^^'iMM'M^^
A\
^^\
Colttwbia ^tttberig^ttj)
ttttl)tCitpot3letogorIi
LIBRARY
:■>?■'.
&
K'
-l^r/. 4^';^^^^^:^i<^.
HISTORY
OF
LATIN CHRISTIANITY.
HISTORY
OF
LATIN CHRISTIANITY;
INCLUDING THAT OF
THE POPES
THE PONTIFICATE OF NICOLAS V.
By henry hart MILMAN, D.D.,
DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S.
IN EIGHT VOLUMES.
VOLUME V.
COL.COLL.
LIBRARY
N.VOKK. J
NEW YOEK:
SHELDON AND COMPANY
BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN.
M DCCC LXI.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND FEINTED BY
H. 0. HOUGHTON.
CONTENTS
THE FIFTH VOLUME.
BOOK IX. {continued.)
CHAPTER V
Innocent and England.
A.D. PAGE
Richard I. 14
1199 John's accession, divorce, and marriage 15
1200 Contest with Pliilip Augustus 16
Death of Arthur 17
1206 Loss of Norman dominions 20
1205 Quarrel with the Pope about Archbishopric of Can-
terbury ih.
1206 Election — Appeal 22
Stephen Langton 24
Fury of John 25
He persecutes the Clergy 26
Excommunication of John 30
1211 Subjects released from allegiance 31
1213 His throne offered by the Pope to any conqueror- • 32
Offer accepted by Philip Augustus 33
John's desperation 34
Pandulph Legate 35
1213 Treaty with the Pope 37
Surrender of the kingdom to the Pope ib.
Wrath of Philip Augustus 41
' John embarks for Poitou 43
Nobles refuse to accompany him ib.
Second surrender at St. Paul's, London 45
1214 Meeting at St. Edmondsbury 47
M r>. ir\ (^
CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
A.B.
PAGE
1215 Magna Charta 50
Pope Innocent's letter 51
Laugton in Rome 54
CHAPTER VI.
Innocent and Spain.
1212 Battle of Naves (le Tolosa 61
King of Portugal ib.
King of Leon 63
King of Navarre 66
1204 King of Arragon in Rome 68
Lesser Kingdoms of Europe 70
Andrew of Hungary 71
CHAPTEK VII.
Innocent and the East.
1199 Innocent urges the Crusade 73
Fulk of Neuilly 81
Venice 87
1201 Villehardouin's Treaty 89
1202 Crusaders at Venice 90
Proposal to attack Zara 91
Alexius Comnenus 92
Ci'usade sets sail 96
Taking of Zara 97
Treaty with Alexius 99
Innocent condemns the treaty 101
1203 Taking of Constantinople 103
Partition {^
Establishment of Latin- Christianity 105
Plunder — Relics 108
Election of Emperor 109
Latin Patriarch HO
1206 Constitution of Clergy 120
CONTENTS OF VOL. V. vii
A.O PAGE
Captivity of Emperor Baldwin 120
Innocent's letters to King of Bulgaria 123
Effects of conquest of Constantinople 125
CHAPTER VIII.
Innocent and the Anti-Sacerdotalists.
Crusade against heretics 131
Apparent quiet under Innocent III. 133
The Sectaries 135
Three classes 141
I. Simple Anti-Sacerdotalists ib.
Peter de Brueys — The Petrobussians 142
Henry the Deacon 143
Tanchelin 147
Eudo de Stella — Heretics in Vezelay • • • ■ 148
n. Biblical Anti-Sacerdotalists 149
Peter Waldo 150
The Noble Lesson 155
ni. Manichean heretics 156
The Paulicians 158
Western Manicheism 159
Languedoc 161
1198 Innocent's letter to Archbishop of Auch 166
1200 Cistercian Legates 167
Fulk Bishop of Toulouse 170
Count Raymond of Toulouse > 171
Peter de Castelnau Legate 1 74
1208 Murder of Peter de Castelnau 1 76
Crusade against Count Raymond 1 79
1209 Penance of Count Raymond 182
Raymond joins the Crusade 184
Three armies 185
Peter de Vaux Cernay 186
Siege of Beziers — of Carcassonne 187
Simon de Montfort 192
Continued persecution of Raymond ib.
Raymond in Rome 193
1210 Progress of Crusade — Siege of Minerve 194
Vlll CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
■*-^- PAGE
New demands on Count Raymond 197
1212 Raymond takes up arms 200
Siege of Lavaur 202
De Montfort Sovereign Prince 205
Ibid. King of Arragon 206
1213 Battle of Muret 208
1214 Simon de Montfort Master of Languedoc 210
1215 Fourth Lateran Council 211
1216-17 War renewed in Languedoc 218
Count Raymond in Toulouse 220
Death of Simon de Montfort 221
1222 Crusade of Louis VIIL of France 222
1228 Treaty of Paris 223
1229 Council of Toulouse 225
CHAPTER IX.
New Orders. St. Dominic.
Preaching rare — The Ritual 230
Monasticism 232
Intellectual movement 234
Heresy (b,
St. Dominic and St. Francis 237
1170 Birth of Dominic — Education 240
1203-5 In Languedoc 241
Dominic in the war — On the tribunal 244
1217 Foundation of Order of Friar Preachers 246
1220 First Chapter ib.
1221 Second Chapter — Death of Dominic 250
CHAPTER X.
St. Francis.
1182 Birth and youth 254
1 206 Embraces mendicancy 25 7
His followers 258
Before Innocent III. 259
Foundation of the Order 260
CONTENTS OF VOL. V. ix
A.D. PAGE
Foreign missions • 261
St. Francis in the East — Martyrs 262
Poetry of St. Francis 264
Tertlaries 266
1224 The Stigmata 267
Rule of St. Francis 272
Close of Innocent III.'s Pontificate 275
BOOK X.
CHAPTER I.
HoNOKius III. Frederick II.
1216 Election of Honorius 284
His mildness 285
Crusade of Andrew of Hungary 287
Death of Otho 288
1219 Correspondence with Frederick H. 291
1220 Diet of Frankfort — Election of Henry King of
the Romans 292
Frederick's laws in favor of ecclesiastics ; against
heretics 296
Loss of Damietta 299
1229 Meeting at Veroli — at Ferentino 300
1225 Meeting at San Gcrmano 301
Frederick's marriage with the Princess lolante- • • • 302
1226 Angry correspondence 306
1227 Death of Honorius 308
CHAPTER II.
Honorius III. and England.
Pope protects Henry HI. 312
Peter's Pence 314
Benefices held by Italians 315
Tenths '• 319
CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
CHAPTER III.
FeEDERICK II. AND GREGORY IX.
A.D. PAGE
1227 Gregory IX. 321
Frederick II. 322
The Court 323
The Crusade urged on Frederick 324
Preparations 335
Return of Frederick ' 337
Excommunication of Frederick ib.
Second excommunication 344
Gregory driven from Rome 345
1228 Frederick sets sail for the Holy Land 348
In Palestine 355
Sultan Kameel of Egypt ib.
Treaty 358
Frederick at Jerusalem 359
Anger of JMohammedans at the Treaty 363
Condemned by the Pope 365
Frederick leaves Palestine 370
Election to Archbishopric of Canterbury 371
1229 Return of Frederick 373
Christendom against the Pope 374
1230 Peace 378
Frederick as Legislator 381
Laws relating to religion 384
Civil Constitution 386
Cities, Peasants, etc. 387
Intellectual progress 392
Gregory IX. and the Decretals 398
CHAPTER IV.
Renewal of Hostilities between Gregory IX. and Frederick II.
Persecution of Heretics 401
1230-1239 Gregory and the Lombards 404
1236 Lombards Leagued with Princes 410
. CONTENTS OF VOL. V. xi
A.D. PAGE
1237 Battle of Corte Nuova 413
1238 Gregory against Frederick 416
Excommunieation ib.
Frederick's reply 418
Appeal to Christendom 422
Gregory's reply 427
Public opinion In Christendom — England 432
Empire offered to Robert of France 436
Germany — Albert von Beham 437
The Friars 442
John of Vicenza 443
1239 War 446
1240 Advance of Frederick on Rome 449
Council summoned • 451
Battle of Meloria 454
1241 Fall of Faenza 455
Death of Gregory IX. 456
Coelestine IV. 458
CHAPTER V.
Feedeeick and Innocent IV.
1243 Accession of Innocent IV. 460
Defection of Viterbo 462
Negotiations 463
Flight of Innocent to France 465
Innocent excommunicates the Emperor 468
Martin Pope's Collector in England 470
1245 Council of Lyons 473
Thaddeus of Suessa 476
Frederick deposed 479
Frederick appeals to Christendom 480
Innocent claims both spiritual and temporal power- • 483
1246 Mutual accusations 485
Innocent attempts to raise Germany 488
Albert von Beham — Otho of Bavaria 489
1247 Election and death of Henry of Thuringia 492
1 248 Siege of Parma 495
di CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
A.D. ^^"^
King Enzio 496
Peter de Vinea 499
1250 Death of Frederick II. 500
Character 502
Papal Legates 506
1251 Innocent's return to Italy 509
Kingdom of Naples 510
Brancaleone 512
1253 Death of Prince Henry 515
Manfred 516
in revolt 521
1264 Death of Innocent ib-
Robert Grostete, Bishop of Lincoln, - 524
Vision to Innocent 529
COL,. COL
■I
HISTORY
f^lBRAl^
S^ t^ YOR
LATIN CHRISTIANITY.
BOOK IX. — (Continued.)
CHAPTER V.
INNOCENT AND ENGLAND.
Innocent had humbled the ablest and most arbi-
trary King who had ruled in France since the days of
Charlemagne ; Philip Augustus had been reduced to
elude and baffle by sullen and artful obstinacy the
adversary whom he could not openly confront.^ But
beyond the general impression thus made of the awful-
ness of the Papal power, the contest with Philip led
to no great results either in the history of France or of
the Church. In England, the strife of Innocent, first
with King John, afterwards with the barons and
churchmen of England, had almost immediate bear-
ings on the establishment of the free institutions of
England. During the reign of John, disastrous, hu-
miliating to the King and to the nation, were laid
the deep foundations of the English character, the
English liberties, and the English greatness ; and to
1 Innocent consented to the legitimation of Philip's sons by Agues of
Meran, Nov. 2.
14 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
this reign, from the attempt to degrade the kingdom to
a fief of the Roman See, may be traced the first signs
of that independence, that jealousy of the Papal
usurpations, which led eventually to the Reforma-
tion.
On the accession of Innocent, so long as Richai'd
Richard I. lived, England was in close alliance with the
Apostolic See. Richard was the great supporter of the
Papal claimant of the Empire. At his desire Innocent
demanded of Philip, whom he still called Duke of
Swabia, as having succeeded to his brother's, the Em-
peror Henry's, patrimonial domains and treasures, the
restitution of the large ransom extorted from Richard.
Philip was bound to this act of honor and justice.^
The Duke of Austria was also threatened with ex-
communication, if he did not in like manner, for the
welfare of his father's soul, who had taken an oath
to make restitution, refund his share of the ransom
money. The language of Innocent, when he assumes
the mediation between France and England, though
impartially lofty and dictatorial to both, betrays a
manifest inclination towards England. The long ac-
count of insults, injuries, mutual aggressions, which
had accumulated during the Crusade, on the way to
the Holy Land, in the Holy Land, seems to perplex
his judgment. But in France Philip Augustus is con-
demned as the aggressor ; and peremptorily ordered to
restore certain castles claimed by Richard.^ But Rich-
ard fell before the castle of a contumacious vassal.^
His brother John, by the last testament of Richard, by
the free acclamation of the realms of England and of
1 Epist. i. 2-12. 2 Epist. i. 230. 8 Kichard died April 6, 1199.
Chap. V. JOHN'S DIVORCE AND MARRIAGE. 15
Normandy, succeeded to the throne. The Pope could
not be expected, unsummoned, to espouse the claims of
Arthur of Bretagne, the son of John's elder brother ;
for neither did Arthur nor his mother Constance appeal
to the Papal See as the fountain of justice, as the pro-
tector of wronged and despoiled princes ; and in most
of the Teutonic nations so much of the elective spirit
and form remained, that the line of direct hereditary
succession was not recognized either by strict law or
invariable usage. That the cause of Arthur was taken
up by Philip of France, then under interdict, or at
least threatened with interdict, was of itself fatal to his
pretensions at Rome. But neither towards the King
John, in whom he hoped to find a faithful ally and a
steady partisan of his Emperor Otho, does Innocent
arm himself with that moral dignity which will not
brook the violation of the holy Sacrament of Mar-
riage : the dissolution of an inconvenient tie, which is
denied to Philip Augustus, is easily accorded, or at
least not imperiously, or inexorably denied, to John.
There was a sino;ular resemblance in the treatment
of their wives by these sovereigns ; except that in
one respect, the moral delinquency of John John's di-
i 11 vorce and
was far more flagrant ; on the other hand, mamage.
his wife acquiesced in the loss of her royal husband
with much greater facility than the Danish princess
repvidiated by Philip of France. John had been mar-
ried for twelve years to the daughter of the Earl of
Gloucester ; an advantageous match for a younger
prince of England. On the throne, John aspired to a
higher, a royal connection. He sought a dissolution of
his marriage on the plea of almost as remote affinity.
The Archbishop of Bordeaux was as obsequious to
16 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
John as the Archbishop of Rheims had been to PhiHp
Auo;ustus. Negotiations liad been concluded for an
alHance with a daujihter of the Kino- of Portuo-al,
wlien John suddenly became enamored of Isabella, the
betrothed wife of the Count de la Mark. Isabella was
dazzled by the throne ; fled with John, and was mar-
ried to him. Such an outrao-e on a g-reat vassal Avas a
violation of the first principle of feudalism ; from that
day the Barons of Toixraine, Maine, and Anjou held
themselves absolved from their fealty to John. But
although this flagrant wrong, and even the sin of adul-
tery, is added to the repudiation of his lawful wife,
no interdict, no censure is uttered from Rome either
against the King or the Archbishop of Bordeaux.
The Pope, whose horror of such unlawful connections
is now singularly quiescent, confirms tlie dissolution of
the marriage, against which, it is true, the easy Havoise
enters no protest, makes no appeal ; •* for John, till
bought over with the abandonment of Arthur's claim
to the throne by the ti'eacherous Philip Augustus, is
still the supporter of Otho : he is the ally of the
Pope, for he is the ally of the Papal Emperor.
Philip, embarrassed by his quarrel with the Pope,
Contest with aud the Avavering loyalty of his own great
Augustus. vassals, who had quailed under the interdict,
though he never lost sight of the great object of his
ambition, the weakening the power of England in her
Continental dominions and her eventual expulsion, at
first asserted but feebly the rights of Arthur to the
1 Epist. V. 19, contains a sort of reproof to John for his propensity to the
sins of the flesh, and gently urges repentance; but to the divorce I see no
allusion, as Dr. PauUi seems, after Hurler, to do. — Geschichte Englands,
p. 304.
Chap. V. DEATH OF ARTHUR. 17
throne ; he deserted him on the earliest prospect of
advantage. In the treaty confirmed by the marriage
of Louis, the son of Pliilip, with John's kinswoman,
Blanche of Castile, Philip abandoned the ad- 1200.
claims of Arthur to all but the province of Bretagne ;
John covenanted to give no further aid in troops or
money to Otho of Brunswick in his strife for the
Empire.^
But the terrors of the interdict had passed away.
Philip Augustus felt his strength : the Barons of An-
jou, Touraine, Poitou, Maine, were eager to avenge
the indignity offered to Hugh de la Mark. De la
Mark appealed to his sovereign liege lord the King of
France for redress. Philip summoned John John sum-
, , r» A • • • 1 • Ettoned to
to do homage tor Aquitame ; to answer ni his do homage.
courts of Paris for the wrono; done to De la Mark.
Nor did John (so complete was the theory of feudal
subordination) decline the summons. He promised to
appear ; two of his castles were pledged as surety that
he would give full satisfaction in the plenary court of
his sovereign. But John appeared not ; his castles re-
fused to surrender ; Philip renewed his alliance with
Arthur of Bretagne, asserted his claim to all the conti-
nental possessions of the King of England, contracted
Arthur in marriage with his own daughter, as yet but
of tender age. The capture, the imprison- ^eath of
ment, the death of Arthur, raised a feeling ^'■^'*"''-
of deep horror against John, whom few doubted to
have been the murderer of his nephew.^ Philip of
1 See instructions to the Legate, the Bishop of Ostia, to break the dan-
gerous alliance growing up between the kings of France and England. —
Epist. i. 697, and letter to John, urging the support of Otho by money,
ibid, and i. 714-720. Innocent declared John's oath null and void
2 Wendover at first merely says, " non multo post subito evanuit."
VOL. V. 2
18 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
France now appeared in arms under the specious title,
not only of a sovereign proceeding against a wrong-doing
War. and contumacious vassal, but as the avenger
of a murder perpetrated on his nephew, it was said by
some by the hand of John himself.^ John had been
summoned, at the accusation of the Bishop of Rennes,
to answer for this crime before the Peers of France at
Paris. Again John appeared not; the Court delivered
its sentence, finding John Duke of Normandy guilty of
felony and treason for the murder of the son of his elder
brother, a vassal of France, within the realm of France.
John had thereby violated his oath of fealty to the King
of France, and all the fiefs which he held by that hom-
age were declared forfeited to the Crown. Philip broke
into Normandy, and laid siege to Chateau Gaillard, the
key of the province. John, at Rouen, as though to
drown his fears or his remorse, indulged, in the society
of his young bride, in the most careless and prodigal
gayety, amusement, and debauchery ; affected to despise
the force of Philip, and boasted that he would win back
in a day all that Philip would conquer in a year. But
Dec. 6. at the approach of Philip, even before the
fall of Chateau Gaillard, he fled to England. He ap-
pealed to the Pope ; he demanded that ecclesiastical
censures should be visited on the perjured Philip Au-
gustus, who had broken his oaths to maintain peace.
At the commencement of the war Innocent had in-
■• Utinam," adds Matt. Paris, " non ut fama refert invida." Radulph de
Coggeshal is bolder (he wrote in France). From his relation, through
Holinshed, Shakspeare drew his exquisitely pathetic scene.
1 " Adeoquidem ut re.K .Johannes suspectus habebatur ab omnibus, quasi
ilium manu propria peremisset, unde multi animos avertentes a rege semper
deinceps, ut ausi sunt, nigerrimo ipsum odio perstrinxerunt." — Wendover
led. Coxe), p. 171.
Chap. V. HIGH LANGUAGE OF INNOCENT. 19
structed the Abbot of Casamaggiore to command the
adverse monarchs to make peace. " It wa.s High lan-
his duty to preach peace. How would the innocent.
Saracens rejoice at the war of two such kings ! He
would not have the blood which mio-ht be shed laid to
his account." Philip Avigustus, at a full assembly of
Barons at Nantes, coldly and haughtily replied, that
the Pope had no business to interfere between him and
his vassal. But he avoided, either from prudence or
respect, the reproach that the head of Christendom was
standing forward as the protector of a murderer. The
reply of Innocent from Anagni was the boldest and full-
est declaration of unlimited power which had yet been
made by Pope. He was astonished at the language of
the King of France, who presumed to limit the power
in spiritual things conferred by the Son of God on the
Apostolic See, which was so great that it could admit
no enlargement.^ " Every son of the Church a.d. 1203.
is bound, in case his brother trespasses against him, to
hear the Church. Thy brother the King of England
has accused thee of trespass against him ; he has admon-
ished thee ; he has called many of his great Barons
to witness of his wrongs : he has in the last resort ap-
pealed to the Church. We have endeavored to treat
you with fatherly love, not with judicial severity; urged
you, if not to peace, to a truce. If you will not hear
the Church, must you not be held by the Church as a
heathen and a publican ? Can I be silent ? No. I
command you now to hear my legates, the Archbishop
of Bourges and the Abbot of Casamaggiore, who are
empowered to investigate, to decide the cause. We en-
ter not into the question of the feudal rights of the King
1 Epist. vi. 163.
20 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
of France over his vassal, but we condemn thy trespass
— thy sin — which is unquestionably within our juris-
diction. The Decretals, the law of the Empire, declare
that if throughout Christendom one of two litigant par-
ties appeals to the Pope, the other is bound to abide by
the award. The King of France is accused of perjury
in violating the existing treaty, to which both have
sworn, and perjury is a crime so clearly amenable to the
ecclesiastical courts, that we cannot refuse to take cog-
nizance of it before our tribunal." But Philip was too
far advanced in his career of conquest to be arrested by
such remonstrances ; nor did the Pope venture on more
vigorous interference ; there was no further menace of
Loss of interdict or excommunication. John, indeed,
Normandy. , • t i 1
A.D. 1203. as the sagacious Innocent may nave per-
ceived, was lost without recovery — lost by his own
weakness, insolence, and unpopularity. His whole
Continental possessions were in revolt or conquered by
Philip ; a great force raised in England refused to em-
bark. He tried one campaign in Aquitaine: some suc-
juiy 9, 1206. cesses, some devastations, were followed by a
disgraceful peace, in which Philip Augustus, having
nearly accomplished his vast object, the consolidation
of the realm in one great monarchy, condescended to
accept the Papal mediation. From that time the King
of Eno-land ceased to be the King of half France.
Normandy was not yet lost, peace not yet reestab-
A.B. 1205. lished with Philip Augustus, when John was
?h"e'poV" involved in a fierce contention with his ally,
bish"oprir " Pope Innocent. It arose out of the death of
of^c^anter- jj^^^^^.j.^ Archbishop of Canterbury. Who
should fill the throne of Thomas a Becket — who hold
the primacy of England? The question of investi-
Chap. V. QUARREL WITH THE POPE. 21
tures had hardlj reached England, or had died away
since the days of Ansehn. The right of nominating
to the bishoprics remained nominally in the chapters ;
but as the royal license was necessary before they
could proceed to the election, and the royal approval
before the consecration and the possession of the tem-
poralities, the Kings had exercised controlling power, at
least over all the greater sees. The Norman kings and
the Plantagenets had still filled all the o-reat benefices
with Norman prelates, or prelates approved by the
Court. Becket himself was, in fact, advanced by
Henry 11. Some of the English sees had grown out
of or were connected with monasteries, which asserted
and exercised the rights of chapters. The monks of
Christchurch in Canterbury claimed the election to the
Metropolitan See. The monks were at the same time
most obstinately tenacious of their rights, and least ca-
pable of exercising them for the welfare of the Church
and of the kingdom. At this present time there were
on one side deep and sullen murmurs that the Church
of England had sunk into a slave of the King. Becket
had laid down his martyr life in vain.^ On the other
hand, the King rejoiced in the death of Hubert, whom
he suspected of secret favor towards his enemy the
King of France. The second prelate of the kingdom,
Geoffrey Archbishop of York, the brother of the King,
had refused to permit a thirteenth, exacted by the King
for the recovery of his French dominions, to be levied
in his province ; he had fled the realm, leaving behind
1 " Licet beatus Thomas archepiscopus animam suam pro ecclesiastic^
posuerit libertate, nulla tamen utilitas quoad hoc in sanguine ejus erat,
quoniam Anglicana ecclesia per principum insolentiam in profunda servi-
tute ancillata jacebat." — Gesta, ch. cxxxi. Matt. Par.
22 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX
him an anathema against all who should comply with
the King's demands.^ The privilege of the monks of
Christchurch in Canterbury to elect the Primate had
been constantly contested by the suffragan prelates,
who claimed at least a concurrent right of election.^
At all the recent elections this strife had continued :
the monks, though overborne by royal authority, or by
the power of the prelates, never renounced or aban-
doned their sole and exclusive pretensions.
Immediately on the death of Hubert, the younger
A.D. 1205. monks, without waiting for the royal license,
in the narrow corporate spirit of monkhood, hastily
elected their Sub-prior Reginald to the See. In order
to surprise the Papal sanction, under which they might
defy the resentment of the King, without whose license
they had acted, and baffle the bishops who claimed the
concurrent right, they had the precaution to take an
oath from Reginald to maintain inviolable secrecy till
he should arrive at Rome. The vanity of Reginald
induced him, directly he reached Flanders, to assume
the title, and to travel with the pomp of an Archbishop
Elect. On his arrival at Rome, Innocent neither re-
jected nor admitted his pretensions. Among the monks
of Christchurch, in the mean time, the older and more
prudent had resumed their ascendency ; they declared
the election of Reginald void, obtained the royal per-
mission, and proceeded under the royal influence to
elect in all due form John de Gray, Bishop of Nor-
wich, a martial prelate and the great leader in the
comicils of the King.^ The suffragan bishops acqui-
1 Wendover, pp. 154-209.
2 Compare Lingard, Hist, of England, in loco.
3 Wendover, p. 194. K. de Coggeshal.
Chap. V. ELECTION OF PRIMATE. 23
esced in this election. The Bishop of Norwich was
enthroned in the presence of the King, and invested in
all the temporalities of the see by the King himself.
On the appeal to Rome, upon this question of strict
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, all agreed. Reginald, the
Sub-prior and his partisans were already there ; twelve
monks of Christchurch appeared on the part a.b. 1206.
of the King and the Bishop of Norwich ; the suflPra-
gan bishops had their delegates to maintain their right
to concurrent election. The Pope, in the first place,
took into consideration the right of election. He de-
cided in favor of the monks. Against their prescrip-
tive, immemorial usage, appeared only pretensions es-
tablished in irregular and violent times, luider the pro-
tection of arbitrary monarchs.^ Many decisions of
the Papal See had been in favor of elections made by
the monks alone ; none recognized the necessary con-
currence of the bishops. Policy no doubt commingled
in this decree with reverence for ancient custom ; the
monks were more likely to choose a prelate of high
churchman-like views — views acceptable to Rome ; the
bishops to comply with the commands, or at least not
to be insensible to the favor of the King-.
The Court of Rome proceeded to examine the va-
lidity of the late election. It determined at once to
annul both that of Reginald the Sub-prior and that of
John de Gray : of Reo-inald, because it was irreo-vdarlv
t.' ~ ' o ^
made, and by a small number of the electors ; of De
Gray, because the former election had not been declared
invalid by competent authority. The twelve monks
were ordered to proceed to a new election at Rome.
John had anticipated this event, and taken an oath of
1 Wendover, p. 188.
24 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
the monks to elect no one but John de Gray. They
were menaced with excommunication if they persisted
stepiien ^^^ ^^^^ maintenance of their oath ; they were
Langton. commanded to elect Stephen Langton, Car-
dinal of St. Chrysogonus. Innocent could not have
found a Churchman more unexceptionable, or of more
commanding qualifications for the primacy of England.
Stephen Langton was an Englishman by birth, of ir-
reproachable morals, profound theologic learning, of a
lofty, firm, yet prudent character, Avliich unfolded it-
self at a later period in a manner not anticipated by
Pope Innocent. Langton had studied at Paris, and at-
tained surpassing fame and honorable distinctions. Of
all the high-minded, wise, and generous prelates who
A.D. 1207. have filled the see of Canterbury, none have
been superior to Stephen Langton ; and him the
Church of England owes to Innocent III. And if in
himself Langton was so signally fit for the station, he
was more so in contrast with his rivals — Reginald,
who emerged from his obscurity to fall back immedi-
ately into the same obscurity ; the Bishop of Norwich,
a man of warlike rather than of priestly fame, immersed
in temporal affairs, the justiciary of the realm, in
whom John could little fear or Innocent hope to find
a second Becket. The monks murmured, but pro-
ceeded to the election of Langton. Elias of Brant-
field alone stood aloof unconsenting ; he tried the ef-
fect of English gold, with which he had been lavishly
supplied. Innocent, it is said, disdainfully rejected a
bribe amounting to three thousand marks. ^
Innocent, aware that this assumption of the nomina-
tion to the archbishopric by the Pope, this intrusion of
1 Weiidover, p. 212.
Chap. V. RAGE OF KING JOHN. 25
a prelate almost a stranger, avouIcI be offensive to the
pride of the English King, had endeavored to propiti-
ate John by a suitable present. Among the weak-
nesses of this vain man was a passion for precious
stones. He sent him a ring of great splendor, with
many gems, accompanied with a letter explaining their
symbolic religious signification.^ The letter Avas fol-
lowed by another, recommending strongly Stephen
Langton, Archbishop elect of Canterbury, as a man
incomparable for theologic learning as for his character
and inanners ; a person who Avould be of the greatest
use to the King in temporal or in spiritual affliirs. But
the messengers of the Pope were stopped at Dover.
At Viterbo,^ the Pope proceeded to the consecration of
the Primate of England. The fury of John ^^^^ ^j.
knew no bounds : he accused the monks ^*"° •'°^°"
of Canterbury of having taken his money in order to
travel to Rome, and of having there betrayed him.
He threatened to burn their cloister over their heads ;
they fled in the utmost precipitation to Flanders ; the
church of Canterbury was committed to the monks of
St. Augustine ; the lands of the monks of Christchurch
lay an uncultivated wilderness. To the Pope he wrote
in indignation that he was not only insulted by the re-
jection of the Bishop of Norwich, but by the election
of Langton, a man utterly unknown to him, and bred
in France among his deadly enemies. The Pope should
remember how necessary to him w-as the alliance of
England ; from England he drew more Avealth than
fi'om any kingdom beyond the Alps. He declared that
1 Matt. Par.
2 Innocent passed the summer and autumn of 1207 at Viterbo. — Hur-
ler, ii. p. 39.
26 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
he would cut off at once all communication between
his realm and Rorae.^ Innocent's tone rose with that
of John, but he maintained calmer dignity. He en-
larged on the writings of Langton : so far from Lang-
ton beino; unknown to the King, he had three times
written to him since his promotion to the cardinal-
ate. He warned the King of the danger of revolt-
ing against the Church : " Remember this is a cause
for which the glorious martyr St. Thomas shed his
blood."
John had all the pride, in the outset of this conflict
ne showed some of the firm resolution, of a Norman
sovereign. The Bishop of Norwich, in his disappointed
ambition, inflamed the resentment and encouraged the
obstinacy of the King. " Stephen Langton at his peril
should set his foot on the soil of England." Lmocent
proceeded with slow but determinate measures. All
expostulation having proved vain, he armed himself
with that terrible curse which had already brought the
King of France under his feet. England in her turn
must suffer all the terrors of interdict. William Bishop
of London, Eustace Bishop of Ely, Mainger Bishop
of Worcester, had instructions to demand for the last
time the royal acknowledgment of Langton ; if refused,
to publish the interdict throughout their dioceses. ^ The
King broke out into a paroxysm of fury ; he uttered
the most fearful oaths — blasphemies they were called
— against the Pope and the Cardinals ; he swore " by
the teeth of God," that if they dared to place his realm
1 The letter in Wendover, 216. —Matt. Paris.
2 See in Rynier a letter of remonstrance by Pope Innocent. John an-
swers the bishop that he will obey the Pope, salva dignitate regia et liber-
tatibus regiis. — i. p 99.
Chap. V. ENGLAND UNDER INTERDICT. 27
under an interdict he would drive the whole of the
bishops and clergy out of the kingdom, put out the
eyes and cut off the noses of all Romans in the realm,
in order to mark them for hatred. He threatened the
prelates themselves with violence. The prel- interdict,
ates witJidrew, ni the ensumg Lent published 1208.
the interdict, and then fled the kingdom, and with
them the Bishops of Bath and Hereford. " There
they lived, says the historian, in abundance and lux-
ury, instead of standing up as a defence for the Lord's
house, abandoning their flocks to the ravening wolf." ^
Salisbury and Rochester took refuge in Scotland.^
Thus throughout England, as throughout France,
without exception, without any privilege to church or
monastery, ceased the divine offices of the Church.
From Berwick to the British Channel, from the
Land's-End to Dover, the churches were closed, the
bells silent ; the only clergy who were seen stealing
silently about were those who were to baptize new-
born infants with a hasty ceremony ; those who were
to hear the confession of the dying, and to administer
to them, and to them alone, the holy Eucharist. The
dead (no doubt the most cruel affliction) were cast
out of the towns, buried like dogs in some unconse-
crated place — in a ditch or a dung-heap — without
prayer, without the tolling bell, without funeral rite.
Those only can judge the effect of this fearful maledic-
tion who consider how completely the whole life of all
orders was affected by the ritual and daily ordinances
of the Church. Every important act was done under
the counsel of the priest or the monk. Even to the
less serious, the festivals of the Church were the only
1 Wendover, p. 224. 2 Bower. Continuat. Fordun. viii.
28 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
holidays, the processions of the Church tlie only spec-
tacles, the ceremonies of the Church the only amuse-
ments. To those of deeper religion, to those, the far
greater number, of abject superstition, what was it to
have the child thus almost furtively baptized, marriage
unblessed, or hardly blessed ; ^ the obsequies denied ;
to hear neither prayer nor chant ; to suppose that the
world was surrendered to the unrestrained power of
the devil and his evil spirits, with no saint to intercede,
no sacrifice to avert the wrath of God ; when no single
image was exposed to view, not a cross unveiled : the
intercourse between man and God utterly broken off;
souls left to perish, or but reluctantly permitted abso-
lution in the instant of death ?
John might seem to encounter the public misery, not
with resolute bravery, but with an insolence of disdain ;
to revel in his vengeance against the bishops and priests
who obeyed the Pope. The Sheriffs had orders to com-
pel all such priests and bishops to quit the realm, scorn-
fully adding that they might seek justice with the Pope.
He seized the bishoprics and abbeys, and escheated
their estates into the hands of laymen. Some of
the monks refused to leave their monasteries ; their
lands and property were not the less confiscated to the
King's Exchequer. All the barns of the clergy were
closed and marked as belonging to the royal revenue.
The clergy of England were open to persecution of a
more cruel nature. The marriage of the clergy still
prevailed to a wide extent, under the opprobrious
name of concubinage. The King seized these females
1 Dr. Lingard, from Dunstable, c. 51, says that sermons were preached
in the chm-ch-yards, marriages and churchings performed in the church-
porch. — vol. iii.
Chap. V. OPPKESSIONS OF THE CHURCH. 29
tlix'oughout the realm, and extorted large sums for their
ransom.^ The ecclesiastics, as they would not submit
to the King's law, were out of the protection of the
King's law ; if assaulted on the high road, plundered,
maltreated, they sought redress in vain. It was said
that Avlien a robber was brought bound before the King
who had robbed and slain a priest, John ordered his re-
lease : " He has rid me of one enemy." Yet through-
out all these oppressions of the Church, three prelates
— his minister Peter of Winchester, Gray of Norwich
(Deputy of Ireland), and Philip of Durham — were
the firm partisans, the unscrupulous executors of all the
King's measures.^
1 " Presbyterorum et clericorum focarite per iotam Angliam a ministris
regiis captaj sunt et graviter ad se redimendum compulsaj." — Wendover,
p. 223.
2 See, on the bishops, the very curious Latin song published bj- Mr.
Wright, ' Political Songs.' Stephen is expected to be a second Becket.
"Thomam habes (Cantia) sed alterum. Sed cum habebis Stephanum —
Assumes tibi tympanum — Chelyn tangens sub modulo." Bath is accused
of inordinate rapacity as a collector for the king's exchequer. " Tu Nor-
wicensis bestia! — Audi quid dicat Veritas — Qui non intrat per ostia —
Fur est, an de hoc dubitas — Heu ! cecidisti gravius — Quam Cato quondam
tertius; Cum pra?sumpta electio — Justo ruat judicio. Empta per dolum
Simonis — Wintoniensis armiger — Prresidet ad Scaccarium — Ad compu-
tandum impiger — Piger ad evangelium — Regis revolvens rotulum — Sic
lucrum Lucam superat — Marco, Marcam pra-ponderat — Et librse librum
subjicit." John (William?) of London, Ely, and Worcester (the successor
of St. Wulstan), are named as the three who are to beat down the three im-
pious ones, " Ely, parcens paucis vel nemini." Salisbury and Rochester
are named with more meagre praise. — P. 10, et seq. There is a spirited
anti-papal song on the other side. It is chiefly on the avarice of Rome —
" Romanorum curia non est nisi forum."
It does not abstain from the Pope —
" Cum ad Papam veneris, habe pro constantl,
Non est locus pauperi, soli favet danti."
Mr. Wright suggests that the lion in the fourth verse means King John —
a strange similitude ! — the bishops the asses.
30 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. B.'ok IX.
These exactions from the clergy enabled John to
conduct his campaigns in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland
with success. After above a year Innocent determined
to strike at the person of the King, to excommunicate
him by name in the most solemn manner. Stephen
Langton had obtained a relaxation of the interdict so
far that Divine service might be performed once a
week in the conventual chvirches. The Pope issued his
commission to the fugitive Bishops of London, Ely, and
Worcester, to pronounce the sentence of excommunica-
tion, and to transmit it for publication to the few prel-
ates who remained in the land. Every Sunday and
every feast day it was to be repeated in all the conven-
tual churches of England. Not a ^Drelate dared to un-
dertake the office ; the whole clergy were dumb. Yet
the awful fact transpired ; men whispered to each other
that the King was an excommunicated person ; it was
silently promulgated in market-places, and in the streets
of the cities. One clergyman, Geoffrey, Archdeacon
of Norwich, who was employed in the royal exchequer,
was seized with conscientious scruples as to serving an
excommunicatd King. He retired to Norwich. The
King sent after him, ordered him to be loaded with
chains, and afterwards cased in a surcoat of lead : he
died in prison.
It is remarkable that while the interdict of one year
Resistance reduccd the more haughty and able Philip
of John. Augustus to submission, the weak, tyranni-
cal, and contemptible John defied for four years the
whole awful effects of interdict, and even for some time
of personal excommunication. Had John been a popu-
lar sovereign, had he won to his own side by wise
conciliation, by respect to their rights, by a dignified
Chap. V. EESISTAXCE OF JOHN. 31
appeal to their patriotism, the barons and the people of
England ; had he even tempted their worse passions,
and offered them a share in the confiscated property of
the Church, even the greatest of the Popes might have
wasted his ineffectual thunders on the land. Above
two years after the interdict, and when the sentence of
excommunication was Avell known. King John a.d. 1210.
held his Christmas at Windsor ; not one of the great
barons refused to communicate with him : even later,
when Innocent proceeded to release his subjects from
their oaths of allegiance, he counted among a.d. 1211.
his steadfast adherents three bishops, Henry of Win-
chester, Philip of Durham, and John of Norwich ; the
Chancellor and a great nvimber of the most powerful
barons were firm in their loyalty. But while he de-
fied the Pope and the hierarchy, he at the same time
seemed to labor to alienate the affections of all orders
in the country. He respected no rights ; nothing was
sacred against his rapacity and his lust. His profligate
habits outraged the honor of the nobles ; his passion for
his Queen Isabella had burned out ; not one of the
wives or dauo-hters of the hiohest barons was safe from
his seductions or violence ; against the lower orders he
had reenacted and enforced with the utmost severity
the forest-laws. An obscure person (" a false theolo-
gian "), Alexander the Mason, had now found his way
into the councils of the King. Alexander is chai'ged
Avith encouraging at once the tyrannous and irreligious
disposition of the -King. He declared that kings were
designed by God as scourges of their subjects ; that
he should govern them with a rod of iron. He averred
at the same time that the Pope had no right to interfere
in temporal matters ; that God had given only ecclesi-
32 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
astical powers to St. Peter. John heaped benefices,
which he wrested from their right owners, on this con-
genial adviser ; he was afterwards reduced by the
Pope's interposition to the lowest beggary ; the clergy
triumphed in his misery.^ The exactions and barbari-
ties of the Kins against the Jews would move but
A.D. 1210. slight sympathy, even if not viewed with
approbation; they were seized, imprisoned, tortured,
without any avowed charge, with the sole, almost os-
tentatious design, of wringing money from their obsti-
nate grasp. The well-known story of the Jew who
lost his teeth, one every day for seven days, before he
would yield, and on the eighth redeemed what were
left by ten thousand marks, even if wholly or partly
a fiction, is a fiction sicrnificant of terrible truth.^ But
the whole people was oppressed by heavy and unpre-
cedented taxation. At length, when time had been
given for the estrangement of the nobles and people to
grow into disaffection, almost into revolt, Innocent pro-
ceeded to that last act of authority which the Papal
See reserved against contumacious sovereigns. The
Interdict had smitten the land ; the Excommunication
desecrated the person of the King ; the subjects had
been absolved from their fealty ; there remained the
act of deposition fi-om the throne of his fathers. The
sentence was publicly, solemnly promulgated against
A.D. 1213. the Kino; of England ; his domains were
declared the lawful spoil of whoever could wrest them
from his unhallowed hands.
There was but one sovereign in Europe whom his
own daring ambition, and his hatred of John, might
tempt to this perilous enterprise. Philip Augustus, who
1 Wendover, p. 229. 2 Wendover 231.
Chap. V. JOHN DECLARED DEPOSED. 33
had himself so bitterly complained of the insolence of
the Pope in interdicting his realm, excommu- Piiiup
, . 1 1 • 1 • 1 • Augustus
nicatmo; nis person, absolvnig; his subjects uiuiertakes
„ P . „ , 1 . • 1 1 to dethrone
irom their realty, was now religiously moved Kiugjohn.
to execute the Papal sentence of deposition against his
rival. He had won the continental dominions, he
would possess himself of the insiilar territories of John.
The policy of Pope Innocent with regard to the King
of France had undergone a total revolution. Otho, the
Emperor, the kinsman of John, who owed to the wealth
of John his success in his struggle for, if not his con-
quest of the Empire, was now the armed enemy of the
Pope ; France was the ally of Frederick the Sicilian,
whose claims to the Empire were befriended by Inno-
cent. The interests of the Pope and the King of
France were as intimately allied as they had been im-
placably opposed. At a great assembly in Soissons
appeared Stephen Langton, the Bishops of April 8, 1213.
London and Ely, newly arrived from Rome, the King
of France, the bishops, clergy and people of that realm.
The English bishops proclaimed the sentence of depo-
sition ; enjoined the King of France and all others,
under the promise of the remission of their sins, to
take up arms ; to dethrone the impious King of Eng-
land ; to replace him by a more worthy sovereign.
Philip Augustus accepted the command of this new
crusade. Great forces were levied for the invasion of
England ; secret negotiations carried on with the dis-
contented nobles. The measures of John were not
wanting in vigor or subtlety. He raised an immense
force, which encamped on Barham Downs. The sheriffs
had been ordered to summon every man capable of
bearing arms ; every vessel which would hold six horses
VOL. V. 3
34 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
was to assemble in Portsmouth harbor. He assumed
the aggressive, captured some ships at the mouth of
the Seine, and burned Fecamp and Dieppe. The army
was so vast as to be unwieldy, and could not be sup-
plied with provisions : but, even reduced, it amounted
to 60,000 men.^ Yet in all that army there were few
whom John could trust, except, perhaps, the Irish,
1500 foot and a strong force of cavalry, brought over
by his fast friend the Bishop of Norwich, the Deputy
of Ireland ; and the Flemish mercenaries, so long as
they received their pay. It was universally believed,
Desperation it bccamc matter of grave history, that John
John. took a step of still more awful desperation ;
the outcast of Christendom would take refuge in Mo-
hammedanism. He meditated a bold revolt to Islam.
He despatched a secret embassy to Mohammed el Nas-
ser, the Emir al Mouenim, the Caliph, as he was called,
of the Mohammedans of Spain and Africa, offering to
embrace the faith of the Koran, to own himself the
vassal of the representative of the false prophet. It
was still more unaccountably believed that the haughty
Mohammedan treated his advances with disdain, and
refused to honor the renegade Christian with his alli-
ance. It is true that the abhorrence, the contempt of
the Christian world had become allayed rather than
inflamed by the Crusades ; noble Christian knights and
Christian kings had learned to honor chivaliy and gen-
erosity in their unbelieving foes. The strife of Richard
and Saladin had been that of kings who admired the
lofty qualities each of his rival ; Philip Augustus was
said in his wrath to have expressed his envy of the
Mohammedan Noureddin, who had no Pope to control
1 See in Wendover the orders to the sheriffs, p. 244.
Chap. V. PANDULPH LEGATE. 35
him. Fredei'ick II. is about to appear even in more
suspicious friendly approximation to the misbeliever.
It is more probable that John may, in his impotent pas-
sion, have threatened, than had the courage to purpose
such act of apostasy. The strong argument against it
is his cowardice rather than his Christian faith. Even
John must have had the sagacity to see that such alli-
ance could give him no strength : would arm embattled
Christendom against him. His anger might madden
him to bold words, it would not support him in delib-
erate acts. But that the story was widely spread,
eagerly believed, is of itself a significant historical
fact.^ But the better and wiser hope of John was in
detaching the Pope himself, by feigned or by tempo-
rary submission, from the head of his own league ; in
making a separate peace with the Pontiff. He had sent
the Abbot of Beaulieu, with five other ecclesiastics, to
Rome ; they had not been allowed, on account of cer-
tain informalities, to proceed in their negotiations ; but
the Subdeacon Pandulpli, an ecclesiastic high in the
confidence of Innocent, was commanded to proceed to
England as Legate. Without any communication with
the King of France, Pandulph presented himself at
Dover before King John.^
John by this time had passed from the height of in-
solence to the lowest prostration of fear. Not only did
everything tend to deepen his mistrust of his own sub-
jects and his suspicions of the wavering fidelity of his
army, but, like most irreligious men, he was the slave
of superstition. One Peter, a hermit, had obtained
1 Matth. Paris, p. 169. Compare Lingard, who is disposed to think the
story not incredible.
2 Pandulph was not cardinal.
36 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
great fame among the people as a prophet : of all his
prophecies none had made greater noise, or been re-
ceived with more greediness, than a saying relating
to the King ; that before Ascension Day John would
cease to be King of England. Peter had been seized
and imprisoned in Corfe Castle, and now, just at this
perilous crisis, the fatal Ascension Day was drawing
on ; there wanted but three days. Pandulph was an
Italian of consummate ability. He was ushered into
the presence of the King by two Knights Templars.
His skilful address overawed the shattered mind of
John to a panic of humihation. He described in the
most vivid terms the vast forces of the King of France,
darkened the disloyalty of the English barons ; King
Philip had declared that he had the signatures of
almost all of them inviting him over.^ From the
hostility of France, of the exiled bishops, of his own
barons, he had everything to fear ; everything to hope
from the clemency of Rome. John, once humbled,
knew no bounds to his abject submission ; he was as
recklessly lavish in his concessions as recklessly obsti-
May 15, 1213. natc ill liis resistance. He was not even sat-
isfied with subscribing the hard terms of the treaty
dictated by Pandulph ; he seemed to have a desper-
ate determination by abasing himself even below all
precedent to merit the strongest protection from that
irresistible power which he had rashly provoked, and
before which he was now bowed down ; he could
not purchase at too high a price his reconciliation to
1 " Jactat in praeterea idem rex chartas habere omnium fere Anglioe mag-
natum de fidelitate et subjectione." — Wendover, p. 47. Yet -John had
great names on his side, — William, Earl of Salisbury, his bastard brother;
Reginald, Count of Boulogne ; Warennes, de Veres.
Chap. V. SUBMISSION OF JOHN. 37
the See of Rome ; perhaps he contemplated, not with-
out satisfaction, the bitter disappointment of his ene-
my PhiHp Augustus, in thus being deprived of his
prey.
The treaty with the Pope acknowledged the full
right of Langton to the Archiepiscopal See ; it re-
pealed the sentence of banishment against the clergy,
and reinstated them in their functions and their es-
tates ; it promised full restitution of all moneys con-
fiscated to the royal use, and compensation for other
wrongs ; a specific sum was to be paid to the Arch-
bishop, and to each of the exiled bishops ; it released
from imprisonment all who had been apprehended
during the contest ; it reversed every sentence of out-
lawry ; and guaranteed the clergy for the future fi'om
such violent abuse of the power of the Crown. Four
barons swore to the execution of these stipulations
on the part of the King ; the Legate, on that of the
Pope, that on their due fulfilment the interdict and
the excommunication should be removed ; and that
the bishops should take a new oath of allegiance. But
Ascension Day was not yet passed ; it wanted still
two days : and during those two days John had un-
consciously fulfilled the prediction of the Hermit. On
the vigil of that day appeared the Legate submission
in his full pomp in the church of the Tern- "^ *'°'^°'
plars. On the other side entei'ed the King of Eng-
land, and placed an instrument in the Legate's hands,
signed, sealed, and subscribed with his own name,
with that of the attesting witnesses. — " Be it known
to all men," so ran the Charter, " that having in many
points oflPended God and our Holy Mother the Church,
as satisfaction for our sins, and duly to humble ourselves
38 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
after the example of Him who for our sake humbled
himself to death, by the grace of the Holy Ghost,
with our own free-will and the common consent of
our barons, we bestow and yield up to God, to his
holy apostles Peter and Paul, to our Lord the Pope
Innocent, and his successors, all our kingdom of Eng-
land and all our kingdom of Ireland, to be held as a fief
of the Holy See with the payment of 1000 marks,
and the customary Peter's pence. We reserve to
ourselves, and to our heirs, the royal rights in the
administration of justice. And we declare this deed
irrevocable ; and if any of our successors shall attempt
to annul our act, we declare him thereby to have
forfeited his crown." The attesting witnesses were
one archbishop (of Dublin), one bishop (De Gray of
Norwich), nine earls, among them Pembroke and
Salisbury, and four barons. The next day he took
the usual oath of fealty to the Pope ; he swore on
the Gospels. It was the oath of a vassal. " I, John,
hy the Grace of God, King of England and Lord of
Ireland, from this day forth and forever, will be faith-
ful to God and to the ever blessed Peter, and to the
Church of Rome, and to my Lord the Pope Innocent,
and to his Catholic successors. I will not be accessory,
in act or word, by consent or counsel, to their loss of
life, of limb, or of freedom. I will save them harm-
less from any wrong of which I may know ; I will
avert all in my power ; I will warn them by myself
or by trusty messengers, of any evil intended against
them. I will keep profoundly secret all communica-
tions with which they may intrust me by letter or by
message. I will aid in the maintenance and defence
of the patrimony of St. Peter, specially this kingdom
Chap.V. SURKENDEE OF ENGLAND TO THE POPE. 39
of England and Ireland, to the utmost of my power,
against all enemies. So help me God and his holy
Gospels." 1 Every year, besides Peter's pence, the
realm was to pay to the Holy See, as sign of vas-
salage, 1000 marks — 700 for England, 300 for Ire-
land.
By this extraordinary proceeding it is difficult to
decide to what extent, according to the estimation of
the time, John degraded himself and the realm of
England. His first act showed that he was himself
insensible to all its humiliating significance. That first
act was to revenge himself on Peter the Hermit. As-
cension Day passed over; he instantly ordered Peter
and his son to be dragged at the tails of horses, and
hung on gibbets, as false prophets. But the popular
feeling vindicated the truth of the prediction : John
had ceased to reign by the surrender of his kingdom
to the Pope. It was afterwards among the heaviest
charges made by Louis of France, when he claimed
the crown of England ; it followed the accusation of
the murder of his nephew Arthur, that John had un-
lawfully surrendered the realm to the Pope.^ The
attestino; witnesses were some of the greatest nobles
in the land ; they were chiefly the attached partisans
of John, the Bishop of Norwich, and the King's bas-
tard brother, Salisbury ; Pembroke and Warenne were
afterwards among the barons who extorted the great
Charter.
1 Compare the copies of the submission and the oath in Wendover with
those in Rj'mer. In Wendover secundarius has been substituted (by the
copyist) for feudatorius.
2 The passage cited by Dr. Lingard, that he did this under compulsion
from the barons, coactus, will bear another interpretation. He was com-
pelled not by the counsel or control of those around him, but by the per-
fidious league of the others with France.
40 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Innocent had added, by this act of John, another
Effects of and a more powerful kino-dom to that oreat
missiou, feudal monarchy, hall spiritual, half tempo-
ral, which the later Popes had aspired to found in
Rome ; ^ that vague and undefined sovereignty which
gave the right of interfering in all the affairs of the
realm, as Suzerain, as well as Spiritual Father. He
had succeeded, by accident in truth, and to his loss
and discomfiture, in imposing an Emperor on Ger-
many ; but still he had fixed a precedent for the de-
cision of tile Pope against a majority of the German
electors. He held, at least he claimed to hold, the
greater part of Italy. He did hold the kingdom of
Sicily, as a fief of the Papacy ; the patrimony of St.
Peter, and the inheritance of the Counts of Tuscany,
as actual Lord. In France the Popes asserted the
reigning family, the descendants of Hugh Capet, to
have received the throne by their award. The Pope
had transferred it as from the Merovingian to the
Carlovingian : so from the house of Charlemagne to
that of Capet. In Spain, the kingdom of Arragon
owned feudal allegiance. The Latin Empire of Con-
stantinople, though won in direct prohibition of his
commands, was yet subject to his undefined claim of
sovereignty. Over all kingdoms conquered from the
infidels he asserted his right of disposal, as well as
over all islands: England held Ireland by his sov-
ereign grant.
Pandulph had received the fealty of the King of
Panduiph England ; the 8000/. sterling, which had
returns '" , . , ,
Franc.!. bccu Stipulated as the compensation for the
1 Durintr many pontificates the papal bulls and briefs speak of England
as a vassal kingdom held of Rome.
Chap. V. INDIGNATION OF PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 41
exiled prelates, had been paid into his hands ; he is
said likewise to have received a sum of money as the
first payment of the tribute to Rome, and to have
trampled it contemptuously under his feet. But it
was not Pandulph's policy to insult further the de-
graded John ; and Pandulph was a man who acted
throughout from wary policy. It is possible that
in order to take a high tone, and remove that sus-
picion of rapacity which attached to all the proceed-
ings of the Court of Rome, he may have declined to
receive these first fruits of his conquest ; but what he
did carry to France was not the fee-farm payment to
Rome, but the restitution money to the English prel-
ates.^ He appeared before the King of France, and
in the name of the Pope briefly and peremptorily for-
bade him from proceeding to fui-ther hostilities against
John, who had now made his peace with the ^^^ ^^
Church. Philip Augustus burst into fury, ^'^"'f-
" Had he at the cost of sixty thousand pounds assem-
bled at the summons, at the entreaty of the Pope, one
of the noblest armaments which had ever met under
a King of France ? Was all the chivalry of France,
in arms around their sovereign, to be dismissed like
hired menials when there was no more use for their
services ? " His invectives against the Pope passed not
only all the bounds of respect, but of courtesy. But
the defection of Ferrand Count of Flanders was more
powerful in arresting the invasion of England, than
the inhibition of Pandulph. Ferrand, whose conduct
had been before doubtful, and wlio had entered into a
secret league with the King of England, diverted on
his own dominions the wrath of Philip, to whom the
1 Sismondi has confounded the two kinds of payment.
42 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
more alluring plunder of the rich Flemish towns
seemed to offer a conquest more easy and profitable
than the realm of England. Flanders, he swore, shall
be France, or France Flanders. But the fleets of
England joined the Flemings, and the attempted con-
quest of Flanders by Philip Augustus ended in dis-
graceful discomfiture.
If the dastardly mind of John was insensible to the
shame of havino; degraded his kino;dom into a fief of
Rome, he might enjoy an ignominious triumph in the
result of Philip's campaign. From himself he had
averted all immediate danger ; he had arrested the
French invasion of England, and the menaced revolt
of his barons ; he had humbled his implacable enemy
by his successes in Flanders. He had secured an ally,
faithful to him in all his subsequent tyrannies, humil-
iations, and disasters. The vassal of the Roman See
found a constant, if less powerful protector, in his lord
the Pontiff of Rome. As elate in transient success as
cowardly in disaster, John determined to resume the
aggressive ; to invade his ancient dominions in Poitou.
But he was still under excommunication (Pandulph
had prudently reserved the absolution till John had
fulfilled the terms of the treaty by the reception of the
exiled prelates). The barons refused to follow the
banner of the kingdom, raised by an excommunicated
monarch. John was compelled to fulfil his agreement
July 20, 1213. to the utmost ; to drink the dregs of humilia-
retsDay. tiou. The exiled prelates, Stephen of Can-
terbury, William of London, Eustace of Ely, Hubert
of Lincoln, Giles of Hereford, landed at Dover ; they
proceeded to Winchester : ^ there they were met before
1 Wendover, p. 260.
Chap. V. ABSOLUTION OF JOHN. 43
the gates by John ; he fell at their feet and shed tears.
The prelates raised him up, mingling, it is said, their
tears with his ; thej conducted him into the church ;
they pronounced the absolution. King John swore on
the Gospels to defend the Church and the priesthood ;
he swore also to reestablish the good laws of his prede-
cessors, especially those of King Edward ; to abrogate;
the bad laws ; to judge every man according to his
right. He swore also to make ample restitution, un-
der pain of a second excommunication, of all which
he had confiscated during the exile of the prelates.
He again swore fealty to the Pope and his Catholic
successors.
John, now fi-ee from ecclesiastical censures, embarked
for Poitou in the full hope that the realm of England
would follow him in dutiful obedience. Most of the
barons stood sullenly aloof; those who embarked
abandoned him at Jersey. This was the first overt
act in the momentous strife of the Barons of England
for the liberties of England, which ended in the signa-
ture of the great Charter ; and at the head of these
Barons was Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canter-
bury. Henry II. when he raised Becket to the Pri-
macy of England, in order by his means to establish
the temporal supremacy of the King over the Church,
had not more completely mistaken the character of the
man, than Innocent when he raised Langton to the
same dignity, to maintain all the exorbitant pretensions
of Rome over England. Langton, a more enhghtened
churchman, remembered not only that he was an Arch-
bishop, but that he was an Englishman and a noble of
England. He had asserted Avith the Pope the liberties
of the Church against the King ; he asserted the liber-
44 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
ties of England against the same King, though sup-
ported by the Pope. Almost the first act of Langton
was to take the initiative in the cause of the barons.
John returned from Jersey in fury against the contuma-
cious nobles ; he declared his determination to revenge
himself, he summoned troops to execute his vengeance.
Langton sought him at Northampton, and remonstrated
at his arming against his barons before they had been
arraigned and found guilty in the royal courts, as a
violation of the oath SM^orn before his absolution.
The King dismissed him with scorn, commanding
him not to meddle in state affairs. But Langton
followed John to Nottingham ; threatened to excom-
municate every one who should engage in this war
before a fair trial had taken place, excepting only
the King himself.^ The King sullenly consented
to convoke a plenary court of his nobles. One
meeting of the Primate and the nobles had taken
place at St. Albans ; a second, ostensibly to regu-
late the claims of the Church upon the crown, was
convened in St. Paul's, London. Langton there
produced to the barons the charter of Henry I. ;
the barons received it with loud acclamations, and
took a solemn oath to conquer or die in defence of
their liberties.^
At Michaelmas arrived the new legate, Nicolas
Cardinal of Tusculum : his special mission was the
settlement as to the amount to be paid by the king for
the losses endured by the clergy. He was received,
thouo;h the interdict still lino;ered on the realm till the
king should have given full satisfaction, with splendid
1 Wendover, p. 261.
2 Wendover, p. 203. See the charter.
Chap. V. SECOND SURRENDER OF THE REALM. 45
processions.^ His first act was to degrade the Abbot
of Westminster, accused by his monks of dilapidation
of their estates, and of incontinence. The citizens of
Oxford were condemned for the murder of two clej-ks
(not without provocation) : they were to present them-
selves at each of the churches of the city naked to
their shirts, with a scourge in their hand, and to request
absolution, reciting the fiftieth psalm, from the parish
priest. The Cardinal, who travelled at first with seven
horses, had soon a cavalcade of fifty. The amount of
just compensation to the clergy it was impossible to
calculate. Their castles had been razed, their houses
burned, their orchards and their woods cut down. John
offered the gross sum of 100,000 marks. The Legate
urged its acceptance, but was suspected of favoring the
King. The bishops received in advance 1,500 marks,
and the affair was for the present adjourned. On the
payment of this sum the interdict was raised, but what
further compensation was awarded to the inferior claim-
ants does not appear. Still meeting after meeting took
place, at length the business was referred to the Pope,
who awarded to the Archbishop, the Bishops of London
and Ely, the sum of 40,000 marks. At St. Paul's the
King gave greater form and pomp to his disgraceful
act of vassalage.2 Before the high altar, in the pres-
ence of the clergy and people, John deposed second sur-
liis crown in the hands of the Legate, and the realm.
made the formal resignation of the kino-dom of Eng;-
land and Ireland.^ The golden seal was affixed to the
1 Wendover, p. 275.
2 " Ilia non formosa sed fanaosa subjectio." — M. Paris.
3 " Archiepiscopo conquerente et reclamante." — M. Paris. But the
words are not in Wendover. Could it be the Archbishop of Dublin? The
French translator of Matthew Paris, Mons. Huillard Breholles, would
46 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
deed of demission and consigned to the Pope. John
did actual homage to the Legate for the kingdom of
England. It was said that Stephen Langton had pro-
tested even at Winchester against this act of national
humiliation. But if Langton bore this second act in
silence, it was manifest that he had fallen in the favor
of the Pope. The Pope was determined to support
his vassal, whatever his iniquities, vices, crimes. Lang-
ton had now openly espoused the cause of his country's
liberties. The Legate was empow^ered, without con-
sulting the Primate or the Bishops, to appoint to all
the vacant benefices ; he travelled through the country
attended by the royal officers and the clergy attached
to the King ; he filled the churches with unworthy
men, or men at least thought unworthy ; he suspended
many ecclesiastics, and tauntingly told them to carry
their complaints to Rome, while he seized their property
and left them nothing to defray the expenses of their
journey.^ He trampled on the rights of patrons, and
appointed his own clerks, many probably foreigners, to
English preferments. His progress, instead of being a
blessing to the land, was deemed a malediction. His
final raising of the interdict was hardly a compensation
for his insolent injustice. The Pope no doubt shared
in the unpopularity of these proceedings. Stephen
Langton the Primate summoned a council of his bish-
ops at Dunstable ; and sent certain priests to inhibit
the Legate from inducting prelates and priests within
the realm. Both appealed to the Pope. The Legate
transfer these complaints as if spoken at Dover, to this second transaction.
This is taking great liberty with a text; but it is clear that they were not
made by Stephen Langton at Dover; he had not then arrived in England.
1 " Spreto archepiscopi et episcoporum regni consilio." — Wendover, p.
277.
Chap. V. KETURN OF JOHN FROM POITOU. 47
sent the politic Pandulph, Stephen Langton Simon his
bold brother, who afterwards held the archbishopric of
York in despite of papal prohibition, to the court of In-
nocent. But the charter of John's submission weighed
down all the arguments of Simon Langton.^
The great battle of Bouvines in Flanders, which an-
nihilated the hopes of the Emperor Otho, and placed
the Count of Flanders, as a prisoner, at the mercy of
the merciless Philip Augustus, recalled John July 23, 1214.
from Poitou, where he had made a vigorous, and for
a time successful descent. He returned discomfited,
soured in temper, to confront his barons, now pre-
pared for the deadly strife in defence of their liberties.
Throughout the contest, so long as he was in England,
the Primate maintained a lofty position. A^ith the
other higher clergy he stood aloof from the active
contest, though he was known to be the real head of
the confederacy. He was not present at the Meeting at
^ _, , , , , St. Edmonds-
great meetmg at St. Edmonds bury ; he ap- bury.
peared not in arms ; he does not seem to a.d. 1214.
have left the court ; the demand for the charter of
Henry I. came entirely from the lay barons. On the
presentation of that address he consented. Address.
with the bishop of Ely and William Mares- 1215.
chal Earl of Pembroke, to be the king's sureties that
he would hear and take into consideration the demands
of his subjects,^ and satisfy, if he might, their discon-
tents. While the appeal to arms was yet in suspense,
John, with that craft which in a nobler mind might
have been wise policy, endeavored to detach the church
from the cause of the national liberties. The clergy
had been indemnified for their losses, but still there was
1 Wendover, p. 279, 2 Wendover, p. 296.
48 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
an old and inveterate grievance, the despotic power ex-
ercised by the Norman princes in the nomination to
vacant bishoprics and abbacies. On the rare occasions
in the early part of his reign, when he gave the royal
license for the election of a bishop or great abbot, the
electors were summoned before the king ; an election
in the royal presence was not likely to be against the
royal will. During the interdict John's revenge (it
was probably the source of the enormous wealth which
he had at his command) had seized the revenue of these
unfilled benefices. On his reconciliation with the Ro-
man See, elections were to be in his presence, whether
he were in England or on the continent. This he
relaxed only on the remonstrance of the Archbishop,
to permit them to take place, during his absence, before
commissioners. But still the nomination was virtually
in him, and him alone. He was now seized with an
access of pious liberality, granted a charter of free elec-
tion to all chapters and conventual churches : the
charter declared that the royal license would always be
granted ; if not granted, was no bar to the free elec-
tion ; he renounced all royal influence, and promised
the royal approbation unless the King could allege
lawful objection. 1 That he might secure still further
the protection of the church, John took the cross,
and declared his intention to proceed, when relieved
from his pressing cares, to the recovery of the Holy
Land.
Each party endeavored to obtain the support of
Rome. The barons had aided powerfully the cause of
the Church in the former contest, and now the Church,
at least the Primate, made common cause with the
1 The document is in Rymer.
^
Chap. V. AUTHORITY OF THE POPE. 49
barons. But Innocent reserved his gratitude for the
vassal who had laid the crown of England at his feet.
" We must maintain the rights of, repel all insurrec-
tion against, a kino- ^vho is our vassal." ^ In truth he
understood not the nature, no more than he foresaw
the remote consequences of the conflict. That the
Church should resist, control, dictate to the temporal
sovereign, was in the order of things : that other sub-
jects should do the same, whatever the iniquities of the
sovereign or the invasion of their natural or chartered
rights, unless in defence of the Church, bordered on
impiety. Langton received a severe rebuke ; he was
accused as the secret rino;leader in this rebellion ; he
was commanded to labor for the reconciliation of the
king and his subjects. The barons were censured for
daring to attempt to extort privileges by force from the
crown — privileges to be obtained only as a free gift
from the King ; the Pope condescended to promise his
good offices in their behalf if they humbled themselves
before their sovereign. Of his sole authority the Pope
annulled all their leagues and covenants. The Pope
rebuked, censured, promised in vain.
