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The genius of Catholicism continued, then, to transcend the weaknesses
of its members even in this dying world. The weaknesses were as evident
as in the days of St. Boniface -- ignorant clergy, worldly lords and
successful brigands masquerading as prelates, a greedy laity taking
every occasion the times offered to lay hands on ecclesiastical
property and jurisdiction for their own profit. Nowhere is the struggle
that shook the whole Church better seen than in the history of its
primatial see, in the story of the development of the Frankish
protectorate during the eighty or ninety years that followed
Charlemagne's death. It is the story of the ever-increasing hold of the
emperor on the papacy, and of the gradual disappearance of the
principle of free election. The idea grows that the papacy, a thing
eminently profitable, is worth much violence to secure, and at Rome
there are soon rival factions traditionally hostile, to whom every
vacancy presents an opportunity for fraud, violence, and sacrilege.
These factions outlive the empire, and once the strong hand of the
emperor has gone the papacy is at their mercy.
Charlemagne was scarcely dead when the faction which, in 799, had tried
to murder Leo III, seized its opportunity. But now the plot was
discovered in time, and arrests and executions were the order of the
day. Protests went to the emperor. The death penalty, the punishment of
the Roman Law for the outrage on the Roman maiestas, seemed to the
Franks unnecessarily harsh. And, since the emperor was emperor of the
Romans, should he not have been consulted? So Louis the Pious sent a
commission to Rome to enquire, and the pope explained himself. The
plots continued and the next year, 816, an insurrection broke out. It
was suppressed by the Franks -- just in time to save the pope. Then, in
June 816, Leo III died.
The election was made, in conformity with the decree of 769, by the
clergy alone. They elected the deacon Stephen, who, like' Leo's
predecessor Adrian I, was a noble and therefore qualified to unite the
contending parties. He reigned only six months, but in that short time
he recalled the exiles of 799 and 814, saw to it that all his people
swore allegiance to the emperor, and, in October, 816, solemnly crowned
Louis at Rheims.
With the unexpected death of Stephen IV (January 25, 817) the forces
that had ruled during the twenty-one years of Leo III's reign returned
to power, in the person of the new pope, Pascal I. The reign was as
troubled as that of Leo III. It began with the now customary
announcement to the emperor of the pope's election and with a
confirmation of the pact of amity between the two powers. The text of
the pact of 816 is the earliest that has survived. The emperor
guarantees the pope's sovereignty over the Italian territories, which
arc specified in detail, and he guarantees also that the papal election
shall be free and unhindered. On the other hand, he reserves the right
to receive appeals from the pope's subjects. In 822 there was a notable
instance of the exercise of this right when Louis' son, Lothair -- whom
Louis had himself crowned King of Italy, as he himself had been crowned
by Charlemagne -- decided an appeal of the nobility against the pope.
The next year there were more serious troubles. Some of the appellants
of 822 were murdered, and the pope was accused of being privy to the
deed. He protested his innocence and, following the precedent of Leo
III, solemnly purged himself by oath.
Twelve months later the unhappy pope was dead, and the internal
dissensions precipitated in a double election. Thanks to the influence
of the monk Wala who was Lothair's chief adviser, and who chanced to be
in Rome, one party gave way and the archpriest Eugene was unanimously
acknowledged -- the candidate of the nobility. The emperor, weary of
the endless scandals that resulted from the Roman factions, determined
to end them by a careful, systematic and official delimitation of
powers. A mission was sent to Rome under the nominal presidency of the
young king, Lothair, after whom the pact in which it issued was called
the Constitution of Lothair. On the whole the balance of the new
arrangement was unfavourable to the pope. The pope, henceforth, must
not put to death anyone who enjoyed the emperor's protection, nobles
that is to say and dignitaries Romans accused of serious crimes were to
have a choice by which law they would be judged, Roman or Frank or
Lombard. The magistrates were to be nominated by the emperor, who was
now to be represented at Rome by two permanent commissioners, one of
them nominated by the pope. They were to make an annual report to the
emperor on the papal government, and to receive appeals against its
action. Should the pope refuse to do justice to such appeals the
commissioners were to send them on to the emperor. Finally, the
Constitution regulated the papal election. None but Romans were to take
part in the election, and -- a notable reversal of existing law -- the
laity were to have a share in it. And the newly-elect was to swear an
oath to the emperor in the presence of the commissioners and the
people. The history of the next few elections interprets the new
arrangement. The emperor is very definitely the overlord of Rome, and
the pope is not consecrated until the emperor's representative is
satisfied that the election has been made in accordance with the
prescribed form.
