who had married his daughter Eva, succeeded to his territories; but, finding that his own force was insufficient, he repaired to Henry, and entreated his intervention, offering to make over to him part of his acquisitions, and to hold the rest in fee under him. In October 1171, accordingly, the king of England landed with an army at Waterford. A council had already been held at Armagh, in which the Irish bishops concluded that the success of the English was a judgment on their countrymen for the practice of buying English slaves, and, in the hope of escaping the full retribution of being themselves enslaved by the English, it was decreed that all English slaves should be set free. At Waterford Henry received the homage of many princes, and of almost all the Irish prelates; and a council was soon after held at Cashel, under the legate, Christian, bishop of Lismore, at which the English king was represented by two ecclesiastics. This synod, says Giraldus Cambrensis, endeavored by all means to reduce the Irish church to the form of the English. It was enacted that baptism should be administered in the name of the Trinity, and in the fonts of baptismal churches; for according to the English chroniclers it had been the custom in Ireland that the child, immediately after birth, should be dipped by the father in water (or, if the father were a rich man, in milk), and that the liquid should afterwards be thrown away without any reverence. The payment of tithes, which the synod of Kells had before ordered, but seemingly in vain, was now again enacted. Another canon ordered that marriages should be according to the laws of the church; for, it is said, the Irish were in the habit of having as many wives as they thought fit, and of disregarding the ecclesiastical prohibitions as to kin. The clergy were to be exempt from all taxes and lay exactions, a privilege which, in combination with the wealth provided by the introduction of tithes, had the effect of raising the Irish clergy from their previous subordination under the lay chiefs to a position like that of their brethren in other parts of the Latin churchy The payment of Peter pence was also enacted; and it was ordered that the service of the church should everywhere be conformed to that of England. The proceedings of the synod were reported to the pope, who in three letters, dated in September 1172, expressed his approval of them, and desired the princes, nobles, and clergy of Ireland to cooperate for the reformation of religion.

The chroniclers of the time tell us that, while Henry was in Ireland, all communication with England or the continent was prevented by the violence of the winds; but it has been suspected that this stoppage of communication was partly caused by the king’s wish to shut out the risk of dangerous missives from Rome, on account of the recent murder of archbishop Becket. On Easter-day 1172, in consequence of information that two legates had arrived in Normandy with a commission to decide in that matter, Henry embarked at Cork, and, after a rapid journey across England, proceeded to meet them at Avranches. His departure was followed by a rising of the Irish; and in order to suppress this he availed himself of the papal authority, by causing to be published in a council at Waterford the long-neglected letter of Adrian IV, together with a bull of Alexander III to the same effect. The insurrection proved unsuccessful; in 1175 Roderick O'Connor, king of Connaught, made his submission to Henry at Windsor, and Ireland was—partly through the influence of English clergy who were put into the highest dignities of the church—gradually reduced to the same ecclesiastical condition as other countries of the west. Many of the old Irish monasteries, which had been desolated by the Danish invasions, were now replaced by brotherhoods of Cistercians and of Augustinian canons; and, among other outward changes, may be mentioned the abandonment of the rude style of church-building in wood and wattles which was known by the name of “Scottish work”, and to which the Irish had been in some districts so exclusively addicted that, when St. Malachy attempted to build a church of stone, he was met by an indignant cry of “We are Scots, and not Frenchmen”.

The English and other contemporary writers are very strong in their denunciations of the Irish national character, and of the alleged barbarism of the people; but, without rejecting these charges so entirely as the patriotism of the more injudicious later Irish writers requires, we cannot doubt that they are much exaggerated, while it seems certain that the calamities of the Danish invasions had thrown the civilization of Ireland greatly backward. Giraldus expresses surprise that a nation which had professed Christianity from the days of St. Patrick should still be so ignorant and barbarous; but he accounts for this by the fact that the Irish were more inclined to religious contemplation than to such work as required courage and zeal, and that therefore their clergy had been rather monks than evangelists. Hence, he says, it is remarkable that the saints of Ireland are all confessors, and not one of them is a martyr; and he reports the answer which Maurice, archbishop of Cashel, made to this remark in the age of the English invasions, when the murder of Thomas of Canterbury was fresh in all memories. “Our people, however rude, have always respected the church, so that there has been no opportunity of martyrdom. But now a nation is come into the realm which is in the habit of making martyrs, and Ireland will have its share of them”. We must, indeed, modify Giraldus’s statement as to the clergy by the recollection of the many missionaries whom the Irish church sent forth; but it would seem that the zeal which sought an exercise in foreign missions disdained the humbler labours of the pastoral office at home.

DENMARK. SCANDINAVIA.

The claims of the archbishops of Hamburg or Bremen to jurisdiction over the Danish church had been resisted or impatiently endured. Adalbert of Bremen, who had even conceived the idea of erecting his see into a patriarchate, obtained from Leo IX and Alexander II privileges by which he and his successors were authorized to consecrate bishops for all the northern kingdoms, even against the will of the sovereigns, and Alexander forbade the king of Norway to violate the rights of Bremen by getting bishops consecrated in France or England. But, on the other hand, the Danish kings entreated that their kingdom might have an independent primate; and, at the council of Bari, in 1097, Eric the Good, who was present, obtained from Urban II a promise to that effect—a promise which was the more readily given because archbishop Liemar of Bremen was obnoxious to the pope on account of his adherence to Henry IV. The Danish king died in Cyprus, on his way to the Holy Land; but in 1103 or the following year a legate appeared in Scandinavia, and made choice of Lund, in Schonen (which then belonged to Denmark), as the seat of a primate to whom the northern kingdoms, with Iceland, Greenland, and other dependencies, should be subject. It would seem, however, that the bull for this arrangement was not completed; and through the influence of the emperor Lothair, who wished to recover the old superiority of Germany over the north, Innocent II, in 1133, addressed letters to the archbishop of Hamburg and other persons concerned, by which the jurisdiction of that see was confirmed in all its former extent, and the claims of Lund were in no way recognized.

The archbishops of Lund afterwards recovered their independence of Hamburg, but the Swedes and the Norwegians were discontented on account of their subjection to Lund. The mission of Cardinal Breakspear (afterwards Adrian IV) under Eugenius III resulted in the establishment of Nidaros (or Drontheim) as the seat of a primate for Norway, the islands, and Greenland. The legate provided for the erection of a primacy of Sweden, which was afterwards Axed at Upsal; while Eskil of Lund was in some measure consoled for the loss of his metropolitan rights over Sweden and Norway by being invested with the office of legatus natus for the whole north. It was also ordered by Alexander III that the archbishops of Upsal should be consecrated by those of Lund; and this became a subject of contention which lasted even into the fifteenth century. The German prelates, however, had not yet relinquished their pretensions to jurisdiction over the Scandinavian kingdoms, as appears from a letter of Lucius III, who tells Hartwig, archbishop of Hamburg, in 1185, that the consideration of the question must be deferred, because the troubled state of the north prevented the attendance of the bishops in order to an investigation of it. And in another quarter the archbishops of Nidaros were involved in contentions with those of York, as to jurisdiction over the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man.

The gospel, in making its way in the northern kingdoms, had to struggle both against the barbarism of the people and against the faults of its own ministers. The cost of the new religion gave occasion to serious troubles. In Sweden complaints were raised that dying persons were induced to make bequests to the church without the consent of their heirs; and Alexander III ordered that the amount of such bequests should be limited. In 1087 the imposition of tithes in Denmark produced a commotion in which Canute the Good—afterwards the patron saint of the kingdom—was slain; and a century later the impost, with the enforcement of celibacy on the clergy, provoked a violent outbreak in Schonen, where it was demanded that the archbishopric should be abolished as a matter of useless expense, and that the clergy should marry, “lest, as heretofore, they should abuse the wives and children” of the peasantry. Breakspear, on his legation, succeeded in imposing the payment of Peterpence in Norway and Sweden, and a very similar exaction—although Danish historians indignantly deny that it was the same —appears to have been established in Denmark. To Absalom, bishop of Roskield, and afterwards archbishop of Lund, a prelate who united to his ecclesiastical function the characters of a warrior and a statesman, is ascribed the reduction of the Danish church to uniformity in the celebration of divine offices.

In Denmark and Norway, the archbishops and bishops almost rivalled the sovereigns in dignity, in the secular pomp and state which they maintained, and in the privileges which they enjoyed. Among the evidences of this, it is recorded that Pope Celestine III in 1194 renewed to Henry, archbishop of Drontheim, the royal privilege of buying falcons.

FINLAND. POMERANIA. OTHO OF BAMBERG.

The Finns were subdued by Eric IX of Sweden in a war to which a religious character was given, and attempts were made to spread the gospel among them. Alexander III complains that their pretence of conversion was commonly given up when it had served the purpose of saving them from danger. Henry, archbishop of Upsal, an Englishman, who met his death among this people, was canonized by Adrian IV, and is celebrated as the apostle of Finland.

The conversion of the Pomeranians, a rude and fierce Slavonic people, who were at continual war with their neighbours of Poland, had been attempted as early as the year 1000 by Boleslav, king of Poland, who founded the see of Colberg with a view to this work; but the attempt was fruitless, the bishopric ended with its first holder, Reinbern, and later endeavours on the part of the Poles had succeeded only in producing false and transient appearances of conversion. About the year 1120 a Spaniard named Bernard, who had been consecrated by Paschal II (probably in the room of some bishop deposed for adhering to the imperial cause), on finding that he could not gain possession of his see, resolved to undertake a mission to the Pomeranians. But the poverty of his appearance excited the contempt of the people, who are described as living in such plenty that no poor man or beggar was to be seen among them. “How”, they asked, “can we believe that a man so miserable as not even to have shoes can be the messenger of the God to whom all things belong?”. It was in vain that Bernard offered to prove his truth by allowing a house to be burnt over him, and even that he assailed a sacred pillar with an axe; he was put on board a boat, and dismissed, with a charge to exercise his zeal, if he would, in preaching to the fowls and to the fishes. After this failure he withdrew to a monastery at Bamberg; and there his reports as to Pomerania were heard with interest by the bishop, Otho.

Otho, a native of Swabia, was born about 1060, and in his youth had sought a livelihood as a schoolmaster in Poland, where he learned the language of the country. The duke, Wladislav (for this prince had given up the royal title), made him his chaplain, and employed him to negotiate a marriage with a sister of Henry IV; and thus Otho became known to the emperor, who invited him to his court, appointed him his chancellor, and in 1102 nominated him to the see of Bamberg. The canons of the cathedral expressed their disappointment that a clerk of obscure origin was recommended to them, whereas they had expected some man of distinguished family and already known to them. “If you wish”, said Henry, “to know who he is, know that I am his father, and that your church must be his mother”. Otho had already refused two bishoprics, from a scruple that such preferment, being intended by the emperor as a reward for his services, might involve something of simony; but he regarded the third offer as a sign of God’s will, and accepted it. He received investiture in the usual form from the emperor, but, not being satisfied with this, he waited on Paschal II at Anagni, Whitsunday, laid the episcopal ring and staff at his feet, and received a second investiture from the pope, who then proceeded to consecrate him. In the contests between Henry V and the pope, Otho took the hierarchical side, but with a moderation which was so unsatisfactory to the zealots of his party that Adalbert of Mayence even threatened him with excommunication. He rebuilt his cathedral, which had been destroyed by fire; he was distinguished for his exemplary life and successful labours as a bishop, and was especially famous for an unrivalled power of preaching to the people in their native tongue. In 1111 Paschal, in acknowledgment of his merits, bestowed on him and his successors the privilege of using the archiepiscopal pall and crosier.

Boleslav III of Poland, a prince whose zeal for religion was quickened by remorse for having put to death his brother and competitor Zbigniew, reduced the eastern part of Pomerania to tribute in 1121. Eight thousand of his prisoners, with their wives and children, were settled on the Polish frontier and compelled to profess Christianity; and the duke conceived the design of converting the whole country. Finding that his bishops, discouraged by the failure of former attempts, hung back, the duke bethought him of the bishop of Bamberg, whom he had known as his father's chaplain; and Otho, with the consent of pope Calixtus and of the emperor, gladly undertook the work, although he had already passed his sixtieth year. Warned by Bernard's experience, he resolved to present himself to the Pomeranians in such fashion as should prove to them that his expedition was not undertaken for the sake of gaining by them. He furnished himself largely with horses, splendid vestments, rich stuffs, precious vessels for sacred uses, and with various things which were likely to be acceptable as presents; and in April 1124 he set out attended by a numerous body of clergy.

At Gnesen the missionaries were received with great honour by Boleslav, who supplied them with interpreters, a military guard, and provisions; and, after having overcome the difficulties of the journey into Pomerania, they were welcomed by the duke, Wartislav, who had been baptized when a prisoner or a hostage in Poland, although he had not since ventured to avow himself a Christian. At Pyritz, the first considerable town which they reached, seven thousand converts were speedily made; and these, after a week’s instruction in the faith, followed by a fast of three days, were baptized in large casks or troughs, which were sunk into the earth, and were surrounded by curtains. The solemnity and decency with which the rite was performed is said to have made a great impression, and this was doubtless strengthened by the presents which were bestowed on every convert. Among the duties which Otho inculcated in his addresses were the abandonment of polygamy and of the custom of putting female infants to death; the doctrine of the sacraments was laid down; the converts were charged to communicate three or four times a year; and they were exhorted to devote their sons to be educated for the ministry of the church.

At Camin Otho found the duchess, a Christian, who eagerly exerted herself for the furtherance of his mission. The duke agreed to give up the twenty-four concubines who had shared his bed; many who had been Christians professed repentance for having forsaken the faith; a church was built, and, in the course of forty days, a great number of converts was made. A wealthy lady, annoyed at finding that labour on the Lord’s day was forbidden, broke out into blasphemous words against the new religion, called her servants to reap as they had been used to do under the gods who had hitherto prospered the country, and proceeded to show them the example; but hardly had she begun, when she suddenly fell down, and “breathed forth her guilty soul into the fire of hell”. This judgment, we are told, produced a general awe, and served to procure obedience to Otho’s precepts.

At Julin the bishop’s life was in danger, and he was driven out of the town; but he afterwards obtained from the chief inhabitants a promise that they would be guided by the example of the capital, Stettin. To Stettin, therefore, he repaired, but for some time his preaching was ineffectual. The Pomeranians, it is said, were free from the vices which poverty engenders; they were surprised that the missionaries locked up their property, as among themselves no such protection was necessary.

“Why should we turn Christians?” they asked; “among Christians there are thieves and robbers, men are punished by loss of eyes and feet, and they practise all manner of cruelty and wickedness towards each other”. It was agreed, however, that the duke of Poland should be consulted, and in the meantime Otho preached on market-days to attentive audiences of the country people. His first converts were two youths, the sons of an influential man named Domuzlav. Their mother, who had been brought up as a Christian, was delighted at finding that they had been baptized, and by her the servants of the family, with many of their kindred and neighbours, and at length Domuzlav himself were brought over to the faith. The boys themselves, by celebrating the kindness, munificence, and charitable labours of the bishop, as contrasted with the behaviour of the heathen priests, persuaded many of their own age to become converts, and the people were disposed to look on him as a god who had descended among them for the good of their country.

An answer was at length received from Boleslav, who styled himself “the enemy of all pagans”, and rebuked the Stettiners for their treatment of Otho, but declared that for his sake, and as an inducement to receive the yoke of Christ, he would remit one-half of the tribute which they were bound to pay. Fortified by this assistance, Otho told the people that he would prove to them the impotence of their gods. After having received the holy Eucharist, he and his clergy made a general attack on the idols, which fell without resistance, and the effect of this success was heightened by the disinterestedness with which he refused to accept any share of the vast wealth of the principal temple. The triple head of Triglav, the Slavonic Neptune, was sent as a trophy to pope Honorius, and the temple was converted into a church, dedicated to the martyr St. Adalbert. A splendid black horse, which had been employed to decide questions of peace and war by walking over nine lances laid on the ground, was sent into another country for sale, “as being fit rather for a chariot than for prophesying”; and the priest who had the charge of him—the only person who ventured to oppose the general movement—was suddenly struck dead. The people of Julin—a town which claimed Julius Caesar as its founder, and reckoner among the objects of its idolatry a rusty spear which was said to have been his—fulfilled their promise by conforming to the example of Stettin. Two-and-twenty thousand of the inhabitants received baptism; and Otho, after having built two churches there and having appointed a bishop, returned to Bamberg, where he arrived on Easter-eve 1125.

Otho again visited the scene of his missionary labours in 1127 or 1128, when he sailed down the Saale and the Elbe, and entered the country from the west. At Demmin, he ransomed and baptized many Leutician captives whom duke Wartislav had taken, and thus made an impression which was strengthened by the duke's commendations of his wealth, his greatness, and his disinterested zeal. As he advanced into the country, he found that the rapid successes of his former labours had not been lasting. The number of clergy had been insufficient, and the heathen party had used all possible means to recover their influence. At Wolgast the people had been exasperated against the missionaries by the trick of a priest who dressed himself up, and, showing himself to a rustic in a wood, declared himself to be the old god of the country. At Stettin a mixed religion, “after the manner of the Samaritans”, had been established. A priest had taken advantage of an unfavourable season, attended by disease among men and cattle, to assault the altar of St. Adalbert; but the hand which held his hammer fell powerless. On this he exclaimed, “It is useless to strive against the Germans’ god; let us worship both him and our old gods”; and a heathen altar had been erected beside the Christian altar. As Otho was preaching, a burly and loud-voiced priest excited the people to fall on him; but, as they lifted up their spears, their arms were stiffened in the air. Then Otho proceeded to discourse on the power of the true God, and at his blessing the use of the stiffened limbs was restored. The pagan altar was demolished; and the catching of a fish so large that all the people of Stettin partook of it was regarded as setting the seal of heaven on their reconversion. At Julin a man, on being reproved by one of the missionaries for reaping on the festival of the Assumption, said, “Yesterday we were forbidden to reap because it was the Lord's day, and today we are again told to be idle. What is the meaning of this religion, which bids us cease from good and necessary things? or when shall we get our harvest in?”. But as he began to cut his corn, he fell down dead, and his wife, who had followed his example, was unable to unloose her hold either on her sickle or on the corn which she had grasped, until after her husband had been buried. In addition to the effect of his preaching and of his alleged miracles, Otho was powerfully aided by the support of the duke of Poland, and by prevailing on him to give up a projected invasion of Pomerania he increased his own influence among the people. The conversion of Pomerania, rapid, wholesale, and in part effected by force, could not but be very imperfect; yet from the time of Otho’s second mission the country always retained its profession of Christianity. After an absence of somewhat more than a year, Otho returned to Bamberg, in obedience to a summons from the emperor, and he died in 1139.

Among the designs which Otho entertained was that of a mission to the heathens of Rügen. The chief idol of these people, Swantevit, was worshipped with human sacrifices; no merchant was allowed to trade on the island until after having made some offering to the god; and so strongly were the Rugians attached to their religion, that, on being informed of the conversion of Stettin, they broke off all intercourse with the traders of that city, sank such of their ships as were within reach, and threatened to kill any missionaries who should venture to land on their shore. One of Otho’s companions, named Ulric, resolved to brave the danger; but he was thrice driven back by storms, and Otho himself was unable to make any attempt. In 1135 the Rugians agreed to receive Christianity from the Danes on condition that Swantevit should be spared; but as soon as the Danish fleet was gone, they drove out a bishop who had been left among them, and resumed their profession of paganism. It was not until 1168 that the paganism of the islanders was overcome by the arms of Waldemar, king of Denmark, and by the skilful management of Absalom, then bishop of Roskield, to which see the island was subjected by Alexander III. But the annalist of Magdeburg speaks of the Christianity thus “impressed” on the Rugians as “a shadow, which in a short time was done away with by Waldemar’s avarice, and by the scantiness and inactivity of the teachers”.

In the neighbouring country, where the Christian king Gottschalk had reigned in the preceding century, the progress of the gospel was urged on by the power of the emperor Lothair, of Albert the Bear, marquis of Brandenburg, and Henry the Lion, of Saxony, while it was resisted by the discontent of the Slavonic population at the sway of their German masters. At one time a formidable insurrection was excited by the exactions of Norbert, as archbishop of Magdeburg; churches were destroyed, the Christians were slain or driven out, and the people loudly declared that they would rather die than again become Christians. During the general fervour against infidels in 1147, while Lewis and Conrad led their hosts to the East, and other crusaders fought the Moors in Spain, a crusade was set on foot against the pagans of north Germany, under Henry the Lion, and Albero, archbishop of Hamburg. The country was invaded by two German armies, which are reckoned at 60,000 and 40,000 respectively; and two rival claimants of the Danish crown combined for the holy cause. But the war was carried on with little spirit, and was ended by the submission of the Slaves to receive a nominal baptism.