Arms must decide the strife. At the great meeting
of the barons at Brackley, Langton and the Earl of
Pembroke (the Bishop of Ely was now dead) again
appeared in the King's name to receive the final de-
mands of the barons. So high were their demands,
that the king exclaimed in a fury : ^ " They may
1 Such were the plain words of a memorable letter of Pope Innocent
(published by Prynne from the original in the Tower, p. 28). He adds:
" Contra dominum suum arma niovere temeritate nefaria pra?sunipserunt
quodque nefandum est et absurdum cum ipse rex quasi perversus Deum et
Ecclesiam oflendebat, illi assistebant eidem, cum autem conversus Deo et
Ecclesiae satisfecit, ipsum impugnare prsesumunt."
2 Wendover, p. 298.
VOL. V. 4
50 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
as well ask my kingdom ; think they that I will be
their slave ? " But though the barons failed before
Northampton, Bedford and London opened their gates.
The great barons Pembroke, Warenne, and many
others who had still appeared at least to be on the
king's side, joined Fitzwalter and his party, the North-
ern Barons as they were called. London was the
headquarters of the King's adversaries. The whole
realm was one. The King was compelled to submit
Magna to the great Charter. Among the witnesses
1215^ June 15. to that Charter, the first were Stephen Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and Henry Archbishop of Dub-
lin. The first article guaranteed the rights of the
Church, not indeed more strongly than by the charter
before granted by the King, and which had received
the ratification of the Pope. The Papal envoy Pan-
dulph was present at the august ceremony. Pope In-
nocent saw in this movement only the turbulence of a
few factious barons ; he received the representations of
John's ambassadors with great indignation ; he knit his
brow (so writes the historian), and broke out into the
lano-uacre of astonishment : ^ " What, have the barons
of England presumed to dethrone a King who has
taken the cross, and placed himself under the protec-
tion of the Apostolic See ? Do they transfer to others
the patrimony of the Church of Rome ? By St. Peter,
we cannot leave such a crime unpunished." If such
unseemly language was attributed to the Pope, the
formal acts of Innocent might almost justify such re-
ports of his conduct. In his Bull^ he attributes the
rebellion of the barons, after John had been reconciled
1 Wendover, p. 313.
2 Rymer, i. p. 135.
Chap. V. INNOCENT'S LETTER. 51
to the Cliurch, to the enemy of mankind. He is
astonished that tlie barons have not humbly brought
their grievances before his tribunal, and implored re-
dress. The act describes the conduct of the King as
throughout just, conciliatory. " Vassals, they have
conspired against their lord — knights against their
king : they have assailed his lands, seized his capital
city, which has been surrendered to them by treason.
Under their violence, and under fears which mi^ht
shake the firmest man, he has entered into a treaty
with the barons ; a treaty not only base and igno-
minious, but unlawful and unjust ; in flagrant violation
and diminution of his rights and honor. Wherefore,
as the Lord has said by the mouth of his condemned
prophet, — ' I have set thee above the na- innocent,
tions, and above the kingdoms, to pluck up and to de-
stroy, to build up and to plant ; ' and by the mouth of
another prophet, — ' break the leagues of ungodliness,
and loose the heavy burthens ; ' we can no longer pass
over in silence such audacious wickedness, committed
in contempt of the Apostolic See, in infringement of
the rights of the King, to the disgrace of the kingdom
of England, to the great peril of the Crusade. We
therefore, with the advice of our brethren, altogether
reprove and condemn this charter, prohibiting the king,
under pain of anathema, fi'om observing it, the barons
from exacting its observation ; we declare the said
charter, with all its obligations and guarantees, abso-
lutely null and void." ^
The letter of Innocent to the Barons was no less
lofty and commanding. He informed them innocent's
that as they refused all just terms offered by ^^"^"^
1 Dated Anagni, Aug. 4.
52 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
the King, and a fair judgment in the court of Rome, the
King had appealed to him his Kege lord. He urged
them to make a virtue of necessity, themselves to re-
nounce this inauspicious treaty, to make reparation to
the King for all losses and outrages perpetrated against
him, " so that the King, appeased by their reverence
and humility, might himself be induced to reform any
real abuses." " For if we will not that he be deprived
of his right, we will not have you oppressed, nor the
kingdom of England, which is under our suzerainty,
to groan under bad customs and unjust exactions."
They were summoned to depute representatives to the
court of Rome, and await the final decision of that tri-
bunal.
The Great Charter of the liberties of England was
absolutely, peremptorily annulled, by the supreme au-
thority of the Pope, as Pope and as liege lord of the
realm. The King was absolutely released from his oath
to the statute ; the King threatened with anathema if
he observed, the barons if they exacted the observance.^
Still the rebukes, promises, threats of spiritual censure,
the annulling edict, were received with utter disregard
by the sturdy barons. They retorted the language of
the Scripture, the phrase of Isaiah is said to have been
current among them, — " Woe unto him who justifieth
the wicked for reward ! "
The w^ar had broken out ; the King, with the aid of
War. two of liis Warlike bishops, the Chancellor
Bishop of Worcester, and John de Gray of Norwich,
1 Magna Charta the Pope describes as " compositionem non solum vilem
et turpem, verum etiam illicitam et iniquam, in nimiani diminutionem et
derogationem sui juris pariter et honoris." The documents in Rymer, sub
ann.
Chap. V. CHARTER ANNULLED BY THE POPE. 53
had levied hosts of mercenary troops in Flanders ; free-
booters from all quarters, from Poitou and other parts
of France, crowded to win the estates of the English
barons, Avhich were offered as rewards for their valor.
John was pressing the siege of Rochester, wdiich the
remissness of the barons allowed to fall into his hands.
He was only prevented by the prudence of one of his
foreign captains, who dreaded reprisals, from ordering a
geneial massacre of the garrison. The bull of excom-
munication against the barons followed rapidly the abro-
gation of the Charter. It was addressed to Peter Bishop
of Winchester, the Abbot of Reading, and the Papal
Envoy. It expressed the utmost astonishment and
wrath, that Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury, and
his suffragans, had shown such want of respect to the
Papal mandate and of fidelity to their King ; that they
had rendered him no aid against the disturbei's of the
peace ; that they had been privy to, if not actively en-
gaged in the rebellious league. " Is it thus that these
prelates defend the patrimony of Rome ; thus that they
protect those who have taken up the cross ? Worse than
Saracens they would drive from his realm a King in
whom is the best hope of the deliverance of the Holy
Land." All disturbers of the Kino; and of the realm
are declared to be in the bonds of excommunication ;
the Primate and his suffragans are solemnly enjoined
to publish this excommunication in all the churches of
the realm, every Sunday and festival, with the sound
of bells, until the barons shall have made their absolute
submission to the King. Every prelate who disobeys
these orders is suspended from his functions.
The Bishop of Winchester, the Abbot of Reading,
and Pandulph in a personal interview with the Primate
54 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
communicated the injunctions of the Pope. Stephen
Langton demanded delay ; he was about to proceed to
Rome, being summoned to attend the Lateran Council.
He firmly refiised to publish the excommunication, as
obtained from the Pope by false representations.^ The
Papal Delegates declared the Primate suspended from
his office, and proceeded to promulgate the sentence of
excommunication. The sentence was utterly without
effect. An incident of the time shows how strongly
the sympathies of the clergy were with Langton. The
Canons of York after a long vacancy of the archbishop-
ric,^ rejecting Walter de Grey Bishop of Worcester,
the Chancellor and partisan of John, chose Simon
Langton, the brother of the Primate. Two brothers,
for the first and last time, held these high dignities.
The Pope, it is true, prohibited the elevation of Lang-
A.D. 1215. ton ; but his election was a defiance of the
King and of the Pope. The Primate, strong in the
blameless dignity of his character, in the consciousness
that he was acting as a Christian prelate in opposing a
lustful, perfidious, and sanguinary tyrant like John, in
his dignity as Cardinal of the Roman Church, feared
Nov. 1215. not to confront the Pope, and to present him-
Rome^" ^ self at the great Lateran Council. The favor,
however, with which the Pontiff and the Council heard
1 " Dissensiones . . . dissimulastis hactenus, et conniventibus oculis per-
transitis .... nonnullis suspicantibus .... quod vos illis prrebeti.s aux-
ilium et favorem." — Eymer, sub ann. 1215. John had complained to the
Pope: "Dominus vero Cantuarensis Archiepiscopus et ejus suifraganei
mandata vestra executioni demandare supersederunt . . . Archiepiscopus
respondens, ut quod sententiam extomraunicationis in eos nullo modo pvo-
ferret, qui bene sciebat nientem vestram." — Langton agreed, however, if
John wouUl revolie his orders for his foreign mercenaries, to pronounce the
excommunication. — Rymer, 1215.
2 From 1212.
Chap. V. STEPHEN LANGTON AT ROME. 55
his accusers, the envoys of King John, the Abbot of
Beaulieu, Thomas of Herdington, and Geoffrey of Cra-
combe, the unbending severity of the Pope himself,
covei'ed him, it is said, with confusion ; at least taught
him the prudence of silence : the sentence of suspen-
sion was solemnly ratified by Pope and Council, and
even when it was subsequently relaxed, it was on the
condition that he should not return to England. Ste-
phen Langton remained at Rome though not in cus-
tody, yet no less a prisoner. The Canons of York
were informed that the Pope absolutely annulled the
election of Simon Langton ; they were compelled to
make a virtue of necessity, to affect joy at being per-
mitted to elect the Bishop of Worcester, a man they
acknowledged, it should seem, of one rare virtue —
unblemished chastity. De Grey returned Archbishop
of York, but loaded with a heavy debt to the court of
Rome, 10,000^. sterling.^
When John let loose his ferocious hordes of adven-
turers from Flanders, Brabant, Poitou, and other coun-
tries like wild beasts upon his unhappy realm ; when
himself ravaged in the north, his bastard brother the
Earl of Salisbury in the south ; when the whole land
was wasted with fire and sword ; when plunder, mur-
der, torture, rape, raged without control ; when agri-
culture and even markets had absolutely ceased, the
buyers and sellers met only in church-yards, because
they were sanctuaries ; ^ when the clergy were treated
with the same impartial cruelty as the rest of the
1 Wendover, p. 346. He adds : — " Itaque accepto pallio episcopus me-
moratus, obligatur in curia Romana de decern millibus libris legalium
iterlingorum."
2 Wendover, p. 351.
56 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
people, John was still the ally, the vassal, under the
special protection of the Po})e. These terrible tri-
umphs of his arms were backed by the sentence of
June, 1216. excommunicatioii against the barons and all
their adherents.^ Many of the noblest barons were
anathematized by name ; above all, the citizens of
London and the Cinque Ports, for the capital boasted
itself as the head-quarters of the champions of freedom.
The citizens of London however treated the spiritual
censure with utter contempt, the services went on unin-
terrupted and exactly in the usual manner in all the
churches.
So also when the Barons in their desperation offered
the crown to Louis, the son of Philip Augustus of
France. The Legate Gualo, then on his way to Eng-
land, solemnly warned Louis not to dare to invade the
patrimony of St. Peter, a menace not likely to awe a
son of Philip Augustus with such a prize before him.
Louis indeed showed a kind of mockery of deference
to the Pope, in submitting to the Holy See a statement
of the title which he set up to the throne of England.^
This rested on the right of his Queen, even if the
house of Castile had any claim, a younger daughter of
that house. Its first postulate was the absolute exclu-
sion of John, as attainted for murder during the reign
of his brother Richard, and incapable thereby of inher-
iting the crown ; and for the murder of his nephew,
1 Wendover, p. 353. The three acts of excommunication against the
barons, of suspension against Stephen Langton, the special anathema on
certain barons, with their names, are in Rj^mer.
■■2 See Rymer for the document in which Louis alleged his title to the
throne of Knghmd. Louis asserts the truth of the account, that Archbishop
Hubert publicly announced that on the accession of John " non ratione suc-
cessionis. sed per electionem ipsuni in regem coronabat." — Rymer, sul
anu. 1216.
Chap. V. DEATH OF INNOCENT AND JOHN. 57
of wliicli lie had been found guilty in the covirt of the
King of France. With the original flaw in the title
of John fell of course his rioht to errant the island to
St. Peter ; and so the claim of Louis to the throne was
an abrogation of that of Innocent to the suzerainty of
the land. No wonder then that the sentence of ex-
communication was launched at once against Louis
himself, and all who should invite, assist, support his
descent upon England. The last act of Innocent was
to command an excommunication as solemn of the
King of France himself, for guiltily conniving at least
at an invasion of England, to be pronounced July 16, 1216.
at a great synod at Melun. The French prelates in-
terposed delay ; and the death of Pope Innocent sus-
pended for a time the execution of this mandate.
The death of Innocent was followed in but a few
months by that of John, under fierce affliction for the
loss of his baggage and part of his wild freebooting
army, which had remorselessly ravaged great part of
the kingdom, by sudden floods, as he passed from
Lynn in Norfolk into Lincolnshire. John reached the
Abbey of Swineshead. Intemperate indulgence in
fruit excited his fever ; he there made his will,i left
his yoimg son to the tutelage of the new Pope Ilono-
rius III., and dragged his weary and exhausted body
to Newark. There he died in peace with the Church,
having received the holy Eucharist, commending his
body and his soul to the intercession of the ])ious St.
Wulstan in Worcester, under the tutelar shade of
1 The attesting witnesses to his will were the Cardinal Legate Giialo, the
Bishops of Winchester, Chichester, Worcester, Aimeric de St. Maiir, or
Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke, Earl of Chester, Earl of Ferrars, Wm.
Browne, Walter de Lacy, John de Monmout, Savary de Mauleon, Fulk de
Breaut^.
68 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.'
whose cathedral he wished his ashes to repose. John
died in peace with the Church, it was of course be-
Oct. 19. lieved with Heaven, leaving Stephen Lang-
ton the Primate, a Cardinal of the church, suspended
from his holy functions, in a kind of stately disgrace,
an exile from his See ; the m'eater yjart of the hioher
clergy under virtual exconmiunication as communicat-
ing with the proscribed barons ; almost the whole no-
bility under actual excommunication, and so in peril of
eternal perdition.
Thus closed the eventful reign of the meanest and
most despicable sovereign who ever sat on the throne
of England. Political passions, the pride of ingenuity,
the love of paradox, have endeavored to lighten the
burden of obloquy which has weighed down the mem-
ory of most of our least worthy sovereigns. Richard
III. has found an apologist. But John has been aban-
doned utterly, absolutely, to execration and contempt.
Yet from the reign of John dates, if not the first dawn,
the first concentrated power of the liberties of England.
A memorable example of the wonderful manner in
which Divine Providence overrules the worst of men
to its noblest and most beneficent designs ! From this
time, too, the impulses of religious independence began
to stir in the hearts of men. The national English
pride had been deeply wounded by the degradation of
the realm to a fief of the See of Rome ; and the am-
bition of Rome had overleaped itself.^ Future Popes
1 The historians, all ecclesiastics, are undeniable witnesses. We have
heard Wendover. Westminster describes the charter of surrender as '' om-
nibus earn audicntibus lugubrem et detestabilem." — Ann. 1213, p. 9-3.
Knighton says, " De libero fecit se servum, de dominante servientem, ter-
ramque Anglicanam quae .solebat esse libera et ab omni servitute quieta,
fecit tributariam et ancillam pedissequam." — De event. Anglia>, 1. ii. c. 25.
Chap. V. RELIGIOUS INDEPENDENCE. 59
were tempted to lay intolerable taxation upon the
clergy, which was felt by the whole kingdom ; and to
inflict the almost more intolerable grievance, the filling
up the English benefices by foreign ecclesiastics — if
not resident, hated as draining away their wealth with-
out condescending to regard any duties ; if resident,
hated still more profoundly for their pride, ignorance
of the language, and uncongenial manners. Our his-
tory must show this gradual alienation and estrange-
ment of the national mind from the See of Rome, the
silent growth of Teutonic freedom.
60 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book EX.
CHAPTER VI.
mNOCENT AND SPAIN.
The three great Sovereigns of Western Europe, the
Kings of Germany, of France, and England, had seen
their realms under Papal interdict, themselves under
the sentence of excommunication ; but the Papal power
under Innocent not only aspired to humble the loftiest :
hardly one of the smaller kingdoms had not already
been taught, or was not soon taught, to feel the awful
majesty of the Papacy. From the Northern Ocean to
Hungary, from Hungary to the Spanish shore of the
Atlantic, Innocent is exercising what takes the lan-
guage of protective or parental authority, but which in
most cases is asserted by the terrible interdict. The
sunshine of Papal favor is rarely without the black
thunder-clouds looming heavily over the land, breaking
or threatening to break in all their wrath. Nowhere
is he more constantly engaged, either as claiming feudal
sovereignty, as regulating the ecclesiastical appoint-
ments, as, above all, the arbiter in questions of mar-
riage, than among the sovereigns of the petty king-
doms of Spain. These kingdoms had gradually formed
themselves out of conquests from receding Mohamme-
danism. Spanish Christianity was a perpetual cru-
sade ; and the Head of Western Christendom might
still watch with profound anxiety these advances, as it
Chap. VI. KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. 61
were, of Cliristendoin. There was nothing to prevent
another inroad from Africa, ruled by powerful Moham-
medan potentates ; nothing, till the great battle of
Naves de Tolosa, to guai'antee Western Christendom
from a new invasion as terrible as that under Tarik.
A second battle of Tours might be necessary to
rescue Europe from the dominion of the Crescent.
Innocent had the happiness to hear the July 16, 1212
tidings of Naves de Tolosa, where the Crescent fell
before the united armies of the three Kings of Castile,
Arragon, and Navarre. To each of these Peninsular
kingdoms — Portugal, Leon, Castile, Arragon, and
Navarre, Innocent speaks in the tone of a master ;
each, except perhaps Arragon, is in its turn threat-
ened with interdict, his one ordinary means of com-
pvdsion.
Portugal had been formed into a Christian State by
the valor of a descendant of the house of Henry of
Capet ; it had been organized by the wisdom ^°'^'"S'^'-
of his son Sancho. The Popes had already asserted
the strange pretensions that territories conquered from
the Unbelievers were at their disposal, and that they
had the power of raising principalities into kingdoms.
Alexander III. had advanced Portugal to that dignity
on condition of an annual tribute to the See of Rome.
The payment was irregularly made, if not disclaimed.
Innocent instructs his Legate, the Brother Rainer, a
man of great discretion and trust, employed on all the
affairs of Spain, to demand the subsidy ; if refused, to
compel it by the only authority — ecclesiastical censure.
The King of Portugal is to be reminded that he may
expect great temporal as well as spiritual advantage
from his filial submission to the Supreme Pontiff; but
62 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
if God is offended by the withholding their rightful
dues from other churches, how much more grievous a
sin, how heinous a sacrilege is it, to deprive of its
full rights the Church which is the mistress of all
Churches ! ^ In the same arbitrary manner, and by
the same means, Rainer was to compel the Kings of
Portugal and Castile to maintain a treaty of peace, on
which they had agreed, and to resist the intrigues of
turbulent men, who endeavored to plunge them again
into war.
In the affairs of Leon and Castile Innocent inter-
posed in his character as supreme arbiter on all ques-
tions of marriage. On the death of Alfonso the Em-
peror,^ the great kingdom of Leon had been divided
between his two sons, the Kings of Leon and Castile,
Fernando and Sancho. The second generation was
now on each throne ; both the princes bore the name
of Alfonso. But instead of urging the war against
the common enemy, the Unbeliever, these princes had
turned their arms against each other. Alfonso of
Leon had married the daughter of the King of Portu-
gal. These sovereigns were connected by some remote
tie of consanguinity ; the incestuous union was declared
void. Coelestine III. placed under interdict the two
kingdoms of Portugal and Leon, and tlie marriage,
though Teresa had borne him three children (one son
and two daughters), was absolutely annulled. The
repudiated Teresa returned to her native Portugal.^
1 Epist. i. 99, 449.
2 Mariana, xi.
3 Innocent's language is express as to the revocation of the marriage:
" Filiam . . . Portugallise regis, incestuose praesumpserat copulare
unde quod illegitim^ factum erat, est penitus revocatura." — Epist. ii. 75.
Chap. VI. THE KING OF LEON". 63
But Alfonso of Leon broke off this wedlock only to
form another more obnoxious to the ecclesias- j^^^ gj^
tical canons. He married Berengaria, the °^ ^°'^-
daughter of his cousin-german the King of Castile.
The nobles of both realms rejoiced in tliis union, as
a guarantee for peace between Castile and Leon.
They would entertain no doubt that the Papal dis-
pensation might be obtained for a marriage, though
within the prohibited degrees, yet by no means offen-
sive to the natural feelings in the West, and of so much
importance in directing the united arms of Leon and
Castile against the Mohammedans. But to this devia-
tion from the sacred canons the Pope Coelestine had
expressed his determination not to accede ; he sent the
Cardinal Guido of St. Angelo to prohibit this second
profane wedlock. The Cardinal was to pronounce the
interdict against both realms, excommunication against
both Sovereigns, unless the hateful contract were an-
nulled. Under this sentence were included, as abettors
of the sin, the Archbishop of Salamanca, the Bishops
of Zamora, Astorga, and Leon. The Bishop of Ovie-
do was persecuted by the King of Leon, as inclined to
obey the Pope rather than his temporal sovereign.^
Innocent was not likely to be indulgent where his pred-
ecessor had been severe. To this marriage he applies
the strongest terms of censure : it is incestuous, abom-
inable to God, detestable in the sight of man. The
Brother Rainer is ordered to ratify in the most solemn
manner the interdict of the kingdoms, the excommuni-
cation of the Kings. Rainer cited the Kings to appear
"Verum dictus Rex Legion, ad deteriora manum extendeiis." — Compare
Mariana, xi. 17.
1 Epist. i. 58, 97, 125.
64 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
before him. The King of Leon paid no regard to the
summons ; the King of Castile averted the interdict for
a time by declaring his readiness to receive back his
daughter. But he had no intention to restore certain
castles which he had obtained as her dowry. The
Archbishop of Toledo, and the Bishop of Palencia on
the part of the King of Castile, the Bishop of Zamora
on that of the King of Leon, appeared in Rome.
They could hardly obtain a hearing from the inexorable
Pontiff. But their representations of the effects of the
interdict enforced the consideration of the Pope. They
urged the danger as to the heretics. When the lips of
the pastors of the people were closed, the unrefuted
heretics could not be controlled by the power of the
King. New heresies spring up in every quarter. How
great, too, the danger as to the Saracens ! The relig-
ious services and the religious sermons alone inflamed
the valor of the people to the holy war against the mis-
believers ; their devotion, now that both prince and
people were involved in one interdict, waxed cold.
Nor less the danger as to the Catholics, for since the
clergy refused their spiritual services, the people refused
their temporal payments ; offerings, first-fruits, tithes,
were cut off; the clergy were reduced to beg, to dig,
or, worse reproach, to be the slaves of the Jews. The
Pope, with great reluctance, consented to relax the
severity of the interdict, to permit the performance of
the sacred offices, except the burial of the dead in con-
secrated ground ; this was granted to the clergy alone
as a special favor. But the King himself was still
under the ban of excommunication ; whatever town or
village he entered, all divine service ceased ; no one
was to dare to celebrate an act of holy worship. This
Chap. VI. INTERDICT OF LEON. 65
mandate was addressed to the Archbishop of Coin-
postella and to all the Bishops of the kingdom of
Leon.^
But his wife had been still further endeared to the
King of Leon by the birth of a son ; ^ and so regard-
less Avere the Leonese clergy of the Papal decree, that
the baptism of the child was celebrated publicly with
the utmost pomp in the cathedral church of Leon.
Innocent had compared together the royal line of the
East and of the West. Li the East, Isabella, the heir-
ess of the kingdom of Jerusalem, had contracted two
incestuous marriages within the prohibited degrees.
God had smitten with death her two husbands, Con-
rad of Montferrat and Henry of Champagne. He
would even inflict worse vengeance on the a.d. 1199.
transgressors of the West, if they persisted in their
detestable deed. His vaticination was singularly unfor-
tunate. The son of this unblessed union grew up a
king of the most exemplary valor, virtue, and pros-
perity ; and after his death the canonized Ferdinand
was admitted into the holy assembly of the Saints.
Nor was it till Berengaria had borne five children to
Alfonso of Leon that her own religious scruples were
awakened, and she retired from the arms of her hus-
band to a peaceful retreat in the dominions of her
father. The ban under which the kingdom had la-
bored for nearly five years was annulled ; the five
children were declared legitimate and capable of in-
heriting the crown. The dispute concerning the bor-
der castles was arranged by the intervention of the
bishops.
1 Epist. ii. 75.
2 The son by Teresa had died in infancy. Mariana, loc. ctt.
VOL. V. 5
66 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
The King of Navarre liad incurred the interdict of
4.D. 1204. Innocent on more intelligible grounds. He
Navarre. had made an impious treaty with the Infi-
dels ; he had even undertaken a suspicious visit to
the Miramamolin in Africa ; he was supposed to be
organizing a league with the Mohammedans both of
Spain and Africa against his enemies the Kings of
Arragon and Castile : on him and on his realm Brother
Rainer was at once to pronounce the ban, and to give
lawful power to the King of Arragon to subdue his
dominions. Sancho of Navarre, however, averted the
subjugation of the realm : he entered into a treaty with
the allied Kings of Arragon and Castile. It was stip-
ulated in the terms of the treaty that Pedro of Arra-
gon should wed the sister of Navarre. But again was
heard the voice of the Pope, declaring that the mar-
riage, though the pledge and surety of peace, and of
Sancho's loyalty to the cause of Christendom, being
within the third degree of consanguinity, could not be.
The oath which Sancho had taken to fulfil this stipula-
tion was worse than perjury ; it was to be broken at all
cost and all hazard.^
But thus inexorable to any breach of the ecclesias-
A.p. 1199. tical canons, so entirely had these canons
Arragon. usui'ped the placc of the higher and immu-
table laws of Christian morals, here, as in the case of
John of England, Innocent himself was, if not accom-
modating, strangely blind to the sin of marriage con-
tracted under more unhallowed auspices. Pedro of
Arragon was the model of Spanish chivalry on the
throne. He aspired to be the leader of a great cru-
i.D. 1204. sading league of all the Spanish kings against
1 Epist. i. 556. Compare Abarca, Anales de Aragoii, xviii. 7.
Chap. VI. PEDRO OF AREAGON. 67
the Unbelievers. Innocent himself had the prudence
to allay for a time the fervor of his zeal. The court
of Pedro, like that of his brother, the Count of Prov-
ence, was splendid, gay, and dissolute : the troubadour
was welcome, with his music and his song, to the joyous
prince and the bevy of fair ladies, who were not insen-
sible to the gallant King or to the amorous bards. But
Pedro, while he encouraged the gay science of Prov-
ence, was inexorable to its religious freedom. He was
hitherto severely orthodox, and banished all heresy
from his dominions under pain of death. The kino--
dom flourished under his powerful rule : the King's
peace was proclaimed for the protection of widows and
orphans, roads and markets, oxen at the plough and
all agricultural implements, olive-trees, and dove-cots.
The husbandman found a protector, his harvests secu-
rity under the King's rule.^
The Kings of Arragon had never been crowned on
their accession ; they received only the honor of
knighthood. From Counts of Barcelona, oM-ing alle-
giance to the descendants of Charlemagne, they had
gradually risen to the dignity of Kings of Arragon.
But the last sign of kingship was wanting, and Pedro
determined to purchase that honor fi-om the hand
which assumed the power of dispensing crowns : he
would receive the crown at Rome from the Pope him-
self, and as the price of this condescension hesitated
not to declare the kingdom of Arragon feudatory to
the See of Rome, and to covenant for an annual trib-
ute to St. Peter. On his journey to Rome he visited
his brother at his court in Provence. The beauty and
the rich inheritance of Maria, the only daughter of
1 Hurter, p. 598.
68 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
the Count of Montpellier, whose mother was Eudoxia,
the daughter of the Emperor of the East, attracted
the gallant and ambitious Pedro. There was an im-
pediment to the marriage, it might have been supposed,
more insuperable than the ties of consanguinity. She
was already married, and had borne two children, to
the Count of Comminges ; ^ she afterwards, indeed,
asserted the nullity of this marriage, on the plea that
the Count of Comminges had two wives living at the
time of his union with her. But the easy ProveuQal
clergy raised no remonstrance. Innocent, if rumors
reached him (he could hardly be ignorant), closed his
ears to that which was not brought before him by regu-
lar appeal. The espousals took place at Montpellier,^
Not. 8, 1204. and Pedro set forth again for Rome. He
sailed from Marseilles to Genoa, from Genoa to Ostia.
He was received with great state : two hundred horse-
men welcomed him to the shore ; the Senator of Rome,
the Cardinals, went out to meet him ; he was received
by the Pope himself in St. Peter's ; his lodging was
with the Canons of that church.
Three days after took place the coronation of the
new feudatory king (thus was an example set to the
King of England) in the Church of San Pancrazio
beyond the Tiber, in the presence of all the civilians,
ecclesiastical dignitaries of Rome, and of the Roman
1 " Si bien Doiia Maria di Mompeller fue en santitad y valor ornamento
de el estado de Reynas, y traia en dote tan ricos y oportunos pueblos."
Abarca, indeed, says, " Ella ni era hermosa ni doncella." He adds that she
had been forced to this marriage neither legitimate nor public, with the
Count of Comminges; see also on her two daughters, and the count's two
wives. — i. p. 225.
2 He soon repented of his ill-sorted marriage. Abarca says he set off
"para salir el bien de ellos (desvios de el Rey con la Reyna); y alexarse
mas de ella." and hoped to get a divorce from the Pope.
Chap. VI. FEUDAL SURRENDER OF ARRAGON. 69
people.^ He Avas anointed by the Bishop of Porto,
and invested in all the insignia of royalty — the robe,
the mantle, the sceptre, the golden apple, the crown,
and the mitre. He swore this oath of allegiance: — " I,
Pedro, King of Arragon, profess and declare that I
will be true and loyal to my lord the Pope Innocent,
and to his Catholic successors in the See of Rome ;
that I will maintain my realm in fidelity and obedience
to him, defend the Catholic faith, and prosecute all
heretical pravity; protect the liberties and rights of
the Church ; and in all the territories under my do-
minion maintain peace and justice. So help me God
and his Holy Gospel."
The King, in his royal attire, proceeded to the
Church of St. Peter. There he cast aside his crown
and sceptx'e, surrendered his kingdom into the hands of
the Pope, and received again the investiture by the
sword, presented to the Pope. He laid on the altar a
parchment, in which he placed his realm under the
protection of St. Peter ; and bound himself and his
successors to the annual tribute of two hundred gold
pieces.^ So was Arragon a fief of the Roman See ;
but it was not without much sullen protest of the high-
minded Arragonese. They complained of it as a base
surrender of their liberties ; as affording an opening to
the Pope to interfere in the internal affairs of the
kingdom with measures more perilous to their honor
and liberty. Their discontent was aggravated by heavy
burdens laid upon them by the King. They com-
plained that in his private person he was prodigal, and
1 St. Martin's day. Gesta, c. 120.
2 They bore the Moorish name of Massimute, from the King Jussuf
Masemut; each was worth six solidi.
70 LATIN CHEISTUNITY. Book IX.
rapacious as a ruler. When these proceedings were
proclaimed at Huesca, they were met with an outburst
of reprobation, not only from the people, but from all
the nobles and hidalgos of the kingdom.^ Pedro of
Arragon will again appear as Count of Montpellier, in
right of his wife, if not on the side of those against
whom the Pope had sanctioned a crusade on account
of their heretical pravity ; yet as the mortal foe, as
falling in battle before the arms of the leader of that
crusade, Simon de Montfort.
The lesser kingdoms of Europe, Bohemia, Hungary,
Poland — those on the Baltic — were not beyond the
sphere of Innocent's all-embracing watchfulness, more
especially Bohemia, on account of its close relation to
March 1 t^^6 Empire. The Duke of Bohemia had
^^^^- dared to receive the royal crown from the
excommunicated Philip.^ The Pope lifts up his voice
in solemn rebuke. The Bohemian shows some disposi-
tion to fall off to Otho ; the great prelates of Pi-ague
and Olmutz are ordered to employ all their spiritual
power to confirm and strengthen him in that cause.
Hopes are held out that Bohemia may be honored by
a metropolitan see.
To the Kino; of Denmark Innocent has been seen
as the protector of his injured daugliter ; throughout,
Denmark looks to Rome alone for justice and for re-
dress. Even Thule, the new and more remote Thule,
is not inaccessible to the sovereign of Christian Rome.
We read a lofty but affectionate letter addressed to the
1 Mariana, lib. xi. p. 362. " Solo alegre para los Romanes ; y despues in-
feliz y triste para los Aragoneses." — Abarca. King Pedro did not succeed
in getting rid of his wife.
2Epist. i. 707.
Chap. VI. ANDREW OF HUNGARY. 71
bishops and nobles of Iceland.^ A legate is sent to that
island. They are warned not to submit to the excom-
municated and apostate priest Swero, who aspired to
the throne of Norway. Yet, notwithstandino; the Pope,
Swero the apostate founded a dynasty which for many
generations held the throne of Norway.
The kingdom of Hungary might seem under the
special protection of Innocent III. : it was his aim to
urge those warlike princes to enter on the Crusades.
Bela III. died, not having fulfilled his vow of proceed-
ing to the Holy Land. To his elder son Emeric he
bequeathed his kingdom ; to the younger, Andrew, a
vast treasure, accumulated for this pious end, and the
accomplishment of his father's holy vow. Andrew
squandered the money, notwithstanding the Pope's re-
bukes, on his pleasures ; and then stood up in arms
against his brother for the crown of Hungary. His
first insurrection ended in defeat. The Pope urged the
victorious Emeric to undertake the Crusade ; yet the
Pope could not save Zara (Jadara), the haven of Hun-
gary on the Adriatic, from the crusaders, diverted by
Venice to the conquest. Andrew, ere long was again
in arms against his royal brother ; the nobles, the whole
realm were on his side ; a few loyal partisans adhered
to the King. Emeric advanced alone to the hostile
van ; he threw oflF his armor, he bared his breast ; " who
will dare to shed the blood of their King?"^ The ai'my
1 Epist. i. On all these minor transactions, for which I have not space,
Hurter is full and minute. Hurter, I think, is an honest writer; but sees
all the acts of Innocent through a haze of admiration, which brightens and
aggrandizes them. Never was the proverb more fully verified, proselytes
are always enthusiasts.
2 Compare Mailath, Geschichte der Magyaren, especially for the striking
scene of Emeric in the army of his brother. — v. i. p. 141. a.d. 1203.
72 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
of Andrew fell back, and made way for the Kino-, who
confronted his brother. He took the rebel by the hand,
and led him awaj through his own hosts. Both armies
broke out in loyal acclamations. Andrew was a pris-
oner, and sent to a fortress in Croatia : Emeric, before
he undertook the Crusade, would have his infant son
Ladislaus crowned ; a few months after he was dying,
and compelled to intrust his heir to the guardianship
of his rebel brother. Erelong the mother and her
royal son were fugitives at Vienna ; but the timely
death of the infant placed the crown on the head of
Andrew. After some delay, Andrew atoned in the
sight of the Pope for all the disobedience and ambition
of his youth, by embarking at the head of a strong
Hungarian army for the Holy Land. The King of
Hungary could not overawe the fatal dissensions among
the Christians, which thwarted every gallant enterprise.
He returned after one ineffective campaign. Yet An-
drew of Hungary left behind him the name of a val-
iant and prudent champion of the Cross. He returned
to his kingdom in the year of Innocent's death. ^ The
Golden Bull, the charter of the Hungarian liberties,
was the free and noble o;ift of Andrew of Hunoary.
Innocent extended his authority over Servia, and
boasted of having brought Bulgaria, even Armenia
(the Christian Crusader's kingdom), under the domin-
ion of the Roman See.
1 A.D. 1216. On Andrew's crusade see Michaud and Wilken, in he.
Brequigny ii. 487, 489.
Chap. VII. FAILURE OF THE CEUSADES. 73
CHAPTER VII.
INNOCENT AND THE EAST.
Innocent III., thus assuming a supremacy even
more extensive than any of his predecessors innocent
over the kingdoms of the West, was not the East,
Pontiff to abandon the East to its fate ; to leave the
sepulchre of Christ in the hands of the Infidels ; to
permit the kingdom of Jerusalem, feeble as it was, to
perish without an effort in its defence ; to confess, as it
were, that God was on the side of Mohammedanism,
that all the former Crusades had been an idle waste of
Christian blood and treasure, and that it was the policy,
the ignominious policy of Christendom to content itself
with maintaining, if possible, the nearer frontier, Sicily
and Spain.
Yet the event of the Crusades might have ci'ushed a
less lofty and religious mind than that of In- p^iiure ot
nocent to despair. Armies after armies had ^''^^^'i'*^-
left their bones to crumble on the plains of Asia Minor
or of Galilee ; great sovereigns had perished, or re-
turned discomfited from the Holy Land. Of all the
conquests of Godfrey of Bouillon remained but Antioch,
a few towns in Palestine, and some desert and unculti-
vated territory. The hopes which had been excited by
the death of Saladin, and the dissensions between his
sons and his brother, Melek al Adhel, had soon been
74 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
extinguished. The great German Crusade, in which
the Archbishops of Mentz and Bremen, the Bishops
of Halberstadt, Zeitz, Verden, Wurtzburg, Passau and
Ratisbon, the Dukes of Austria, Carinthia and Bra-
bant, Henry the Palgrave of the Rliine, Herman of
Thuringia, Otho Margrave of Brandenburg, and many
more of the great Teutonic nobles had joined, had
ended in diso-i'aceful failure. The death of the Em-
peror Henry gave them an excuse for stealing back
ignominiously, single or in small bands, to Europe ;
they were called to take their share in the settlement
of the weighty affairs of the Empire ; the Archbishop
of Mentz lingered to the last, and at length, he too
turned his back on the Holy Land. The French, who
had remained after the departure of Philip Augustus,
resented the insufferable arrogance of the Germans ;
the Germans affected to despise the French. But their
only achievement, as Innocent himself tauntingly de-
clared, had been the taking of undefended Berytus ;
while the unbeliever boasted that he had stormed Joppa
in the face of their whole host, with infinite slaughter of
the Christians. All was dissension, jealousy, hostility.
The King of Antioch was at war with the Christian King
of Armenia. The two great Orders, the only power-
ful defenders of the land, the Hospitallers and the
Templars, were in implacable feud. The Christians of
Palestine were in morals, in character, in habits, the
most licentious, most treacherous, most ferocious of
mankind. Isabella, the heiress of the kingdom, had
transferred the short-lived sceptre to four successive
husbands. It rested now with Amalric, King of Cy-
prus. Worst of all, terrible rumoi-s were abroad of
suspicious compliances, secret correspondences, even
Chap. VII. INNOCENT URGES THE CRUSADE. 75
secret apostasies to Moharamedanism, and not only of
single renegades. If those rumors had not begun to
spread concerning the dark dealings of the Templars
with forbidden practices and doctrines, which led dur-
ing the next century to their fall, Innocent himself had
to rebuke their haughty contempt of the Papal au-
thority. In abuse of their privilege, during times of
interdict whenever they entered a city they commanded
the bells to ring and the divine offices to be publicly
celebrated. They impressed with the sign of the cross,
and affiliated to their order for a small annual payment
of two or three pence, the lowest of mankind, usurers
and other criminals, and taught them that, as of their
order, whether they died in excommunication or not,
they had a right to be buried with the rites of the
Church in consecrated earth ; it was said that the
guilty, licentious and rapacious order wore not the sec-
ular garb for the sake of religion, but the garb of re-
ligion for the sake of the world. ^
But the darker the aspect of affairs, the more firmly
throughout his Pontificate seemed Innocent to be per-
suaded that the Crusade was the cause of God. Among;
his first letters were some addressed to the Patriarch of
Jerusalem, and to Conrad of Mentz with the Crusaders
of Germany. In every new disaster, in every discomfi-
ture and loss, the Popes had still found unfailing refuge
in ascribing them to the sins of the Christians : and
their sins were dark enough to iustifv the innocent
strongest language or innocent, io the Pa- crusade.
^"Dum utentes doctrinis daemoniorum in cuj usque tructanni pectore
Crucifix! signaculum imprimunt . . . asserentes quod quicunque duobus
vel tribus denariis annuis collatis eisdem, se in eorum fraternitatem contu-
lerint, carere de jure nequeant ecclesiastica sepultura etiarusi interdicti." —
Epist. X. 121. Tliis letter belongs to the year 1208.
76 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
triarch he pledges himself to the most earnest support,
exhorts him and his people to prayer, fasting, and all
religious works. It needed but more perfect faith,
more holiness, and one believer would put to flight
twelve milUons ; the miracles of God against Pharaoh
and against the Philistines would be renewed in their
behalf. For the first two or three years of Innocent's
Pontificate, address after address, rising one above
another in impassioned eloquence, enforced the duty
of contributing to the Holy War. In the midst of his
contest with Markwald, his strife concernino; the Em-
pire, his interdict against the King of France, he forgot
not this remoter object. This was to be the principal,
if not the exclusive theme of the preaching of the
clergy.-^ In letters to the Bishop of Syracuse, to all
the Bishops of Apulia, Calabria, and Tuscany, he
urges them to visit every city, town, and castle ; he
exhorts not only the nobles, but the citizens to take up
arms for Jesus Christ. Those who cannot assist in
person are to assist in other ways, by furnishing ships,
provisions, money. Somewhat later came a more ener-
getic epistle to all archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,
and princes and barons of France, England, Hungary,
and Sicily. He spoke of the insulting language of the
enemies of Christ.^ " Where," they say, " is your
God, who cannot deliver you out of our hands ? Be-
hold, we have defiled your sanctuaries. We have
stretched forth our arm, we have taken at the first as-
sault, we hold, in despite of you, those your desirable
places, where your superstition had its beginning. We
have weakened and broken the lances of the French,
we have resisted the efforts of the English ; we have
1 Epist. i. 302. 2 Epist. i. 336.
Chap. VII. CONTRIBUTIONS REQUIRED. 77
repressed the strength of the Germans. Now, for a
second time we have conquered the brave Spaniards.
Where is your God ? Let him arise and protect you
and himself." The Pope bitterly alludes to the cam-
paign of the Germans, the capture of defenceless Bery-
tus, the loss of Avell-fortified Joppa. The Vicar of
Christ himself Avould claim no exemption from the
universal call ; he would, as became him, set the exam-
ple, and in person and in estate devote himself to the
sacred cause. He had, therefore, himself invested with
the cross two cardinals of the Church, who were to pre-
cede the army of the Lord, and to be maintained, not
by any mendicant support, but at the expense of the
Holy See. The Cardinal Peter was first to proceed to
France, to settle the differences between the Kings of
England and France, and to enlist them in the com-
mon cause ; the Cardinal Soffrido to Venice, to awaken
that powerful Republic. After the Pope's ex- Contribu-
ample, before the next March, every arch- quired,
bishop, bishop, and prelate was to furnish a certain
number of soldiers, according to his means, or a certain
rate in money for the support of the crusading army.
Whoever refused was to be treated as a violator of
God's commandments, threatened with condign pvinish-
ment, even with suspension. To all who embarked in
the war Innocent promised, on their sincere repentance,
the remission of all their sins, and eternal life in the
great day of retribution. Those who were unable to
proceed in person might obtain the same remission in
proportion to the bounty of their offerings and the de-
votion of their hearts. The estates of all who took up
the cross were placed under the protection of St. Peter.
Those who had sworn to pay interest for sums borrowed
78 LATI^r CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
for these pious uses were to be released from their
oaths ; the Jews were especially to be compelled by all
Christian princes to abandon all their usurious claims
on pain of being interdicted from all commercial deal-
ings with Christians. " If the soldiers of the Cross, so
entering on their holy course, should walk in the way
of the Lord, not as those before them, in revellino-s
and drunkenness, and licentious indulgences in foreign
lands, of which they would have been ashamed at
home, they would trample their enemies down as mice
under their feet."
But Christendom heard the address of the Pope
with apathy approaching to indifference. So utterly
might the fire seem extinct, which on former occasions
ran wild through Europe, and such was the jealousy
which had been raised of the rapacity of the Roman
court, that sullen murmurs were heard in many parts,
that all this zeal was but to raise money for other ends ;
that only a small part of the subsidies levied for the
defence of the Holy Land would ever reach their des-
tination. Nor was this the suspicion of the vulgar
alone, it seems to have been shared by the clergy.^
The Pope was compelled to stand on his defence ; to
repel the odious charge, to disclaim all intention that
the money was to be sent to Rome ; to appoint the
bishop of each diocese with one Knight Templar, and
one Knight of St. John, as the administrators of this
sacred trust.^
More than a year elapsed ; the supplications for aid
1 Walter der Vogelweide, Radulf de Diceto. Compare Wilken, p. 80.
2 " Non est ab aliquo pra;sumenduin, ut ea, qu£e a fratribus et coepiscopis
nostris, et tarn pra'latis quani subditis ecclesiarum, in opus tarn pium ero-
gari mandavimus, propriis velimus usibus applicare, aut aliorum eleemosy-
nas cupiditate quadam terrae sanctae subtrahere." — Epist. i. 409.
Chap. VII. GENERAL TAXATION. 79
fi'om King Amalric and King Leo of Armenia, from
the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem became more
urgent. Innocent found it necessary to make General
a stronger and more specific appeal to the slug- *^^^'>°°-
gish and unawakened clergy. On the last day of the
century issued forth a new proclamation to the arch-
bishops, bishops, and prelates of Tuscany, Lombardy,
Germany, Finance, England, Hungary, Scla- Dec. 31, 1199.
vonia, Ireland, Scotland. The Pope and his cardinals,
and the clergy of Rome, had determined in this press-
ing exigency to devote a tenth of all their revenues to
the succor of the Holy Land. All prelates and clergy
in Latin Christendom were summoned to contribute at
least a fortieth to this end. But they were assured
that this was not intended as a permanent tax, it was a
special burden not to be drawn into precedent. How
criminally hard-hearted he ^ who should refuse so small
a boon in this hour of need to his Creator and Re-
deemer ! These funds were to be deposited in a
safe place, the amount notified to Rome. From this
enforced contribution were exempted the Cistercian
and Carthusian monks, the PrEemonstratensian canons,
and the hermits of Grandmont : it was left to their
devout hearts to fulfil their part in the common sacri-
fice ; but it was suggested that not less than a fiftieth
could be just ; and there was a significant menace that
they would be deprived of all their privileges, if they
were slow and sparing in their oiferings. In like man-
ner all Christian people were to be called upon inces-
santly, at masses appointed for the purpose. In every
church was to be an alms'-chest, with three keys, one
1 "Sciat autem se culpabiliter durum, et dure culpabilem." — Epist. ii.
270.
80 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
held by the bishop, one by the parson of the parish,
one by a chosen laic. The administration was commit-
ted to the Bishops, the Knights of the Hospital, and
those of the Temple. These alms were chiefly designed
to maintain poor knights who could not afford the
voyage to the Holy Land ; but for this they were to
serve for a year or more, and obtain a certificate of
such service under the hand of the King and the Pa-
triarch of Jerusalem, of the Grand Masters of the
Templars and of the Hospitallers, and one of the
Papal Legates. If they died or fell in battle, what
remained of their maintenance was to be assigned to
the support of other soldiers of the Cross.
The demands of the Pope met with no opposition,
yet with but scanty compliance. At the Council of
Dijon, held concerning the interdict of the King of
France, by Peter, Cardinal of Capua, the clergy voted
not a fortieth but a thirtieth of their revenue to this
service : but the collection encountered insurmountable
difficulties ; and Innocent found it necessary to address
a still sterner rebuke to the clerg}' of France. " Be-
hold, the crucified is crucified anew ! he is again smit-
ten, again scourged ; again his enemies take up their
taunting reproach, ' If thou be the Son of God, save
thyself; if thou canst, redeem the land of thy birth
from our hands, restore thy cross to the woi'shippers of
the cross.' But ye, I say it with grief, though I ask
you again and again, will not give me one cup of cold
water. The laity, whom you urge to assume the cross
by your words, not by your acts, take up against you
the words of Scripture, ' They bind heavy burdens
upon us, but themselves will not move them with one
of their fingers.' Ye are reproached as bestowing
Chap. VII. FULK OF NEUILLY. 81
more of God's patrimony on actors than on Christ;
as spending more on liawks and hounds than in His
aid ; lavish to all others, to Him alone sparing, even
parsimonious." ^
But Richard and Philip of France suspended not
their animosities ; and hardly was Richard dead Avhen
the interdict fell upon France. Germany was distract-
ed with the claims of the rival Emperors. It needed
more than the remote admonitions of the Holy See to
rekindle the exhausted and desponding fanaticism of
Christendom. Without a Peter the Hermit, or a St.
Bernard, Urban II. and Eugenius III. would not have
precipitated Europe upon Asia. The successor of these
powerful preachers, it was hoped, had appeared in Fulk
of Neuilly.2 Already had Fulk of Neuilly ^^^^ ^^
displayed those powers of devout eloquence, ^^"'"y-
which work on the contagious religious passions of
multitudes. The clergy of Paris and its neighborhood
were not famous for their self-denial, and Fulk of
Neuilly had been no exception to the common disso-
luteness. He had been seized, however, with a par-
oxysm of profound compunction ; he was suddenly a
model of the severest austerity and devout holiness.
He became ashamed of his ignorance, especially of the
Holy Scriptures ; he, a teacher of the people, wanted
the first elements of instruction. He began to attend
the lectures of the learned men in Paris, especially of
the celebrated Peter the Chanter. With style and
tablet he noted down all the vivid and emphatic sen-
tences which he heard ; he taught to his parishioners
1 Gesta, c. 84.
2 Eanulf de Coggeshalle and James de Vitry are most full ou Fulk of
Neuilly; the other authorities, in Michaud, Wilken, and Hurter.
VOL. V. 6
82 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
on Sunday what he had learnt during the week. He
wrought unexpected wonders on the minds of his sim-
ple hearers : his fame spread ; he was invited to preach
in neighboring churches. He himself was hardly
aware of his powers, till on a memorable sermon
preached in the open street, that of Chaupel, in Paris,
to a crowd of clergy and laity, his hearers suddenly
began to tear off their clothes, to throw away their
shoes, to cast themselves at his feet, imploring him to
give them rods or scourges to inflict instant penance on
themselves. They promised to yield themselves up to
his direction. Everywhere it was the same ; usurers
laid down their ill-gotten gains at his feet ; prostitutes
forswore their sins and embraced a holy life. But, it
should seem, that the first passion for his preaching
died away ; the public mind had become more langidd,
and Fulk of Neuilly retired to the diligent and faithful
care of his own flock at Neuilly.
Just at this time died his teacher, Peter the Chanter.
On that eloquent man Innocent had relied for the
effective preaching of the Crusade of France ; with
his dying lips Peter bequeathed his mission to Fulk of
Neuilly. With this new impulse the fervid preaching
of Fulk kindled to all its former energy and power.
He now, in his zeal for the cross, assailed higher vices
— the somnolence of the prelates, the unchastity of
the clergy ; he denounced the popular heresies ; many
were converted from their errors ; over a softer class
of sinners he again obtained such influence, that from
the gifts which flowed in to him on all sides, he gave
some marriage portions, for others he founded the con-
vent of St. Anthony in Paris as a refuge from the
world. His reputation reached Rome. Soon after his
Chap. VII. FULK OF NEUILLY. 83
accession, Innocent wrote a letter highly approving the
holy zeal of Fulk, nrged him to devote all his exertions
to the sacred cause, to choose some both of the Black
and White Monks, with the sanction of the Legate
Peter of Capua, as his assistants, and thus to sow the
good seed through the breadth of the land.^
Again Fulk of Neuilly set out from place to place ;
he was everywhere hailed as the worthy successor of
Peter the Hermit. The wonders which he wrought in
the minds and hearts of men were believed to be ac-
companied by miraculous powers of healing and of
blessing. But in the display of his miraculous powers,
the preacher showed prudence and sagacity. Some he
healed instantaneously ; to others he declared that their
cure would be prejudicial to their salvation, and, there-
fore, displeasing to God ; others must wait the fitting
time, they had not yet suffered long enough the chasten-
ing discipHne of the Lord. He blessed many wells,
over which chapels were built and long hallowed by
popular veneration. Before the close of the year, full
of fame as the preacher of the cross, Fulk of Neuilly
attended the great meeting of the Cistercian Order, and
himself took the cross with the Bishop of Langres.
Yet the Order declined to delegate any of their body
as attendants of the preacher. They gave him, how-
ever, a multitude of crosses to distribute, which were
almost snatched from his hands by the eager zeal of his
followers, as he left the church. The news spread that,
like Peter the Hermit, he was about himself to head a
crusade ; thousands flocked around him, but he would
only receive the poor as his followers ; he declined the
association of the rich.
1 Epist. i. 398. Villehardouin.
84 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
He pursued his triumphant career with the full sanc-
tion of his Bishop, through Normandy and Brittany,
Burgundy and Flanders, everywhere preaching the
crusade, everywhere denouncing the vices of the age,
avarice, usury, rapacity. Nobles, knights, citizens,
serfs, crowded around him ; they took the cross from
his hands, they gazed in astonishment at his miracles ;
their zeal at times rose to an importunate height ; they
tore his clothes from him to keep the shreds as hallowed
relics. Fulk seems to have been somewhat passion-
ate, and not without humor. Once, a strong and tur-
bulent fellow being more than usually troublesome, he
shouted aloud that he had not blessed his own gar-
ments, but would bless those of this man. In an in-
stant the zeal of the multitude was diverted ; they fell
upon the man, tore his whole dress in tatters, and car-
ried off the precious shreds. Sometimes he would keep
order by laying about him vigorously with his staff;
those were happy who were wounded by his hallowed
hands ; they kissed their bruises, and cherished every
drop of blood shed by his holy violence. At the close
of three years Fulk of Neuilly could boast, in another
assembly of the Cistercian Order, that 200,000 persons
had received the cross from his hands.
Yet, as before, the eloquence of Fulk of Neuilly
wanted depth and intensity ; its effects were immediate
and violent, but not lasting. It might be, that he
either disdained or neo-lected those ostentatious auster-
ities, which to the vulgar are the crowning test of
earnestness. He wore, indeed, a sackcloth shirt next
his skin, and kept rigidly the fasts of the Church ; but
on other occasions he ate and drank, and lived like
other men. He was decently shaved, wore seemly at-
Chap. VII. FULK OF NEUILLY. 85
tire, he did not travel barefoot, but on an easy palfrej.
It might be that his reserve in working miracles awoke
suspicion in some, resentment in others who were disap-
pointed in their petitions. But the deep and real cause
of his transitory success, was the general jealousy which
was abroad concerning the misapplication of the vast
funds raised for the service of the Holy Land. Offer-
ings had streamed to him from all quarters ; he had re-
ceived vast subsidies : these he devoted to supply the
more needy knights, who took the cross, with arms and
provisions for their pilgrimage. But the rapacity of
Rome and of the clergy had settled a profound mistrust
throughout mankind : like Innocent, Fulk was accused
of diverting these holy alms to other uses.^ From the
time that he began to receive these lavish offerings, the
spell of his power was broken ; as wealth flowed in,
awe and respect fell off. He did not live to witness the
crusade of which, even if his motives were thus with
some clouded by suspicion, he had been the great
preacher ; he died of a fever at Neuilly in the year
1202. The large sums which he had deposited in the
abbey of the Cistercians Avere faithfully applied to the
restoration of the walls of Tyre, Acre, and Berytus,
which had been shaken by an earthquake ; and to the
maintenance of poor knights in the Holy Land. The
i"Ipse (Falco) ex fidelium eleemosynis maximam ccEpit consregare
pecuniam quam pauperibus crucesignatis, tarn militibus quam aliis proposii-
erat erogare. Licet autem causa cupiditatis vel aliqiia sinistra intentione
collectas istas non faceret, occulto Dei judicio, ex tunc ejus auctoritas et
pra?dicatio ccepit valde diminui apud homines, et, crescente pecunia, tiraor
et reverentia decrescebat." — Jac. de Vitriac. "Tandem (Fulco) sub ob-
tentu Terrse Sanctte, prtedicationi qu»stuos£B insistens, quod nimiam pecu-
niam aggregavit, quasi ad succursum terrie Hierosolymitana;, et quod erat
ultra modum iracundus.'' — Anonym. Chron. of Laon, in Bouquet, viii. p.
711.
86 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
death of Fulk is attributed by one writer to grief at
the mal-appropriation of a large sum deposited in an-
other quarter.^ Nor was Fulk's example without fol-
lowers. Preachers of the Cross rose up in every part
of England and France ; the most effective of whom
was the Abbot Martin, the head of a Cistercian con-
vent, that of Paris, in Alsace, who himself bore a dis-
tinguished part in the Crusade which never reached
the Holy Land.
The admonitions and exhortations of the Pope, the
Crusade of prcachiugs of Fulk of Neuilly, of the Abbot
Cery. Martin, and their followers, had at length
stirred some of the young hearts among the secondary
Princes of France. At a tournament at Cery in
Champagne, Thiebault the Count of Champagne and
Brie, at the age of twenty-one, and Louis Count of
Blois and Chartres, at the age of twenty-seven, in
an access of religious valor, assumed the Cross.
The bishops and the nobles of the land caught the
contagious enthusiasm : at Cery, Rainald de Mont-
mirail and Simon de Montfort, Garnier Bishop of
Troyes, Walther of Brienne, and tlie Marshal of
Champagne Geoffroy of Villehardouin ; the great
names of Dampierre, of de Castel and Rochfort were
enrolled in the territory of Blois ; in the royal do-
mains, the Bishop of Soissons, two Montmorencies, a
de Courcy, a Malvoisin, and a Dreux.
The following year (1200) Baldwin Count of Flan-
ders, with his wife Maria, sister of Count Thiebault of
Champagne, his nephew Dietrich, Jacob of Avenes,
William and Conon of Bethune, Hugh of St. Pol, and
his brother Peter of An vers, the Count of Perche and
1 Hugo Plagon, cited by Wilken, v. p. 105.
Chap. YII. VENICE. 87
his brother, swore the solemn oath for the deliverance
of the holy sepulchre. The Crusade was determined,
but it was now become matter of deep deliberation as
to the safest and most advantageous way of reaching
the shores of Palestine. The perils and difficulties
of the land journey, the treachery of the Greeks, the
lono- march through Asia Minor, had been too often
and too fatally tried : but how was this gallant band
of Frenchmen to provide means for maritime trans-
port?
Religion by her invasion of the East had raised a
rival, which began as ancillary, and gradually grew up
to be the mistress of the human mind — commercial
enterprise. Venice was rising towards the Venice,
zenith of her greatness, if with some of the danger and
the glory of the Crusades, with a far larger share of
the wealth, the arts, the splendor of the East. The
sagacious mind of Innocent might seem to have forc-
es o
seen the growing peril to the purely religious character
of the Crusades ; but he miscalculated his power in
supposing that a papal edict could arrest the awakened
passion for the commodities of the East, and the riches
which accrued to those who w^ere their chief factors
and distributors to Europe. There was already a canon
of the Lateran Council under Alexander III. pi'ohibit-
ing, under pain of excommunication, all trade with the
Saracens in instruments of war, arms, iron, or timber
for galleys. Innocent determined to prohibit all com-
merce whatever with the Mohammedans during the
war in the East. The republic, according to her usual
prudence, sought not by force and open resistance what
she might better gain by policy ; she sent two of her
noble citizens, Andrea Donato and Benedetto Grillon,
88 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
to Rome to represent with due humility, that the repub-
Hc of Venice, having no agriculture, depended entirely
on her commerce ; and that such restriction would be
her ruin. Innocent brought back the edict to its for-
mer limits. He positively prohibited the supply of
iron, tow, pitch, sharp stakes, cables, arms, galleys,
ships, and ship-timber, either hewn or unhewn. He
left the rest of their dealino-s with the kincrdom of
Egypt and of Babylon till further orders entirely free,
expressing his hope that the republic would show her
gi'atitude by assisting to the utmost the Christians in
the East.^
Venice alone could furnish a fleet to transport a pow-
erful army. After long debate the three Counts of
Flanders, of Champagne, and of Blois agreed to de-
spatch each two ambassadors to Venice to frame a
treaty for the conveyance of their forces. The am-
bassadors of the Count of Flanders were Conon de
Bethune and Alard Maquerau ; those of the Count of
Blois, John of Friaise and Walter of Gandonville,
those of the Count of Champagne Miles of Brabant
and GeofFroy of Villehardouin, the historian of the
Crusade.^ The envoys arrived in Venice in the first
week of Lent ; they were received with great courtesy
A.D. 1201. by the Doge, the aged Henry Dandolo ; they
were lodged in a splendid palace, as became the mes-
sengers of such great princes ; after four days they
were summoned to a public audience before the Doge
and his council. " Sire," they said, " we are come in
the name of the great barons of France, who have
taken the cross, to avenge the insults against our Lord
Jesus Christ, and by God's will to conquer Jerusalem.
1 Epist. i. 539. 2 Villehardouin, i. 11.
Chap. VII. CRUSADERS AT VENICE. 89
As no power on earth can aid us as you can, tliey im-
plore you, in God's name, to have compassion on the
Holy Land, to avenge with them the contumely on
Jesus Christ, by furnishing them with ships and other
conveniences to pass the sea." " On what terms ? "
inquired the Doge. " On any terms you may please
to name, provided we can bear them." " It is a o-rave
matter," answered the Doge ; " and an enterprise of
vast moment. In eight days ye shall have your an-
swer." At the end of eight days the Dog? made
known the terms of the republic. They would furnish
palanders and flat vessels to transport 4500 horses and
9000 squires, and ships for 4500 knights and 20,000
infantry, and provision the fleet for nine months. They
were to receive four marks of silver for each horse, for
each man two ; the total 85,000 marks.^ They prom-
ised to man 50 galleys of their own to join the ex-
pedition. The bargain was ratified in a great Treaty with
public assembly of ten thousand of the Ve- hardouin.
netian citizens before the church of St. Mark. The
ambassadors threw themselves on the pavement and
wept. The gi^ave Venetians expressed their emotions
by loud acclamations. Mass was celebrated with great
solemnity ; the next day the agreements were reduced
to writing, and signed by the covenanting parties. The
ambassadors returned ; at Piacenza they separated, four
to visit Pisa and Genoa and implore further aid ; they
were coldly received by those jealous republics ; Ville-
hardouin and Maquerau returned to France. Villehar-
douin found his young master the Count of Champagne
1 "Representant environ quatre millions et demi de la monnaie actuelle."
— Daru, i. 267. " Le septier de bled valait de cinq a six sols, le marc
d'argent ciuquante et quelques sols." — Sismondi reckons 4j millions.
90 LATEST CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
at Troyes, dangerously 111 ; the youth, in his joy at
beholding his faithful servant, mounted his horse for the
last time ; he died in a few days. Thiebault was to
have been at the head of the Crusade. The command
was offered to the Duke of Burgundy, to the Count of
Bar le Due ; the proudest nobles declined the honor ;
it was accepted by the Marquis Boniface of Montfer-
rat. The armament suffered another heavy loss by the
death of the Count of Pei'che.
Between Easter and Whitsuntide in the followincr
Crusaders year (1202) tile Crusaders were in movement
assemble. j^ ^^^ ^^^,^^^ g^^ Venice was thought by
some to have driven a hard bargain ; among others
there was some misti'ust of the republic. Innocent had
given but a reluctant assent to the treaty of Villehar-
douin. Baldwin himself and his brother kept their
engagement with Venice. The Count of Flanders
manned his own fleet, himself embarked his best troops,
which set sail for Palestine round by the Straits of
Gibraltar. Some went to Marseilles. Multitudes passed
onwards on the chance of easier freicrht to the south
of Italy. The French and Burgundians arrived but
slowly, and in small divisions, at Venice ; they were
lodged apart in the island of St. Nicolas ; among these
was Baldwin of Flanders. The Count of Blois was at
Pavia, on his way to the south of Italy, where he was
stopped by Villehardouin, and persuaded to march to
Venice. The Republic kept her word with commercial
punctuality ; never had been beheld a nobler fleet; her
ships were in the highest order, amply sufficient for the
whole force which they had stipulated to convey. They
demanded the full amount of the covenanted payment,
the 85,000 marks, and declared themselves ready at
Chap. YII. VENETIANS PROPOSE CONQUEST OF ZARA. 91
once to set sail. The Crusaders were in the utmost
embarrassment, they bitterly complained of those Avho
had deserted them to embark at other ports. ^ There
were multitudes of poor knights who could not pay,
others who had paid, sullenly demanded, in hopes of
breaking up the expedition, that they should at once be
embarked and conveyed to their place of destination.
The Count of Flanders, the Count Louis of Blois, the
Count of St. Pol, and the Marquis of Montferrat con-
tributed all their splendid plate, and stretched their
credit to the utmost, there were yet 34,000 marks
wanting to make up the inexorable demand.
The wise old Doge saw his advantage ; his religion
was the gi'eatness of his country. It is im- Venetians
possible not to remember in the course of questV zara.
events, by which the Crusade for the recovery of the
Holy Land became a crusade for the conquest of the
Eastern Empire, that Henry Dandolo had been, if not
entirely, nearly blinded by the cruelty of the Byzantine
court. His sagacity could scarcely foresee the fortuitous
circumstances which led at length to that miexpected
victory of the West over the East, but he had the
quick-sightedness of ambition and revenge to profit by
those circumstances as they arose. He projjosed to his
fellow-citizens, with their full approval he explained to
the Crusaders, that Venice would fldfil her part of the
treaty, if in discharge of the 34,000 marks of silver
they would lend their aid in the conquest of Zara,^
(which had been wrested from them unjustly, as they
said, by the King of Hungary.) The gallant chivalry
1 " Ha ! cum grant domages fii quant li autre qui allerent as autres pors,
ne vindrent illuec." — Villehardouin, c. 29.