Eugene II accepted the Constitution, and in a council of the bishops of
the Roman province he promulgated the new regulations for the election
of the pope. Then, only a few months later, in August, 827, he too
died. His successor, Valentine, lived for a few weeks only. The next
effective pope was Gregory IV, elected in October, 827, but not
consecrated until after the imperial commissioners, six months later,
had come to Rome and confirmed the election. The new system was an
established fact, and the nobility had been given a new hold on the
papacy, a hold which tended, from the first, so to increase that the
clergy's part in elections was, often enough, to be by comparison a
very secondary affair indeed.
Gregory IV was an exceptionally long-lived pope. His sixteen years'
pontificate saw the beginning of the disastrous civil wars between
Louis the Pious and his sons, in which the pope in the interests of
unity and peace opposed the emperor's schemes of partition. It saw,
too, the establishment of the Mohammedans in Sicily and the beginning
of their attacks on Italy itself. The duchy of Benevento was at this
time disputed between rival claimants, both of whom called in bands of
Saracens as auxiliaries. In every new event the end of the Carolingian
peace was already beginning to be proclaimed when, in the beginning of
844, Gregory died.
The election of his successor showed once more the reality of the new
imperial suzerainty. As in 824, there was a double election. The
candidate of the nobility, Sergius, managed to expel his rival from the
Lateran and was himself, thereupon, consecrated and enthroned. The
emperor, Lothair, had not been consulted, and to maintain his right,
now sent his son, the future emperor, Louis II, with an army, to
examine into the election. There was an enquiry, much questioning of
all who took part, and finally Sergius was recognised as pope. He
proceeded, thereupon, to consecrate the young king and to swear
fidelity to the emperor his father. Furthermore, it was again carefully
stipulated that no one was to be consecrated pope without the sanction
of the emperor or his representative.
Sergius II was elderly, gouty, and lacking entirely in the gift of
ruling. His one title to consideration was his noble birth, that he
came from the family that had given Eugene II to the Church, and was
later to give Adrian II too. The pope's brother, Benedict, a nobleman
of shifty ways and dissolute life, was soon installed as Bishop of
Albano and his chief adviser. Soon it was known that the one thing
necessary under the regime was money. Offices, benefices, appointments
and favours of every sort, were on sale; and to supplement where these
means fell short, the pope and his brother set themselves to pillage
the monasteries. Then, a divinely appointed chastisement, men said, for
the election of so worthless a pope, on August 23, 846, the Mohammedans
landed at Ostia and making their way along the Tiber sacked and
pillaged the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. Against Rome itself they
were powerless; the old walls were an obstacle such an expedition could
not hope to force. But the whole of the Christian West shivered at the
sacrilege, and the emperor was moved by the general indignation to
raise funds to fortify the basilica of St. Peter, and to organise an
expedition and drive the Saracens from Italy. The miserable old pope
did not long survive the indignity He died in January, 847.
In his place the Romans elected Leo, the priest of the church of the
Four Crowned Martyrs. With the money which the imperial tax brought
him, with offerings from all over Christendom, and with taxes on his
own domains he fortified the district round St. Peter's -- the district
called ever since, in memory of him, the Leonine City. It was no luxury
of building, for the Mohammedans continued to molest the coast and the
districts at the mouth of the Tiber during all the rest of the reign.