In this region the most eminent preacher of the gospel was Vicelin, a pupil of Anselm of Laon, and afterwards a Praemonstratensian, who was consecrated as bishop of Oldenburg, and laboured with single-minded zeal from 1121 until disabled by palsy two years before his death, which took place in 1154. When required by Henry the Lion to do homage for his bishopric, Vicelin was strongly dissuaded by the archbishop and clergy of Hamburg. “We submit to the emperor”, they said, “because by this submission to one we gain the power of ruling over many; for what duke or marquis is there who does not desire to become the church’s vassal, whether it will or no?”—but they urged that to do homage to a duke would be a degradation of the church. After some hesitation, however, Vicelin complied, in order to ensure Henry’s support; and Frederick Barbarossa afterwards bestowed on the duke authority to nominate and invest bishops for all the Slavonic territory which had been subdued by his ancestors or himself. In consequence of this grant, Vicelin’s example was followed by his successor, Gerold, and by the bishops of Ratzeburg and Mecklenburg, “for His sake who humbled himself for us, and that the newly-planted church should take no damage”; but on the fall of Henry, in 1180, Frederick withdrew the three bishoprics from their subjection to the dukes of Saxony. As great numbers of the Slaves had perished in war, many Germans, Hollanders, and Flemings, were brought in to supply their places; and this contributed powerfully to establish the profession of Christianity in those regions.

CHAP. XII.

SECTARIES—VISIONARIES

ALEXIUS COMNENUS receives from his daughter Anna the title of “thirteenth apostle”, for his zeal against the Paulicians of Thrace, who, in addition to then heterodoxy, had offended him by deserting him in his wars with the Normans of Southern Italy. Under the same emperor another remarkable party attracted for a time the attention of the Byzantine government.

The Euchites or Massalians, who derived their name from their practice of praying, are mentioned among the sects of the fourth century by Epiphanius and Theodoret, and are said to have held that every man has within him from his birth an evil spirit, who is to be kept down only by unceasing prayer. The party had been generally supposed to have been long extinct; but in the eleventh century it either emerged again from obscurity, or a new sect, known by the same name and holding similar opinions, arose independently. These later euchites, being persecuted by the Greeks, sought a vent for their opinions among the Bulgarians and Slaves who bordered on the empire; and they now, perhaps with opinions somewhat affected by contact with the Paulicians, attempted, under the name of Bogomiles, to regain a footing at Constantinople.

The new name of these sectaries has been variously derived—from Bulgarian words which might refer to their frequent prayers for the divine mercy; and as meaning in Slavonic “Friends of God”. In many respects their opinions resembled those of the early Gnostics. God, they said, had two sons, the elder of whom, Satanael, was associated with Him in the government of the world, until for rebellion he was cast down from heaven, with a third part of the angelic host, who had shared his crime. Satanael, like the demiurge of gnosticism, framed the world, and created man, on whom God, at his entreaty, bestowed a living soul. But Satanael became jealous of the privileges granted to his creature, and in the form of a serpent he begat Cain; in consequence of which he was stripped of the divine form which had until then been left to him, and of his creative power. Continuing his enmity against mankind, he gave the law by his servant Moses, and deluded the Jews into the belief that he was the supreme God. But in the 5500th year of the world, God in compassion sent forth his Son or Word, the archangel Michael, as to whose birth and humanity the doctrine of the sect was docetic. Satanael, like the demiurge, instigated the Jews to persecute and slay the Christ; and after the Son's resurrection he was punished by being deprived of the which he had retained as part of his name, and thus was reduced to Satan. It was held that the Son and the Spirit (who was said to be begotten by the Son) would be reabsorbed into the Godhead when their work in relation to man should be completed; but that in the meantime respect should be paid to Satan and his angels, although not out of love, but lest they should do hurt. It was said that God, although immaterial, had the form of an old man with a flowing beard; that the Son appeared as a bearded man, the Spirit as a smooth-faced youth; and under these forms the bogomiles professed to see them in dreams and visions. As in older heretical systems, it was taught that men are by nature of various classes; and it was held that at death the body is to be shaken off as an unclean garment, and is to be annihilated for ever.

In their worship the bogomiles were distinguished by a simplicity which has in later times raised up champions to deny their manifest heterodoxy. They disparaged the sacraments of the church—maintaining that its baptism was but the baptism of John, whom they despised as a teacher of legality; and that the Eucharist was a sacrifice of devils, whom they supposed to dwell in all consecrated buildings. They professed to have a true baptism of their own, which they administered to converts, with other rites of gradual initiation into their mysteries. For the Lord’s supper they substituted the repetition of the supplication for daily bread; and, while they objected to prayers in churches, their own devotions consisted of repeating the Lord’s prayer in stated numbers (as two or fifteen) and at stated times. They denounced images and relics, and paid honour to the memory of the iconoclastic emperors. They disparaged the saints of the church, and, although they admitted the miracles done by the relics of saints, they supposed these to be wrought through the power of evil spirits. They were enemies to all learning, classing “grammarians” with the Jewish scribes. They rejected much of Holy Scripture, and, when pressed with texts from those books which they admitted, they escaped by allegorical explanations of them. They maintained the lawfulness of disguising their tenets, on the ground that our Lord enjoined on us an outward conformity to authorities which we disapprove, and that his own parables are instances of disguise. In their appearance and manners they affected a monastic solemnity and austerity; yet with this it need hardly be said that, as in all similar cases, their enemies accuse them of combining not only abominable rites, but gross licentiousness.

This sect had made great progress among the subjects of Alexius, when his attention was called to it by public rumour. On this, he ordered some suspected persons to be seized; and one of these, Diblatius, was brought by torture to avow himself one of twelve apostles sent out by Basil, the chief teacher of the bogomiles. Basil, who is described as a physician, was a man far advanced in life; it was said that he had spent fifteen years in learning his system, and fifty-two in teaching it. The emperor, having caused him to be arrested, affected to treat him with great reverence, admitted him to his own table, and professed a wish to receive instruction from him; and after some hesitation Basil fell into the snare. In a secret chamber of the palace, he was drawn into unfolding his doctrines to Alexius and his brother; and, when the exposition was complete, the emperor, drawing aside a curtain, showed him a scribe who had noted down his words. The doors of the room were then opened, and the heresiarch found himself confronted with the patriarch, the senators, and the clergy of the city. As it was impossible to deny the truth of the written report, he strongly asserted the truth of his opinions, and declared himself willing to endure innumerable deaths for them. After this scene, all who were suspected of heresy were seized, and were brought before the emperor in a place where two great fires had been made, one of them having a cross beside it. Alexius told them that they were all to be burnt, but desired that those who held the orthodox faith would range themselves under the cross, since it would be better to die in orthodoxy than to live under suspicion of heresy. After this not infallible test, all who had chosen the side of the cross were set free; the others were imprisoned, and were plied from time to time with inducements to recant. Many of them died in prison; but Basil alone, on whom repeated conferences made no impression, was condemned to the flames, and, after having in vain expected an angel to appear for his deliverance, suffered in the hippodrome of Constantinople.

The opinions of the bogomiles did not die out with Basil. In the reign of Manuel similar doctrines were taught by Constantius Chrysomalos, and by a monk named Nephon, whose sway over the patriarch Cosmas was such that for his sake the patriarch submitted to deprivation. Bogomilism was secretly spread by teachers of both sexes; it found adherents among the Greek monks in Egypt, although it does not appear to have made any progress, it excited so much apprehension that the patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria wrote a treatise against it and even after the middle of the thirteenth century, the patriarch Germanus of Constantinople found it necessary to compose discourses in refutation of this obstinate heresy.

WESTERN SECTS

In the West many circumstances concurred to favour the growth of sectarianism. Foremost among these was the corruption of the clergy; and the very efforts of Gregory VII and others at a reform in the interest of Rome tended, by marking out the defects of the clergy for reprobation, to encourage a spirit of opposition to them. Among other causes which contributed to the same result were the fierce quarrels between the ecclesiastical and the secular powers; the growing pretensions of the hierarchy to authority over the things of this world; the narrowing of the limits of thought allowed within the church; the frequent and scandalous contests of bishops for particular sees; the interdicts and curses which inclined the minds of many to seek from some other quarter the religious ordinances and consolations which the church denied them. Accordingly, we now meet with sectaries in many places, and of various characters.

(1.) TANCHELM.The name of Tanchelm has already been incidentally mentioned. This man appeared in Flanders early in the twelfth century, and the chief scene of his activity was Antwerp, where the people had been prepared to welcome irregular teaching by the circumstance that their populous town was under the charge of a single priest, whose life is said to have been scandalous. The accounts of Tanchelm, as has been truly remarked, have much in common with those of the anabaptists of the sixteenth century. He affected a royal state, being attended by a bodyguard of 3,000 ruffians, wearing a crown, and having a banner and a sword borne before him when he preached. It is said that he claimed a divine character; that hymns were sung to him, that a church was dedicated in his honour, and that the water in which he had bathed was drunk or treasured up by his followers. He inveighed violently against the priesthood and the sacraments; and it is said that he combined with his lofty pretensions not only the practice but the teaching of the grossest licentiousness. The career of this blasphemous and sanguinary fanatic was cut short by a blow on the head from a priest, about the year 1116; and, although the sect did not immediately come to an end, his followers were reclaimed by Norbert about 1124.

(2.) EON. Another fanatical teacher of this time was Eudo or Eon de Stella, who spread his opinions chiefly in Brittany. Although not sprung from the lowest class of society, he is said to have been almost ignorant of the alphabet, and the accounts of him are incredible unless on the supposition that he was insane. He lived in great splendour, ordained bishops and priests, distinguished his chief followers by the names of apostles and of cardinal virtues, and is said to have kept his party together by means of food prepared by the spirits of the air, of which the effect was such that they who had once tasted it became irrevocably attached to the sect. Eon was brought before Eugenius III at the council of Reims, in 1148, and, on being questioned, avowed his belief that he was He who should come to judge the quick and the dead. At the request of the bishop who had brought him to the council, his life and limbs were spared; and the pope committed him to the care Samson, archbishop of Reims, in whose custody he soon after died.

(3.) PETER OF BRUIS. A sectary of a more respectable kind was a priest named Peter of Bruis, whose followers were known by the name of Petrobrusians. After having, for some unknown cause, been deprived of a pastoral cure which he had held, Peter, about the beginning of the century, appeared as an independent teacher in the Alpine dioceses of Embrun, Gap, Digne, and Arles; and, on being driven from that region, he removed into Gascony. There he found a population prepared by the earlier prevalence of sectarian opinions to receive him; he is described as “no longer whispering in hamlets, but openly preaching to multitudes in towns”; and his success, especially in the important city of Toulouse, was such as to astonish those who had been disposed to attribute his earlier successes to the ignorance of the mountaineers whom he had addressed. He vehemently attacked the system of the church in doctrine and in government; his aim was to restore a nakedly scriptural Christianity, without any allowance for change of circumstances, or any consideration for the historical development of ages. Yet it would seem that, while professing to regard scripture as the only source of religious knowledge, he was inclined to discard the Old Testament, and perhaps to retain no part of the New except the Gospels.

The points on which Peter chiefly insisted were five in number: (1) That infants ought not to be baptized, inasmuch as conscious personal faith is necessary in order to receive the benefits of the sacrament. (2) That there ought to be no churches or other places hallowed for worship, forasmuch as the true Church consists of the congregated faithful, and God hears prayer equally wherever it may be offered. (3) That crosses ought not to be reverenced, but, as being the memorials of the Saviour’s sufferings, ought to be dishonoured, broken, and burnt. (4) He not only denied the change of the eucharistic elements into the Lord's body, but held that the sacrament, having been celebrated by our Lord once for all, ought not to be repeated. (5) He taught that prayers, alms, and masses were unavailing for the dead.

The preaching of these doctrines was attended with great effect. Multitudes who had been baptized in infancy submitted to rebaptism; churches were profaned and destroyed; altars were overthrown, crosses were burnt, priests were beaten by excited mobs, and monks were compelled by torture to marry. Once, on Good Friday, Peter caused all the crosses in the town where he was to be thrown into a bonfire, at which he roasted flesh, and then, in disregard of the solemn fast, invited the spectators to partake of it. But the feeling which usually waited on his preaching was not universal; for, after a career of twenty years, he was seized by the populace of St. Gilles in Provence, and, in vengeance for his outrages against the cross, was himself burnt to death. Peter of Bruis was still alive, when the “venerable” Peter of Cluny, in passing through his original haunts, found his opinions largely prevailing there, and thus was induced to compose a treatise, which is almost our only source of information as to the sect. In this book he defends the whole system of the church, although it need hardly be said that his arguments are often of a questionable kind. The preface, written after the heresiarch's death, is addressed to the four prelates whose dioceses were infected, and in it the abbot expresses a hope that they may find his tract useful in argument, which he declares to be the more Christian manner of dealing with heretics, although he holds that, in case of necessity, the secular power may lawfully be called in to coerce them.

In the meantime, as the abbot of Cluny mentions, the heresiarch had found a successor in one Henry, whom some suppose to have been an Italian, and others to have been a Swiss. Henry was a deacon, and had been a member of the Cluniac order. In his habits he still affected the severity of a monk or a hermit, wearing a long beard, walking barefooted even in the depth of winter, living on alms, and professing to limit himself to such things as were merely necessary. Yet Hildebert and Bernard charge him with licentiousness of life, and especially with a fondness for gaming. His eloquence was said to be such that nothing but a heart of stone could resist it, and it was believed that by his mere look he could read the secrets of the heart. He also enjoyed the reputation of learning; but his right to this is denied by his opponents, who allow him no other accomplishments than those of preaching and dicing. The first place at which Henry is described as having made himself conspicuous was Lausanne; and, as we soon after find that opinions closely resembling his were entertained by some persons at Treves and at Cologne, it is probable that he may have visited those cities on his way from Switzerland to Le Mans, where he appeared in 1116. Having obtained from the bishop, Hildebert, permission to preach during Lent, he made use of it to excite the people against the clergy, who were insulted, attacked, and plundered, and were only saved from yet worse outrages by the interference of the civil power. He also made strange attempts at moral reform by encouraging marriages with prostitutes and women of servile condition; and it is said that all such unions were unfortunate in their consequences. During these proceedings, Hildebert had been absent on an expedition to Rome; but on his return he was able, although not without much difficulty, to drive out Henry, who afterwards preached at Poitiers and Bordeaux—everywhere, according to St. Bernard, leaving such an impression that he could not venture to revisit the place. In the south of France he met with Peter of Bruis, and after Peter's death he became the leader of the sect, to whose errors he is said to have made some additions, although the only further difference from the system of the church that is recorded is a denunciation of the system of chanting.

Peter of Cluny's tract against the Petrobrusians was not without effect. At the council of Pisa, in 1135, Henry was brought by the archbishop of Arles before Innocent II, by whom he was condemned as a heretic, compelled to a retractation, and given over for custody to Bernard, who furnished him with an order that he should be received as a monk of Clairvaux. After a short detention he was set at liberty, on condition that he should not return to his former haunts; but he speedily resumed his labours in the south of France, and with such effect that, as Bernard reports, the churches were soon without people, the people without priests, the priests without due respect; that holy places were reckoned unholy, festivals were neglected, sacraments were scorned, children remained unbaptized, and sinners died without penance or the holy communion. In 1147 Eugenius II, who was then in France, desired Alberic, cardinal-bishop of Ostia, to undertake a mission against Henry, and Bernard, then fresh from his triumphs in preaching the crusade, was persuaded by Alberic to accompany him. Nowhere had the abbot's successes been more signal than on this mission. At Albi, where the people were especially infected with error, the cardinal was received with insult; but when Bernard arrived, five days later, his appearance was hailed with enthusiasm. The cathedral was unable to contain the multitudes which pressed to hear him; and when, after having discoursed on the chief points of difference, he desired that all who preferred the catholic faith to heresy would hold up their hands, every hand in the assembly was raised. Miracles were performed in such abundance that the heretics slunk off in dismay, and wherever Bernard appeared, so great was the excitement, that he was even afraid to encounter the crowds of his admirers. On one occasion, when bread was carried to him for his blessing (as was usual), he declared that, for the decision of the question between the church and the heretics, every sick person who should taste of that bread would be made whole. “If they receive with right faith they will be healed”, interposed Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, who feared that the abbot had been carried too far by his enthusiasm. “That is not what I say”, cried Bernard, “but of a truth those who taste shall be healed, that they may know us to be the true and faithful messengers of God!”. The miracle is said to have followed and the effect of it was decisive. Henry, driven from the city, had found a refuge among the nobles of the neighbourhood, who, although indifferent to his doctrines, were favourable to him as an enemy of the clergy. But at Bernard's instance he was given up in chains to the bishop of Toulouse. His further history appears to be unknown, and the sect, as a distinct body, seems to have become speedily extinct, partly through the effect produced by a young girl of Gascony, who, about the year 1151, used to lie insensible three days in each month, and, on awaking, to testily eloquently and learnedly against the errors of the Henricians.

(4.) CATHARI.The heretical opinions most widely spread during this time were those of a Manichaean character, which are found from England to the south of Italy, from the Hellespont to the Ebro. Appearances of this kind have already come before us in the early part of the eleventh century. But whereas those appearances, however similar to each other, seem to have been isolated, we now find in the heretics a knowledge of their own numbers and of the wide extent of their communion, with a formidable system of organization. The connection with the East becomes more distinct, and the oriental tone of their doctrine is too plain to be mistaken.

Of the names by which these sectaries were known, the commonest was that of              Cathari (in Italian, Gazzari, and in German, Ketzer), as to which, although other derivations have been proposed for it, there appears to be no reason for doubting that it is of Greek origin, and relates to their profession of purity. Among their other names were—Publicani or Poplicani,  which seems to point to a connection with the Paulicians; Patarini,  a name which, from having belonged to the opponents of clerical marriage at Milan in the preceding century, was now transferred to parties which disparaged all marriage, or perhaps had come to be used, in forgetfulness of its origin, as a convenient designation for sectaries; Apostolici, from their pretension to an apostolical manner of life; Bonshommes, a name which was affected by themselves and bestowed on them by those who favoured them; Bulgari  or Bougres which connects them with Bulgaria, but came to bear a meaning of the most odious kind. In Flanders they were styled Pyphles, as belonging to the “people” or poorer classes; in the south of France, Tisserands, because many of them were weavers; some of them were called after the names of leaders, as the Arnoldists, who were probably connected with an “arch-catharist” of Cologne named Arnold; while other names were derived from places—such as that of Agenenses, and, at a later time, the more celebrated name of Albigenses.

Sectaries who may be identified with the cathari appear during this time in many quarters — at Cologne and Bonn, at Reims and Toul, at Liege, Arras, and other places in Flanders; at Soissons, at Auxerre (where a bishop named Hugh was styled the “hammer of the heretics”), and at Vezelay; at Besançon, and perhaps at Perigueux (although the Manichaeism of the sectaries there is somewhat doubtful). An English writer of the time describes them as numerous in Anjou, but as swarming in Burgundy and Aquitaine. Spain was also infested by them; and in England itself a party of about thirty “Publicans” was discovered at Oxford about 1160. They were all Germans except a female English convert, who afterwards recanted; and all are described as utterly illiterate, with the exception of their leader, one Gerard. These sectaries were examined by a council held at Oxford, in the presence of Henry II, who was especially desirous at that time to give the exiled primate's party no pretext for representing him as favourable to heresy. By the king’s command they were branded in the face, severely flogged, and driven out of the town, after which, according to some writers, they perished in the fields by cold and hunger, as the people would hold no communication with them, while other authorities tell us that they were sent across the sea.

In the treatment of such persons in general, the king of England is honourably distinguished from most of his contemporaries; for we are told that while the Publicans were burnt in many places throughout France, king Henry would by no means allow this in his dominions, although there were many of them there; and it would seem that even warnings and calamities, which were represented as miraculous, were unable to change his policy in this respect. In most places where heretics were found, they were committed to the flames under the authority of bishops and princes, or by the violence of the multitude, and it is generally related that they bore their fate with a courage, and even with an appearance of exultation, which were traced to demoniacal influence. Yet there were eminent teachers who took a truer view of the manner in which error should be dealt with, and among these Bernard was conspicuous. In 1146 he received from Everwin, provost of Steinfeld, an account of some sectaries at Cologne, who were divided into two parties—the one unquestionably Manichaean, while the other seems to have been nearly akin to the Petrobrusians and Henricians. It was through the dissensions of these parties among themselves that they had been discovered; some of them, after a discussion with the clergy, had been hurried away and burnt by the mob; and Everwin expresses his regret for this violence, and asks Bernard to furnish him with arguments and authorities against the errors which he reports to him. In consequence of this application, Bernard composed two sermons on the text, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines”. In these sermons he argues zealously against the sectaries, and strongly denounces their peculiarities. But as to the right manner of dealing with them, his opinion is decidedly against persecution and bloodshed. “They are to be taken”, he says, “not with arms but with arguments; and, if possible, they are to be reconciled to the Catholic church, and recalled to the true faith. And that this is the will of Him who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, appears from its being said, not simply, ‘Take the foxes’ but ‘Take the foxes’ He commands that they be gained for Himself and for his spouse, the church”. The utmost that Bernard would sanction is that obstinate heretics should be driven away or imprisoned, rather than that they should destroy the spiritual vines. In like manner, St. Hildegard, while she everywhere expresses a strong detestation of heretics, and exhorts the secular authorities to drive them away by confiscation and banishment, adds that they ought not to be slain, “forasmuch as they are God’s image”. And Peter the Chanter of Paris, in the end of the century, condemns both capital punishment of heretics and the use of ordeals for their trial.