2 Called also Jadara.
92 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. " Book IX.
of France stood aghast ; that knights sworn to war for
the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre should employ
their arms against a Christian city, the city of a Chris-
tian King under the special protection of the Pope !
that the free armies of the cross should be the hirelings
of the Venetian republic ! But the year was wearing
away ; the hard necessity bowed them to submission.
The Doge pursued his plan with consummate address.
As though he too shared in the religious enthusiasm
which was to be gratified in all its fulness after the
Sept. 2. capture of Zara, on the great festival of the
Nativity of the Virgin, Dandolo ascended the pulpit in
the church of St. Mark. In a powerful speech he ex-
tolled the religious zeal of the pilgrims : " Old and fee-
ble as I am, what can I do better than join these noble
cavaliers in their holy enterprise ? Let my son Rainer
take the rule in Venice ; I will live or die with the pil-
grims of the Cross." But there was a careful stipula-
tion behind that Venice was to share equally in all the
conquests of the Crusaders. The Doge advanced to
the altar, and fixed the cross in his high cotton cap ;
the people and the pilgrims melted into tears.
No sooner was this over than a new and unexpected
Arrival of cvcut cxcitcd the utmost amazement among
Comn"nus ^hc Frcnch pilgrims : the appearance of mes-
in Venice. scugcrs from tlic youug Prince Alexius Com-
nenus, entreating the aid of the Crusaders to replace
his father on his rightful throne of Constantinople.
After the overthrow of the first noble line of Com-
nenus, the history of Byzantium had for some years
been one bloody revolution ; a short reign ended in
blinding or death was the fate of each successive Em-
peror. Isaac Angelus, hurried from the sanctuary in
Chap. VII. ALEXIUS COMXENUS. 93
which he had taken refuge to be placed on the throne,
had reigned for nearly ten years, wlien lie was ^ ^ j^gg
supplanted by the subtle treason of his brother '° ^^^^•
Alexius. Isaac was blinded, his young son Alexius
imprisoned. But mercy is a proscribed indulgence to
an usurper ; a throne obtained by cruelty can only be
maintained by cruelty. Alexius abandoned himself to
pleasure ; in his Mohammedan harem he neglected the
affairs of state, he increased the burdens of the people,
he even relaxed his jealousy of his brother and nephew.
The blind Isaac, in a pleasant villa on the Bosphorus,
could communicate with his old partisans and the dis-
contented of all classes. The son Avas allowed such
freedom as enabled him to make his escape in a Pisan
vessel, under the disguise of a sailor, and to reach An-
cona. From Ancona he hastened to Rome ; the son of
a blinded father, to seek sympathy ; a prince expelled
fi'om his throne by an usurper, to seek justice ; an exile,
to seek generous compassion from the Vicar of Christ.
He was coldly received. Innocent had already been
tempted by some advances — religious advances — on
the part of the usurper : he would not risk the chance
of subjugating the Eastern Church t€i^the See of Rome
through the means of the sovereign in actual possession.
The sister of young Alexius was the wife of Philip of
Swabia ; perhaps this alliance with his enemy operated
on the policy of Innocent. Alexius proceeded to the
court of Philip ; he was received with generous cour-
tesy : at Verona he was introduced to a great body of
Crusaders, and implored their aid in the name of Philip.
His messengers were now in Venice appealing to the
chivalry, to the justice, the humanity, the compassion
of the gallant knights of France, and the lofty senators
94 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
of the republic. Did this new opening for the extension
of the power and influence of Venice, or for revenge
against the perfidious Greeks of Constantinople, ex-
pand at once before Dandolo into anticipations of that
close which made this crusade the most eventful, the
most important to Christendom, to civilization, even
perhaps beyond the first conquest of Jerusalem and the
establishment of the Christian kingdom in the Holy
Land ? The Doge and the Pilgrims listened with un-
disguised sympathy to the appeal of young Alexius ;
but as yet with nothing beyond earnest expressions of
interest in his cause. Both parties were fully occupied,
one in urging, the other in sullenly preparing them-
selves for the expedition against Zara. A large body
of Germans had now arrived, under Conrad Bishop
of Halberstadt, Count Berthold of Katzenellenbogen,
and other chiefs. The Abbot Martin had crossed the
Tyrolese Alps with a vast band of followers of the
lower orders. Martin himself lived with the austerity
of a monk in the camp : all the splendid offerings lav-
ished upon him by the way were spent on his soldiery.
In each of two days it is said he expended a hundred
marks of silver, seventy on the third. He was enter-
tained for eight days in the palace of the Bishop of
Verona, and at length an'ived with all his host at
Venice. The indignation of the Germans, and of the
followers of Abbot Martin, was vehement when they
were told of the meditated attack on Zara. They had
heard that Egypt was wasted with famine, by the fail-
ure of the inundation of the Nile ; that the Paynims
of Syria were in profound distress from earthquakes
and bad harvests ; they remonstrated against this inva-
sion of the lands of their ally the King of Hungary,
Chap. VII. THE POPE INTERFERES IN VAIN. 95
wlio had himself taken up tlie Cross. The Venetians
held the Crusaders to their bond : Zara or the rest of
the marks of silver was their inflexible demand. The
Germans, as the French, were compelled to yield.
The Pope himself had no influence on the grasping
ambition of the republic.
And this was Pope Innocent's Cnisade, the Crusade
to which he looked as the great act of his The Pope
Pontificate ! Now when it was assembled in in vain,
its promising overpowering strength it had been seized
and diverted to the aggrandizement of Venice. He
sent his Legate Peter of Capua, with the strongest
remonstrances, to interdict even the Venetians from
the war against Christian Zara, and to lead the other
Pilgrims directly to the Holy Land. The Venetians
almost contemptuously informed the Cardinal that he
might embark on board their fleet as the preacher and
spiritual director of the Crusaders, but on no account
must he presume to exercise his legatine power ; if he
refused these terms he might return from whence he
came. The Abbot Martin entreated the Cardinal to
release him from his vow ; as he could not at once
proceed against the Saracens, he would retire to his
peaceful cloister. The Cardinal Peter implored him
to remain, if possible, with the other ecclesiastics, to
prevent the shedding of Christian blood. For himself
he shook the dust from his feet, and left the contuma-
cious city. Letters from Innocent, menaces of excom-
munication were treated with as slight respect ; only
some few of the French, some of the Germans, with-
drew ; the Marquis Boniface of Montferrat alleged
important affairs, and declined as yet to take the com-
mand of the Crusade.
96 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Never did Crusade set forth under more Imposing
Oct. 8, 1202. auspices. No doubt the martial spirit of all
setsforfh. rauks could not resist the spreading enthu-
siasm, when four hundred and eighty noble ships, admi-
rably appointed, with banners and towers, blazing with
the arms and shields of the chivalry of Europe, ex-
panded their full sails to the autumnal wind, and
moved in stately order down the Adriatic. It seemed
as if they might conquer the whole world.^ On the
eve of St. Martin's day they were off Zara ; the haven
was forced ; they were under the walls of the city ;
they landed ; the knights disembarked their horses.
The sight of this majestic fleet appalled the inhab-
itants of Zara; they sent a deputation to surrender
the city on the best terms they could obtain. The
Doge, with mistimed courtesy, replied, " that he must
consult the counts and barons of the army." The
Counts and Barons assembled round the Doge ad-
vised the acceptance of the capitulation. But without
the tent where they sat was Simon de Montfort, with
others whose object it was to break up the misguided
army.'^ De Montfort taunted the Zarans with their
dastardly surrender of so strong a city : — " We are
Christians, we war not against our brother Christians."
Simon de Montfort then retired, and from that time
stood aloof from the siege. " When the Doge demanded
the presence of the ambassadors that they might ratify
the treaty, they had disappeared ; the city walls were
manned for obstinate defence. At the same time rose
Guido the Abbot of Vaux Cernay : — " In the name
1 " Et bien semblait estone qui terre deust conquerre." — Villehardouin.
2 So says Villehardouin; perhaps he foresaw the yet undeveloped charac-
ter of De Montfort.
Chap. VII. ZARA TAKEN. 97
of tlie Pope I prohibit the assault on his Christian
cities : ye are Pilgrims, and have taken the cross for
other ends." The Doge was furious ; he reproached
the Crusaders with having wrested from him a city
already in his power ; he summoned them to fulfil the
treaty to which they had sworn. The greater part
either could not or would not resist the appeal. The
siege began again, and lasted for five days. On the
sixth Zara opened her gates. The Doge took posses-
sion of the city in the name of his republic ; but
divided the rich spoil equally with the Crusaders.
Zara was taken, but that was not enough ; the pres-
ence of the crusading army was necessary to zara taken,
maintain the city against any sudden attack of the
King of Hungary, and to strengthen and secure the
Dalmatian possessions of Venice. The Doge repre-
sented to the Barons that the bad season was now
drawing on : Zara offered safe and pleasant winter
quarters, with abundance of provisions. Throughout
Greece and the East there was scarcity : ^ they could
obtain no supplies in the course of their voyage. The
Barons yielded, as they could not but yield, to those
arguments. The city was divided: the Venetians
occupied the part nearest the port and their ships ;
the French the rest. But among the pilgrims there
Avere many who felt bitterly that they were Winter
only slaves in the hands of the Venetians ; <i"'^''*«'"«-
their religious feelings revolted against the occupation
of the Christian city ; they called it " the city of
transo-ression." Three nio-hts after broke out a fierce
and sanguinary quaiTel between the Franks and Vene-
tians, which was with great difficulty allayed by the
1 Villehardouin. 43.
VOL. V. 7
98 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
more sage and influential of each host. Fourteen days
after this arrived the Marquis of Montferrat, the Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Crusade : though he and many
of the French knights had designedly remained in Italy
till the conquest of Zara ; now that this conquest was
achieved they joined the army of the pilgrims. Tavo
Ambassadors wccks later Came those who had accompanied
Philip. Alexius to the court of Philip of Swabia,
with ambassadors from King Philip. They appeared
before an assembly held in the palace occupied by the
Doge of Venice. " We are here on the part of King
Philip and the Prince of Constantinople his brother-in-
law, before the Doge of Venice and the Barons of this
host. King Philip will intrust his brother-in-law in
the hand of God, and in yours. You are armed for
God, for the right, for justice ; it becomes you, there-
fore, to restore the disinherited to his rightful throne.
Nor will it be less to your advantage than to your
honor, for your advantage in your great design, the
conquest of the Holy Land. As soon as you restore
Alexius to his throne, he will first submit the Empire
of the Romans to obedience to Rome, from Avhich it
has been separated so long. In the next place, as he
knows that you are exhausted by the vast cost of this
armament, he will give you two hundred thousand
marks of silver, and supply the whole army with pro-
visions. He will either join the armament against
Egypt in person, or send ten thousand men, to be
maintained for a year at his charge. During his life-
time he will maintain five hundred knights for the de-
fence of the Holy Land."
No sooner had the Barons met the next day to dis-
cuss this high matter, than Guido, the Cistercian Abbot
Chap. VII. TREATY WITH ALEXIUS. 99
of Vaux Cernay, rose and declared emphatically that
they came not to wage war on Christians ; to Syria
they would go, and only to Syria. He was supported
by the faction desirous of dissolving the armament. It
was replied that they could now do nothing in Syria ;
that the only way to subjugate permanently the Holy
Land was by Egypt or by Greece. Even the clergy
were divided : the Cistercian Abbot of Loces, a man
of high esteem for his profound piety, took the other
side. Words ran high even among those holy per-
sons.
The treaty was accepted (they could not without
shame refuse it) by the Marquis of Montfer- Treaty with
rat, the Count of Flanders, Hennegau,' the '^^'^^^"^•
Count of Blois, and the Count of St. Pol ; yet only
eight knights more dared to set their hands to this
doubtful covenant. But all the winter there were con-
stant defections in the army ; some set out by land, and
were massacred by the barbarous Sclavonians ; some
embarked for Syria in merchant vessels ; at a later pe-
riod Simon de Montfort quitted the camp with many
noble followers, and joined the King of Hungary. " If
God," says Villehardouin, " had not loved the army, it
would have melted away through the contending fac-
tions." It was the Papal ban, either actually in force,
or impending in all its awful menace over the pilgrim
army, which was alleged as the summons to all holy
men to abandon the unhallowed expedition. The
bishops in the army had taken upon themselves to sus-
pend this anathema. The Barons determined to send
a mission to Rome to deprecate the wrath of the Pope.
The Bishop of Soissons, John of Noyon the Chancellor
»f the Count of Flanders, ecclesiastics of fame for
100 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
learning and holiness, with the knights John of Friaise
and Robert de Boves, were, not without mistrust, sworn
solemnly on ^the most holy relics, to return to the
army. The oath was broken by Robert of Boves,
whom tlie army held as a perjured knight. Their mis-
sion was to explain to the Pope that they had been com-
pelled, through the treacherous abandonment of the
enterprise by those crusaders who had embarked in
other ports, to obey the bidding of Venice, and to lend
themselves to the siege of Zara. Innocent admitted
their plea — it was his only course. He gave permis-
sion to the Bishop of Soissons and John of Noyon pro-
visionally to suspend the interdict till the arrival of his
legate, Peter of Capua ; but the Barons were bound
under a solemn pledge to give full satisfaction to the
Pope for their crime. Yet notwithstanding the bold
remonstrance of John of Noyon (Innocent commanded
him to be silent), they were compelled to bear a brief
letter of excommunication against the Venetians. Boni-
face had the prudence to prevent the immediate publi-
cation of that ban. He sent to Rome their act of sub-
mission, couched in the terms dictated by the Cardinal
Peter ; and intimated that the Venetians were about to
send their own messengers to entreat the forgiveness of
the Pope for the conquest of Zara. But the Venetians
made no sign of submission. Positive orders were
given to deliver the brief of excommunication into the
hands of the Doge. If the Doge received it, he re-
ceived it with utter indifference; and two singular
letters of Innocent prescribe the course to be followed
by the absolved Crusaders, thus of necessity, on board
the fleet of Venice, in perpetual intercourse with the
profane and excommunicated Venetians. They might
Chap. VII. INNOCENT CONDEMNS THE EXPEDITION. 101
communicate with them as far as necessity compelled
so long as they were on board their ships ; no sooner
had they reached the Holy Land, than they were to sever
the ungodly alliance ; they were on no account to go
forth to war with them against the Saracens, lest they
should incur the shameful disaster of those in the Old
Testament, who went up in company with Achan and
other sinners against the Philistines.^
The mission of the Crusaders had been entirely
silent as to the new engagement to place the innocent
young Alexuis on the throne or Oonstanti- the expedi-
• 1 1 II *'"° 'o Con-
nople. Innocent either knew not or would stautiuopie.
not know this new delinquency. He received the first
authentic intelligence from the legate Peter of Capua.
The Pope's letters denounced the whole design in the
most lofty admonitory terms. " However guilty the
Emperor of Constantinople and his subjects of blinding
his brother and of usurping the throne, it is not for you
to invade the Empire, which is under the especial pro-
tection of the Holy See. Ye took not the Cross to
avenge the wrongs of the Prince Alexius ; ye are
under the solemn obligation to avenge the Crucified,
to whose service ye are sworn." He intimated that he
had written to the Emperor of Constantinople to sup-
ply them with provisions ; the Emperor had faithfully
promised to do so. Only in the case that sujiplies were
refused them, then, as soldiers of Him to whom the
earth and all its produce belonged, they might take
them by force ; but still in the fear of God, faithfully
paying or promising to pay for the same, and without
injury to person.
But already the fleet was in full sail for Corfu, the
1 Epist. vi. 99, 100.
102 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Prince Alexius on board. Of the excommunication
Fleet off against the Venetians no one took the slight-
tinopie. est heed, least of all the Venetians themselves.
Simon de Montfort alone, who had stood aloof from
the siege of Zara, on the day of embarkation finally
separated himself from the camp of the ungodly, who
refused obedience to the Pope. With his brother and
some few French knights he passed over to the King
of Hungary, and after many difficulties reached the
Holy Land. In truth, the Crusaders had no great faith
in the sincerity of the Pope's condemnation of the en-
terprise against Constantinople. The subjugation of
the heretical, if not rival. Church of Byzantium to the
Church of St. Peter, had been too long the great aim
of Papal ambition for them to suppose that even by
more violent or less justifiable means than the replacing
the legitimate Emperor on the throne and the degrada-
tion of an usurper, it would not soon reconcile itself to
the Papal sense of right and justice. Some decent
regard to his acknowledgment of, to his amicable inter-
course with the usurper, might be becoming ; yet even
as a step to the conquest of the Holy Land, it might
well be considered the most prudent policy. In a short
time the submission of the Greek Church, the depart-
ure of the Crusaders under better auspices to the Holy
Land (for as yet even the ambitious Venetians could
hardly apprehend the absolute conquest of Constanti-
nople, and the establishment of a Latin Empire),
would allay the seeming resentment of Innocent. In
the mean time, no doubt many hearts were kindled
w^ith the romance of this new adventure and the desire
to behold this second Rome ; vague expectations were
entertained of rich plunder, or at least of splendid
Chap. VII. TAKING OF CONSTANTIXOPLE. 103
reward for their services by the grateful Alexius ; it
is even said that many were full of strange hopes of
more precious spoils, the pillage of the precious relics
which were accumulated in the churches of Constanti-
nople, and of which the heretical Greeks ought to be
righteously robbed for the benefit of the more orthodox
believers of the West.
The taking of Constantinople and the foundation of
the Latin Empire concern Christian history Taking of
m theu' results more than ni then- actual unopie.
achievements. The arrival of the fleet before Con-
stantinople ; the ill-organized defence and pusillanimous
flight of the usurper Alexius ; the restoration of the
blind Isaac Angelus and his son ; the discontent of
the Greeks at the subservience of young Alexius to the
Latins ; his dethronement, and the elevation of Alexius
Ducas (Mourzoufle) to the throne ; the siege ; the mur-
der of the young Alexius ; the flight of Mourzoufle,
and the storming of the city by the Crusaders, were
crowded into less than one eventful year.^ A Count of
Flanders sat on the throne of the Eastern Caesars.
Europe, it might have been expected, by the Latin
conquest of Constantinople and of great part Partition
of the Byzantine Empire, would have become conquest.
one great Christian league or political system ; European
Christendom one Church, under the acknowledged su-
premacy of the Pope. But the Latin Empire was not
that of a Western sovereign ascending the Byzantine
throne, and ruling over the Greek population undis-
turbed in their possessions, and according to the laws
of Justinian and the later Emperors of the East. His
1 The fleet reached Constantinople the eve of St. John the Baptist, June
23, 1203. The storm took place April 13, 1204.
104 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
followers did not gradually mingle by intermarriages
with the Greeks, and so infuse, as in other parts of
Europe, new strength and energy into that unwarlike
and effete race. The Emperor was a sovereign elected
by the Venetians and the Franks, governing entirely
by the right of conquest. It was a foreign settlement, a
foreign lord, a foreign feudal system, which never min-
gled in the least with the Greeks. The Latins kept
entirely to themselves all honors, all dignities (no
Greek was admitted to office), even all the lands ;
the whole country, as it was conquered, was portioned
out as Constantinople had been, into great fiefs be-
tween the Venetians and Franks. This western feudal
system so established throughout the land implied the
absolute, the supreme ownership of the soil by the con-
querors. The condition of the Greeks under the new
rule depended on the character of their new masters.
In Constantinople the high-born and the wealthy had
gladly accepted the permission to escape with their
lives ; the Crusaders had taken possession of such at
least of their gorgeous palaces and splendid establish-
ments as had escaped the three fires which during the
successive sieges had destroyed so large a part of the
city.^ When the Marquis of Montferrat took pos-
session of Thessalonica he turned the inhabitants out
of all the best houses, and bestowed them on his fol-
lowers : in other places they were oppressed with a
kind of indifferent lenity. But they were, in truth,
held as a race of serfs, over whom the Latins exercised
1 In the conflagration on the night of the capture, caused by some Flem-
ings, who thought Itv setting fire to the houses to keep oft' the attack of
the Greeks, as many houses were destroyed, according to Villehardouin, as
would be found in three of the largest cities in France.
Chap. VII. LATIN CHURCH IN THE EAST. 105
lordship by the right of conquest; they were left, in-
deed, to be governed, as had been the case with the
subject Roman population in all the German conquests,
by their own laws and their own magistrates. The
constitution of the Latin Empire was the same with
that of the kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in the midst
of a population chiefly Mohammedan ; their code of
law was the Assizes of Jerusalem. No Greek was
admitted to any post of honor or dignity till after the
defeat and capture of the Emperor Baldwin. Then
his successor, the Emperor Henry, found it expedient
to make some advances towards conciliation ; he en-
deavored to propitiate by honorable appointments some
of the leading Greeks. But to this he was com-
pelled by necessity. The original Crusaders grad-
ually died off, or were occupied in maintaining their
own conquests in Hellas or in the Morea ; only few ad-
venturers, notwithstanding the temptations and prom-
ises held out by the Latin Emperors, arrived from
the West. The Emperor in Constantinople became
a sovereign of Greeks. It is surprising that the Latin
Empire endured for half a century : had there been
any Greeks of resolution or enterprise, Constantinople
at least might have been much sooner wrested from
their hands.
The establishment of Latin Christianity ik.the East
was no less a foreign conquest. It was not Estabiisu-
1 -PI V/^ ^ /~u ^ 1 men t of Latin
the conversion oi the Greek Church to the Christianity.
creed, the usages, the ritual, the Papal supremacy of
the West ; it was the foundation, the super-induction
of a new Church, alien in language, in rites, in its
clergy, which violently dispossessed the Greeks of their
shurches and monasteries, and appropriated them to its
106 LATIN CHRISTUNITY. Book IX.
own uses. It was part of the original compact be-
tween the Venetians and the Franks, before the final
attack on the city, that the churches of Constantinople
should be equally divided between the two nations : the
ecclesiastical property throughout the realm was to be
divided, after providing for the maintenance of public
worship according to the Latin form by a Latin clergy,
exactly on the same terms as the rest of the conquered
territory. The French prelates might, indeed, claim
equal rights, as having displayed at least equal valor
and confronted the same dangers with the boldest of
the barons. The vessels that bore the bishops of Sois-
sons and Troyes, the Paradise and the Pilgrim, were
the first Avhich grappled with the towers of Constanti-
nople : from them were thrown the scaling ladders on
which the conquerors mounted to the storm ; the epis-
copal banners were the first that floated in triumph on
the battlements of Constantinople.^
Like the Emperor Alexius, the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople, John Camaterus, had fled, but it was at a
time and under circumstances far less ignominious.
The clergy had not been less active in the defence of
the city, than the Prankish bishops in the assault.
After the flight of Mourzoufle they had chiefly influ-
enced the choice of Theodore Lascaris as Emperor ;
the Patriarch had presented him to the people, and
with him vainly endeavored to rouse their panic-strick-
en courage. It was not till the city was in the hands
of the enemy that the Patriarch abandoned his post.
He was met in that disastrous plight described by
Nicetas, riding on an ass, reduced to the primitive
1 See the despatch to Pope Innocent announcing the taking of Constanti-
nople.
Chap. VII. LATIN CHUECH IN THE EAST. 107
Apostolic poverty, without scrip, without purse, witli-
out staff, without shoes. It was time, indeed, to fly
from horrors and unliallowed crimes which he could
not avert. The Crusaders had advanced to the siege
of Constantinople in the name of Christ ; they had
issued strong orders to respect the churches, the mon-
asteries, the persons of the clergy, the chastity of the
nuns. The three Latin bishops had published a terri-
ble excommunication against all who should commit
such sacrilegious acts of violence. But of what effect
were orders, what awe had excommunications for a
fierce soldiery, flushed with unexpected victory, let
loose on the wealthiest, most luxurious, most dissolute
capital of the world, among a people of a different
language, whom they had been taught to despise as the
most perfidious of mankind, the base enemies of all
the former armies of the Cross, tainted with obstinate
heresy ? Nicetas, himself an eye-witness and sufferer
in these terrible scenes, may be suspected of exag-
geration, when he contrasts the discipline and self-de-
nial of the Mohammedans, who under Saladin stormed
Jerusalem, with the rapacity, the lust, the cruelty of
the Christian conquerors of Constantinople. But the
reports which had reached Pope Innocent would hard-
ly darken the truth. " How," he writes, " shall the
Greek Church return to ecclesiastical unity and to re-
spect for the Apostolic See, when they have beheld in
the Latins only examples of wickedness and works of
darkness, for which they might well abhor them worse
than dogs ? Those who were believed to seek not
their own but the things of Christ Jesus, steeping those
swords, which they ought to have wielded against the
Pagans, in Christian blood, spared neither religion, nor
108 LATIN CHPJSTL4.XITY. Book IX.
age, nor sex; they were practising fornications, incests,
adulteries, in the sight of men ; abandoning matrons
and viro-ins dedicated to God to the lewdness of
grooms.^ Nor were they satisfied with seizing the
wealth of the Emperors, the spoils of the princes and
the people ; they lifted their hands to the treasures of
the churches ; what is more heinous ! the very conse-
crated vessels ; tearing the tablets of silver from the
very altars, breaking in pieces the most sacred things,
carrying off crosses and relics." Some revolting inci-
dents of this plunder may be gathered from the His-
torians. Many rushed at once to the churches and
monasteries. In the Church of Santa Sophia the sil-
ver was rent off from the magnificent pulpit : the table
of oblation, admired for its precious material and ex-
quisite workmanship, broken to pieces. Mules and
horses were led into the churches to carry off the pon-
derous vessels ; if they slipped down on the smooth
marble floor, they were forced to rise up by lash and
spur, so that their blood flowed on the pavement.
A prostitute mounted the Patriarch's throne, and
screamed out a disgusting song, accompanied with the
most offensive gestures. Instead of the holy chants
the aisles rung with wild shouts of revelry or indecent
oaths and imprecations. The very sacred vessels were
not spared ; they were turned into drinking cups. The
images were robbed of their gold frames and precious
stones. It is said that the body and blood of the Lord
were profanely cast down upon the floor, and trodden
under foot.^
1 Innocent. Epist. viii. 126 (apud Brequigny and Du TLeil). Compare
the whole detailed account in Wilken, v. p. 301, et seq.
2 Wilken conjectures that the expression of Nicetas may refer to a cas-
Chap. VII. ELECTION OF EMPEROR. 109
There was one kind of plunder which had irresistible
attraction for the most pious, that of relics. These,
like the rest of the spoil, were to have been brought
into the common stock, to be divided according to the
stipulated rule. But even the Abbot Martin^ was
guilty of this holy robbery. His monastery of Paris
in Alsace, as well as the churches of the bishops pres-
ent at the siege, those of Soissons and Halberstadt,
boasted of many sacred treasures from Constantinople,
which might have been fairly obtained, but which were
supposed to have been more than the fair share of those
warlike dignitaries.^
No sooner was order restored than the Franks and
Venetians took possession of the churches as their
own ; the principal clergy had fled, the inferior seem
to have been dismissed or were driven out as if they
had been Mohammedan Imauns : of provision for the
worship of the Greeks according to their own ritual, in
their own language, nothing is heard. After Election of
the election of the Emperor, the first act was *^™p'""0''-
the election of a Patriarch. It was an article of the
primary compact, that of whichever nation, Venetian or
ket, which wa? supposed to contain some of the actual body and blood impart-
ed by the Lord to his disciples before his crucifixion. — See Wilken, p. 305.
1 " Indignum ducens sacrilegium, nisi in re sacra, committere." — Gun-
ther, who gives a full account of this holy theft of the Abbot Martin.
His spoil was a stain (vestigium) of the blood of the Lord, a piece of the
Holy Cross, the arm of the apostle James, no small portion of the bones of
John the Baptist, some of the milk of the Blessed Virgin, and many more.
— Wilken, Gunther. See, too, the theft of the head of S. Clement, Pope
and martyr, by Dalmatius of Sergy from the Biblioth. Cluniac, also in
Wilken. The note in Wilken, v. p. 306, is full of curious details.
2 Some ventured to doubt the virtue of these acts. The Abbot LTrsper-
gensis says of Martin's plunder: " An furtivse sint, judicet, qui legit. An
videlicet Doniinus Papa talem rapinam in populo Christiano factam potuerit
justificare, sicut furtum Israelitici populi in JEgypto justificatur autoritate
divina. " — p. 256.
110 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Frank, the Emperor should be chosen, the nomination
of the Patriarch should be with the other. In the
election of the Emperor it was a significant circum-
stance, that of the twelve electors, those of the Franks
were all ecclesiastics — the Bishops of Troyes, Soissons,
Halberstadt, Bethlehem, and Ptolemais, with the Ab-
bot of Loces. Those of Venice w^ere lay nobles. The
Bishops of Soissons and of Troyes would have placed
the blind old Doge Dandolo on the imperial throne ;
his election was opposed by the Venetians. Pantoleon
Barbo alleged the ostensible objection, the jealousy
which would spring up among the Franks. But prob-
ably the wise patriotism of Dandolo himself, and his
knowledge of the Venetian mind, would make him
acquiesce in the loss of an honor so dangerous to his
country. A Doge of Venice exalted into an Emperor,
taking up his residence in the Palace of Constantinople
instead of amid their own lagunes, would have been
the lord, not the accountable magistrate, of the repub-
lic. Venice might have sunk to an outpost, as it were,
of the Eastern Empire. But Venice, though consent-
ing to the loss of the Empire, made haste to secure
the Patriarchate.^ They immediately appointed certain
Election of ^^ their own ecclesiastics Canons of Santa
Patriarch. Sopliia, iu ordcr to give canonical form to the
election. By a secret oath ^ these canons were sworn
never to elect into their chapter any one but a Vene-
tian.^ With their wonted sagacity, their first choice fell
1 Pope Innocent boldly asserts that the Church of Constantinople was
raised into a Patriarchate by the See of Rome. Was this ignorance or
mendacity ?
2 Wilken has cited this oath from the Liber Albus, in the archives of
Vienna. — vol. v. p. 3-30.
3 The Patriarch was absolved from his oath that he would appoint only
Venetian canons into the chapter of S. Sophia. The Church was to receive
Chap. VII. PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE. IH
on Thomas Morosini, of one of their noble famihes, as
yet only in subdeacon's orders, but of a lofty and un-
blemished character, who had been some time at Rome,
and was known to stand high in the estimation of the
Pope. The Venetians, who, when they had any great
object of ambition at stake, treated with utter contempt
the Papal interdict, yet never w^antonly provoked that
dangerous power ; now, as always when it suited their
schemes, were among the humblest and most devout
subjects of the Holy See. Nor was Innocent disin-
clined to receive the submission of the lords of one
half of the Eastern Empire.
The Pope had watched with intense anxiety the prog-
ress of the Crusade towards Constantinople. He had
kept his faith with the usurper, who had promised to
unite the Greek Church to the See of Rome ; he had
asserted the exclusive religious object o§ the Crusades,
by protesting first against the siege of Zara, and then
against the diversion to Constantinople : the Venetians,
at least, were still under the unrevoked excommunica-
tion. But the ignominious flight of his ally, the Em-
peror Alexius, had released him from that embarrassing
connection. No sooner was the young Alexius on the
throne, than the Pope reminded him of the protesta-
tions of submission which he had made, when a sup-
pliant for aid at the court of Rome, and which he had
renewed when on board the Pilgrim fleet. He uroed
the Crusaders to enforce this acknowledgment of the
Papal supremacy. This great blessing to Christendom
could alone justify the tardy fulfilment of their vows
for the reconquest of the Holy Land.
a fifteenth of all property, with some exceptions, gained by the conquest
of Constantinople. Tithes were to be paid.
112 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Masters of Constantinople, their victory achieved,
Franks and Venetians vied in their humble addresses
to the Holy Father. The Emperor Baldwin, by the
hands of Barochias, the Master of the Lombard Tem-
plars, informed the Pope of his election to the Empire
of Constantinople, and implored his ratification of the
treaty with the Venetians,^ those true and zealous allies,
without whose aid he could not have won, without
whose support he could not maintain, the Eastern Em-
pire, founded for the honor of God and of the Roman
See. He extolled the valiant acts of the bishops in the
capture of the city. He entreated the Pope to admon-
ish Western Christendom to send new supplies of war-
riors for the maintenance of his Empire, and to shai'e
in the immeasurable temporal and spiritual riches, which
they might so easily obtain. The Pope was urged to
o-rant to theme as to other soldiers of the Cross, the
plenary absolution from their sins. Above all, he
pressed that clergy should be sent in great numbers to
plant the Latin Church, not in blood, but in freedom
and peace throughout the noble and pleasant land. He
invited the Pope to hold a general Council at Constan-
1 The letter of Baldwin describes the Greeks in the most odious terms,
as pla^-ing a double game between the Western Christians and the Unbe-
lievers; as framing disastrous treaties with the Mohammedans, and supply-
ing them with arms, provisions, and ships; while they refused all these
things to the Latins. " But (he is addressing the Pope) it is the height of
their wickedness obstinately to disclaim the supremacy of Rome." " Haec
est quiB in odium apostolici culminis, Apostolorum principis nomen audire
vix poterat, nee unam eidem inter Grsecos ecclesiam concedebat qui omnium
ecclesiarum accepit ab ipso Domino principatum." The Latins were greatly
shocked at the Greek worship of pictures. " H:ec est qua2 Christum solis
didicerat honorare picturis." They sometimes, among their wicked rites,
repeated baptism. They considered the Latins not as men, but as dogs,
■whose blood it was meritorious to shed. This is an evidence of the feel-
ings of the Crusaders towards the Greeks. — Apud Gesta Innocent, c. xci.
Chap. VII. VENETIANS ADDRESS THE POPE. 113
tinople. These prayers were accompanied with splendid
presents from his share of the booty. ^
The Venetians were not less solicitous now to pro-
pitiate the Holy Father. Already they had Venetians
t/ »/ address the
sent to the Legate, Peter of Capua, at Cy- I'ope.
prus ; they implored this prelate, whom they had treat-
ed before with such contemptuous disregard, to interpose
his kind offices and to annul the excommunication.
The Legate had sent the Treasurer of the church of
Nicosia, with powers to receive their oath of future
obedience to the Roman See and the fulfilment of their
vows as soldiers of the Cross, and provisionally to sus-
pend the interdict, which was not absolutely revocable
without the sanction of the Pope. Two Venetian
nobles were now despatched to Rome by the Doge.
They were to inform the Pope, that, compelled by the
treachery of the young Emperor Alexius, who had
attempted to burn their fleet, with their brethren the
temporal and spiritual pilgrims, they had conquered
Constantinople for the honor of God and of the Ro-
man Church, and in order to facilitate the conquest of
the Holy Land. They endeavored to explain away
their attack on Zara ; they could not believe that the
inhabitants of that city were under the Pope's protec-
tion, therefore they had boi'ne in patience the excom-
munication, till relieved from it by the Cardinal Peter.
Innocent replied to both the Emperor and the Doge
with some reserve, but with manifest satisfac- innocent's
tion. He had condemned, with the severity ^^^''^^
which became the Holy Father, the enormities perpe-
trated during the storming of the city, the worse than
infidel acts of lust and cruelty, the profane plunder and
1 Compare Raynaldus, sub anno.
VOL. V. 8
114 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
violation of the churches. But it was manifestly the
divine judgment, that those who had so long been for-
borne in mercy, and had been so often admonished not
only by former Popes, but by Innocent himself, to re-
turn to the unity of the Church, and to send succors
to the Holy Land, should forfeit both their place and
their territory to those who were in the unity of the
Church, and sworn to deliver the sepulchre of Christ :
in order that the land, delivered from the bad, should
be committed to good husbandmen, who would bring
forth good fruit in due season.^
The Pontiff took the new Empire under the spe-
cial protection of the Holy See. He commanded
all the Sovereigns of the West, and all the prelates of
the Church, archbishops, bishops, and abbots, to main-
tain friendly relations with the new Latin kingdom, so
important for the conquest of the East. He ratified
the revocation of the excommunication against the Ve-
netians by his Legate the Cardinal Peter. He de-
clined, indeed, to accede to the prayer of the Doge to
be released from his vow, from his obligation to follow
the Crusade to the Holy Land, on account of his great
age and feebleness ; but the refusal was the highest
flattery. The Pope could not take upon himself to de-
prive the army of the Cross of one endowed by God
with such exalted gifts, so valiant, and so wise : if the
Doge would serve God and his Church henceforth with
the same glorious ability with which he had served
himself and the world, he could not fail of attaining
the highest reward.
Innocent assumed at once the full ecclesiastical ad-
1 This is from the letter to the Marquis of Montferrat, in the Gesta, c
xcii.
Chap. VII. MOROSINI PATRIARCH. 115
ministration. There was one clause in the compact
between the Franks and the Venetians, which called
forth his unqualified condemnation ; they had presumed
to seize the property of the Church, and after assigning
what they might think fit for the maintenance of the
clergy, to submit the rest to the same partition as the
other lands. This sacrilegious article the bishops and
the abbots in the army were to strive to annul with all
their spiritual authority ; the Emperor and the Doge of
Venice were admonished to abrogate it as injurious to
the honor, and as trenching on the sovereign authority
of the Roman Church. Nor would Innocent admit
the right of the self-elected Chapter, or worse, a Chap-
ter appointed by lay authority, to the nomination of
the Patriarch. He absolutely annulled this uncanoni-
cal proceeding ; but from his high respect for Thomas
Morosini, and the necessity to provide a head sanctions
to the Church of Constantinople of his own Patriarch,
authority, he invested Morosini with the vacant Patri-
archate.^ Morosini was allowed to accumulate within
a few days the orders of Deacon, Priest, and Bishop ;
the Pope invested him with the Archiepiscopal pall.
Innocent at the same time bestowed the highest privi-
leges and powers on the new Patriarch, yet with studi-
ous care that all those privileges and powers emanated
from, and were proscribed and limited by the Papal
authority.^ He might wear the pall at all times in all
places, except in Rome and in the presence of the
Pope ; in processions in Constantinople he might ride
1 " Elegimus et confirmavimus eidem Ecclesise Patriarcham." — Epist.
viii. 20.
2 The patriarchate of Constantinople, Innocent averred, owed its original
superiority over the patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem,
to a grant from the successor of St. Peter.
116 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
a white horse with white housings. He had the power
of absolvincr those who committed violence against a
spiritual person ; to anoint kings within his Patriarch-
ate at the request and with the sanction of the Em-
peror ; to ordain at the appointed seasons and appoint
all qualified persons, to distribute, with the advice of
sage counsellors, all the goods of the Church, without
the approbation of Rome in each special case. But all
these privileges were the gifts of a superior ; the dis-
pensation with appeal in certain cases, only confirmed
more strongly the right of receiving appeals in all
others. Of the dispossessed and fugitive Patriarch no
notice is taken either in this or any other document ;
the Latin Patriarch was planting a new Church in the
East as in a Pagan land.
Thus then set forth the Latin Patriarch to establish
a Latin Church in the East. The Emperor had before
entreated the Pope to send a supply of breviaries and
missals and rituals according to the Roman use, with
clergy competent to administer to the Latins. He
requested also some Cistercian monks to teach the
churches of Antony and Basil the true rules and con-
stitutions of the monastic life.^ Innocent appealed to
the prelates of France to supply this want of clergy for
the new Church of the East. To the bishops he de-
nounced the heresies of the Greeks ; first their depart-
ure from the unity of the Church, then their denial of
the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as well
as from the Father ; their use of leavened bread in the
Eucharist. " But Samaria had now returned to Jeru-
salem ; God had transferred the Empire of the Greeks
from the proud to the lowly, from the superstitious to
1 Epist. viii. 70.
Chap. VII. MOROSINI PATRIARCH. 117
the religious, from the schismatics to the Catholics,
fi'om the disobedient to the devoted servants of God." ^
He addressed the high school of Paris to send some of
their learned youth to study in the East, the source and
origin of knowledge ; he not only opened a wide field
to their spiritual ambition, the conversion of the Greeks
to the true Apostolic faith ; he described the East as a
rich land of gold and silver and precious stones, as over-
flowing with corn, wine, and oil. But neither the holy
desire of saving the souls of the Greeks, nor the noble
thirst for knowledge, nor the promise of these temporal
advantages (which, notwithstanding the splendid spoil
sent home by some of the crusaders, and the precious
treasures of art and of skill which were offered in their
churches, they must have known not to be so plentiful,
or so lightly won), had much effect ; no great move-
ment of the clergy took place towards the East. Philip
Augustus made a wiser, but not much more successfiil
attempt ; he established a college of Constantinople in
the university of Paris for the education of young
Greeks, who, bringing with them some of the knowl-
edge and learning of the East, might be instru.cted in
the language, the creed, and the ritual of the West.
This was the first unmarked step to the cultivation of
the study of Greek in the West, which some centuries
afterwards was so powerfully to assist in the overthrow
of the sole dominion of Latin Christianity in Europe.
Thus, then, while Rome appointed the Patriarch of
Constantinople, and all the churches within the domin-
ion of the Latins adopted the Roman ritual, by the
more profound hatred, on the one side contemptuous,
on the other revengeful, of the two nations, the recon-
1 Gesta, xciv.
118 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
ciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches was
farther removed than ever. No doubt this inauspi-
cious attempt to subjugate, rather than win, tended
incalculably to the obstinate estrangement, which en-
dured to the end. The Patriarch, John Camaterus,
took refuge in the new Empire founded by Theodore
Greek Lascaris in Nicea and its neighborhood: to
at Nicea. him, uo doubt, the clergy throughout Greece
maintained their secret allegiance. Nor was the recep-
tion of the new Latin Patriarch imposing for its cordial
unanimity. Before Morosini disembarked, he sent word
to the shore that the clergy and the people should be
prepared to meet him with honorable homage. But
the Frank clergy stood aloof; they had protested
against the election being left to the Venetians ; they
declared that the election had been carried by un-
worthy subtlety ; that the Pope himself had been
imposed upon by the crafty republicans. Not one
appeared, and the only shouts of rejoicing were those
of the few Venetians. The Greeks gazed with wonder
Reception and disgust at the smooth-faced prelate, with-
Patriarch. out a beard, fat as a well-fed swine ; on his
dress, his demeanor,^ the display of his ring. And the
clergy, as beardless as their bishop, eating at the same
table, like to him in dress and manners, were as vulgar
and revolting to their notions. The contumacious
French hierarchy would render no allegiance what-
ever to the Venetians ; the excommunication which
the Patriarch fulminated against them they treated
with sovereign contempt. The jealousy of the Franks
against the Venetian Primate was not without ground.
The Venetians had from the first determined to secure
1 Nicetas, in loc.
Chap. YII. KECEPTION OF MOEOSINI. 119
to themselves in perpetuity, and, as they could not ac-
cept the temporal dominion, to make tlie great eccle-
siastical dignitaries hereditary in their nation ; so to
establish their own Popedom in the East. But Inno-
cent had penetrated their design ; he had rigidly defined
the powers of the new Patriarch, and admonished him,
before he left Rome, not to lend himself to the ambi-
tion of his country, to appoint the canons of Santa
Sophia for their worth and knowledge, not for their
Venetian birth ; the Legate was to exercise a control-
ling power over these appointments. From Rome
Morosini had proceeded to Venice, to embark for his
Patriarchate. He had been received with bitter re-
proaches by the son of the Doge and many of the
counsellors and nobles, as haFv^ing betrayed his coun-
try ; as having weakly abandoned to the Pope the
riglits and privileges of Venice. They threatened not
to furnish him with a ship for his passage ; he was
deeply in debt, his creditors beset him on all sides ; he
was compelled to take an oath before the Senate that
he would name none but Venetians, or at least those
who had resided for ten years in the Venetian terri-
tory, as canons of Santa Sophia ; and to take all possi-
ble measures that none but a Venetian should sit on
the Patriarchal throne of Constantinople.^ If even
dim rumors of these stipulations had reached the
French clergy, their cold reception of the Patriarch
is at once explained. So deep, indeed, was the feud,
that Innocent found it necessary to send another Leg-
1 Innocent heard of this extorted oath ; he immediately addressed a let-
ter to the Patriarch, positively prohibiting him from observing it; from the
profane attempt to render the patriarchate hereditary among the Venetian
aristocracy. — Gesta, c. xc.
120 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
ate to Constantinople, the Cardinal Benedict, who en-
joyed his full and unlimited confidence. The former
Legate to the East, Peter of Capua, with his colleague
the Cardinal SofFrido, had caused great dissatisfaction
to the Pope. He had released the Venetians from
their interdict, he had deserted his proper province,
the Holy Land ; and, in a more open manner than
Innocent thought prudent, entered into the great de-
sign for the subjugation of the Greek Empire. He
had absolved the crusaders, on his own authority, from
the fulfilment, for a limited period, of their vows to
serve in Palestine. He had received a strong; rebuke
from Innocent, in which the Pope dwelt even with
greater force on the cruelties, plunders, sacrileges com-
mitted after the storming of Constantinople. The Sara-
cens in Palestine, instead of being kept in the salutary
awe with which they had been struck by the capture
of Constantinople, could not be ignorant that the Cru-
saders were now released from jtheir vow of ser^^ing
against them ; and would fall with tenfold fury on the
few who remained to defend the Holy Land.
The Cardinal Benedict, of Santa Susanna, con-
CoDstitutioa ductcd ^ his officc witli consummate skill ;
Clergy. perhaps the disastrous state of affairs awed
even the jealous clergy with the apprehension that
their tenure of dignity was but precarious. The Em-
peror Baldwin had now fallen a captive into the hands
of the King of Bulgaria ; his brother Henry, the new-
Sovereign, made head with gallantry, but with the ut-
most difficulty, against the Bulgarians, who, with their
i.D. 1206. wild marauding hordes, spread to the gates
of Constantinople ; Theodore Lascaris had established
1 Gesta, xiv.
Chap. VII. CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY. 1 21
the new Greek Empire in Asia. The Cardinal not
only reconciled the Frank clergy to the supremacy
of the Patriarch, Morosini himself was inclined to the
larger views of the churchman rather than the narrow
and exclusive aims of the Venetian. He gladly ac-
cepted the Papal absolution from the oath extorted at
Venice ; and, so far from the Venetians obtaining a
perpetual and hereditary majority in the Chapter of
Santa Sophia, or securing the descent of the Patri-
archate in their nation, of tlie line of the Latin Patri-
archs after Morosini there was but one of Venetian
birth. The Legate established an ecclesiastical consti-
tution for the whole Latin Empire. The clei-gy were
to receive one fifteenth of all possessions, cities, castles,
tenements, fields, vineyards, groves, woods, meadows,
suburban spaces, gardens, salt-works, tolls, customs by
sea and land, fisheries in salt or fresh waters ; with
some few exceptions in Constantinople and its suburbs
reserved for the Emperor himself. If the Emperor
should compound for any territory, and receive tribute
instead of possession, he was to be answerable for the
fifteenth to the Church ; he could not grant any lands
in fief, without reserving the fifteenth. Besides this,
all monasteries belonged to the Church, and were not
reckoned in the fifteenth. No monastery was to bo
fortified, if it should be necessary for the public de-
fence, without the permission of the Patriarch or the
Bishop of the diocese. Besides this, the clergy might
receive tithe of corn, vegetables, and all the produce
of the land ; of fruits, except the private kitchen-
garden of the owner ; of the feed of cattle, of honey,
and of wool. If by persuasion they could induce the
land-owners to pay these tithes, they were fully entitled
122 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
to receive them. The clergy and the monks of all
orders were altogether exempt, according to tlie more
liberal custom of France, from all lay jurisdiction.
They held their lands and possessions absolutely,
saving only allegiance to the See of Rome and to
the Patriarch of Constantinople, of the Emperor and
of the Empire.^
Even towards the Greeks, as the new Emperor dis-
Toieration covcrcd too late the fatal policy of treating
of Greeks. ^^^^ conqucrcd race with contemptuous hatred,
so the ecclesiastical rule gradually relaxed itself, and
endeavored to comprehend them without absolute
abandonment of their ritual, and without the pro-
scription of their clergy. Where the whole popula-
tion was Greek, the Patriarch was recommended to
appoint a Greek ecclesiastic ; only, where it was mixed,
a Latin.^ Even the Greek ritual was permitted where
the obstinate worshippers resisted all persuasions to
conformity, till the Holy See should issue further or-
ders. Nor were the Greek monasteries to be sup-
pressed, and converted, according to Latin usage, into
secular chapters ; they were to be replaced, as far as
might be, by Latin regulars ; otherwise to remain un-
disturbed. This tardy and extorted toleration had
probably no great effect in allaying the deepening
estrangement of the two churches. Nor did these
arrangements pacify the Latin Byzantine Church ;
there were still jealousies among the Franks of the
Venetian Patriarch, excommunications against his con-
A.D. 1209. tumacious clergy by the Patriarch, appeals
to Rome, attempts by the indignant Patriarch to re-
5 Dated 16 Calends, April. Confirmed at Ferentino, Nones of August.
2 Gesta, ch. cii.
Chap. VII. KINGS OF BULGARIA. 123
sume some of the independence of liis Byzantine pred-
ecessors, new Legatine commissions from the Pope,
limiting or interfering with his authority.
Even had the Latin conquerors of the East the least
disposition to resist the lofty dictation of the j^j^ ^^j.
Pope in all ecclesiastical concerns, they were ^"is'^"^"
not in a situation to assert their independence as the
undisputed sovereigns of Eastern Christendom. On
Innocent might depend the recruiting of their reduced,
scattered, insufficient forces by new adventurers assum-
ing the Cross, and warring for the eventual liberation
of the East, and so consolidating the conquest of the
Eastern Empire ; on Innocent might depend the de-
liverance of their captive Emperor, of whose fate they
were still ignorant. The King of Bulgaria, by the
submission of the Bulgarian Church to Rome, was the
spiritual subject of the Pope. Henry, Avhile yet Bailiflp
of the Empire, during the captivity of Baldwin, wrote
the most pressing letters, entreating the mediation of
the Pope with the subtle Johannitius. The letters de-
scribed the insurrection of the perfidious Greeks, the
invasion of the Bulgarians, with their barbarous allied
hordes, the fatal battle of Adrianople in which Bald-
win had been taken prisoner : the Latins fled to the
Pope as their only refoge above all kings and princes
of the earth ; they threw themselves in prostrate hu-
mility at his parental feet.
Innocent delayed not to send a messenger to his
spiritual vassal, the King of Bulgaria ; but his letter
was in a tone unwontedly gentle, persuasive, unauthor-
itative. He did not even throw the blame of the war
with the Franks of Constantinople on the King of Bul-
garia : he reminded him that he had received his crown
124 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
and Lis consecrated banner from the Pope, that banner
which had placed his kingdom under the special pro-
tection of St. Peter, in order that he might iiile his
realm in peace. He informed Johannitius that another
immense army was about to set out from the West to
recruit that which had conquered the Byzantine Em-
pire ; it was his interest, therefore, to make firm peace
with the Latins, for which he had a noble opportunity
by the deliverance of the Emperor Baldwin.^ " This
was a suggestion, not a command. On his own part
he would lay his injunction on the Emperor Henry to
abstain from all invasion of the borders of Bulgaria ;
that kingdom, so devoutly dedicated to St. Peter and
the Church of Rome, was to remain in its inviolable se-
curity ! " The Bulgarian replied that " he had offered
terms of peace to the Latins, which they had rejected
with contempt ; they had demanded the surrender of
all the territoi'ies which they accused him of having
usurped from the Empire of Constantinople, themselves
being the usurpers of that Empire. These lands he
occupied by a better right than they Constantinople.
He had received his crown from the Supreme Pontiff;
they had violently seized and invested themselves with
that of the Eastern Empire ; the Empire which be-
longed to him rather than to them. He was fighting
under the banner consecrated by St. Peter ; they with
the cross on their shoulders, which they had falsely as-
sumed. He had been defi/ed, had fought in self-de-
fence, had won a glorious victory, which he ascribed to
the intercession of the Prince of the Apostles. As to
the Emperor, his release was impossible, he had already
gone the way of all flesh." It is impossible not to
1 Epist. viii. 132.
Chap. YII. EFFECTS OF TAKING CONSTANTINOPLE. 125
remark the dexterity with which the Barbarian avails
himself of the difficult position of the Pope, who had still
openly condemned the invasion of Constantinople by
the Crusaders, and had threatened, if he had not placed
them under interdict for that act ; how he makes him-
self out to be the faithful soldier of the Pope. Nor
had either the awe or fear of Innocent restrained the
King of Bvilgaria from putting his prisoner to a cruel
death (this seems to be certain, however the manner
of Baldwin's death grew into a romantic legend),^ nor
did he pay the slightest regard to the pacific counsels
of Rome ; the consecrated banner of St. Peter still
waved ao;ainst those who had subdued the Eastern
Empire inider allegiance to the successor of St. Peter.
Till his own assassination, Johannitius of Bulgaria was
the dangerous and mortal foe of the Latins in the Em-
pire of the East.
The conquest of Constantinople by the Latins, that
strange and romantic episode in the history of gg-^pt, ^^
the Crusades, in its direct and immediate re- orcoTAln-
sults might seem but imperfect and transitory, ''"op^"^-
The Latin Empire endured hardly more than half a
century, the sovereignty reVerted to its old effete mas-
ters. The Greeks who won back the throne were in
no respect superior either in military skill or valor, in
genius, in patriotism, in intellectual eminence, to those
who had been dispossessed by the Latins. The Byzan-
tine Empire had to linger out a few more centuries of
inglorious inactivity ; her religion came back with her,
1 Ephraim. 1. 7106, 7, p. 300, edit. Bonn; Nicetas, p. 847; George Acro-
polita, p. 24, give different versions of his death. See also Ducange's note
on Villehardoiiin, and Alberie des trois Fontaines, on the impostor who
represented him. — Gesta Ludov. viii., apud Duchesne, Matt. Paris.
126 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
with all its superstition, with nothing creative, vigorous,
or capable of exercising any strong impulse on the na-
tional mind. As the consolidation therefore of Europe
into one great Christian confederacy the conquest was
a signal failure ; as advancing, as supporting the Chris-
tian outposts in the East, it led to no result ; the Cru-
sades languished still more and more ; they were now
the enterprises of single enthusiastic princes, brilliant,
adventurous expeditions like that of our Edward I. ;
even national armaments like those of St. Louis of
France, whom his gallant chivalry followed to the East
as they would on any other bold campaign, obedient to,
even kindled by his fanatic fervor, rather than by their
own profound religious zeal. They were no longer
the wars of Christendom, the armed insurrections of
whole populations, maddened to avenge the cause of
the injured Son of God, to secure to themselves the
certain absolution for their sins and everlasting re-
ward.
But the immediate and indirect results on the Latin,
and more especially on the Italian mind, constituted
the profound importance of this event, and was at once
the sign and the commencement of a great revolution.
A new element had now entered into society, to contest
with the warlike and religious spirit the dominion over
human thought. Commercial Venice had now taken
her place with the feudal monarchies of Transalpine
Christendom, and with Rome the seat of ecclesiasti-
cal supremacy. A new power had arisen, which had
wrested the generalship and the direction of a Crusade
from the hands of the most mighty prelate who had
filled the chair of St. Peter, had calmly pursued her
own way in defiance of interdict, and only at her own
Chap. VII. ADVANTAGES SECURED BY VENICE. 127
convenient time, and for her own ends, stcjoped to tardy
submission and apology.
Venice almost alone reaped the valuable harvest of
this great Crusade. Zara was the first step Advantages
to her wide commercial empire ; she had Ve "ice. ^
wisely left the more imposing but precarious temporal
sovereignty in Constantinople to her confederates ; to
them she abandoned whatever kingdoms, principalities,
or baronial fiefs they might win upon the mainland ;
but she seized on the islands of the Archipelago as her
own. Constantinople was not her seat of empire, but
it was her central mart ; the Emperor had to defend
the walls on the land side, the factories of Venice at
Pera were amply protected by her fleets. Wherever
there was a haven there waved the flag of St. Mark :
the whole coast and all the islands were studded with
her mercantile establishments.
Venice had been thwarted by the natural jealousy
of the Church, by the vigilance and authority of the
Pope, and by the defection of Morosini himself, her
Patriarch, in her bold project of retaining in her own
hands the chief ecclesiastical dignity of the new Em-
pire. It was a remarkable part of the Venetian policy,
that though jealous of any overweening ecclesiastical
authority at home, within her own lagunes ; abroad,
in her colonies and conquests, she was desirous of secur-
ing to herself and her sons all the high spiritual digni-
ties, and so to hold both the temporal and ecclesiastical
power in her own hands. Venice, by her fortune, or
by her sagacity, had never become, never aspired to
become the seat of an archiepiscopate ; the city was
a proviiye first of Aquileia, then of Grado ; but the
Archbishop was no citizen of Venice ; he dwelt apart
128 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
in his own city ; he was at times a stately visitor, re-
ceived with the utmost ceremony, but still only a visitor
in Venice ; he could not be a resident rival and control
upon the Doge and the senators. Hence Venice alone
remained comparatively free from ecclesiastical intrigue;
the clergy took no part, as clergy, in the affairs of state ;
they had no place in the successive senatorial bodies,
which at different periods of the constitution ruled the
republic. Hence, even from an earlier period she dared
to take a firmer tone, or to treat with courteous dis-
respect the mandates of the supreme Pontiff; the re-
public would sternly assert her right to rule herself of
her own sole and exclusive authority ; but in her set-
tlements she would not disdain to rule by the subsidiary
aid of the ecclesiastical power.
Among the first acts of Ziani, the Doge who suc-
Archbishop cccded Hcury Dandolo, was the appointment
ofzara. ^f ^.|jg Abbot of St. Fclix in Venice to the
archbishopric of Zara ; he obtained the consecration
and confirmation from the obsequious Primate of Grado.
Not till then did he condescend to request the Papal
sanction : to demand the pall for the new archbishop.
Innocent seized the opportunity of abasing the pride
of Venice, of disburdening his mind of all his wrath,
perhaps his prescient apprehensions of her future un-
ruliness. " We have thought it right in our patient
love to rebuke your ambassadors for the many and
heinous sins wickedly committed against God, the Ro-
man Church, and the whole Christian people — the
destruction of Zara ; the diversion of the army of the
Lord, which ought not to have moved to the right or
the left, from their lawful enemies the perfidious Sara-
cens, against faithful Christian nations ; the contume-
Chap. VII. INNOCENT AND VENICE. 129
lious repulse of the Legate of the Roman See ; the
contempt of our excommunication ; the violation of
the vow of the Cross in despite of a crucified Saviour.
Among these enormous misdeeds we will not name
those perpetrated in Constantinople, the pillage of the
treasures of the church, the seizure of her possessions,
the attempt to make the sanctuary of the Lord hered-
itary in your nation by extorting unlawful oaths. What
reparation can ye make for this loss to the Holy Land
by your misguiding to your own ends an army so noble,
so powerful, raised at such enormous cost, which might
not only have subdued the Holy Land, but even great
part of the kingdom of Egypt ? If it has been able to
subdue Constantinople and the Greek Empire, how
much easier Alexandria and Egypt, and so have ob-
tained quiet possession of Palestine? Ascribe it not
then to our severity, but to your own sins, that we re-
fuse to admit the Abbot of St. Felix, whom ye call
Archbishop of Zara. It would be a just offence to all
Christian people if we should seem thus to sanction
your iniquity in the seizure of Zara, by granting the
pall of an archbishop in that city to a prelate of your
nomination." ^
The Pope called on the Venetians to submit and
make satisfaction for all their crimes against a.d. 1206.
the Holy See ; on making that submission he would
suspend the censure which the whole world expected
to fall on the contumacious republic. We hear not
that Venice trembled at this holy censure ; history
records no proof of her fear or submission.
Through Venice flowed into Western Europe almost
all those remains of ancient art, and even of ancient
1 Gesta, civ.
130 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
letters, which had some effect in awakening the slum-
bering genius of Latin Europe. The other western
kingdoms were content mostly with relics ; perhaps the
great marts of Flanders, and the rising Hanse Towns
had some share, more or less direct, in Eastern com-
merce ; but besides the religious spoils, Venice alone,
and through Venice Italy, was moved with some yet
timid admiration of profaner works, such as the horses
of Lysippus, which now again stand in her great Place
of St. Mark. Venice after the conquest of Constanti-
nople became a half Byzantine city. Her great church
of St. Mark still seems as if it had migrated from the
East ; its walls glow with Byzantine mosaic ; its treas-
ures are Oriental in their character as in their splen-
dor.
Chap. VIII. CRUSADE AGAINST HERETICS. 131
CHAPTER VIII.
INNOCENT AND THE ANTI-SACERDOTALISTS.
The Crusades had established in the mind of men
the maxim that the Infidel was the enemy of Crusade
God, and therefore the enemy of every true heretics.
servant of God. The war, first undertaken for a
specific object, tlie rescue of the Saviour's sepulchre,
that indefeasible property of Christ and Christendom
long usurped by lawless force, from the profane and
sacrilegious hands of the Mohammedan idolaters (as
they were absurdly called), had now become a gen-
eral war of the Cross against the Crescent, of every
Christian against every believer in the Koran. Chris-
tian and unbeliever were born foes, foes unto death.
They might hold the chivalrous gallantry, the loyalty,
and the virtue, each of the other, in respect : absolute
necessity might compel them to make treaties which
would partake in the general sanctity of such cove-
nants ; yet to these irreconcilable antagonists war was
the state of nature ; each considered it a sacred duty,
if not a positive obligation, to extirpate the hostile faith.
And in most Mohammedan countries the Christian had
the claim of old possession ; he fought for the recoverv
of his own. Mohammedanism had begun in unpro-
voked conquest ; conquest was its sole tenure ; and
conquest might seem at least a part of its religion, for
132 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
with each successive race which rose to powijr among
the Mohammedans the career of invasion began again ;
the fi'ontiers of Christendom were invested or driven
in. All warfare, therefore, even carried into the heart
of Mohammedanism, was in some degree defensive, as
precautionary and preventive of future aggression ; as
aspiring to crush, before it became too formidable, a
power which inevitably, when again matured, would be
restrained by no treaty. Foreign subjugation, subju-
gation of Christian countries, was at once a part of
the creed, and of the national manners. The Nomad
races, organized by a fanatic faith, were arrayed in
eternal warfare against more settled and peaceful civ-
ilization. The Crusades in the North of Germany
against the tribes of Teutonic or Sclavonian race might
claim, though in less degree, the character of defensive
wars : those races too were mostly warlike and aggres-
sive. The Teutonic knights were the religious and
chivalrous descendants of the Templars and the Hos-
pitallers.^
But according to the theory of the Church, the err-
ing believer was as declared an enemy to God as the Pa-
gan or the Islamite, in one respect more inexcusable and
odious, as obstinately resisting or repudiating the truth.
The heretic appeared to the severely orthodox Christian
as worse than the unbeliever ; he was a revolted sub-
ject, not a foreign enemy.^ Civil wars are always the
most ferocious. Excommunication from the Christian
1 The Teutonic order was as yet in its infancy; it obtained what may be
called an Europenn existence (till then it was a brotherhood of charity in
the Holy Land) under Herman de Salza, the loyal friend of Frederick II.
2 The Troubadour who sings of the Albigensian war expresses the com-
mon sentiment: "Car les Fran^ais de France, et ceux d'ltalie . . . et le
monde entier leur court sus, et leur porte haine, plus qu'a Sarrasins." —
Fauriel, p. 77.
Chap. VIII. SEEMING PEACE OF CHRISTENDOM. 133
Church implied outlawry from Christian society ; the
heretic forfeited not only all dignities, rights, privileges,
immunities, even all property, all protection by law ;
he was to be pursued, taken,^ despoiled, put to death,
either by the ordinary course of justice (the temporal
authority was bound to execute, even to blood, the sen-
tence of the ecclesiastical court), or if he dared to
resist, by any means whatever : however peaceful, he
was an insurgent, against whom the whole of Christen-
dom mioht, or rather was bound at the summons of the
spiritual power to declare war ; his estates, even his
dominions if a sovereign, were not merely liable to for-
feiture, but the Church assumed the power of award-
ino- the forfeiture, as it might seem best to her wisdom.^
The army which should execute the mandate of the
Church was the army of the Church, and the banner
of that army was the Cross of Christ. So began Cru-
sades, not on the contested borders of Christendom, not
in Mohammedan or heathen lands, in Palestine, on the
shores of the Nile, among the Livonian forests or the
sands of the Baltic, but in the very bosom of Christen-
dom ; not among the implacable partisans of an antag-
onistic creed, but among those who still called them-
selves by the name of Christians.
The world, at least the Christian world, might seem
to repose in unresisting and unrepining svib- Apparent re-
jection under the religious autocracy of the ofre1g,?or'
Pope, now at the zenith of his power. How- i°««-"'in-
1 Pierre de Vaux Cernay considers every crime to be centred in heresy.
The heretic is a wild beast to be remorselessly slain wherever he is found
— Passim.
2 Even the Emperor Henry IV. almost admitted that, if guilty of heresy,
he would have justly incurred dethronement. His argument against the
injustice of Hildebrand is, that he is convicted of no heresy.
134 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Booiv IX.
ever Innocent III., in his ostentatious claim of com-
plete temporal supremacy as a branch of his spiritual
power, as directly flowing from the established princi-
ples of his religious despotism, might have to encoun-
ter the stern opposition of the temporal sovereigns
Philip of Swabia, Otho IV., Phihp Augustus, or the
Barons of England ; yet within its clear and distinct
limits that supremacy was uncontested. No Emperor
or King, however he might assert his right to his
crown in defiance of the Pope, would fail at the
same time to profess himself a dutiful son and sub-
ject of the Church. Where the contest arose out of
matters more closely connected with religion, it was
against the alleged abuse of the power, not against the
power itself, which he appealed when he took up arms.