Leo IV's relations with the emperor never attained to cordiality. He
had been consecrated without the emperor's permission -- though this
had been put right by a declaration that the pope in no way denied the
emperor's rights -- and when, in 850, the young Louis II, associated
now with his father as emperor, came to live in Italy as its king the
delicacy of the situation was greatly increased The pope complained of
the emperor's representative at Rome and the emperor seems to have
supported discontented papal functionaries against the pope. Leo IV,
from the point of view of imperial policy, fell very short indeed of
perfection as pope. The emperor began to make plans for the future. A
new departure was at hand. The emperor, at the next vacancy, would have
his own candidate and, an imperialist pope elected, harmony would reign
between the two powers.
The priest Anastasius on whom, for this dubiously honourable promotion,
Louis II cast his eyes was a mall of no small distinction. He was the
son of the Bishop of Orte, [ ] a strong imperialist, whom the emperor
had more or less compelled the pope to choose as the papal member of
the commission of superintendence. Anastasius was unusually well
educated. In addition to a wide knowledge of ecclesiastical literature,
for example, he had a good command of Greek. Now he suddenly
disappeared from Rome and the next news was that he was living in the
neighbourhood of the imperial court. The pope, suspecting an
understanding with the emperor, and fearing perhaps a schism, ordered
him to return. He refused, and thereupon, after a succession of
warnings, the pope excommunicated him and specifically deprived him of
any right to be elected pope in the future, laying an excommunication
on whoever should presume to vote for him. The relations of pope and
emperor were in this state when, July 17, 855, Leo IV died.
The sequel to the emperor's plans was curious. Anastasius was of course
still absent from Rome, and unanimously the Romans elected Benedict,
the priest of St. Cecilia. This election the emperor refused to ratify.
His commissioners appeared at Rome with an escort and with them came
Anastasius, the emperor's candidate. The number of their partisans
increased as they journeyed, Benedict was arrested, and Anastasius took
possession of the papal palace. But the clergy held firm. Anastasius
lay under sentence of deposition and by Church Law no deposed
ecclesiastic could receive promotion. The commissioners had to yield;
and in a solemn assembly at St. Mary Major's, Benedict, released now,
was re-elected and the election confirmed.
The sentences against Anastasius were renewed. He was reduced to the
lay state and made Abbot of Sta. Maria in Trastevere. There, in
studious retirement, he remained, preparing himself for the next office
to which the emperor destined him, that of permanent imperial
commissioner at Rome charged to keep watch on the pope. His father
still held office as the papal nominee on the Commission, and so
Anastasius would triumph, despite Pope Benedict's re-election ! But
before the scheme matured Benedict III died (April 17, 858). This time
the emperor himself assisted at the election. He did not repeat the
mistake of 855 and suggest an ineligible candidate, but proposed, and
succeeded in carrying, the election of a very distinguished man indeed.
This was St. Nicholas I, the greatest pope between St. Gregory and
Hildebrand, one of the three popes whom alone of the two hundred and
sixty posterity has agreed to call "the Great. " He owed his election,
none the less, to Louis II, for the Roman clergy had had another in
view.
The new pope managed to keep on good terms with the emperor. Anastasius
he disarmed by making him, to use a modern term, his secretary of
state, in which capacity the forthcoming schism of Photius and the
struggle with Hincmar of Rheims, soon gave him ample scope to show
himself one of the great defenders of papal rights. When Louis II
demanded the reinstatement of the Archbishop of Ravenna, excommunicated
for his misgovernment, the pope held firm despite the emperor's
personal intervention; and, carrying the war into the other camp, he
renewed the decree of 769 forbidding non- Romans -- the emperor's
envoys for example -- to interfere in papal elections. Nicholas was no
mere statesman, but a man of saintly life, and his natural courage was
reinforced by the invincible prestige of personal holiness. The emperor
withdrew his support from the excommunicated prelate, while the pope
descended on Ravenna and saw personally to the restoration of order.
Finally the archbishop submitted.