In Italy the cathari were to be found even as far south as Calabria. But they were especially numerous m Lombardy, where the heretics of Monteforte had appeared at an earlier time, and from the days of Ariald and Herlembald there had been a strong feeling against the clergy; and there they are described as abounding in cities and in suburbs, in villages and in castles, and as teaching publicly without fear or hindrance. The sectaries of Lombardy were divided into parties—those of Concorrezzo and of Albano mutually excommunicating each other; but with this exception it is said that their congregations were everywhere in communion. Of these churches sixteen are enumerated—in Italy and France, in Slavonia, at Constantinople (where there were one of Latins and one of Greeks), and elsewhere in the east; and it is said that all the rest were derived from those of Bulgaria and Dugunthia. The writer who gives this information reckons the whole number of the sect, including both sexes, at less than four thousand; but it would seem that this estimate was meant to exclude all but the “perfect” or highest grade of them.

But the chief stronghold of these sectaries was in the south of France, where circumstances were very favourable to the spreading of their opinions. The population of this territory were widely different from the northern French, to whom their dialect, the langue d'oc, was even unintelligible. Toulouse, the capital, was the ancient seat of the Arian Gothic monarchy, and heresy is said to have always lingered in the region. The nobles were remarkable for their gay and luxurious manner of life, and among them was cultivated a vernacular poetry of love and chivalry, strongly tinged with licentiousness, and unsparing in its satire against the clergy, who had fallen into tastes and habits too strongly resembling their own. The citizens had been enriched by commerce, and had achieved for themselves a degree of political freedom which was elsewhere unknown. The tone of thought and feeling was independent; Peter of Bruis and Henry had found an eager reception among the people, and had paved the way for other teaching hostile to the church. To the more serious, the heresy was commended by its professions of austerity; to those of opposite character, by its enmity to the clergy, and by the indulgence which it allowed to such of its converts as had not yet taken on themselves the obligations of its highest grade. We have already seen that in the beginning of the eleventh century some Manicheans were discovered and put to death at Toulouse. The renewed progress of heresy in the same region had been noticed and denounced as early as the year 1119, when Calixtus II held a council at that city; and the denunciation had been repeated by the Lateran council of 1139, by the council of Reims in 1148, and by that of Tours in 1163—all held under the presidency of popes. In 1165 a conference took place between some bishops and some of the "good men" (as they styled themselves) at Lombers, a little town near Albi; where the sectaries behaved with all the consciousness of strength, defied the sentence which was passed against their opinions, and were allowed to depart without any attempt to extend it to their persons. Some years later, we read of a council held by the heretics themselves at St. Felix de Caraman, near Toulouse, under the presidency of a personage styled “Pope Niquinta”—a name which has been identified with that of one Nicetas, who is said by a writer of the time to have come from Constantinople into Lombardy. A vast multitude of both sexes flocked to receive from this chief the mystical rite which was styled consolamentum. Representatives of several catharist churches appeared; bishops were chosen and ordained for these communities; and, with a view to the preservation of harmony among the sectaries, Niquinta told them that all churches were, like the seven churches of Asia, originally independent of each other; that such was still the case with their brethren of Bulgaria, Dalmatia, and the east; and he charged them to do in like manner.

In 1177 Raymond V, count of Toulouse, addressed a letter to the abbot of Citeaux and his chapter, requesting the assistance of the order against the heretics by whom his dominions were infested. About the same time the kings of France and England —probably at the count's instance— concerted measures for the suppression of the heresy; and at their request Peter, cardinal of St. Chrysogonus, Henry, abbot of Clairvaux, Guarin, archbishop of Bourges, Reginald, bishop of Bath, John, bishop of Poitiers, and others undertook a mission into the affected country. These commissioners describe the heresy as triumphant, not only among the people but among the clergy. On entering Toulouse they were hooted, and were reviled as hypocrites and heretics. They disputed with two leaders of the cathari, who disavowed the chief errors which were laid to their charge, and denied that they had ever taught so. But count Raymond and others deposed that they had often heard them vent those doctrines, and, as they refused to abjure, on the ground that oaths were unlawful, they were solemnly excommunicated. The chief supporter of the heresy at Toulouse, an old man of great wealth and powerful connexions, named Peter Moran, who is said to have been styled John the Evangelist, abjured his errors, and was punished by being repeatedly flogged, amerced in all his property, and sent on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Roger, viscount of Beziers, on being summoned to expel the heretics, and to procure the release of the bishop of Albi, who was in their hands, withdrew into an inaccessible part of his territories. He was therefore denounced excommunicate in the name of the pope, and was defied in feudal form on the part of the two kings. Many of the sectaries were brought to an abjuration; but this was in some cases only evasive and insincere, and the mission is described by a contemporary as having had little success.

In 1179 the council of Lateran passed a canon against the “Cathari, Patarini, or Publicani”, denouncing all who should favour them, and promising the indulgences and privileges of crusaders to those who should take arms against them. In 1181 Henry of Clairvaux, who at the council had been created cardinal-bishop of Albano, again proceeded into the south of France, as papal legate. His preaching was seconded, not only by miracles in refutation of the heretical opinions as to the Eucharist, but by an army which caused much devastation and bloodshed. Roger of Beziers was compelled to profess that he would show no favour to heretics, and after his death, in 1194, an oath to the same effect was taken by the guardians of his son, Raymond Rogers. Lucius III, in conjunction with the emperor Frederick, sent forth from Verona in 1184 a decree against all heretics, and prescribed measures for the suppression of their errors. But we shall see hereafter that, notwithstanding all the measures both of persuasion and of force which had been employed, the heresy continued to retain its hold on the population of Languedoc.

The leading principle of these sectaries was dualism; but, while some held this in the full Manichaean sense of supposing two gods, independent of and opposed to each other, others held a modified opinion, nearly resembling that of the bogomiles—that the creator of evil was himself created by the good god, and had fallen from his first estate by rebellion. The creation of the elements was by some ascribed to the good god, and by others to the bad; but all agreed in referring the division of the elements, and the formation of the world from out of them, to the bad god; and from the imperfection of the world—from the fire which burns and the water which drowns—it was argued that it could not be the work of Him who is all-perfect. The Son of God was said to be the highest angel, and was held to be inferior to the Father, as the Holy Ghost to the Son.

It was said that Adam and Eve were formed by the devil, and had souls of light imprisoned within their fleshly bodies; that the forbidden fruit was carnal intercourse; and that Cain was begotten by the devil. The god of the Old Testament was declared to be cruel, false, and changeable. The angel who foretold the birth of St. John the Baptist was said to have been sent by the devil, as was also John himself; the baptism of John was of the devil, and whatever was well spoken by him as to Christ, was spoken without his will or understanding. The reality of the Saviour’s incarnation was denied by the sectaries in general; by some the blessed Virgin was supposed to be an angel, while some regarded her as an allegorical representative of the church, and others supposed her to have been born of a woman alone, without any human father.

The bodily form of the Saviour, his actions and sufferings, were explained on the docetic principle; the gospel miracles were said to have been wrought in no other than a spiritual sense—such as feeding spiritual hunger, healing the diseases of the soul, or raising from the death of sin; and in this sense the sectaries claimed for themselves a continuance of miraculous power, by virtue of the Saviour’s promise.

The later miracles of the church were denied, and members of the sect sometimes threw ridicule on them by applying to some famous worker of miracles for the cure of a pretended ailment, and afterwards exposing the imposture.

The cathari professed an especial knowledge of Scripture, and a reverence for it which excluded all deference to tradition, and to the authority of the doctors of the church. Yet, like many other sectaries whom we have met with, they regarded Moses as an organ of the devil, and disparaged the Old Testament in general, although they made exceptions in favour of such parts of it as are quoted in the New Testament, and some of them seem to have admitted the poetical and prophetical books. They had vernacular versions of the Scriptures, and it is a significant fact as to the origin of the sect that these were based on the Greek. With these, they received some apocryphal books, which were also of eastern origin—among them, an apocryphal Gospel of St. John.

The cathari are said to have held the doctrine of absolute predestination, and to have been traducianists in their opinion as to the soul. By their Manichaean view as to the origin of all visible things they were led to deny the efficacy of Baptism administered with water, and the possibility of any change in the Eucharist. Christ, they said, did not baptize with water, but with the word and the Holy Spirit. They also derided the rite of confirmation, and the whole ecclesiastical system of confession, penance, and excommunication. Yet they had sacraments of their own, which, with a rigour far exceeding the most rigid system of the church, they declared to be absolutely necessary to salvation; so that, from their manner of insisting on rites and works, their adversaries took occasion to charge them with denying the power of faith. Of these sacraments, the chief was theconsolamentum, which they supposed to be the true baptism of fire—the rite which at once restored to each man for his guide the original heavenly soul which had been lost by the fall, and conveyed the gift of the consoling Spirit or Paraclete. The form of administering this began with the novice's publicly confessing his sins, and professing a desire to give himself to God and the gospel; after which the minister, holding the Gospel of St. John (or, according to some authorities, the whole New Testament) before his breast, pronounced absolution, laid the book on the novice’s head, repeating the Lord’s prayer seven times, and welcomed him by taking his right hand and kissing him. The administration of this rite was not limited to the clergy of the sect, but might, in case of need, be performed by any one who had received it—even by women. But if it were given by a sinner, it was null; and, in order to guard in some degree against the danger of its invalidity, it was commonly received twice, or oftener. For any grievous sin committed afterwards—such as eating flesh, cheese, or eggs—it was necessary to do penance and to be reconsoled but as to the more venial sins, a sincere confession was regarded as sufficient, and for this purpose there was a solemn monthly confession, styled apparcilamentum.

The other sacraments of the sect were—Blessing of Bread (which was performed over their daily food, and by which they supposed themselves to receive the spiritual nourishment of the Saviour’s body), Penance, and Ordination. The whole ritual system of the church was condemned; churches were said to be dens of thieves, church bells to be trumpets of devils, the cross to be the mark of the beast, the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. Images were denounced, and it is said that, by way of bringing them into contempt, the sectaries painted the saints under an uncomely form, and departed from the traditional type in representing the Saviour’s cross. Lights and incense, vestments, altars, chanting, the ceremonies of the mass and of ordination, holy water, relics, pilgrimages, unction of the sick, the doctrine of purgatory, the intercession of saints, the use of aims, prayers and masses for the dead, the festivals of the saints and all other holy days of the church, were utterly disallowed. But the cathari are said to have kept in honour of their founder a festival called Malilosa, which is iden­tified by Eckbert of Schonau with the Manichaean Bema, although that was celebrated in March, and the Melilosa in autumn.

Their opinion as to the origin of matter involved the denial of the resurrection of the body; and they are said—(although this seems irreconcilable with other opinions imputed to them)—to have held that all sins are equal, and will be equally punished—that “the traitor Judas will fare no worse than the child of one day old”. They denied that the true priesthood was in the Roman church, which they supposed to have been apostate from the time of pope Sylvester, whom they regarded as the Antichrist. The church was the harlot of the Apocalypse; all its ministrations were vain, and the true priesthood was confined to their own communion. But, unless many ancient writers are mistaken, they had a pope of their own in Bulgaria, with whom the western sectaries kept up an intercourse. They had also an order of bishops, under each of whom were two chief assistants, known as his elder and his younger son, and an order of deacons.

The members of the sect were divided into two classes —the imperfect or foederati (who, according to some writers, were subdivided into hearers and believers) and the elect or perfect. The perfect were those who had received the and by the form of admission to it were pledged to great severity of life. They no longer belonged to themselves, but were bound to travel and to labour for the service of the sect; they were to avoid and to renounce marriage, which was declared to be so fatal that no married persons could hope for salvation unless they separated before death; and, as a consequence of the opinion as to the unlawfulness of all sexual intercourse, they were to abstain from eating animals or their productions—fish alone, as coming out of the water, being excepted. And as it was held that penance for sins would be wrought out in this world by means of a transmigration of the soul, it was forbidden to kill all animals, except creeping things, in which it was believed that souls capable of salvation could not be contained.

The cathari reproached the church for assuming that there were various states of life in which men might be saved, and taught that their own sect and state only were lawful. As, in order to salvation, it was absolutely necessary to die in the sect, the foederati were required to receive theconsolamentum on their sick-beds, if not before; many entered into an agreement known as “la Convenenza”, that it should be administered to them in their last moments; and some, after having received it, starved themselves to death lest they should be again defiled by a relapse into sin. Besides this, which was styled endura, suicide was allowed in various cases, such as that of extreme persecution; and it is said that, in order to obtain for the receivers of clinical consolation a higher place in glory, it was usual for their friends to starve or to strangle them.

Reinerius Sacchoni tells us that many of those who had been admitted into the perfect grade, regretted that they had not taken advantage of their former immunity to indulge more fully in sin; that, in consequence of the belief in the all-purifying virtue of the consolamentum, the lives of the foederati were very lax; and that he himself, during a connection of seventeen years with the sect, had never seen any member of it pray by himself, or show any token of sorrow for sin. Other writers bring against the cathari accusations of magic, incest, and other abominations such as are usually laid to the charge of heretical parties. Oaths, and even affirmations, such as “truly” and “certainly”, were strictly forbidden; it is said that the “perfect” would rather die than swear, although the “believers” swore as freely as they lied. The use of equivocation was sanctioned, especially in answer to questions as to the sect, so that the opponents of the cathari compare them to eels, “which, the more tightly they are squeezed, the more easily they slip away”. They considered all war and all capital punishment to be murder, and declared the pope and his bishops to be murderers for countenancing wars; and they denounced with especial severity all wars and persecutions for the sake of religion. The “perfect” renounced all property, professing to follow the Saviour and his apostles in poverty, and they were constant in declaiming against the wealth and secularity of the clergy. It is, however, said that they themselves were fond of money, that they practised usury and other unscrupulous means of getting it, and that—partly from avarice, and partly from a disbelief in the efficacy of alms towards salvation—they were uncharitable to the poor. The graver invectives against the clergy were relieved by the performance of ludicrous parodies on the services of the church.

The zeal of the cathari in attempting to gain proselytes was indefatigable. They distributed little tracts in favour of their opinions—sometimes leaving them on the mountains, in the hope that shepherds might find them and might carry them to the clergy to read. The missionaries of the sect disguised themselves, changed their names, and assumed the character of catholics, that they might enter into disputation with avowed catharists, and might allow these to gain the appearance of victory. In order that they might have the arts of disputation at their command, young men of promising abilities were commonly sent from Lombardy and Tuscany to acquire dialectical and theological knowledge in the schools of Paris. The members of the sect were made known to their brethren by letters of recommendation and by secret signs; even their houses were distinguished by marks which enabled the initiated to recognize them. Their hospitality to members of their own community was unbounded, as we learn especially from a letter written by a person who, affecting the character of a brother, had lived on them for some years—being recommended by one congregation to another, from Lombardy to the Danube, and partaking of the luxuries which they enjoyed in secret. The rigid lives (in appearance, at least) of the perfect produced a strong impression on those who saw them, so that many of them even gained a high reputation for sanctity. Thus, after the death of one Armanno Pungilupo, at Ferrara, in 1269, the Ferrarese demanded canonization for him on the strength of his holy life and of miracles which he was said to have done, and the claim was supported not only by the canons of the cathedral, but apparently by the bishop. The investigation of the case lasted for no less than thirty years; but at length it was clearly proved that Pungilupo, while professing to forswear the patarine errors with which he had at one time been charged, had continued to be in reality an active official of the sect; and, although the canons had almost to the last adhered to his cause, Boniface VIII, decreed in 1301 that his body should be taken up and burnt as that of a heretic, and that an altar which had been erected to him, with all pictures and sculptures in honour of him, should be destroyed.

(5.) PASAGINI.Among the minor sects of the time, the Pasagini, of northern Italy, may be mentioned on account of the opposite nature of their errors in some respects to those of the cathari. By some, the name of these sectaries has been deduced from their unsettled manner of life; by others, frompasagium, a common term for the crusades, by means of which expeditions it is supposed that their opinions were brought into the west. Like the Manichaean heretics, the pasagini denied the unity and the equality of the Divine Persons, and condemned the Roman church; but, in marked opposition to the catharist doctrines as to the Old Testament, they maintained the abiding obligation of the Mosaic law —of circumcision, the sabbath, and the distinction of clean and unclean meats.

(6.) WALDENSES.The early history of the Waldenses has been obscured by two opposite parties who identify them with the Albigenses—the one party with a view of involving Waldenses as well as Albigenses in a common charge of Manichaeism, while the other party regards the Albigenses, no less than the Waldenses properly so called, as free from Manichaean error, and as the inheritors and maintainers of a pure and scriptural Christianity. By the supporters of this latter view, the name of the sect is derived from the valleys of Piedmont, where its faith is supposed to have been preserved and transmitted from the time of the apostles by a chain of witnesses, among whom Vigilantius, in the fourth century, and Claudius of Turin, in the ninth, are conspicuous. The Waldenses themselves, in the thirteenth century, professed to have existed as a distinct body from the time of pope Sylvester I—when they supposed that the poison of secularity had been poured into the church by the imaginary donation of Constantine—or even from the days of the apostles. But such pretensions are contradicted by the unanimous testimony of writers who lived soon after the origin of the sect—that it was founded by one Waldo or Waldensis, about the year 1170. And the only connection of their name with valleys in the early writers is of a figurative kind; as where one tells us that they styled themselves Vallenses from sojourning in the vale of tears, or where another derives the name of Valdenses from their dwelling in the deep and dense valleys of darkness and error.

Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, is said to have been deeply impressed by the death of one of his fellow-citizens, which took place at a meeting of the chief inhabitants of the place. His mind being thus turned to spiritual things, he became desirous to understand the Gospels which he had been accustomed to hear in church; and he employed two ecclesiastics, Stephen of Evisa (or Ansa), and Bernard Ydros, to translate them into the vernacular tongue, with other portions of scripture and some passages of the fathers, which were regularly arranged under heads. Struck with the idea of imitating our Lord and His apostles in voluntary poverty, Peter threw all his wealth to the poor, and, in company with some associates of both sexes whom he had gained, he began to preach in the streets of the city, and in the neighbouring villages. But the archbishop of Lyons, on hearing of these proceedings, forbade Peter and his friends to teach; and on receiving the answer that they must “obey God rather than man”—that the Saviour had commanded them to “preach the gospel to every creature”—he excommunicated them, and expelled them from his diocese. On this, Peter, who had no intention of separating from the church, but aimed at the revival of what he supposed to be apostolical purity within it, sent two of his party to Rome, with orders to exhibit to Alexander III some specimens of their translations from the Scriptures, and to request his sanction for their labours. The subject was referred by the pope to a commission, and Walter Map, archdeacon of Oxford, who has left an account of the proceedings, was appointed to examine the Waldenses. Their simplicity and their ignorance of theological language excited the laughter of the examiners, and their application to the pope was ineffectual, although the Lateran council, which was sitting at the time, did not include them in its condemnation of heretical parties. In 1184, however, those who falsely style themselves humilliati,  or “poor men of Lyons”, were, with other sectaries, put under perpetual anathema by Lucius III; and it would seem that to them the pope intended especially to point in his denunciation of some who, under an appearance of piety, presume to preach without being duly sent, so that the condemnation was not for heterodoxy, but for irregularity.

From this time the “poor men of Lyons” (as they were called from their claim to evangelical poverty of spirit) became more decidedly separate from the church, and their opinions were more distinctly developed in opposition to it. They spread into the south of France, into Lombardy, and into Aragon, wherein 1194 Alfonso II issued a decree for their expulsion as enemies of the cross and of the kingdom. The earliest real evidence which connects them with Piedmont is of the year 1198, when James, bishop of Turin, obtained from the emperor Otho IV authority to use forcible measures against them. The progress of the sect was rapid. In Lombardy and Provence the Waldenses had more schools than the Catholics; their preachers disputed and taught publicly, while the number and importance of the patrons whom they had gained rendered it dangerous to interfere with them. In Germany we are told that they had forty-one schools in the diocese of Passau, and they were numerous in the dioceses of Metz and Toul. In most of these quarters the ground had been prepared for them by the labours of earlier sectaries, and by the faults and unpopularity of the clergy; and their zeal in endeavouring to gain converts was unremitting. Female agency was largely employed, and through it the men were won “as the serpent deceived Adam by means of Eve”. The missionaries of the sect are said to have used underhand arts for the purpose of spreading their doctrines; thus they would disguise themselves as pedlars, and having in that character obtained access to the houses of nobles, they took occasion from the nature of their wares to exhort to the purchase of heavenly jewels. With the simpler people, they began by promising to disclose great things to them; and, after having tried their secrecy by imparting to them some plain lessons of morality with a confidential and mysterious air, they went on to teach the more peculiar doctrines of the sect. Their eagerness to study and to learn, and their remarkable acquaintance with the vernacular Scriptures, are acknowledged by their adversaries. Labourers and artisans, after the work of the day, devoted their evening hours to study; and it is stated, in reproof of the indolence of the clergy, that a poor Waldensian used to swim across a river in wintry nights to reach a catholic whom he wished to convert. They taught and learned everywhere—even in lazar-houses. If any ignorant person met their exhortations to learn by pleading inability, they told him that, by learning a single word daily, he would in a year master more than three hundred. But the knowledge of the sectaries was not of any wide or scholarly kind, so that they are often derided for their illiteracy, through which it is said that they fell into ludicrous misinterpretations of Scripture and as they were themselves illiterate, they made their ignorance a ground for condemning all “privileged” or liberal studies. It is said, too, that in consequence of their occupation in the study of Scripture, they allowed but little time for devotion, and that they admitted no other form of prayer but the Paternoster.