But there was a secret working in the depths of socie-
ty, which, at the very moment when it was most boast-
ful of its unity, broke forth in direct spiritual rebellion
in almost every quarter of Christendom. Nor was it
the more watchful and all-pervading administration of
Innocent III. which detected latent and slumbering
heresies ; they were open and undisguised, and carried
on the work of proselytism, each in its separate sphere,
with dauntless activity. From almost every part of
Latin Christendom a cry of indignation and distress is
raised by the clergy against the teachers or the sects,
which are withdrawing the people from their control.
It is almost simultaneously heard in England, in North-
ern France, in Belgium, in Bretagne, in the whole dio-
cese of Rheims, in Orleans, in Paris, in Germany, at
Goslar, Cologne, Treves, Metz, Strasburg. Through-
out the whole South of France, and it should seem in
Hungary, this sectarianism is the dominant religion.
Chap. VIII. PRINCIPLE OF SECTARIAN UNION. 135
Even in Italy these opinions had made alarming prog-
ress. Innocent himself calls on the cities of Verona,
Bologna, Florence, Milan, Placentia, Treviso, Ber-
gamo, Mantua, Ferrara, Faenza, to cast out these mul-
tiplying sectaries. Even vi^ithin or on the very borders
of the Papal territory Viterbo is the principal seat of
the revolt.
In one great principle alone the heresiarchs of this
age, and their countless sects, conspired with Principle of
, . f . uuiou amongst
dangerous unity. It was a great anti-sacer- securies.
dotal movement ; it was a convulsive effort to throw
off what had become to many the intolerable yoke of
a clergy which assumed something beyond Apostolic
power, and seemed to have departed so entirely from
Apostolic poverty and humility. It was impossible
that the glaring contrast between the simple religion
of the Gospel, and the vast hierarchical Christianity
which had been growing up since the time of Con-
stantine, should not, even in the darkest and most
ignorant age, awaken the astonishment of some, and
rouse the spirit of inquiry in others. But for cen-
turies, from this embarrassing or distressing contrast
between Apostolic and hierarchical Christianity, almost
all who had felt it had sought and found refuge in mon-
achism. And monachism, having for its main object
the perfection of the individual, was content to with-
draw itself out of worldly Christianity into safe seclu-
sion ; being founded on a rule, an universal rule, of
passive submission, it did not of necessity feel called
upon, or seem to itself justified in more than protesting
against, or condemning by its own austere indigence,
the inordinate wealth, power, or splendor of the clergy,
still less in oro;anizin2 revolutionary resistance. Yet
136 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX
unquestionably this oppugnancy was the most active
element in the jealous hostility between the seculars
and the regulars, which may be traced in almost every
country and in every century. We have heard the
controversy between Peter Damiani and Hildebrand,
each of whom may be accepted as the great champion
of his class, which though it did not quench their
mutual respect, even their friendship, shows the irfec-
oncilability of the conflict. Yet each form of monas-
ticism had in a generation or two become itself hie-
rarchical ; the rich and lordly abbot could not reproach
the haughty and wealthy bishop as an unworthy suc-
cessor of the Apostles. Clugny, which by its stern
austerities had put to shame the older cloisters, by the
time of St. Bernard is become the seat of unevangelic
luxury and ease. Moreover, a solemn and rigid ritual
devotion was an essential part of monachism. Each
rule was more punctilious, more minute, more strict,
than the ordinary ceremonial of the Church ; and this
rigid servitude to religious usage no doubt kept down
multitudes, who might otherwise have raised or fol-
lowed the standard of revolt. There were no rebel-
lions to any extent in the monastic orders, so long as
they were confined in their cloisters ; it was not till
much later, that among the Begging Friars, who wan-
dered freely abroad, arose a formidable mutiny, even
in the very camp of the Papacy.
The hierarchy, too, might seem to repose securely in
its conscious strength ; to look back with quiescent
pride on its unbroken career of victory. The intellect-
ual insurrection of Abdlard against the dominant phi-
losophy and against the metaphysic groundwork, if not
against the doctrines of the dominant Christianity, had
Chap. VIII. ELEMENTS OF DISUNION, 137
been crushed, for a time at least, by his own calamities
and by the superior authority of St. Bernard. The
republican religion of Arnold of Brescia had met its
doom at the stake ; the temporal and spiritual power
had combined to trample down the perilous demagogue
rather than heresiarch. But doctrines expire not Avith
their teachers. Abelard left even in high places, if not
disciples, men disposed to follow out his bold specula-
tions. But these were solitary abstruse thinkers, like
Gilbert de la Por^e, or minds which formed a close
esoteric school ; no philosophizing Christian ever organ-
ized or perpetuated a sect. Arnold no doubt left behind
him a more deep and dangerous influence. In many
minds there lingered from his teaching, if no very defi-
nite notions, a secret traditionary repugnance to the
established opinions, an unconscious aversion to the rule
of the sacerdotal order.
The Papacy, the whole hierarchy, might seem, in
the wantonness of its despotism, almost delib- Security
1 1 • /^i • 1 • .of the
erately to drive Ohi'istendom to msurrection. hierarchy.
It was impossible that the long, seemingly interminable
conflict with the imperial power, even though it might
end in triumph, should not leave deep and rankling
and inextinguishable animosities. The interdicts ut-
tered, not against monarchs, but against kingdoms like
France and England ; the sudden and total cessation of
all religious rites; the remorseless abandonment, as it
were, of whole nations to everlasting perdition for the
sins or alleged sins of their sovereigns, could not but
awaken doubts ; deaden in many cases religious fears
— madden to religious desperation. In France it has
been seen that satire began to aim its contemptuous
sarcasms at the Pope and the Papal power. In the
138 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
reign of John, the pohtical songs, not merely in the
vernacular tongue but in priestly or monastic Latin,
assume a boldness and vehemence w^hich show how-
much the old awe is dropping off; and these songs,
spread from convent to convent, and chanted by monks,
it should seem, to holy tunes, are at once the expression
and the nutriment of brooding and sullen discontent :
discontent, if as yet shuddering at aught approaching
to heresy, at least preparing men's minds for doctrinal
license.^
1 See Mr. Wright's Political songs and poems of Walter de Mapes,
among the most curious volumes published by the Camden Society. In
the Carmina Burana (from the monastery of Benedict Buren, published by
the Literary Union of Stuttgard, 1847) we find the same pieces, some no
doubt of English origin. This strange collection of amatory as well as
satirical pieces shows that the license, even occasionally the grace and
beauty of the Troubadour, as well as his bitter tone against the clergy,
were not confined to the South of France, or to the Proven9al tongue : —
" Cum ad papam veneris, habe pro constant!
Non est locus pauperi, soli favet danti ;
Vel si munus praestitum non est aliquanti.
Respondit, hseo tibia non est michi tanti.
" Papa, si rem tangimus nomen habet a re ;
Quicquid habent alii, solus vult palpare ;
Vel si verbum gallicum vis apocopare,
Paez, puez dit le mot, si vis impetrare.
" Papa quasrit, chartula quaerit, bulla quserit,
Porta quaerit, cardinalis quaerit, cursor quaerit,
Omnes quairunt ; et si quod des, uni deerit.
Totum mare salsum est, tota causa perit." — p. 14, 18.
Here is another, out of many such passages : —
" Roma, turpitudinis jacens in profundis,
Virtutes prseposterat opibus immundis ;
Vacillantis animi fluctuans sub undis,
Diruit, aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.
" Roma cunctos erudit, ut ad opes transvolent,
Plus quam Deo, Mammonae, cor et manus immolent ;
Sic nimirum palmites malSi stirpe redolent:
Cui caput infirmum, cetera membra dolent."
Chap. VIII. VENALITY OF ROME. 139
Nor were the highest churchmen aware how by their
own unsparing and honest denunciations of the abuses
of the Church, they must shake the authority of the
Church. The trumpet of sedition was blown from the
thrones of bishops and archbishops, of holy abbots and
preachers of the severest orthodoxy ; and was it to be
expected that the popular mind would nicely discrimi-
nate between the abuses of the hierarchical system and
the system itself? The flagrant, acknowledged ve-
nality of Rome could not be denounced without im-
pairing the majesty of Rome ; the avarice of Legates
and Cardinals could not pass into a proverb and obtain
currency from the most unsuspicious authorities, with-
out bringing Legates, Cardinals, the whole hierarchy
into contempt. We have heard Becket declaim, if not
against the Pope himself (yet even the Pope is not
spared), against the court and council of the Pope as
bought and sold. The King, he says, boasts that he
has in his pay the whole college of cardinals ; he could
buy the Papacy itself, if vacant. And, if Becket
brands the impiety, he does not question on this point
the tnith of the King. Becket's friend, John of Salis-
bury, not only in the freedom of epistolary writing, but
in his grave philosophic works, dwells, if with trembling
reverence yet with no less force, on this indelible sin of
From another publication of Mr. "Wright's, "Early Mysteries," p.
XXV. : —
" Quicquid male, Roma, vales,
Per immundos cardinales,
Perque nugas Decretales ;
Quicquid cancellarii
Peccant Tel notarii,
Totum camerarii.
Superant Papales."
— Compare Hist. Litter, de la France, vol. xxii. 147, 8. I had selected the
same quotations.
140 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Rome and of the legates of Rome.^ We have heard
Innocent compelled to defend himself from the imputed
design of fraudulently alienating for his own use con-
tributions raised for the hallowed purposes of the Cru-
sade.
All these conspiring causes account for the popularity
Movement of this movemcnt ; its popularity, not on ac-
dotaiist!*'' count of the numbers of its votaries, bvit the
class in which it chiefly spread : the lower or middle
orders of the cities, in many cases the burghers, now
also striving after civil liberties, and forming the free
municipalities in the cities ; and in those cities not
merely opposing the authority of the nobles, but that
not less oppressive of the bishops and the chapters.
This wide-spread, it might seem almost simultaneous
revolt throughout Latin Christianity (though in fact it
had been long growing up, and, beat down in one
place, had ever risen in another) ; this insurrection
against the dominion of the clergy and of the Pope,
more or less against the vital doctrines of the faith, but
universally against the sacerdotal system, compx'ehended
three classes. These, distinct in certain principles and
tenets, would of necessity intermingle incessantly, melt
into, and absorb each other. Once broken loose from
the authority of the clergy, once convinced that the
clergy possessed not the sure, at all events, not the ex-
clusive power over their salvation ; awe and reverence
for the churches, for the sacraments, for the confes-
sional, once thrown aside; they would welcome any
1 " Sed Legati sedis Apostolicae manus suas excutiant ab omni munere,
qui interdum in provincias ita debacchantur ac si ad ecclesiam flagellandam
egressus sit Sathan a facie domini." He adds, "Non de omnibus sermo
est." — Polycratic. v. 15.
Chap. VIII. CLASSES OF ANTI-SACERDOTALISTS. 141
new excitement ; be the willing and eager hearers of
any teacher who denounced the hierarchy. The fol-
lowers of Peter de Brueys, or of Henry the Deacon,
in the South of France, would be ready to listen with-
out terror to the zealous and eloquent Manichean ; the
first bold step was already taken ; they would go on-
ward without fear, without doubt, wherever conviction
seemed to flash upon their minds or inthrall their
hearts. In most of them probably the thirst was awak-
ened, rather than fully allayed ; they were searchers
after truth, rather than men fully satisfied with their
new creed.
These three classes were — I. The simple Anti-Sa-
cerdotalisis, those who rejected the rites and Three classes.
repudiated the authority of the clergy, but did not de-
part, or departed but in a slight degree, from the
established creeds ; heretics in manners and in forms
of worship rather than in articles of belief. These
were chiefly single teachers, who rose in different coun-
tries, without connection, without organization, each de-
pendent for his success on his own eloquence or influence.
They were insurgents, who shook the established gov-
ernment, but did not attempt to replace it by any new
form or system of opinions and discipline.
II. The Waldenses, under whom I am disposed,
after much deliberation, to rank the Poor Men of Ly-
ons. These may be called the Biblical Anti-Sacerdo-
talists. The appeal to the Scriptures and to the Script-
ures alone from the vast system of traditional religion,
was their vital fundamental tenet.
HI. The Manicheans, characterized not only by
some of the leading doctrines of the old Oriental sys-
tem, not probably clearly defined or understood, by a
142 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
severe asceticism, and a hatred or contempt of all union
between the sexes, but also by a peculiar organization,
a severe probation, a gradual and difficult ascent into
the chosen ranks of the Perfect, with something ap-
proaching to a hierarchy of their own.
I. Not long after the commencement of the twelfth
Peter de ccutury, Peter de Brueys preached in the
Ttirpetro- south of Fraucc for above twenty years.^
bussians. ^^ length he expiated his rebellion in the
flames at St. Gilles in Languedoc. Peter de Brueys
had been a clerk ; he is taunted as having deserted the
Church on account of the poverty of his benefice. He
denied infant baptism, it is said, because the parents
brouo-ht not their children with offerings ; he annulled
the sacrifice of the altar, because men came not with
their hands and bosoms loaded with gifts and with wax-
lights.
Peter de Brueys is arraigned by Peter the Venera-
ble, as denying — I. Infant baptism. II. Respect for
churches. III. The worship of the cross. The cross
on which the Redeemer was so cruelly tortured, ought
rather to be an object of horror than of veneration.
IV. Transubstantiation and the Real Presence. It
is asserted, but not proved, that he rejected the Eu-
charist altogether : he probably retained it as a memo-
rial rite. V. Prayers, alms, and oblations for the dead.
To these errors was added an aversion to the chanting
and psalmody of the Church ; he would perhaps re-
1 The date is doubtful. Peter the Venerable wrote his confutation after
the death of Peter de Brueys: he asserts that Peter had disseminated his
heresy in the dioceses of Aries, Embrun, Die, and Gap: he afterwards went
into the province of Narbonne. Baronius dated this work of Peter the
Venerable in 1146. Clemencet in 1135. Fuesslin, a more modern author-
ity, with whom Gieseler agrees, in 11'26 or 1127.
Chap. VIII. PETER DE BRUEYS. 143
place it by a more simple and passionate hymnology.^
How did each of these heretical tenets strike at the
power, the wealth, the influence of the clergy ! What
terrible doubts did they throw into men's minds ! How
hateful must they have appeared to the religious, as to
the irreligious! "What!" savs the indignant Peter
the Venerable, on the first of these tenets (we follow
not out his curious, at times strange refutation of the
rest), " have all the saints been baptized in infancy,
yet, if infant baptism be null, have perished unbaptized,
perished therefore eternally? Is there no Christian,
not one to be saved in all Spain, Gaul, Germany, Italy,
Europe ? " In another respect, the followers of Peter
de Brueys rejected the usages of the Church, but in no
rigid or ascetic, and therefore no Manichean spirit.
They ate meat on fast days, even on Good Friday.
They even summoned their people to feast on those
days. This was among the most revolting acts of their
wickedness ; as bad as acts of persecution and cruelty,
of which they are accused ; it shows at once their dar-
ing and the great power which they had attained.
" The people are rebaptized, altars thrown down,
crosses burned, meat publicly eaten on the day of the
Lord's Passion, priests scourged, monks imprisoned, or
compelled to marry by terror or by torture." ^
But the fire which burned Peter de Brueys neither
discouraged nor silenced a more powerfiil and more
daring heresiarch. To the five eiTors of de gg^ry the
Brueys, his heir, Henry the Deacon, added ^'^''°°-
1 Compare Flathe, Vorlaufer der Reformation, Hahn, Manichaische Ket-
zer, i. p. 408, et seq.
2 Peter Venerab., in Max. Biblioth. Patr., p. 1034. This refutation i.s
the chief authority about Peter de Brueys, and his followers, called Petri -
bnssians.
144 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
many more.^ The description of the person, the
habits, the eloquence of Henry, as it appeared to the
incensed clergy, is more distinct than that of his doc-
trines. Henry had been a monk of Clugny, and was
in deacon's orders. He is first heard of at Lausanne
(though according to some reports his career began in
Italy), but his influence over the popular mind and his
hostility to the clergy first broke forth in its fulness at
Le Mans. The Bishop of that see, Hildebert, incau-
tiously gave him permission to preach, and then depart-
ed himself on a visit to Rome. The rapid changes in
Henry's countenance are likened to a stormy sea : his
hair was cropped, his beard long ; he was tall of stat-
ure, quick in step, barefooted in the midst of winter,
rapid in address, in voice terrible. In years he was
but a youth ; yet his deep tones seemed, according to
the appalled clergy of Le Mans, like the roar of legions
of devils ; but he was wonderfully eloquent. He went
to the very hearts of men, and maddened them to a
deep implacable hatred of the clergy. Yet at first
some even of the clergy sat at the feet of the persua-
sive teacher and melted into tears. But as he rose to
the stern denunciation of their vices, they saw their
alienated flocks gradually look on them with apathy,
with contempt, with aversion. Some who attempted to
meet the preacher in argument were beaten, rolled in
the mire, hardly escaped with their lives, were only
protected, and in secret hiding-places, by the magis-
trates. They attempted a gentle remonstrance : they
had received Henry with brotherly love, and opened
their pulpits to him ; he had returned peace with
1 Acta Episcoporiim Cenomansium (in Mabillon, Vet. Analect. iii. 312).
Heniy began in 1116.
CnAr. Till. HENRY THE DEACON. 145
enmity, sowed deadly hatred between the clergy and
the people, and betrayed them Avith a Judas kiss. To
the messenger who read this expostulation Henry stern-
ly and briefly replied, " Thou liest." But for the offi-
cers of the Count who accompanied him the man had
been stoned to death.
Henry was no Manichean ; he was rather an apostle
of marriage. His influence, like that of many of the
popular preachers, was greatest among the loose women.
That unhappy race, of strong passions, oppressed with
shame and misery at their outcast and forloini condi-
tion, are ever prone to throw themselves into wild
paroxysms of penitence. They stripped themselves, if
we are to believe the accounts, naked ; threw their
costly robes, their bright tresses, into the fire. Heniy
declared that no one should receive a dowry, gold,
silver, land, or bridal gifts. All rushed to marriage,
the poorest with the poorest, even within the prohibited
degrees. Henry himself is said to have looked withi
too curious and admiring eyes on the beauty of his
adoring proselytes. Young men of rank and station
wedded these reclaimed harlots in coarse robes which
cost the meanest price. These inauspicious marriages
ended but ill. The passion of self-sacrifice soon burned
out in the youths ; they grew weary, and deserted their
once contaminated wives. The passion of virtue with
the women, too, died away ; they fell back to their old
courses.
Bishop Hildebert, on his return from Rome, was met
by no procession, no rejoicing at the gates. The ]3eo-
ple mocked his blessing : " We have a father, a bishop,
far above thee in dignity, wisdom, and holiness." The
mild bishop bore the affront : he forced an interview
VOL. V. 10
146 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Oil Henry, and put him under examination. Henry
knew not how — probably refused — to repeat the
Morning Hymn. The Bishop declared him a poor
ignorant man, but took no harsher measure than expul-
sion from his diocese.
Henry retired to the South of France, and joined
Peter de Brueys as his scholar or fellow-apostle. After
A.D. 1134. Brueys was burned, he retired into Gascony,
fell into the hands of the Archbishop of Aries, and
was sent to the Council of Pisa. Innocent II. con-
demned him to silence, and placed him under the cus-
tody of St. Bernard. He escaped and returned to
Languedoc. Desertion of churches, total contempt of
the clergy, followed the eloquent heresiarch wherever
he went. The Cardinal Bishop of Ostia was sent by
Eugene HI. to subdue the revolt; the Cardinal Alberic
demanded the aid of no less a colleague than St. Ber-
nard: " Henry is an antagonist who can only be put
down by the conqueror of Abdlard and of Arnold of
Brescia." Bernard's progress in Languedoc might
seem an uncontested ovation : from all quarters crowds
gathered ; Touloiise opened her gates ; he is said by his
powerful discourses to have disinfected the whole city
from heresy. He found, so he writes, " the churches
without people, the people without priests, the priests
without respect, the Christians without Christ, the
churches are deemed synagogues, the holy places of
God denied to be holy, the sacraments are no longer
sacred, the holy days without their solemnities." Ber-
nard left Toulouse, as he hoped, as his admirers boasted,
restored to peace and orthodoxy.^
Yet Bernard's victory was but seeming or but tran-
1 Epist. 241, vol. i. p. 237.
Chap. VIII. TANCHELIN. 147
sient. Peter de Bmeys and Henry the Deacon had
only sowed the dragon seed of worse heresies, which
sprung up with astonishing rapidity. Before fifty years
had passed the whole South of France was swarmino-
witli Manicheans, who took their name from the centre
of their influence, the city of Albi. Toulouse is be-
come, in the words of its delegated visitors, (the Car-
dinal of S. Chrysogonus, the Abbot of Clairvaux, the
Bishops of Poitiers and Bath), the abomination of
desolation ; the heretics have the chief power over the
people, they lord it among the clergy : as the people,
so the priest.^
The Anti-Sacerdotalists had at the same time,^ or
even earlier, found in the north a formidable Tancheiin.
head in Tanchelin of Antwerp, a layman, with his
disciple, a renegade priest named Erwacher. Tanche-
lin appears more like one of the later German Ana-
baptists. He rejected Pope, archbishops, bishops, the
whole priesthood. His sect was the one true Church.
The Sacraments (he denied transubstantiation) depend-
ed for their validity on the holiness of him that admin-
istered them. He declared war against tithes and the
possessions of the Church. He was encircled by a
body-guard of three thousand armed men ; he was
worshipped by the people as an angel, or something
higher : they drank the water in which he had bathed.
He is accused of the grossest license. A woman with-
in the third degree of relationship was his concubine.
1 " Ita haeretici principabantur in populo, dominabantur inclero; eo quod
populus, sic sacerdos." et scq. Epist. Henric. Abbat. Clairv. apud Mansi,
A. D. 1178 ; and in Maitland, Facts and Documents.
'■^ From 1122 to 1125. Script, apud Bouquet, xiii. 108, et seq. Epist.
Frag. EcclesiiB. Sigebert, apud Pertz, viii. Vita Norberti, apud BoUand,
Jun. 1. Hahn, p. 458.
148 LATIN CHRISTIAXITY. Book IX.
Tanchelin began his career in the cities on the coast of
Flanders ; he then fixed himself at Utrecht. The
bishops and clergy raised a cry of terror. Yet Tanche-
lin, with the renegade Erwacher, dared to visit Rome.
On his return he was seized and imprisoned in Cologne
by the Archbishop, escaped, first fixed himself in Bru-
ges, finally in Antwerp, where he ruled with the power
and state of a king. He was at length struck dead by
a priest, but his followers survived ; no less a man than
St, Norbert, the friend, almost the equal of St. Ber-
nard, was compelled to accept the bishopric of Utrecht,
to quell the brooding and dangerous revolt.
Another wild teacher, Eudo de Stella, an illiterate
rustic, half revolutionized Bretagne. He gave himself
out " as he that should come," was followed by multi-
tudes, and assumed almost kingly power. He was with
difficulty seized ; his life was spared ; he was cast into
prison under the charge of Suger, Abbot of St. Denys.
He died in prison ; his only known tenet is implacable
hostility to churches and monasteries.^
These, though the most famous, or best recorded
Anti-Sacerdotalists, who called forth the Bernards and
the Norberts to subdue them, were not the only teachers
of these rebellious doctrines. In many other cities
nothing is known, but that fires were kindled and her-
etics burned, in Oxford, in Rheims, in Arras, in Besan-
^on, in Cologne, in Treves, in Vezelay.^ In this latter
1 Gul. Neubrig. sub ann. 1197. Continuat. Sigebert, apud Pertz, viii.
2 Some of these may have been Manicheans, or held opinions bordering
on Manicheanism. On Oxfwd, Gul. Neubrig. ii. c. 13. Arras, in 1183,
perhaps 1083. Besa7igon, 1200. Cresar Heisterbac, v. 15. Coloyne, God.
Monach. ad ann. 1163. Treves, Gesta Trevir. i. 186. They passed under
the general name of Cathari ; in France they were often called tisserands
(weavers).
Chap. VIII. BIBLICU. ANTI-SACERDOTALISTS. 149
stately monastery, probably a year or two before the
excommunication of King Henry by Becket, that awful
triumjih of the sacerdotal power, the Archbishops of
Lyons and Narbonne, the Bishops of Nevers and Laon,
and many abbots and great theologians, sat in solemn
judgment on some, it should seem, poor ignorant men,
called Publicans.^ They denied all but God ; they
absolutely rejected all the Sacraments, infant baptism,
the Eucharist, the sign of the cross, holy-water, the
efficacy of tithes and oblations, marriages, monkhood,
the power and functions of the priesthood. Two were
disposed to recant. They were examined at the solemn
festival of Easter, article by article ; they could not
exj)lain their own tenets. They were allowed the water
ordeal. One passed through safe ; the other case was
more doubtful, the man was plunged again, and con-
demned, to the general satisfaction. But the Abbot
having some doubt, he was put to a more merciful
death. Appeal was made to the whole assembly :
" What shall be done with the rest ? " " Let them be
burned ! let them be burned ! " And burned they were,
to the number of seven, in the valley of Ecouan.^
II. In Northern France these adversaries of the
Church seem to have been less inclined to Bibiieai
speculative than to practical innovations. It dotaiists.
1 Ilonii or popolicolse.
2 Historia Vezeliac. sub fine, in Guizot, Collection des M^moires, vii. p.
335. All these burnings were by the civil power, to which the heretics,
having been excommunicated, were given up. Yet Eichhorn observes that
neither the law of the Church nor the Roman law had any general penalty
against heretics beyond confiscation of goods. " Obschon weder ein Kir-
chengesetz noch das Kcimische Eecht etwas anderes als Confiscation ihres
Vermcigens allgemein gebot." Two statutes of Frederick II. (A. d. 1222)
made the punishment, which had become practice, law. '' W^elche allge-
meine Praxis wurden, in Verbrennen bestehen soUte." — T. ii. p. 521.
150 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
was an hostility to the clergy, and to all those ritual
and sacramental institutions in which dwelt the power
and authority of the clergy. In Southern France
Manicheism almost suddenly swallowed up the fol-
lowers of the simple Anti-Sacerdotalists, Peter de
Brueys and Henry the Deacon. In Italy, perhaps, the
political element, introduced by Arnold of Brescia,
mingled with the Paulician Manicheism which stole in
after the Crusades, and appeared almost simultaneously
in many parts of Europe. In the valleys of the Alps
it was a pure religious movement. Peter Waldo was
the St. Francis of heresy, the Poor Men of Lyons
were the Minorites — the lowest of the low. Some
of them resembled more the later Fraticelli in their
levelling doctrines, in their assertion of the kingdom of
the Spirit ; in some respects the wilder Anabaptists of
the Church of Rome.
The simplicity of the Alpine peasants was naturally
averse to the wealth of the monastic establishments
which began to arise among them ; there might survive
some vague tradition of the iconoclasm and holiness of
Claudius of Turin, or of the later residence of Arnold
of Brescia in Zurich. But whether the spiritual par-
Peter Waldo, euts, the brctlu'cn, the offspring of Peter
Waldo ^ — whether his teachers or his disciples — these
1 The date of Waldo is doubtful from 1160 to 1170. Stephanus de
Borbone de VII. Donis Spiritus, iv. c. 30, professes to have heard the
origin of the s'ect from persons living at the time. The passage is qv ted
in the Dissertation of Recchinius, prefixed to Moneta, c. xxxvii. The
two famous lines in the noble Leyczion appear to assign a proximate date
to the Biblical Anti-Sacerdotalists of the Valleys: —
" Ben ha mil e cent anez compli entierament,
Que fo scripta Tora, car son al denier temp."
I see no reason for, every reason against, reckoning these 1100 years from
Chap. VIII. THE WALDENSES. 151
Llameless sectaries, in their retired valleys of Piedmont,
clnng with unconquerable fidelity to their purer, less
imaginative faith. But whencesoever this humbler
Biblical Christianity derived its origin, it received a
powerful impulse from Peter Waldo. Waldo was a
rich merchant of Lyons ; his religious impressions, nat-
urally strong, were quickened by one of those appalling
incidents which often work so lastingly on the life of
religious men. In a meeting for devotion a man fell
dead, some say struck by lightning. From that time
relimon was the sole thought of Peter. He dedicated
himself to poverty and the instruction of the people.^
His lavish alms gathered the poor around him in grate-
fi.ll devotion. He was by no means learned, but he
paid a poor scholar to translate the Gospels and some
other books of Scripture.^ Another grammarian ren-
dered into his native tongue some selected sentences
from the Fathers. Disciples gathered around him ; he
sent them, after the manner of the seventy, two by
two, into the neighboring villages to preach the Gospel.
They called themselves the Humbled ; others called
them the Poor Men of Lyons.^
the delivery of the Apocalypse, a critical question far beyond the age, or
from any period but the ordinary date of our Lord. All it seems to as-
sert is that the 1100 years are fully passed, and that the " latter days " are
begun. This in the usual religious language would admit, at least, any
part of the twelfth century. The authenticity of these lines is asserted and
argued to my mind in a conclusive manner by the highest authority, Mons.
Raynouari, Poesies des Troubadours, vol. ii. p. cxlii. Compare, for simi-
lar dates especially, Dante Paradise, xi.; Gilly, Introduction, p. xxxviii.
1 On Waldo, Reinerius Saccho, c. iv. v.; Alanus de Insulis; Stephan. de
Borbone de VII. Don. Spirit. S.
2 Chronicle of Laon, apud Bouquet, xiii.; Gilly, p. xciv.
3 The name Insabatati is derived by Spanheim (Hist. Christ. Stec. xii.)
from their religious observance of the Sabbath, in opposition to the holi-
days of the Church. It is more probably from the word sabot, a wooden
shoe.
152 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Two of Waldo's followers found their way to Rome.
They presented a book, written in the Gallo-Roman
language ; it contained a text and a gloss on the Psalter,
and several books of the Old and New Testament.
The Papal See was not so wise as afterwards, when
Innocent III., having superciliously spurned the beg-
garly Frances of Assisi, was suddenly enlightened as to
the danger of estranging, the advantage of attaching,
such men to the service of the Church. The example
of Waldo may have acted as a monition. The two
were received in the Lateran Council by Alexander III.
The Pope condescended to approve of their poverty,
but they were condemned for presuming to interfere
with the sacred functions of the priesthood.^ When
they implored permission to preach, they were either
met by a hard refusal, with derision, or ungraciously
required to obtain the consent of the jealous clergy.
Their knowledge of Scripture seems to have perplexed
John of Salisbury, who writes of them with the bitter-
ness of a discomfited theologian.
As yet it is clear they contemplated no secession from
the Church ; they were not included under the con-
demnation of heretics in the Council, but they persisted
in preaching without authority. They were interdicted
by the Archbishop of Lyons. Waldo resolutely re-
plied with that great axiom, so often misapplied, and
for the right application of which the conscience must
be enlightened with more than ordinary wisdom, " That
he must obey God rather than man."
From that time the Poor Men of Lyons were involved
1 The accounts of these proceedings at the Council of the Lateran ap-
pear to me to be thus reconcilable with no great difficulty. — De Mapes;
Chronic. Laon ; Stephen Borbone ; Moneta.
Chap. VIII. POOR MEN OF LYONS. 153
in the common hatred which branded all opponents
of the clergy with obloquy and contempt. poorMeu
They were now comprehended among the °^ ^^'°"^-
lieretics, condemned by Lucius III. at the Council of
Verona.i Their hostility to the Church grew up with
the hostility of the Church to them. They threw aside
the whole hierarchical and ritual system, at least as far
as the conviction of its value and efficacy, along with
the priesthood. The sanctity of the priest was not in
his priesthood, but in his life. The virtuous layman
was a priest (they had aspired to reach that lofty doc-
trine of the Gospel), and could therefore administer
with equal validity all the rites ; even women, it is said,
according to their view, might officiate. The prayers
and offerings of a wicked priest were altogether of no
avail .2 Their doctrine was a full, minute, rigid protest
against the wealth of the Church, the poAver of the
Church.^ The Church of Rome they denied to be
the true Church : they inexorably condemned the hom-
icidal engagements of popes and prelates in war. They
1 Mansi, Concil. Veronens. 1184. Their preaching without license was
the avowed cause of their condemnation. " Catharos et Paterinos et eos,
qui se Immiliatos vel pauperes de Lugduno falso nomine mentiuntur, Pas-
saginos, .Josepinos, Arnaldistas, perpetuo decernimus auathemate subjacere.
Et quoniam nonnulli sub specie pietatis virtutem ejus, juxta quod ait apos-
tolus, denegantes, auctoritatem sibi vindicant prjedicandi : cum idem apos-
tolus dicat, quomodo prcedicabunt nisi mittanlur. Rom. x. 15. Onines, qui
vel prohibiti, vel non missi, praeter auctoritatem ab apostolica sede vel epis-
copo loci susceptam, publice vel privatim prtedicare praisumpseriut, pari
vinculo perpetui anathematis innodamus."
2 Alani de Insulis, ii. 1.
3 They seem to have anticipated a doctrine, afterwards widely adopted
by the followers of the Abbot Joachim and the Fraticelli, that the Church
was pure till the days of Silvester. Its apostasy then began. '• In eo
(Silvestro) defecit quousque ipsi earn restaurarent : tamen dicunt quo*!
semper fuerint aliqui, qui Deum tenebunt et salvabantur." — See also N<»-
ble Leyczion, 1. 409. Reinerii Summa. Martene. v. 1775.
154 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
rejected the seven Sacraments, except Baptism and the
Eucharist. In baptism they denied all effect of the
ablution by the sanctity of the water. A priest in
mortal sin cannot consecrate the Eucharist. The tran-
substantiation takes place not in the hand of the priest,
but in the soul of the believer. They rejected prayers
for the dead, festivals, lights, purgatory, and indul-
gences. The only approach towards Manicheism, and
that is scarcely an approach, is that married persons
must not come together but with the hope of having
children. In no instance are the morals of Peter Waldo
and the Alpine Biblicists arraigned by their worst en-
emies. There is a compulsory distinction, an enforced
reverence, a speaking silence. They who denounce
most copiously the immoralities, the incredible immo-
ralities of other sects in revolt against the hierarchy,
acknowledge the modesty, frugality, honest industry,
chastity, and temperance of the Poor Men of Lyons.
Their language was simple and modest. They denied
the legality of capital punishments.^
The great strength of the followers of Peter Waldo
was no doubt their possession of the sacred Scriptures
in their own language. They read the Gospels, they
preached, and they prayed in the vulgar tongue.^
1 It is much to have extorted a milder damnation from Peter de Vaux
Cernay. He derives the Waldenses ft-om Waldo of Lyons. " They were
bad, but much less perverse than other heretics." He describes them al-
most as a sort of Quakers. They wore sandals, like the apostles. They
were on no account to swear, or to kill any one. They denied the neces-
sity of episcopal ordination to consecrate the eucharist. — c. ii. apud Bou-
quet; or in Guizot, Collection des M^moires.
2 The third cause assigned by Reinerius Sacchio for their rapid progress
is " Veteris et Novi Testamenti in vulgarem linguam ab ipsis facta trans-
latio quse quidem edita est in urbe Metensi." They were strong in Metz.
Alberic. Chronic, ad ann. 1200. But was the Romaunt version understood
in Metz ? There was more than one popular version:. — See Preface by Le
Chap. VIII. TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 155
They rejected the mystical sense of the Scriptures.
But besides the sacred Scriptures, they possessed other
works ill that Proven9al dialect, in other parts of
Southern France almost entirely devoted to amatory
or to satiric songs. With them alone it spoke with
deep religious fervor. The " Noble Lesson " is a le-
markable work, fi'om its calm, almost unimpassioned
simplicity ; it is a brief, spirited statement of the Bibli-
cal historv of man, with nothing of fanatic exaooera-
tion, nothing even of rude vehemence ; it is the perfect,
clear, morality of the Gospel. The close, which ar-
raigns the clergy, has nothing of angry violence ; it
calmly expostulates against their persecutions, reproves
the practice of death-bed absolution, and the composi-
tion for a life of wickedness by a gift to the priest. Its
strongest sentence is an emphatic assertion that the
power of absolving from mortal sin is in neither cardi-
nal, bishop, abbot, pope, but in God alone. ^
It is singular to find these teachers, whose whole
theory was built on strict adherence to the letter of the
Roux de Lincy to the iv. Livres des Rois, Documents In^dits. — Compare
the letter of Innocent III. (ii. 141) on this subject. Two of the other
causes assigned are the ignorance and irreverence of some of the clergy.
Dr. Gilly has rendered the valuable service of printing the Romaunt ver-
sion of the Gospel according to St. John. Dr. Gilly thinks that he has
proved this version to be older, as quoted in it, than the Noble Leyczion.
The quotations do not seem to me to be conclusive; they are like in many
words, unlike in others. It is a very curious fact, if it will bear rigid criti-
cal investigation, that the Romaunt Version sometimes follows the old
Versio Itala (as printed by Sabatier) rather than the Vulgate. — Dr. Gil-
ly's Preface.
1 " Ma yo aus o dire, car se troba el ver,
Que tuit li Papa, que foron de Silvestre entire en aquest,
E tuit li cardinal li vesque e tuit li aba,
Tuit aqueste ensemp non han tan de potesta
Que illi poissan perdonar un sol pecca mortal;
Solamente Dio perdona; que autre non ho po far." — 408-412.
Raj^nouard, p. 97.
156 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Bible, mingled up with those whose vital principle was
the rejection of the Old Testament and some part of
the New. It might seem to require almost more than
the fierce blindness of polemic hatred to confound them
together. But it is not in the simplicity of the " Noble
Lesson " alone, as contrasted with the whole system of
traditional, legendary, mythic religion ; the secret is in
that last fatal sentence — the absolute denial of Papal,
nf priestly absolution.^
III. To these Anti-Sacerdotal tenets of the more spec-
Manichean "lativc teachcrs, and the more practical antag-
heretics. ouism of the disciples of Waldo, a wide-spread
family of sects added doctrinal opinions, either strong-
ly colored by, or the actual revival and perpetuation of
the ancient Eastern heresies. Nothing is more curious
in Christian history than the vitality of the Manichean
opinions. That wild, half poetic, half rationalistic
theory of Christianity, with its mythic machinery and
stern asceticism (like all asceticism liable to break forth
into intolerable hcense), which might seem congenial
only to the Oriental mind ; and if it had not expired,
might be supposed only to linger beyond the limits of
Christendom in the East, appears almost suddenly in
the twelfth century, in living, almost irresistible power,
first in its intermediate settlement in Bulgaria, and on
the borders of the Greek Empire, then in Italy, in
France, in Germany, in the remoter West, at the foot
of the Pyrenees.^
1 The doctrinal differences could not but be discerned. " Et illi quidem
Valdenses contra alios (Arianos et Manicheos) aeutissime disputabant."
So writes one of their most ardent adversaries, the Abbot of Pay Laurens.
— In prologo.
2 On the Albigensian wars the chief authorities, besides the papal letters
and documents, are the Chronicle of Peter de Vaux Cernay (I sometimes
C'HAr. Ylir. PAULICIAXS. 157
The tradition of Western Maniclieisni breaks off
about the sixth century ; if it subsisted, it was in such
obscurity as to escape even the jeah:)us vigilance of the
Church.^ But in the East its descent is marked by the
rise of a new, powerful, and enduring sect, the Pauli-
cians. The history of Latin Christianity may content
itself with but a brief and rapid summary of the set-
tlements, migrations, conquests, calamities of the Pauli-
cians ; till they pass the frontier of the Greek Empire,
and invade in the very centre the dominions of the Latin
Church.^ Their name implies that with the broader
principles of Manicheism, they combined some peculiar
reverence for the doctrine, writings, and person of St.
Paul. In an Eastern mind it is not difficult to suppose
quote him in Latin from Bouquet, sometimes in French from Guizot, Col-
lection des Memoires); the Abbot de Puy Laurens (ibid.); the Guerre des
Albigeois; and the Gestes Glorieuses, in Guizot: and the verj' curious Ro-
maunt poem, Guerre des Albigeois, published by Mons. Fauriel (Documents
Historiques). I cit« him as the Troubadour. The Troubadour attributes
his song (canson, chanson) to Master William of Tudela, a very learned
man, greatly admired by clerks and laymen, endowed with the gift of geo-
niancy, by which he predicted the destruction of the land. This personage
was at first, erroneously as M. Fauriel shows, supposed to have been the
poet. The poet says that he wrote it at Montauban, and denounces the
niggardly nobles, who had neither given him vest nor mantle of silk, nor
Breton paltrey to amble through the land. " But as they will not give a
button, I will not ask them for a coal from their hearth. . . . The Lord God,
who made the sky and the air, confound them, and his holy mother Mary."
— p. 17. On the change in the Troubadour's politics, see forward. The
Histoire de Languedoc, by Dom. Vaissette, is an invaluable and honorably
impartial work.
1 Mr. Maitland has been unable to discover any notice of Manicheism in
Europe for more than 400 years; from the sixth century to the burning of
the Canons at Orleans in 1017 or 1022. Gieseler has one or two very doubt-
ful references. I doubt, with Mr. Maitland, the Manicheism of these Can-
ons. — Facts and Documents, p. 405. Tlie account of the Canons is in
Adhemar apud Bouquet, x. 35, and Eodulf Glaber. Those of Arras (Acta
Synod. Atrab. apud Mansi, sub ann. 1025) are far more suspicious.
2 The history of the Paulicians has been drawn with such vigor, rapid-
ity, fulness, and exactness by Gibbon, that I feel glad of this excuse. — c.
Uv.
158 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
a fusion between the impersonated, deified, and oppug-
nant powers of good and evil, and St. Paul's high
moral antaoonism of sin and grace in the soul of man,
the inborn and hereditary evil and the infused and
imparted righteousness. The war within the man is
but a perpetuation of the eternal war throughout the
worlds.
The Paulicians burst suddenly into being, in the
ThePauu- neighborhood of Samosata. Their first apos-
cians. ^jg^ Constantine, is said to have wrought his
simpler system out of the New Testament, accidentally
bestowed upon him, especially from the writings of St.
Paul. His disciples rejected alike the vast fabric of
traditionary belief, which in the Greek and Latin
Churches had grown iip around the Gospel ; and the
cumbrous and fantastical mythology of the older Mani-
cheism.^ The Paulicians spread over all the adjacent
regions, Asia ^Minor, Pontus, to the borders of Arme-
nia and the shores of the Euphrates. Persecution gave
them martyrs, the first of these was their primitive
teacher. The blood of martyrs, as with Christianity
itself, seemed but to multiply their numbers and
strength. They bore, during many successive reigns,
in Christian patience the intolerant wrath of Justinian
II., of Nicephorus, of Michael I., of Theodora. Their
numbers may be estimated by the report that during
A.D. 842. the short reign of that Empress perished
100,000 victims. Persecution at length fi'om a sect
condensed them into a tribe of rebels. They rose in
revolt. Their city Tephrice, near Trebisond, became
the capital of an independent people. They leagued
1 The Paulicians disclaimed Planes. Jlpo>H>fiG)c uva&efj.aTl^ovai Iinv^iavdv
Bovdddv Tt Kal Mavevra. — Petr. Sicul. p. 42.
Chap. YIII. WESTERN MANICHEISM. 159
with the Mohammedans : they wasted Asia Minor.
Constantine Copronymus, with tlieir own consent,
transported a great body of Paulicians into Thrace,
as an outpost to the Byzantine Empire. John Zimisces
conducted another great migration to the valleys of
Mount Hj\)mus. From their Bulgarian settleme ats
(they had mingled apparently to a considerable extent
with the Bulgarians), the Crusades, the commerce
which arose out of the Crusades, opened their way into
Western Europe. Manicheism, under this form, is
found in almost every great city of Italy. The name
of Bulgarian (in its coarsest form) is one of the appel-
lations of hatred, which clings to them in all quarters.
At the accession of Innocent III. Manicheism is almost
undisputed master of Southern France.^
Western Manicheism, however, though it adhered
only to the broader principles of Orientalism, Western
the two coequal conflicting principles of good *i«^°"'ii«'««"-
and evil, the eternity of matter and its implacable hos-
tility to spirit, aversion to the Old Testament as the
work of the wicked Demiuro;e, the imrealitv of the
suffering Christ, was or became more Manichean than
its Grecian parent Paulicianism. The test which dis-
tinguishes the Manichean from the other Anti-Sacerdo-
talists is the assertion, more or less obscure, of those
Eastern doctrines ; the more visible signs, asceticism,
the proscription, or hard and reluctant concession of
mari'iage, or of any connection between the sexes ; and
1 Some of the Catholic writers assert distinctly their Greek descent.
' Illi vero qui combusti sunt [those at Cologne] dixerunt nobis in defensione
sua hanc hajresin usque ad hrec tempera occultatam fuisse a temporibus
martyrum in Grascia, et quibusdam aliis terris." See also Reiner apud
Martene, Thes. v. 1767, who mentions the " Bulgarian community." —
Miu-atori, Antiq. Ital. v. 83.
160 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
the strong distinction between the Perfect and the com-
mon disciples. They were called in disdain the Puri-
tans (Cathari), an appellation which perhaps they did
not disdain ; and it is singular that the opprobrious
term applied by the married clergy to the Monastics
(Paterines), is now the common designation of the
Manichean haters of marriage. Western Manicheism
is but dimly to be detected in the eleventh century.
The Canons of Orleans were, if their accusers speak
true, profligates rather than sectarians. Those burned
by Heribert, Archbishop of Milan, were accused of two
strangely discordant delinquencies, both irreconcilable
with Manicheism — Judaism and Paganism. These
heretics held the castle of Montforte, in the diocese of
Asti. They were questioned : they declared them-
selves prepared to endure any sufferings. They hon-
ored virginity, lived in chastity even with their wives :
never touched meat, fasted, and so distributed their
prayers that in no hour of the day were orisons not
offered to the Lord. They had their goods in com-
mon. They believed in the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, in the power of binding and loosing ; in the Old
and Neiv Testament. Their castle stood a siege. It
was taken at length by the resistless arms of the Arch-
bishop. All endeavors were made to convert the obsti-
nate sectarians. At length in the market-place, were
raised, here a cross, there a blazing pyre. They were
brought forth, commanded to throw themselves before
the cross, confess their sins, accept the Catholic faith,
or to plunge into the flames ; a few knelt before the
cross ; the greater number covered their faces, rushed
into the fire and were consumed.^
1 Sub ann. 1031. Landulph. Sen. ii. c. 27, apud Muratori, R. It. S. iv.
Chap. VIII. LANGUEDOC. IGl
But in the twelfth century Manicheism is rampant,
bold, undisguised. Everywhere are Puritans, Pater-
ines, Populars, suspected or convicted or confessed
Manicheans. The desperate Church is compelled to
resort to the irrefragable argument of the sword and
the stake. Woe to the prince or to the magistrate who
refused to be the executioner of the stern law. During
the last century, Wazon, Bishop of Liege, had lifted
up his voice, his solitary voice, against this unchristian
means of conversion ; ^ no such sound is now heard ;
if uttered, it is overborne by the imperious concord of
prelates in Council, by the authoritative voice of the
Pope. The Crusade begins its home mission. Cologne.
In Cologne, the ready populace throw the heretics into
the flames.^ The clergy, the Archbishop at Nicea,
desired a more deliberate and solemn judgment. The
calmness of the heretics in the fire amazed, almost ap-
palled, their judges.
The chief seat of these opinions was the South of
France. Innocent III., on his accession, found not
only these daring insurgents scattered in the cities of
Italy, even, as it were, at his own gates (among his
first acts was to subdue the Paterines of Vi- Languedoc.
terbo), he found a whole province, a realm, in some
If the human race, said one, ■would abstain from fleshly connection, men
would breed like bees, without conjunction. Did they know that they
were quoting an ancient orthodox Father? They said they had a Supreme
Pontiff' — not the Bishop of Rome — probably, the Holy Spirit.
1 Gesta Episcop. Leodens. c. 59. Gieseler, note, p. 41-3.
2 1146. Evervini Epist. ad Bernard, in Mabillon. With these, though
in their condemnation of marriage (which they did not explain), and in
their organization (the Perfect and the hearers) Manichean, the dominant
tenets were simply Anti-Sacerdotalist. Some said human souls were apos-
tate spirits imprisoned in the flesh. — Ekberti, Sermon xiii. in Biblioth. P.
P. Lugdun.
VOL. V. 11
162 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
respects the richest and noblest of his spiritual domain,
absolutely dissevered from his Empire, in almost univer-
sal revolt from Latin Christianity. This beautiful re-
gion, before the fatal crusade against the Albigensians,
had advanced far more rapidly towards civilization than
any other part of Europe ; but this civilization was
entirely independent of or rather hostile to ecclesiasti-
cal influence. Languedoc (as also Provence), the land
of that melodious tongue first attuned to modern poe-
try, was one of the great fiefs of the realm of France,
but a fief which paid only remote and doubtful fealty ;
it was almost an independent kingdom. The Count of
Toulouse ^ was suzerain of five great subordinate fiefs.
I. Narbonne, whose Count possessed the most ample
feudal privileges. II. Beziers, under which Viscounty
held the Counts of Albi and Carcassonne. III. The
Countship of Foix, with six territorial vassalages. IV.
The Countship of Montpellier, now devolved on Pedro,
King of Arragon. V. The Countship of Quercy and
Rhodez. The courts of these petty sovereigns vied
with each other in splendor and gallantry. Life was a
perpetual tournament or feast. The Count of Tou-
louse and his vassals had been amongst the most distin-
guished of the Crusaders ; they had brought home many
usages of Oriental luxury. Their intercourse with the
polished Mussulman Courts of Spain, if war was not
actually raging, or even when it was, had become cour-
teous, almost friendly. Their religion was chivalry,
but chivalry becoming less and less religious ; the mis-
tress had become the saint, the casuistry of the Court
of Love superseded that of the confessional. There
had grown up a gay license of manners, not adverse
1 Capefigue, Philippe Auguste, iii. 1.
Chap. VIII. PROVENCAL POETKY. 163
only to the austerity of monkish Christianity, but to
pure Christian morals.
The cities had risen in opulence and splendor.
Many of them had preserved their Roman municipal
institutions : their Consuls held the supreme power in
defiance of temporal and spiritual lords. In the cities
the Jews were numerous and wealthy ; against them
the religious prejudices had worn away and mitigated
into social intercourse. Literature, at least poetry, had
begun to speak to the prince and to the peo- proven^ai
pie. But if the Romaunt among the peasants ^°^^^^-
of the Alpine valleys confined itself to grave and holy
lessons, in Languedoc it was the amatory or satiric song
of the Troubadour. Notwithstanding the lofty hom-
age of Dante,^ the exquisite flattery of Petrarch's emu-
lation, it may be doubted whether the Provencal poetry
so prematurely refined, subtle, and effeminate, would,
if uncrushed with the rest of the Provencal civilization
by the revengeful Church, ever have risen to an honor-
able height. The Troubadour (though he might occa-
sionally urge the pious glory of adventure in the Holy
Land) was in general content with being the Poet Lau-
reate of the Courts of Love. The war hymn seemed to
have expired on the lips of the fierce Bertrand de Born.
1 See on Arnold Daniel, Dante Purgatorio, xxvi. 118. Petrarch, Triunfo
d'Amore, Petrarch's general imitation of the Provencal poets. Whoever
will read the Florilegium in the second volume of M. Raynouard will
hardly deny the Provencal poets the praise of grace and delicacy. The
Epic on the war of the Albigenses, infinitely curious as history, as poetry
is stone dead; Girart de Rousillon appears not ver}' hopeful ; if Ferabras
be indeed Provencal, not northern, " that strain is of a higher mood." See
the very interesting notices by the late M. Fauriel in his new volume (the
22d) of the Hist. Litteraire de la France, pp. 167, et seq., and on Bertrand
de Born, the friend and rival poet of Richard Coeur de Lion. Also Diez.
Troubadours, p. 179.
164 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
It has ceased to be passionate, is become ingenious ; it
is over refined in word and thought, often coarse in
matter. But this was the song and the music in the
castle hall, at the perpetual banquet. The chant in
the castle chapel was silent, or unheard. The priest
was either pining in neglect, or listening, as gay as the
rest, to the lively troubadour.^ Nor was the Trouba-|
dour without his welcome song in the city ; it was!
there the bitter satire on the clergy, the invective
against the vices, the venality of Rome, against the
pilgrimage to Rome, against the morose bishop, if such
bishop there were, or against the Legate himself.
In no European country had the clergy so entirely,
Low state or it sliould sccm so deservedly forfeited its
clergy. authority. In none had the Church more
absolutely ceased to perform its proper functions. If
heresy was the cause of the degradation of the Church,
the self-degradation of the Church had given its
strength to heresy ; the profession which was the object
of ambition, of awe if not of reverence, of hatred if
not of love, in other parts of Christendom, had here
fallen into contempt. Instead of the old proverb for
the lowest abasement, " I had rather my son were a
Jew," the Proven9als said, " I had rather he were a
priest." 2
The knights rarely allowed their sons to enter into
orders, but, to secure the tithes to themselves, presented
the sons of low-born vassals to the Churches, whom
the bishops were obliged to ordain for want of others.
The heretics had pubhc burial-grounds of their own,
1 Raynouard.
2 William de Puy Laurens. I quote either the Latin from Bouquet, or
the French from Guizot's Collection des Memoires.
Chap. VIII. STATE OF LANGUEDOC. 165
and received larger legacies than the Church. This
was not the work of Peter de Brueys, or of Henry
the Deacon. That work must have been half done for
the heresiarchs by the wealthy, indolent, luxurious
clergy. Men, in a religious age, will have religion ;
and it can hardly be supposed that the Provencal mind
had generally outgrown the ancient ritualistic faith, if
that faith had been administered with dignity, with
gentleness, with decency.
St. Bernard's conquest had passed away with his
presence. Not many years after, a council at Lom-
beres^ (near Albi) arraigns a number of a.d. ii65.
persons of Manichean opinions, rejection of the Old
Testament, erroneous tenets on baptism and the Eu-
charist, re})udiation of marriage. They extort an un-
willing, seemingly an insincere assent to the orthodox
creed. Thirteen years after, the Count of Toulouse
himself (Raymond V.) raises a cry of dis- a.d. iits.
tress. Five distinguished prelates, with the sanction
of the Kings of England and of France, the Cardinal
Peter Chrysogonus at their head, find the whole coun-
try almost in possession of the heretics. ^
So basked the pleasant land in its sunshine ; voluptu-
ousness and chivalrous prodigality in its castles,^ luxury
1 Acta in Mansi, sub ann. Compare for all this period Vaissette, Hist,
de Languedoc, iii. in init.
2 " This heresy, which the Lord curse (says the devout Troubadour), had
in its power the whole Albigeois, Carcassonne, and Lauragais, from Beziers
to Bordeaux." — Fauriel, p. 5; Vaissette, sub ann. "Churches were in
ruins, baptism refused, the eucharist in execration, penance despised.
Sacrements an(''antis — on introduisit les deux principes." — p. 47. Ray-
mond V. died in 1194. He had burned many heretics.
3 "Dans la fameuse fete de Beaucaire, oil se reunirent une multitude de
chevaliers des pays Proven(;aux, d'Aquitaine, d'Aragon, et de Catalogue,
les princes Provengaux semblerent vouloir rivaliser de faste extravagant
avecles despotes Asiatiques; le comte de Toulouse gratifia decent mille
166 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
and ease in its cities : the tlmnder-cloud was far off in
the horizon. The devout found their relioious excite-
ment in the new and forbidden opinions. There was
for the more hard and zealous an asceticism which put
to shame the feeble monkery of those days; for the
more simply pious, the biblical doctrines ; and what
seems to have been held in the deepest reverence, the
Consolation in death, which, administered by the Per-
fect alone (men of tried and known holiness), had all
the blessing, none of the doubtful value of absolution
bestowed by the carnal, wicked, worldly, as well as by
the most sanctified, priest.
Innocent had hardly ascended the Pontifical throne,
Apr. 20 1198. wlieii lie wrotc, first, a strong letter to the
ures'of Pope Ai'clibishop of Auch ; in a few months after,
Innocent. ^ mandate, addressed to all the great prelates
in the south of France ; the Archbishops of Aix, Nar-
bonne, Auch, Vienne, Aries, Embrun, Tarragona, Ly-
ons, with their suffragans: to all the princes, barons,
counts, and all Christian people. This Papal Manifesto
broadly asserted the civil as well as religious outlawry
of all heretics ; ^ the right to banish them, to confiscate
their property, to coerce, or to put them to death. The
sous d'argent le Seigneur Raymond d'Argent, qui les distribua entre tons
les chevaliers presents. Bertrand Raimbaud, Cointe d'Orange, fit labourer
tous les environs du chateau et y fit semer jusqu'a trente mille sous en
deniers. Raymond de Venous fit bruler, par ostentation, trente de ses plus
beaux chevaux devant I'assembl^e." — Hist, de Languedoc, iii. 37. " Le
Midi delirait a la veille de sa ruine." — Michelet, and also H. Martin, His-
toire de France, iv. p. 189.
1 Innocent names as the obnoxious heretics the Valdenses, the Catbari,
and the Paterini. He acknowledges their works of love ; but with the
charity of a churchman of that age, ascribes these to dissembling artifice,
in order to obtain proselytes. " JustitiiE vultum prstendunt, et studentes
simulatis operibus caritatis, eos amplius circumveuiunt, quos ad religionis
propo':^itum viderint ardentius aspirare." — Apud Baluz., i. 91.
Chap. VIII. CISTERCIAN BRETHREN. 167
temporal sovereigns were, at the summons of the two
Legates, Rainer and Guy (Cistercian monks), to carry
these penalties submissively into effect,^ they were of-
fered the strong worldly temptation of all the confis-
cated estates, and indulgences the same as they would
have obtained by visiting the churches of St. Peter and
St. James of Compostella.
But these first measures only aggravated the evil.
The mission of these Cistercian brethren as Cistercian
Papal Legates, and that of the Cardinal John, 1200.
were alike without effect.^ To the honor of the Sov-
ereigns of the great fiefs they were not moved by the
temporal or spiritual boons. Nor could this refusal of
the nobles to perform the rigorous behest of the Pope
be attributed altogether to humanity. Their wives and
families, if not themselves, were deeply implicated in
the religious insurrection. In one assembly, held in the
year 1204,^ five of the most distinguished ladies of
Provence, among them Esclarmonde, widow of Jordan
Lord of Lisle Jourdain, and sister of the Count of
Foix,* were admitted into the heretical community.
At the public reception of these ladies by one of the
Perfect, they gave themselves up to God and his Gos-
pel, promised for the future to eat neither meat, eggs,
nor cheese, to allow themselves only vegetables and fish.
1 " Postquam per prsedictum fratrem Rainerum fuerint excominunica-
tionis sententia innodati, eorum bona confiscent, et de terra sua proscri -
bant." The further "animadversion " is indicated by a significant allusion
to the stoning of Achan, the son of Canni.
2 " Mais (Dieu me b^nisse! je ne puis autrement dire) si non que les
heretiques ne font pas plus de cas des sermons que d'une pomme gatee."
— Fauriel, p. 7. This preaching lasted five years,
8 Vaissette, Hist, de Languedoc, iii. p. 1-33. Preuves, p. 437.
* The other sister and the wife of the Count of Foix were Waldensians
-Petr. V. C. vi. 10.
168 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Thev pledged themselves further neither to swear nor
to lie, to abstain from all carnal intercourse, and to be
faithful to the sect even unto death.
New powers were demanded ; sterner and more ac-
tive agents required to combat the deepening danger.
The Pope looked still to the monastic orders, to the
New Legates, spiritual dcsccudants of St. Bernard. Peter
of Castelnau and Raoul, of that Order, were now
charged with the desperate enterprise. These first In-
quisitors were invested with extraordinary powers ; to
them was transferred the whole episcopal authority ;
the ordinary jurisdiction was superseded at their will ;
the Archbishop of Narbonne accuses them of extending
the powers with which they were endowed for the sup-
pression of heresy, to punish the excesses even of the
clergy.^ They retorted by laying informations in Rome
against the Archbishop ; they deposed the Bishop of
Viviers ; suspended the Bishop of Beziers ; he had re-
fused to excommunicate the consuls of his city infected
with heresy. The Legates assembled the bailiffs, the
4.D. 1203. Count of Toulouse, and the Consuls of the
city, and extorted an oath to expel the " good men "
from the land. The oath had no effect ; Toulouse, the
deceitful ,2 went on in its calm tolerance. To these Pa-
pal Legates, to Peter of Castelnau, and to Raoul, was
associated Arnold d'Amauri, the Abbot of Citeaux, the
Abbot of Abbots, a man whose heart was sheathed with
the triple iron of pride, cruelty, bigotry. The sermons
1 " Deinde cum pro hiereticis expellendis solumniodo legatio prima vobis
injiincta fuisset, vos ad ampliandam vestry legationis potestatem, clerico-
riim excessus hferesim esse interpretantes, multa contra formam mandati,
et in detrimentum ecclesias Narbonensis egistis." — Epist. ad Innocent III
apud Vaissette, Preuves, May 29, 1204.
2 " Tolosa, tota dolosa." — I'utr. de V. C.
Chap. Vlir. PAPAL LEGATES. 169
of Arnold were met witli derision.^ The Papal Leoates
travelled through the land from city to city, in the ut-
most hierarchical pomp, with their retinue in rich attire,
and a vast cavalcade of horses and sumpter mules. It
was on their second circuit that they encountered, near
Montpellier (in Montpellier alone the King of Arragon
had attempted to enforce the expulsion of the heretics),
the Spanish Bishop of Osma, on his way to the north,
with (the future saint) Dominic. The dejected Leg-
ates bitterly mourned their want of success. " How
expect success with this secular pomp ? " replied the
severer Spaniards. " Sow the good seed as the heretics
sow the bad. Cast off those sumptuous robes, renounce
those richly-caparisoned palfreys, go barefoot, without
purse and scrip, like the Apostles ; out-labor, out-fast,
out-discipline these false teachers." The Spaniards
were not content with these stern admonitions ; the
Bishop of Osma and his faithful Dominic sent back
their own horses, stripped themselves to the rudest
monkish dress, and led the way on the spiritual cam-
paign. The Legates were constrained to follow. Yet,
notwithstanding their boasted triumphs in all the con-
ferences, which were held at Verfeil, Caraman, Beziers,
at Carcassonne, Montreal, Pamiers ; notwithstanding
their wise compliance with the counsel of Dominic,
notwithstanding the exertions of that eloquent and in-
defatigable man and the preachers whom he had already
begun to oi'ganize, their barefoot pilgrimage, their emu-
lous or surpassing austerities, Heresy bowed not its
head ; it was deaf to the voice of the charmer. The
temporal power must be commanded to do the work
1 Of Arnold writes the Troubadour: " Ce saint hnnime s'en alia avec les
autres par la terre des heretiques, leur prechant de se convertir, mais plus
il les priait, plus ils se raillaient de lui et le tenaient pour sot." — p. 7.
170 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
which the spiritual cannot do. Ah-eady the Legates
had wrung the unwilling sentence of expulsion of" the
heretics from the municipal authorities of Toulouse.
Yet it was a concession of fear, not of persuasion.
The assemblies were still held, if with less ostentation,
hardly with disguise.^
Toulouse must have a Bishop at least of energetic
character. In the time of Bishop Fontevraud the
episcopal authority had sunk so low that he could not
exact even his lawful revenues, and when he went on
his visitation he was obliged to demand a guard from
the Count for his personal safety. He was succeeded
by Raymond de Rabenstein, who passed the three
years of his episcopate, which he had gained by simony,
in war with one of his vassals, by which he had so ut-
terly ruined his finances, that he submitted quietly to
be deposed at the will of the Pope. His successor,
Fulk of Marseilles,^ was of a different, even less Chris-
1 " Tandem ilia; duae olivm! ilia duo candelabra lucentia ante Dominum
servis servilem incutientes timorem, minantes eis rerum dilapidationem,
regum ac principum dedignationem intimantes, hisresium objurationem,
hsereticorum expulsionem eis persuaserunt; sicque ipsi non virtutis amore
sed, secundum poetas ' cessabant peccare mali formidine pcenje,' quod man-
ifestis maliciis demonstrarunt. Nam statim perjuri eftecti, et miserire suiB
recidium patientes, in conventiculis suis, ipso noctis medio, pra;dicantes
hairelicos occultabant." — Petr. V. C. apud Bouquet. See also Gul. de
Pod. Laurent., apud Bouquet, and Vit. S. Dominic, apud Bolland.
2 The songs of Fulk of Marseilles may be found in Eaynouard, vol. ii.
See also Fauriel, Hist, de la Poesie Proven9ale, vol. ii. Life of Fulk, Hist.
Litteraire de la France, xviii. p. 586, &c. '' Apres avoir donn(5 la moitie
de sa vie a la galanterie, il livra sans retenue T autre moiti^ a la cause de
tyrannie, du meurtre et de spoliation, et malheureusement il en profita."
He had a remarkable talent for poetry: — "Amant passionn(5 des dames,
apotre fougueux de I'lnquisition, il ne cessa de composer des vers qui por-
t^rent I'empreinte de ses passions successives." Compare his verses to the
Lady of Marseilles and his Hymn to the Virgin. He was at the court of
Coeur de Lion at Poitiers; of Raymond V.; of Alphonso II. of Arragon; of
Alphonso IX., king of Castile. Dante places him in Paradise.
Chap. VIII. COUNT RAYMOND OF TOULOUSE. 171
tian character. There is no act of treachery or cruehy
throughout the war in which the Bishop of Toulouse
was not tlie most forward, sanguinary, unscrupulous.