This dispute was but a preliminary skirmish. In 863 a battle royal
developed between pope and emperor. The cause was the annulment of the
marriage of the emperor's brother, Lothair II of Lorraine, and his
re-marriage. The bishops of Lorraine had sanctioned the re-marriage
twice in synod. It was once more sanctioned in a great council at Metz,
presided over by the pope's legates and then, in the October of the
same year, the pope quashed the decisions of the councils, and since
both the law and the facts were so evident that no honest man could be
in doubt, deposed the Archbishops of Cologne and Treves for their share
in the scandal and recalled his legates to take their trial. The
decision was a signal for all the discontented to combine: the King of
Lorraine of course, the emperor, still sore over the Ravenna defeat,
the Archbishop of Ravenna, -- even the schismatic Photius, in distant
Constantinople, was approached. Presently a great army, led by the
brother sovereigns, moved on Rome. The pope gave himself to prayer.
Processions filled the streets, the people prayed and fasted. For two
whole days the pope prayed before the tomb of St. Peter. Then the tide
began to turn. The emperor fell ill. He asked nothing better than a
reconciliation. The great combination broke up and the affair ended
with the pope stronger than ever.
Nicholas I died, all too soon, after a reign of only nine years
(858-867). His successor, Adrian II, elected without difficulty, was
again not consecrated until Louis II had approved. He was soon involved
in serious difficulties with the family of Anastasius. Adrian, to begin
with, without reversing the decisions of his predecessor, tended
towards a policy of leniency to some of the malcontents of the late
reign. Anastasius persisted in the contrary sense, and in the end had
his way. Between the son, who thus dominated the spiritual
administration, and his father the aged Arsenius who controlled the
temporal, the papacy, with a weak pope, was very much what this family
chose to make it. And behind them was the emperor. A new manoeuvre
which would have extended their power still further failed however. It
ended in a fearful crime - - symptomatic of the more sinister
tendencies of the time and prophetic of the future -- and this ruined
all. Adrian II, while as yet in minor orders, had married and his wife
and daughter were still alive at the time of his election. Arsenius now
planned a marriage between the pope's daughter and his own younger son
Eleutherius. But the pope had other views. As in other states, so in
the papal state, a matrimonial alliance could be of high political
importance. This new, and unecclesiastical, novelty, had shown itself
already when Adrian's two predecessors, Benedict III and Nicholas I,
had been careful to marry off their nieces to important members of the
local nobility as a means to secure their loyalty. Adrian had made
similar plans for his daughter. Eleutherius, however, would take no
denial, and finally kidnapped both mother and daughter.
The pope appealed to the emperor and presently the imperial officers
were hot in pursuit. Eleutherius, surrounded, murdered both the girl
and her mother. He was taken and himself put to death. Meanwhile the
pope denounced Anastasius as the author of the plot and, in his anger,
renewed against him all the old sentences of twenty years before and
deprived him of the post of librarian (868). Later he managed to prove
his innocence and Adrian reinstated him. The incident is yet another
instance of the speed with which the papacy was being forced along the
road of secularisation, and of what it had to fear from the brutal
Roman nobility against whom the emperor was its sole defence.
On April 12, 875, the emperor Louis II died, the last effective ruler
to hold undisputed sway in Italy. Adrian II had predeceased him by
three years. In his stead ruled yet a fourth nominee of Louis II. This
was John VIII, and to him there now fell the delicate task of deciding,
since Louis II had no male heirs, to which of his uncles, Charles the
Bald of France or Louis the German of Germany, the imperial title
should now descend. For the first time there was a France and a Germany
between which the papal diplomacy must needs choose. For the first time
it depended 011 the pope whether a King of France or a King of Germany
should be the dominant force in Italian politics. The emperor, for the
last fifty years, had chosen the popes. Now it was for the pope to
choose the emperor. Whichever prince he chose, the empire of
Charlemagne was beyond all possibility Of r salvation. The imperial
title, already, was become a mere decoration.