The especial peculiarity of the Waldenses was that, while they avoided the Manichaeism by which the sectaries of their time were for the most part infected, they endeavoured more thoroughly than the Petrobrusians or the Henricians to form a system of belief and practice derived from the Scriptures only. At first their distinctive tenet had been the right of the laity to preach; and this they gradually carried out to the extent of maintaining, not only that lay persons might teach in subordination to the authorities of the church, but that they might preach and might administer all Christian rites in opposition to the clergy; that the right to minister was not conferred by ordination, but depended on personal piety. In the early days of the sect this claim was not limited to the male sex; but it would seem that the ministrations of women were afterwards forbidden. From this principle the Waldenses proceeded to a general enmity against the clergy, whom they charged with having cast them out of the church from envy of their virtue and popularity, and decried in all possible ways. After their excommunication, they declared the pope to be the source of all error, the church to be the apocalyptic beast and the whore of Babylon; that it had been apostate, and had lost its spiritual power, from the time of Sylvester, whom they identified with the “little horn” of Daniel’s prophecy, although they held that in all ages there had been some who maintained the true faith, and were inheritors of salvation. They limited salvation to their own sect, as being the only body which lived like the Saviour and his apostles. They declared monks and clergy to be the scribes and pharisees, children of the devil, disallowed all distinctions of order and rank among them, and wished to confiscate all their endowments and privileges, so as to reduce them to the condition of diggers, earning their bread by the labour of their hands. Yet, while they themselves professed rigid evangelical poverty, and avoided the pursuits by which wealth might be gained, it was held that the teachers were entitled to be maintained by the “imperfect” members of the sect and some of their opponents represent them as notorious for idleness, and for a love of basking lazily in the sunshine.

Like the cathari, the Waldenses opposed the whole ritual system of the church, with everything that pretended to a symbolical character, and denied the claims of the clergy to the powers of excommunication, absolution, and exorcism. They also disallowed the right of the church to make laws or constitutions, alleging that the Saviour’s teaching was enoughs They attended the public services, confessed and communicated, but it is said that in their hearts they mocked at such observances. They denied the efficacy of baptism, especially in the case of infants, whom they believed to be saved without it. As to the Eucharist, some represent them as supposing it to be merely figurative; but according to other authorities they held that the elements really underwent a change—not, however, in the hands of the priest, but in the mouth of the faithful receiver. In the consecration, as in the rest of their services, they made use of the vernacular tongue. They denounced the penitential system of the church, as alike burdensome and unavailing, and contrasted with it the full and free forgiveness which their own sect offered, after the example of the Saviour’s words, “Go, and sin no more”. They denied the doctrine of purgatory, and the lawfulness of the practices connected with it—some of them believing in an intermediate state of rest or of punishment, while others held that souls on leaving the body go at once to their final abode. They denied the miracles of the church, and pretended to none of their own, although in later times some of them professed to see visions.

The Waldenses are described as quiet, modest, and formal in their manners. They regarded a lie as a mortal sin, which no circumstances could excuse; but it is said that they avoided answering directly, and had “feigned consciences” which suggested ingenious evasions to them. They eschewed commerce on account of the falsehoods which were supposed to be involved in the practice of it, and restricted themselves to manual labour. As to oaths, war, and capital punishment, their views agreed with those of the cathari. At the outset they affected poverty of dress, and one of their names —or —was derived from the sandals which they wore in imitation of the apostles but such peculiarities were afterwards abandoned, and they are described as grave but not sordid in their attire. They avoided and sternly denounced the ordinary amusements of the world; “every step that one takes at a dance”, it was said, “is a leap towards hell”. They were scrupulous in the use of blessings before and after meals. Unlike the cathari, they held it lawful to eat meat, even on days when it was forbidden by the church and they held marriage to be lawful, although they regarded celibacy as higher.

Much as the Waldenses differed from the church, it is admitted by their ecclesiastical opponents that they were “far less perverse than other heretic”, that they were sound in their faith as to the doctrines which relate to God, and received all the articles of the creed so that, in the south of France, they were sometimes allied with the clergy in defence of these truths against Manichaean and other sectaries. While they highly exalted the gospel above the law, it was in no spirit of Manichaean disparagement of the older scriptures. And, although they did not escape the popular charges of secret and abominable rites, or the imputation of hypocrisy, the general purity of their morals is allowed by their opponents.

From the sectaries of this age the transition is easy to the visionaries who were among its remarkable features; for, however devoted to the papacy these might be, they agreed with the sectaries in denouncing the secularity of the clergy, in crying out for a reform, and often in prophesying their downfall. Among the most noted of these visionaries were two German abbesses—Hildegard, of St. Rupert’s near Bingen, whose name as already come before us, and Elizabeth of Schonau. Elizabeth appears to have been of a very nervous temperament, and was frequently visited with illness. It is said that, from the age of twenty-three, she was in the habit of falling into trances on Sundays and holidays, at the hours when the church was engaged in its most fervent devotions. In these trances she uttered oracles in Latin, although unacquainted with that language; and, after having long refrained from telling the visions with which she was favoured, she was at last constrained by the threats of an angel, and by the authority of her ecclesiastical superior, to dictate a report of them to her brother Eckbert—the same who has already been mentioned as a controversialist against the cathari. In her visions she was admitted to behold the saints, the angelic hierarchy, and the blessed Virgin—whom she speaks of by the title of “Queen of Heaven”—and from them she received revelations on difficult and doubtful points. Among other things, she is said to have learned, after much inquiry, that the mother of our Lord was "assumed" both in body and in soul; she contributed to the legend of St. Ursula, by giving names to many of the newly-found relics of the 11,000 virgins; and in connection with that fabulous company were revealed to her the existence and the history of a fabulous pope Cyriac, who was said to have resigned his dignity that he might share in their travels and their martyrdom. In a letter to Hildegard, Elizabeth complains that forged prophecies were circulated under her name; among them, that she was reported to have foretold the day of judgments. Both Hildegard and Elizabeth, although they were devoted to the Roman church, and have, without any formal canonization, attained the honour of saintship, were strong in their denunciations of the faults of the clergy and Hildegard foretold that these would be punished by heavy chastisements, of which the heretics were to be the instrument. Such prophetesses as these nervous and enthusiastic women had a powerful influence on their age but it is probable that the writings which bear their names have been largely tampered with, or in great part composed, by those through whose hands they have passed.

The most famous and the most remarkable of all the visionaries was Joachim, a Calabrian, who was born in 1145 (or, according to some, as early as 1130) and died in 1202. In his youth he was introduced by his father to the court of Roger II of Sicily; but in disgust at the courtly life he broke away, and went on a pilgrimage to Egypt and the Holy Land, where he distinguished himself by the severest ascetic exercises. On his return he became an inmate, and afterwards abbot, of Corace, a Cistercian monastery near Squillace; and, after a time of solitary retirement and study, he founded the abbey of Fiore, near the confluence of the Albula and the Neto, which became the head of a new and very rigid order. Although Joachim's opinions did not pass without question among his contemporaries, he exercised a powerful influence over important persons both ecclesiastical and secular. His labours on the obscurer parts of Scripture were encouraged and approved by three successive popes—Lucius, Urban, and Clement. Richard of England and Philip of France, on their way to the Holy Land, held conferences with him at Messina, when it is said that Richard was greatly impressed by the prophecies which he professed to have derived from the Apocalypse, and in 1191 he threw himself in the way of Henry VI with such effect that the emperor was persuaded to desist from his ravages and cruelties, and requested him to expound the prophecy of Jeremiah.

Joachim is described as remarkable not only for piety, but for modesty. The gift which he claimed was not that of prophecy, but of understanding. This gift, however, was supposed to have rendered him independent 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, whose attempts to attain to spiritual knowledge by means of their own reason he likened to the efforts of the men of Sodom to break in the door of Lot's house—the house of contemplation. Thus he was led to make a violent attack on Peter Lombard's doctrine as to the Trinity, and to draw on himself in consequence the censure of the fourth Lateran council, as having vented a heresy which savoured of 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, 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 “clarity”. Thus, the first state, in which men lived according to the flesh, began with Adam, reached its clarity in Abraham, and ended with Zacharias, the father of St. John the Baptist. The second state, which is divided between the flesh and the Spirit, began with Elijah, and reached clarity in Zacharias; the third began with St Benedict, and its clarity—the outpouring of the Spirit upon flesh—was to be at the end of the forty-second generation from the Nativity—in the year 1260. The character and mutual relation of these states were illustrated by a variety of comparisons. In the first, the mystery of the kingdom of God was shown as by stars in the darkness of night; the second was as the dawn, and the third as the perfect day. The three answered to the respective attributes of the Divine Persons—power, wisdom, and love. The letter of the Old Testament was of the Father; the letter of the New Testament, of the Son; and, as the Holy Ghost proceedeth from both the Father and the Son, so under His dispensation the spirit of both Testaments would be manifested. The first was the state of slavery; the second, of filial service; the third, of friendship and freedom. There was first the state of married persons; next, that of clerks; lastly, that of monks, hermits, and contemplatives. The three were respectively typified in St. Peter, who represents the power of faith; in St. Paul, the representative of knowledge; and in St. John, the representative of love and contemplation, who was to tarry till his Lord should come. According to this system, the world was on the eve of a great change; the first sixty years of the thirteenth century—the last years of the forty-two generations between the Incarnation and the consummation of all things—were to be a middle period; and in the last three years and a half of this time Antichrist would come. It is said that Joachim told Richard of England that Antichrist was already born at Rome; and that the king replied that in that case he must be no other than the reigning pope, Clement. But Joachim looked for Antichrist to arise from among the patarines, and expected him to be supported by an antipope, who would 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 of the papacy itself. He regarded Rome as being at once Jerusalem and Babylon—Jerusalem, as the seat of the papacy; Babylon, as the seat of the empire, committing fornication with the kings of the earth. For he regarded the German empire 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.

On account of the connexion with the Byzantine empire, as well as of its errors as to the Holy Ghost, he very strongly censures the Greek church, which he compares to Israel, while the Roman church is typified by Judah; yet, in accordance with 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. 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 as Esau. The seculars were to perish as martyrs in the final contest with Antichrist; and after his fall 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 the Franciscan orders. In its original shape the prophecy contained nothing beyond what might have been conjectured by his natural sagacity; he speaks of two men 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 individuals become two new orders, which are to preach the “everlasting gospel”, to convert Jews and Mahometans, 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 marked with a precision which proves the spuriousness of the passage. And as, of the two new orders, the Franciscans are preferred, it would seem that the forgery is rather to be traced to them than to the Dominicans.

That there was much danger in Joachim's speculations is evident, although he protested that his belief was entirely in accordance with that of the church; yet it would be a mistake (however natural) to suppose that he meant to represent Christianity itself as something temporary and transitory. For he speaks only of two Testaments, which, according to him, were to be followed, not by a third, but by an enlightenment as to the meaning of the two. And his reputation, supported on one side by papal approbation of his works and of his order, while on the other side it was disparaged by the general council's condemnation of his doctrine as to the Trinity—continued to be of a mixed and doubtful kind. Notwithstanding that the gift of miracles, as well as that of prophecy, was claimed for him, an attempt to procure his canonization at Rome in 1346 was unsuccessful but he has obtained at the hands of the great Florentine poet a place among the beatified spirits in Paradise.

CHAPTER XIII.

SUPPLEMENTARY.

I.

THE HIERARCHY

By the labours of Gregory VII and his followers the papacy was exalted, not only in opposition to the secular powers, but in its relations to the rest of the hierarchy; and the continual increase of its influence over the whole church was unchecked by those frequent displays of insubordination among the subjects of its temporal power which compelled the popes of this time to be in great part exiles from their city. While emperors, instead of confirming the elections of popes, as in earlier ages, were fain to seek the papal confirmation of their own election—while they and other sovereigns were required to hold the pope’s stirrup, to walk as grooms by the side of his horse, and to kiss his feet—while it was taught that to him belonged the “two swords”, that kingdoms were held under him, and that the highest earthly dignities were conferred by him—the principles of Gregory went beyond those of the False Decretals by making St. Peter’s successor not merely the highest authority in the church, but the sole authority—all other spiritual power being represented as held by delegation from him. Thus Innocent II told the Lateran council of 1139 that all ecclesiastical dignity was derived from the Roman see by a sort of feudal tenure, and that it could not be lawfully held except by the pope’s permission. We have seen that an oath of fidelity to the pope was exacted of St. Boniface, when sent as a missionary bishop into Germany; and in other special cases such oaths had been sometimes required. Now, however, an important change was introduced by Gregory, who in 1079 exacted of the patriarch of Aquileia a new episcopal oath, which was in part modelled on the oath of secular fealty, and which thus implied a feudal dependence of the bishop on the pope, as the source of all his powers. By Gregory himself this was not imposed on any others than metropolitans and his own immediate suffragans; but in no long time it was exacted of all bishops, who now professed to hold their office not only “by the grace of God”, but also by that “of the apostolic see”. In some instances Gregory appeared to scruple as to interfering with the ancient right of metropolitans to consecrate their suffragans; and even later popes thought it well to make courteous apologies for having invaded the metropolitan privileges by such acts. But Gregory's council of 1080 had decreed that the election of bishops should be approved by the pope or the metropolitan and, as bishops-elect became more and more disposed to flock to Rome (especially in cases of disputed election, as to which the popes claimed an exclusive right to decide, and in most cases established it before the end of the century), the power of confirmation and consecration was gradually transferred from the metropolitans to the pope alone.

The exercise of penitential discipline was also now assumed by the popes in a greater degree, although they still make occasional professions of respecting the rights of the local bishops. The fondness for appealing to Rome in every case is a subject of complaint, not only on the part of princes, such as Henry II of England, but of such ecclesiastics as Hildebert of Tours and Bernard. Gregory VIII complained of being distracted by needless appeals, and tried to check the practice; but his pontificate was too short to have much effect. As excommunication deprived of the power of appearing in ecclesiastical courts, bishops and archdeacons sometimes resorted to it as a means for the prevention of appeals; but this was forbidden by the Lateran council of 1179.

But it was not by appeals only that causes were transferred from the provinces to the Roman court. There was a tendency to carry questions at once to the pope—passing over the local authorities to whose jurisdiction they in the first instance belonged and the reservation of “greater causes” to the pope alone became more and more injurious to the rights of the bishops and metropolitans. Among these causes were canonization, which (as we have already seen) was for the first time reserved to the holy see by Alexander III, and dispensations as to marriage, oaths, translation of bishops, and other matters. Dispensations, in the sense of a license given beforehand to do something which was forbidden by the laws of the church, had been unknown in earlier times, when the only kind of dispensation granted was a forgiveness of past irregularity. But now popes began to claim the right of granting dispensations beforehand, and of exercising this power in all parts of the church, concurrently with the local bishops. In this, as in other things, the tendency of the age led men to apply to the pope or to his legates rather than to their own bishops; and thus by degrees the pope’s authority in such matters, from having been concurrent with that of the bishops, was established as exclusive by Innocent III.

Among the means of enforcing the idea that all ecclesiastical power belonged to the pope, the system of legation was the chief. In former times, the only representatives whom the popes had maintained in foreign countries were their “apocrisiaries” at Constantinople, or at the court of the earlier Frankish emperors at a later date, such legates as were sent forth were employed only on special occasions, and for some particular business. But from the time of Leo IX legates were appointed with commissions unlimited either as to the nature of their business or as to the duration of their power; and this system was developed by Gregory VII so that every country had its regular legate—whether one of the local prelates, or an emissary sent directly from the papal court. These legates, according to Gregory, were to be heard even as the pope himself. It had before been held that the pope, on personally visiting a country, might summon the bishops to a council; and now this power was extended to the legates, in contempt of the authority of the metropolitans. The legates acted everywhere as the highest authorities, although themselves perhaps in no higher order than that of deacon or subdeacon. They cited metropolitans and all bishops under pain of suspension, deposed bishops, wrested cases from the ordinary courts, and threatened the vengeance of the pope against all who might oppose them. Yet the alliance of these Roman emissaries was so important to bishops, and especially in strengthening them against the secular power, that few bishops dared to provoke their enmity. The assumption, the rapacity, the corruption of the legates were excessive and even proverbial. They were authorized to draw their maintenance from the countries which they passed through, as well as from those to which they were destined, and no limits were set to the demands which they were allowed to make for procurations, so that John of Salisbury 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”.

Bernard, in a letter to a cardinal-bishop of Ostia, has given a remarkable picture of another cardinal, named Jordan, in the character of legate to France—“He has passed from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people, everywhere leaving foul and horrible traces among us. He is said to have everywhere committed disgraceful things; to have carried off the spoils of churches; to have promoted pretty little boys to ecclesiastical honours wherever he could; and to have wished to do so where he could not. Many have bought themselves off, that he might not come to them; those whom he could not visit, he taxed and squeezed by means of messengers. In schools, in courts, in the places where roads meet, he has made himself a by-word. Seculars and religious, all speak ill of him; the poor, the monks, and the clergy complain of him”. In some cases sovereigns obtained a promise from the pope that legates should not be sent into their dominions without their consent, but such promises were sometimes broken, and were more frequently evaded by committing the business of legates to persons who were styled by some other title; while, on the other hand, kings sometimes excluded or expelled legates from their territories, or made them swear before admittance that they would do no mischief.

The pretensions of popes with regard to councils rose higher. Princes now no longer convoked such assemblies as in former times; indeed the emperors had no longer that general sway which would have procured for any order of theirs obedience from the subjects of other sovereigns. The councils of Piacenza and Clermont were summoned by Urban II on his own authority, in reliance on the general excitement in favour of the crusading cause. For such a step the ground had been laid by Gregory's summoning bishops from all quarters to his lenten synods at Rome; and in the new episcopal oath there was a promise of attendance at all councils to which the bishop should be cited by the pope. The claims which had been set up for the popes in the False Decretals were now more than realized; for it was held that provincial councils required the pope’s authority, not only to confirm them, but to summon them, and it became usual that papal legates should be the presidents. And for all such assemblies there was the dread of an appeal to Rome, with the knowledge that appeals were likely to be favourably entertained. Towards councils themselves, also, the pope's tone became higher than before; thus Paschal II, in answer to the objection that the new episcopal oath had not been sanctioned by any council, declares that the pope is sufficient without a council, although a council is not sufficient without the pope.

A sort of infallibility now began to be claimed for the popes—chiefly on the ground of our Lord's words to St. Peter, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not”. Yet this official infallibility was not supposed to secure the pope against personal errors; and Gratian goes so far as to declare that certain words of Gregory II are utterly opposed, not only to the canons, but to the doctrine of the Gospels and of the apostles..

In consequence of the agitation excited by Hildebrand, the election of bishops fell into the hands of the clergy, and more especially of the canons of cathedrals. It was, indeed, admitted by the hierarchical writers that, according to the precedent of early times, the laity ought to have some part in the election. But those whom such writers were willing to admit as representatives of the laity were the great retainers and officers of the church; the sovereign was declared to be shut out from all share in the choice and, after the pattern of papal elections, which were now confined to the cardinals alone, the election of bishops came to be regarded as belonging to the cathedral clergy exclusively. It was found, however, that the change in the manner of appointment, instead of doing away with that corruption which had been the subject of such indignant denunciations, had only the effect of transferring it from courtiers to 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 which would be 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 actual 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 had chosen for themselves.

In many countries, however, the sovereigns still retained their influence. In France, England, and Spain, the king’s licence was necessary before an election, and his confirmation of the bishop-elect was also necessary; while in the Sicilies, Hungary, Denmark, and Sweden the kings still enjoyed the power of nomination. The appointment of archbishops of Canterbury was the subject of struggles which were renewed at every vacancy, as, in addition to the claims of the king and of the monks of the cathedral, the bishops of the province claimed a share in the election. The most remarkable of these contests was perhaps that which followed on the death of Becket's successor, Richard. The bishops made choice of Baldwin, bishop of Worcester, but the monks refused to concur in this, and pretended to an exclusive right of election, which, they said, had been confirmed to them by the king in penitence for the death of St. Thomas. This claim was asserted with such obstinacy as to provoke Henry to exclaim that the prior of Canterbury, Alan, wished to be a second pope in England; but after a long contest, and much skillful management on the part of the king, it was contrived that some representatives of the monks, who had been summoned to Westminster, should, after declaring the election by the bishops to be null, independently elect the same person on whom the choice of the bishops and of the king had already fallen.

Sovereigns no longer ventured to found bishoprics without the consent of popes; but they strongly resisted the attempts of the popes to parcel out their dominions by new foundations or new arrangements of sees. Yet we have seen that Henry the Lion, of Saxony, although his rank was not that of king but of duke, took it on himself to erect bishoprics in the north of Germany, to nominate bishops, and to grant them investiture.

The question of investiture, after the long contests which it had occasioned, was settled by means of compromises. We have seen how this was arranged in England, and by the concordat of Worms; and also that in 1119 the form of investing by ring and staff was not used in France. But the substance of investiture still remained. A distinction was drawn between homagium and ligium— the former implying general faithfulness and obedience, while the other included an obligation to serve the feudal lord “against all men who may live or die”; and it was held that the episcopal homage, being unencumbered with this last condition, was lawful. The name of investiture was applied to the ceremony of homage, and Bernard himself speaks of such investiture as unobjectionable. Hugh of Fleury wrote a tract with the intention of mediating between the claims of the church and of the state. He holds that temporal as well as spiritual power is derived from God; that the priesthood, although higher in order than royalty, cannot claim earthly dignity; and that bishops may rightly be invested with their temporalities by princes, although the investiture with ring and staff, as being the symbols of spiritual office, ought to be reserved for the metropolitans. And, although some bishops were disposed to claim an exemption from feudal duties, even such popes as Alexander III and Innocent III acknowledged that in regard of their temporalities they were liable to the usual feudal obligations, and were subject to the courts of their liege lord.