Fulk in his youth had been a gay Troubadour. The
son of a rich Genoese, settled at Marseilles, he despised
trade, wandered about to the courts of the more ac-
complished princes of the day, Richard of England,
Alphonso of Arragon, and the elder Raymond of Tou-
louse. Fulk delighted the nobles with his amorous
songs (still to be read in their unchastened warmth)
and aspired to the favor of high-born ladies. The wife
and both the sisters of Barral, Viscount of Marseilles,
were the objects of his lyric adoration. Repulsed by
Viscountess Adelheid, he was seized with a poetic pas-
sion for Eudoxia, wife of William of Montpellier. On
the death of this prince, by which he was greatly
shocked, he threw himself into a cloister ; the passion
of devotion succeeded to worldly passions. The mo-
nastic discipline scourged all tenderness out of his
heart, and by unchristian cruelty to himself, he trained
himself to far more unchristian cruelty towards others.
Eight years had now passed of ineifective preaching,
menace, fulmination. The Sovereign of the land must
be summoned to be the Lictor of the Papal Mandate,
the executioner on his own subjects of the awful sen-
tence of blood, by shedding which, with hypocrisy
which only aggravates cruelty, the Church held itself
sullied ; such sentence here, indeed, it wanted the
power to accomplish without the civil aid.
Raymond VI. Count of Toulouse is darkly colored
bv the hatred of the sterner among the writ- count Ray-
1 J moid of
ers of the Church of Rome as a concealed Touiouse.
heretic, as a fautor of heretics, as a man of deep dis-
172 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
simulation and consummate treachery. He appears to
have been a gay, voluptuous, generous man, without
strength of character enough to be either heretic or
bigot. Loose in his life, he had had five wives, three
livino- at the same time, the sister of the Viscount of
Beziers, the daughter of the King of Cyprus, the sis-
ter of Richard of England ; on the death of the last he
married the sister of King Pedro of Arragon. The
two latter were his kindred within the prohibited de-
grees. This man was no Manichean ! Yet Raymond,
even though his wives were thus uncanonically wed, is
subject to no high moral reproof from the Pope ; it
is only as refusing to execute the Papal commands
against his subjects (towards him at least unoffend-
ing), that he is the victim of excommunication, is de-
spoiled of realm, of honor, of salvation.^
Raymond had succeeded to the sovereignty four
years ^ before the accession of Innocent III. The first
event of his reign w^as his excommunication for usurpa-
tion (as it was called) on the rights of the clergy of
A.D. 1098. St. Gilles. This excommunication it was one
of Innocent's first acts to remove. The position of
the Count of Toulouse and of his nobles had been
1 Compare on Raymond Petr. V. C. c. iv. The Abbot had heard from a
Bishop a speech of Raymond's: " Quod monachi Cistercienses non poterant
salvari, quia tenebant oves, qua; luxuriam exercebant. 0 ha;resis in-
audita! " All his stories he relates on the authority of the Abbot Arnold,
Raymond's deadly enemy. Many irreverent speeches were attributed to
him, some implying heresy. "I see the devil made this world; nothinj;
turns out as I wish." Playing at chess with his chaplain, he said, " The
God of Moses, in whom you believe, will not help you." The following
are still more improbable. He said of a heretic of Castres, who had been
mutilated, and dragged out a miserable life, "I had rather be he than king
or emperor." "I know that I shall lose my realm for the 'good men:' I
will bear the loss of my realm, even of my life, in their cause."
2 A. D. 1194. Vaissette, p. 101.
Chap. VIII. COUNT RAYMOND OF TOULOUSK. 173
Strange and trying for tlie most courageous and wisest
of men. They knew that they could not persuade,
they could hardly hope to defend, they were called
upon to persecute their subjects, their peaceful, perhaps
attached subjects, for a crime of which at least they
did not feel the atrocity. They were commanded
to be the obeisant executioners of punishments not
awarded by themselves, of which they did not admit
the justice, of which they could not but see the inhu-
manity. They were summoned by the Church, which
was itself, by its negligence, its dissoluteness, its long-
continued worldliness, its want of Christianity, at least
a main cause of the evil.' They were peremptorily
ordered to desolate their country ; to expel, or worse,
to pursue to death a large part, and that the most in-
dustrious, most prosperous of their subjects ; thus to
repay the obedience and love of those among whom
they had been born and had lived, who had followed
their banner, rendered loyal allegiance to their lawful
demands. They were to leave their towns in ruins,
their fields uncultivated, or to people their land with
strangers ; to incur the odious suspicion of aiding the
Church in order to profit by the plunder of their vas-
sals, to enrich themselves out of confiscations ; and all
these hard measures were to be taken perhaps against
the friends of youth, against kindred, against men
whose blameless lives won respect and admiration.^
1 " Cujus rei culpa forte pro magna parte refund! poterat in praalatos,
utpote qui saltern latrare potuerant, reprehendere et mordere." Such is
the ingenuous confession of a writer on the side of the Church. — Gul. de
Pod. Laur. apud Bouquet, xix. p. 199.
2 Compare the pathetic sentence in the same author: "Quare ergo de
terra, dixit episcopus, eos non expellitis et fugatis ? At ait ille, non possu-
uius; sumus enim nutriti cum eis, et habemus de nostris consanguineia
apud ipsos, et eos honeste vivere contemplamur." — Ibid., p. 200.
174 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Peter de Castelnau, the Legate, determined at
Peter de length OH extreme proceedings ; the times,
Castelnau. |^g thought, gave him an auspicious occasion.
Private wars had broken out, in which Count Ray-
mond and some of the other nobles were engaged. In
these wars the property of the Church was not relig-
iously respected ; in the sieges of towns their fields and
vineyards suffered waste ; some of the nobles at war
with Raymond alleged as their excuse the hostilities
in which they were involved. The Legates peremp-
torily called on all the belligerent parties to make
peace, in order to combine their forces against those
worse enemies the heretics. Raymond did not at once
obey this imperious dictation. Peter of Castelnau
uttered the sentence of excommunication, and placed
his whole territory under an interdict. Instead of re-
pressing this bold assumption of power on the part of
his Legate, Innocent addressed a letter to Raymond,
perhaps unexampled in the furious vehemence of its
language. It had no superscription, for it was to a
man under sentence of excommunication. No epithet
of scorn was spared : — "If with the Prophet (it
began) I could break through the wall of thy heart,
I would show thee all its abominations." . It threat-
ened him with the immediate vengeance of God, with
every temporal calamity, with everlasting fire. " Who
art thou, that when the illustrious King of Arragon
and the other nobles, at the exhortation of our Legates,
have consented to terms of peace, alone looking for ad-
vantage in war, like a carrion bird preying on carcases,
refusest all treaties?" It charged him with violating
his repeated oaths to prosecute all heretics in his do-
minions, with rejecting the appeal of the Archbishop
Chap. VIII. LETTER OF INNOCENT. 175
of Aries in the course of Avar to spare all monasteries,
and to abstain from arms on Sundays and holidays.^
"Impious, cruel, and direful tyrant, thou art so far
gone in heretical pravity, that when reproved for thy
defence of heretics, thou saidest that thou wouldest
find a bishop of the heretics who would prove his faith
to be better than that of the Catholics." It charged
him with bestowing offices of trust and honor on Jews ;
with seizing and fortifying churches. Innocent ended
with the menace of depriving him of his territory,
which he declared that he held of the Church of Rome ; ^
of arraying all the neighboring princes against him as
an enemy of Christ, and a persecutor of the Chui'ch ;
and of offering his realm as a prize to the conqueror
who might subdue it, in order that it might escape the
disgrace of being ruled by a heretic.^
The denunciation of the victim was immediately fol-
lowed by the summons to the executioner. Letter of
11 1 1 T-' Innocent.
A rapal letter was addressed to the Kmg, to Nov. 17, 1207.
all the counts, barons, nobles, and to all faithful Chris-
tians in France ; to the Counts of Vermandois and
Blois, the Count of Bar, the Duke of Burgundy, the
Count of Nevers, commanding them to take up arms
for the suppression of the heretics in the South of
France. Their own territories in the mean time were
1 It might be inquired whether these provisions were afterwards enforced
on the Crusaders.
2 " Terram quam noscis ab Ecclesia Eomana tenere, tibi faciemus au-
ferri."
8 " Telle est cette lettre fulminante du Pape Innocent III. a Eaj-mond
VI., Comte de Toulouse, dont le principal motif est le refus que ce Prince
avait fait de conclure la paix avcc ses vassaux du Marquisat de Provence,
avec lesquels il 6toit en guerre, afin de joindre ses armes aux leurs pour
exterminer les h^r^tiques.'' — Vaissette, iii. 151. Innocent. Epist. x. 61.
May 29, 1207.
176 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Eook IX.
placed under the protection of St. Peter and the Pope ;
all who dared to violate them were exposed to ecclesi-
astical censure.^ All the estates and the goods of the
heretics were to be confiscated and divided among those
w^io should engage in this holy enterprise, and the same
indulgences granted as for a Crusade in the Holy Land,
so soon as war should be declared against Raymond
of Toulouse, the disobedient vassal of the Church, the
protector and abettor of heretics.
In the mean time Peter of Castelnau was not inac-
tive ; he secretly stirred up the lords of Languedoc
against Raymond. Raymond made peace, and thereby
fondly supposed himself delivered fi'om the excommu-
nication. But the inexorable Peter stood before him,
reproached him to his face with cowardice, accused him
of perjury, and of abetting heresy. He renewed the
excommunication in all its plenitude.
Conceive, at this instant, a Pontiff like Innocent,
Murder of witli all liis lofty uotious of the sanctity, the
casteiuau. inviolability of every ecclesiastic, confirmed
by the consciousness of his yet irresistible power, re-
ceivinir the intellio;ence of the barbarous murder of
his Leo-ate ; another Becket fallen before a meaner
sovereign ; the sacred person of his Legate transfixed
by the lance of an assassin.^ That the terror and
hatred of the clergy in Languedoc should instantly and
obstinately ascribe the crime to Raymond himself,
that Innocent in his eager indignation should adopt
1 Epist. X. 149.
2 " Quand le Pape sut, quand liii fut dite la nouvelle, que son k-gat avait
4t^ tu^, sachez qu'elle lui fut dure; de la colfere qu'il en eut, il se tint la
machoire, et se mit a prier Saint .Jacques, celui de Compostella, et Saint
Pierre, qui est ens^veli dans la Chapelle de Rome. Quand il eut fait son
oraison, il ^teignit le cierge, 15 Jan. 1208." — Apud Fauriel, p 9.
Chap. VIII. MURDER OF PETER DE CASTELNAU. 177
their version of the death of Peter, excites no wonder.
Their report j^ubHcly countenanced by the Pope was
this, that the Legates had been invited to a confer-
ence at St. Gilles, that the Count had sternly refused
to ratify the satisfaction whicli he had promised, tliat
he had uttered dark menaces ao;ainst the Leo-ates.
The Legates had passed the night under an armed
guard on the shores of the Rhone ; in tlie morning,
when they were crossing the river, Peter of Castel-
nau was transfixed with a lance by one of the emis-
saries of Count Raymond. He only lived Jan. 15, 1208.
long enough to breathe out, " God pardon them, as I
pardon them."^ Raymond was afterwards charged
with having admitted the assassin into his intimate
intercourse.
Strong contemporary evidence, as well as all the
probabilities of the case, absolutely acquit the Count
of Toulouse of any concern in this crime. It may
have been done by some rash partisan who thought
that he was fulfilling his master's wishes ; but one
writer states that Raymond was never known to be
so moved to anger as by this event. He was not
of that passionate temperament which might be hui-
ried into such a deed. He could not but see at once
its danger, its impolicy, and its uselessness. The
enemy of Raymond was not the individual monk,
but the whole hierarchy, and the Pope himself; and
he must have known too that of his own partisans all
the superstitious, all the timid, all the religious would
1 Innocent, Epi.st. xi. 26. The Troubadour says, " Un des ^cuyers (du
Comte) qui en avait grande rancune, et voulait se rendre desorraais agr^able
a son Seigneur, tua le Legat en trahison." "He fled to Beaucaire, where
his relations lived." — p. 9.
VOL. V. 12
178 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
be estranged by an awful crime perpetrated on the
sacred person of a legate of the Pope.'
The dying prayer of the Legate may have been ac-
cepted in heaven ; on earth it received barren admira-
tion, but touched no heart with mercy.
Innocent at once assumed the guilt of Raymond.
He proclaimed it in letters to the Arch-
lunocent I
counTi^y- bishops of Narbonnc, Aries, Embrun, Aix,
mond. Vienne, and their suffragans; to the Arch-
bishop of Lyons and his suffragans. Every Sunday
and every holy day was to be published the excommu-
nication of Raymond of Toulouse the mui'derer, and
all his accomplices : no faith v^^as to be kept with those
who had kept no faith ; ^ all his subjects were absolved
from their oath of allegiance : every one was at liberty
to assault his person, and (only reserving the right of
his suzerain the King of France) to seize and take
possession of his lands, especially for the holy purpose
of purging them of heresy. The only terms on which
Raymond could be admitted to repentance were the
previous absolute expulsion of all heretics from his
dominions.
But the blood of the martyr ^ (as he at once be-
1 Raymond, according to the Hist, des Albigeois, would have punished
the assassin (he had fled to Beaucaire), if he could have caught him, to the
satisfaction of the Legates. " Le dit Comte Raimond (?toit si courrouce et
fach^ de ce meurtre, comme ayant ^tc fait par un homme a lui, que jamais
11 ne fut si courrouce de chose au monde." — Hist, de la Guerre des Albi-
geois; Guizot, Coll. des Memoires, xv. 4. All modern writers, D. Vais-
sette, Capefigue. Hahn, even Hurler more doubtfully, exculpate Raymond.
2 " Cum juxta sanctorum patrum canonicas sanctiones, qui Deo fideni
non servat, tides servanda non est." — Epist. Innocent, xi. 26.
3 Peter of Castelnau's body wouhl have wrought wonderful miracles, but
for the obstinate incredulity of the people. "Claris jam, ut credimus,
miraculis coruscasset, nisi hoc illorum incredulitas impediret." And the
passage of St. Luke is adduced without hesitation.
Chap. VIII. CRUSADE. 179
came) called for more active vengeance. Innocent
seized the instant of indignation at this almost crusade.
unprecedented and terrible crime, to awaken the tardy
zeal, to inflame the ambition and rapacity of those,
who at the same time might win to themselves, by
the favor of the Church, a place in heaven and a
goodly inheritance upon earth. " Up,'' he writes to
Philip Augustus of France ; " up, soldiers of Christ !
Up, most Christian King ! Hear the cry of blood ;
aid us in Avreaking vencreance on these malefactors."
With strange perverted quotations from the sacred
Scriptures, he makes Moses and St. Peter, the Fathers,
as he calls them, of the Old and New Testaments, pre-
dict this amicable union of the royal and sacerdotal
powers, and the two swords (one of which his gentle
master afterwards commanded the rash disciple to put
away) authorize the united Crusade of the kingdom of
France and the Church of Rome against the inhab-
itants of Languedoc. " Up," in the same tone, cried
the Pope to all the adventurous nobles and knights of
France, and offered to their valor the rich and sunny
lands of the South .^
The Crusade was thus not merely an outburst of relig-
ious zeal, it took into closer alliance strong motives of
political ambition, perhaps the hostility of rival races.
1 " Attende per Moisem et Petrum, patres videlicet utriusque Testamenti,
signatam inter regnuni et sacerdotium unitatem, cum alter regnum saeer-
dotale pni'dixit et reliquus regale sacerdotium appellavit; ad quod signan-
dum Rex Regum et Dominus dominantium Jesus Christus, secundum
ordinem iMelchisedek sacerdotis et regis, de utraque voluit stirpe nasci,
sacerdotali videlicet et regali. Et princeps Apostolorum, ' Ecce gladii diw
hie,' id est simul, dicenti Domino, ' satis est,' legitur respondisse, et mate-
rial! et spirituali gladiis sibi invicem assistentibus, alter per alterum adju-
vetur." — Epist. ibid. And the world heard with awe this sanguinary and
impious nonsense !
180 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Philip Augustus, wlio had ahnost expelled the King of
England from the continent, aspired to raise the feudal
sovereiontv of the crown over the great fiefs of the
South to actual dominion. Instead of an almost in-
dependent prince, the Count of Toulouse, with his
princely nobles, must become an obedient vassal and
subject. The French of the North up to this period
had vainly endeavored to extend their rule over the
Gallo-Roman, or Gothic Roman population of the
South. The language divided and defined the two yet
unmino-led races. A religious crusade was a glorious
opportunity to break the power of these rival sover-
eigns rather than dependent vassals. Throughout the
war the Crusaders are described as the Franks, as a
foreign nation invading a separate territory. While
there was little of the sympathy of kindred or of order
to prevent the princes and nobles of Northern France
from wreaking the vengeance of the Church upon the
rebellious Princes of Languedoc, the great warlike prel-
ates of France were bound by a still stronger tie to the
endangered cause of their brother prelates of the South.
There had been quite enough of heresy threatening
the peace of almost every diocese of France to awaken
their jealous vigilance. The less they possessed the
virtues of churchmen the more fierce their warlike zeal
for the Church. So in the first ranks of the Crusade
appear the Archbishops of Rheims, Sens, Rouen. The
wealth and prosperity of the Southern provinces, the
hope of plunder, was of itself sufficient incentive to
the baser adventurers ; to the nobler there was the
chivalrous passion for war and enterprise ; while the
easier mode of obtaining pardon for sins, without the
long, and toilsome, and perilous and costly journey to
Chap. VIII. CONDUCT OF RAYMOND. 181
the Holy Land, brought the superstitious of all ranks
in throngs under the consecrated bainiers. Tlie clergy
everywhere preached Avith indefatigable activity this
new way of attaining everlasting life ; the Cistercian
convents threw open their gates, the land was covered
with monks haranguing on the same stirring topic.
From all parts of France they assembled in countless
numljers at Lyons ; a second not less formidable host
^vas gathering in the West ; the number is stated at
500,000, 300^000, at least 50,000 men of arms.i
Raymond, as he well might, stood aghast ; he had
done all in his power to obtain peace from conduct of
Rome. He rejected the gallant proposal of ^*='^™°°'^-
his nephew the Viscount of Beaucaire, to summon
their vassals and kindred, garrison their castles, and
stand boldly on their defence.^ He sent an embassy
to Rome, the Archbishop of Auch, the Abbot of Con-
dom, de Rabenstein the ex-Bishop of Toulouse, the
Prior of the Hospitallers (he had yet some ecclesias-
tics on his side, hated with proportionate intensity by
his enemies).^ The demands of Innocent were hard,
and those, it is said with something of old Troubadour
malice, gained by many presents ; ^ the surrender of
1 " II s'a' croisa tant de gens que personne ne les saurait nombrer ni esti-
mer, et elle a cause des grands pardons et des absolutions, que le Legal avait
donnas a tous ceux qui se croiseroient pour aller contre les h^retiques." —
Hist, de la Guerre, Guizot, xv. 5. " Cependant aussi loin que s'etend la
sainte Chr^tient^, en France et en tous les autres royauines ... les peuples
se croisent, dfes qu'ils apprennent le pardon de leurs peches, et jamais je
pense, ne fut fait si grand host, que celui fait alors contre les her^tiques."
— Fauriel, p. 15. Petr. V. C. adds that to obtain the indulgence they
were to be " contriti et confess!."
2 Histoire des Guerres.
3 " Execrabiles et nialignos Archepiscopum Auxitanum," &c. — Petr. V.
C. c. ix.
4 " lis disent si bonnes paroles et font tant de presents." — p. 19-
182 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Bodk IX.
seven of his chief castles as guarantees for the Count s
submission.
A new Legate had been named, Milo the Notary of
the Papal Court, a man of milder views, of whom
Raymond, under the fond delusion of hope, said that
he was a Legate after his own heart. But this was
only craft on the part of the Pope ; it was not yet
his object to drive Count Raymond, before his great
vassals were subdued, to desperation. Milo was accom-
panied by Theodisc, a canon of Genoa, of less yield-
ino- chai'acter ; and no measure was to be taken with-
out the approbation of Arnold, the Cistercian Abbot.^
The Bishop of Conferans was added to the legatine
commission. Milo was enjoined to use all wise dissim-
ulation ; everything was to be done to lull and delude
Count Raymond.2 'pj^g Legates appeared in Langue-
doc ; it was of no auspicious omen that they had first
visited France.^
From religious awe, from conscious inability to resist,
perhaps from some generous hope of obtaining gentler
terms for his devoted subjects, Raymond of Toulouse
submitted at once in the amplest manner to the de-
Penanceof mands of liis incxorable enemies, to the per-
Jun™i8,i209. sonal abasement inflicted by the Church. The
scene of his humiliation may not be passed over. At
1 The Pope says expressly to Milo : " Abbas Cistercii totum faciet, et tu
organum ejus eris: Comes enim Tolosanus eum hribet suspectum; tu non
eris ei suspect us."
2 Epist. xi. 232. " Cum talis dolus prudentia sit dicendus." Such are
Innocent's own damning words. The wholt letter is in the same tone.
3 Raymond had endeavored to obtain the protection of Philip Augustus,
his liege lord for Languedoc; of the Emperor Otho, of whom he held the
Marquisate of Provence. The King and Emperor were at war (Philip
therefore did not join the Crusade); each refused to interpose, unless on
condition of breaking with his enemy.
Chap. YIII. PENANCE OF RAYMOND. 183
a Council at Montelimart he was cited to appear before
the Legates at Valence. There he fiist surrendered,
as security for his absolute submission, his seven strono-
castles — Oppede, Montferrand, Balma-, Mornac, Ro-
(juemaure, Fourgues, Faujaux.^ He was tlie.i led,
naked to the girdle, to the porch of the abbey church,
and in the presence of the Legates, and not less than
twenty bishops, before the holy Eucharist, before cer-
tain relics, and the wood of the true cross, with his
hand upon the holy Gos])els, he acknowledged the jus-
tice of his excommunication, and swore full allegiance
to the Pope and to his Legate. He swore to give ample
satisfaction, according to the Pope's orders, on all the
charges made against him, now recapitulated with ter-
rible exactness — his refusal to make peace, his protec-
tion of heretics, his violations of ecclesiastical property.
If he did not fulfil his oath his seven castles Avere at
once escheated to the Church of Rome : the county of
Melgueil, which he held of the Church of Rome, re-
verted to its liege lord : himself fell under excommuni-
cation, his lands under interdict ; his compurgators, the
Consuls of the towns in his dominions, were absolved
from their allegiance, that allegiance passed to the
Church of Rome. He swore further to respect the
rights of all the churches in the provinces of Narbonne,
Aries, Vienne, Auch, Bordeaux, Bourges. The Con-
suls of Avignon, Nismes, and St. Gilles took their
compurgatorial oath to his fulfilment of all these stip-
ulations ; the governors of the seven castles not to
restore them to the Count of Toulouse without the
consent of the Pope. These ceremonies ended, the
Count, with a rope round his neck, and scourged, as
1 See in Vai.ssette, p. 162, the situation and strength of these castles.
184 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
lie went, on his naked shoulders, was led up to the high
altar: there after a solemn recapitulation of the Pope's
commands before it, and a reiteration of the same com-
mands after it, he received the absolution.^ But his
humiliation was not complete ; by a well-contrived ac-
cident, the crowd was so great that they were obliged
to lead him close by the tomb of the murdered Peter
of Castelnau ; naked, bleeding, broken-spirited, he was
forced to show his profound respect to that spot.^
But he has not 3'et drunk the dregs of humiliation :
Raymond ucw difficulties arisc ; new demands are made :
crusadl*! tlic Couut hiiusclf must take up the cross
against his own loyal subjects ; he must a})pear at the
head, he must actually seem to direct the operations of
the invading army. Two only of his knights follow
his example. His deadly enemy assigns one nobler
motive for this act, that he might avert the Crusade
from his own subjects, another (the vulgar suggestion
of hatied) hyjwcrisy.^ He did not leave the army till
after the fall of Carcassonne.
The war was inevitable ; not even the Pope could
now have arrested it ; and the Pope himself is self-
convicted of the most cunning dissimulation. This
vast army must have its reward in plunder and mas-
sacre.* The'sidjtle distinction is at hand, it is not
1 Petr. V. C. c. 12.
2 '' O justum Dei judicium ! quern enira contempserat vivum, ei reveren-
tiam compulsus est exhibere et deluucto." — Petr. V. C. apud Bouquet,
xix. 80.
3 " Ut sic terrain suam a cruce signatorum infestatione tueretur ... 0
falsum et perlidissiinum crucesignatuiu ! Comitem Tolosaniim died, qui
crucem assumpsit, non ad vindicandam injuriam crucifixi, sed ut ad tem-
pus celare possit suam et tegore pravitatem." — Ibid.
■> " Man wollte," writes Hurler, who would apologize for the Crusade, "so
grosse Eiistungeu nicht vergeblich unternommeu haben!"' The army of
Chap. VIII. THE ALBIGENSIAN WAR. 185
waged against the Count of Toulouse, against the
Count of Languedoc, but against the heretics.
Never in the history of man were the great eternal
principles of justice, the faith of treaties, common hu-
manity so trampled under foot as in the Albigensian
war. Never was war waged in which ambition, the
consciousness of strength, rapacity, implacable hatred,
and pitiless cruelty played a greater part. And through-
out the war it cannot be disguised that it was not merely
the army of the Church, but the Church itself in arms.
Papal legates and the greatest prelates headed the host,
and minoled in all the horrors of the battle and the
siege. In no instance did they interfere to arrest the
massacre, in some cases urged it on. " Slay all, God
will know his own," was the boasted saying of Abbot
Arnold, Legate of the Pope, before Beziers, Arnold
was the captain-general of the army.^ Hardly one of
the great prelates of France stood aloof. With the
fii"st army were, at the head of their troops, the Arch-
bishops of Rheims, Sens, Rouen ; their suffragans of
Autun, Clermont, Nevers, Bayeux, Lisieux, Chartres.
The Western host was led by the Archbishop of Bor-
deaux, the Bishops of Limoges, Basas, Cahors, Agen.
A third force moved under the Bishop of Puy. The
great engineer was the Archdeacon of Paris. Fulk
Bishop of Toulouse has been described as the ecclesi-
astical De Montfort of the Crusade.^ We have the
the faith (the faith of Jesus Christ!) must not disperse without blood and
plunder I
1 Vaissette.
2 Fulk had now altogether forgotten all the favors of Raymond, of the
kings of Castile and Arragon. "II ne vit dans Raymond VI., et dans
PieiTe II., roi d' Arragon, leur tils, que des princes qui se refusaiont a, I'ex-
termination des h^retiques, que des rebelles, qui ne se soumettaient pas im-
Dlicitement a la domination du clerg^, et il devint le plus acharn^ de leurs
ennemis." — Hist. Litter, xix. p. 596.
186 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
melancholy advantage of hearing the actual voice of
one of the churchmen, who joined the army at an early
period ; and whose language may be taken as the ex-
pression of the concentred hatred and bigotry, which
was the soul of the enterprise. The Historian Peter,
Monk of Vanx Cernay, attendant on his uncle, the
Abbot of that monastery, is the boastful witness to all
these unexampled cruelties. Monkish fanaticism could
not speak more naturally, more forcibly. With him
all wickedness is centred in heresy. ^ The heretic is a
beast of prey to be slain wherever he may be found.^
And if there might be some palliation for the clergy of
Languedoc, who had been neglected, treated with con-
tumely, perhaps with insult, had seen their churches
not only deserted, perhaps sacrilegiously violated, the
Monk of Vaux Cernay was a stranger to that part of
France.^
The army which moved from Lyons along the Rhone
Advance of c^me from every province of France. Its
Crusade. numbers were never known. The Trouba-
dour declares that God never made the clerk who could
have written the muster-roll in two months, or even in
three. He reckons twenty thousand knights, two hun-
1 e. a. " Les Notres passferent au fil dV-p^e ceux qu'ils purent trouver,
mettant tout a feu et a sang. Pour quoi soit en toutes choses beni le
Seigneur qui nous livre quelques impies, bien que non pas tous! " — Coll.
des M^moires, p. 303.
2 Peter (who dedicates his work to Innocent III.) seems to have been as
ignorant, as cruel and fanatic. His notions of the opinions of the heretics
are a strange wild Jumble. They were not only Manicheans, denying the
Old Testament, and Doceta;: they held the most horrible doctrines con-
cerning John the Baptist, " one of the worst of devils;" and our Lord
himself, who was spiritually in the person of Paul. (Is this Paulicianism?)
The Good God had two wives, Collentand Collebent, by whom he had sons
and daughters. Another sect said " God had two sons, Christ and the
Devil." Peter's history is in Bouquet, t. xix., and in M. Guizot's Collec-
tion of Memoires, t. xv.
Chap. Viri. SIEGE OF BEZIERS. 187
dred thousand common soldiers, not reckonino; the
townsmen and the clerks.^ The chief secular leaders
were Eudes Duke of Burgundy, Herv^ Count of Ne-
vers, the Count of St. Pol, and Simon de Montfort
Count of Leicester. The army advanced along the
Rhone, joined as it proceeded by the vast contingents
of the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the Bishop of Puy.
At Montpellier, they were met by the young and gal-
lant Viscount of Beziers,^ Avho having ursed his uncle
Count Raymond to resistance, now endeavored to avert
the storm from his two cities, Beziers and siege of
Carcassonne. But his ruin was determined. July 22, 1209.
The army appeared before Beziers, which in the strength
of its walls and the courage of its inhabitants ^ (the
Catholics made common cause with the rest) ventured
on bold defiance.* The Bishop Reginald of Mont-
pellier demanded the surrender of all whom he might
designate as heretics. On their refusal of these terms,
the city was stormed.^ A general massacre followed ;
1 "Dieu ne fit jamais latiniste ou clerc si lettre — qui (de tout cela) put
raconter la moitit^ ni le tiers [of their crosses, banners, and barded horses]
ou ecrire les noms des (seuls) pretres et abbes." The Archbishop of Bour-
ges was alone prevented from serving by death. — Fauriel, 15.
2 According to the Troubadour, the Viscount was " bon Catholique; je
vous donne pour garanti maint clerc et maint chanoine (mangeant) en r6-
fectoire."' — p. 27.
3 •' Der Legat ergrimmte ob solcher Hartniickigkeit, wohl an denn rief er,
so soil audi kein Stein auf dem andern, kein Leben geschont werden." —
Hurter, p. 309.
*"Fortis enim et nimium locuples, populosaque valde — urbs erat, ar-
niatisque viris et milite multo — freta." — Gul. Brito.
5 The Troubadour relates a singular circimistance : the first attack was
made by the " Roi des Kibauds," with 15,000 truands, in shirts and breeches,
but without chaussures. They climbed the walls, and swarmed in the
trenches. They got all the plunder, which they were obliged to give up to
the Barons. — p. 35. Was this wild route a common part of a crusading
army '? — See the Geste of Jerusalem, where the Roi des Ribauds plays the
188 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
neither age nor sex were spared ; even priests fell in
the remorseless carnao;e. Then was uttered the fright-
ful command, become almost a proverb, " Slay them
all, God will know his own." In the church of St.
Mary Magdalene were killed seven thousand by the
defenders of the sanctity of the Church. The account
of the slain is variously estimated from twenty thou-
sand even up to fifty thousand. The city was set on
fire, even the Cathedral perished in the flames. ^
The next was Carcassonne. The Viscount of Bez-
of carcas- '^^^'^^ i" ^^^ dcspair, had thrown himself into
Sonne. ^j-^g ^^^y. ^[^\-^ g strong body of troops. The
monk relates with special indignation that these worst
of heretics and infidels destroyed the refectory and
the cellars of the Canons of Carcassonne, and even
(more execrable !) the stalls of their church to strength-
en their defences. Pedro King of Arragon appeared as
mediator in the camp of the Crusaders. Carcassonne
was held as a fief of the King. He pleaded the youth
of the Viscount ; asserted his Catholic belief, his aver-
sion to heresy : it was not his fault if his subjects had
fallen away : he was ready to submit to the Legate. The
only terms they would offer were, that he might retire
with twelve knights ; the city must surrender at dis-
cretion. The proud and gallant youth declared that
nothing should induce him (he had rather be flayed
same part in the taking of Antioch and Jerusalem. — Hist. Lit. de la
France, t. xxii. p. 363-377.
1 " 0 justissima divin» dispensationis mensural Fuit enim capta civitas
sispe dicta in festo S. Marire Magdalense." The monk howls out his de-
light at this judgment of God on account of a tenet, which he absurdly
ascribes to the heretics, " S. Mariam Magdalenam fuisse concubinam
Christi." The Viscount of Beziers had left the town (probably to defend
Carcassonne); as did the Jews: " Les Juifs I'ont suivi de pres." The Jews
had no vocation to wait and be massacred.
Chap. VIII. DEATH OF VISCOUNT BEZIERS. 189
alive) to desert the least of his subjects.^ The first
assaults, though on one occasion the bishops and abbots
and all the clergy went forth chanting " Veni Creator
Spiritus,"' ^ on another were lavish in their promises of
absolution,^ ended in failure.
Carcassonne, if equal care had been taken to provis-
ion as to fortify the city, might have resisted for a year
that disorderly host. But multitudes from all quarters
had found refiio-e within its walls. The Avells began to
fail ; infectious diseases broke out. Ere eight days the
Viscount accepted a free conduct from an officer of the
Legate : he hoped to obtain moderate terms for his
subjects. Most of the troops made their escape by
subterranean passages, and the defenceless August 15.
city came into the power of the crusaders.* The peo-
ple were allowed to leave the town, but almost naked ;^
they Avere pillaged to the utmost. But the Legate
would not allow his soldiers, under pain of excommu-
nication, to share the plunder. It was to be jy^^^.^^ ^^
reserved for a powerful baron, who was to BeSerT'
rule the land and extirpate the heretics for- '^'°''' ^°' ^^*^^-
ever. The Viscount had given himself up as a hostage ;^
1 "Cela (dit alors le roi entre ses dents) se fera tout aussitot qu'un ane
volera dans le ciel." — Fauriel, p. 51.
2 Peter V. C. xvi.
3 " Les ^veques, les prieurs, les moines, et les abb^s . . . s'en vont criant,
vite au pardon (crois^s) que faisez vous? " — Fauriel, p. 51.
•* The modern historians of this war have -wrought up a "Walter Scott
scene of treacherj', on slender foundations. — Barron et Darragon, Croi-
sades contre les Albigeois.
5 " Egressi sunt ergo omnes nudi de civitate, nihil secum -prsettir 2}eccntum
portantes." Peter V. C. — " on ne leur avait pas laisst? en sus (chose) qui
valfit un bouton." — Fauriel, p. 55.
6 " Et chose grandement folle, fit-il, a mon avis." This historian paints
the treachery of the Legate very darkly. Vaissette says that he was
seized during a confei-ence. I have followed the account least unfavorable
to the perfidious Legate-Abbot.
190 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Bo-.k IX.
he was treated as a prisoner, cast into a dungeon,
where he died in a few months, not without suspicion
of poison administered by Simon de Montfort. But
a broken spirit and foul dungeon air may relieve Simon
from a charge always asserted, rarely to be proved or
disproved. The Viscount died at the age of twenty-
four.^
The law of conquest was now to be put in force.
The lands of a heretic were as the lands of a Saracen.
The question was to which of the orthodox army
should be assigned the first fruits of the victory. The
French nobles, the Dukes of Burgundy, the Counts of
Nevers, and St. Pol, with disdainful indignation refiised
the reward of a mercenary : they had land enough of
their own ; nor would they set the perilous example of
setting up the fiefs of France to the hazard of the
sword. The zeal of Simon de Montfort was not so
noble nor so disinterested.^ He was invested, on the
Pope's authority, with all the lands conquered or to be
conquered during the Crusade. This was of fearful
omen to Raymond of Toulouse. Only a sovereign of
the whole land, of unimpeachable devotion to the Holy
See, of indefatigable activity, dauntless courage, in-
fl[exible resolution, an iron heart, could subdue the
realm to ecclesiastical obedience.
The submission of Raymond had been complete ;
it might be suspected of insincerity, it assuredly was
compulsory ; yet he had accepted the hard terms, had
surrendered his castles, had undergone the basest per-
1 Innocent's letter has misernhiUter interfectus. This was the accusation
of the King of Arragon.
2 Peter ascribes to him a show of repugnance. The historian briefly
says that Siiuon, " qui le ddsirait, le prit."
Chap. Vlir. TREACHERY OF THE POPE. 101
sonal liumiliation.^ Tlie Pope had even expressed his
approbation, and welcomed him back into the bosom
of the Church. Up to tlie taking of Carcassonne, it
miglit be with a bleeding heart, he had remained in the
Crusaders' army. He had even attempted to concili-
ate Simon de Montfort, by the demand of De Mont-
fort's daughter in marriage for his son.
But Raymond had been too deeply injured to be
forgiven ; and nothing less than the whole South could
fully repay the zeal and valor of the Crusaders. The
treachery of the Count rests on suspicion ; that of the
Legate, and it must be sadly confessed, of the Pope
himself, on his own words. Treachery was his deliber-
ate, avowed design. Innocent had enjoined, and now
only followed out his policy of deceiving Count Ray-
mond by feigned reconciliation, so to separate him from
the rest of the Languedocian nobles, and to destroy
them, one by one, with the greater ease. And to justi-
fy this, the Vicar of Christ abuses the words of an
Apostle of Christ.^
The Legates were apt disciples of their master. It
1 Epist. xii. 90. The monk relates this storj': — Two heretics were con-
demned to be burned. One ottered to recant. A great altercation arose
whether he was to be spared. The Count decided that he should be
burned. " If he is a true convert, the fire will be an expiation for his sins.
If not, it will be a just penalty for his sins." The man was saved by some-
thing like a miracle. — c. xxii. Can this be true ?
2 " Quia vero a nobis sollicite est requisitum, qualiter procedendum sit
circa comitatum eundem fideli exercitui (cruce) signatorum, quatenus ad
apostoli dicentis, ' Cum essem astulus, (Mo vos cepi,^ magisterium recurrentes,
cum talis dolus prudentia potius sit dicendus, cum eorundem signatorum
prudentioribus opportune consilio, divisos ab ecclesiiC unitate divisum ca-
pere studentes, dummodo videritis quod ex hoc idem comes vel uliis minus
assistere, vel per se ipsum minus debeat insanire, non statim incipientes ab
ipso, sed eo priniitus arte prudentis disdmulationis eluso, ad extirpandos
alios hsereticos transeatis." — Epist. 232.
192 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
was easy to demand impossible things, to assume the
Continued bi'each of the stipuhitions on wliich the Count
of iujmond. had received absolution, and to claim the for-
feiture. The Legates seem to have dreaded the in-
fluence of Raymond's agents at Rome ; they suspect-
ed even the Pope of weak lenity. The Count had
boasted that the Emperor Otho, and even the King of
France, had interceded in his behalf. Instead, there-
fore, of innncdiately renewing the excommunication
and the interdict on account of fifteen articles, on
which they charged him with not having fidfilled his
promises, they allowed him a certain time to give full
satisfaction. The seven castles they significantly hint-
ed, of which he prayed the restitution, were strong
enough to resist any attack, and had already escheated
to the See of Rome.^
Ravmond had hardly returned to Toulouse, when an
embassy arrived from the Legate Arnold and Simon de
Montfort, demanding the instant surrender of all here-
tics and all abettors of heresy within his dominions to
the ecclesiastical power, and of all their property to be
at the disposal of the Crusaders. In vain it was plead-
ed by some of the designated fautors of heresy that
they were of orthodox belief, and had been already
reconciled to the Church by the Legate himself. In
vain Count Raymond declared that he appealed to the
Pope. At Valence the excommunication was again
Sept. 1209. hurled against his person, the interdict laid
on his dominions. Raymond seized the desperate meas-
ure of going himself to Rome, and throwing himself
on the justice, he might fondly hope the mercy, of the
1 Compare the two letters of INIilo, the Legate, to the Pope. — xii. 106.
107.
Chap. YIII. RAYMOND IN EOME. 193
Po])e. Innocent, in the mean time, had committed
himself to a triumphant approbation of all the exploits
of the Crusaders ; he liad invested Simon de Montfort
in the conquered territories, and exhoi'ted him, for the
remission of his sins, as he had extir])ated, so to keep
his new realm free from the contagion of heresy.^
Simon de Montfort is his beloved son, the acknowledged
hero of the Holy War.^
Raymond visited the Court of France before he
Avent to Rome. His reception by the Pope Raymond
was not promising. The Pope, by one ac- '° ^"^^'
count, heaped on him so many reproaches as almost to
reduce him to despair.^ According to others, he was
received with courtesy by the Pope and by the Cardi-
nals. Innocent spoke with fairness on the restitution
of the seven castles : it did not become the Church of
Rome to enrich itself with such spoils : the right of
the Count was by no means annulled by the cession.
The Pope condescended to hear the confession of Count
Raymond ; showed him the Veronica, and allowed him
to touch the holy face of the Lord; he gave him abso-
lution ; bestowed on him a costly mantle and a precious
1 " In remissionem tibi peccaminum injungentei5 quntenus attendendo
prudenter quod non minor est virtus quam qujerere, parta tueri." — Epist.
xii. 123.
■^ The Pope wrote to the Archbishops of Aries, Besan^on, Vienne, Aix,
Narbonne, Lyons, and others, to compel by ecclesiastical censures all who
had lent money to the Crusaders, especially the Jews — there must have
more than censures against the Jews — not to exact interest (it passed un-
der the odious name of usury) for their loans. — xii. 136.
3 " Quern Dominus Papa tot conviciis lacessivit, contumeliis tot confudit,
quod quasi in desperatione positus, quid ageret, ignorabat. Ipsum siqui-
dem dicebat incredulum, crucis persecutorem, fidei inimicum, et vere sic
erat." — Petr. V. C. c. 33. The monk may have given to the Pope some
of his own bitter passion. The historian says Raj-mond was received with
honar.
VOL. V. 13
194 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
ring from his own fingers. The harshness would per-
haps be hardly less Paj)al than these specious courtesies.
From Innocent's words and acts, it is clear that these
outward honors were cautiously, jealously, if not de-
ceptively bestowed. Notwithstanding the absolution,
Count Raymond was to appear in three months before
a council to be assembled by the Legates, to purge
himself from all charge of countenancing heretics,
and all concern in the murder of Peter of Castelnau.
What may be called the secret instructions to the Leg-
ate (Milo was dead), to the Abbot Arnold, recom-
mended him to consult on all points the Canon Theo-
disc, who was alone in possession of his real sentiments.
But Theodisc was to act only under the orders of
Arnold, to be his instrument of deception, under the
bait of feigned gentleness to conceal the iron hook of
severity, and so delude again the devoted Count.^ It
was Innocent's object not to goad him to despair. Ray-
mond must not be driven to head the strono; reaction
which had already begun against the usurpation and
tyranny of De Montfort.^
The success of the Crusade had been beyond expec-
Progressof tatioii ; the two strong cities, Beziers and
Crusade. Carcassouue, had fallen in little more than
two months. From the panic, and from force, five
hundred castles and towns had surrendered or yielded
1 " In hamo sagacitatis tuae positus quasi esca, ut per earn piscem capias
fluctuanteni, cui tanquam saluberrimam tuse piscatationis abhorrenti doc-
triiiam quodam prudenti mansuetudinis artificio severitatis ferruin neces-
sarium est abscondi." And Innocent again makes his favorite quotation:
" Cum essem astutus dolo vos cepi."
2 " Veruntamen cogitaiis Dominus Papa, ne in desperationem versus ec-
clesiam, quae in Narbonensi provincia erat, impugnaret aerius et manifes-
lius dictus comes, indixit ei."' He orders him to clear himself of the crime
of heresy, and that of the murder. — Petr. V. C. c. 33.
Chap. VIII. PROGRESS OF CRUSADE. 195
after a sliort siege.^ The Count of Toulouse, the
King of Arragon, had issued decrees against the here-
tics. The Count of Foix (De Montfort had entered
Castres), with Albi, Pamiers, Mirepois, offered terms.
Simon de Montfort had now a kingdom. But on the
approach of winter, far the larger part of the French
barons, bishops, and knights returned home ; De Mont-
fort remained with the few troops whom he could afford
to pay. The Pope, indeed, commanded the archbish-
ops to give up to Simon, for the maintenance of his
army, large sums which the heretics, or those accused
of heresy, had deposited in their hands for safe custody.
But many towns had already raised the standard of
revolt; the King of Arragon resolutely refused his
homage for the parts of the territory which were his
iiefs. But with the spring new crusaders crowded
around De Montfort's banner, the Bishops of Chartres
and Beauvais. Many towns and castles, Alyonne,
Bram, Alairac, Ventalon, Montreal, Constassa, Puy-
vert, Castres, Lomberes, fell. Minerve, a siege of
fortress of great strength at the border of the A-D^^mo.
Cevennes, on a high rock girded by deep ravines, made
a long and vigorous resistance. Provisions failed ; the
lord of the castle proposed to surrender. Now ap-
peared the darkening atrocity of the war.^ Even De
1 " Captisque fere quingentis turn castcllis, quse per possesses suos diabo-
lus habitabat." — Petr. V. C.
2 According to the monk of Vaux Cernay, Gerald de Pepieux had be-
trayed Simon de Montfort; he was a cruel enemy of the faith, and had
barbarously mutilated some of his soldiers. — c. 27. Mutilation became a
common practice. The monk, of course, lays the blame of commencing it
on the heretics, for Simon was the gentlest (mitissimus) of mankind. — c.
34. Montfort, in fact, had put to the sword the garrisons of several cas-
tles belonging to Pepieux. The whole garrison of Montlaur was hanged.
A hundred of that of Bram had their eyes put out; one eye was left to the
196 LATIN CHRISTIAXITY. Book IX.
Montfort would have accepted the capitulation ; but the
fiercer Cistercian Abbot, unwilling that the enemies of
God should escape, sought even fraudulent means of
baffling or eluding the treaty. De Montfort left it to
the decision of the Abbot, who as a churchman could
not openly ui'ge the rejection of pacific terms.^ Arnold
decided that of the heretics all believers who should ab-
solutely submit to the mandates of the Church, should
have their lives spared : even the Perfect, of whom
there were multitudes, might escape if they would
recant. A fierce knight, Robert de Molesme, the
agent of De Montfort with the Pope, protested against
this ill-timed leniency, " Fear not," said the Abbot,
" few will there be whose lives will be spared." Mi-
nerve surrendered. The cross was placed on the keep
of the castle, the banner of De Montfort waved below
it. Arnold was riglit.^ The Abbot of Vaux Cernay
preached in vain to the heretics; the women were more
obstinate than the men. A hundred and forty of the
July 23. Perfect spared their persecutors the trouble
of casting them on the vast pile; they rushed headlong
of their own accord into the flames.
The castle of Termes Avas of still greater strength ;
OfTermes. it might defy with a prudent and resolute
capt'n, in order to conduct his soldiers to Cabaret. — Vaissette, iii. p. 191.
A priest, who had revolted from De Montfort, was taken to Carcassonne,
degraded, dragged at the tail of a horse through the town, then hanged.
1 Histoire de la Guerre, Petr. V. C. I quote the French: "A ces paroles
rAl)be fut grandement niarri pour le d^sir qu'il avait que les ennemis du
Christ fussent mis a mort, et n'osant cependant les y condamner vu qu'il
^tait moine et pretre." — In Collection des M^moires.
2 Petr. V. C. c. 36, 37. Miracles followed the capture of Minerve, " et
ils briilaient maint f^lon d'hi^rt'tique (fils) de pute chienne, et mainte folle
m^creante, qui brait dans le feu." Such is the brief merciless account of
the Troubadour, p. 79. Compare the Histoire, c. xviii.
Chap. VIII. COUNT OF TOULOUSE FURTHER ARASED. 197
commander (an obstinate heretic) any attack. The
siege lasted four months ; the Bishops of Beauvais and
Chartres, as well as the Count Robert and the Count
of Poitou, retired in despair.^ The great enguieer, the
Archdeacon of Paris, adhered to the army to the last.
The garrison broke away at length through subterra-
nean passages. The Governor was taken, Nov. 23, 1210.
and shut up in a dungeon for life ; the town given up
to j)lunder; the heretics burned; their shrieks were
mocked by their persecutors.^
The Count of Toulouse now uro;ed the fulfilment
of the Pope's decree. He offered to appear before a
Council to justify himself concerning the charges on
which he was arraigned. But the crafty churchmen,
the Genoese Canon Theodisc (the depositor of the
Pope's secret views), and the Abbot Arnold (with
whom was now joined the Bishop of Riez) had other
intentions. They contrived delays ; they made demands,
and insisted that such demands should be Sept. 1210.
rigidly accomplished before they would ad- mands on
? ,". • Q A " -1 CouatRay-
mit hnn to compurgation. "* A council was n.u, ,1.
at length held at St. Gilles. When the Count found
1 The French knights were so disposed to gain the advantages of Indul-
gences on the easiest terms, that the Legate was obliged to order that no
one should receive an Indulgence without forty days' service. Petr*V. C.
c. 43.
2 In this fearful civil war the Bishop of Carcassonne was among the Cru-
saders. His brother, Williiim of Rochfort, as the monk says, one of the
worst and most cruel enemies of the Church, was with Raymond, who
commanded in Termes.
3 " Cum intrasset magister Theodiscus Tholosam, habuit secretuni collo-
quium cum Abbate Cisterciensi super admittenda purgatione Comitis
Tholosani. Magister vero Theodiscus, utpote circumspectus et providus,
ad hoc omnimodis aspirabat, ut po.«sit de jure repellere ab indicanda ei pur-
gatione comitem memoratum." They charitably averred " facilliuie, immo
liibentissime, per se et suos complices pejeraret." — c. 39.
198 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
his adversaries so utterly implacable, lie was moved, it
is said, to tears. The stony-hearted churchman scoffed
in Scriptural language at his hypocritical weeping.^
He left St. Gilles burdened with a new anathema.
Another conference at Narbonne was equally without
effect, and still another at Montpellier. At length, at
a council in Aries, the Legates boldly threw off all
concealment of their inflexible hatred. They sum-
moned the Count before their tribunal, and haughtily
commanded him not to leave the city without their per-
Feb 1212. mission.^ Their terms were these : I. That
Count Raymond should lay down his arms, dismiss his
troops, not retaining a single follower. II. That he
should be obedient to the Church, pay all the expenses
which they might charge on him, and during his whole
life submit himself without contradiction. III. In the
whole kingdom no one should eat of more than two
kinds of meat. IV. That he should expel all heretics
and their abettors from his dominions. V. That before
the end of the year he should deliver up to the Legate
and to Count de Montfort every person whom they
might demand, to be dealt with according to their ar-
bitrament. VI. No one in his dominions, either noble
or serf, was to wear costly garments, only dark and
coarse mantles. VII. He was to raze all fortresses
1 " In diluvio aquarum multariim ad Deum non approximatis." So the
"Vulgate. Our version is, " Surely in the floods of great waters the)- shall
not come nigh him." Ps. xxxii. 6. The canon spake thus: " Sciens quod
lacrymw ill* non erant lacryma; devotionis et pccnitentiae sed nequitias et
doloris — doli ? " — Ibid.
2 The Legates were greatly oflfended that Count Rayfliond had left Mont-
pellier al)riiptly, without even the courtesy of taking leave. He had seen
an evil omen (says the monk), the St. Mark's bird. "Ipse enim more
Snrncenorum in volatu et cantu avium et cteteris anguriis spem habebat."
— Petr. V. C.
Chap. VIII. DEMANDS ON COUNT RAYMOND. 199
and castles in his dominions. VIII. No one of his
men, unless a noble, was to live within any walled
town. IX. No taxes to be levied in the land, except
the ancient and statutable payments. X. Every head
of a family was to pay yearly fourpence to the Legate,
to be collected by the Legate's agents. XI. All tithe
to be restored to the Church, and all arrears of tithe.
XII. When the Legate travelled through the land, he
was to be entertained without cost : his meanest fol-
lower was not to pay for anything. XIII. When he
had executed all these conditions. Count Raymond was
to set out on a crusade against the infidel Tui'ks, and
not return Avithout permission of the Legate. XIV.
All these terms duly fulfilled, his lands would be re-
stored to him by the Legate and the Count de Mont-
fort.i
These terms were dictated, it was thought, by the
Count's irreconcilable enemy, the Bishop of Toulouse.
The King of Arragon was in Aries. He had been
jealously watching the course of events.^ At Mont-
pellier he had reluctantly received the homage of Simon
de Montfort for Carcassonne. At the same time he
had strengthened his connection with the House of
Toulouse by the marriage of his daughter Sancha with
the young Count Raymond. At these extravagant de-
mands, Raymond broke out into bitter laughter. " You
are well paid," said the King of Arragon. The ban
of excommunication was again pronounced, with more
than usual solemnity.
Raymond hastened to Toulouse ; he summoned the
1 Histoire de la GueiTe, xx. Vaissette, iii. note xvi. Chroniques apud
Bouquet, p. 136.
2 Compare the long and striking account of the Troubadour, p. 99.
200 LATIN CnRISTIANlTY. Book IX.
Council of the city. The Toulousans declared that they
would submit to the worst extremity rather than ac-
cept such shameful conditions. There was the same
enthusiasm throughout his dominions. " They would
all die. They would eat their own children ere they
would abandon their injured sovereign."' ^
War was now declared, but war on what unequal
Raymond tcmis ! Hcrc stood Dc jNloutfort, the re-
arms, sistless conqueror, the absolute model of a
crusading chieftain ; of noble birth. Lord of Amauri
in France, of Evreux in Normandy, Count of Leices-
ter in England. We have seen De Montfort stand
majestically alone in the army before Zara, the one
knight loyal to the Pope. Faithful to the cause of the
Cross, he was unsurpassed in valor as in military skill ;
beloved by his army, and not alone from their perfect
reliance on his unbroken success ; his soldierlike gen-
tleness to the true servants of Christ vied with his re-
morseless hatred of the unbeliever. Which of these
virtues did not secure him the most profound adoration
from the hierarchy of which he was the champion ? A
holy monk of the Abbot Arnold's own Cistercian
house was interrupted, it was told, in his prayers for
the Count of Leicester by a voice from Heaven :
" Why pray for him ? for him so many pray inces-
santly, there is no need for thy orisons." And now
De Montfort's three ruling passions — religion, ambi-
tion, interest, conspired to his grandeur. On the other
hand, was the irresolute Count Raymond, only goaded
1 "Les hommes du paj's, chevaliers et bourgeois, quand ils enteiidirent
la cliarte qui leur fut lue . . . dirent qu'ils aimaient mieux etre tous tues
ou pris, que de souflVir, ou de faire rien au monde (une chose) qui t'erait
d'eux tous des serfs, des vilains, ou des paysaiis." — Fauriel, 102.
Chap. VIII. BISHOP OF TOULOUSE. 201
into valor Ly intolerable fraud and wrong ; who witli-
out bigotry had betrayed and persecuted the religion of
his subjects ; now debased by the most miserable hu-
miliation ; without military skill, with no fame for
prowess in battle; mistrusted by all, as mistrusting
himself.
Yet the war has in some degree changed its charac-
ter : it has still all the blackening ferocity of a re-
ligious war; but it is also the revolt of a high-spirited
nation against a foreign invader ; a noble determination
to cast off a cruel and usurping tyranny. The Trou-
badour, the poet of the war, for above three thousand
verses has dwelt on the glory of the temporal and
spiritual champions of the faith, Simon de Montfort
and the Bishop Fulk of Toulouse. He has revelled in
the sufferings of the heretics, mocked the shrieks of the
burning women.^ There is a sudden chanoe. The
Crusade is now a work of savage iniquity, outraging
humanity and religion ; Count Raymond is the noblest,
most injured of men. But the high Provencal pa-
triotism of the Troubadour is only the love of his
country, attachment to the ancient house of the Counts
of Toulouse : he has no sympathy for heretic or Albi-
gensian.
In Toulouse the Count and the Bishop could not but
come into collision. There was civil war in jjj,hop of
the city. The Count had foolishly yielded '^°"'°"^«-
up the strong citadel, " The Narbonnaise." In the
city the zealous Catholics prevailed. The Bishop or-
ganized a strong confraternity to root out with armed
force the heretics, usurers, and Jews. They attacked,
l"Mainte folle h^rt^tique beiigle dans le feu." This is of the females
Durned at Mireux. — Compare Fauriel's preface.
202 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
and in their religious zeal, pillaged and demolished
houses. The borough, on the other side, was inhabited
by the nobles. There the heretics had the chief power.
Against the White Brethren of the Bishop were ar-
rayed the Black Brethren of the citizens. The Bishop
refused to celebrate, to permit the celebration, of any
divine office, so long as the city was infected by the
presence of an excommunicated person. He had the
modesty to request the Count to retire, on the pretence
of an excursion, in order that he might perform at
least one uncontaminated and undisturbed function.^
The Count sent word by some of his soldiers that the
Bishop himself must leave the city. " I was not elected
to my see by a temporal prince, but by ecclesiastical
authority. Let him come if he dare ; I will encounter
his sword with the holy chalice." Yet the Bishop
thought himself more safe in the camp of De Montfort,
now enoao-ed in the siege of Lavaur.^
Lavaur belonged to Roger Bernard, Count of Foix,
Siege of f^f ^11 the ProveuQal princes the most power-
Lavaur. £|^| ^^^^ ^^^^^ dctcsted by the Church, as, if
not a heretic, a favorer of heretics. In this case the
charge was an honor rather than a calumny. The
Count of Foix is claimed by the Waldensians, if not
as one of themselves, as having encouraged his son in
freedom of faith.^ A man of profound religion, the
1 The Bishop, says the Troubadour, had been established " pour Seigneur
dans la ville, avee grande solemnity, comme un empereur." — p. 103.
2 Petr. V. C. c. 51.
3 According to the life of Roger Bernard, son of the Count by Holagarai,
quoted in Perrin, Histoire des Chretiens Albigens (Geneve, 1615), p. 140,
the Count of Foix, on his submission in 1222, answered the Legate —
" Certes je vous dirai que je n'ai jamais desire que de maintenir ma lib-
erty: car je suis dans le maillot de franchise. . . . Pour le Pape, je ne I'ai
point offens^: car il ne m'a rien demande comme Prince que je ue lui aye
Chap. VIII. SIEGE OF LAVAUR. 203
Count of Foix had been the first to raise the native
standard against De Montfort ; he was a knight of
valor as of Christian faith. Before Lavaur, the be-
siegincp engines were surmounted with a cross ; and it
was held sacrilegious impiety, when the besieged, hav-
ing battered down one limb of the cross, presumed to
scoiF. One day the besiegers attempted to storm the
city ; the engines were driven to the walls, the besieged
hurled burning wood and fat vapon them ; amid all this
horrible tumult, the Bishops and the Legates, as before,
stood chanting, " Come Huly Ghost ! " At the fall of
Lavaur Simon had been irritated by the surprise of a
detachment of five thousand German crusaders, who
had been cut to pieces by the Count de Foix. The
barbarity at Lavaur passed all precedent even in this
fearful war. A general massacre was permitted ; men,
women, children were cut to pieces, till there remained
nothing to kill except some of the garrison and others
reserved for a more cruel fate. Four hundred were
burned in one great pile, which made a wonderful
blaze, and caused universal rejoicing in the camp.^
Aymeric of Montreal, the commander, was brought
with eighty nobles (Lavaur seems to have been thought
a safe place of refuge) before De Montfort. He or-
dered them all to be hanged ; ^ the o^"erloaded gibbets
broke down ; they were hewn in pieces. Giralda, the
Lady of Lavaur, was thrown into a well, and Ma> 5, 1211.
ob^i. II ne se doit mesler de ma religion, veu qu'un chacun la doit avoir
libre. Mon phre, m^a recommaiidc toujours ceste liberty, afin qu'etant en
cette posture, quand le ciel crouleroit je le puisse regarderd'un ceil ferine
et assure, estimant qu'il ne me pourrait faire de mal," &c. I owe this cita-
tion to Gieseler, p. 592.
1 "Les envoyant ainsi brCiler d'un feu ^ternel." — Gestes Glorieuses in
Guizot, Coll. des M^moires.
2 "Jamais (says the poet) dans la Chr^tiente si haut baron ne fut je
crois pendu, avec tant d'autres chevaliers a ses cot^s." — p. 113.
204 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
huge stones rolled down upon* her. She was pregnant :
her merciless enemy would not even spare her fame ;
they reported that she accused herself of the most re-
volting incest.^ The Troubadour, on the other hand,
praises her virtue, her chastity : " no poor man ever
left her without being fed." Soon after, Simon de
Montfort surprised a camp of Count Raymond. The
Bishops preached in vain to five hundred heretics, but
converted not one ; sixty, however, they burned with
great joy.^ From Lavaur De Montfort advanced to
the siege of Toulouse. The Bishop was in his camp.
At the Bishop's command, all the clergy, barefooted,
and bearing the host, marched out of the city ; they
were followed by five hundred of the White Brethren.
But want of supplies, and the bold sallies of the gar-
rison, forced him to break up the siege ; he revenged
June 27, 1211. himself by wasting the gardens, vineyards,
and meadows. At the end of the year, when the cru-
saders returned home, De Montfort himself was be-
sieged in Castel Naudery : he revenged himself by a
terrible defeat of the Count de Foix.
During the close of the year and the following one,
the war raged, still to the advantage of De Montfort.
The Archbishops of Rheims, Rouen, the Bishops of
Paris, Laon, Toul were with him. At one time even
Innocent, moved perhaps by the murmurs of Philip
Auo-ustus who began to be jealous of the growing
power of De Montfort, seemed to waver into justice.^
He commanded the restitution of the lands of the
1 "De fratre et filio se concepisse dixit." — Chron. Turon. apucl Fauriel,
p. 113.
2 The Toulousans did not wage the war with less ferocity: at the talking
of Pajols, sixty knights were slain or hung.
8 Petr. V. C. 70. The Pope was nimis credulus falsis suggestionibus
dicti regis (of France); afterwards he acted, re melius cognita.
Chap. VIII. DE MOXTFORT SOVEREIGN PRINCE. 205
Counts of Foix and Comminges, and of Gaston de
Beam. He suspended his indulgences to the Crusa-
ders. But he soon revoked again his o-\vn concessions,
returned to his haughty and hostile tone, ordered the
whole people to be raised by the offer of indulgences
against the men of Toulouse and their allies, j^^^ jgii
At a great parliament at Pamicrs, De Mont- sovere"ga""
fort a])peared as a Sovereign Prince ; already ^"°'^''-
the estates of the Languedocian nobles were awarded
to the northern conquerors. It was euacted that iioble
women, heiresses of free fiefs, sliould/onlj\marry/the |
nobles of France, those who spoke the langue d'oil.
To win popularity against the nobles, the peasants and
serfs were declared exempt from arbitrary payments.
The churchmen must not be without their share of the
spoil. The Legate Arnold obtained the Archbishopric
of Narbonne. The successor of Stephen Harding and
St. Bernard was not content with the metropolitan dio--
nity ; he assumed the proud feudal title, involving great
secular rights, of Duke of Narbonne. The Abbot of
Vaux Cernay had the Bishopric of Carcassonne ; other
Cistercian monks received wealthy benefices. The
Archbishop of Auch, the Bishop of Beziers were de-
posed ; ^ the engineer, the Archdeacon of Paris, de-
clined the Bishopric of Beziers.
Count Raymond, before the close of the year, had
lost all but Toulouse and Montauban ; he fled to the
King of Arragon ; the gallant Spaniard declared that
he would support his cause (he was connected by a
double tie) against the wicked race who would despoil
1 The Archbishop of Auch, Bernard de la Barthe (a Troubadour poet),
resisted his degradation till 1214: he still boldly adhered to the side of
Raymond.
206 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
him of his lieritao-e.^ The Consuls of Toulouse ad-
dressed a supplication likewise to the King against
their Bishop and against the Legate. They declared
that they always gave proofs of their orthodoxy against
convicted heretics ; they had burned many, were ready
to burn more.^ They accused the Legate and the
Bishop of excommunicating them, because they em-
ployed routiers (the soldiers of fortune) whom them-
selves did not scruple to buy off by higher pay, though
guilty of the worst and most sacrilegious crimes. The
very soldiers who had murdered certain priests (on this
the monk of Vaux Cernay dwells, as the great crime
of the Toulousans) had been enlisted among his own
troops by the Legate.
The King of Arragon, before he engaged in the war,
King of made an appeal to the Pope. Innocent was
Arragon. again shaken, and began to have some mis-
trust in the representations of his Legates. He had
set in motion a terrible engine, he could not arrest or
regulate its movements. The Pope wrote to the Arch-
bishop of Narbonne (the Abbot Arnold) and to Simon
de Montfort, recounting the charges made against them.
" They had not only invaded lands infected with her-
esy, but stretched out their rapacious hands to seize
those of Catholics ; ^ while the King of Arragon was
engaged against the Saracens, they had infringed on his
rights, waged war on his vassals, and occupied his terri-
1 " II est mon beau frere, dit-il, il a Spouse une de mes soeurs, et I'autre
je I'ai donnee pour femnie a son fils. J'irai done les secourir contre cette
m^chante race, qui veut leur enlever leur heritage." — Fauriel, p. 199.
2 " Unde multos combussinuis, et adhue cum inveninius, idem facere non
cessamus." — See the petition in Bouquet, p. 206.
8 " Ad illas nihilominus terras, quic super hseresi nulla notabantur in-
faniia manus avidas extendistis." — Epist. xv. 212.