The pope chose the King of France -- the weaker of the two brothers,
but the ruler of the more civilised kingdom, an intellectual, and a
prince devoted to the fortunes of the Church. The choice was the signal
for his rival to put all possible obstacles in his way; Louis the
German and his three sons took the field. Charles, partly by arms,
partly by diplomacy, circumvented them, and on Christmas Day, 875, just
three-quarters of a century after the first coronation that had founded
the empire in his grandfather, he too was crowned at St. Peter's. Then,
disregarding the pope's appeal for aid in the holy war against the
Mohammedans, he hurried back to defend his own realm against his
brother and nephews.
While, beyond the Alps, the new civil war continued -- the death of
Louis the German in 876 only providing an occasion for new quarrels --
the pope was occupied once more with the problem of the Mohammedans,
and with the chronic discontent of his own factious subjects. From Bari
and Tarentum the Saracens had been lately expelled by the fleet of the
eastern emperor -- the beginning of a Byzantine restoration in southern
Italy that was to last for another two hundred years -- but they now
found new employ in the service of the rival petty princes. Soon there
was a Mohammedan garrison at Naples, another at Gaeta. The Campagna was
never free from their raids and Rome itself was menaced now from the
land. The pope, a man of unusual vigour and invincible spirit,
organised a fleet in addition to his army. He turned admiral, and
successfully: defeating the Saracens several times, destroying a fleet,
and liberating hundreds of Christian captives. Also he fortified St.
Paul’s as Leo IV had fortified St. Peter's.
In Rome itself there was a strong faction which viewed the policies of
John VIII with deep misgiving -- the high officials whom the influence
of the late emperor had forced upon the popes of the last twenty years.
With the death of Louis II the opportunity had come to the pope to be
rid of them. They preferred flight to the risk of what possibly awaited
them, in that time where the unsuccessful politician so frequently
ended his career blinded and lacking a tongue. Whereupon the pope,
after in vain exhorting them to return, solemnly condemned them. Among
these eminent fugitives one at least, Formosus, the Bishop of Porto,
was a man of real distinction and great austerity of life. Nicholas I
had employed him on a mission to Bulgaria, and the Bulgarians had
wished to keep him as their primate. This the pope -- Adrian II, by
this time -- refused, whereupon the disgusted Bulgarians had turned to
Constantinople. As Adrian neared his end there was talk of Formosus as
his successor. But another school of thought had prevailed, and the
distinguished Bishop of Porto could hardly hope for favours from the
candidate it succeeded in electing -- John VIII.
At this juncture, while the exiles, returning with an army, invested
Rome, Charles the Bald suddenly died (October 6, 877) and the pope, for
the second time in two years, had to choose an emperor and a protector.
While he hesitated, his enemies took the Leonine City and held him
prisoner for thirty days, using all possible pressure to induce him to
name Carloman, the senior prince of the German branch of the family.
But the pope held his ground, refusing to make a decision, and finally
they made off.
Next, in despair, the pope made peace with the Mohammedans and sought
to arrange a league of perpetual peace between the warring
Carolingians. But nothing came of his great scheme; the dislocation of
the ancient empire went on apace; each of the princes had more than he
could successfully accomplish in the task of keeping order within the
kingdom nominally subject to him; and the pope's final decision to
crown as emperor Charles the Fat, the senior surviving member of the
German branch of the imperial house [ ] (February 12, 881), did nothing
to strengthen his own position in Rome. There his enemies were finally
too much for him and on December 15, 882, they made away with him,
battering him to death when the poison acted too slowly. John VIII is
the first pope whom history records to have been murdered. In the next
eighty years he was to have, in the manner of his death, not a few
successors. The event was yet another proof how speedily the
Carolingian civilisation was falling back into barbarism, proof too of
what the Roman nobility were capable.