In this age popes began to interfere with the patronage of ecclesiastical dignities and offices throughout the western church, the earliest instance being a letter of Adrian IV to the bishop, dean, and chapter of Paris, as to the bestowal of a canonry on Hugh, the chancellor of Lewis VII. The favoured objects of the papal requests (preces) were styled precistoe, but, as the requests were the less likely to meet with attention in proportion as their number was unreasonably increased, the more peremptory form of a mandate was adopted—at first as an addition to the requests, and afterwards as a substitute for them. And until a suitable preferment should fall vacant, the patrons were desired to provide out of their own funds a pension for the person recommended to them. When, however, sovereigns attempted any practices of the same kind, the popes were naturally vehement in denouncing them. As yet the papal recommendations, while interfering with patronage, admitted that it rightfully belonged to the prelates, chapters, or monastic societies to whom they were addressed. But in the next century this came to be denied, and the revenues of the church in countries north of the Alps—most especially in England—were preyed on by a host of Italians, forcibly quartered on them by the popes.

RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE

In France the growth of the royal power affected the relations of the state with the church. Philip Augustus was sovereign of a territory twice as large as that of Philip I, and the kingdom had advanced very greatly in culture and in wealth. The kings were getting the mastery over their great vassals, and, although in their struggle against these they had been allied with the clergy, they now put forward new pretensions of dignity against the hierarchy itself; thus Philip refused to do homage for certain lands held under the church, like the former tenants, the counts of Flanders, on the ground that the king must not do homage to any one. On the other hand also the bishops lost, both in Italy and in France, by the rise of the municipal communities. The amount of this rise, indeed, was less in France, where the towns were less populous and more distant from each other, where they were not aided by the influence of the clergy, and, instead of being able to combine their energies against one common foe, each town had, as its first necessity, to carry on a feud with some neighbouring noble. All, therefore, that the French communes as yet claimed was civic freedom—not such independence as the Italians achieved. In many cases bishops were the lords from whom emancipation was desired; and, while some struggled against the movement, others accommodated themselves to it. Sometimes they sold privileges to the citizens; sometimes they freely granted them; while in many cases, especially under Philip Augustus, privileges detrimental to the power of the bishops were granted by the sovereign, on condition of payments to the royal exchequer. By means of friendly arrangements with the citizens, indeed, the bishops were able to secure these as allies against the neighbouring nobles; but, although they still retained their high rank in the state, much of the power which had formerly belonged to their order had now passed into the hands either of the sovereign or of the commonalty.

When Gregory VII propounded his doctrines as to the relations of the ecclesiastical and the secular powers, the imperial cause found many champions among the clergy. But after a time it began to be understood how advantageous the hierarchical pretensions were to the whole clerical body—that the greatness of the pope, as the Hildebrandine system represented him, was reflected in a degree even on the most inconsiderable ecclesiastic. When, too, it was believed that all secular power emanated from the pope, there was less difficulty in believing the same as to spiritual power; and thus, in no long time, the clergy in general were possessed by ideas which ranged them on the side of the papacy in its differences with temporal sovereigns.

The claims of the church as to matters of judicature were continually growing. In this respect the popes made a great step by exempting crusaders from all power of civil magistrates, and by forbidding that they should be sued for debts; and this measure, which was allowed to pass unquestioned amid the general enthusiasm for the holy war, became a foundation for other pretensions, which, if they had been nakedly advanced in ordinary circumstances, would have encountered a strong opposition. As the church was supposed to have jurisdiction in all matters to which the canons related, the condemnation of any offence by a pope or a council was supposed to bring that offence within the cognizance of the ecclesiastical courts, which thus claimed the power of judging, whether solely or concurrently, of such crimes as incendiarism and false coining. These courts also claimed exclusive jurisdiction in all cases relating to wills, marriages, and usury; and this jurisdiction was extended by ingenious subtleties. Thus, under the head of usury, a vast number of commercial transactions were brought within their cognizance, and all dealings with Jews were considered to belong to the province of the ecclesiastical courts. In like manner, if a contract were ratified by an oath, a breach of contract became perjury, and a subject for these courts; and on the ground that the vassal took an oath to his lord, an attempt was even made in France to claim for them a right of deciding questions as to fiefs, although this attempt was checked by Philip Augustus and his nobles. When a French council had forbidden the sale of corn on Sunday, it was held that all cases as to the sale of corn were matter for the ecclesiastical tribunals, because the first question in such cases was the inquiry on what day the sale took place. And such extensions of the province of the spiritual courts were made with general approbation, as these were usually less violent in their processes and in their sentences than the secular courts; while ecclesiastics found an inducement to encroach on the business of the secular judges, not only in the increase of their power, but in the fees and other payments which were transferred to them. But the multiplicity of business which was thus brought into the hands of the clergy became, as St. Bernard complains, a temptation to neglect their more proper pursuits; and many canons were passed to check their fondness for acting as advocates, even in the secular courts. The claim advanced in England, that the church should have exclusive jurisdiction over clerks, and in all cases relating to them, has been mentioned in connection with the name of archbishop Becket. In other countries, too, similar pretensions were set up; but it was soon found that in their full extent they were too monstrous to be admitted, and compromises were made, by which, while a large immunity was secured for the clergy, they were yet not to be exempt from the secular magistrates “for man-slaying, theft, arson, or such like common crimes which belong to the pleas of the sword”.

The change introduced into the functions of archdeacons as to the administration of the church has been already mentioned. But now these officers began to set up pretensions to an increase of dignity and influence. Whereas they had formerly attended on the bishops in their visitations, and, if they themselves visited, it was merely as the delegates of the bishops, they now claimed for themselves independent rights of visitation and jurisdiction; they tyrannized over the clergy, and defied the episcopal authority. In some cases, where a new see had been formed by the subdivision of a diocese, the archdeacons attempted to exercise jurisdiction over the bishops; but this claim was disallowed by the popes, who also found it necessary in other respects to check the assumption and rapacity of the archdeacons. When, however, an archbishop of Canterbury attempted to exempt some places from the jurisdiction of archdeacons, Alexander III forbade this innovation. The advantages of the office continued, as in former times, to attract the desires of laymen, and canons were passed that no one under the order of priest or deacon should be allowed to hold an arch­deaconry. Laymen who for the sake of gain desire such an office, says Innocent II, are not to be called archdeacons, but archdevils.

The exactions of archdeacons and rural deans were the subject of many complaints, especially as to the matter of penance, in which they are described as making a gain of sins. John of Salisbury, in a letter to Nicholas de Sigillo on his appointment to the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, amusingly reminds him of the terms in which he had formerly spoken of archdeacons as a class excluded from the hope of salvation by their love of money, which led them to lie and plunder, and to “eat and drink the sins of the people”. From the time of the council of London in 1108, canons were passed with a view of checking such practices. Bishops at length attempted to get over the annoyance which they experienced from the archdeacons, by erecting new courts of their own, on the principles of the canon law, and by appointing persons with the title of officials to preside in these, while they employed “vicars” or rural deans to assist them in their pastoral work. But here again corruptions crept in; for it was soon complained that the bishops made a gain of the new offices by selling them or letting them for hire, and thus compelling the holders to indemnify themselves by extortion; and Peter of Blois (himself an archdeacon) speaks of the officials by the significant name of “bishops’ leeches”.

In the following century, we find that the practices of archdeacons in England are still complained of, as to exacting money, burdening the clergy with the expense of entertaining an unreasonably large train of their men and horses at visitations, preventing the peaceable settlement of disputes in order to profit by the expenses of litigation, and allowing persons who had been guilty of grievous sin to compound for their offences by pecuniary payments.

The decrease of gifts to the church has been noted at an earlier date. It seems to have been thought that the endowments were already ample, and the wealth of the clergy and monks, with the corruptions which were traced to it, formed a constant theme of complaint for sectaries, for reformers such as Arnold of Brescia, for visionaries like Hildegard and Joachim, and for satirical poets who now arose in Germany, France, and England. Yet the church’s possessions were still increasing by other means. Many advantageous purchases, exchanges, or other arrangements were made with crusaders who were in haste to furnish themselves for the holy war. Much was also acquired by bequest; and the influence of the clergy with persons on their death­bed, together with the circumstance that all testamentary questions belonged to ecclesiastical courts, rendered this an important source of wealth, although in some countries the civil powers already began to check such bequests. And a new species of contract, by which a landowner made over his property to the church, on condition that he should receive it back in fee, was also a means of adding to the possessions of the clergy. For, although these feuda oblate differed from the precariae, inasmuch as the fief was granted to the donor’s heirs as well as to himself, the church not only derived some present advantages from such arrangements, but had a chance of seeing the lineal heirs become extinct, and so of coming eventually into undivided possession of the property.

Tithes were also made more productive than before. It was laid down that they were due on every kind of trade and on military pay; the commentators on such laws even held that the obligation extended to the receipts of beggars and prostitutes. It was, however, found impossible to enforce these rules to the full; and, although Gregory VII designed the entire recovery of such tithes as had fallen in the hands of laymen, he found it necessary to give up this intention, in order to secure the alliance of the nobles, which was essential to him in his enterprise against the power of sovereigns. The Lateran council of 1179 declared the holding of tithes by lay­men to be perilous to the soul, and forbade the transfer of them to other laymen, under penalty of exclusion from Christian burial for any who should receive them, and should not make them over to the church; but this canon (whatever its intended meaning may have been) came to be interpreted as forbidding only transfers and fresh alienations of tithe,—the idea of recovering that which was already alienated being apparently given up. Yet in this time many laymen were persuaded to surrender the tithes which they had appropriated, although in such cases the tithe was often given to a monastery, or to some clerk other than the rightful owner.

First fruits—a thirtieth or a sixtieth part of the produce—began also now to be claimed.

But while others complained of the wealth of the clergy, the clergy were incessantly crying out against spoliation. The advocates subdivided their power by appointing vice-advocates; and these deputies, with a great train of inferior functionaries attached to them, rivalled their chiefs in oppressing the churches which they professed to defend. The advocates built castles not only on that portion of the church’s land which was allotted to themselves, but on any part of its lands; their exactions, both from the church and from its tenants, became heavier and heavier, so that in some cases the tenants were reduced to beggary. Canons were passed to check these evils, but with little effect; and when Urban III attempted to do away with the office of advocate in Germany, he found that the emperor Frederick, although favourable to a limitation of the power of the advocates, was opposed to the abolition, and that the bishops were not prepared to support it. The evil pressed no less on monasteries than on cathedrals, and various means were tried to overcome it. Some churches or monasteries acquired the right to remove their advocates—a right, however, which could not always be readily enforced; some bought them off, or were able to bring them under a measure of restraint by the help of the sovereign while others, in despair of all human aid, instituted solemn daily prayers for deliverance from the tyranny of these oppressive protectors.

Nor were the advocates the only lay officers who preyed severely on the funds of churches and monasteries Great nobles, and even sovereign princes, enrolled themselves among their officials in order to share in their revenues. Thus, at Cologne, the ten gates of the city had for their guardians five dukes and five counts, to each of whom an annual allowance of 2,000 silver marks was paid for his services; and even the emperor Frederick submitted to become truchsess or seneschal of Bamberg cathedral, as the condition of obtaining certain lands to be held under it.

By these exactions, and by the necessity of maintaining soldiers for their feuds, the bishops were heavily burdened, and were frequently obliged to incur debts to a large amount. They had lost their old control over the division of the church's income, and had now under their management only the lands assigned for their own maintenance; and these they charged with their debts, to the impoverishment of the see. This practice, however, was forbidden by decrees of Conrad III, of Frederick I, and of Henry VI.

REGALE. JUS EXUVIARUM.

The claims of sovereigns to the  regale and to the jus exuviarium excited much contention. By the first of these was meant the right to enjoy the income of vacant sees—a privilege which in Germany did not extend beyond one year, while in England it seems to have been limited only by the king’s will; and both in France and in England, although perhaps not in Germany, to this was annexed the disposal of all patronage belonging to the vacant see. The origin of this custom in France is traced to the circumstance that in the seventh and eighth centuries, when dukes or counts seized on the property of a vacant bishopric, the king often intervened to rescue it from their hands; and hence arose the idea that the king himself, as chief advocate of the church, was entitled to the custody and the profits of vacant sees. It is, however, uncertain at what time the claim was established in France. However it may have originated, the regale was now grounded on the feudal system, by which a vacant fief reverted to the liege lord, until again granted away by him; and monasteries were subject to this exaction during the vacancy of the headship.

By the jus exuviarium was meant the right to inherit the furniture and other property of deceased bishops. In early times it had been held that a bishop might dispose by will of his inherited property, but that any savings out of his official income belonged to the church. Hence the money which was found in a bishop's coffers, and the furniture of the episcopal house, were usually shared among the clergy of his cathedral, and the successor, on taking possession of his residence, found nothing but bare walls. It is easy to conceive that, in lawless ages, such opportunities of plunder attracted the rapacity of the nobles; and in the tenth century we find the council of Trosley, and Atto, bishop of Vercelli, complaining that, on a bishop's death, his goods became the prey of his powerful neighbours. In this case, therefore, as in that of the regale, the intervention of kings for the prevention of worse evils became the foundation of a claim. In France and Germany this privilege was fully established in the twelfth century, and when Frederick I defended it against Urban III, even the refractory archbishop Philip of Cologne admitted that the emperor's claim, although unbecoming, was not unjust. In some cases the jus exuviarium belonged to the great vassals; and it was mutually exercised by the archbishops of Lyons and the bishops of Autun. In England both the regale and the jus exuviarium were introduced by William Rufus, who abused his power very scandalously in this respect.

In this age an attempt was made for the first time by the clergy to procure an exemption from taxation for secular purposes, such as contributions towards the national army. Urban II, at the council of Melfi, in 1089, enacted that the laity should not make any exaction from the clergy, either on account of their benefices or of their inherited property; and that any clerk holding a possession under a layman should either provide a deputy to discharge the duties connected with it, or should give it up. The object of this was to render the clergy entirely independent of the state, and it was natural that such a scheme should be strenuously opposed, not only by sovereigns, but by nobles, who saw that any burdens which might be thrown off by the clergy must necessarily fall on themselves. The claim to exemption, therefore, could not be maintained; and the third Lateran council contented itself with an anathema against the arbitrary and unequal manner in which the clergy had very commonly been assessed, as compared with other classes, in cases of taxation for public works or for maintenance of soldiers.

But while the popes attempted to exempt the clergy from national and local imposts, they themselves taxed them very heavily, under the pretence of a war against the infidels, or for some other religious purpose, such as the maintenance of a pope in opposition to a rival claimant of the apostolic chair, or to an emperor who withstood his power. The “Saladin’s 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. But the popes enforced this tithe, and continued to exact it long after the necessity which gave rise to it had come to an end.

The moral condition of the clergy in general during the twelfth century is very unfavourably represented, alike by zealous churchmen, such as Gerhoh of Reichersperg, by satirists, like Walter von der Vogelweide and the author of “Reynard the Fox”, and by sober observers, such as John of Salisbury. “The insolence of the clergy”, says Bernard, “of which the negligence of the bishops is mother, everywhere disturbs and molests the church”. Among the causes of their deterioration may be mentioned the constant struggles between the popes and secular princes, the frequent internal troubles of kingdoms (such as the long anarchy of Stephen's reign in England), and the disorders produced by the crusades. Bishops also contributed not a little to the discredit of the clerical body by the growing abuse of ordaining clergy without a titled Gerhoh speaks of many of theseacephali as being very learned, but regards them as a sort of centaurs—neither clerks nor laymen—enjoying as they did the ecclesiastical privileges without being bound by ecclesiastical duties. But it would seem that the great mass of them were chiefly distinguished, not for their learning, but for their disorderly and disreputable lives. Attempts were made to check the practice of ordination to the higher degrees, at least, without a title and with this view the third Lateran council enacted that any bishop who should ordain a priest or a deacon without a title should be bound to maintain him until he were provided with a maintenance from some church. But this rule was open to many evasions—some bishops even frustrated it by requiring the candidate for ordination to swear that he would never become chargeable to them—and it proved utterly ineffectual. Nor did any better success attend some attempts to keep the acephalous clerks in check by a revival of the ancient letters of communion.

The encroachments of the popes on the power of the bishops had also a large share in producing the decay of discipline; for now that the popes held themselves entitled to interfere with every diocese, not only by receiving appeals, but by acting as judges in the first instance, the bishops were deterred from exercising discipline by the fear of a mandate from Rome, which might forbid them to judge or might reverse their sentence.

As in earlier times, there are many complaints of lay-patronage; of the employment of stipendiary chaplains, as exercised without the sanction of bishops, and tending to withdraw the clergy from episcopal superintendence; of pluralities, which grew to an enormous extent, so that, while the third Lateran council denounces the practice of accumulating six or more churches on one incumbent, we are told that some clerks had as many as twenty or thirty, and the preferments enjoyed by Becket while as yet only a deacon would seem to have exceeded even this ample measured. But of all pluralists, in England and probably in the whole church, the most rapacious was John Hansel, who served Henry III in the following century as chaplain, counsellor, judge, and soldier, and is said to have enjoyed benefices to the value of four thousand marks a year.

The promotion of boys to ecclesiastical offices and dignities continued in defiance of all the protests of Bernard and other eminent men, and of frequent prohibitions by popes and councils; some bishops, it is said, not only allowed nobles to thrust boys into spiritual preferments, but themselves made a profit of the abuse by pocketing the income during the incumbent's minority. And, notwithstanding the war which Gregory VII and his school had so rigorously waged against simony, the practice still continued. As on the one hand the definition of simony became more refined, so that under this name were forbidden not only all payments for spiritual offices, but even fees for the lessons of cathedral and monastic schools, so on the other hand the scholastic subtlety was more and more exercised in devising distinctions by which the condemnations of simony might be evaded. While the popes professed a zeal for the suppression of this offence, they themselves were continually accused of it; some of them, indeed, are said to have so notoriously bought their office that they can be vindicated only by the desperate expedient of asserting that the pope cannot be guilty of simony. And nothing could exceed the corruption of the Roman curia,              which, in order that it might be equal to dealing with the increase of business that was referred to the pope, was newly organized with a staff of ravenous officials. The schemes of Gregory for delivering the church from secular influence had resulted in the secularization of the church itself.

The worldly occupations, amusements, and habits of the bishops and higher clergy were the subject of frequent complaints The German prelates in particular were so much involved in secular business—leading, for the most part, the lives of great nobles rather than of clergymen—that Caesarius of Heisterbach reports a clerk of Paris as having on this account questioned their salvability. In particular, the warlike propensities of bishops would seem to have become more active than ever; for now that the wars against the infidels had consecrated their military service in some cases, the justification of episcopal fighting was not unnaturally extended to other wars. The chroniclers describe with a mixture of admiration and reprobation the exploits of such prelates as Christian of Mayence, who appeared in full armour at the head of armies, and, after having in one battle slain nine men with his spiked club, arrayed himself on the following day in pontificals, and solemnly celebrated a mass of thanksgiving for the victory. Reginald and Philip of Cologne, Absalom of Lund, and many other bishops, are celebrated for their warlike deeds. Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, attracted the admiration of the lion-hearted Richard himself by his prowess as a crusader, 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 in 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 no”.

MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.

Of all matters relating to the life and morals of the clergy, the question of marriage 0r celibacy continued to be the chief occasion of complaint and difficulty. The successors of Gregory VII, in endeavoring to carry on his policy in this respect, met with a long and obstinate resistance in many quarters, and as to some points they found themselves obliged to make concessions. Thus, whereas Gregory had forbidden the faithful to receive the Eucharist at the hands of a married priest, Paschal II, on being asked by Anselm of Canterbury whether a person in danger of death might receive from such a priest, replied that it was better to do so than to die without the viaticum; and he added that if a married priest, on being applied to in such circumstances, should refuse his ministry, on the ground of its having been formerly despised, he would be guilty of soul-murder. In like manner, when the knights of the order of St. James asked Lucius III whether they might frequent the churches of married priests, and how they should reconcile the command against attending the mass of such priests with the principle that the sin of the minister does not pollute the ordinances which he administers, the pope replied by distinguishing between notorious sins and those which are hidden or tolerated—telling them that, so long as the church bears with a priest, they might rightly receive the sacraments and other rites from him.

With regard to the sons of priests, too, it was found necessary to deal more gently than the zealots for clerical celibacy would have wished. There was, indeed, a steady endeavour to prevent the transmission of benefices from father to son : and with this view it was sometimes enacted that the sons of priests should not be ordained, unless they became either monks or regular canons; sometimes, that they should not hold the same benefice which their fathers had held, or, at least, that they should not immediately succeed them. But even these prohibitions allow the ordination of the sons of priests under certain restrictions; and even such a pope as Alexander III was always ready to deal tenderly with such cases. In 1161 Richard Peche, the son of a bishop of Coventry, was appointed to succeed his father in the see; and the chronicler Ralph de Diceto, in relating the fact, takes occasion to cite the opinion of Ivo of Chartres, that the sons of priests, if their own life be respectable, are not to be excluded from any ecclesiastical office, even up to the papacy itself.