Chap. VIII. KIXG OF ARRAGON. 207
tories. Count Raymond had offered to surrender all
his dominions to his son, against whom was no charge
or suspicion of heresy. Raymond should be admitted
(the Pope now urged, or had before urged) to compur-
gation." Simon de Montfort was accused of wantonly
shedding Catholic blood, under the pretence of extir-
pating heresy ; ^ he was commanded to restore the
territories which lie had unjustly usurped, to the King
of Arragon. But even the all-powerful Innocent was
powerless in the cause of justice and humanity : his
compunctious visitings of mercy found no heax-ing even
among the churchmen of the Crusade. The Council
of Lavaur, attended by two archbishops as Legates,
and by a great number of prelates, with one voice, de-
termined to come to no terms with the " tyrant and
heretic of Toulouse." If his dominions were restored
to him heresy must triumph. All the representations
of the King of Arragon in favor of the Counts of
Toulouse, of Foix, and Comminges, and of Gaston de
Beam, were contemptuously rejected. Their letters
were absolutely furious — " Arm yourself, my Lord
Pope, with the zeal of Phineas ; annihilate Toulouse,
that Sodom, that Gomorrah, with all the wretches it
contains ; let not the tyrant, the heretic Raymond, nor
even his young son, lift up his head ; already more than
half crushed, crush them to the very utmost." Inno-
1 " Quod tu convertens in Catholicos manus tuas, quibus suflFecisse debu-
erat in hontines hiereticas pravitatis extendi per crucesignatorum excrcitiim
ad effusionem justi sanguinis et innocentium injuriam provocasti." — Epist.
XV. 21-3. Simon is impaled on the horns of a pontifical dilemma. I^ither
the inhabitants were Catholics or heretics: if Catholics, he had no right to
invade their lands ; if heretics, he ought not to let them live peaceably un-
der his dominion.
208 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
cent was once more on their side ; he threatened the
Kino; of Arrao-on with a new Crusade.^
The great victory of Mviret, in which Simon de
Battle of Montfort with A'ery inferior forces (he had
Sept. 12, 1213. at most about 1000 men-at-arms, about 400
squires) totally defeated, witli the loss of one knight
and a few common soldiers, the combined forces of the
King of Arragon and the Count of Toulouse, seemed
to decide forever the fite of the devoted land.^ Pedro
of Arragon, the victor of Navas de Tolosa, was slain ;
his infant son, afterwards James I., fell into the hands
of the conqueror at Carcassonne. The Counts of Tou-
louse, the lather and son, fled.
The Pope, on the occasion of his sending a new
April 18 Legate, the Cardinal Deacon, Peter of Bene-
i'.ii4. vento. Cardinal of St. Mary in Aquirre, in
strange apocalyptic language celebrates this triumph,^
" The Red Horse (the Count of Toulouse) and his
soldiers, conjoined with the Black Horse of heresy,
had been discomfited. The sign which Innocent had
1 Epist. xvi. 28, 40. Hurter, with whom all Innocent's acts must be
saintly, is obliged to take refuge in the imperfect information of the Pope,
and the abuse of his confidence by his agents: an excuse for a weak pon-
tiff, but not for one whose sagacity and penetration are so highly colored
by Hurter himself. " Wenn wahrend dieses Krieges manches sich ereignete
was mit Betriibniss erfiillen muss, oder wenn derselbe in Raum und Zeit
weiter sich erforderte, als die Erreichung des Zwecks, wozu er unternom-
men worden, so fiillt hierv^on keine Schuld auf Innocenz, der nicht iiberall
sehen, in vielem auf Berichte von Miinnern sich verlassen musste, die
seinen Vertrauen zu ihnen nicht immermehr so ehrten, wie es dem Besten
der Kirche wiinschbar war." Vorrede — p. A'i. Gestes Glorieuses.
2 Guizot, XV. 343. While the battle was going on, the whole clergy,
bishops, abbots, continued chanting, so that they seemed " plutot hurler
que prier." They chose the day of battle, that of the elevation of the
cross. — Puj- Laurent,
3 Epist. xvi. 107, dated Jan. 17, 1214.
Chap. VIII. TERMS OF SUBMISSION. 209
raised on the dark mountain had gathered the vahant
and the holy of the Lord to his aid. They had tram-
pled down the pride of the Chaldeans." The new
Legate received the submission of the conquered
princes, the Counts of Foix and Comminges and
Rousillon, and the Viscount of Narbonne. They
were sworn to renounce all heresy, all protection, all
connivance with heretics ; to surrender, if requii-ed,
all their principal fortresses to the Church of Rome
and her Legate, to give no succor to the city of Tou-
louse. If they fulfilled not these conditions, their
castles escheated to the Pope ; they were excommu-
nicate, declared enemies and traitors to the Roman
See. Even the Count of Toulouse was permitted to
make his submission, but under harder conditions.
Our compassion for the fate of Count Raymond is
mitigated by the horror of his last act ; he surprised
his brother Baldwin, who had fallen off to De Mont-
fort, and hung him on a walnut-tree.^ Raymond now
surrendered all his dominions, which he had before
made over to his son, without reservation, to the See
of Rome. He placed his person at his enemies' dis-
posal, and offered to retire to England, if they should
so decree, till he covdd make his peace. He promised
to procure the submission of his son to the mercy of
the Pope. Yet, if we are to believe the monk of Vaux
Cernay, even mercy on these terms was but a fraud
practised on the nobles, to give De Montfort time to
subdue the still refractory cities, Agens, Cahors, Tou-
louse ; a pious fraud suggested by God's Holy Spirit!^
1 It IS even said, but by the Monk, that the Count of Foix and his son
tied the rope.
2 " Egit ergo misericorditer divina dispositio, ut durn Legatus hostes fidei
VOL. V. 14
210 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Simon cle Montfort had strengthened himself by the
Simon de marriage of his son with Beatrice, heiress of
^°,sen^ord Dauphinj. At a council at Montpellier, held
of^u.e whole ^^^^ g^ ^^15, the Legate demanded the ad-
vice of five archbishops, twenty-eight bishops, many
abbots and dignitaries, as to the course to be pursued
with regard to the conquered territory. With one as-
sent they chose Simon de Montfort Prince and Sov-
ereign of the whole land. Thus all the native and
hereditary princes were deposed ; the old ancestral
house of Toulouse, erewhile the greatest territorial
princedom in France without excepting even the King,
connected by blood or marriage with all the Sovereigns
of Europe, was despoiled of all : the whole of Lan-
guedoc. Catholic as well as heretical inhabitants, were
transferred to a new master.^
Toulouse submitted ; Prince Louis, son of Philip
Auo-ustus, who had now joined the Crusade, the Car-
dinal, the Bishop Fulk, and Simon de Montfort, held
secret councils, whether to pillage or burn the city;
but De Montfort did not wish to ruin himself by de-
stroying his own splendid and hard-won capital.^ The
qui Narbon* erant congregati, alliccret et compesceret fraude sua, Comes
Montisfortis et peregrini, qui venerunt a Francia, possent transire ad partes
catureenses et aginenses, et suos. immo Christi, impugnare inimicos. 0
Legati fraus pia! 0 pietas fi-audulenta ! " — Petr. V. C. c. 78.
1 " C'est ainsi que Raymond VI., Comte de Toulouse, fut depouille de
tous ses ^tats, et que ce Prince, le plus grand terrier qui fut alors dans le
royaume, sans en excepter le roi meme, se vit entiu rt^duit a ne poss^der
plus ime pouce de terre, sans que les liens de sang qui I'attachaient a
presque tous les souverains de I'Europe fussent capables de le mettre a
I'abri des entreprises de ceux qui en voulaient plus a ses dominions qu'a sa
croyance." — Vaissette, p. 285.
2 " Cependant le fils du Roi de France, qui consent a mal, Don Simon, le
Cardinal, et Folquet tous ensemble proposent en secret de saccager (d'abord)
toute la ville; puis d'y mettre le feu ardent (pour la bruler). Mais Don
Simon refl^chit, que s'il d^truit la ville, ce sera a son dommage." — Fau-
CnAP.VIir. FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL. 211
Legate took possession of the strong castle, the Nar-
boimaise. The young Count Avithdrew to England,
followed, after some time, by his father. The Crusade
of Prince Louis of France was a triumphant proces-
sion— he met no resistance. The walls of Toulouse
and Narbonne were thrown down. But if the pomp
was with Prince Louis, the gain of the victory Avas
with De Montfort. Philip Augustus had never ap-
proved of his son's Crusade ; he beheld this new realm
of De Montfort with no favorable eyes. When Louis
appeared before him, on his return from the South, and
described the w^ealth and power of Simon, the King
gave no answer.^
The fourth Late ran Council, ^ one of the most numer-
ous ever held in Christendom,^ was called Fourth Late-
upon to decide the course to be taken against a.d. 1215.''
heretics, and especially the fate of Languedoc. Day.
It assumed the full power of deposing a Sovereign
Prince, and awarding his dominions to a stranger.
Count Raymond of Toulouse was forever excluded
from the sovereignty of the land, condemned to pass
the rest of his life in exile, in some place appointed for
riel, 223. The advice of the Bishop in the Historian is even more atro-
cious.
1 " Rex vero Francite audiens quod filius suus crucesignatus esset mul-
tura dol'iit, sed causam doloris ejus non est nostrum exponere." The
monk's silence is significant. — Petr. V. C. c. 68.
2 The Council of Lateran declared the unity of God who created of noth-
ing both souls and bodies {the Aristotelian doctrines of the eternity of mat-
ter had begun to prevail) the unity of the Church, out of which none can
be saved: it first authoritatively proclaimed Transubstantiation.
3 So great was the concourse of people that the good bishop of Anialfi
was suffocated in the throng. — Chron. Amalf apud Murat. A. T. i. p. 24G.
There were the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem, of Antioch
and Alexandria (by deputy), 71 archbishops, 412 bishops, 860 abbots 01
priors.
212 LATIN CPIRISTIANITY. Book IX.
him to do fit penance. A pension of 400 marks was
reserved out of his revenues, which he would forfeit
by any act of disobedience to the Church. To his
wife, the sister of the King of Arragon, her dowry was
secured on account of her virtue and piety. Provence
and some other cantons, yet unconquered by the Cru-
saders, were to be reserved under the custody of trust-
worthy persons, as an inheritance for the young Count
of Toulouse, if, when of age, he should have been obe-
dient to the Church. As to the Counts of Foix and
Comminges, nothing was enacted, but they were al-
lowed some hopes of pardon.
Such were the acts of the Lateran Council. But
the Troubadour ^ and the Historian describe the de-
bates, which led at length to these imperious decrees.
Passages in other writers leave no doubt that the de-
cision was resisted by many of the most powerful and
generous prelates ;'^ and confirmed with reluctance by
the Pope himself. The Lateran Council, according to
this account, was a long conflict between the temporal
Secret pHnccs wlio demanded the restoration of their
history. estates, and were supported by some of the
most distinguished churchmen, and the ecclesiastics
of Languedoc, Arnold the Archbishop of Narbonne
(though even he, from a personal quarrel about the
rights of the Church of Narbonne, was somewhat mod-
1 It is a curious question, whether the history is a prose version of the
poem: if so, it is a free one, as it differs in many particulars. If the poem
is the original, how far is it poeti al? how far has the poet, who is usually
unpoeticall}' historical, here indulged invention? Poetically it is the best,
the only part of the poem which is alive.
■2 " Veruin quidem est quod fuerint aliqui, etiam quod est gravius, de
Prajlatis, qui nostra; tidei adversi, pro restitutione dittorum Comitum la-
borabant; sed non praevaluit consilium Ahitophel, frustratum et desiderium
malignorum." — Petr. V. C c. 83.
Chap. VIII. SECRET HISTORY OF THE COUNCIL. 213
erated in his admiration of Simon de Montfort), and
Fulk, the Bishop of Toulouse, the implacable enemy
of Raymond. Innocent, the haughty Innocent, appears
in the midst ; mild, but wavering ; seeing clearly that
which was just, humane, merciful, and disposed to the
better course ; but overborne by the violence of the
adverse party, and weakly yielding to that of which his
mind and heart equally disapproved.^ The whole scene
is so characteristic as well as dramatic, that the chief
points may be accepted (certainly they formed part of
the popular belief) as to the proceedings of that great
Council.
Raymond and his son, accompanied by the Counts
of Foix and Comminges, and many other nobles of
Languedoc, were admitted to the presence of the Pope,
seated in full consistory among his cardinals and other
prelates : they knelt before him ; the young Raymond
presented letters from the King of England (who had
received hospitably and made splendid presents to his
nephew). The King of England expressed his indig-
nation at the usurpation of the inheritance of Raymond
by Simon de Montfort. The Pope was moved by the
beauty and graceful bearing of the youno- Prince,
thought of his wrongs, and wept.'"^
Count Raymond began at length to represent the
aggressions and injustice of the Legate and of De Mont-
1 Hurter, solicitous to catch any gleams of equity and gentleness, which
may soften the sterner characters of his hero and saint, follows witiiout hes-
itation the histoiy, not perceiving the humiliation of Innocent, thus reduced
to be the tame instrument of the bigotry of others.
2 " Le Pape considere Tenfant et son air, il connait sa noble race, il sait
les torts . . . de I'Eglise et du clergi^, ennemis (du Comte), et il a le coeur
ti trouble de piti6 et de souci . . . qu'il en soupire, et en pleure de ses deux
yeux."— Fauriel, p. 127. The Pope, says the poet, declared tliat Count
Raymond was not mdcr^ant, but catholique de fait et de propos.
214 LATIN" CHRISTIANITY. Book IX
fort, who, notwithstanding all his submission to the
Pope, and all the treaties, had despoiled him of his ter-
ritories. He was followed by the Counts of Foix and
Comminges complaining of the pillage of their lands,
and the lawless massacre of their subjects. " The
Church not only should not sanction, it should prohibit
such cruelties in a land which was absolutely free from
all taint of heresy, and in every respect submissive to
the Church."^ The Pope having heard the deposi-
tions, and read the letters of the King of England, was
in oreat wrath with the Leo;ate and with De Montfort.
First one of the Cardinals, then Berengar, Abbot of
St. Tiberi, rose and supported the complaints of the
appellants. Fulk, the Bishop of Toulouse, sternly de-
nied all these asseverations. He defied the Count de
Foix to deny that his dominions swarmed with heretics ;
in proof of this, the castle of Monsegur had been sur-
prised, and all the inhabitants burned ; " the sister of
the Count de Foix had brought her husband to an evil
end on account of these heretics ; she had lived in Pa-
miers without daring to leave the city ; the heretics had
greatly increased through her influence. Count Ray-
mond and the Count de Foix could not deny that they
had surprised and put to the sword six thousand Ger-
man Crusaders, on their way to join the army of the
Legate." The Count de Foix fearlessly replied, that
he was not responsible for the acts of his sister ; the
castle of Monsegur was hers, left to her by her father ;
she was its lawful Sovereign. The Germans were rob-
bers, who were ravaging the country. " For the Bishop
1 The speech of the Count de Foix in the poem is striking. — pp. 249-
251. We hear nothing of the enormities charged against De Foix by the
monk of Vaux Cernay. But did the Count renounce all heresy?
Chap. VIII. DISPUTE BEFORE THE POPE. 215
of Toulouse, your Holiness is greatly deceived in him ;
under the show of good faith and amity he is always
concerting treachery : his actions are devilish : it is en-
tirely through his malignity that the city of Toulouse
has suffered ruin, waste, robbery : more than ten thou-
sand men have perished through him. Thus the Leg-
ate and the Count de Montfort make common cause
in their iniquity." The Baron of Vilamour deposed
with great gravity^ to the atrocities perpetrated by De
Montfort ; Raymond de Roquefeuille to the treach-
ery by which the Viscount de Beziers, no heretic,
had been betrayed into their power, and the manner
of his death. The Pope listened in silence to these
solemn charges ; at their close he was heard to sigh
deeply.
No sooner had the Pope withdrawn,^ than he was
beset by the prelates and cardinals in the party of the
Legate and of De Montfort. They urged, that if they
were comi)elled to surrender the territories and lord-
ships which they had won, no one would embark in
the cause of the Church, or run any hazard in her de-
fence. The Pope took down a book (was it the Bible ?),
and showed them that if they did not make restitu-
tion of all the lands they had usurped, they would be
guilty of great sin.^ " Wherefore, I give leave to Ray-
mond of Toulouse and his heirs to recover their lands
and lordships from all who hold them unjustly." Then
might be seen those prelates murmuring against the
1 "11 lie s'effraye point, et parle fierement, regard^, entendu, ^cout6 de
tous."
2 Into a garden, says the poet, to dissipate his chagrin and divert his
thoughts.
3 " Et y trouve un sort,'''' says the poet. Sortes Biblicoe were not uncom-
mon.
213 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Pope like men in desperation.^ The Pope stood aghast
at their violence. The Precentor of Lyons, one of the
most learned clerks in the world, rose, with great dig-
nity, and rehuked the insolence and contumacy of the
prelates. " You know well, my Lords, the submission
of Count Raymond, and the surrender of his castles.
If you do not restore, and compel to be restored to him
his lands, you will be justly reproached by God and
man. Henceforth no one will have any reliance on
you or your decrees ; and that will be great disgrace
and dishonor to the whole Church militant. And I
say to you, Bishop of Toulouse, that you are greatly
in fault ; that you betray your want of charity to
Count Raymond, and to the people of which you are
the pastor ; you have kindled a fire in Toulouse which
will never be extinguished ; you have caused the death
of ten thousand men, and will of many more, if by
your false representations you persist in your wrongful
course. Through you the Court of Rome is defomed
throughout the world ; so many men should not be
despoiled and destroyed to gratify the pride and vio-
lence of one."
The Pope seems to have been appalled ; he gently
exculpated himself, as innocent of these iniquities, into
which he had been betrayed by ignorance of the real
facts. Even the Archbishop of Narbonne, the Legate
Arnold, alienated from De Montfort, supported the
Precentor of Lyons. But the wil)^ Genoese, Theodisc,
wdio had been so much in the confidence of Innocent,
adhered to De Montfort. He urged his valuable ser-
vices, that he had swept the land of heretics, that he
1 The poet says, " Folquet notre Eveque . . t parle au Pape. aussi
doucement qu'il pent." — p. 243.
Chap. VIII. DEMANDS OF THE PRELATES. 217
had been the champion of the Churcli and her rights.
Innocent, having heard both parties, declared to Theo-
disc, that the contrary of his statements was true.
" The Legate had oppressed the good and jnst, and
left the wicked without punishment : complaints had
reached him from all quarters, against the Legate and
De Montfort."
The prelates demanded that at least the territories
of Bigorre, Carcassonne, Toulouse, Agen, Quercy, the
Albigeois, Foix and Comminges (the whole conquests
of the Crusaders), should be left to De Montfort. " If
he be deprived of these lands," they boldly declared,
" we swear that we will aid him in their maintenance
against all and in defiance of all." ^ The Pope calmly
answered that nothing should tempt him to injustice ;
" even if Raymond were guilty, his son was blameless ;
and the son was not to bear the iniquity of the father."
It is difficult to imagine Innocent IIL thus confront-
ed, compelled into injustice, by men who boasted them-
selves to be better churchmen than the Pope. But the
decree of the Lateran Council, despoiling Raymond of
Toulouse of all his land and awardino; them to De
Montfort, is an undeniable historic fact, rests on a de-
cree of Innocent himself, addressed to all Christendom,
and confirmed by his successor Honorius IIL^
Yet, accoi'ding to the historian, Innocent attempted
a compromise. He offered the territory of the Venai-
sin to the younger Raymond, in compensation for the
land of Toulouse, which could not be wrested from the
^ " Et si cas es, que tu, senhor, \y vellas ostar le dit pays, et terre, nos te
promenten et juran, que tots envers tots nos ly ayudaran et secouren." —
Guerre des Albigeois, Bouquet, p. 1.59.
2 Bouquet, pp. 598, 599 ; p. 722.
218 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
strong hand of De Montfort.i u jf \^q j^^s courage,"
the poet makes the Pope say, " the youth will recover
his land ; " and he then makes a prophet of the Pope,
" The stone will at length be hurled, and all the world
will say that it has fallen on the head of the sinner."
Count Raymond retired to Viterbo, leaving his son
under the protection of the Pope. Young Raymond
at length departed with the benediction of the Pope.^
There is war again in Languedoc, but no longer a
waria Crusadc for the extirpation of heresy, it is
Languedoc. ^|-jg j^.^^ hand of an usurping conqueror, de-
termined to maintain his conquests ; on the other side,
no partial, but a general insurrection of the whole peo-
ple in favor of their hereditary princes against a foreign
invader, a gallant attempt again and forever to break
the yoke of a tyrant, to return to the milder rule of
their ancient Sovereigns. No sooner had the two
Counts landed at Marseilles, than they were greeted by
a burst of enthusiasm. Avignon, Tarascon, and other
cities opened their gates. Young Raymond is soon at
the head of a force which enables him to declare war
against De Montfort, and to form the siege of Beau-
caire. Now became more manifest every day the
decline in the power of the clergy ;^ the Crusaders
1 " Barons, reprend le Pape, puisque^e nepuis la hi oter, qu'il la garde
bien s'il pent: et qu'il ne s'en laisse pas chasser, car jamais de mon vouloir
il ne sera preche pour lui." — Fauriel, p. 255.
2 The parting between the Pope and young Raymond is touchingly told
by the Troubadour. The Pope gives him good advice, and recommends
him to wait for better times. " It is hard," says the youth, " that a man
of Winchester is to share my land with me ! All I ask is that I may be
permitted to reconquer my dominions if I can." " God grant you," said
the Pope, " a good beginning and a good ending."
3 See the speech of Bertrand of Avignon in the poem : " Car nous avons
^prouve et senti avec douleur, que les clercs ont menti quand ils nous di.sai-
ent, qu'en r^pandant le feu, qu'en fi-appant de glaive, qu'en for^ant notre
Chap. Vin. RISINGS IN TOULOUSE. 219
themselves have misgivings in the holiness of their
cause. De Montfort's most ardent admirers begin to
discern the darker parts of his character, his inoi'dinate
ambition, his insatiable rapacity. Simon de Montfort
is himself astonished that God should cease to confine
exclusive favor to himself, and should seem disposed to
the sinful youth. ^
Toulouse was ea^er to receive the heir of her ancient
house. De Montfort was obliged to hasten to secure
its "wavering fidelity by the sternest measures. He
treated it like a conquered city, exacted enormous
sums. The Bishop had exhorted the noblest jii,;^^ j^
inhabitants to go out in procession to welcome ''^°"io"se-
the Count. But the plunder of the city by the Bishop
and the Count were so shameless, that in a general
rising, Guy de Montfort and the Bishop were driven
out. De Montfort again forced his way within the
walls, was again repelled, having set the city on fire in
many places. But the citizens unwisely accepted the
treacherous mediation of the Prelate. " I swear by
God and the Holy Virgin, and the body of the Re-
deemer, by my whole order, the Abbot and other dig-
nitaries, that I give you good counsel, better have I
never given. If the Count inflict on you the least
vrai seigneur a s'en aller faidit . . . nous ob^irons tout bonnement a Jesu3
Christ."— p. 299.
1 " Beau pore," says Guy de Montfort, in the poem, " il (Dieu) a vu et
juge votre conduite, pourvu que tout le bien et tout I'argent (du pays)
soient a vous, vous prenez peu de soucie de la mort des hommes." — p.
345. Compare 44.5, Giil. de Pod. Laurent, c. xxvii. It is difficult to mark
the precise turning point of the Troubadour into a flaming patriot. The
restoration of " parage," chivalry, and courtesy is his delight. Yet Simon,
in his own esteem, is still the champion of the Church. " Puisque I'Eglise
m'a octroyf^e le pa3's; puisque je suis de I'Eglise les oeuvres, les ordres et
les discours: puisque je suis bien m^ritant et mon adversaire pecheur, c'est
pour moi, dls-je, grande merveille que Dieu favorise (cet enfant)."
220 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
wrong, bring your complaints before me, and God and
I will see you righted." The citizens, on the persua-
sion of the Bishop, gave the hostages demanded (the
citadel, the Narbonnaise, still in the power of De
Montfort, was crowded with them), they restored the
prisoners which they had taken, and, more strangely
still, surrendered their arms.^ The first act of De
Montfort, who was hardly dissuaded by better counsel
from totally destroying the city, was the demand of
30,000 marks of silver, the demolition of the walls, and
every stronghold in the city, and the plunder of the
inhabitants to the very last piece of cloth or measure
of meal. " O noble city of Toulouse ! " exclaims the
poet, " thy very bones are broken ! "
So closed the year 1216, during which Pope Inno-
cent III. had died, and had been succeeded by Hono-
rius III.
During the ensuing year the war with the young
July 16 Count Raymond continued to the advantage
A.D.1217. Qf j)g Montfort. On a sudden the old
Count,^ with a body of Spanish soldiers, appeared be-
fore Toulouse. The city received him with the utmost
joy ; new walls were hastily raised, new trenches dug.
Many of the nobles levied troops and threw themselves
into the city. First Guy de Montfort,^ then Simon
himself, who hurried to the spot, were ignominiously
repulsed. The Bishop of Toulouse and the wife of
1 Gul. de Pod. Laurent, gives a different view of this affair. — c. xxxix.
2 The suddenness of the appearance of Count Rajinond is indicated by
a fine touch in the poem. The Countess de Montfort is told that she must
fly at once. " La Comtesse, quand elle I'entend, bat ses deux mains I'une
contre I'autre. Quoi, dit-elle, et j'etais si heureuse hier."
3 In the poem Guy de Montfort is contrasted with Simon de Montfort,
whom he calls " dur et tyrau," and declares that God will punish his
treacheries.
Chap. YIII. COUNT RAYMOND IN TOULOUSE. 221
Montfort sought aid in France. A new Crusade was
preached. Pope Honorius entered with ardor into the
cause of De Montfort. It was again that of the whole
clergy. Once more excommunications were menaced
in some cases, uttered in others. The new King of
Arragon was threatened with interdict ; the consuls of
Toulouse, Avignon, Marseilles, Tarascon, and other
cities, the young Count Raymond, the Count de Foix
were summoned under this penalty to renounce their
alliance with I'ebellious Toulouse. For nine months
the siege continued. If the sentiments attributed by
the Troubadour to the Legate were either true, or sup-
posed to be true by the inhabitants of Toulouse, it may
account for the obstinacy of their defence. " The fire
of hell has again kindled in this city, which is full of
sin and crime. The old Lord is again within its walls,
against whom whosoever will wage war will be saved
before God. You are about to reconquer the city, to
break into the houses, out of which no sinole soul,
neither man nor woman, shall escape alive ! not one
shall be spared in church, in sanctuary, in hospital ! It
is decided in the secret councils of Rome, that the dead-
ly and consuming fire shall pass over them.'" ^ But
the counsels of Rome were not those of Divine Provi-
dence. At the close of the nine months Simon headed
an attack ; a stone fi'om an engine struck the champion
of Jesus Christ (as he was called by his admirers) on the
head: he had just time to commend himself to the
mercy of God and of the holy Virgin. God was re-
1 Fauriel, 433. See before this the dialogue of the Cardinal and the
Bishop, 429; and after, 455. "Et si quelques uns des votres y meurent en
combattant, le Saint Pape et moi leurs somraes garants, qu'ils porteront (an
ciel) la couronne des innocents."
222 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
proached with his death, the divine justice was ar-
raigned. It is added by the monkish historian, still
faithful to his fortunes, that he received likewise five
wounds with arrows ; and in this respect he is likened
to the Redeemer in whose cause he died, and with
whom " we trust he is in bliss and glory." ^
The war did not end with the death of Simon de
Montfort ; but the religious character, which it had
once more assumed, again died away.
A Crusade was headed by Louis of France ; but
Crusade of that was ouly a bold and premature attempt
Prince Louis. r. i . . i i .
Aug. 1, 1219. or tlie sovereign to unite the great domain
of Southern France to the crown. After the capture
and atrocious massacre of Marmande, and a short and
unsuccessful siege of Toulouse, Louis returned in-
glorious to his father's dominions. A truce was made
between the young Count Raymond, and Amaury de
A.D. 1224. Montfort.2 It was said that Raymond pro-
posed to marry the daughter of his rival. Two years
after Amaury made over his dominions to Louis VIII.,
King of France.
The vengeance of the Church followed the older
1 " Vous entendez crier hautement — 0 Dieu, tu n'e.s pa.s juste — puisque
tu as voulii la mort dii comte et que tu as soufFert (un tel) dommage. Bien
fol est qui te defend, et se fait ton serviteur." — Fauriel, 573. In Toulouse
the triumphant cry was that he died witliout confession. The Bishop's eu-
logy was this: " Jamais en ce monde ne faillit moins que lui; et depuis que
Dieu endura le martyr et fut mis en croix,il ne voulut et ne souffrit jamais
une aussi grande mort que celui du Comte." The Count of Soissons re-
plied: " Je vous reprend a bon droit, pour que Sainte Eglise n'ait pas (de
votre dire) mauvais renom ; ne le nommez pas sanctissime, car nul ne
mentit si fort que celui I'appelle saint, lui qui est mort sans confession." —
p. 577. Compare the Poet's language, p. 587.
2 It is a curious illustration of the manners. " Sub treugaj securitate
comes Tolosanus entravit Carcassonam, et ibi cum comite Amalrico jacuit
una nocte."
Chap. VIII. TREATY OF PARIS. 223
Raymond even after death. Dying excommunicate he
could not be buried in holy ground. In vain his son
adduced proofs that lie had given manifest signs of
penitence on his death-bed : notwithstanding a solemn
inquest held by commissaries api^ointed by the Pope,
and the examination of above one hundred Aug. 1222.
witnesses, the inexorable sentence Avas still unre-
pealed ; ^ the infected body was still unburied ; it re-
mained for three hundred years in the sacristy of the
Knights Templars. To posterity the great crime of
Raymond is the barbarous execution of his brother
Baldwin. Baldwin, indeed, had deserted, betrayed,
taken up arms against him ; but there had never been
fraternal love between them. Raymond, it was said,
had withholden part of his brother's inheritance. And
mercy, though it ought to be the virtue of the perse-
cuted, rarely is so.
The vast army which descended on Languedoc under
Louis, now King of France, was that of conquest rather
than a Crusade. The cities were appalled, they opened
their gates ; Avignon alone made a noble resistance.
Count Raymond bowed before the storm. On his re-
turn, after the seeming submission of almost Nov. 8, 1226.
the whole land, Louis died of exhaustion and fatigue at
Montpensier in Auvergne.
The treaty of Paris, after the accession of St. Louis,
restored peace, for a time at least, to the af- April 12, 1229.
flicted land. The terms were dictated by Paris,
the Papal Legate, approved by the King of France.
Count Raymond VIL swore: — I. Fealty to his liege
lord the King of France and to the Church. II. He
swore to do immediate justice on all heretics, their abet-
1 Gul. Pod. Laurent, c. 34.
224 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
tors and partisans, even though his vassals, kinch'ed or
friends. III. To detect, in order to their punishment,
all such heretics, according to the rules laid down by
the Legate, and to pay for two years two marks, after-
wards one mark, on the conviction of each heretic.
IV. To maintain peace in his realm. Besides to main-
tain the rights of the Church ; to respect, and cause to
be respected, all sentences of excommunication, and to
compel all persons excommunicate to reconcile them-
selves within a year to the Church, under pain of con-
fiscation of their property. To restore all estates and
immunities to the Church, to pay, and enforce the due
payment of tithes ; to pay to certain Cistercian abbeys,
Clairvaux, and others, 10,000 marks of silver ; to pay
5000 marks for the fortification of the citadel, the Nar-
bonnaise, and those in other cities, to be held as securi-
ties by the King of France ; to maintain certain pro-
fessors of theology ; to take the cross for five years
in some Mohammedan country. On these, and other
conditions relatino; to the boundaries of his dominions,
of which he was obliged to abandon large portions (his
daucrhter was to be married to the son of the French
King), Rajanond VII., never accused of heresy, re-
ceived absolution. The same scene took place as with
his father. With naked shoulders, bare feet, the son
of Raymond of Toulouse was led up the Church of
Notre Dame, scourged as he went by the Legate.
" Count of Narbonne, by virtue of the powers in-
trusted to me by the Pope, I absolve thee from my
excommunication." " Amen," answered the Count.
He rose from his knees, no longer so\'ereign of the
South of France, but a vassal of hmited dominions.^
1 Barraii et Darragan. It is to be regretted that this work has preferred
Chap. VIII. STATUTES OF TOULOUSE. 225
His i'atlier on his penance renounced seven castles, the
son seven provinces.^
But though the open war was at an end, the Church
still pursued her exterminating warfare against her still
rebellious subjects. The death of Simon de Montfort
had o'iven courage to the Albigensians. Bartholomew
of Carcassonne, wdio had fled, it was said, to that land
(the Bulgarian) where dwelt the Pope of the Mani-
cheans, reappeared ; he called himself the vicar of
that mysterious pontiff, he reorganized the churches.
Another teacher, William of Castries, was ordained, it
was said. Bishop of Rases. The Inquisition continued
its silent, but not less inhuman, hardly less destructive
crusade. That tribunal, with all its peculiar statutes,
its jurisdiction, its tremendous agency, was founded
during this period. It is difficult to fix its precise
date ; but it is coincident with the establishment of a
special court, legatine or charged with those peculiar
functions Avhich superseded the ordinary episcopal juris-
diction, and appropriated to itself the cognizance, pun-
ishment, suppression of heresy.
The statutes of the Council of Toulouse, framed after
the successful termination of the war, in order council of
Toulouse.
absolutely to extirpate every lingering vestige a.d. 1229.
of heresy, form the code of persecution, which not
merely aimed at suppressing all public teaching, but
to be an historical romance rather than a history. The authors have failed
in both; it is neither Walter Scott nor Livy or Tacitus.
1 See in Vaissette the territories ceded to the King of France. " On vnit
par ce traite, que les principaux instigateurs de la guerre centre Kaymond
songeoient bien moins de sa catholicitc^, qu'a le d^poss^der de ses dominions
et a s'eniichir de ses dt'pouilles. . . . Quant a sa propre personne il ne fut
jamais suspect d'her^sie et il ne fut excommuni^ que parceque il ne voii-
lait pas renoncer ses justes pretensions sur la patrimonie de ses ancetres.'
— Hist, de Languedoc, iii. 374.
VOL. v. 15
226 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
the moi'e secluded and secret freedom of thought. It
was a system which penetrated into the most intimate
sanctuary of domestic hfe ; and made delation not
merely a merit and a duty, but an obligation also, en-
forced by tremendous penalties.
The Archbishops, bishops, and exempt abbots, were
to appoint in every parish one priest, and three or more
lay inquisitors, to search all houses and buildings, in
order to detect heretics, and to denounce them to the
archbishop or bishop, the lord, or his bailiff, so as to
insure their apprehension. The lords were to make
the same inquisition in every part of their estates.
Whoever was convicted of harboring a heretic forfeited
the land to his lord, and was reduced to personal sla-
very. If he was guilty of such concealment from neg-
ligence, not from intention, he received proportionate
punishment. Every house in which a heretic was found
w^as to be razed to the ground, the farm confiscated.
The bailiff who should not be active in detecting her-
etics was to lose his office, and be incapacitated from
holding it in future. Heretics, however, were not to
be judged but by the bishop or some ecclesiastical per-
son. Any one might seize a heretic on the lands of
another. Heretics who recanted were to be removed
from their homes, and settled in Catholic cities ; to wear
two crosses of a different color from their dress, one on
the right side, one on the left. They were incapable
of any public function unless reconciled by the Pope or
by his Legate. Those who recanted from fear of death
were to be immured forever. All persons, males of
the age of fourteen, females of twelve, were to take an
oath of abjuration of heresy, and of their Catholic
faith ; if absent, and not appearing within fifteen days,
Chap. VIII. COUNCIL OF MELUN. 227
they were held suspected of heresy. All persons were
to confess, and communicate three times a year, or were
in like manner under suspicion of heresy. No layman
was permitted to have any book of the Old or New
Testament, especially in a translation, unless perhaps
the Psalter, with a breviary, or the Hours of the Vir-
gin. No one suspected of heresy could practise as a
phy.sician. Care was to be taken that no hei'etic had
access to sick or dying persons. All wills were to be
made in the presence of a priest. No office of trust
was to be held by one in evil fame as a heretic. Those
were in evil fame, who were so by common report, or
so declared by good and grave witnesses before the
bishop.^
But statutes of persecution always require new stat-
utes rising above each other in regular grada- council of
tions of rigor and cruelty. The Legate found '^^'*'"'*-
the canons of Toulouse to be eluded or inefficient. He
summoned a council at Melun, attended by the Arch-
bishop of Narbonne and other prelates. The unhappy
Count of Toulouse was compelled to frame the edicts
of this council into laws for his dominions.^ The first
provision showed that persecution had wrought despair.
1 The statutes of Toulouse in Mansi, sub ann. Compare Limborch, His-
toria Inquisitionis. Among the other decrees of the Council was one which
declared the absolute immunity of all clerks from taxation, unless they
were merchants or married (mercatores vel uxorati). If one succeeded to
the inheritance of a lay lief, he was answerable for its burdens. They
were likewise free from tolls (peages). Ever)- person was bound to attend
church on Sundays and holidays. The statutes against private wars were
in a more Christian spirit, only beyond the age. Ever}' male above 14
was sworn to keep the peace ; and heavy penalties denounced against all
who should violate it. This was perhaps a law of Foreign conquerors in a
subjugated land.
2 Conventus Meldunensis. Statuta Raimondi, A. d. 1233. Labbe Con-
cil. sub ann.
228 LATIN CHRISTIANITT. Book IX.
It was directed against those who had murdered, or
should murder, or conceal the murderers of persecutors
of heretics. A reward of one mark was set on the
head of every heretic, to be paid by the town, or vil-
lage, or district to the captor. It was evident that the
heretics had now begun to seek concealment in cabins,
in caves, and rocks, and forests ; not merely was every
house in which one should be seized to be razed to the
ground, but all suspected caves or hiding-places were
to be blocked up ; with a penalty of twenty-five livres
of Toulouse to the lord on whose estate such houses or
places of concealment of evil report should be found.
Those who did not assist in the capture of heretics
were liable to punishment. If any one was detected
after death to have been a heretic his property was con-
fiscated. Those who had made over their estates in
trust, before they became heretics, nevertheless forfeited
such estates. Those who attempted to elude the law
by moving about under pretence of trade or pilgrimage,
were ordered to render an account of their absence.
A.D. 1233. A Council at Beziers enforced upon the
clergy, under pain of suspension, or of deprivation, the
denunciation of all who should not attend divine ser-
vice in their churches on the appointed days, especially
those suspected of heresy.
Yet heresy, even the Manichean heresy, was not yet
extinguished. j\Iany years, as will appear,^ must inter-
vene of the administration of the most atrocious code
of procedure which has ever assumed the forms of
justice ; more than one formidable insurrection ; the
forcible expulsion of the terrible Inquisition ; the as-
sassination, the martyrdom as it was profanely called,
1 See on for the proceedings of the Inquisition.
CiiAP. VIII. HEEESY SURVIVES. 229
of more than one inquisitor, before the South of France
collapsed into final spiritual subjection.
Yet, Latin Christianity might boast at length to have
crushed out the life, at least in outward appearance, of
this insurrection within her own borders. No lano-uao-e
of Latin descent was permanently to speak in its relio--
ious services to the people, to form a Christian literature
of its own, to have full command of the Scriptures in
its vernacular dialect. The Crusade revenged itself
on the poetry of the Troubadour, once the bold assail-
ant of the clergy, by compelling it, if not to total
silence, to but a feeble and uncertain sound.
2o0 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
CHAPTER IX.
NEW ORDERS. ST. DOMINIC.
The progress of the new opinions in all quarters,
their obstinate resistance in Languedoc, opinions, if not
yet rooted out, lopped by the sword and seared by the
fire, had revealed the secret of the fatal weakness of
Latin Christianity. Sacerdotal Christianity, by ascend-
Preaching ^^^g ^ throuc higher than all thrones of earthly
'"'^'"®' sovereigns, by the power, the wealth, the mag-
nificence of the higher ecclesiastics, had withdrawn the
influence of the clergy from its natural and peculiar
office. Even with the lower orders of the priesthood,
that whicli in a certain degree separated them from the
people, set them apart from the sympathies of the peo-
ple. The Church might still seem to preach to all, but
it preached in a tone of lofty condescension ; it dictated
rather than persuaded ; but in general actual preaching
had fallen into disuse ; it was in theory the special priv-
ilege of the bishops, and the bishops were but few who
had either the gift, the inclination, or the leisure from
their secular, judicial, or warlike occupations to preach
even in their cathedral cities ; in the rest of their dio-
ceses their presence was but occasional ; a progress or
visitation of pomp and form, rather than of popular
instruction. The only general teaching of the people
was the Ritual.
Chap. IX. THE KITUAL. 231
But the splendid ritual, admirably as it was consti-
tuted to impress by its words or symbolic The Ritual.
forms the leading truths of Christianity upon the more
intelh'gent, or in a vaguer way upon the more rude and
uneducated, ^ould be administered, and was adminis-
tered, by a priesthood almost entirely ignorant, but
which had just learned mechanically, not without de-
cency, perhaps not without devotion, to go through the
stated observances. Everywhere the bell summoned
to the frequent service, the service was performed, and
the obedient flock gathered to the chapel or the church,
knelt, and either performed their orisons, or heard the
customary chant and prayer. This, the only instruc-
tion which the mass of the priesthood could convey,
might for a time be sufficient to maintain in the minds
of the people a quiescent and submissive faith, never-
theless, in itself could not but awaken in some a desire
of knowledge, which it could not satisfy. Auricular
confession, now by Innocent III. raised to a necessary
duty, and to be heard not only by the lofty bishop, but
by the parochial priest, might have more effect in re-
pressing the uneasy or daring doubts of those who began
to reason ; doubts which would startle and alarm the
uneducated priest, and which he would endeavor to
silence at once by all the terrors of his authority.
Though the lower priesthood were from the people,
they were not of the people ; nor did they fully inter-
penetrate the whole mass of the people. The parochial
divisions, where they existed, were arbitrary, accidental,
often not clearly defined ; they followed in general the
bounds of royal or aristocratical domains. A church
was founded by a pious king, noble, or knight, with a
certain district around it ; but in few countries was
232 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
there any approach to a systematic organization of the
clergy in relation to the spiritual wants and care of the
whole Christian community.
The fatal question of the celibacy of the clergy
worked in both wavs to the prejudice of
Celibacy ■- .
of clergy. ^jjgjj, authority. The married clergy, on
the whole no doubt the more moral, were acting in
violation of the rules of the Church, and were subject
to the opprobrious accusation of living in concubinage.
The validity of their ministrations was denied by the
more austere ; the doctrines of men charged with such
grievous error lost their proper weight. The unmar-
ried obeyed the outward rule, but by every account,
not the bitter satire of enemies alone but the reluctant
and melancholy admission of the most gentle and de-
vout, in general so flagrantly violated the severer
principles of the Church, that their teaching, if they
attempted actual teaching, must have fallen dead on
the minds of the people.
The earlier monastic orders were still more deficient
Monasticism. as instructors in Christianity. Their chief, if
not their sole exclusive and avowed object, was the
salvation, or, at the highest, the religious perfection of
themselves and of their own votaries. Solitude, seclu-
sion, the lonely cell, their own unapproached, or hardly
approached, chapel, was their sphere ; their communi-
cation with others was sternly cut off. The dominant,
the absorbing thought of each hermit, of each ca?no-
bite, was his own isolation or that of his brethren from
the dangerous world. But to teach the world they
must enter the world. Their influence, therefore,
beyond their convent walls was but subordinate and
accessory. The halo of their sanctity might awe,
Chap. IX. MONASTICISM. 238
attract others ; the zeal of love might, as to their more
immediate neighbors, struggle witli the coercive and
imprisoning discipline. But the admiration of their
sanctity would act chiefly in alluring emulous vota-
ries within, rather tlian in extending faith and holiness
beyond their walls. Even their charities were to re-
lieve their own souls, to lay up for themselves treasures
of good works, rather than from any real sympathy for
the people. The loftier notion of combining their own
humiliation with the good of mankind first dawned
upon the founders of the Mendicant orders. In the
older monasteries beneficence was but a subsidiary and
ancillary virtue. The cultivation of the soil was not
to increase its fertility for the general advantage ; it
was to employ their own dangerous energies, to sub-
due their own bodies by the hard discipline of labor.
At all events, the limit of their influence was that of
their retainers, tenants, peasants, or serfs, bounded by
their own near neighborhood. No sooner indeed had
any one of the older Orders, or any single monastery
attained to numbers, rank or influence, than it became
more and more estranged from the humbler classes ;
the vows of poverty had been eluded, the severer rule
gradually relaxed ; the individual might remain poor,
but the order or the convent became rich ; narrow cells
grew into stately cloisters, deserts into parks, hermits
hito princely abbots. It became a great religious aris-
tocracy ; it became worldly, without impregnating the
world with its religious spirit ; it was hardly less se-
cluded from popular intercourse than before ; even
where learnino; was cultivated it was the hig-h scho-
lastic theology : theology which, in its pride, stood as
much aloof from the popular mind as the feudal bishop,
or the mitred abbot.
234 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
But just at this time that popular mind throughout
T . „ . 1 Christendom seemed to demand instruction.
Intellectual
movement. Xlierc was a wide and vague wakening and
yearning of the human intellect. It is impossible to
suppose that the lower orders were not to a certain
extent generally stirred by that movement which
tlirono-ed the streets of the universities of Paris, Aux-
erre, Oxford, with countless hosts of indigent schol-
ars, which led thousands to the feet of Abelard, and
had raised logical disputations on the most barren
metaphysical subjects to an interest like that of a
tournament. An insatiate thirst of curiosity, of in-
quiry, at least for mental spiritual excitement, seemed
almost suddenly to have pervaded society.
Here that which was heresy, or accounted to be
Heresy. licrcsy, Stepped in and seized upon the va-
cant mind. Preaching in pubhc and in private was
the strength of all the heresiarchs, of all the sects,
li^loquence, popular eloquence became a new power,
which the Church had comparatively neglected or dis-
dained since the time of the Crusades ; or had gone on
wasting upon that worn-out, and now almost unstirring
topic. The Petrobussians, the Henricians, the follow-
ers of Peter Waldo, and the wilder teachers at least
tinged with the old Manichean tenets of the East, met
on this common ground. They were poor and pop-
ular ; they felt with the people, whether the lower
burghers of the cities, the lower vassals, or even the
peasants and serfs ; they spoke the language of the
people, they were of the people. If here and there
one of the higher clergy, a priest or a canon, adopted
their oi)inions and mode of teaching, he became an
object of reverence and notoriety ; and this profound
Chap. IX. NEW LANGUAGES. 235
religious influence so obtained was a strong temptation
to religious minds. But all these sects were bound
together by their connnon revolutionary aversion to
the clergy, not only tlie wealthy, worldly, innnoral,
tyrannical, but the decent but Inert priesthood, who
left the uninstructed souls of men to perish. In their
turn, they were viewed with the most jealous hatred
by the clergy, not merely on account of their heter-
odox and daring tenets, but as usurping their office,
which themselves had almost let fall from their hands.
We have seen the extent to which they prevailed ;
nothing less might be apprehended (unless coerced
by the obedient temporal power, and no other meas-
ure seemed likely to succeed) than a general revolt
of the lower orders from the doctrines and rule of the
hierarchy.
At this time, too, the rude dialects which had been
slowdy forming by the breaking up of the ^^^ ^^^_
Roman Latin and its fusion with the Teu- stages.
tonic, were o;rowing into reo-ular and distinct lano;uao;es.
Latin, the language of the Church, became less and
less the language of the people. In proportion as the
Roman or foreign element predominated, the services
of the Church, the speech in which all priests were
supposed to be instructed, remained more or less clear
and intelligible. It was more so where the Latin
maintained its ascendency ; but in the Teutonic or
Sclavonian regions, even the priesthood had learned
Latin imperfectly, if at all ; and Latin had ceased to
be the means of ordinary communication ; it was a
strange, obsolete, if still venerable language. Even in
Italy, in Northern and Southern France, in England
where the Norman French kept down to a certain ex-
tent the old free Anglo-Saxon (we must wait more
236 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
than a century for Wjcl^'fFe and Chaucer), ni Spain,
Latin Avas a kindred, indistinctly significant tongue,
but not that of common use, not that of the field,
the street, the market, or the fair. But vernacular
teaching was in all quarters coetaneous with the new
opinions ; versions of the sacred writings, or parts of
the sacred writings, into the young languages were at
once the sign of their birth, and the instrument of
their propagation. These languages had begun to
speak, at least in poetry, and not only to the knightly
aristocracy. The first sounds of Italian poetry were
already heard in the Sicilian court of the young Fred-
erick 11. : Dante was erelong to come. The Pro-
vencal had made the nearest approach perhaps to a
regular language ; and Provence, as has been seen,
lent her Romaunt to the great anti-hierarchical move-
ment. In France the Trouveres had in the last cen-
tury begun their inexhaustible, immeasurable epopees ;
but these were as yet the luxuries of the court and the
castle, heard no doubt by the people, but not what is
fairly called popular poetry,^ though liere and there
mioht even now be heard the tale or the fable. Ger-
many, less poetical, was at once borrowing the knightly
poems on Charlemagne, and King Arthur, and the
Crusades ; emulating France, reviving the old classi-
cal fables, among them the story of Alexander : while
in Walter the Falconer ^ are heard tones more men-
1 See in the 22d vol. of the Hist. Litt^raire de la France the description
and analyt^is of the innumerable Chansons de Geste, Poemes d'Aventure.
With all these were mingled up, both in Germany and France, as intermi-
nable hagiological romances, legends, and lives of saints, even the more
modern Saints. See e. g., the French poem on Thomas a Becket, edited in
the Berlin Transactions by M. Bekker.
2 Lachmann has edited the original Walter der Vogelweide with his usual
industry; Simrock modernized him to the understanding of the less learned
reader.
Chap. IX. ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 237
acing, more ominous of religious revolution, more dar-
ingly expre-ssive of Teutonic independence.
But this gradual encroachment of the vernacular
poetry on the Latin, the vain struggle of the Latin
to maintain its mastery, the growth and influence of
modern lano;uao;es must be reserved for a later, more
full, and consecutive inquiry.
Just at this jvmcture arose almost simultaneously,
without concert, in different countries, two st. Dominic
men wonderfully adapted to arrest and avert Francis.
the danger which threatened the whole hierarchical
system. One seized and, if he did not wrest from the
hands of the enemy, turned against him with indefati-
gable force his own fatal arms, St. Dominic, the founder
of the Friar Preachers. By him Christendom was at
once overspread with a host of zealous, active, devoted
men, whose function was popular instruction. They
were gathered from every country, and spoke, there-
fore, every language and dialect. In a few years from
the sierras of Spain to the steppes of Russia ; from the
Tiber to the Thames, the Trent, the Baltic Sea, the
old faith, in its fullest mediaeval, imaginative, inflexible
rigor, was preached in almost every town and hamlet.
The Dominicans did not confine themselves to popular
teaching : the more dangerous, if as yet not absolutely
disloyal seats of the new learning, of inquiry, of intel-
lectual movement, the universities, Bologna, Paris, Ox-
ford are invaded, and compelled to admit these stern
apostles of unswerving orthodoxy ; their zeal soon over-
leaped the pale of Christendom : they plunge fearlessly
into the remote darkness of heathen and Mohammedan
lands, from whence come back rumors, which are con-
stantly stirring the minds of their votaries, of won-
238 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
derful conversions and not less wonderful martyr-
doms.
The other, St. Francis of Assisi, was endowed with
that fervor of mystic devotion, which spi'ead like an
epidemic with irresistil)le contagion among the lower
orders throughout Christendom ; it was a superstition,
but a superstition which had such an earnestness,
warmth, tenderness, as to raise the religious feeling to
an intense hut gentle passion ; it supplied a never-fail-
ing counter excitement to rebellious reasoning, which
gladly fell asleep again on its bosom. After the death
of its author and example, it raised a new object of
adoration, more near, more familiar, and second only,
if second, to the Redeemer himself. Jesus was sup-
posed to have lived again in St. Francis with at least
as bright a halo of miracle around him, in absolute,
almost surpassing perfection.
In one important respect the founders of these new
orders absolutely agreed, in their entire identification
with the lowest of mankind. At first amicable, after-
wards emulous, eventually hostile, they, or rather their
Orders, rivalled each other in sinking below poverty
into beggary. They were to live upon alms ; the
coarsest imaginable dress, the hardest fare, the naiTOW-
est cell, was to keep them down to the level of the
humblest. Though Dominic himself was of high birth,
and many of his followers of noble blood, St. Francis
of decent even wealthy parentage, according to the
irrepealable constitution of both Orders they were still
to be the poorest of mankind, instructing or consorting
in religious fellowshi]) with the very meanest outcasts
of society. Both the new Orders differed in the same
manner, and greatly to the advantage of the hierarchi-
Chap. IX. DOMINIC A SPANIARD. 239
cal faith, from the old monkish institutions. Their
primary object was not the salvation of the individual
monk, but the salvation of others through him.
Though, therefore, their rules within their monaster-
ies were strictly and severely monastic, bound by the
common vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, se-
clusion was no part of their discipline. Their business
was abroad rather than at home ; their dwelling was
not like that of the old Benedictines or others, in the
uncultivated swamps and forests of the Nortli, on the
dreary Apennine, or the exhausted soil of Italy, in
order to subdue their bodies, and occupy their danger-
ously unoccupied time, merely as a secondary conse-
quence to compel the desert into fertile land. Their
work Avas among their fellow-men ; in the villao-e, in
the town, in the city, in the market, even in the camp.
In every Dominican convent the Superior had the
power to dispense even with the ordinary internal disci-
pline, if he thought the brother might be more usefully
employed in his special avocation of a Preacher. It
might seem the ambition of these men, instead of coop-
ing up a chosen few in high-walled and secure mon-
asteries, to subdue the whole world into one vast
cloister; monastic Christianity would no longer fle'e
the world, it would subjugate it, or win it by gentle
violence.
In Dominic Spain began to exercise that remarkable
influence over Latin Christianity, to display po^^i^ic a
that peculiar character which culminated as Spaniard,
it were in Ignatius Loyola, in Philip II., and in Tor-
quemada, of which the code of the Inquisition was the
statutory law ; of wliicli Calderon was the poet. The
life of every devout Spaniard was a perpetual crusade.
240 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
By temperament and by position he was in constant
adventurous warfare against the enemies of the Cross :
hatred of the Jew, of the Mohammedan, was the
herrban under which he served ; it was the oath of his
chivalry : that hatred, in all its intensity, was soon and
easily extended to the heretic. Hereafter it was to
comprehend the heathen Mexican, the Peruvian. St.
Dominic was, as it were, a Cortez, bound by his sense
of duty, urged by an inward voice, to invade older
Christendom. And Dominic was a man of as pro-
found sagacity as of adventurous enthusiasm. He in-
tuitively perceived, or the circumstances of his early
career forced upon him, the necessities of the age, and
showed him the arms in which himself and his forces
must be arrayed to achieve their conquest.
St. Dominic was born in 1170, in the village of Ca-
Birth. laroga, between Aranda and Osraa, in Old
Castile. His parents were of noble name, that of
Guzman, if not of noble race.^ Prophecies (we must
not disdain legend, though manifest legend) proclaimed
his birth. It was a tenet of his disciples that he was
born without original sin, sanctified in his mother's
womb. His mother dreamed that she bore a doo- with
a torch in his mouth, which set the world on fire. His
votaries borrowed too the old classical fable ; the bees
settled on his lips, foreshowing his exquisite eloquence.
Even in his infancy, his severe nature, among other
wonders, began to betray itself. He crept from his soft
couch to lie on the hard cold ground. The first part
of his education Dominic received from his uncle, a
churchman at Gamiel dTzan. At fifteen years old he
1 This point is contested. The Father Bremond wrote to confute the
BoUandists, who had cast a profane doubt on the noble descent of Dominic.
Chap. IX. DOMINIC IN LANGUEDOC. 241
was sent to the university of Palencia ; he studied,
chiefly theology, for ten years. He was laborious, de-
vout, abstemious. Two stories are recorded which
show the dawn of religious strength in his character.
During a famine, he sold his clothes to feed the poor :
he offered in compassion to a woman who deplored the
slavery of her brother to the Moors, to be sold for his
redemption. He had not what may be strictly called a
monastic training.^ The Bishop of Osma had changed
his chapter into regular canons, those who lived in
common, and under a rule approaching to a monastic
institute. Dominic became a canon in this rigorous
house : there he soon excelled the others in austerity.
This was in his twenty-fifth year : he remained in Os-
ma, not much known, for nine years longer. Diego de
Azevedo had succeeded to the Bishopric of Osma. He
was a prelate of great ability, and of strong religious
enthusiasm. He was sent to Denmark to negotiate the
marriage of Alfonso VIH. of Castile with a princess-
of that kingdom. He chose the congenial j^ Langue-
Dominic as his companion. No sooner had '^°'^-
they crossed the Pyrenees than they found themselves
in the midst of the Albigensian heresy ; they could not
close their eyes on the contempt into which a.d. 1203.
the clergy had fallen, or on the prosperity of the secta-
rians ; their very host at Toulouse was an Albigensian ;
Dominic is said to have converted him before the
morning.
The mission of the Bishop in Denmark was frus-
1 The Chapter of his order was shocked by, and carefullj' erased from
the authorized Legend of the Saint, a passage, " Ubi semetipsum asserit
licet in integritate carnis divina gratia conservatum, nondum illam imper-
fectionem evadere potuisse, quia magis afficiebatur juvencularum colloquiis
quam aflatibus vetularum." — Apud BoUand. c. 1.
VOL. V. 16
242 LATIN CHKISTIANITY. Book IX.
trated by the unexpected death of the Princess. Before
he returned to Spain, Azevedo, with his companion,
resolved upon a pilgrimage to Rome. The character
of the Bishop of Osma appears from his proposal to
Pope Innocent. He wished to abandon his tranquil
bishopric, and to devote himself to the perilous life of
a missionary, among the Cumans and fierce people
which occupied" part of Hungary, or in some other infi-
del country. That Dominic would have been his com-
panion in this adventurous spiritual enterprise none can
doubt. Innocent commanded the Bishop to return to
his diocese. On their way the Bisliop and Dominic
stopped at Montpellier. There, as has been said, they
A.D. 1205. encountered in all their pomp the three Leg-
ates of the Pope, Abbot Arnold, the Brother Raoul,
and Peter of Castelnau. The Legates were returning
discomfited, and almost desperate, from their progress
in Languedoc. Then it was that Dominic uttered his
bold and memorable rebuke : " It is not by the display
of power and pomp, cavalcades of retainers, and richly
houseled palfreys, or by gorgeous apparel, that the
heretics win proselytes ; it is by zealous preaching, by
apostolic humility, by austerity, by seeming, it is true,
but yet seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal,
humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity ;
preaching falsehood by preaching truth." From that
day Dominic devoted himself to preaching the religion
which he believed. Even the Legates were for a time
put to shame by his precept and example, dismissed
their splendid equipages, and set forth with bare feet ;
yet if with some humility of dress and demeanor, with
none of language or of heart. As the preacher of
orthodoxy, Dominic is said in the pulpit, at the con-
Chap. IX. MIEACLES. 243
ference, to have argued with irresistible force : but
his mission at last seems to have made no profound
impression on the obstinate unbelievers. Erelong the
Bishop Azevedo retired to Osma and died. Dominic
remained alone.
But now the murder of Peter of Castelnau roused
other powers and other passions. That more irresisti-
ble preacher, the sword of the Crusader, was sent
forth : it becomes impossible to discriminate between
the successes of one and of the other. The voice of
the Apostle is drowned in the din of war ; even the
conduct of Dominic himself, the manner in which he
bore himself amidst these unevangelic allies, is clouded
with doubt and uncertainty. His career is darkened
too by the splendor of miracle, with which it Miracles,
is invested. These miracles must not be passed by :
they are largely borrowed from the life of the Saviour
and those of the Saints ; they sometimes sink into the
ludicrous. A schedule, which he had written during
one conference, of scriptural proofs, leaped out of the
fire, while the discriminatino; flames consumed the
writings of his adversaries. He exorcised the devil
who possessed three noble matrons in the shape of a
great black cat with large black eyes, who at last ran
up the bell-rope and disappeared. A lady of extreme
beauty wished to leave her monastery, and resisted all
the preacher's arguments. She blew her nose, it re-
mained in the handkerchief. Horror-stricken, she im-
plored the prayers of Dominic : at his intercession the
nose resumed its place ; the lady remained in the con-
vent. Dominic raised the dead, frequently fed his dis-
ciples in a manner even more wonderful than the Lord
244 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX
in the desert.^ His miracles equal, if not transcend
those in the Gospel. It must indeed have been a stub-
born generation, to need besides these wonders the
sword of Simon de Montfort.
Throughout the Crusade Dominic is lost to the
sight : he is hardly, if at all, noticed by historian or
Dominic poct. It is not till the century after his death
luwar. j.]jg^j. jj^g sterner followers boast of his pres-
ence, if not of his activity, in exciting the savage
soldiery in the day of battle. He marches unarmed
in the van of the army with the cross in his hands, and
escapes unhurt. The cross was shown pierced every-
where with arrows or javelins, only the form of the
Saviour himself uninjured. In modern times there
comes another change over the history of St. Dominic ;
that, of which his contemporaries were silent, which
the next generation blazoned forth as a boast, is now
become a grave imputation. In later writings, his
more pnident admirers assert, that he never appeared
in the field of battle ; he was but once with the armies,
during the great victory of Simon de Montfort, at
Muret ; and then he remained within the city in fer-
vent and uninterrupted prayer. All, perhaps, that is
certainly known is that he showed no disapprobation of
the character or of the deeds of Simon de Montfort.
He obeyed his call to bless the marriage of his son, and
the baptism of his daughter.
So, too, the presence of St. Dominic on tli^ tribu-
jn the nals, where the unhappy heretics were tried
tribunals. ^^^. their livcs, and the part which he took in
1 All these and much more may be found in the lives of St. Dominic, in
the BoUandists and elsewhere.
Chap. IX. IN THE TRIBUNALS. 245
deliverino; them over to the secuhir arm to be burned
by hundreds, is in the same manner, according to the
date of the biographer, a cause of pride or shame, is
boldly vaunted, or tenderly disguised and gently doubt-
ed. The more charitable silence at least of the earlier
writers is sternly repudiated by the Bollandists, who
will not allow the milder sense to be given to the title
" Persecutor of Heretics," assigned to him by the In-
(juisition of Toulouse. They quote St. Thomas of
Aquino as an irrefragable authority on the duty of
burning heretics. They refute the more tolerant argu-
ment by a long line of glorious bishops who have urged
or assisted at holocausts of victims. " What glory,
splendor, and dignity (bursts forth Malvendia) belongs
to the Order of Preachers, words cannot express ! for
the Holy Inquisition owes its origin to St. Dominic,
and was propagated by his faithful followers. By them
heretics of all kinds, the innovators and corrupters of
sound doctrine, were destroyed, unless they would re-
cant, by fire and sword, or at least awed, banished, put
to the rout." The title of Dominic, in its fiercer sense,
even rests on Papal authority, that of Sixtus V. in his
bull for the canonization of Peter Martyr.^ That in-
deed which in modern days is alleged in proof of his
mercy, rather implies his habitual attendance on such
scenes without showing the same mercy. Once he in-
terfered to save a victim, in whom he saw some hopes
of reconciliation, from the flames.^ Calmer inquiry
1 " Jam vero ne recrudesceret in posteris malum, aut impia hicresis repul-
lularet ex cineribus siiis saluberrimo consilio Romani Pontiticis Sanct;e In-
quisitionis officium austeri S. Dominici instituerunt, eidemque B. viro et
Fratribus Pradicatoribus priEcipue detulerunt." — Reicliinius (a Domini-
can); Praef. in Monetam. p. xxxi.
2 La Cordaire, S. Dominique.
246 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
must rob him of, or release liim from, these question-
able glories. His heroic acts, as moving in the van of
bloody battles ; his title of Founder of the Inquisition,
belong to legend not to history. It is his Order which
has thrown back its aggrandizing splendor on St. Domi-
nic. So far was the Church from bowing down before
the transcendent powers and holiness of the future
saints, or discerning with instantaneous sagacity the
value of these new allies, both the Father of the Friar
Preachers and the Father of the Minorites were at first
received with cold suspicion or neglect at Rome ; the
foundation of the two new Orders was extorted from
the reluctant Innocent. The Third Lateran Council
had prohibited the establishment of new orders. Well-
timed and ix'resistible visions (the counsels of wiser and
more far-sighted men) enlightened the Pope, and gen-
tly impelled him to open his eyes, and to yield to the
revocation of his unwise judgment. Dominic returned
from Rome, before the battle of Muret, armed with the
Papal permission to enroll the Order of Friar Preachers.
The earliest foundation of Dominic had been a con-
Foundation vent of females. He had observed that the
of Preachers. j-^QJ^jg ladies of Laugucdoc listened, especially
in early life, with too eager ears to the preachers of
heretical doctrines. At Prouille, at the foot of the
Pyrenees, between Fanjaux and Monreal, he opened
his retreat, where their virgin minds might be safe from
the dangerous contagion. The first monastery of the
Order of Preachers was that of St. Ronain, near Tou-
louse. The brotherhood consisted bat of sixteen, most
of them natives of Languedoc, some Spaniards, one
Englishman. It is remarkable, however, that the
Order, founded for the suppression of heresy by preach-
Chap. IX. FOUNDATION OF THE ORDER. 247
ing in Languedoc, was hardly organized before it left the
chosen scene of its labors. Instead of fixing on Toulouse
or any of the cities of Provence as the centre of his
operations, Dominic was seized with the ambition of
converting the world. Rome, Bologna, Paris, were to
be the seats of his power. Exactly four years after the
V battle of Muret he abandoned Languedoc forever. His
sagacious mind might perhaps anticipate the unfavor-
able change, the fall if not the death of De Montfort,
the return of Count Raymond as the deliverer to his
patrimonial city. But even the stern Spanish mind
might be revolted by the horrors of the Albigensian
war ; he may have been struck by the common grief for
the fall of the noble Spanish King of Arragon. At all
events, the preacher of the word in Languedoc could
play but a secondary part to the preacher by the
sword ; and now that the aim was manifestly not con-
version, but conquest, not the reestablishment of the
Church, but the destruction of the liberties of the
land, not the subjugation of the heretical Count of
Toulouse, but the expulsion from their ancestral throne
of the old princely house and the substitution of a for-
eign usurper, the Castilian might feel shame and com-
punction, even the Christian might be reluctant to
connect the Catholic faith which he would preach with
all tlie deeds of a savage soldiery. The parting address
ascribed to St. Dominic is not quite consistent Sept. 13, 1217.
with this more generous and charitable view of his con-
duct. It is a terrible menace rather than gentle regret
or mild reproof. At the convent of Prouille, after high
mass, he thus spake : " For many years I have spoken
to you with tenderness, with prayers, and tears ; but
according to the proverb of my country, where tlie
248 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
benediction has no effect, the rod may have much.