John VIII's successors -- the short lived Marinus (882-884) and Adrian
III (884-885) -- recalled the exiles, and with them Formosus, absolved
now from the censures laid on him and from the oath he had sworn never
to return to Rome. With Stephen V (885-891) the political problem of
the empire returned for, in X87, Charles the Fat was deposed, to die a
few months later. Three candidates disputed the succession to his title
of emperor-Arnulf the Carolingian King of Germany; Berengar, another
Carolingian who ruled Italy; and Guy, the powerful anti-imperialist
Duke of Spoleto in whom the old anti- Roman, anti-papal tradition of
the Lombards came to life again. Guy defeated Berengar, and Stephen V,
without the safeguard of any treaty, without any guarantees for the
future of the papal State, had perforce to crown him emperor (891).
The papacy's real hopes centered in Arnulf, a safer protector because
more distant; and for the next five years all the Roman diplomacy was
directed to induce Arnulf to invade Italy and dispossess Guy. It was a
dangerous game, but one that Stephen's successor, too, continued to
play. This was no other than Formosus himself (891-896). Arnulf,
however, was kept in the north by the problem of Germany. Not until 896
did he come, and on February 22 of that year he was solemnly crowned
emperor by Formosus, who had already crowned his rival Guy and, on
Guy's death in 894, Lambert his son. It only remained for Arnulf to
conquer Lambert and then, the papacy freed from the new political
slavery, to retire to Germany. The campaign had hardly opened however
when paralysis struck down Arnulf, as it had stricken his father
Carloman. The papacy was once more at the mercy of an emperor from
whose inevitable vindictiveness no mercy could be hoped. The shock of
the news was too much for Formosus and, just seven weeks after his
coronation of Arnulf, he died (April 4, 896).
While Arnulf was slowly carried into Germany, Lambert marched to his
triumph. By the end of the year he had taken i Rome. Formosus was no
longer alive, but there yet remained ways to inflict exemplary
punishment. The new pope -- Stephen VI -- was bidden to try the dead
pope for the alleged ecclesiastical, irregularities of his election,
and, that the ceremony might lack nothing, the corpse of Formosus was
disinterred and, vested in the pontifical robes, set before the
assembled bishops. He was condemned, and according to the ritual the
body was stripped of all its insignia. Underneath the splendour they
found a hair shirt. Finally they threw the remains into a disused
grave, whence the mob next took them to tip them into the Tiber.
Stephen had himself been consecrated bishop by Formosus, the most
serious irregularity urged against whom had been his own previous
occupancy of the see of Porto. As the law then stood, no bishop could
pass from one see to another. Stephen VI, then, suffered from the same
irregularity as the man he now condemned. He solved the difficulty by
declaring that the ordinations performed by Formosus were all null and
void-including therefore his own -- since Formosus was not pope but a
usurper.
Stephen VI, too, had his enemies, or perhaps his share in the frightful
horror of the recent trial pointed him out as the most appropriate
scapegoat once the city had come back to its senses. Be that as it may,
an insurrection soon dispossessed him. In his turn he, too, was
degraded and thrown into prison where, in a short time, he was
strangled. Romanus, who followed him in the chair of St. Peter, lasted
for four months only; Theodore II, who came next, for only twenty days.
Formosus, or rather his remains, no-v reappeared, thrown up by the
river. Theodore, with all possible ceremony, restored them to their
original resting place in St. Peter's; and, so it is said, as the body
was borne in, the images of the saints placed there by the dead pope
bent in reverence before him. Theodore also restored all the clerics
whom Stephen had deposed.
But if Theodore made amends for the sacrileges of his predecessor, he
did not live anything like long enough to lay the old spirit of
faction. When he died there was once more a double election. The party
of Formosus elected John IX, their opponents Sergius III. The emperor
intervened in favour of the first and Sergius, for the moment, retired.
John IX (898-900) was a reformer. The acts of Stephen VI were once more
annulled. It was decreed that never, for the future, were corpses to be
digged up for trial, and, a kind of recognition of the apparent truth
that without the emperor there was small chance of order, the imperial
rights in the matter of papal elections were again solemnly confirmed.
How the new alliance would have worked it is impossible to say, but
within two years Lambert had died without heirs and John IX was dead
too.
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