Notwithstanding the many prohibitions of marriage to persons in the higher orders of the ministry, the decree of the first Lateran council, in 1123, is said to have been the first that dissolved such marriages. In the following year, John of Crema, cardinal of St. Chrysogonus, held a council at Westminster, where he severely denounced the marriage of the clergy, and a canon was enacted against it; but it is said that on the evening of the same day the cardinal was detected in company with a prostitute, and that he was obliged to leave England in disgrace. In 1127 Archbishop William of Canterbury sent forth some strong prohibitions of marriage; but the practice still maintained a struggle in England. In 1129 Henry I, reverting to an expedient for raising money which he had attempted in the primacy of Anselm, imprisoned the housekeepers (who were supposed to be also the wives or concubines) of many of the London clergy, whom he compelled to pay heavily for their liberation and it appears that, both in England and elsewhere, even bishops licensed the cohabitation of the clergy with their wives on condition of an annual payment. The continued marriage of the English clergy is mentioned in many letters of Alexander III and among other evidence of it may be mentioned that of Giraldus Cambrensis, who states that among the parish priests of England the keeping of focariae was almost universal, and that the canons of St. David's—especially such of them as were Welchmen—were notorious for their irregularities in this respect, filling the precincts of their cathedral with concubines, midwives, children, and nurses, connecting their families with each other by intermarriage, and transmitting their benefices by inheritance. He tells us also that the like customs prevailed among the kindred people of Brittany.

In Normandy we are told that in the beginning of the twelfth century the priests celebrated their marriages publicly, that they left their benefices to their sons, and sometimes provided in a like manner for the portioning of their daughters. Geoffrey, archbishop of Rouen, in endeavouring to enforce on his province the prohibitions of marriage enacted by the council of Reims in 1119, was violently assaulted, as his predecessor John had been for a similar attempt in the pontificate of Gregory, and his life was in danger in a serious tumult which ensued.

In Spain, where the marriage of the clergy had been tolerated before the submission of the church to Rome, the legitimacy of their children was sanctioned by Paschal II. Didacus (Diego), archbishop of Compostella, endeavored to enforce the new regulations, but in this and in his other attempts at discipline he met with obstinate resistance.

In Germany, the last place which retained clerical marriage was Liège, where, as we have seen, the practice had been defended by the pen of Sigebert of Gemblours. Even so late as 1220 the canons celebrated their nuptials "like laymen", and are said to have paraded their wives in a strange and hardly credible manner.

In Bohemia the first attempt to separate clergymen from their wives was made by a legate in 1143 but the separation was not effected until the time of Innocent III or later. In Hungary, which was affected by the neighborhood of the Greek church, a council of spiritual and temporal dignitaries in 1092 forbade the second marriage of priests,—a prohibition which implies that a single marriage was regarded as lawful; and on this footing the matter rested in that country until after the middle of the thirteenth century. The imperfectly organised church of Poland was for a long time untouched by Gregory's reforms; the clergy married into the families of the nobles, and even till the thirteenth century their benefices were often hereditary. The earliest attempt to enforce celibacy in Denmark was made in 1123, but was ineffectual. Even the influence of Breakspear, as legate, was unable to establish the system in the northern kingdoms. Eskil of Lund, and other eminent bishops, were themselves married. The apprehension of evils which might arise from the compulsory celibacy of the clergy was, as we have seen, among the causes which produced a formidable outbreak in the end of the century. It appears from a letter of Innocent III that the Swedish clergy professed to have a papal sanction for their marriage; and the practice continued into the thirteenth century. In the remote island of Iceland the license for marriage or concubinage of the clergy took a peculiar form—a payment to the bishop on the birth of every child.

While the legislation of the church was steady in the direction of suppressing the marriage of the clergy, it is remarkable that some of the most eminent writers were very moderate in their opinions on the subject. Thus Gratian, although he takes the view which the church had sanctioned in his time, yet allows the greater freedom of earlier ages to be fully represented in his digest of the ecclesiastical laws. Peter Comestor, a famous professor of Paris, is said by his pupil Giraldus Cambrensis to have publicly taught that the devil had never so much circumvented the church as in enforcing the vow of celibacy; that, although no authority less than that of a general council could set the clergy free in this matter, there is nothing in Scripture to forbid marriage; and that Alexander III would have rescinded the law but for the opposition of his secretary, who afterwards became pope under the name of Gregory VIII. And while, in the following century, Thomas of Aquino declares the celibacy of the secular clergy to be merely of human institution, and differs from the zealots of celibacy in regarding secret marriage as less culpable than unchastity, the younger Durandus of Mende frankly owns the futility of all repressive measures, and suggests that it might be expedient to return to the practice of the early church, as it was still maintained among the orientals.

Among the clergy who were charged with irregularity of life, none were more conspicuous than the canons of cathedrals; and the rise of this class in dignity and importance made their ill example the more mischievous. Ever since the ninth century, canons had endeavored to get into their own hands the independent management of their property; and in this they had generally been successful. The common table and dormitory, which had been parts of the original institution, had fallen into disuse, so that, if the canons ate together on any occasion, it was not in order to fulfill their rule, but to enjoy the extraordinary cheer of a festival. The canons had become proud, luxurious, ostentatious in affecting the fashions of the world as to dress and habits, and utterly neglectful of their ecclesiastical duties, which were in part devolved on hired substitutes. Preferment of this kind was coveted by noble, and even princely, families, as a stepping-stone for their members towards higher dignities, and as affording a comfortable income in the meantime. Not only was illegitimate or servile birth regarded as a disqualification, but in many cases it was required that the canons should be noble by descent on one side, at least, if not (as at Strasburg) on both. Any who without this qualification were appointed by papal provisions, were regarded with contempt by the rest; and sometimes a chapter ventured to withstand even the authority of a pope in defence of its exclusive restrictions. In some cases canonries became hereditary in families.

The canons were no longer content to be styled brethren, but were now addressed as domini. The elder among them depressed the younger, whom they treated as an inferior class—curtailing their share of the revenues, and in some cases even exacting homage from them. Now that they had got the election of bishops into their hands, the canons made terms beforehand with the future bishop, and, in addition to much individual jobbery, they very commonly extorted from him the right of appointing to places in their own chapter and to other offices in the church. They affected great independence of the bishops; they attended councils; they claimed all the administration of dioceses, and even of provinces, during the vacancy of sees; and in all their assumptions they were generally supported by their powerful family connections.

The difficulties occasioned by the degeneracy of the canons are the subject of continual papal letters. Many attempts were made to recall them to the practice of living in common and to their other ecclesiastical duties; while some bishops and princes, regarding such attempts as hopeless, ejected the secular canons, and planted in their stead either monks, or canons of the class which was styled regular, and which was distinguished from the seculars chiefly by the renunciation of all individual property. In Germany the seculars had such strength that the only course for reforming bishops was to leave them in possession, and to found new societies of canons on a more rigid footing.

Monasticism—Religious Associations.

The twelfth century saw the rise of several new orders, in addition to those which have been already described. Among them was that of the Carmelites, founded by Berthold, a native of Calabria, who about the year 1180 settled on Mount Carmel—a place to which, from the fourth century downwards, many recluses had been drawn by its connection with the prophet Elijah. But in later times the Carmelites, disdaining to acknowledge Berthold as their founder, professed to trace themselves up to Elijah himself through a line which included the Rechabites and some of the Old Testament prophets; and whereas their oldest rule was really given by Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem, in 1209, they pretended to reckon among their legislators St. Basil, in the fourth century, and John of Jerusalem, the contemporary of St. Jerome. These pretensions led, in the seventeenth century, to a fierce controversy between the Carmelites—chiefly those of Flanders—and the Bollandist hagiologists, who maintained the truth of history; and the war was carried on not only in learned dissertations, but in satirical pamphlets. Innocent XII., in 1698, in accordance with a decision of the Congregation of the Index, attempted to allay the quarrel by imposing silence on both parties under pain of excommunication; but Benedict XIII afterwards countenanced the pretensions of the Carmelites by allowing a statue of Elijah to be erected in St. Peter's among those of the great founders of monachism.

On the expulsion of the Latins from the Holy Land, the Carmelites, who professed to have been warned by the Blessed Virgin to quit their mountain, acquired settlements in Europe, and it is said (although perhaps with exaggeration), that at one time they possessed 7,500 monasteries, with upwards of 180,000 members. The original rule of the order was very rigid; but on leaving Carmel they petitioned Innocent IV for a mitigation of it, on the ground that they were no longer hermits. The pope, accordingly, relaxed it in some respects in 1247; and in the fifteenth century further relaxations were granted. In consequence of this, the order was divided into two branches—the stricter being styled barefooted or observants, while those who adopted the milder rule were known as shod or conventuals.

Another order of this time (which has already been mentioned on account of the confusion which its name has sometimes produced between it and the Waldensian sectaries) was that of the Humiliati, which seems to have been confined to Lombardy. The origin of this order is traced to some Milanese who were carried off into Germany by an emperor, but were afterwards allowed to return to Milan. In their exile they adopted a strict manner of life, and supported themselves by cloth-weaving; and this occupation was afterwards continued among them—their skill in the art being famous, and much of their cloth being given to the poor. To the secular men and women of whom the society at first consisted was afterwards added an order of monks and nuns; and about 1140 a priest named John of Meda completed the organization by the addition of an order of priests. The institution was confirmed by Innocent III, who in 1201 provided it with a rule mainly derived from that of St. Benedict, and its members were distinguished for their charitable labours. In the course of centuries, however, the Humiliati showed the usual degeneracy. An attempt of St. Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, to reform them provoked a violent uproar, so that his life was even in danger; and in consequence of this the order was abolished by Pius V in 1571.

Among the other orders of the twelfth century may be named that of Fiore, which has been already mentioned in connection with its founder, Joachim and the English order of Sempringham, founded by Gilbert, after whom the members—male and female—were commonly called Gilbertines.

CLUNIACS AND CISTERCIANS

The new orders, being founded in a spirit of reaction from the laxity of those which before existed, were likely to excite the rivalry of their elders; and this rivalry was especially shown in France between the Cistercians and the Cluniacs. The contrast between the black dress of Cluny and the white dress of Citeaux was enough to proclaim at sight the difference of the orders; and, while the Cistercians were not slow to tax the Cluniacs with degeneracy, these retorted by charges of vanity and presumption against the younger society. Hence, about the year 1125, a discussion took place between Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable of Cluny—each the chief ornament of his order, each respecting the other, and both free from the more vulgar feelings by which many of their partisans were animated. Bernard wrote his 'Apology' at the suggestion of William, abbot of St. Thierry, a Cluniac, with a view of satisfying those who complained of the Cistercians as detractors. In the outset, he is very severe on such of his own brethren as had indulged in censures on the alleged laxity of the Cluniacs. As men differ in character, he says, so a corresponding difference of usages may be lawful pride and censoriousness are evidences of a want of charity far worse than the slight indulgences which it attacks. He professes a high regard for the order of Cluny, and says that he had always dissuaded those who wished to forsake it for the Cistercian order. But from this Bernard goes on to blame the Cluniacs for their disobedience to the rule of St. Benedict. While admitting the lawfulness of dispensations, he holds that the secular manner of life which prevails in some monasteries is such as no dispensation can warrant. Many of the monks, though young and vigorous, pretend sickness, that they may be allowed to eat flesh; and those who abstain from flesh indulge their palate without limit by exquisite varieties of cookery, while, in order to provoke the appetite, they drink largely of the strongest and most fragrant wines, which are often rendered yet more stimulant by spices. At table, instead of grave silence, light worldly gossip, jests, and idle laughter prevail. The Cluniacs have coverlets of fur or other rich and variegated materials for their beds; they dress themselves in the costliest furs, in silk, and in cloth fine enough for royal robes; and a ludicrous picture is drawn of a Cluniac choosing the stuff for his cowl with feminine care and fastidiousness. This excessive care for the body, says Bernard, is a consequence of the neglect of mental culture. But even more than for their personal luxury, he taxes the Cluniacs for the excessive splendour of their worship, and for the unsuitable magnificence of their buildings. The walls of their churches are adorned, while the poor are left in nakedness; the pictures distract the mind, instead of raising it to devotion; and the monstrous and grotesque carvings which abound are altogether unfit for a religious house. The chandeliers and tree-like candlesticks are of vast labour and cost, and are set with jewels; the pavements are inlaid with figures of saints and angels, which in such a position cannot escape irreverent usage; the sight of the golden shrines in which the relics are encased fattens the eyes and unlooses the purse-strings of beholders. Such things, he says, might be allowable in churches intended for lay worshippers, whose carnal minds may need them; but for monks, who have renounced the delights of the senses, they are incongruous and unseemly. Bernard also blames the Cluniacs for their exemption from episcopal authority, and for impropriating the tithes of parish-churches; and he denounces the pomp of many abbots, who, on going barely four leagues from home, took with them baggage enough for a campaign, or for a journey through the desert—especially of one whom he had seen travelling with sixty horses, and a train sufficient for two bishops.

Peter's defence of his order, written in 1143, although addressed to Bernard, is not a reply to his tract, but to the Cistercian accusations in general. He taxes the Cistercians with breach of the charity inculcated by their rule, and speaks of their white dress as a blamable singularity, whereas the black of the older orders was suitable as an emblem of sadness. He justifies, as far as possible, the Cluniac departure from the letter of the Benedictine rule, which, he says, is beyond what the men of his day could bear; and he adds that the Cistercians sin against charity by the severity of their discipline, which often drives monks to forsake the order, or renders them discontented, and impairs their health. The use of furs and other such materials in dress and bedding, and the abatement of the precepts as to fasting, he excuses under the allowance which the Benedictine rule had made for diversities of climate, and of the discretion which it vested in the abbot; moreover, as coats of skins were given to Adam and Eve not for pride but for shame, the use of furs might serve to remind us that we are exiles from our heavenly country. If the Cluniacs have lands, they are kinder to their tenants than lay landowners; if they have serfs, it is because they could not but accept them with the lands to which they were attached; if they get possession of castles, they turn them into houses of prayer. They may rightly possess tolls, since it was only from the injustice of the toll-gatherer's trade that St. Matthew was called; if tithes were given to the Levites because they had no inheritance, they may rightly be given to monks, who have forsaken all earthly possessions; and if they are given to clerks for their pastoral care, why not to monks for their prayers, their tears, their alms, and their other good works for the benefit of men? As manual labour was prescribed by St. Benedict by way of a remedy against idleness, it is needless when idleness may be avoided by other means; and for men who are weak from the nature of their diet, prayer, study, psalmody, and spiritual labours are more suitable than the works of husbandry. The Benedictine precepts as to receiving strangers and washing their feet could not be literally performed without inconvenience and grievous waste of time; but they are observed in spirits And whereas the Cluniacs had been censured for being under no bishops, they have the truest and holiest bishop of all, the bishop of Rome, while they have the privilege of obtaining episcopal offices from any bishop of their own choice.

The rivalry between Cluny and Citeaux was exasperated by the circumstance that the general exemption of the Cistercians from tithes affected some lands which had formerly paid tithes to the Cluniacs; and from this collisions frequently arose. In one of these quarrels the Cluniacs burnt down a Cistercian monastery; and the enmity of the two orders outlived both Peter and Bernard.

It would seem that Bernard’s Apology, written soon after the scandals which the misconduct of abbot Pontius had occasioned among the Cluniacs, contributed to suggest the important reforms which Peter effected in his order. But the Cistercians themselves, although they continued to find eulogists, although their salvation was declared by visions, and although for a time their order was the refuge of spirits which sought a rigid discipline, began early to show symptoms of decay. A prophetess of Lorraine in 1153 addressed to them a letter on their decline in zeal and love. The records of their general chapters contain many significant notices; thus, in 1181 it is said that some monasteries had run into debt by purchasing wine; in 1182 it appears that their rule had been broken by the introduction of painted windows into churches; in 1191 the chapter endeavors to take measures for the removal of the imputations of greediness which had been fixed on the Cistercians. Alexander III              found it necessary to reprove them for having deviated from their rule by possessing farms and mills, parish-churches and altars, receiving fealty and homage, holding the offices of judges and tax-gatherers, and using all their endeavors to enlarge their borders on earth, whereas their conversation ought to be in heaven; and he threatens, if they live like ordinary men, to take away the privileges which had been granted to them in consideration of their extraordinary strictness. Privileges had, indeed, been so largely bestowed on the Cistercians that pope Clement IV, in the middle of the thirteenth century, speaks of these as “against the law of God and man”, and already they had everywhere acquired exemptions like those which Bernard had strongly censured in other orders. Walter Map in the end of the twelfth century speaks of the Cistercians with especial abhorrence, and ridicules their pretensions to superior holiness and mortification.

The increase of monachism, through the foundation of the new orders, and other causes, was enormous. Thus, it is said that whereas in England there had not at the Conquest been above a hundred monasteries, the number founded under Henry I and his two successors was upwards of three hundred. Of these some owed their origin to compositions for vows of service in the holy war. There was a general desire for all sorts of papal privileges; and, as has been already stated, where these could not be proved by genuine documents, recourse was often had to forgery. The abbots aimed at entire independence of the episcopal authority—even attempting, like the lawless barons of the time, to present clerks to parish-churches without submitting them to the bishop of the diocese for institution. They affected the use of episcopal ornaments, and the episcopal right of bestowing benedictions. “How much more would they pay”, asks St. Bernard, “if they might have the name as well as the privileges of bishops?”. Peter of Blois says that the monasteries most distinguished for holiness were those which either had never desired such privileges or had voluntarily resigned them; that in any one but a bishop the use of episcopal ornaments is a mark of pride and presumption: and he prevailed on his own brother to give up an abbacy to which the pope had granted the use of those ornaments. So jealously was the privilege of exemption guarded that when Maurice, bishop of Paris appeared at the consecration of the new church of St. Germain-des-Prés by Alexander III the monks rose in tumult, as if his very presence were a claim of jurisdiction over them, and the pope sent three cardinals to beg that he would withdraw. In England we find quarrels of this kind between the bishops and the great monasteries in many quarters; thus the bishops of Chichester had contests with the abbots of Battle, the bishops of Bath with the abbots of Glastonbury, the bishops of Sarum with the abbots of Malmesbury, the bishops of Lincoln with the abbots of St. Albans. But nowhere was there a more remarkable display of such differences than in the city of Canterbury, where the archbishops were engaged in long and bitter feuds, not only with the abbots and brethren of St. Augustine's, but with the monks of their own cathedral.

The great monastery founded by the apostle of England was the first in rank of English religious houses, and in western Christendom was second only to Monte Cassino. It was the burial-place of Augustine and of his successors in the throne of Canterbury, and on that account its members looked down on the cathedral of Christchurch or Trinity, until Archbishop Cuthbert, when dying in 758, took measures that his death should be kept secret from the Augustinians until he should have been interred in the cathedral. From that time the archbishops, with the exception of Cuthbert’s second successor, Janbert, who had himself been abbot of St. Augustine's, were buried in the cathedral, and its monks were thus enabled to take a higher standing than before against their Augustinian neighbours. But in the twelfth century serious disputes arose between the arch­bishops and the monks of St. Augustine’s. The monks asserted that their house had been wholly independent of the see of Canterbury until Lanfranc, taking advantage of his ancient friendship with the Norman abbot Scolland, persuaded him to cede privileges which the monastery had before enjoyed; while on the other side it was maintained that the abbey and the patronage of the abbacy had belonged to the archbishops until the Norman conquests. The abbots claimed that the archbishops should give them the benediction in their own monastery, and without exacting any payment, or any profession of obedience. They claimed, not only the patronage of parish-churches on their estates, but exclusive jurisdiction over the incumbents. They disputed certain yearly payments which they were required to make to the cathedral, and the archbishop's charges for supplying them with consecrated oil and chrism. They professed to have privileges, reaching down from the age of king Ethelbert and St. Augustine, by which the monastery was rendered independent of all power, ecclesiastical or secular. In one of these documents Augustine was made to charge his successors in the see to regard the abbot not as their subject, but as their “brother, colleague, and fellow-minister in the word of God”. According to another document, pope John XIII ordered that the abbot should be treated “as a Roman legate”; and (as we have seen) it was said that the abbots had been privileged by Alexander II to wear the mitre (with the sandals and other episcopal ornaments), although they did not make use of the right until a hundred and twenty years later. These claims were the subject of continual appeals to the popes, who, according to their usual policy, for the most part sided with the abbey, while the officials of the Roman court were not sorry to make a profit out of the complicated litigation. At one time, when Eugenius III had desired archbishop Theobald to bless abbot Sylvester without exacting any profession, the archbishop repaired to the monastery for the purpose; but there (by his contrivance, according to the Augustinian chroniclers), the prior of Christchurch appeared, with a force of armed men, to protest against the benediction; and the archbishop caught at this pretext for delay, although a further reference to Rome obliged him at last to perform the office in the manner required. At another time, when Alexander III had ordered the benediction of abbot Roger, not only the archbishop of Canterbury, but the bishop of Worcester and the archbishop of Rouen refused to officiate; and the abbot found it necessary to seek the blessing from the pope himself, who gave it at Tusculum, granting to the abbot the use of the episcopal mitre, ring, and gloves, but with a reservation of the archbishop’s rights. On another occasion, when Theobald had interdicted England in consequence of his differences with king Stephen, the Augustinians continued to ring their bells and to celebrate divine offices as usual; but for this they were put to penance by pope Eugenius, on the ground that they were bound to obey Theobald as legate, if not as archbishop; and when the pope, after some difficulty, absolved them, he declared that he acted not as apostolic pontiff but in the room of the archbishop of Canterbury.