Behold, now, we rouse up against you princes and
prelates, nations and kingdoms ! Many shall perish by
the sword. The land shall be ravaged, walls thrown
down ; and you, alas ! reduced to slavery. So shall
the chastisement do that which the blessing and which
mildness could not do." ^ ^
Dominic himself took up his residence in Rome.^
His success as a preacher was unrivalled. His fol-
lowers began to spread rumors of the miracles which
he wrought. The Pope Honorius III. appointed him to
the high office, since perpetuated among his spiritual
descendants. Master of the Sacred Palace. He was
held in the highest honor by the aged Cardinal Ugo-
lino, the future Pope Gregory IX. For the propaga^
tion of his Order this residence in Rome was a master-
stroke of policy. Of the devout pilgrims to Rome,
men of all countries in Christendom, the most devout
were most enraptured by the eloquence of Dominic.
Few but must feel that it was a preaching Order which
was wanted in every part of the Christian world.
Dominic was gifted with that rare power, even in those
times, of infusing a profound and enduring devotion to
one object. Once within the magic circle, the in-
thralled disciple either lost all desire to leave it, or, if
he struggled, Dominic seized him and dragged him
back, now an unreluctant captive, by awe, by persua-
sion, by conviction, by what was believed to be miracle,
which might be holy art, or the bold and ready use of
IM.S. de Prouille, published bj' Pfere Perrin: quoted by La Cordaire,
Vie de S. Dominique, p. 404.
2 He first established the monastery of San Sisto on the Coelian Hill, af-
terward that of Santa Sabina.
Chap. IX. RA.PID PROGRESS OF THE ORDER. 2-19
casual but natural circumstances. " God has never,"
as he revealed in secret (a secret not likely to be re-
ligiously kept) to the Abbot of Cassamare, " refused
me anything that I have prayed for." When he
prayed for the conversion of Conrad the Teutonic, was
Conrad left ignorant that he had to resist the prayers
of one whom God had thus endowed with irresistible
efficacy of pi'ayer ? ^ Thus were preachers rapidly
enlisted and dispersed throughout the world, speaking
every language in Christendom. Two Poles, Hyacinth
and Ceslas, carried the rules of the order to their own
country. Dominican convents were founded at Cra-
cow, even as far as Kiow.
Dominic had judged wisely and not too daringly in
embracing the world as the scene of his labors. In
the year 1220, seven years after he had left j^^pij p^og.
Languedoc, he stood, as the Master-General 0^^^^^ '^®
of his order, at the head of an assembly at '^'^' ^^*^'
Bologna. Italy, Spain, Provence, France, Germany,
Poland, had now their Dominican convents ; the voices
of Dominican preachers had penetrated into every land.
But the great question of holding property or depend-
ence on the casual support of mendicancy was still un-
decided. Dominic had accepted landed endowments :
in Languedoc he held a grant of tithes from Fulk
Bishop of Toulouse. But the Order of St. Francis,
of which absolute poverty was the vital rule, was now
rising with simultaneous rapidity. Though both the
founders of the new Orders and the brethren of the
Orders had professed and displayed the most perfect mu-
tual respect, and even amity (twice, it was said, they
had met, with great marks of reverence and esteem),
1 La Cordaire, p. 539.
250 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
yet both true policy and devout ambition might reveal
to the prudent as well as ardent Dominie that the vow
of absolute poverty would give the Franciscans an
immeasurable superiority in popular estimation. His
followers must not be trammelled with worldly wealth,
or be outdone in any point of austerity by those of St.
Francis. The universal suffrage was for the vow of
poverty in the strongest sense, the renunciation of all
property by the Order as well as by the individual
Brother. How long, how steadfastly, that vow was
kept by either Order will appear in the course of our
history.
The second great assembly of the Order was held
A.D. 1221. shortly before the death of Dominic. The
Order was now distributed into eight provinces, Spain,
the first in rank, Provence, France, Lombardy, Rome,
Germany, Hungary, and England. In England the
Prior Gilbert had landed with fourteen friars. Gilbert
preached before the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
Primate, Stephen Langton, was so edified by his elo-
quence, that he at once gave full license to preach
throughout the land. Monasteries rose at Canterbury,
London, Oxford.
But the great strength of these two new Orders was,
besides the communities of friars and nuns (each asso-
Tertiaries. ciatcd with itsclf a kindred female Order),
the establishment of a third, a wider and more secular
community, who were bound to the two former by
bonds of close association, by reverence and implicit
obedience, and were thus always ready to maintain the
interests, to admire and to propagate the wonders, to
subserve in every way the advancement of the higher
disciples of St. Dominic or St. Francis. They were
Chap. IX. DEATH — CANONIZATION. 251
men or women, old or young, married or unmarried,
bound by none of the monastic vows, but deeply im-
bued with the monastic, with the corporate spirit ;
taught to observe all holy days, fasts, vigils with the
utmost rigor, inured to constant prayer and attendance
on divine worship. They were organized, each under
his own prior ; they crowded as a duty, as a privilege,
into the church wherever a Dominican ascended the
pulpit, predisposed, almost compelled, if compulsion
were necessary, to admire, to applaud at least by rapt
attention. Thus the Order spread not merely by its
own pei-petual influence and unwearied activity ; it had
everywhere a vast host of votaries wedded to its inter-
ests, full to fanaticism of its corporate spirit, bound to
receive hospitably or ostentatiously their wandering
preachers, to announce, to trumpet abroad, to propa-
gate the fame of their eloquence, to spread belief in
their miracles, to lavish alms upon them, to fight in
their cause. This lay coadjutory, these Tertiaries, as
they were called, or among the Dominicans, the sol-
diers of Jesus Christ as not altogether secluded from
the world, acted more widely and more subtly upon the
world. Their rules were not rigidly laid down till by
the seventh Master of the Order, Munion de Zamora ;
it was then approved by Popes. ^
Dominic died August 6th, 1221. He was taken
ill at Venice, removed with difficulty to Bo- Death,
logna, where he expired with saintly resignation.
His canonization followed rapidly on his death.
1 Among the special privileges of the Order (in the bull of Honorius)
was that in the time of interdict (so common were interdicts now become)
the Order might still celebrate mass with low voices, without bells. Con-
ceive the influence thus obtained in a religious land, everywhere else de-
prived of all its holy services.
252 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Gregory IX., who in his internecine war M'ith the
Canonization. Einperor Frederick II. had found the advan-
tage of these faithful, restless, unscrupulous allies in
the realm, in the camp, almost in the palace of his
adversary, was not the man to pause or to hesitate in
his grateful acknowledgments or prodigal reward. "I
no more doubt," said the Pope, " the sanctity of Dom-
inic than that of St. Peter or St. Paul." In the bull
of canonization, Dominic is elaborately described as
riding in the four-horsed chariot of the Gospel, as it
were seated behind the four Evangelists, (or rather in
the four chariots of Zechariah, long interpreted as sig-
nifying the four Evangelists,) holding in his hand the
irresistible bow of the Divine Word.
The admiration of their founder, if it rose not with
the Dominicans so absolutely into divine adoration as
with the Franciscans, yet bordered close upon it. He,
too, was so closely approximated to the Saviour as to
be placed nearly on an equality. The Virgin Mother
herself, the special protectress of the sons of Dominic,'
mio-ht almost seem to sanction their bold raptures of
spiritual adulation, from which our most fervent piety
mio-ht shrink as wild profanation. Dominic was the
adopted son of the Blessed Virgin.^
1 There is a strange story of the especial protection extended over the
Order by the "Virgin. It might seem singularly ill-adapted for painting,
but painting has nevertheless ventured, at least partially, to represent it.
To this the modesty of more modern manners, perhaps not less real though
more scrupulous rer^pcct (respect which falls far short of worship), proscribes
more than an allusion : The Virgin is represented with the whole countless
host of Dominicans crowded under her dress. In the vision of St. Brigitta,
the virgin herself is made to sanction this awful confusion. Though in the
vision there is an interpretation which softens away that which in the
painting (which I have seen) becomes actual fact.
■2 More than this, of the Father himself. " Ego, dulcissima filia, istos
duos filios genui, unum naturaliter generando, alium amabiliter et dulciter
Chap. IX. INCREASE OF MONASTERIES. 253
AikI this was part of the creed maintained by an
Order which under its fourth general, John of Wil-
deshausen (in Westphalia), in their Chapter-General at
Bordeaux, reckoned its monasteries at the number of
four hundred and seventy. In Spain thirty-five, in
France fifty-two, in Germany fifty-two, in Tuscany
thirty-two, in Lombardy forty-six, in Hungary thirty,
in Poland thirty-six, in Denmark twenty-eight, in
England forty. They were spreading into Asia, into
heathen or Saracen lands, into Palestine, Greece,
Crete, Abyssinia. Nor is it their number alone which
grows with such wonderful fertility. They are not
content witli the popular mind. They invade the high
places of human intellect : they are disputing the mas-
tery in the Universities of Italy and Germany, in Co-
logne, Paris, and in Oxford. Before long they are to
claim two of the greatest luminaries of the scholastic
philosophy, Albert the Great and Thomas of Aquino.
adoptando . . . Sicut hie Filius a me naturaliter et aternaliter genitus,
a.ssumpta natura humana, in omnibus fuit perfectissime obediens mihi, us-
que ad mortem, sic filius meus adoptivus Dominicus. Omnia, quae operatus
est ab infantia sua usque ad terminum vitse suae, fuerunt angulata secun-
dum obedientiam praeceptorum meorum, nee unquam semel fuit transgressus
quodcunque praeceptum meum, quia virginitatem corporis et animi illiba-
tam servavit, et gratiam baptismi quo spiritualiter renatus est, semper con-
servavit." The parallel goes on between the apostles of the Lord and the
brethren of St Dominic. — Apud BoHand. xlv. p. 844. See also a passage
about the Virgin in La Cordaire, p. 234. In another Vita S. Dominici,
apud Bolland. Aug. 4, is this: — There was a prophetic picture at Venice,
in which appear St. Paul and St. Dominic. Under the latter, ''Facilius itur
per istum." Tne comment of the biographer is : " Doctrina Paulli sicut et
ceterorum apostolorum erat doctrina inducens ad fidem et observ^ationera
praeceptorum, doctrina Dominici ad observantiam consiliorum, et ideo fa-
cilius per ipsum itur ad Christum." — c. vii.
254 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
CHAPTER X.
ST. FRANCIS.i
St. Francis was born in the romantic town of As-
Birthand sisi, of a family, the Bernardini, engaged in
rD.*ii82. trade. His birth took place while his father
was on a mercantile journey in France ; on his return
his new-born son was baptized by the name of Francis.^
His mother, Picca, loved him with all a mother's tender-
ness for her first-born. He received the earliest rudi-
ments of instruction from the clergy of the parish of
St. Georsre: he was soon taken to assist his father in
his trade. The father, a hard, money-makmg man,
was shocked at first by the vanity and prodigality of
his son. The young Francis gave banquets to his
juvenile friends, dressed splendidly, and the streets
1 The vast annals of the Franciscan Order, by Lucas Wadding, in seven-
teen folio volumes, are the great authority: for St. Francis himself the life
by S. Bonaventura. I have much used the Chronique de I'Ordre du Pfere
S". Fran9ois, in quaint old French (the original is in Portuguese, by Marco ,
di Lisbona), Paris, 1623. 1 have an epic poem, in twenty-iive cantos, a
kind of religious plagiary of Tasso, San Francisco, 6 Gierusalemme Celeste
Acquistata, by Agostino Gallucci (1617). The author makes St. Francis
subdue the Wickliffites. There is a modem life by M. Malan.
2 When the disciples of St. Francis were fully possessed with the conform-
ity of their founder with the Saviour, the legend grew up, assimilating his
birth to that of the Lord. .A prophetess foreshowed it; he was born by di-
vine suggestion in a stable; angels rejoiced; even peace and good will were
announced, though by a human voice. An angel, like old Simeon, bore him
at the font. And all this is gravely related by a biographer of the 19th
century, M. Malan.
Chap. X. BIRTH AND YOUTH OF ST. FRANCIS. 255
of Assisi rang with the songs and revels of the joy-
ous crew ; but even then his bounty to the poor formed
a large part of his generous wastefulness. He was
taken captive in one of the petty wars which had
broken ovit between Perugia and Assisi, and re-
mained a year in prison. He was then seized with
a violent illness : when he rose from his bed nature
looked cold and dreary ; he began to feel disgust to the
world. The stirrings of some great but yet undefined
purjiose were already awake within him. He began
to see visions, but as yet they wei'e of war and glory :
the soldier was not dead in his heart. He determined
to follow the fortunes of a youthful poor knight who
was settino; out to fight under the banner of the " Gen-
tie Count," Walter of Brienne, against the hated Ger-
mans. At Spoleto he again fell ill ; his feverish visions
took another turn. Francis now felt upon him that
profound religious thraldom which he was never to
break, never to desire to break. His whole soul be-
came deliberately, calmly, ecstatic faith. He began
to talk mysteriously of his future bride — that bride
was Poverty. He resolved never to refuse alms to a
poor person. He found his way to Rome, threw down
all he possessed, no costly offering, on the altar of St.
Peter. On his return he joined a troop of beggars,
and exchanged his dress for the rags of the filthiest
among them. His mother heard and beheld all his
strange acts with a tender and prophetic admiration.
To a steady trader like the father it was folly if not
madness. He was sent with a valuable bale of goods
to sell at Folio-no. On his return he threw all the
money down at the feet of the priest of St. Damian
to rebuild his church, as well as the price of his horse,
256 LATIN" CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
which he likemse sold. The priest refused the gift.
In the eyes of the father this was dishonesty as well as
folly. Francis concealed himself in a cave, where he
lay hid for a month in solitary prayer. He returned
to Assisi, looking so wild and haggard that the rabble
hooted him as he passed and pelted him with mire
and stones. The gentle Francis appeared to rejoice
in every persecution. The indignant father shut him
up in a dark chamber, from which, after a time, he was
released by the tender solicitude of his mother. Ber-
nardini now despaired of his unprofitable and intractable
son, whom he suspected of alienating other sums besides
that which he had received for the cloth and the horse.
He cited him before the magistrates to compel him to
abandon all rights on his patrimony, which he was
disposed to squander in this thriftless manner. Francis
declared that he was a servant of God, and declined
the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. The cause
came before the Bishop. The Bishop earnestly ex-
horted Francis to yield up to his father any money
which he might possess, or to which he was entitled.
Gives up his " It might be ungodly gain, and so unfit to
i^D^im"' be appHed to holy uses." " I will give up
^tat. 25. ^|-jg y^Yy clothes I wcar," replied the enthu-
siast, encouraged by the gentle demeanor of the Bishop.
He stripped himself entirely naked.^ " Peter Bernar-
dini was my father ; I have now but one father, he that
is in heaven." The audience burst into tears ; the
Bishop threw his mantle over him and ordered an old
coarse dress of an artisan to be brought : he then re-
ceived Francis into his service.
Francis was now wedded to Poverty ; but poverty
1 According to S. Bonaventura, he had hair-cloth under his dress.
Chap. X. FRANCIS WEDDED TO POVERTY. 257
he would only love in its basest form — mendicancy.
He wandered abroad, was ill used by robbers ; EQ,braces
on his escape received from an old friend ™«"<i'<"ancy.
at Gubbio a hermit's attire, a short tunic, a leathern
girdle, a staff and slippers. He begged at the gates of
monasteries ; he discharged the most menial offices.
With even more profound devotion he dedicated him-
self for some time in the hospital at Gubbio to that
unhappy race of beings whom even Christianity was
constrained to banish fi'om the social pale — the lep-
ers.^ He tended them with more than necessary af-
fectionateness, washed their feet, dressed their sores,
and is said to have wroui2;ht miraculous cures amona:
them. The moral miracle of his charity toward them
is a more certain and more affecting proof of his true
Christianity of heart. It was an especial charge to
the brethren of St. Francis of Assisi to choose these
outcasts of humanity as the objects of their peculiar
care. 2
On his return to Assisi he employed himself in the
restoration of the church of St. Damian. " Whoever
will give me one stone shall have one prayer ; whoever
two, two ; three, three." The people mocked, but
Francis went on carrying the stones in his own hands,
1 There is something singularly affecting in the service of the Church for
the seclusion of the lepers, whose number is as sure a proof of the wretch-
edness of those times, as the care of them of the charity. The stern duty of
locking to the public welfare is tempered with exquisite compassion for the
victims of this loathsome disease. The service may be found — it is worth
seeking for — in Martene de Antiquis Ecclesia Ritibus. It is quoted by M.
Malan.
2 S. Bonaventura saj-s that he healed one leper with a kiss: " Nescio
quidnam horum magis sit admirandum, an humilitatis profunditas in osculo
tam benigno, an virtutis prajclaritas in miraculo tarn stupendo." — Vit. S.
Francisci.
VOL. V. 17
258 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
and the church began to rise. He refused all food
which he did not obtain by begging. His father re-
proached him and uttered his malediction. He took
a beggar of the basest class : "Be thou my father and
give me thy blessing." Bvit so successful was he in
awakening the charity of the inhabitants of Assisi,
that not only the church of St. Damian, but two oth-
ers, St. Peter and St. Maria dei Angeli (called the
Portiuncula), through his means arose out of their
ruins to decency and even splendor. One day, in
the clmrch of St. Maria dei Angeli, he heard the text,
" Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your
purses. Neither scrip for your journey, neither two
coats, neither shoes nor yet staves." He threw away
his wallet, his staff, and his shoes, put on the coarsest
dark gray tunic, bound himself with a cord, and set
out through the city calling all to repentance.
This strange but fervent piety of Francis could not
but, in that age, kindle the zeal of others. Wonder
grew into admiration, admiration into emulation, emu-
lation into a blind following of his footsteps. Disciples,
one by one (the first are carefully recorded), began to
gather round him. He retired with them to a lonely
spot in the bend of the river, called Rivo Torto. A
rule was wanting for the young brotherhood. Thrice
upon the altar he opened the Gospels, which perhaps
were accustomed to be opened on these passages.^ He
read three texts in reverence for the Holy Trinity.
The first was, " If thou wilt be perfect, sell all thou
hast and give to the poor ; " ^ the second, " Take
nothing for your journey ; " ^ the third, " If any one
1 The poet gives the date, St. Luke's day, Oct. 18, 1212.
2 Matt. xix. 21. 8 Mark vi. 8.
Chap. X. FRAXCIS BEFORE POPE INNOCENT. 259
would come after me, let him take up his cross and
follow me." ^ Francis made the sign of the cross and
sent forth his followers into the neighboring cities, as
if to divide the world, to the east and west, the north
and south. They reassembled at Rivo Torto and de-
termined to go to Rome to obtain the authority of the
Pope for the foundation of their order. On the way
they met a knight in arms. " Angelo," said St. Fran-
cis, " instead of that baldrick thou shalt gird thee with
a cord ; for thy sAvord thou shalt take the cross of
Christ ; for the spurs, the dirt and mire." Angelo
made up the mystic number of twelve, which the pro-
found piety of his followers alleged as a new similitude
to the Lord. 2
Innocent III. was walking on the terrace of the
Lateran when a mendicant of the meanest appearance
presented himself, proposing to convert the world by
poverty and humility. The haughty Pontiff dismissed
him with contempt. But a vision, says the legend,
doubtless more grave deliberation and inquiry, sug-
gested that such an Order might meet the heretics on
their own ground ; the Poor Men of the Church might
out-labor and out-sufFer the Poor Men of Lyons. He
sent for Francis, received him in the midst of the car-
dinals, and listened to his proposal for his new Order.
Some of the cardinals objected the difficulty, the im-
possibility of the vows. " To suppose that anything
1 Matt. xvi. 24.
2 It was at this period that he was said, or said himself that he was
transported to heaven, into the actual presence of the Lord, who, according
to the poem, gave him a plenary indulgence for himself and his follow-
ers: —
" E plenaria indulgenza oggi si daya."
c. vi. 41.
260 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
is difficult or impossible with God," said the Cai'dinal
Bishop of St. Sabina, " is to blaspheme Christ and his
Gospel.
The Order was now founded ; the Benedictines of
Foundation Moute Subiaco gave tliem a church, called,
of the Order, j-],^ jj^^^^. ^^^^^ Assisi, St. Maria dei Angeli,
or de la Portiuncula. In the difficulty, the seeming
impossibility of the vows was their strength. The
three vital principles of the Order were chastity, pov-
erty, obedience. For chastity, no one was to speak
with a woman alone, except the few who might safely
do so (from age or severity of character), and that was
to urge penitence or give spiritual counsel. Poverty
was not only the renunciation of all possessions, but of
all property, even in the clothes they wore, in the cord
which girt them — even in their breviaries.^ Money
was, as it were, infected ; they might on no account
receive it in alms except (the sole exception) to aid a
sick brother ; no brother might ride if he had power to
walk. They were literally to fulfil the precept, if
stricken on one cheek, to offer the other ; if spoiled of
part of their dress, to yield up the rest. Obedience
was urged not merely as obligatory and coercive : the
deepest mutual love was to be the bond of the brother-
hood.
The passionate fervor of the preaching, the mystic
tenderness, the austere demeanor of Francis and his
disciples, could not but work rapidly and profoundly
among his female hearers. Clara, a noble virgin of
Assisi, under the direction of St. Francis, had in the
same manner to strive against the tender and aff'ection-
1 At first, says S. Bonaventura, they had no books; their only book was
the cross.
Chap. X. FOEEIGX MISSIONS. 261
tionate worldliness, as she deemed it, of her family.
But she tore herself from their love as from a sin,
entered into a convent attached to the church of St.
Daniian, and became the mother of the poor sisterhood
of St. Clare. Of Clara it is said that she never but
once (and that to receive the blessing of the Pope) so
lifted her eyelids that the color of her eyes mio-ht be
discerned. Clara practised mortifications more severe
than any of her sex before. The life of the sisters
was one long dreary penance ; even their services Avere
all sadness. The sisters who could read were to read
the Hours, but without chanting. Those who could
not read were not to learn to read. To the prayers of
St. Clara it was attributed that, in later times, her own
convent and the city of Assisi were preserved from the
fierce Mohammedans which belonged to the army of
Frederick II. The Order was confirmed by a bull of
Innocent IV.
Francis, in the mean time, witli his whole soul vowed
to the service of God, set forth to subdue the Fo,.^ign
world. He had hesitated between the contem- ™'^«'°°«-
plative and active life — prayer in the secluded mon-
astery, or preaching the cross of Christ to mankind.
The mission of love prevailed ; his success and that of
his ardent followers might seem to justify their resolu-
tion. They had divided the world, and some had al-
ready set forth into France and into Spain with the
special design of converting the Miramamolin and his
Mohammedan subjects. Everywhere they were lieard
with fanatic rapture. At their first chapter, a.d. 1215.
held in the church of the Portiuncula, only three years
after the scene at Rivo Torto, it was necessary to or-
dain provincial masters in Spain, Provence, France and
262 LATIN CHRISTLA.NITY. Book IX.
Germany : at a second chapter of the Order in 1219
met five thousand brethren.
The holy ambition of St. Francis grew with his
St. Francis succcss. He determined to confront the
in the East. p ^^, ...... ,
i.D. 1219. great enemy or Christianity m his strength.
He set off to preach to the Mohammedans of the East.
The Christian army was encamped before Damietta.
The sagacity of Francis anticipated from their discord,
which lie in vain endeavored to reconcile, their defeat.
His prophecy was too fully accomplished ; but he de-
termined not the less to proceed on his mission. On
his way to the Saracen camp he met some sheep. It
occurred to him, " I send you forth as sheep among the
wolves." He was taken and carried before the Sultan.
To the Sultan he boldly offered the way of salvation.
He preached (in what language we are not told) the
Holy Trinity and the Divine Saviour before these
stern Unitarians. The Mohammedans reverence what
they deem insanity as partaking of divine inspiration.
The Sultan is said to have listened with respect ; his
grave face no doubt concealed his compassion. St.
Francis offered to enter a great fire with the priests of
Islam, and to set the truth of either faith on the issue.
The Sultan replied that his priests would not willingly
submit to this perilous trial. " I will enter alone," said
Francis, " if, should I be burned, you will impute it to
my sins ; should I come forth alive, you will embrace
the Gospel." The Sultan naturally declined these
terms, as not quite fair towards his creed. But he
offered rich presents to Francis (which the preacher
of poverty rejected with utter disdain), and then sent
him back in honor to the camp at Damietta. Francis
passed through the Holy Land and the kingdom of
Chap. X. CHARACTER OF ST FRANCIS. 263
Antioch, preaching and winning disciples, and then re-
turned to Italy. His fame was now at its hcioht, and
wherever he went his wondering disciples saw perpet-
ual miracle. In this respect the life of the Saviour is
far surpassed by that of St. Francis.
The Order soon had its martyrs. The Mohamme-
dan Moors of Africa were fiercer than those Martyrs,
of Egypt. Five monks, after preaching without suc-
cess to the Saracens of Seville, crossed into Africa.
After many adventures (in one of which during an
expedition against the Moorish tribes of the interior,
Friar Berard struck water fi'om the desert rock, like
Moses j they were offered wealth, beautiful wives, and
honors, if they would embrace Mohammedanism. They
spat on the ground in contempt of the miscreant offer.
The King himself clove the head of one of them with
a sword ; the rest were despatched in horrible torments.^
St. Francis received the sad intelligence with triumph,
and broke forth in gratulations to the convent of Alon-
quir, which had thus produced the first purple flowers
of martyrdom.
This was no hardness, or want of compassion, but
the counter-working of a stronger, more pas- character of
sionate emotion. Of all saints, St, Francis ^'- ^'■*°''^-
Avas the most blameless and gentle. In Dominic and
in his disciples all was still rigorous, cold, argumenta-
tive ; something remained of the crusader's fierceness,
the Spaniard's haughty humility, the inquisitor's stern
suppression of all gentler feelings, the polemic stern-
1 See on these niart3^rt Southey's ballad: —
'' What news, 0 Queen Orraca,
Of the martyrs five what news ?
Does the bloody Miramamoliu
Their burial vet refuse ? "
234 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
ness. Whether Francis would have burned hei^etics,
happily we know not, but he would Avillingly have been
burned for them : himself excessive in austerities, he
would at times mitigate the austerity of others. Fran-
cis was emphatically the Saint of the people ; of a
poetic people like the Italians. Those who were here-
after to chant the Paradise of Dante, or the softer
stanzas of Tasso, might well be enamored of the ruder
devotional strains in the poetry of the whole life of
St. Francis. The lowest of the low might find conso-
lation, a kind of pride, in the self-abasement of St.
Francis even beneath the meanest. The very name of
his discii)les, the Friar Minors, implied their humility.
In his own eyes (says his most pious successor) he
was but a sinner, while in truth he was the mirror and
splendor of holiness. It was revealed, says the same
Bonaventura, to a Brother, that the throne of one of
the angels, who fell from pride, was reserved for Fran-
cis, who was glorified by humility. If the heart of the
poorest was touched by the brotherhood in poverty and
lowliness of such a saint, how was his imagination
kindled by his mystic strains ? St. Francis is ^mong
the oldest vernacular poets of Italy. ^ His poetry, in-
deed, is but a long passionate ejaculation of love to the
Redeemer in rude metre ; it has not even the order
and completeness of a hymn : it is a sort of plaintive
variation on one simple melody ; an echo of the same
tender words, multiplied again and again, it might be
fancied, by the voices in the cloister walls. But his
ordinary speech is more poetical than his poetry. In
his peculiar language he addresses all animate, even in-
1 M. de :\Iontalembei-t is eloquent, as usual, on his poetry. — Preface to
•'La Vie d'Elizabetli d'Hongrie."
Chap. X. POETRY OF ST. FRANCIS. 265
animate, creatures as his brothers ; not merely the
birds and beasts ; he had an especial fondness for
lambs and larks, as the images of the Lamb of God
and of the cherubim in heaven.^ I know not if it be
among the Conformities, but the only malediction I
find him to have uttered was against a fierce swine
which had killed a young lamb. Of his intercourse
with these mute animals, we are told many pretty par-
ticularities, some of them miraculous. But his poetic
impersonation went beyond this. When the surgeon
was about to cauterize him, he said, " Fire, my brother,
be thou discreet and gentle to me." ^ In one of his
Italian hymns he speaks of his brother the sun, his
sister the moon, his brother the wind, his sister the
water.s No wonder that in this almost perpetual ec-
static state, imearthly music played around him, un-
earthly light shone round his path. When he died,
he said, with exquisite simplicity, " Welcome, sister
Death." ^ St. Francis himself, no doubt, was but un-
consciously presumptuous, when he acted as under di-
vine inspiration, even when he laid the groundwork for
that assimilation of his own life to that of the Saviour,
which was wrought up by his disciples, as it were, into
a new Gospel, and superseded the old. His was the
studious imitation of humility, not the emulous a])prox-
imation of pride, even of pride disguised from himself ;
such profaneness entered not into his thought. His
1 Bonaventura, c. viii.
2 The words were, " Fratel fuoco, da Dio create piii bello, piii attivo, e
pill giovevole d'ogni altro eleniento, noi te mostra or iiel cimento discreto e
mite." — Vita (Fuligno), p. 15.
3 " Laudato sia el Dio, mio Signore con tute le Creature ; specialmente
Messer lo frate Sole. . . . Laudato sia il mio Signore per suor Luna, per
frate vento, per suor acqua."
4 " Ben venga la sorella morte."
266 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
life might seem a religious trance. The mysticism so
absolutely absorbed him as to make him unconscious,
as it were, of the presence of his body. Incessantly
active as was his life, it was a kind of paroxysmal
activity, constantly collapsing into what might seem
a kind of suspended animation of the corporeal fimc-
tions.^ It was even said that he underwent a kind of
visible and glorious transfiguration.^ But with what
wonderful force must all this have worked upon the
world, the popular world around him ! About three
years before his death, with the permission of the Pope,
he celebrated the Nativity of the Lord in a new way.
A manger was prepared, the whole scene of the mi-
raculous birth represented. The mass was interpola-
ted before the prayers. St. Francis preached on the
Nativity. The angelic choirs were heard ; a wonder-
ing disciple declared that he saw a beautiful child
reposing in the manger.
The order of St. Francis had, and of necessity, its
Tertiaries, like that of St. Dominic.^ At his preach-
ing, and that of his disciples, such multitudes would
have crowded into the Order as to become dangerous
and unmanageable. The whole population of one
town, Canari in Umbria, offered themselves as dis-
1 " E tanto in lei (in Gesu) sovente profondasi, tanto s'immerge, inabis-
sa, e concentra, clie assorto non vide, non ascolta, non sente, e se opera car-
nalmente, nol conosca, non sel rammenta." This state is thus illustrated:
he was riding on an ass; he was almost torn in pieces by devout men and
women shouting around him; he was utterly unconscious, like a dead man.
— From a modern Vita di S. Friincesco. Foligno, 1824.
2 " Ad conspectuni sublimis Seraph et humilis Crucifixi, fuit in vivse
formfe effigiem, vi quadam deiformi et ignea transformatus; quemadmodum
testati sunt, tactis sacrosanctis jurantes, qui palpaverunt, osculati sunt, et
riderunt." — S. Bonaventura, in Vit. INIinor. i.
8 Chapter of Tertiaries, ,v.D. 1222; Chroniciues, L. ii. c. xxxii.
Chap. X. THE STIGMATA. 267
ciples. The Tertiaries were called the Brethren of
Penitence ; they were to retain their social position in
the world : but, first enjoined to discharge all their
debts, and to make restitution of all unfair gains.
They were then admitted to make a vow to keep the
commandments of God, and to give satisfaction for
any breach of which they might have been guilty.
They could not leave the Order, except to embrace a
religious life. Women were not admitted without the
consent of their husbands. The form and color of
their dress were prescribed, silk rigidly prohibited.
They were to keep aloof from all public spectacles,
dances, especially the theatre ; to give nothing to
actors, jugglers, or such profane persons. Their fasts
were severe, but tempered with some lenity ; their
attendance at church constant. They were not to
bear arms except in the cause of the Church of Rome,
the Christian faith, or their country, and that at the
license of their ministers. On entering the Order,
they were immediately to make their wills to prevent
future litigation ; they were to abstain from unneces-
sary oaths ; they were to submit to penance, when im-
posed by their ministers.
But St. Francis had not yet attained his height even
of worldly fame ; he was yet to receive the a.d. 1224.
last marks of his similitude to the Redeemer, to bear
on his body actually and really the five wounds of the
Redeemer.
That which was so gravely believed must be gravely
related. In the solitude of Monte Alverno ^^^ g^jg.
(a mountain which had been bestowed on the ™^'*'
Order by a rich and pious votary, and where a mag-
268 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX
nificent church afterwards arose) Francis had retired
to hold a solemn fast in honor of the Archangel
Michael. He had again consulted the holy ox^acle.
Thrice the Scriptui'es had been opened ; thrice they
opened on the Passion of the Lord. . This was inter-
preted, that even in this life Francis was to he brought
into some mysterious conformity with the death of the
Saviour. One morning, while he was praying in an
access of the most passionate devotion, he saw in a
vision, or, as he supposed, in real being, a seraph with
six wings. Amidst these wings appeared the likeness
of the Crucified. Two wings arched over his head,
two were stretched for flight, two veiled the body.
As the apparition disappeared, it left upon his mind an
indescribable mixture of delight and awe. On his
body instantaneously appeared marks of the crucifix-
ion, like those which he had beheld. Two black ex-
crescences, in the form of nails, with the heads on one
side, the points bent back on the other, had grown out
of his hands and feet. There was a wound on his side,
which frequently flowed with blood, and stained his
garment. Francis endeavored, in his extreme humility,
notwithstanding the remonstrances of his disciples, to
conceal this wonderful sight ; but the wounds were
seen, it is declared, at one time by fifty brethren.
Countless miracles were ascribed to their power. The
wound on his side Francis hid with peculiar care. But
it was seen during his life, as it is asserted ; the pious
curiosity of his disciples pierced through every con-
cealment. Pope Alexander IV. publicly declared that
his own eyes had beheld the stigmata on the body of
Oct. 4, 1226. St. Francis. Two years after St. Francis
Chap. X. FRANCISCANISM. 269
died. He determined literally to realize the words of
the Scripture, to leave the world naked as he entered
it. His disciples might then, and did then, it is said,
actually satisfy themselves as to these signs : to com-
plete the parallel an incredulous Thomas was found to
investigate the fact with suspicious scrutiny. It be-
came an article of the Franciscan creed ; though the
now rival Order, the Dominicans, hinted rationalistic
doubts, they were authoritatively rebuked. It became
almost the creed of Christendom.^
Up to a certain period this studious conformity of
the life of St. Francis with that of Christ, character
heightened, adorned, expanded, till it re- cauism.
ceived its perfect form in the work of Bartholomew
of Pisa, was promulgated by the emulous zeal of
a host of disciples throughout the world. Those
whose more reverential piety might take offence
were few and silent; the declaration of Pope Alex-
ander, the ardent protector of the Mendicant Friars,
imposed it almost as an article of the Belief. With
the Franciscans, and all under the dominion of the
Franciscans, the lower orders throughout Christendom,
there was thus almost a second Gospel, a second Re-
deemer, who could not but throw back the one Saviour
1 The Dominican Jacob de Voragine assigns five causes for the stigmata ;
they in fact resolve themselves into the first, imagination. His illustrations,
however, are chiefly fi-om pregnant women, whose children resemble some-
thing which had violently impressed the mother's mind. He does not deny
the fact. " Summus ergo Franciscus, in visione sibi facta imaginabatur
Seraphim Crucifixum, et tarn fortis imaginatione extitit, quod vulnera pas-
sionis in came sua impressit." — Sermo iii. de S. Francisco. Compare
Gieseler, ii. 2, 349. Nicolas IV., too, asserted the stigmata of St. Francis
(he was himself a Franciscan); he silenced a Dominican, who dared to as-
sert that in Peter Martyr (Peter was a Dominican) were signs Dei vivi, ill
St. Francis only Dei mortui. — Raynald. a.d. 1291.
270 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
into more awfiil obscurity. The worship of St. Francis
in prayer, in picture, vied with that of Christ : if it
led, perhaps, a few up to Christ, it kept the multitude
fixed upon itself But as sooi"i as indignant religion
dared lift up its protest (after several centuries !) it did
so ; and, as might be expected, revenged its long com-
pulsory silence by the bitterest satire and the rudest
burlesque.^
Franciscanism was the democracy of Christianity ;
but with St. F]-ancis it was an humble, meek, quiescent
democracy. In his own short fragmentary writings he
ever enforces the most submissive obedience to the
clergy ; ^ those at least who lived according to the rule
of the Roman Church. This rule would no doubt ex-
cept the simoniac and the married clergy ; but the
whole character of his teaching was the farthest re-
moved from that of a spiritual demagogue. His was
a pacific passive mysticism, which consoled the poor for
the inequalities of this fife by the hopes of heaven.
But erelong his more vehement disciple, Antony of
Padua, sounded a different note: he scrupled not to
denounce the worldly clergy. Antony of Padua was
1 See the Alcoran des Cordeliers. Yet this book could hardly transcend
the grave blasphemies of the Liber Conformitatum, e.g., Christ was trans-
figured once, St. Francis twenty times; Christ changed water into wine
once, St. Francis three times; Christ endured his wounds a short time, St.
Francis two years; and so with all the Gospel miracles.
2 In his Testament he writes: " Postea dedit mihi Dominus, et dat
tantum fidem in saeerdotibus, qui vivunt secundum Ordinem Sanct;c Ro-
mans ecclesiiB propter ordinem ipsorum, quod si facerent mihi persecu-
tionem volo reciirrere ad ipsos." — Op. St. Francisc. p. 20. " II disoit que
s'il rencontroit un S;iinct qui fust descendu du ciel en terre et un Prestre,
qu'il baiseroit premierement la main au Prestre, puis il feroit la reverence
au Sainct, recevant de celui-lii le corps de nostre Seigneur Jesus Christ,
pourquoi il mt^ritoit plus d'honneiir." — Chroniques, i. c. Ixxxiv.
Chap. X. ANTONY OF PADUA. 271
a Portuguese, born at Lisbon. He showed early a
strong religious temperament. The relics of the five
Franciscan martyrs, sent over from Morocco, had
kindled the most ardent enthusiasm. The youncr
Fernand (such was his baptismal name) joined him-
self to some Franciscan friars, utterly illiterate, but of
burning zeal, and under their guidance set forth de-
liberately to win the crown of martyrdom among the
Moors. He was cast by a storm on the coast of Sicily.
He found his way to Romagna, united himself to the
Franciscans, retired into a hermitage, studied deeply,
a7id at length was authorized by the General of the
Order to go forth and preach. For many years his elo-
quence excited that rajiture of faith which during these
times is almost periodically breaking forth, especially
in the north of Italy. Every class, both sexes, all ages
were equally entranced. Old enmities were reconciled,
old debts paid, forgotten wrong atoned for ; prostitutes
forsook their sins, robbers forswore their calling ; such
is said to have been the magic of his words that in-
fants ceased to cry. His voice was clear and piercing
like a trumpet ; his Italian purer than that of most
natives. At Rimini, at Milan, in other cities, he held
disputations against the heretics, who yielded to his ir-
resistible arguments. Biit the triumph of his courage
and of his eloquence was his daring to stand before
Eccelin of Verona to rebuke him for his bloody atroci-
ties. Eccelin is said to have bowed in awe before the
intrepid preacher, he threw himself at the feet of
Antony, and promised to amend his life. The clergy'
dared not but admire Antony of Padua, whom miracle
began to environ. But they saw not without terror
that the meek Franciscan mijiht soon become a for-
272 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
midable demagogue, formidable to themselves as to the
enemies of the faith.
But what is more extraordinary, already in the time
of St. Bonaventura they had begun to be faithless to
their hard bride, Poverty. Bonaventura himself might
have found it difficult to adduce authority for his labo-
rious learnino; in the rule of his Master. Franciscan-
ism is in both respects more or less repudiating St.
Francis. The first General of the Order, Brother
Elias (General during the lifetime of the Saint), re-
fused the dignity, because his infirmities compelled him
to violate one of its rules, to ride on horseback. He
was compelled to assume the honor, degraded, resumed
his office, was again degraded ; for Elias manifestly de-
spised, and endeavored to throw off, and not alone, the
very vital principle of the Order, mendicancy ; he per-
secuted the true disciples of St. Francis.^ At length
the successor of St. Francis became a counsellor of
Frederick II., the mortal enemy of the Pope, especially
of the Franciscan Popes, above all of the first patron
of Franciscanism, Gregory IX.
The Rule had required the peremptory renunciation
The Rule. of all worldly goods by every disciple of the
Order, and those who received the proselytes were care-
fully to abstain from mingling in worldly business. Not
till he was absolutely destitute did the disciple become
a Franciscan. They might receive food, clothes, or
other necessaries, on no account money ; even if they
found it they were to trample it under foot. They
1 Compare Les Chroniques, part ii. c. v. p. 4. " Aiissi ^toit cause de
grand mal, le grand nombre des freres qui lui adheroient, lesquels comme
les partisans le suivoient et I'imitoient, I'incitant a poursuivTe les freres qui
^toieut zeles observateurs de la r^gle." — Eegul., cap. ii. p. 23.
Chap. X. THE RULE. 273
might labor for their support, but were to be paid in
kind. They were to have two tunics, one with a hood,
one without, a girdle and breeches. The fatal feud,
the controversy on the interpretation of this stern rule
of poverty, will find its place hereafter.
St. Francis rejected alike the pomp of ritual, and
the pride of learning. The Franciscan services were
to be conducted with the utmost simplicity of devotion,
with no wantonness of music. There was to be only
one daily mass. It was not long before the magnificent
church of Assisi began to rise ; and the Franciscan ser-
vices, if faithful to the form, began soon by their gor-
geousness to mock the spirit of their master.
No Franciscan was to preach without permission of
the Provincial of the Order, or if forbidden by the
bishop of the diocese ; their sermons were to be on the
great religious and moral truths of the Gospel, and
especially short. He despised and prohibited human
learning, even human eloquence displayed for vanity
and ostentation.^ Bonaventura himself in his profound-
est writings maintained the mystic fervor of his master;
but everywhere the Franciscans are with the Domin-
icans vying for the mastery in the universities of Chris-
tendom ; Duns Scotus the most arid dialectician, and
William of Ockham the demagogue of scholasticism,
balance the fame of Albert the Great and Thomas of
1 " Je lie voudrais point de plus grands Docteurs de Thd'ologie, que ceux
qui enseignent leur prochain avec les oeuvres, la douceur, la pauvrete, es
rhumilite." He goes on to rebuke preachers who are tilled with vain
glory by the concourse of hearers, and the success of their preaching. —
Chroniques, ii. c. xxiv. I find the Saint goaded to one other malediction,
— against a provincial, v/ho encouraged profound study at the University
of Bologna. — c. xviii. See above his contempt and aversion for books.
VOL. V. 18
274 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Aquino. A century has not passed before, besides the
clergy, the older Orders are heaping invectives on the
disciples of St. Francis, not only as disturbers of their
religious peace, as alienating the affections and rever-
ence of their flocks or their retainers, but as their more
successful rivals for the alms of dying penitents, as the
more universal legatees of lands, treasures, houses, im-
munities.
The Benedictine of St. Albans,^ Matthew Paris,
who at first wrote, or rather adopted language, highly
commending the new-born zeal, and yet-admired holi-
ness of the mendicants,^ in all the bitter jealousy of a
Change in wval Order, writes thus : — "It is terrible,
the Order. j^. jg ^^^ awful prcsagc, that in three hundred
years, in four hundred years, even in more, the old
monastic Orders have not so entirely degenerated as
these Fraternities. The friars who have been founded
hardly forty years have built, even in the present day
in England, residences as lofty as the palaces of our
kings. These are they, who enlarging day by day
their sumptuous edifices, encircling them with lofly
walls, lay up within them incalculable treasures, im-
prudently transgressing the bounds of poverty, and
violating, according to the prophecy of the German
Hildegard, the very fundamental rules of their profes-
sion. These are they who impelled by the love of
gain, force themselves upon the last hours of the Lords,
and of the rich whom they know to be overflowing
with w^ealth ; and these, despising all rights, supplant-
^ The first Franciscan foundation in England was at Abingdon. — Malan,
p. 264.
•i Wendover, ii. p. 210, sub ann. 1207.
Chap. X. DEATH OF INNOCENT III. 275
ing the ordinary pastors, extort confessions and secret
testaments, boasting of themselves and of their Order,
and asserting their vast superiority over all others. So
that no one of the faithful now believes that he can be
saved, unless guided and directed by the Preachers or
Friar Minors. Eager to obtain privileges, they serve
in the courts of kings and nobles, as counsellors, cham-
berlains, treasurers, bridesmen, or notaries of mai'riages ;
they are the executioners of the papal extortions. In
their preaching they sometimes take the tone of flat-
tery, sometimes of biting censure : they scruple not to
reveal confessions, or to bring forward the most rash
accusations. They despise the legitimate Orders, those
founded by holy flithers, by St. Benedict or St. Augus-
tine, with all their professors. They place their own
Order high above all ; they look on the Cistercians as
]ude and simple, half laic or rather peasants ; they treat
the Black Monks as haughty Epicureans."-^
Our history reverts to the close of Innocent III.'s
eventful pontificate.
In the full vigor of his manhood died Innocent III.
He, of all the Popes, had advanced the most ^^ jgie.
exorbitant pretensions, and those pretensions pope'^i^o-
had been received by an age most disposed to ''™' ^^'
accept them with humble deference. The high and
blameless, in some respects wise and gentle character
of Innocent, might seem to approach more nearly than
any one of the whole succession of Roman bishops, to
the ideal height of a supreme Pontiff: in him, if ever,
might appear to be realized the churchman's highest
conception of the Vicar of Christ. Gregory VII. and
1 Paris reckons the forty years to his own time, sub ann. 1249.
/
276 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
Boniface VIII., the first and the last of the aggressive
Popes, and the aged Gregory IX., liad no doubt more
rugged warfare to encounter, fiercer and more unscru-
pulous enemies to subdue. But in all these there was
a personal sternness, a contemptuous haughtiness ; theirs
was a worldly majesty. Hildebrand and Benedetto
Gaetani are men in whom secular policy obscures, and
throws back, as it were, the spiritual greatness ; and
though the firmness with which they endure reverses
may be more lofty, yet there is a kind of desecration
of the unapproachable sanctity of their office in their
personal calamities. The pride of Innocent was calmer,
more self-possessed ; his dignity was less disturbed by
degrading collisions with rude adversaries ; he died on
his unshaken throne, in the plenitude of his seemingly
Results of his w»c[uestioned power. Yet if we pause and
Pontificate, contemplate, as we cannot but pause and con-
template, the issue of this highest, in a certain sense
noblest and most religious contest for the Papal ascen-
dency over the world of man, there is an inevitable con-
viction of the unreality of that Papal power. With
all the grandeur of his views, with all the persevering
energy of his measures, throughout Innocent's reign,
everywhere we behold failure, everywhere immediate
discomfiture, or transitory success which paved the way
for future disaster. The higher the throne of the Pope
the more manifestly were its foundations undermined,
unsound, unenduring.
Even Rome does not always maintain her peaceful
subservience. Her obedience is interrupted, precari-
ous ; that of transient awe, not of deep attachment, or
rooted reverence. In Italy, the tutelage of the young
Chap. X. RESULTS OF INNOCENT'S PONTIFICATE. 277
Frederick, suspicious, ungenerous, imperious, yet neg-
ligent, could not but plant deep in tlie heart of the
young sovereign, mistrust, want of veneration, still
more of affection for his ecclesiastical guardian. What
was there to attach Frederick to the Church ? how
much to estrange ? As king of Sicily he was held
under strict tributary control ; his step-mother the
Church watches every movement with jealous super-
vision ; exacts the most rigid discharge of all the ex-
torted signs of vassalage. It is not as heir of the Empire
that he is reluctantly permitted or coldly encourarred
to cross the Alps, and to win back, if he can, the crown
of his ancestors, but as the enemy of the Pope's enemy.
Otho had been so ungrateful, was so dangerous, that
against him the Pope would support even an Hohen-
staufen. The seeds of evil were sown in Frederick's
mind, in Frederick's heart, to spring up with fearftil
fertility. In the Empire it is impossible not to burden
the memory of Innocent with the miseries of the long
civil war. Otho without the aid of the Pope could not
have maintained the contest for a year; with all the
Pope's aid he had sunk into contempt, almost insignif-
icance ; he was about to be abandoned, if not actually
abandoned, by the Pope himself The casual blow of the
assassin alone prevented the complete triumph of Philip,
already he had extorted his absolution ; Innocent was
compelled to yield, and could not yield without loss of
dignity.i The triumph of Otho leads to as fierce, and
1 Read the very curious Latin poem published by Leibnitz, R. Brunsw.
S. ii. p. 52.5, on the Disputatio between Rome and Pope Innocent on the
destitution of Otho. Rome begins: —
'• Tibi soli supplicat orbia,
Et genus humanum, te disponente movetur."
278 LAXm CHRISTIANITY. Book IX.
more perilous resistance to the Papal power, than could
have been expected from the haughtiness of the Hohen-
staufen. The Pope has an irresistible enemy in Italy
itself. Innocent is compelled to abandon the great ob-
ject of the Papal policy, the breaking the line of suc-
cession in the house of Swabia, and to assist in the
elevation of a Swabian Emperor. He must yield to
the union of the crown of Sicily with that of Germany ;
and so bequeath to his successors the obstinate and per-
ilous strife with Frederick II.
In France, Philip Augustus is forced to seem, yet
only seem, to submit ; the miseries of his unhappy
wife are but aggravated by the Papal protection. The
death of Agnes of Meran, rather than Innocent's au-
Innocent, after some flattery of the greatness of Rome, urges : —
" Qua3 V08 stimulavit Erynnis ?
Ut sic unaninies relevare velitis Otonem,
Vultis ut Ecclesise Romanse praedo resurgat,
Hostis Catholicse fidei, domiuando superbus
Non solum factus, sed et ipsa superbia."'
Then follow several pages of dispute, kindling into fierce altercation.
The Pope winds up: —
"Site
Non moveant super hoc assignatse rationes
Per quas Ottoui Fredericus substituatur,
Sic volo, sic fiat, sit pro ratioae yoluntas."
Rome bursts into invective : —
" Qualis
Servorum Christi Servus !
Non es apostolicus, sed apostaticus ; neque Pastor
Immo lupus, vescens ipso grege."
Rome appeals to a General Council. Rome, supposing the Council pres-
ent, addresses it. The Council replies : —
" Roma parens, non est nostrum deponere Papam."
But the Council declares its right to depose Frederick and to restore
Otho.
Chap. X. RESULTS OF INNOCENT'S PONTIFICATE. 279
tliority, heals the strife. Tlie sons of the proscribed
concubine succeed to the throne of France.
In England the Barons refuse to desert John when
under the interdict of the Pope ; when the Pope be-
comes the King's ally, resenting the cession of the
realm, they withdraw their allegiance. Even in Ste-
phen Langton, who owes his promotion to the Pope,
the Englishman prevails over the ecclesiastic ; the Great
Charter is extorted from the King when under the ex-
press protection of the Holy See, and maintained
resolutely against the Papal sentence of abroga-
tion : and in the Great Charter is laid the first stone
of the religious as well as the civil liberties of the
land.
Venice, in the Crusade, deludes, defies, baffles the
Pope. The Crusaders become her army, besiege, fight,
conquer for her interests. In vain the Pope protests,
threatens, anathematizes : Venice calmly proceeds in
the subjugation of Zara. To the astonishment, the
indignation of the Pope, the Crusaders' banners wave
not over Jerusalem, but over Constantinople. But for
her own wisdom, Venice might have given an Emperor
to the capital of the East, she secures the patriai'chate
almost in defiance of the Pope ; only when she has en-
tirely gained her ends does she submit to the petty and
unregarded vengeance of the Pope.
Even in the Albigensian war the success was indeed
complete ; heresy was crushed, but by means of which
Innocent disapproved in his heart. He had let loose a
terrible force, which he could neither arrest nor control.
The Pope can do everything but show mercy or mod-
eration. He could not shake off", the Papacy has never
280 LATIN CHKISTIANITY. Book IX.
shaken off the burden of its comphcity in the remorse-
less carnage perpetrated by the Crusaders in Langue-
doc, in the crimes and cruehies of Simon de Montfort.
A dark and ineffaceable stain of fraud and dissimula-
tion too has gathered around the fame of Innocent
himself.^ Heresy was quenched in blood ; but the
earth sooner or later gives out the terrible cry of blood
for vengeance against murderers and oppressors.
The great religious event of this Pontificate, the
foundation of the Mendicant Orders, that which per-
haps perpetuated, or at least immeasm'ably strength-
ened, the Papal power for two centuries was extorted
from the reluctant Pope. Both St. Dominic and St.
Francis were coldly received, almost contemptuously
repelled. It was not till either his own more mature
deliberation, or wiser counsel which took the form of
divine admonition, prevented this fatal erroV, and pro-
phetically revealed the secret of their strength and of
their irresistible influence throughout Christendom, that
Innocent awoke to wisdom. He then bequeathed these
two great standing ai'mies to the Papacy ; armies
maintained without cost, sworn, more than sworn,
bound by the unbroken chains of their own zeal and
devotion to unquestioning, unhesitating service through-
out Christendom, speaking all languages. They were
colonies of religious militia, natives of every land, yet
under foreign control and guidance. Their whole
power, importance, perhaps possessions, rested on their
1 It is remarkable that Innocent III. was never canonized. There were
popular rumors that the soul of Innocent, escaping from the fires of purga-
tory, appeared on earth, scourged by pursuing devils, taking refuge at the
foot of the cross, and imploring the praj-ers of the faithful. — Chronic. Er-
furt, p. 243. Thoni. Cantiprat, Vit. S. Luitgardse, ap. Surium, Jan. 16.
Chap. X. DOMINICANS AND FRANCISCANS. 281
fidelity to the See of Rome, that fidelity guaranteed
by the charter of their existence. Well might they
appear so great as they are seen by the eye of Dante,
like the Cherubin and Seraphin in Paradise.^
1 Paradiso, xi. 34, &c.
282
LATIN CHRISTIANITY.
Book X.
BOOK X.
CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY.
EMPERORS OF
POPES.
GERMANY.
KINGS OF FRANCE.
KING OF ENGLAND.
A.D. A.D.
A.D. A.D.
1212 Frederick
U. 1250
A.D. A.D.
A.D. A.D.
1216 Honorius
1216 Henry
UI. 1227
Philip Au-
gustus 1223
1223 Louis
VIII. 1226
lU. 1272
1226 Louis IX.
ARCHBISHOPS OF
(Saint) 1270
CANTERBURY.
1227 Gregory
IX. 1241
1241 Coelestine
Stephen
IV. 1241
Langtoa 1228
1243 Innocent
IV. 1254
1246 Henry Raspe
1229 lliehard \Ve-
(anti-em-
therhead 1234
peror) 1249
1250 William of
1234 Edmund
1254 Alexander
HoUand 1256
Rich 1244
IV. 1261
1244 Boniface of
1257 Vacant.
Savoy 1272
*
Richard of
Cornwall (?)
Alfonso of
Castile (?)
ARCHBISHOPS OF
MEXTZ.
Conrad of
TFittles-
bach 1230
1230 Siegfried I.
of Epstein 1249
1249 Siegfried II.
of Epstein 1251
1251 Christian
II. 1259
1259 Gerhard I.
Book X.
CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY.
283
CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY.
1
F.WPF.PTIRS OP TCTF. 1
KINGS OF SCOTLAND.
KINGS OF SPAIN.
KINGS OF NAPLES.
EAST.
A.D. A.D.
A.D. A.D.
A.D. A.D.
A.D. A.D.
Castile.
Latin.
1214 Alexander
II. 1249
1217 Alfonso
1217 Peter de
X. 1226
Courtenay 1220
1226 Ferdinand
III. 1252
1220 Robert 1228
1252 Alfonso XI..
the Wise 1276
1228 Baldwin
II. 1261
Arragon.
Greek.
1213 James
Frederick
Theodore
II. 1250
Lascaris 1222
1249 Alexander
III. 1286
1250 Conrad 1253
1222 John Du-
KINGS OF PORTUGAL.
1254 Manfred 1206
cas 1255
1255 Theodo-
rus 1258
1258 John IV.
1213 Alfonso the
Fat 1233
1259 Michael Pa-
1233 Sancho
leologus.
II. 1246
1266 Conrad H.
1246 Alfonso
Charles of An-
1202 Reunion.
lU. 1279
jou.
284 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
BOOK X.
CHAPTER I.
HONORIUS III. FREDERICK II.
The Pontificate of Honorius III. is a kind of oasis
Honorius III. ^^ reposG, between the more eventful rule of
CoLcrated^' Innocent III. and of Gregory IX. Honorius
■'"'y 24- ^rjs a Roman of the noble house of Savelli,
Cardinal of St. John and St. Paul. The Papacy hav-
ing attained its consummate height under Innocent III.,
might appear resting upon its arms, and gathering up
its might for its last internecine conflict, under Gregory
IX. and Innocent IV., with the most powerful, the
ablest, and wdien driven to desperation, most reckless
antagonist, who had as yet come into collision with the
spiritual supremacy. During nearly eleven years the
A B i'>i6 combatants seem girding themselves for the
to 1227. contest. At first mutual respect or common
interests maintain even more than the outward appear-
ance of amity ; then arise jealousy, estrangement,
doubtfiil peace, but not declared war. On one side
neither the power nor the ambition of the Emperor
Frederick II. are mature ; his more modest views of
aggrandizement gradually expand ; his own character
is developing itself into that of premature enlighten-
Chap. I. HONORIUS III. 285
ment and lingering superstition ; of chivalrous adven-
ture and courtly elegance, of stern cruelty and generous
liberality, of restless and all-stirring, all-embracino- ac-
tivity, which keeps Germany, Italy, even the East, in
one uninterrupted war with his implacable enemies the
Popes, and with the Lombard Republics, while he is
constantly betraying his natural disposition to bask
away an easy and luxurious life on the shores of his
beloved Sicily. All this is yet in its dawn, in its yet
unfulfilled promise, in its menace. Frederick has won
the Empire ; he has united, though he had agreed to
make over Sicily to his son, the Imperial crown to that
of Sicily. Even if rumors are already abroad of his
dangerous freedom of opinion, this may pass for youth-
ful levity, he is still the spiritual subject of the Pope.
Honorius III. stands between Innocent III. and
Gregory IX., not as a Pontiff of superior wisdom and
more true Christian dignity, adopting a gentler and
more conciliating policy from the sense of its more
perfect compatibility with his office of Vicar Mildness of
of Christ, but rather from natural gentleness h°°°""^-
of character bordering on timidity. He has neither
energy of mind to take the loftier line, nor to resist
the high churchmen, who are urging him towards it ;
his was a temporizing policy, which could only avert
for a- time the inevitable conflict.
And yet a Pope who could assume as his maxim to
act with gentleness rather than by compulsion, by in-
fluence rather than anathema, nevertheless, to make
no surrender of the overweening pretensions of his
function ; must have had a mind of force and vigor
of its own, not unworthy of admiration : a moderate
Pope is so rare in these times, that he may demand
286 LATIISr CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
some homao;e for his moderation. His age and infirmi-
ties may have tended to this less enterprising or turbu-
lent administration.^ Honorius accepted the tradition
of all the rights and duties asserted by, and generally
ascribed to the successor of St. Peter, as part of his
high office. The Holy War was now become so estab-
lished an article in the Christian creed, that no Pope,
however beyond his age, could have ventured even to
be remiss in urging this solemn obligation on all true
Christians. No cardinal not in heart a Crusader
would have been raised to the Papal See. The as-
surance of the final triumph of the Christian arms
became a point of honor, more than that, an essential
part of Christian piety ; to deny it was an impeach-
ment on the valor of true Christians, a want of suffi-
cient reliance on God himself. Christ could not,
however he might try the patience of the Christian,
eventually abandon to the infidel his holy sepulchre.
All admonitions of disaster and defeat were but the
just chastisements of the sins of the crusaders ; the
triumph, however postponed, was certain, as certain
as that Christ was the Son of God, Mohammed a false
prophet.
Honorius Avas as earnest, as zealous in the good
Honorius cause, as had been his more inflexible pred-
urges the . n i •
Crusade. eccssor ; this was tlie primary object of his
ten years' Pontificate ; this, which however it had to
encounter the coldness, the torpor, the worn-out sym-
pathies of Christendom, clashed with no jealous or hos-
tile feeling. However severe the rebuke, it was rebuke
of which Christendom acknowledged the justice ; all
1 "Cum esset corpore infirnuis, et ultra modum debilis." — Raynald. sub
ann.
Chap. I. HONORIUS URGES THE CRUSADE. 287
men honored the Pope for his zeal in sounding the
trumpet with the fiercest energy, even though they did
not answer to the call. The more the enthusiasm of
Christendom cooled down into indifference, the more
ardent and pressing the exhortation of the Popes.
The first act of Honorius was a circular ad- Dec. 5, 1216.
dress to Christendom, full of reproof, expostulation,
entreaty to contribute either in person or in money
to the new campaign. The only King who obeyed the
summons was Andrew of Hungary. Some Crusade of
/-^ '11 1 TT Andrew of
(jrerman prmces and prelates met the Hun- Hungary.
garian at Spalatro, the Dukes of Austria and Meran,
the Archbishop of Salzburg, the Bishops of Bamberg,
Zeitz, Munster, and Utrecht. But notwithstanding
the interdict of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Andrew
retunied in the next year, though not without some
fame for valor and conduct, on the plea of enfeebled
health, and of important affairs of Hungary.^ His
trophies were relics, the heads of St. Stephen and St.
Margaret, the hands of St. Bartholomew and St.
Thomas, a slip of the rod of Aaron, one of the
water-pots of the Mai-riage of Cana. The expedition
from the Holy Land against Damietta, the a.d. 1219.
flight of Sultan Kameel from that city, its Damietta.
occupation by the Christians, raised the most exult-
ing hopes. The proposal of the Sultan to yield up
Jerusalem was rejected with scorn. But the fatal
reverses, which showed the danger of accepting a
Legate (the Cardinal Pelagius) as a general, too soon
threw men's minds back into their former prostration.
But even before this discomfiture. King Frederick II.
had centred on himself the thoughts and hopes of all
1 This was the Crusade joined by St. Francis. — See Ch. X.
288 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
who were still Crusaders in their hearts, as the one
Frederick 11. monarcli in Christendom who could restore
the fallen fortunes of the Cross in the East. In his
first access of youthful pride, as having at eighteen
years of age won, by his own gallant daring, the
Transalpine throne of his ancestors ; and in his grate-
ful devotion to the Pope, who, in hatred to Otho, had
maintained his cause, Frederick II. had taken the
Cross. Nor for some years does there appear any
reason to mistrust, if not his religious, at least his ad-
venturous and ambitious ardor. But till the death of
his rival Otho, he could command no powerful force
which would follow him to the Holy Land, nor could
he leave his yet unsettled realm. The j)i"inces and
churchmen, his partisans, were to be rewarded and so
confirmed in their loyalty ; the doubtful and wavering
to be won ; the refractory or resistant to be reduced to
allegiance.
The death of Otho, in the castle of Wurtzburg,
near Goslar, had been a signal example of the power
of religious awe. The battle of Bouvines and the
desertion of his friends had broken his proud spirit ;
his health failed, violent remedies brought him to the
brink of the grave. Hell yawned before the outcast
from the Church ; nothing less than a public expiation
of his sins could soothe his shuddering conscience.
No bishop would approach the excommunicated, the
fallen Sovereign ; the Prior of Halberstadt, on his sol-
emn oath upon the relics of St. Simon and St. Jude
brought for that purpose from Brunswick, that if he
lived he would give full satisfaction to the Church, ob-
tained him absolution and the Last Sacrament. The
next day, the last of his life, in the presence of the
Chap. I. FREDERICK II. 289
Em]iress and his family, the nobles, and the Abbot of
Hildesheim, he knelt almost naked on a carpet, made
the fullest confession of his sins ; he showed a cross,
which he had received at Rome, as a pledge that he
would embark on a Crusade : " the devil had still
thwarted his holy vow." The cross was restored to
him. He then crouched down, exposed his naked
shoulders, and entreated all present to inflict the mer-
ited chastisement. All hands were armed with rods ;
the very scullions assisted in the pious work of flagel-
lation, or at least of humiliation. In the pauses of
the Miserere the Emperor's voice was heard : '' Strike
harder, spare not the hardened sinner." So died the
rival of Philip of Swabia, the foe of Innocent III., in
the forty-third year of his age.^
With the death of Otho rose new schemes of ag-
grandizement before the eyes of Frederick II. ; he
must secure the Imperial crown for himself; for his
son Henry the succession to the German kingdom.