The monks were extremely unwilling to produce the originals of the privileges on which they relied; but, after having eluded two papal orders for their production, they were at length, in 1182, compelled to exhibit them to three commissioners appointed by Alexander III; when it was found that as to materials, form, and substance, the documents which pretended to the greatest antiquity were suspicious in the extreme. They were, however, approved by Lucius III, and archbishop Richard was obliged to withdraw the charge of forgery which he had thrown out against them. A compromise was agreed on as to some of the rival claims; but as to the benediction in the monastery all the papal authority was unable to enforce obedience from the archbishops; and the abbots were obliged to receive their blessing, sometimes from the pope in person, sometimes from any bishop who could be persuaded to give it, until in 1406 abbot Thomas Hunden was blessed in St. Paul's, London, by archbishop Arundel, who acknowledged him, in the words of the charter ascribed to St. Augustine, as his “brother, colleague, and fellow-minister”.

But while the monks of Christchurch were allied with the archbishops against the rival monastery, their own relations with them were far from harmonious. “It seems”, wrote John of Salisbury during Becket’s exile, “as if hatred of their archbishops were an inheritance of the monks of Canterbury. When Anselm was twice banished for righteousness’ sake, they never bestowed any consolation on him. They despised Ralph, they hated William, they laid snares for Theobald, and now, without any cause, they insatiably persecute Thomas”. Theobald turned out two of their priors (who were the virtual heads of the monastery, as the archbishop himself was supposed to be abbot); and at a later time a more serious difference broke out. The circumstances of archbishop Baldwin’s election had naturally left unpleasant remembrances on both sides; and soon after entering on his see, the archbishop and the monks were violently embroiled. They complained that he interfered with their revenues and privileges; that he seized the management of their estates, expelled their officials, whose places he filled with his own servants, suspended the prior, confined the monks within their own precincts, cutting off their supplies of food, so that they were indebted for the means of life to the charity of their neighbors—even of Jews; and that he excommunicated them.

In order to rid himself of the annoyances resulting from his connection with them, he formed the scheme of erecting a new church of secular canons, to bear the name of St. Thomas the Martyr, and of supporting it chiefly at the expense of Christchurch. As the germ of this, he began to rebuild and enlarge the church of St. Stephen at Hackington, about a mile distant from the cathedral, and afterwards removed the site to another place in the neighborhood. In order to carry out his scheme he caused collections to be made throughout all England, with the inducement of ample indulgences; he endeavoured to draw the other bishops into taking part in the foundation; and he was encouraged by the support of Henry II, who had abundant reasons for disliking the monks of Christchurch. These, however, showed themselves determined to resist by appealing to the pope, and enlisting in their cause the influence of the French king and of other foreign patrons. They declared that the archbishop intended, by bestowing the canonries of his new church on the bishops of his province, not only to transfer to these the rights of the cathedral as to the election of archbishops, but to constitute himself a pope, surrounded by a college of cardinals, subject to the influence of the crown in ecclesiastical matters, but independent of the apostolic see. The popes were naturally inclined to side with the monks, more especially as the usual means of securing the favour of Rome were largely employed; and, with the exception of Gregory VIII, they showed themselves favourable to the convent. In 1189 two legates were sent by Gregory to investigate the matter; but one of them died by the way, and the other, John of Anagni, was not allowed to approach Canterbury until the question had been compromised by Richard I, on the footing that a prior whom Baldwin had nominated should be otherwise provided for, that another should be appointed by the king and the archbishop, and that the archbishop should give up the project of a collegiate church on condition of receiving from the monks the same obedience which they had paid to his predecessors. The legate indignantly declared that this agreement was void, as having been extorted from the monks, and it was afterwards annulled by Celestine III, who ordered the new buildings to be destroyed. Baldwin, before setting out on the crusade, directed that the materials should be removed to Lambeth, which he had lately acquired for his see but on hearing of his death at the siege of Acre, the monks of Christchurch drove out their prior, appointed another in his room, and elected to the primacy Reginald, bishop of Bath, who ordered the demolition of his predecessor's college at Lambeth. Reginald, however, died before consecration, and his successor, Hubert Walter, revived the project. But, although he had the support of king Richard, although all the Cistercian abbots in England exerted themselves for him, and although the authority of archbishops Anselm, Theobald, and Thomas was alleged in favour of the design, he was compelled by Innocent III in 1199 to pull down the buildings which he had begun to erect.

In other English cathedrals which were in the hands of monks, similar troubles often arose; and it is said that archbishop Baldwin induced all the bishops to promise that they would follow his example by turning their episcopal churches into colleges of secular clergy. Hugh of Nunant, bishop of Lichfield, nephew of Arnulf of Lisieux, incurred the especial abuse of the monastic writers, with the single exception of Giraldus Cambrensis, by substituting secular canons for the monks of Coventry, and is said to have advised Richard I to suppress all the monks in England; but a few years after he was obliged to succumb, and archbishop Hubert, in obedience to papal authority, reinstated the monks whom Hugh had ejected.

While monks were thus brought into rivalry and actual collision with secular canons, they were involved in a continual controversy with the regular canons as to the superiority of their respective manners of life, while the canons denied the right of the monks to preach, and would have confined them to the strict duties of religious seclusion. Among the writers who took the monastic side were Abelard, Hugh of Amiens, archbishop of Rouen, and Rupert, abbot of Deutz; among the champions of the canons were Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, Philip of Harveng, a Prémonstratensian abbot in the diocese of Cambray, and Lambert, abbot of St. Rufus, near Avignon.

Notwithstanding the frequent attempts at a reformation of monastic life, and the institution of new orders with a view to a greater severity of discipline, we still find that the state of monachism is a subject of frequent complaint. Godfrey of Vigeois describes the monks of his day as spurious heirs of the older coenobites; as lax in their diet, devoted to the vanities of fashion, and otherwise unfaithful to the true idea of their profession. In some cases the monastic food and clothing were commuted for an allowance in money—an arrangement utterly opposed to the principles of the monastic system. Giraldus Cambrensis mentions as a chief cause of disorder among the English monks the custom of sending them by twos or threes to remote cells, where they were free from the discipline of the convents on which the cells depended. Although the life in such places often involved much of roughness and privation, the monks greatly preferred it to the “imprisonment of the cloister”, on account of its freedom from restraint; but the system became the cause of general laxity, and of frequent and serious scandals. Wibald of Stablo speaks of some monastic societies as careless of their rule, and engrossed by talk of canons, decrees, appeals, councils, rights, laws, condemnations and the like; as devoted to bodily indulgences and temporal good things, and impatient of all control from their superiors. Nor were the attempts at reform always of such a kind as to deserve approval. Thus cardinal Walter of Albano, after mentioning with praise the zeal of some abbots and others who had agreed to meet annually at Reims with a view to monastic reformation—that by their means houses which had been temples of voluptuousness, the haunts of owls and hedge­hogs, syrens and satyrs, had become “glorious sheepfolds of Christ”—goes on to censure them for indiscreet innovation in some respects. Anselm of Havelberg represents people as perplexed by the number, the eccentric affectations, and the contradictory rules of the new orders which had arisen; and John of Salisbury strongly denounces the practices of hypocritical monks, who pretended to an extreme severity of life in order to cloak their ambition, avarice, and malignity.

MILITARY ORDERS.

The history of the military orders of the Temple and the Hospital has in part been noticed by anticipation, and partly in connection with the crusades. In addition to their quarrels with each other, with the patriarchs, and with their other neighbours in the east, we find them continually engaged in disputes as to privileges and exemptions in the west. By the abuse which they made of these (as by keeping their churches open in time of interdict, receiving excommunicate persons to the sacraments, and giving them Christian burial) they were drawn into frequent collisions with the bishops and clergy; and such abuses were strongly denounced by Alexander III and by the Lateran council of 1179.

In addition to the templars and hospitallers, other orders, in which religion was combined with special objects, took their origin from the crusades.

The Teutonic order, which afterwards became famous, arose out of the association of about forty crusaders from north Germany, who, at the siege of Acre, formed themselves into a brotherhood for the care of the sick and wounded—sheltering them in tents made out of the sails of their vessels. The new society gained the patronage of the king of Jerusalem, of the patriarch, and of other important personages; and Frederick of Swabia, during the short interval between his arrival at Acre and his death, recommended it to his brother, Henry VI, and also to pope Celestine, who in 1196 confirmed its institution. The order was governed by provincials, with a grand-master at its head. The first master was Henry of Walpot, but the great extension of the order was due mainly to his third successor, Herman of Salza, who, according to a chronicler, had the pope and the emperor, with other princes and great men, in his own hand, so that he obtained whatever he might ask for its honour and advantage. Under him it acquired great privileges and emoluments, and entered on its career of conquest on the shores of the Baltic; and whereas Herman had expressed a wish that by the sacrifice of one of his eyes he might raise the order to the number of ten military brethren in arms, it counted soon after his death more than 2,000 knights of noble German families.

At Acre also was instituted an English order of hospitallers, named after St. Thomas the Martyr, whose birth came by a romantic story of later date to be connected with the Holy Land; and in the last year of the century arose the order of Trinitarians or Mathurins, founded by John of Matha, a priest of Provençal birth, for the redemption of captives from the infidels, and confirmed by Innocent III.

In Spain various military orders arose, such as those of Calatrava and Avisa, both instituted for the defence of the faith against the Moors, and connected with the Cistercian order; and the order of St. James, intended for the protection of pilgrims to the shrine of the apostle at Compostella. 

An association which in so far resembled the military orders as it was formed under a religious sanction for a warlike purpose, was that of the Caputiati, or White Hoods of Auvergne. Large bodies of the mercenary soldiers whom it had become usual to employ in war, and who, from the province which originally supplied them, were known by the name of Brabançons, had betaken themselves to a life of plunder and violence, and kept that country in terror. Their numbers were swelled by desperate and disreputable persons of all classes, among whom it is said that there were many clerks, monks, and even nuns. These “hellish legions”, as they were styled by a chronicler of the age, robbed, burnt, slew, carried off the precious ornaments of churches, profaned the holy sacrament, and treated the clergy with savage insult and cruelty, so that some even died of their blows. Although in this they appear to have been moved rather by utter irreligion than by any heretical opinions, they were condemned by the Lateran council of 1179 in the same canon which proscribed the Cathari. But the beginning of active measures against them was made in 1182 by one Durand, a carpenter of Le Puy-en-Velay, which had been a popular place of pilgrimage until the outrages of these ruffians made the roads unsafe. Durand professed to have been repeatedly warned by the blessed Virgin to exhort his neighbors to the establishment of peace and the bishop of Le Puy gave his sanction to the undertaking. Bishops and abbots, nobles, clergy, and men of all classes banded themselves together in an association for the purpose. The members were pledged to eschew gaming, excess in meat and drink, swearing, and other vices; to do no wrong, and to carry on implacable hostilities against all wrong-doers; and such, it is said, was their union, that, if one had killed the brother of another, the surviving brother admitted the slayer to the kiss of peace and was bound to supply his needs. The mark of their profession was a white hood, of monastic shape, with a leaden image of the Virgin sewed on to it.

The enterprise thus set on foot was crowned with success; it is said that in one engagement 7,ooo of the Brabançons or cottereaux were slain, but the clergy of the victorious party disgraced themselves by inciting their companions to cruelties against the prisoners, and fifteen hundred wretched women of loose life, who were among the number, were burnt at a slow fire. The country which had been infested by the cottereaux was speedily cleared of them; but the white-hoods themselves began to show symptoms of opinions dangerous to social order, maintaining the equality of all men, and attacking the nobles who were within their reach; so that Philip Augustus, who had aided their undertaking at the outset, found it necessary to suppress the association.

Rites and Usages

In the early church, the term sacrament had been applied to any symbolical religious act, so that, while baptism and the Eucharist were regarded as rites having a peculiar character of their own, there was no limit to the number of things which might be styled sacraments. And thus, as late as the twelfth century, we find the name given by Godfrey of Vendome to the symbolical ring and staff which were used in the investiture of bishops, and by Bernard to the symbolical washing of feet. From this vagueness in the use of the term, the number of sacraments had been very variously stated. Thus Raban Maur and Paschasius Radbert, in the ninth century, laid down that there are four sacraments—Baptism, Unction, the Body and the Blood of the Lord, whereas Peter Damiani, in the eleventh century, speaks of twelve, but elsewhere distinguishes three as chief—namely, Baptism, the Eucharist, and Ordination.

In the eastern church, although John of Damascus speaks only of Baptism and the Eucharist, yet from the time of the pretended Dionysius the Areopagite, in the sixth century, six sacraments had been generally acknowledged—namely, Baptism, the Eucharist, the Consecration of Chrism, Ordination, Monastic Profession, and the Rites for the Dead. But now, in the western church, the mystical number of seven was fixed as that of the sacraments, from the idea of a correspondence with the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Ghost. This number is insisted on in the report of Otho of Bamberg's missionary teaching, and may be gathered from the writings of Hugh of St. Victor, although he also uses the term sacrament in the more general sense of the older writers; but the establishment of the number is chiefly to be ascribed to the “Sentences” of Peter Lombard, the most popular theological manual of the age, in which the sacraments are said to be Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Ordination, and Matrimony.

The doctrine of Berengar as to the Eucharist, although condemned, was not extinct. Thus we are told of some who, while they held with Berengar in substance, joined with the church in condemning him, because, instead of contenting himself with the language of Scripture, he had put forward his ideas too nakedly. Abelard 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. And Rupert of Deutz expresses himself in such a manner as to the continuance of the bread and wine in their own substance as at least to need a subtle vindication of his conformity with the modern Roman doctrine against the apparent meaning of his words. But the doctrine of transubstantiation—a word which is first found in a treatise professing to contain the opinions of Peter Damiani,—made way, and the impression of it on the popular mind was strengthened by an ever-increasing multitude of miraculous tales—as that the eucharistic wafer was seen by the priest to change into a beautiful infant; that the bread appeared as flesh, and the wine as blood; and that the consecrated host resisted the power of fire.

The growing opinion of a material presence in the eucharist introduced an important change in the manner of administration. In early ages, the sacrament had been always given under both kinds, although in Africa it had been usual to allow morsels of the consecrated bread to be carried from the church for the sick, or for the use of devout persons at times when they could not attend the public communion. The declaration of pope Gelasius I against a separation of the elements has been already quoted; and, although primarily directed against the Manicheans, who condemned the use of wine, it is equally applicable against all mutilated administration. Now, however, it began to be thought that there was a danger of profanation in receiving the wine, from the dipping of the beard into the chalice, or from the inability of sick persons to swallow. In order to guard against such accidents, it had been usual from the eighth century to employ a tube in drinking from the chalice; but in the latter part of the eleventh century, a custom arose of dipping the bread into the wine, and so administering both elements together, and, from having at first been practised in the communion of infants and of the sick, it was extended to other cases. This usage was condemned by Urban II at the council of Clermont, and by Paschal II in a letter to abbot Pontius, of Cluny, which allows no exception other than the cases of infants or very sick persons, who could not swallow the breads Ernulf, bishop of Rochester, however, on being questioned by a friend as to the propriety of thus administering in a manner different from, and almost contrary to the Saviour’s institution, answered by maintaining the right of the church to legislate in such matters, and defending the practice as a safeguard against profanation. And in England it kept its ground until forbidden by the council of London in 1175. The doctrine of concomitancy—that Christ is contained entire under each of the eucharistic elements —had been laid down by St. Anselm on independent grounds, and, while stating it, he had spoken of communion in both kinds; but it was now brought to support the novel practice of administering in one kind only. The writers of the age, in general, however, —even those who held that administration in one kind was sufficient, and that a contrary opinion was heretical,—yet maintained the ancient usage of administering in both kinds.

The belief in the necessity of infant-communion had died out in the West, and, in consequence of the supposed especial danger of profanation by spilling the consecrated wine, the practice was now forbidden, although it was not yet wholly disused. In this case, as in that of adults, unconsecrated wine was sometimes given as a substitute for the eucharistic cup; but Hugh of St. Victor (or a writer who has been identified with him) ascribes such usages to the ignorance of the clergy, and declares that it is better to rely on the grace of baptism, as sufficient for the salvation of young children. At a later time the communion of infants became a subject of controversy between the Greeks, who retained it, and the Latins.

The more rigid view as to the observance of the Lord’s day continued to grow in the church, and attempts were made to enforce it by some of those pretended revelations which have been used in behalf of the same cause from the time of Charlemagne, or earlier, to the miracle of La Salette in our own days. Thus, when Henry II of England was at Cardiff on his way from Ireland to Normandy, as he was mounting his horse after mass, he was accosted by a man apparently about forty years of age, tall and spare in figure, with yellow hair displaying a tonsure, dressed in a white robe, with a girdle around his waist, and with naked feet. After having greeted the king in English this personage charged him, in the names of the Saviour, the Blessed Virgin, St. Peter, and St. Paul, to allow no markets to be held, or any but the most necessary secular works to be done, on the Lord's day, and warned him that a neglect of this command would be followed by heavy judgments; and having delivered his message he disappeared. Again, in 1199, it was said that a letter from the Saviour was found in the church of the holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, denouncing terrible chastisements for breach of the Lord's day; and this letter was used by Eustace, abbot of Flai, in the diocese of Beauvais, who preached in England with great effect. Eustace denounced the holding of markets on the Lord’s day, and the sale of anything, except that of necessary food and drink to travellers—in the case of which sale, one-fourth of the price was to be devoted to pious and charitable uses. He prescribed the observance of rest from the ninth hour on Saturday to sunrise on Monday; and it is said that his preaching was confirmed by miraculous judgments on some who ventured to profane this extended Sabbath. But a chronicler tells us that the king and other great men questioned the truth of the abbot’s doctrine, and that the people feared them more than God.

The observance of the Lord’s day, and of other holy days also, is said to have been especially strict in Norway, so that the people never ventured of their own accord to do anything either great or small.

To the great festivals of the year Trinity Sunday was now added. It differed from the rest in character, inasmuch as it was not the commemoration of any event, but was consecrated to a doctrine; yet it seemed a fitting completion for the circle of festivals, and, although not without some opposition on the ground of novelty, it succeeded in establishing itself and has continued to hold its place.

Reverence for the blessed Virgin was continually rising to a greater and greater excess. The idea of her acting as a mediatrix for those who might fear to approach the Saviour immediately is inculcated by St. Bernard. She was spoken of as “Queen of heaven”; the angelic salutation was repeated as an address to her fifty, a hundred, or even a thousand times a day, and in monasteries offices were said in her honor from the time of Gregory VII. As Sundays and festivals were dedicated to God, so Saturdays and eves were dedicated to St. Mary; and the recitation of her office on Saturday was ordered by Urban II at the council of Clermont. The new orders of monks—above all the Cistercians—were under her especial protection. The most extravagant and hyperbolical language was employed to express her greatness; while on the other hand, in the vernacular poetry of Germany, she was addressed in strains which borrowed something from the feelings of chivalry.

The heightened reverence for the Virgin had long assumed that she was without sin; but it had been supposed, as by Paschasius Radbert and by Anselm, that she was conceived in sin, and was afterwards sanctified, either before or after her birth, by the special operation of the Holy Spirit. A festival was instituted in honor of her conception, and although it met with opposition in some places, was generally received in England in the course of the century. But now the opinion began to be broached that she was herself conceived without sin, and about 1140 the canons of Lyons proceeded to celebrate the new doctrine by a festival of the Conception, on the 8th of December. By this, Bernard was drawn to write a letter of remonstrance, in which he states his belief that the Virgin was sanctified in her mother’s womb, but that Christ alone was conceived without sin. If, he says, we were to suppose that the Saviour’s mother must have been so conceived in order that she might be fitted to give him birth, we might be required to suppose the like as to her parents also on both sides, and so of all her ancestors; and he censures the institution of such a festival without the sanction 0f the apostolic see. Other eminent divines of the age took the same view with Bernard; as Peter of La Celle, who strongly defended him in two letters against a monk of St. Alban’s named Nicolas; Potho, a monk of Prüm; and the ritualist John Beleth, who says that the feast of the Virgin's immaculate conception ought to be suppressed, forasmuch as she was conceived in sin..

The ancient pagan festival of the Saturnalia, with its wild license and misrule, had affected the Christian celebration of the Christmas season, as appears by the protests of a chain of witnesses which reaches down from the fourth century. Out of this arose a class of mock festivals, in which the rites of religion were parodied in a strange and startling fashion—at first, perhaps, without any evil intention, but gradually developing into gross profanity. The Feast of Fools was celebrated in some places on the Circumcision, and in others on the Epiphany or its octave, when the subdeacons chose a Bishop of Fools. This prelate was arrayed in pontificals, and performed a burlesque mass, during which his attendant minister ate sausages, and carried on all manner of extravagant gambols in church. In 1198 a papal legate, cardinal Peter, strongly condemned this profane mummery at Paris, and in the following year it was suppressed in that church by bishop Eudes of Sully. In the thirteenth century, a still stranger festival of like kind—the “Feast of Asses”, in mock commemoration of the ass which carried the infant Saviour into Egypt—was celebrated at Rouen and elsewhere and in England the boy bishop or abbot was chosen by the choristers of the greater churches on the feast of St. Nicolas, the patron of children, down to the time of the Reformation.

The passion for relics was greatly encouraged and nourished by the crusades, which introduced to the Christians of the West many saints before unknown to them—such as the virgin Catharine of Alexandria—and supplied a vast quantity of materials for superstitious reverence. Among the chief of the relics which now became famous was the “holy dish”, brought by the Genoese from Caesarea, after the capture of that place in 1101, and still preserved in the cathedral of their city—a vessel which, although in reality made of green glass, was believed to be of emerald, and was venerated as having been used at the last supper. Another was the Veronica—a cloth on which our Lord was said to have miraculously impressed his countenance while on his way to Calvary. The Veronica was exhibited in St. Peter's at Rome from the year 1011, and was connected with a legend that it had been brought to Italy for the cure of the emperor Tiberius, when afflicted with leprosy, and a saint Veronica was imagined as the person who handed the cloth to the Saviour. Another relic of great fame was the seamless coat of our Lord found at Argenteuil in 1156—one of many coats which claimed the same sacred connection, but distinguished from the rest as having been made for Him in his childhood by his virgin mother; and from this age also comes the first authentic mention of the holy coat which the empress Helena was said to have presented to an imaginary archbishop of her pretended birthplace, Treves.

To a different class belong the renowned relics at Cologne—the bodies of the holy three kings, which, as we have already seen, were translated from Milan by archbishop Reginald, and those of St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins. The legend of the British princess and her virgin companions, who are said to have been martyred by the Huns at Cologne, had been told by Sigebert of Gemblours, early in the twelfth century, under the date of 453. But when heresy afterwards became rife at Cologne, and miraculous aid was desirable in opposition to it, some bodies were opportunely found, and were sent to St. Elizabeth of Schonau, who referred the martyrdom of the virgin com­pany to the year 238—a date inconsistent with the story of their martyrdom by the Huns—and had visions of their heavenly glory. In connection with this affair, it is mentioned that the relics had been suspected, because some persons were in the habit of practising frauds in such matters for the sake of money; and of such practices there is abundant evidence.

In the end of the eleventh century, Guibert of Nogent-sous-Couci was led to compose a treatise “On the Relics of Saints”,—the immediate provocation being the impudence and the success with which the monks of St. Medard’s at Soissons displayed a pretended tooth of our Lord. Guibert altogether denies that such bodily relics of the Saviour could be genuine; he opposes the practice of disturbing the saints in their graves, and enclosing their remains in gold and silver; and he speaks without reserve of the arts by which both relics and saintly reputations were manufactured. As a specimen of the audacity with which impostures of this kind were carried through, he mentions that once, while listening to a sermon, he was astonished by the preacher's pointing at him as a witness for the genuineness of some crusts which were said to have come from our Lord's own table!, and that, although he blushed at the falsehood, he allowed it to pass, out of deference for those who had taken such means of filling their monastic purse. The superstition which Guibert attacked, however, found a zealous defender in his contemporary Thiofrid, abbot of Epternach, and continued in undiminished popularity.

The practice of pilgrimage had produced the great movement of the crusades, and, after the success of the Latins, the crowds which flocked to the Holy Land were, for a time, greater than ever. Particular indulgences were attached to the longer pilgrimages—such as those of Rome, Compostella, and Jerusalem; and Innocent III complains that, for the sake of the privileges connected with the Compostella pilgrimage, the scallop-shells which were the token of it were counterfeited. But warnings continued, as in early times, to be lifted up by eminent teachers against a reliance on pilgrimage. Thus Hildebert praises a widow for having chosen, instead of running after the Saviour’s burial-place, to “follow Him in his burial” by entering a convent, and remonstrates with count Fulk, of Anjou, for neglecting his duties that he might go on pilgrimage to Compostella:—“Among the talents which the Householder hath distributed to his servants”, he says, “no doctor and no scripture mentions that of wandering round the world”. In like manner, Bernard exhorted against leaving the duties of home in order to visit the Holy Land; and Peter of Cluny strongly reproves a monk for intending to set out on pilgrimage. “It is”, he says, “a greater thing to serve God continually in humility and poverty than to perform the journey to Jerusalem in pride and luxury. If it be well to visit Jerusalem, where the feet of our Lord stood, it is far better to pant after heaven, where He himself is beheld face to face”. It was held that a vow of pilgrimage was fulfilled by entering a monastic order—that so to vow the whole life to God was more than the partial vows of pilgrims. Other commutations for the longer pilgrimages were also sanctioned; thus Calixtus I allowed the English and Scots, instead of going to Rome, to content themselves with resorting to St. David’s—two visits to the Welsh sanctuary being reckoned as equivalent to one pilgrimage to Rome. And in this, as in other things, the idea of performing duties by proxy was introduced; for instance, a lady left estates to a Danish convent in 1272 on condition that, for the good of her soul, the monks should send off three pilgrims to Jerusalem, Rome, and Aarhuus.

The belief in the continued performance of miracles was unabated; and special collections of miraculous stories were formed, as by Peter of Cluny, Herbert, archbishop of Torre, in Sardinia, and in the next century by Caesarius of Heisterbach; to which may be added the books on the miracles of St. Thomas of Canterbury, by William of Canterbury and Benedict of Peterborough. Yet Abelard ventured to deride the miracles of his most famous contemporaries, such as Norbert and Bernard—declaring that they did not rely on their prayers alone for a cure, but sometimes employed medicine in simple cases; that they sometimes ludicrously failed; and that all such failures were set down to the unbelief of the people, while the cures were ascribed to the holiness of those who wrought them..

The system of penance became more and more widely different from what it had originally been. Not only did pecuniary commutations hold their ground (especially in England), notwithstanding all the prohibitions which councils could utter against them, but other things of a new kind contributed to destroy the ancient system. Among these new influences, the pope's assumption of a right to interfere with the penitential discipline in every diocese has been already mentioned. But most especially the penitential discipline suffered from a system which now superseded the penitential books of earlier times—the system of indulgences which were granted by way of inducement to perform some service for the church. These, unlike the indulgences of former days, were not limited to the forgiveness of particular sins, but extended to all. Thus Gregory VII, in the names of St. Peter and St. Paul, promised absolution of all their sins to those who should take part with Rudolf of Swabia against Henry IV; and Victor III endeavored by a like promise to enlist men for a religious war against the Saracens of Africa. This system was brought into its fullest operation by the crusades, from the time when Urban II at Clermont proclaimed a plenary indulgence for all who should share in the holy war. These indulgences, indeed, were intended as remissions of those temporal penalties only which it was believed that the sinner must undergo either 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 license which marked the lives of the crusaders, and of the Latins who settled in the Holy Land, is an unquestionable proof of the sense in which the papal offers were interpreted.

In addition to the enterprises in which life was risked, and to which, therefore, the ancient belief in the cleansing power of martyrdom might be extended, indulgences of lesser degrees were granted by bishops for all manner of small performances—such as the recitation of a certain prayer before a certain altar, visiting a church on a certain day, pilgrimages to relics and miraculous pictures, or the like; and in furtherance of local undertakings, such as the building or enlargement of a church, the building of a bridge, the making of a road, or the enclosure of a forest. Payment towards the expenses of the holy war was rewarded with indulgences in proportion to its amount; and the allowance of indulgence was greatly increased. Thus an act which in an earlier age would have earned an indulgence of forty days, was now rewarded with absolution from a hundred years or more of purgatorial pain. There were, however, those who, as Abelard, and Stephen, abbot of Obaize, did not hesitate to express their objections to the trade which was driven in indulgences, or their doubts as to the efficacy of theses The question whether confession to a priest were necessary in order to forgiveness of sin was often discussed. Both Gratian and Peter Lombard give the arguments on each side; Gratian, with some qualification, decides against the necessity, while the Master of the Sentences takes the opposite view. Peter teaches, as Hildebert had before taught, that true repentance must consist of three parts—the compunction of the heart, the confession of the mouth, and the satisfaction of work; but he holds that, if the assistance of a priest cannot be had, confession to a lay Christian is allowable. As to the effect of priestly absolution, he thinks that the priest cannot forgive sins, but can only declare them to be remitted or retained; that, although we may have been forgiven by God, yet absolution by the priest's judgment is necessary “in the face of the church”; but that this absolution is valid in so far only as it agrees with the Divine judgment. This opinion is spoken of by Richard of St. Victor as frivolous and ridiculous; yet Richard himself did not venture to maintain that the priest had absolute power to forgive as with God’s authority; and as yet the form of absolution continued to be precatory, not declaratory.

State of Learning

The rise of great schools, and the increase of intellectual activity which marked the twelfth century, have been already noticed. The foundation of the university of Oxford has been referred to Alfred; that of Paris, to Charlemagne; while Bologna has been carried back, by fable which has called forgery to its support, as far as the reign of Theodosius II, in the year 433. For Cambridge too has been claimed an origin from Sigebert king of Essex, in the seventh century, from the British hero Arthur, in the fifth, and even from some date as early at least as the second century, when the professors of Cambridge are said to have converted king Lucius to the Christian faith. But in truth the oldest of these famous seminaries cannot be traced to any earlier time than the twelfth century; nor can any formal foundation of them be shown, inasmuch as they did not owe their origin to any acts of papal or sovereign authority, but to the spontaneous concourse of lecturers and students. Their distinct organization and the bestowal of privileges by papal, imperial, or other charters, followed on the establishment of each body, as regulation became necessary, and as privileges were felt to be desirable; and at a later time the sanction of popes and princes was called in to give new universities a rank equal with those of earlier foundation, and especially to secure a general recognition for the degrees which they conferred. The name of University, by which these great schools became distinguished, was not derived from their teaching of universal learning, but from the usage of the Roman law, in which it signified a corporation. Thus, according to the varieties of constitution, the “university” might consist of the masters only (as at Paris), or might include the students also (as at Bologna); a single faculty might form an university, as we And the expressions universitas artistariun (i.e. the professors and students of the arts included in the trivium and quadrivium) and universitas juristarum; and that which is popularly styled the university of a place might in reality consist of two or more universities—as at Bologna, from the time of Innocent VI., there were four universities, each under its own rector—two of them being devoted to law, one to medicine and philosophy, and one to theology.

The story that the knowledge of Roman law, after having been extinct for ages, was revived by the discovery of a celebrated copy of the Pandects at Amalfi on the taking of that place by Lothair in 1135—that the emperor presented the book to his allies, the Pisans, in whose city it was long preserved with reverence—and that, at the instance of the great jurist Irnerius, he decreed that all men should thenceforth obey the Roman law only—appears to be utterly fabulous. For traces of acquaintance with the Roman law are to be found throughout all the ages which had intervened since the time of Justinian, and not only were other copies of the Pandects known before the date of the alleged discovery at Amalfi, but there is reason to believe that the book in question had been at Pisa long before that date— perhaps even from the days of Justinian himself.

The increased study of Roman law would seem rather to have grown out of the needs of the Lombard cities, which, long before they extorted an acknowledgment of their liberties from Frederick Barbarossa, set up pretensions to independence, and wished for a system of law more suitable to their circumstances than the barbaric codes. Moreover, the ancient civil law was regarded as having a claim on all the West beyond the immediate occasion, inasmuch as from the time of Charlemagne the states of western Europe had all been considered as forming one empire. Hence arose the law-school of Bologna, under Irnerius, who has been supposed by some to have been a German, but was more probably a native of the city; and the first formal recognition of it is in a rescript which Frederick issued at Roncaglia in 1158. By this document special privileges are bestowed on the schools. The students, and the messengers or posts by whom they kept up communication with their homes, are to travel without hindrance; it is ordered that no one shall be held liable for the misdeeds or for the debts of his countrymen; the students are exempted from the jurisdiction of the secular magistrates, and are subjected to the judgment of their professors or of the bishop.

The method of teaching and the writings of Irnerius and his followers, the “Four Doctors of Bologna”, excited a desire for a compendium of church-law, which had been regarded as a branch of theology and the need of such a work was the more felt, because the Bolognese lawyers were imperialist and antipapalist in their principles. Collections of ecclesiastical law had, indeed, been formed in times not remote, by Regino, abbot of Prüm, by Burkhard, bishop of Worms, by Ivo of Chartres, and others. But these collections were not reduced to a system, and one great purpose of the digest which was now compiled by Gratian, a monk of Bologna, may be understood from the title which was given to it (although possibly not by the author), “A Concordance of discordant Rules”. In this the matter was classified under proper heads; the various sentences of councils, popes, and fathers were cited, and harmony was as far as possible established between them, while Gratian, unlike the earlier compilers, added to the usefulness of the book by introducing his own views and “dicta”. The genuineness of the False Decretals was assumed, and their principles were carried throughout the work, which thus served to establish those principles instead of the older canonical system. The Decretum (as it was generally styled) was recommended not only by its superiority over other collections in method and completeness, but by the circumstance that it emanated from the city which was the chief seat of legal science. It was valuable as preserving many important fragments which would otherwise have perished, and became popular as the source of much second-hand learning which is displayed by writers of the middle ages. But it abounds in uncritical blunders, and the compiler's attempts at a harmony of authorities were after all so far from satisfactory that a Cistercian chapter in 1188 ordered the book to be locked up, lest the promiscuous reading of it should propagate errors. Eugenius III is said to have approved the Decretum in 1152, and, although this statement seems to be very questionable, the importance of Gratian’s compilation for the papacy was speedily understood. It became the great text-book of the subject; within a few years after its publication, special professorships of canon law were established both at Bologna and at Paris; the faculty of canonists or decretalists arose in rivalry to that of legists, and each conferred degrees on its members. From this time the popes, if they wished to give currency to new decrees, had only to send them to the professors of the chief universities, by whom they were eagerly caught up, expounded, and disseminated through the agency of their pupils. 

The university of Paris owes its origin to William of Champeaux, Abelard, William of Conches, and their contemporaries, whose lectures attracted a great concourse of hearers to the city; and it speedily grew to such an extent that the number of students is said to have exceeded that of the citizens. The earliest documents which recognize the existence of the university are two decretals of Alexander III. Celestine III exempted the students in all questions as to money from the jurisdiction of the secular magistrates, and ordered that they should be judged according to the canon law, before the bishop, or the abbot of St. Genevieve, and in the last year of the century, in consequence of a great quarrel between the students and the citizens, a grant of privileges was bestowed by Philip Augustus, who acknowledges the office of rector as already existing. As the cathedral school had been the germ of the university, the chancellor of the cathedral was its superintendent; and hence, in other universities founded on the same model, the chief officer bore the title of chancellor. The students of Paris were divided into four nations—a division which was afterwards imitated elsewhere. This arrangement is said to have been fully established before 1169, when Henry II of England offered to refer his differences with archbishop Becket to the judgment of the university; but the evidence appears unsatisfactory.

As Bologna was the great school of law, so Paris took the lead in theology; but it also became eminent in the other faculties. Giraldus Cambrensis, who had studied at Bologna as well as at Paris, tells us that both civil and canon law were best taught in the French university, and quotes the opinion of another, that Paris was the best school for every sort of learning which might be taken up there; and whereas, in John of Salisbury's time, it was usual for the students of medicine to repair from Paris to Montpellier or Salerno, which were then in the highest fame as medical schools, Paris itself under Philip Augustus, was provided with facilities of all sorts for teaching medical science.

England bore its share in the intellectual progress of the century. Englishmen, such as Robert Pulleyn, Robert, who, from the place where he lectured, was styled of Melun, and John of Salisbury, became famous abroad for their learning; and to this time is to be ascribed the real origin of the university of Oxford. The earliest fact which seems to be certain in the literary history of Oxford is the establishment of Vacarius, a Lombard, as professor of civil law there, under the patronage of Archbishop Theobald, in 1149; from which we may infer that it was already known as a place of study. It is remarkable that John of Salisbury, although he mentions Vacarius, says nothing of his having taught at Oxford; but Giraldus Cambrensis, about the year 1185, speaks of Oxford as the place most distinguished in England for the excellence of its clerks. The sister university of Cambridge, according to the continuation of Ingulf which bears the name of Peter of Blois, existed as early as 1109, when Joffrid, abbot of Croyland, taught there. But the authority is worthless, and the statement is encumbered by the difficulty that Averroes, whose works Joffrid is said to have expounded, was then unborn. It is not until the beginning of the thirteenth century that any trustworthy mention of Cambridge as a seat of learning is to be found.

The theologians of the western church in these times laboured under the disadvantage of being unacquainted with the original languages of Scripture. Anselm appears to have been ignorant of Greek; Abelard’s knowledge of it seems to have been limited to such Greek words as are to be found in Latin writers, and he avows that he was unable to read some works of Aristotle and Plato because they had not been translated into Latin; John of Salisbury, although his knowledge of the classical Latin authors vas unrivalled among his contemporaries, on meeting with the word ousiain a treatise of St Ambrose, was unable either to understand it or to find any western teacher who could explain it to him. In consequence of this ignorance, the expositors of Scripture did not so much aim at discovering its real sense as at forcing into it such matter as they supposed to be edifying; and hence they not only disguised all that they treated by a mystical system of interpretation, but in their choice of subjects there was an especial fondness for the obscurest books, such as the Canticles, Ezekiel, and the Apocalypse. The theologians of the time were divided into three classes—those who, like Bernard, followed the ancient expositors; the more speculative and adventurous thinkers, of whom Abelard is the chief representative; and a middle class, who, after the example of Lanfranc and Anselm, endeavored to combine original thought with a deference to antiquity. These three classes were respectively known as Positives, Scholastics (a word which, from having been used as a general term for learned men, was now applied more especially to signify the professors of philosophical theology), and Sententiaries.

A service like that which Gratian had rendered to ecclesiastical law was performed for theology by Peter Lombard, a native of Novara, who, after having long taught with great reputation at Paris, became bishop of that city in 1159, and died in 1164. The name of Sentences had before been given to the collections of ancient authorities which had been popular since the seventh century. Such a collection of opinions had been formed by Abelard, under the title of “Yes and No”, with a view of exhibiting their contradictions; but Peter Lombard, on the contrary, in his “Four Books of Sentences” aimed a harmonizing them. He discusses questions down to those raised by Abelard, although without naming the authors; and the authorities which he cites come down to the time of Bede. The method which was observed in the work gave it the charm of novelty, while in substance it was intended to accord with antiquity; and it speedily obtained a great popularity. The “Master of the Sentences”, indeed, was not exempt from censure; Gerhoh of Reichersperg denounced him to Alexander III, and one of his own pupils, John of Cornwall, attacked him both while living and after death. An opinion imputed to him—that our Lord, in so far as He is man, is nothing—was brought before the council of Tours in 1163, and before the Lateran council of 1179, and was condemned by Alexander, who directed the French bishops to teach “that Christ, as He is perfect God, so also is He perfect man, consisting, according to his manhood, of soul and body”. Joachim of Fiore also charged Peter with heterodoxy, as has been already mentioned; but the Fourth Lateran council in 1215 pronounced in favour of the Master of the Sentences; and from that time his reputation and authority were greatly increased. Lectures and commentaries on his “Sentences” were composed in vast abundance, and among the authors of them were the most eminent teachers of the church; England alone is said to have produced no less than a hundred and sixty-four writers who illustrated this famous text-book. Yet the work, while it aimed at settling every point of doctrine, was often found rather to suggest questions than to answer them; and in the year 1300 the professors of Paris extracted from it sixteen propositions as to which the Master’s opinions were not generally held.

The school of St. Victor at Paris, founded by William of Champeaux, while it endeavored to reconcile the scholastic method of inquiry with practical piety, was especially opposed to the dialectical subtleties which were now in fashion, and was itself inclined to mysticism. The most famous teachers of this school were Hugh—a Saxon, according to some writers, while others suppose him a native of Ypres—who died in 1141; Richard, a Scotsman, who died in 1170 and Walter, who, in 1174, wrote against “The Four Labyrinths of Gaul”, under which name he denounced Abelard, Gilbert de la Porrée, Peter Lombard, and his disciple Peter of Poitiers.

Other writers, who were no enemies to letters or philosophy, agreed in censuring the dialectical arts which, from having been regarded with suspicion in the preceding century, were now the great weapon of the most popular teachers. John of Salisbury complains of the modern systems of study as ruinous to solid knowledge, and describes a professor whom he styles Cornificius as teaching his pupils to despise all that was ancient, to neglect the old methods of learning, and to consider themselves accomplished philosophers after a course no longer than the time in which young birds become fledged. Other writers of the age agree with John in their complaints as to the waste of time in speculations, the fondness for words rather than things, the abuse of dialectical art in mere quibbling, the too prevalent separation between knowledge and practice in those who professed themselves followers of literature, the tendency to hurry on to the higher subjects without having laid a substantial foundation. It was complained that Scripture was neglected in comparison of the new and showy kinds of knowledge, that the study of law drew men away from that of other literature; and, useful as the labours of Gratian and Peter Lombard were, when rightly employed, they tended, by offering a short and easy way to an appearance of familiarity with earlier writers, to discourage any endeavour after a deeper acquaintance with the original works from which their materials were derived.