The Imperial crown must be obtained from the hands
of the Pope ; the election of his son at least be ratified
by that power. A friendly correspondence began with
Honovius III. The price set on the corona- Promises to
tion of Frederick as Emperor was his under- ciusade.
taking a Crusade to the Holy Land. At the High
Diet at Fulda, Frederick himself (so he writes to the
Pope) had already summoned the princes of Germany
to his great design : at the Diet proclaimed to be held
at Magdeburg, he urged the Pope to excommunicate
all who should not appear in arms on the next St.
1 Otho died 19th May, 1218. — See Narratio de Morte Ottonis IV. apud
Martene et Durand Thes. His. Anecdot. iii. p. 1373. " Prsecepit coquinariis
ut in coUum suuin conculcarent." — Albert. Stadens. Chron. p. 204.
VOL. V. 19
290 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
John's day. His chief counsellor seemed to be Her-
man of Salza, the Master of the Teutonic Order, as
deeply devoted to the service of the Holy Land, as the
Jan. 12, 1219. Templars and Knights of St. John. On
that Order he heaped privileges and possessions. But
already in Rome, no doubt among the old austere anti-
German party, were dark suspicions, solemn admoni-
tions, secret warnings to the mild Pope, that no son of
the house of Svvabia could be otherwise than an enemy
to the Church : the Imperial crown and the kingdom of
Naples could not be in the possession of one Sovereign
May 10, 1219. witliout endangering the independence of the
Papacy. Frederick repelled these accusations of hos-
tility to the Church with passionate vehemence. " I
well know that those who dare to rise up against the
Church of Rome have drunk of the cup of Babylon ;
and hope that during my whole life I shall never be
justly charged with ingratitude to my Holy Mother.
I design not, against my own declaration, to obtain the
election of my son Henry to the throne of Germany
in order to unite the two kingdoms of Germany and
Sicily ; but that in my absence (no doubt he implies
in the Holy Land), the two realms may be more
firmly governed ; and that in case of my death, my
son may be more certain of inheriting the throne of
his fathers. That son remains under subjection to the
Roman See, which, having protected me, so ought to
protect him in his undoubted rights." ^ He then con-
descends to exculpate himself from all the special
charges brought against him by Rome.
The correspondence continued on both sides in terms
1 Regest. Hon., quoted from the Vatican archives by Von Raumer, iii. p.
324.
Chap. I. AMITY OF FREDERICK AND HONORIUS. 291
of amicable courtesy. Each had his object, of which
he never lost sight. The Pope would even hazard the
aggrandizement of the house of Swabia if he g^. ^ g ^219.
could send forth an overpowering armament dencnith
to tlie East. Frederick, secure of the aggran- "^"^ ^°^'^-
dizement of his house, was fully prepared to head the
Crusade. Honorius consented that, in case of the
death of Henry the son of Frederick Avithout heir or
brother, Frederick should hold both the Empire and
the kingdom of Naples during his lifetime. Frederick
desired to retain unconditionally the investiture of both
kingdoms ; but on this point the Pope showed so much
reluctance that Frederick broke oif the treaty by letter,
reserving it for a personal interview with the Pope.
" For who could be more obedient to the Church than
he who was nursed at her breast and had rested in her
lap ? Who more loyal ? Who would be so mindful
of benefits already received, or so prepared to acknowl-
edge his obligations according to the will and pleasiire
of his benefactors ? " Such were the smooth nor yet
deceptive words of Frederick.^ Frederick had already
consented, even proposed, that the Pope should place
all the German Princes who refused to take up the
Cross under the interdict of the Church, and thus, as
the Pope reminds him, had still more inextricably
bound himself, who had already vowed to take up that
Cross. Frederick urged Honorius to write individu-
ally to all the princes among whom there was no ardor
for the Crusade, to threaten them with the ban if at
least they did not maintain the truce of God ; he prom-
1 All this I am not surprised to find by such writers as Hilfler represented
as the most deliberate hypocrisy. I am sorry to see the same partial view
in Boehmer's Regesta.
292 LATIN CHRISTLVNITY. Book X
ised, protesting that he acted without deceit or subtlet}',
to send forward his forces, and follow himself as speedily
as he might. The Pope expi'essed his profound satis-
faction at findino; his beloved son so devoted to God
and to the Church. He urged him to delay no longer
the holy design : " Youth, power, fame, your vow, the
example of your ancestors, summon you to fulfil your
glorious enterprise. That which your illustrious grand-
March, 1220. father Frederick I. undertook with all his
puissance, it is your mission to bring to a glorious end.
Three times have I consented to delay ; I will even
prolong the term to the first of May. Whose offer is
this ? — Not mine ; but that of Christ ! Whose ad-
vantage ? — That of all his disciples ! Whose honor ?
— That of all Christians ! Are you not invited by
unspeakable rewards ? summoned by miracles ? admon-
ished by examples ? "
But, in the mean time, Frederick, without waiting the
assent of the Pope, had carried his great design, the
election of his son Henry to the crown of Germany.
His unbounded popularity, his power now that his I'ival
Otho was dead, the fortunate falling-in of some great
fiefs (especially the vast possessions of Berthold of
Zahringen, which enabled him to reward some, to win
Diet of others of the nobler houses), his affability,
Frankfort. , . t, ■.. , , . . , . "^ ,
April, r22o. his liberality, his lustice, gave liim command
Election of re n ^ i •
Henry as tiis ovcr tlic suiirages ot the temporal ]:>rinces.
successor. ^ p • i , . .
Apr. 26, 1220. Uy a great measure 01 wisdom and justice,
the charter of the liberties of the German Church, on
which some looked with jealousy as investing him with
dangerous power, he gained the support of the high
ecclesiastics.^ The King surrendered the unkingly
1 Moniunent. Germ. iv. 235.
Chap. I. ELECTION OF PRINCE HENRY AS KING. 293
riijlit or usage of seizing to his own use the personah-
ties of bishops on their decease. These effects, if not
bequeathed by will, went to the bishop's successor.
Tiie King consented to renounce the right of coining
money and levying tolls within the territory of the
bishops without their consent ; and to punish all for-
geries of their coin. The vassals and serfs of the
prelates Avere to be received in no imperial city or fief
of the Empire to their damage. The advocates, un-
der pretence of protection, were not to injure the estates
of the Church : no one was to occupy by force an ec-
clesiastical fief He who did not submit within six
weeks to the authority of the Church fell under the
ban of the Empire, and could neither act as judge,
plaintiff, nor witness in any court. The Bishops, on
their side, promised to prosecute and to punish all who
opposed the will of the King. The King further stipu-
lated that no one might erect castles or fortresses in the
lands of a spiritual prince. No officer of the King had
jurisdiction, could coin money, or levy tolls in the
episcopal cities, except eight days before and eight days
after a diet to be held in such city. Only when the
King was actually within the city was the jurisdiction
of the prince suspended, and only so long as he should
remain.
The election of Henry to the throne of Germany
without the consent of the Pope struck Rome with
dismay. Frederick made haste to allay, if possible,
the jealous apprehension. He declared that it Avas the
spontaneous act of the Princes of the Empire during
his absence, without his instigation. They had seen,
from a quarrel Avhich had broken out between the
Archbishop of Mentz and the Landgrave of Thuringia,
294 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
tlie absolute necessity of a King to maintain in Fred-
erick's absence the peace of the Empire. He had
Nurenber cvcn delayed his own consent. The act of
July 13. election would be laid before the Pope with
the seals of all who had been concerned in the affair.^
He declared that this election was by no means de-
signed to perpetuate the union of the kingdom of Naples
with the Empire. " Even if the Church had no right
over the kingdom of Apulia and Sicily, I would freely
grant that kingdom to the Pope rather than attach it
to the Empire, should I die without lawful heirs." ^
He significantly adds, that it is constantly suggested to
him that the love professed to him by the Church is
not sincere and will not be lasting, but he had con-
stantly refused to entertain such ungrounded and dis-
honorable suspicions.
The Abbot of Fulda had, in the mean time, been
despatched to Rome to demand the coronation of Fred-
erick as Emperor. This embassage had been usual-
ly the office of one of the great prelates of Germany,
but the mild Honorius took no offence, or disguised
it. At the end of August Frederick descended the
Alps into the plain of Lombardy. Eight years before,
a boy of eighteen, he had crossed those Alps, almost
alone, on his desperate adventure of wresting the crown
of his fathers from the brow of Otho. He came back,
in the prime of life, one of the mightiest kings who
had ever occupied that throne ; stronger in the attach-
ment of all orders, perhaps, than any former Swabian
king ; having secured, it might seem, in his house, at
1 Regest., quoted by Von Raiimer, p. 335. Pertz, Monumenta.
2 " Prius ipso regno Romauani Ecclesiam quam Imperium dotareraus."
— Ibid.
Chap. I. FREDERICK IN ITALY. 295
least the Emjiire, if not the Empire with all its rights
in Italy ; and with the kingdom of Sicily, instead of a
hostile power at the command of the Popes, his own,
if not in possession, in attachment. During these eight
years Italy had been one great feud of city with city,
of the cities within themselves. Milan, released from
fears of the Emperor, had now begun a quarrel with
the Church. The Podesta expelled the Archbishop ;
Parma and many other cities had followed this exam-
ple ; the bishops were driven out, their palaces de-
stroyed, their property plundered : the gi'eat ability of
the Cardinal Ugolino, afterwards Gregory IX., had
restored something like order, but the fire was still
smoulderino; in its ashes.
Frederick passed on without involving himself in
these implacable quarrels: it was time to as- prederick
sert the Imperial rights when invested in the Aug'^ir'
Imperial crown. He had crossed the Bren- ^'^^'
ner, and moving by Verona and Mantua, so avoided
Milan. The absence of the Archbishop from Milan
was a full excuse for his postponing his coronation with
the iron crown of Lombardy. He granted rights and
privileges to Venice, Genoa, Pisa ; overawed or con-
ciliated some cities. On the thirtieth of September he
was in Verona, on the fourth of October in Bologna.
His Chancellor, Conrad of Metz, had arranged the
terms on which he was to receive the Imperial crown.
Frederick advanced with a great array of churchmen
hi his retinue — the Archbishops of Mentz, of Raven-
na, the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Bishops of Metz,
Passau, Trent, Brixen, Augsburg, Duke Louis of Ba-
vai'ia, and Henry Count Palatine. Ambassadors ap-
peared from almost all the cities of Italy : from Apulia,
296 LATIN CHRISTIAXITY. Book X.
from the Counts of Celano, St. Severino, and Aquila ;
deputies from the city of Naples. The people of Rome
were quiet and well pleased. The only untoward inci-
dent which disturbed the peace was a quarrel about a
dog between the Ambassadors of Florence and Pisa,
which led to a bloody war. On the twenty-second of
November Frederick and his Queen were crowned in
St, Peter's amid laniversal acclamations. Frederick
disputed not the covenanted price to be paid for the
Imperial crown. He received the Cross once more
from the hand of Cardinal Ugolino. He swore that
part of his forces should set forth for the Holy Land in
the March of the following year, himself in August.
He released his vassals from their fealty in all the ter-
ritories of the Countess Matilda, and made over the
appointment of all the podestas to the Pope ; some who
refused to submit were placed by the Chancellor Con-
rad under the ban of the Empire. He put the Pope
in possession of the whole region from Radicofani to
Ceperano, with the March of Ancona and the Duchy
of Spoleto.
His liberality was not limited to these grants. Two
Laws in laws concemiug the immunities of ecclesias-
ecciesiastics. tics, and the suppression of heretics, might
satisiy the severest churchman. The first absolutely
annulled all laws or usages of cities, communities,
or ruling powers which might be or were employed
against the liberties of the churches or of spiritual
persons, or against the laws of the Church and of the
Empire. Outlawry and heavy fines were enacted not
only against those who enforced, but who counselled or
aided in the enforcement of such usages : the offenders
forfeited, if contumacious for a whole year, all their
Chap. I. LAWS AGAINST HERETICS. 297
goods.^ No tax or burden could be set upon ecclesi-
astics, churches, or spiritual foundations. Whoever
arraigned a spiritual person before a civil tribunal for-
feited his right to imjilead ; the tribunal which admit-
ted such arraignment lost its jurisdiction ; the judge
who refused justice three times to a spiritual person
in any matter forfeited his judicial authority.
The law against heretics vied in sternness with that of
Innocent III., confirmed by Otho IV.^ All Laws
C.I • Ti • T • o • 1 ag.iinst
atliari, r atennes, Leonists, operonists, Ar- heretics.
noldists, and dissidents of all other descriptions, were
incapable of holding places of honor, and under ban.
Their goods were confiscated, and not restored to their
children ; " for outrages against the Lord of Heaven
were more heinous than against a temporal lord."
Whoever, suspected of heresy, did not clear himself
after a year's trial was to be treated as a heretic. Every
magistrate on entering upon office must himself take
an oath of orthodoxy, and swear to punish all whom
the Church might denounce as heretics. If any tem-
poral lord did not rid his lands of heretics, the true be-
lievers might take the business into their own hands,
and seize the goods of the delinquent, provided that the
rights of an innocent lord were not thereby impeached.
All who concealed, aided, protected heretics were under
ban and interdict ; if they did not make satisfaction
within two years, under outlawry ; they could hold nc
office, nor inherit, nor enter any plea, nor bear testi-
mony.
Three other laws, based on the eternal principles of
1 Constit. Frederick II. in Corp. Jur. tit. i. Bullar. Roman, i. 63.
2 This law was renewed and made more severe, 1224. Ravnald. snb ann.
1231.
298 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
morality, accompanied these acts of ecclesiastical legis-
lation, or of temporal legislation in the spirit of the
Church. One prohibited the plundering of wrecks,
other laws, exccptiug the shii)S of pirates and infidels.
Another protected pilgrims ; they were to be re-
ceived with kindness ; if they died, their property was
to be restored to their rightful heirs. The third pro-
tected the persons and labors of the cultivators of the
soil.
The Pope and the Emperor, notwithstanding some
trifling differences, parted in perfect amity. " Never,"
writes Honorius, " did Pope love Emperor as he loved
his son Frederick." Each had obtained some great
objects : the Pope the peaceable surrender of the Ma-
thildine territories, and the solemn oath that Frederick
would speedily set forth on the Crusade. The Em-
peror retired in peace and joy to the beloved land of
his youth. The perilous question of his right to the
kingdom of Sicily had been intentionally or happily
Sept. 8. avoided ; he had been recognized by the Pope
as Emperor and King of Sicily. There were still
brooding causes of mutual suspicion and dissatisfaction.
Frederick pursued with vigor his determination of re-
pressing the tui-bulent nobles of Apulia ; the castles of
the partisans of Otho were seized ; they fled, and, he
bitterly complained, were received with more than hos-
pitality in the Pa]ml dominions. He spared not the
inimical bishops ; they were driven from their sees ;
some imprisoned. The Pope loudly protested against
this audacious violation of the immunities of Chiu'ch-
men. Frederick refused them entrance into the king-
dom ; he had rather forfeit his crown than the inalien-
able right of the sovereign, of Avhich he had been
Chap. I. LOSS OF DAMIETTA. 299
defrauded by Innocent III., of visiting treason on all
his subjects.^
Then in the next year came the fatal news from the
East — the capture, the disasters which fol- a.d. 1221.
lowed the capture of Damietta. The Pope Oamictta.
and the Emperor expressed their common grief: the
Pope was bowed with dismay and sorrow ;2 the tidings
pierced as a sword to the heart of Frederick.^ Fred-
erick had sent forty triremes, under the Bishop of
Catania and the Count of Malta ; they had arrived
too late. But this dire reverse showed that nothino-
less than an overwhelming force could restore the Clu-is-
tian cause in the East ; and in those days of colder
religious zeal, even the Emperor and King of Sicily
could not at once summon such overwhelmino- force.
Frederick was fully occupied in the Sicilian dominions.
During his minority, and during his absence, the pow-
erful Germans, Normans, Italians, even Churchmen,
had usurped fiefs, castles, cities : ^ he had to resume by
force rights unlawfully obtained, to dispossess men wliose
only title had been open or secret leanings to the Em-
peror Otho ; to punish arbitrary oppression of the peo-
ple ; to destroy strong castles built without license ; to
settle ancient feuds and suppress private wars : it needed
all his power, his popularity, his firmness, to avert in-
surrection during these vigorous but necessary meas-
ures. Two great assizes held at Capua and d^c 1120 to
Messina showed the confusion in the affairs of ^'^^' ^^^^'
both kingdoms. But from such nobles he could expect
1 " Ch6 prima si lascierrebbe torre la corona, ch6 derogar in un punto da
questi suoi diritti." — Giannone, I. xvi. c. i.
2 Letter of Pope Honorius, Nov. 1221.
8 Epist. Honor, apud Rnynald., Aug. 10, 1221.
4 Letter of Frederick to the Pope from Trani, March 3, 1221.
300 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
no ready obedience to assemble around his banner for
an expedition to the Holy Land. Instead of a great
fleet, suddenly raised, as by the wand of an enchanter
(this the Pope seemed to expect), and a powerful army,
Meeting at J" April in the year 1222 the Pope and the
Veroh. Empcror met at Veroli to deliberate on the
Crusade. They agreed to proclaim a great assembly
at Verona in the November of that year, at which the
Pope and the Emperor were to be present. All princes,
prelates, knights, and vassals were to be summoned to
unite in one irresistible effort for the relief of the East.
The assembly at Verona did not take place ; the illness
of the Pope, the occupations of the Emperor, were
alleged as excuses for the further delay. A second
AtFerentino. ^^"^^ the Popo and the Emperor met at Fe-
March, 1223. j-entiuo ; with them King John of Jerusa-
lem, the Patriarch, the Grand Master of the Knights
Templars. Frederick explained the difficulties which
had impeded his movements, first in Germany, now in
Sicily. To the opposition of his turbulent barons was
now added the danger of an insurrection of the Saracens
in Sicily. Frederick himself was engaged in a short
but obstinate war.^ Even the King of Jerusalem dep-
recated the despatch of an insufficient force. Two full
years were to be employed, by deliberate agreement,
1 The two following passages show that this was no feigned excuse: —
"Imperator in Sicilia de Mirabello triumphavit, et de ipso et suis fecit quod
eorum meruerat exigentia commissorum." — Ilichd. San Germ. " Dominus
Fredericus erat cum magno exercitu super Saracenos .Jacis, et cepit Bena-
vith cum filiis suis, et suspendit apud Panornum." — Anon. Sic. He after-
wards transplanted many of them to Lucera. So far was Frederick as yet
fi-om any suspicious dealings with the Saracens. The Parliament nt Mes-
sina had passed persecuting laws against the Jews. A law of the same
year protected the churches and the clergy from the burdens laid upon
them by the nobles.
Chap. I. ZEAL FOR THE CRUSADE DORMANT. 301
in awakening the dormant zeal of Christendom ; hnt
Frederick, now a widower, bound himself, it mi<dit
seem, in the inextricable fetters of his own personal
interest and ambition, by engaging to marry lolante,
the beautiful daughter of Kino- John.
Two years passed away ; King John of Jerusa-
lem travelled over Western Christendom, to England,
France, Germany, to represent in all lands the state of
extreme peril and distress to which his kingdom was
reduced. Everywhere he met with the most courteous
and royal reception ; but the days of Peter the Hermit
and St. Bernard were gone by. France, England, Ger-
many, Spain, Avere involved in their own affairs ; a few
took the Cross, and offered sums of money to no great
amount ; and this was all which was done by the royal
preacher of the Crusade. Tuscany and Lombardy
were almost as indifferent to the expostulations of Car-
dinal Ugolino, who had for some years received full
power from the Emperor to awaken, if possible, the
sluggish ardor of those provinces. King John and the
Patriarch, after visiting Apulia, reported to the Pope
the absolute impossibility of raising any powerful ar-
mament by the time appointed in the treaty of Feren-
tino.
Honorius was compelled to submit ; at St. Germano
was framed a new agreement, by two Cardi- At San
nals commissioned by the Pope, which de- jui> , 1225.
ferred for two years longer (till August, 1227) the
final departure of the Crusade.^ Frederick permitted
himself to be bound by stringent articles. In that
month of that year he would proceed on the Crusade,
and maintain one thousand knights at his own cost for
1 Ric. San Germ., sub ann.
302 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
two years : for each knight who was deficient he was
to pay the penahy of fifty marks, to be at the disposal
of the King, the Patriarch, and the Master of the
Knights TempLars, for the benefit of the Holy Land.
He was to have a fleet of 150 ships to transport 2000
knights, without cost, to Palestine. If so many knights
were not ready to embark, the money saved was to be
devoted to those pious interests. He was to place in
the hands of the same persons 100,000 ounces of gold,
at four several periods, to be forfeited for the same uses,
if in two years he did not embark on the Crusade. His
successors were bound to fulfil these covenants in case
of his death. If he failed to perform any one of these
covenants ; if at the appointed time he did not embark
for the Holy Land ; if he did not maintain the stip-
ulated number of knights ; if he did not pay the stip-
ulated sums of money ; he fell at once under the inter-
dict of the Church: if he left unfulfilled any other
point, the Church, by his own free admission, had the
power to pronounce the interdict.
Personal ambition, as well as religious zeal, or the
policy of keeping on good terms with the spiritual
power, might seem to mingle w^ith the aspirations of
the Emperor Frederick for the Holy Land ; to his great
Empire he would add the dominions of the East. In
Frederick mar- the Novembcr of the same year, after the sig-
A.D. 1225. ' nature of the treaty in St. Germane, he cel-
ebrated his marriage with lolante, daughter of the
King of Jerusalem. No sooner had he done this, than
he assumed to himself the title of King of Jerusalem :
he caused a new great seal to be made, in which he
styled himself Emperor, King of Jerusalem and Sicily.
John of Jerusalem was King, he asserted, only by
Chap. I. FREDERICK MARRIES lOLAXTE. 303
right of his wife ; on her death, the crown descended
to her daughter ; as the husband of lolante he Avas the
lawful Sovereign.^ King John, by temperament a
wrathful man, burst into a paroxysm of fury ; hio-h
words ensued ; he called the Emperor the son of a
butcher ; he accused him of neglecting his daughter,
of diverting those embraces due to his bride to one
of her attendants. He retired in anger to Boloo-na.
Frederick had other causes for suspecting the enmity
of his father-in-law. He was the brother of Walter
of Brienne ; and rumors had prevailed that he in-
tended to claim the inheritance of his brother's wife,
the daughter of the Norman Tancred. But John
filled Italy with dark stories of the dissoluteness of
the gallant Frederick : that he abstained altoo-ether
from the bed of lolante is refuted by the fact that
two years after she bore him a son, which Frederick
acknowledged as his own. They appeared even dur-
ing that year, at least with all outward signs of per-
fect harmony.
Nor was this the only event which crossed the
designs of Frederick, if he ever seriously determined
to fulfil his vow (where is the evidence, but that of
his bitter enemies, that he had not so determined?)
Throughout all his dominions, instead of that profound
peace and established order which might enable him, at
the head of the united knighthood of the Empire and
of Italy, to break with irresistible forces upon the East ;
in Germany the assassination of the wise and good
1 " Desponsata puella Imperator patrem requisivit ; ut regna et regalia
jura resignet — stupefactus ille obedit." — Jord. apud Raynald. Yet if
we are to believe the Ciironicle of Tours, he just at that time threw lolante
into prison, and ravished her cousin, the daughter of Walter of Brienne.
Was this one of the tales told bv the King of Jerusalem?
304 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Engelbert, Archbishop of Cologne,^ to wliom Frederick
had intrusted the tutehxge of his son Henry, and the
administration of the Empire, threatened the peace of
the reahn. In Lombardy, Guelf and Ghibelhne warred,
intrigued ; princes against princes, Bonifazio of Mon-
ferrat and the house of Este against the Sahnguerra,
and that cruel race of which Eccehn di Romano was
state of ^^^^ head. Venice and Genoa, Genoa and
Italy. Pisa, Genoa and Milan, Asti and Alexandria,
Ravenna and Ferrara, Mantua and Cremona, even
Rome and Viterbo, were now involved in fierce hostil-
ity, or pausing to take advantage each of the other ;
and each city had usually a friendly faction within the
walls of its rival. Frederick, who held the lofty Swa-
bian notion as to the prerogative of the Emperor, had
determined with a high hand to assert the Imperial
rio-hts. He hoped, with his Ghibelline allies, to become
again the Sovereign of the north of Italy. He was
prepared to march at the head of his Southern forces ;
a Diet had been summoned at Verona. Milan again
set herself at the head of a new Lombard League. In
Milan the internal strife between the nobles and the
people, between the Archbishop and the Podesta, had
been allayed by the prudent intervention of the Pope,
to whom the peace of Milan was of infinite importance,
that the republic might put forth her whole strength
as head of the Lombard League.^ Milan was joined
by Bologna, Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Faenza, Man-
1 Godfred. Monach. apud Boehmer Fontes, Nov. 7, 1225.
2 The annual income of the Archbishop of Milan, according to Giiilini,
was 80,000 golden florins (Giulini, Memorie, 1. xlviii.). This Giulini esti-
mates at, in the 13th century, nearly 10 millions of lire Milanese. Cher-
rier reckons this sum at more than 7i millions of francs. — Cherrier, ii. p.
299.
Chap. I. STATE OF ITALY. 305
tua, VercelH, Locli, Bergamo, Turin, Alessandria,
Vicenza, Padua, Treviso.^ The mediation of Ho-
norius averted the threatening hostilities. Yet the
Imperialists accuse Honorius as the secret favorer of
the League.^
With Honorius himself a rupture seemed to be im-
minent. The Emperor, even before the treaty of St.
Germano, had done the Pope the service of maintain-
ing hhn against his hostile subjects, compelling the
Capitanata and the Maremma to return to their alle-
giance, coercing the populace of Rome, who in one of
their usual outbursts, had driven the Pontiff from the
city. The deep murmurs of a coming storm might be
heard by the sagacious ear. Frederick, in his deter-
mination to reduce his Apulian kingdom to subjection,
had still treated the ecclesiastical fiefs as he did the
civil ; he retained the temporalities in his possession
during vacancies, so that five of the largest bishoprics,
Capua, Aversa, Brundusium, Salerno, and Cosensa,
were withovit bishops. Honorius, soon after the treaty
of St. Germano, wrote to inform the Emperor that for
the good of his soul and the souls of his subjects, he
had appointed five learned and worthy Prelates to
these sees, natives of the kingdom of Naples, and who
could not, therefore, but be acceptable to the King.
Frederick, indignant at this compulsory nomination,
without, as was usual, even courteous consultation of
the Sovereign, refused to receive the Bishops, and even
repelled the Legates of the Pope from his court. He
1 Compare the Chronieon Placentinum, particularly the strange poem, p.
69.
2 " Cujus suggestione multre civitates contra imperatorem conjiiravernnt
facientes collegium." — God. Monach. p. 395. Compare Chronieon Placen-
tinum, p. 75.
VOL. V. 20
306 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
summoned, it might seem in reprisal, tlie inhabitants
of Spoleto to his banner, to accompany him in his
expedition to Lombardy. The Spoletines averred
that, by the late treaty, which the Emperor was thus
wantonly violating, they owed allegiance only to the
Pope.
The correspondence betrayed the bitterness and
Letter of risiug wratli on both sides. Even Honorius
Hoiionus. seemed about to resume the haughty tone of
his predecessors. " If our writing hath filled you
with astonishment, how much more were we amazed
by yours ! You boast that you have been more obedi-
ent to us than any of the Kings of your race. Indeed,
no great boast ! But if you will compare yourself
with those godly and generous Sovereigns, who have
in word and deed protected the Church, you will not
claim superiority ; you will strive to approach more
nearly to those great examples. You charge the
Church with treachery, that while she pretended to be
your guardian, she let loose your enemies on Apulia,
and raised Otho to the throne of your fathers : you
venture on these accusations, who have so repeatedly
declared that to the Church you owe your preserxa-
tion, your life. Providence must have urged you to
these rash charges that the care and prudence of the
Church may be more manifest to all men." To the
Church, he insinuates, Frederick mainly owes the
June 5. 1226. crowu of Germany, which he has no right to
call hereditary in his family. " In all our negotiations
with you we have respected your dignity more than
our own." " Whatever irregularity there might be
in the appointment of the bishops, it was not for the
King's arbitrary will to decide ; and Frederick had
Chap. I. ARBITRATION OF HONORIUS. 307
been guilty of far more flagrant encroachments on the
rights of bisliops and of the h)\ver clergy," Honorius
exculpates himself from having received the rebellious
subjects of the King in the territories of the See.
" You accuse us of laying heavy burdens on you,
which we touch not ourselves with the tip of our fin-
ger. You forget your voluntary taking up the Cross,
our prolongation of the period, our free gift of the
tithes of all ecclesiastical property ; our own contri-
butions in money, the activity of our brethren in
preaching the Holy Vow. In fine, the hand of the
Lord is not weakened in its power to humble the
haughty: be not dazzled by your prosperity, so as to
throw off the lowliness which you professed in times
of trouble. It is the law of true nobility not to be
elated by success, as not to be cast down by adver-
sity."
Honorius no doubt felt his strength ; the Pope at
the head of the Guelfic interest in Lombardy j^, j^
had been formidable to the designs of Fred- ^^^•
erick. The Emperor, indeed, had assumed a tone of
command, which the forces which he could array
would hardly maintain. At Borgo St. Domnino he
had placed all the contumacious cities under the ban
of the Empire ; the Papal Legate, the Bishop of Hil-
desheim, had pronounced the interdict of the Church,
as though their turbulent proceedings impeded the
Cmsade. Both parties submitted to the mediation of
Honorius ; Frederick condescended to receive the in-
trusive bishops whom he had repelled : he declared
himself ready to accept the terms most consistent with
the honor of God, of the Church, of the Empire, and
of the Holy Land. The Pope, whose whole soul was
308 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
absorbed in the promotion of his one object, the Cru-
Arbitration sacle, pronouncecl his award, in which he treat-
Nov. 17, 1226. ed the Emperor and his rebelHous subjects as
hostile powers contending on equal terms. Each party
was to suspend hostilities, to restore the prisoners taken,
to forswear their animosities. The King annulled the
act of the Imperial ban, and all penalties incurred un-
der it ; the Lombards stipulated to maintain at their
Jan. 1227. own cost four hundred knights for the ser-
vice of the Holy Land during two years, and rigidly
to enforce all laws against heretics. This haughty
arbitration, almost acknowledging the absolute inde-
pendence of the Republics, was the last act of Hono-
Death of ^'^^^ I^^' > ^'^ <^^^^*^^ ^^^ ^^^^ mouth of Marcli, a
Honorius. p^^^ mouths bcforc the term agreed on in the
treaty of St. Germano was to expire, and the Em-
peror, under pain of excommunication, to embark for
the Holy Land. The Apostolic tiara devolved on the
Cardinal LTgolino, of the noble house of Conti, which
had given to the Holy See Innocent III. The more
lofty churchmen felt some disappointment that the Pa-
pacy was declined by Cardinal Conrad, the Count of
Uracil, the declared enemy of Frederick. They mis-
trusted only the feebleness of age in the Cardinal Ugo-
lino. A Pope eighty years old, might seem no fitting
antagonist for a Prince like Frederick, as yet hardly
in the full maturity of his years. In all other respects
the Cardinal Ugolino, in learning, in ability, in activ-
ity, in the assertion of the loftiest hierarchical princi-
ples, stood high above the whole Conclave. Frederick
himself, on a former occasion, had borne testimony to
the distinguished character of the Cardinal Ugolino.
" He is a man of spotless reputation, of blameless
Chap. I. CARDINAL UGOLINO POPE. 309
morals, renowned for piety, erudition, and eloquence.
He shines among the rest like a brilliant star." The
Emperor's political astrology had not calculated the
baleful influence of that disastrous planet on his for-
tunes, his fame, and his peace.
yiO LATIN CHKISTIANITY. B..uk X.
CHAPTER II.
HONORIUS III. AND ENGLAND.
The relations of Honorius III. to the Empire and
the Emperor Frederick II. were no doubt of the most
profound importance to Christendom ; yet those to
England must find their place in an English history.^
We revert to the commencement of his Papacy. The
first care, indeed, of Pope Honorius was for the vassal
kingdom of England. The death of King John, three
months after that of Innocent HI., totally changed the
position of the Pontifl:'. On his accession Honorius
had embraced with the utmost ardor the policy of
Innocent. King John, the vassal of the Papacy, must
be supported against his rebellious barons, and against
the invasion of Louis of France, by all the terrors of
the Papal power. Louis and all his army, the Barons
and all their partisans, were under the most rigorous
form of excommunication. But on John's death, the
Pope is no longer the haughty and unscrupulous ally
1 Mr. Wm. Hamilton, when ambassador at Naples, rendered to the coun-
try the valuable service of obtaining transcripts of the documents in the
Papal archives relating to Great Britain and the See of Rome. These doc-
uments, through the active zeal of M. Panizzi, are now deposited in the
British Museum. They commence, after one or two unimportant pa[)ers, with
the first year of Honorius. They are not very accurately copied; many
are repetitions; whether they are full and complete no one can know.
Mnny have been already printed in Rymer, in Raynaldus, and elsewhere.
Prvnne had seen some of the originals, some which do not appear, in the
Tower. I cite these documents as MS. B. M.
Chap. II. HONORIUS HI. AND ENGLAND. 311
and protector of an odious, feeble, and irreligious ty-
rant ; one whose lusts had wounded the high chival-
rous honor of many of the noblest families ; whose
perfidy, backed by the absolving power of the Pope,
had broken the most solemn engagements, and revoked
the great Charter to which he had submitted at Run-
nymede ; who was ravaging the whole realm with wild
foreign hordes, Brabanters, Poitevins, freebooters of all
countries, and had driven the nobles of England into
an unnatural alliance with Louis of France, and a
transferrence of the throne to a foreign conqueror.
The Pope was no longer the steadfast enemy of the
liberties of the realm. He assumed the lofty ground
of guardian, as liege lord, of the young heir to the
throne (Henry IH. was but nine years old), the pro-
tector of the blameless orphan whom a rebellious baron-
age and an alien usurper were endeavoring to despoil
of his ancestral crown. Honorius throughout speaks
of the young Henry as the vassal of the Church of
Rome ; of himself as the suzerain of En2:land.^ Eno--
lish loyalty and English independence hardly needed
the Papal fulminations to induce them to abandon the
cause into which they had plunged in their despair,^
the cause of a foreign prince, whose accession to the
throne of England would have reduced the realm to a
1 John he describei? as " carissimum in Christo filium nostrum J., Ang-lia
regem illustrem crucesignatum et vassalluni nostrum." — p. 15. The king-
dom of England "' specialis juris apost. sedis existit." — p. 27.
2 Honorius admits that the Barons might have had some cause for their
wickedness (mahtia) in resisting under John what they called the intolera-
ble yoke of servitude. Now that John is dead, they have no excuse if they
do not return to their allegiance. He gives power to the Legates, to the
Bishops of Winchester, Worcester, Exeter, the Archbishops of Dublin and
Bordeaux (the Primate was still in Rome), to absolve the Barons from their
oaths to Prince Louis.
312 LATIN CHRISTIAXITY. Book X.
province of France. Already their fidelity to Louis
had been shaken by rumors, or more than rumors, that
the ambitious and unscrupulous Louis intended, so
soon as he had obtained the crown, to rid himself by
banishment and by disinheritance of his dangerous
partisans ; to expel the barons from the realm. ^ The
desertion of the nobles, the decisive battle of Lincoln,
seated Henry IIL on the throne of the Plantagenets.
The Pope had only to reward with his praises, immu-
nities, grants, and privileges the few nobles and prelates
faithful to the cause of John and of his son, W. Mares-
chal Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Arundel, Savary
de Mauleon, Hubert de Burgh the Justiciary, the
Chancellor R. de Marisco, who became Bishop of
Durham.^ He had tardily, sometimes ungraciously,
to relieve from the terrible penalties of excommuni-
cation the partisans of Louis ; ^ to persuade or to force
the King of France to w^ithdraw all support from the
cause of his son, who still continued either in open hos-
tility or in secret aggression on the continental domin-
ions of Henry HI. ; and to maintain his lofty position
as Liege Lord and Protector of the King and of the
realm of England.
1 Shakspeare has given this plot, with its groundwork in the confession
of the Count of Mehin. — King John, Act v. Sc. 4.
2 There are several letters (MS. B. M.) to these English noltles; one to
Robert de Marisco empowered him to hold the chancellorship with the
bishopric of Durham, and excused him from the fultilment of his vow to
take the cross in the Holv Land, his services being wanted in England.
On R. de Marisco compare Collier, i. p. 430.
3 There are some curious instances {MS. B. M.) of the terror of the ex-
communications. One of the subjects of France, in fear of his life from a
fall from his horse, implores absolution for having followed his sovereign's
son to the English war: the Pope would hardly excuse him from a journey
to Rome. The Chancellor of the King of Scotland is excommunicate for
obeying his King. So too the Archbishop of Glasgow.
Chap. II. THE LEGATE GUALO. 313
The Legate Gualo, the Cardinal of St. Marcellus,
had conchicted this signal revolution with consummate
address and moderation.^ From tlie coronation of
Henry III. at Gloucester by his hands, the Cardinal
took the lead in all public affairs : he was virtual if not
acknowledged Protector of the infant Kino-. Before
the battle of Lincoln the Legate harangued the royal
army, lavished his absolutions, his promises of eternal
reward ; under the blessing of God, bestowed by him,
the army advanced to victory.^ In the settlement of
the kingdom, in the reconciliation of the nobles, he was
mild if lofty, judicious if dictatorial. England might
have owed a deep debt of gratitude to the Pope and to
the Legate, if Gualo's fame had not been tarnished by
his inordinate rapacity .^ To the nobles he was liberal
of his free absolution ; the clergy must pay the penalty
of their rebellion, and pay that penalty in forfeiture, or
the redemption of forfeiture by enonnous fines to the
Pope and to his Legate. Inquisitors were sent throucdi
the whole realm to investigate the conduct of tlie
clergy.^ The lower ecclesiastics, even canons, under
the slightest suspicion of the rebellion, were dispos-
1 Letter to the Abbots of Citeaux and Clairvaux (MS. B. M. i. p. 43).
They are to use all mild means of persuasion, to threaten stronger meas-
ures.
2 Wendover, p. 19.
3 Compare the verses of Giles de Corbeil, p. 69, on the avarice of Gualo
in France.
4 Wendover, p. 33. The inquisitors sent some '" suspenses ad logatum
et ab omni benelicio spoliatos, qui illorum beneficia suis clericis abundanter
distribuit atque de damnis aliorum suos omnes divites fecit." Wendover
gives the case of the Bishop of Lincoln, wliose example was followed by-
others, who "sumptibus nimis daranosis gratiam sibi reconciliabant legati.
Clericorum vero et canonicorum soecularium ubique haustu tarn immode-
rate loculos evacuavit," &c. See also Math. Westm. ann. 1218, who de-
scribes Gualo returning to Rome, " clitellis auro et argento refertis,"' having
disposed ad libitum of the revenues (redditus) of England.
314 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
sessed of their benefices to make room for foreign
priests ; the only way to elude degradation was by
purchasing the favor of the Legate at a vast price.
The Bishop of Lincoln for his restoration to his see
paid 1000 marks to the Pope, 100 to the Legate.^
Throughout the long reign of Henry IIL England
was held by successive Popes as a province of the Pa-
pal territory. The Legate, like a pra?tor or proconsul
of old, held or affected to hold an undefined supremacy:
during the Barons' wars the Pope with a kind of feudal
as well as ecclesiastical authority condemned the rebels,
not only against their Lord, but against the vassal of
the Holy See. England was the great tributary prov-
ince, in which Papal avarice levied the most enormous
sums, and drained the wealth of the country by direct
or indirect taxation. There were four distinct sources
of Papal revenue from the realm of England.
I. The ancient payment of Peter's Pence ; ^ this
1 Pope Honorius was not well infonned on the affairs of England. When
Henry was counselled to take up arms to reduce the castles held by the
ruffian Fulk de Breautt^ in defiance of the King and the peace of the realm,
the Primate had supported the King and the nobles in this act of necessary
justice and order by ecclesiastical censures. The Pope wrote a furious let-
ter of rebuke to Langton (MS. B. M. ix. Aug. 1224), espousing the cause of
Fulk, who had through his wealth influence at Rome. Still later Gregory
IX. reproves and revokes certain royal grants to Bishops and Barons, as
" in grave pra?judicium ecclesia? Romanre ad quam Regimm Anglise perti-
nere dinoscitur, et enormem Ijesionem ejusdem regni." — MS. B. M. ad
regem, vol. xiv. p. 77.
2 The account of Cencius, the Pope's chamberlain, of the assessment of
Peter's pence in the dioceses of England, has been published before by Dr.
Lingard, but may be here inserted from MS. B. M. : —
vii. librae et xviii. solidos.
De Cantuarensi Ecclesia .
vii.
De Roffensi
V.
De Londoniensi
STi.
De Norwicensi
xxi.
De Eliensi
V.
De Lincolniensi
xlii
De Cicestriensi
viii.
Chap. II. PAPAL EEYENUE FROM ENGLAND. 315
subsidy to the Pope, as the ecclesiastical sovereign,
acknowledged in Saxon times, and admitted by the
Conqueror, was regularly assessed in the different dio-
ceses, and transmitted to Rome. Dignitaries of the
Church were usually the treasurers who paid it over to
Italian bankers in London, the intermediate aeents
with Rome.
II. The 1000 marks — 700 for England, 300 fur
Ireland — the sign and acknowledgment of feudal vas-
salage, stipulated by King John, when he took the
oath of submission, and made over the kinodom as a
fief. Powerful Popes are constantly heard imperiously,
necessitous Popes more humbly, almost with supplica-
tion, demanding the payment of this tribute and its
arrears (for it seems to have been irregularly levied);^
but during the whole reign of Henry III, and later,
no question seems to have been raised of the Pope's
right.
III. The benefices held by foreigners, chiefly Ital-
ians, and payments to foreign churches out of the
property of the English church ; ^ the invasion of the
English sees by foreign prelates, with its inevitable
De Wintoniensi . . . xvii. libras et vi. solidos et viii. denarios.
De Oxoniensi . . . . ix. ,, v. ,,
De Wigorniensi . . . T. „ v. ,,
De Herefordensi . • . Ti.
De Bathouiensi . . . ti. ,, T. „
De Saresberiensi . . xviii.
De Conventriae . . . x. ,, T. ,,
De Eboracensi . . . xi. ,, x. ,, p. 181.
1 Urban IV., MS. B. M. x. p. 29, Dec. 1261. Clement IV., ibid. 12.,
June 8, 1266.
2 The convent of Viterbo has a grant of 30 marks from a moiety of the
living of Holkham in Norfolk, i. 278; 50 marks from church of Wingham
to convent of M. Aureo in Anagni, iii. 110. Claims of another convent in
Anagni on benefice in diocese of Winchester, vol. iv. 50. See the grants
to John Peter Leone, and others, in Prynne, p. 23. MS. B. M.
316 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
consequences (or rather antecedents, for John began
the practice of purchasing tlie support of Rome by
enriching her Italian clergy), in crowding the English
benefices with strangers, and burdening them with per-
sons who never came near them, these abuses as yet
only raised deep and suppressed murmurs, erelong to
break out into fierce and obstinate resistance. Pan-
dulph, the Papal Legate, became Bishop of Norwich.
Pope Honorius Avrites to Pandulph not merely author-
izing but urging him to provide a benefice or benefices
in his diocese of Norwich for his own (the Bishop's)
brother, that brother (a singular plurality) being Arch-
deacon of Tliessalonica.^ These foreigners were of
course more and more odious to the whole realm : to
the laity as draining away their wealth without dis-
charging any duties ; still more to the clergy as usurp-
ing their benefices : though ignorant of the lano;uao;e,
affecting superiority in attainments ; as well as from
their uncongenial manners, and, if they are not belied,
unchecked vices. They were blood-suckers, drawing
out the life, or drones fattening on the spoil of the
land. All existing documents show that the jealousy
and animosity of the English did not exaggerate the
evil.^ At length, just at the close of his Pontificate,
even Pope Honorius, by his Legate Otho, made the
bold and open demand that two prebends in every
1 Pandulph is by mistake made cardinal ; he was subdeacon of the Ro-
man Church. He is called in the documents Master Pandulph.
2 MS. B. M. E. g., grant of a church to a eonsanguineus of the Pope,
one Gervaise, excommunicated for fiivoring the Barons, having been ejected
from it, i. p. 233. Transfer from one Italian to another, 235. Grant from
Bishop of Durham to Peter Saracen (Civis Romanus) of 40 marks, charged
on the See for services done, ii. 158. Requiring a canonry of Lincoln for
Thebaldus, scriptor noster, 186. Canonry of Chichester for a son of a Ro-
man citizen.
Chap. II. BENEFICES HELD BY ITALIANS. 317
cathedral and conventual church (one from the portion
of the Bishop or Abbot, one from that of the Chap-
ter), or the sustentatlon of one monk, should be as-
signed in perpetuity to the Church of Rome. On this
the nobles interfered in the King's name, inhibiting
such alienation. When the subject was brought before
a synod at Westminster by the Archbishop, the pro-
posal was received with derisive laughter at the avarice
of the see of Rome. Even the King was prompted to
this prudent resolution : " When the rest of Christen-
dom shall have consented to this measure, we a.d. 1226.
will consult with our prelates whether it be right to
follow their example." The council of Bourges, where
the Legate Otho urged the same general demand, had
eluded it with the same contemptuous disregard. It
was even more menacingly suggested that such general
oppression from Rome might lead to a general with-
drawal of allegiance from Rome.^
Five years after, the people of England seemed de-
termined to take the affair into their own hands. Ter-
rible letters were distributed by unseen means, and by
unknown persons, addressed to the bishops and chap-
ters, to the abbots and friars, denouncing the insolence
and avarice of these Romans ; positively inhibiting any
payments to them from the revenues of their churches ;
threatening those who paid to burn their palaces and
barns over their heads, and to wreak the same ven-
geance on them which would inevitably fall on the
Italians.^ Cencius, the Pope's collector of Peter's
1 Wendover, p. 114, 121, 124. " Quia si omnium essut universalis op-
pressio, posset timeri ne immineret generalis discessio, quod Deus avertat."
2 Gregory writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury (12.34) that the Eng-
lish " ivgre non ferant si inter ipsos morantes extranei, honores ibidem et
beneficia consequantur, cum apud Deum non est acceptio personarum." —
MS. B. M.
318 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Pence, a Canon of St. Paul's, was suddenly carried off
by armed men, with tlieir faces hid under vizors ; he
returned with his bags well rifled, after five weeks' im-
prisonment. John of Florence, Archdeacon of Nor-
wich, escaped the same fate, and concealed himself in
London. Other aggressive measures followed. The
barns of the Italian clergy were attacked ; the corn
sold or distributed to the poor. It might seem almost
a simultaneous rising ; though the active assailants were
few, the feelings of the whole people were with them.^
At one place (Wingham) the sheriff was obliged, as it
appeared, to raise an armed force to keep the peace ;
the officers were shown letters-patent (forged as was
said) in the King's name, authorizing the acts of the
spoiler : they looked on, not caring to examine the let-
ters too closely, in quiet unconcern at the spoliation.
A.D.1232. The Pope (Gregory IX.) issued an angry
Bull,^ which not only accused the Bishops of conniving
at these enormities, and of making this ungrateful re-
turn for the good offices which he had shown to the
King ; he bitterly complained of the ill usage of his
Nuncios and officers. One had been cut to pieces,
another left half dead ; the Pope's Bulls had been
trampled under foot. The Pope demanded instant,
ample, merciless punishment of the malefactors, resto-
ration of the damaged property. Robert Twenge, a
bold Yorkshire knight, who under a feigned name had
been the ringleader, appeared before the King, owned
himself to have been the William Wither who had
1 The Pope so far admitted the justice of these complaints as to issue a
bull allowing the patrons to present after the death of the Italian incum-
bents.—MS. B. M. iii. 1.38. Gregory IX. said that he had less frequently
used this power of granting benefices in England. — Wilkin's Concilia, i.
269.
2 Apud Rymer, dated Spoleto.
Chap. II. TAXATION OF THE CLERGY. 319
headed the insurgents ; he had done all this in rioht-
eous vengeance against the Romans, who by a sen-
tence of the Pope, fraudulently obtained, had deprived
him of the right of patronage to a benefice. He had
rather be unjustly excommunicated than despoiled of
his right. He was recommended to go to Rome with
testimonials from the King for absolution, and this was
all.^ The abuse, however, will appear yet rampant,
when we return to the history of the English Church.
IV. The taxation of the clergy (a twentieth, fif-
teenth, or tenth) as a subsidy for the Holy Land ; but
a subsidy grudgingly paid, and not devoted with too
rigid exclusiveness to its holy purpose. Some portion
of this was at times thrown, as it were, as a boon to
the King (in general under a vow to undertake a Cru-
sade), but applied by him without rebuke or remon-
strance to other purposes. The tax was on the whole
property of the Church, of the secular clergy and of
the monasteries. Favor was sometimes (not always)
shown to the Cistercians, the Praemonstratensians, the
Monks of Sempringham — almost always to the Tem-
plars and Knights of St. John. Other emoluments
arose out of the Crusades ; compositions for vows not
fulfilled ; besides what arose out of bequests, the prop-
erty of intestate clergy, and other sources. The Popes
seem to have had boundless notions of the wealth and
weakness of England. England paid, murmured, but
laid up deep stores of alienation and aversion from the
Roman See.^
1 Wendover, 292.
2 Clement IV. (Viterbo, May 22, 1266) orders his collector to get in all
arrears " de censibus, denariis Sancti Petri, et debitis quibuscunque." Of
these debts there is a long list. " Aut ex veto seu promisso, decima vel
320 LATIN CHRISTIAXITY. Book X.
vicesima, seu redemptionibus votorum tam crucesignatorum quam aliorum,
vel depositis vel testamentamentis (sic) aiit bonis clericorum decedentium
ab intestate seu alia quacunque ratione modo vel causa eisdeni sedi Apos-
tolicae, et terras sanctas vel alteri earum a quibuscunque personis debentur."
The collectors had power to excommunicate for non-payment. MS. B. M.
xii.
Chap. III. GREGORY IX. 321
CHAPTER III.
FREDERICK II. AND GREGORY IX.
The Empire and the Papacy were now to meet in
their last mortal and implacable strife; the Last strife of
two first acts of this tremendous drama, Empire.
se2:)arated by an interval of many years, were to be
dev^eloped during the Pontificate of a prelate who as-
cended the throne of St. Peter at the age of eighty.
Nor was this strife for any specific point in dispute like
the right of investiture, but avowedly for supremacy on
one side, which hardly deigned to call itself indepen-
dence ; for independence, on the other, which remotely
at least aspired after supremacy. Csesar would bear
no superior, the successor of St. Peter no equal. The
contest could not have begun under men more strongly
contrasted, or more determinedly oppugnant in char-
acter than Gregory IX. and Frederick 11. Gregory ix.
Gregory retained the ambition, the vigor, almost the
activity of youth, with the stubborn obstinacy, and
something of the irritable petulance of old age. He
was still master of all his powerful faculties ; his knowl-
edge of affairs, of mankind, of the peculiar interests of
almost all the nations in Christendom, acquired by long
employment in the most important negotiations both
by Innocent III. and by Honorius III. ; eloquence
which his own age compared to that of Tully ; pro-
VOL. V. 21
322 • LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
found erudition in that learning which, in the medieeval
churchman, commanded tlie highest admiration. No
one was his superior in the science of the canon law ;
the Decretals to which he afterwards gave a more fiill
and authoritative form, were at his command, and they
were to him as much the law of God as the Gospels
themselves, or the primary principles of morality. The
jealous reverence and attachment of a great lawyer to
his science strengthened the lofty pretensions of the
churchman.^
Frederick II. with many of the noblest qualities
Frederick II. wliicli could Captivate the admiration of his
own age, in some respects might appear misplaced, and
by many centuries prematurely born. Frederick hav-
ing crowded into his youth adventures, perils, successes,
almost unparalleled in history, was now only expanding
into the prime of manhood. A parentless orphan he
had struggled upward into the actual reigning monarch
of his hereditary Sicily ; he was even then rising above
the yoke of the turbulent magnates of his realm, and
the depressing tutelage of the Papal See ; he had
crossed the Alps a boyish adventurer, and won, so much
through his own valor and daring that he might well
ascribe to himself his conquest, the kingdom of Ger-
many, the imperial crown ; he was in undisputed pos-
session of the Empire, with all its rights in Northern
Italy ; King of Apulia, Sicily, and Jerusalem. He
was beginning to be at once the Magnificent Sovereign,
the knight, the poet, the lawgiver, the patron of arts,
1 Epist. Honor., 14th March, 1221. He is described as " Forma decorus
et venustus aspectu, perspicuus ingenii et fidelis memoriie prerogativa do-
natvis, liberalium artium et utriusque juris peritia eminenter instructus,
fluvius eloquentiEe TuUiana?, sacrie paginpe diligens observator et doctor,
zelator fidei." — Cardin. Arragon. Vit. Greg. IX.
Chap. III. FREDERICK II. 323
I
letters, and science ; the Magnificent Sovereign now
holding his court in one of the old barbaric and feu-
dal cities of Germany among the proud and tui'bvdent
princes of the Empire, more often on the sunny shores
of Naples or Palermo, in southern and almost Oriental
luxury ; the gallant Knight and troubadour Poet not
forbiddino; himself those amorous indulgences which
were the reward of chivalrous valor, and of the " gay
science ; " the Lawgiver, whose far-seeing wisdom
seemed to anticipate some of those views of eqiaal jus-
tice, of the advantages of commerce, of the cultivation
of the arts of peace, beyond all the toleration of ad-
verse religions, which even in a more dutiful son of the
Church would doubtless have seemed godless indiffer-
ence. Frederick must appear before us in the course
of our history in the fiill development of all these
shades of character ; but besides all this Frederick's
views of the tempoi-al sovereignty were as imperious
and autocratic as those of the haughtiest churchman
of the spiritual supremacy. The ban of the Empire
ought to be at least equally awful with that of the
Church ; disloyalty to the Emperor was as heinous a
sin as infidelity to the head of Christendom ; the inde-
pendence of the Lombard republics was as a great and
punishable political heresy. Even in Rome itself, as
head of the Roman Empire, Frederick aspired to a su-
premacy which was not less unlimited because vague
and undefined, and irreconcilable with that of the
Supreme Pontiff. If ever Emperor might be tempted
by the vision of a vast hereditary monarchy to be per-
petuated in his house, the pi'incely house of Hohen-
staufen, it was Frederick. He had heirs of his great-
ness ; his eldest son was King of the Romans ; from his
324 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
loins might yet spring an inexhaustible race of princes :
the failure of his imperial line was his last fear.
The character of the man seemed formed to achieve
and to maintain this vast design ; he was at once terri-
ble and popular, courteous, generous, placable to his
foes ; yet there was a depth of cruelty in the heart of
Frederick towards revolted subjects, which made him
look on the atrocities of his allies, Eccelin di Romano,
and the Salinguerras, but as legitimate means to quell
insolent and stubborn rebellion.
The loftier churchmen, if for a moment they had
Gregory IX. misgiviugs ou accouut of his age, hailed the
election of Cardinal Ugolino with the utmost satisfac-
tion. The surpassing magnificence of his coronation
attested the unanimous applause of the clergy, and
even of the people of Rome.^ Gregory had in secret
murmured against the gentler and more yielding policy
of Honorius III. Of such weakness he could not
accuse himself. The old man at once threw down the
Gregory's gauutlct ; on the day of his accession^ he
first act. issued an energetic proclamation to all the
sovereigns of Christendom announcing his election to
the pontificate, and summoning them to enter on a new
Crusade ; that addressed to Frederick was more direct,
vehement, and imperative, and closed not without some
significant hints that he would not long brook the delay
with which the Emperor had beguiled his predecessor.^
1 '' Tunc lugubres vestes mutavit Ecclesia, et urbis semirutae mffiiiia pris-
tinum recepere fulgorem." — Cardin. Arragon. in Vit. See description of
the inauguration.
2 1227, March 18. Raynaldi Annal.
8 " Alioquin quantumcunque te sincera diligamus in Domino charitate,
et tibi quantum in Domino possumus deferre velinius, id dissimulare nulla
poterimus ratione." — Epistol. ad Frederic, apud Raynaldi, March 23.
Chap. III. GREGORY'S FIRST ACT. 325
The Kinfj's disobedience might involve him in difficul-
ties from which the Pope himself, even if he should so
will, could hai'dly extricate him.^
Frederick, in the height of their subsequent contest,
reproached the Pope as having been, while in the
lower orders of the Church, his familiar friend, but
that no sooner had he reached the summit of his am-
bition than he threw oif all gratitude, and became his
determined enemy.^ Yet his congratulations on the
accession of Gregory were expressed in the most court-
ly tone. The Bishop of Reggio, and Herman of Salza,
the Grand Master of the Teutonic order, were his am-
bassadors to Rome. Gregory, on his side, with impar-
tial severity, compelled the Lombards to fulfil and
ratify the treaty which had been agreed to through the
mediation of Honorius. Frederick had already trans-
mitted to Rome the documents which were requisite
for the full execution of the stipulations on his part,
the general amnesty, the revocation of the Imperial
ban, the release of the prisoners, the assent of King
Henry. The Lombards were not so ready or so open
in their proceedings. Gregory was con- March 24.
strained to send a strong summons to the Lombards
declaring that he would no longer be tampered with by
their idle and frivolous excuses : " If in this important
affair ye despise, mock, or elude our commands and
those of God, nothing remains for us but to invoke
1 " Nequaquam nos et teipsum in illam necessitatem inducas, de qua for-
san te de facili non poterimus, etiamsi voluerimus, expedire." — Ibid.
2 " Iste noviis athleta, siiiistris aiispiciis factus Pontifex Generalis, amicus
noster prtficipuus dum in niinoribus ordinibu.s constitutus, beneficiorum om-
nium quibus Imperium Christianum sacrosanctam ditavit Ecclesiam ob-
litus, statim post assumptum suum fidem cum tempore varians et mores
cum dignitate commutans." — Petr. de Vinea, Epistol. i. xvi.
826 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
heaven and earth against your insolence." ^ The treaty
arrived in Rome the day after this summons had been
despatched, wanting the seal of the Marquis of Mont-
ferrat, and of many of the cities ; hut Gregory would
not be baffled ; the Archbishop of Milan received orders
to menace the cities with ecclesiastical censures, and
the treaty came back with all the necessary ratifica-
tions. In this Gregory pursued the politic as well as
the just course. The Emperor must not have this
plausible e:^;cuse to elude his embarkation on the Cru-
sade at the appointed day in August. The Lombards
themselves were imperatively urged to furnish their
'proper contingent for the Holy War. Gregory IX.
knew Lombardy well, it had been the scene of his own
preaching of the Cross ; and the sagacious fears of the
Church (the stipulations in the treaty of Honorius be-
trayed this sagacity and these fears) could not but dis-
cern that however these proud republics might be
heartily Guelfic, cordially on the side of the Church,
they were only so from their common jealousy of the
Empire. But there was that tacit understanding, or at
least unacknowledged sympathy, between civil and relig-
ious liberty, which must be watched with vigilant mis-
trust. It was manifest that the respect for their bishops
in all these republics depended entirely on the political
conduct of the prelates, not on the sanctity of their
office. There was a remissness or reluctance in the
suj)pression of heresy, and in the punishment of here-
tics, which required constant urgency and rebuke on
the part of the Pope : " Ye make a great noise," writes
Gregory, " about fines imposed, and sentences of exile
against heretics ; but ye quietly give them back their
1 Eegest. Gregor., quoted by Vou Raiimer, p. 416.
Chap. III. LETTER TO FREDERICK. 327
fines, and admit them again into your cities. In the
mean time ye regard not the immunities of the clergy,
neither their exemption from taxation nor their personal
freedom ; ye even permit enactments injurious to their
defence of their liberties, enactments foolish and culpa-
ble, even to their banishment by the laity. Take heed,
lest a more fearful interdict than that with which you
have been punished (the ban of the Empire) fall upon
you, the interdict of the Church." ^
But the Pope was not content with general exhorta-
tions to the Emperor to embark on the Cru- June 8
sade : he assumed the privilege of his holy office and
of his venerable age to admonish the young and brill-
iant Frederick on his life, and on the duties of his im-
perial dignity. The address was sent from Anagni,
to which the Pope had retired from the heats of Rome,
by the famous Gualo, one of the austere Order of
Friar Preachers instituted b}'' St. Dominic.^ Gregory's
11.11.1 1 letter of
The letter dwelt in the highest terms on the admonition,
wonderful mental endowments of Frederick, his reason
quickened with the liveliest intelligence, and winged
by the brightest imagination. The Pope entreats him
not to degrade the qualities which he possesses in
common with the angels, nor to sacrifice them to the
lower appetites, which he has in common with the
beasts and the plants of the earth. The love of sen-
sual things debases the intellect, the pampering of the
delicate body corrupts the affections. If knowledge
and love, those twin lights, are extinguished ; if those
1 Regesta, ibid. p. 417.
2 Tiie CarJinal Ugolino had been the first to foresee the tremendous
power of the new Orders. He had been their fimi protector: they were
bound to him, especially the Franciscans, not only by profound reverence,
but by passionate personal attachment.
328 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
eagles which should soar in triumph stoop and entangle
themselves with eartlily pleasures, how canst thou show
to thy followers the way of salvation ? " Far be it from
thee to hold up this fatal example of thraldom to the
sensual life. Your justice should be the pillar of fire,
your mercy the coohng cloud to lead God's chosen
people into the land of promise." He proceeds to a
strange mystic interpretation of the five great ensigns
of the imperial power; the inward meaning of all these
mysterious symbols, the cross, the lance, the triple
crown, the sceptre, and the golden apple : this he
would engrave indelibly with an iron pen on the
adamantine tablets of the kino;'s heart.^
It were great injustice to the character of Gregory to
attribute this high-toned, however extravagantly mystic,
remonstrance to the unworthy motives of ambition or
animosity. The severe old man might, not without
grounds, take offence at the luxury, the s})lendor, the
Court of sensuality of Frederick's Sicilian court, the
Frederick. ft-eedom at least, if not hcense, of Frederick's
life. It was the zeal, perhaps, of a monk, but yet the
honest and religious zeal. Frederick's predilection for
his native kingdom, for the bright cities reflected in the
blue Mediterranean, over the dark barbaric towns of
Germany, of itself characterizes the man. The summer
skies, the more polished manners, the more elegant lux-
uries, the knowledge, the arts, the poetry, the ga_) ety,
tlie beauty, the romance of the South, were through-
out his life more congenial to his mind than the heav-
ier and more chilly climate, the feudal barbarism, the
ruder pomp, the coarser habits of his German liegemen.
Among the profane sayings attributed to Frederick
1 Epistola GiX'gor. apud Raynaldi Anagni, June 8.
Chap. III. COURT OF FREDERICK. 329
(who was neitlier guarded noi' discreet in his more
mirthful conversation, and as his strife with the Church
grew fiercer would not become more reverential), say-
ings caught up, and no doubt sharpened by his enemies,
was that memorable one — that God would never have
chosen the barren land of Judsea for his own people if
he had seen his beautiful and fertile Sicily. And no
doubt that delicious climate and lovely land, so highly
appreciated by the gay sovereign, was not without in-
fluence on the state, and even the manners of his court,
to which other circumstances contributed to give a
peculiar and romantic character. It resembled proba-
bly (though its full splendor was of a later period)
Granada in its glory, more than any other in Europe,
thougli more rich and picturesque from the variety of
races, of manners, usages, even dresses, which prevailed
within it. Here it was that Southern and Oriental
luxury began to impart its mysteries to Christian Eu-
rope. The court was open to the mingled population
which at that time filled the cities of Southern Italy.
If anything of Grecian elegance, art, or luxury survived
in the West, it was in the towns of Naples and Sicily.
There the Norman chivalry, without having lost their
bold and enterprising bearing, had yielded in some
degree to the melting influence of the land, had ac-
quired Southern passions. Southern habits. The ruder
and more ferocious German soldiery, as many as were
spared by the climate, gradually softened, at least in
their outward demeanor. The Jews were numerous,
enlightened, wealthy. The Mohammedan inhabitants
of Sicily were neither the least polished, nor the least
welcome at the court of Frederick : they were sub-
siding into loyal subjects of the liberal Clu'istian King ;
330 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
and Frederick was accused by his enemies, and even
then believed by the Asiatic and Egyptian Mussulmans,
to have approximated more closely to their manners,
even to their creed, than became a Christian Emperor.
He spoke their tongue, admired and cultivated their
science, caused their philosophy to be translated into
the Latin language. In his court their Oriental man-
ners yielded to the less secluded habits of the West.
It was one of the grave charges, at a later period, that
Saracen Avomen were seen at the court of Palermo,
who by their licentiousness corrupted the morals of his
Christian subjects. Frederick admitted the truth of
the charge, but asserted the pure demeanor and chas-
tity of these Mohammedan ladies : nevertheless, to
avoid all future scandal, he consented to dismiss them.
This at a time when abhorrence of the Mohammedan
was among the first articles of a Christian's creed ;
when it would have been impious to suppose a Moham-
medan man capable of any virtue except of valor, a
Mohammedan female of any virtue at all ! The im-
pression made by this inclination for the society of mis-
creant ladies, its inseparable connection with Moham-
medan habits, transpires in the Guelfic character of
Fi-ederick by Villani. The Florentine does ample jus-
tice to his noble and kingly qualities, to the universality
of his genius and knowledge, " but he was dissolute and
abandoned to every kind of luxury. After the man-
ner of the Saracens he had many concubines, and
was attended by Mamelukes ; he gav e himself up to
sensual enjoyments, and led an epicurean life, taking
no thought of the world to come, and this was the prin-
cipal reason of his enmity to Holy Church and to the
hierarchy, as well as his avarice in usurping the pos-
Chap. III. ITALIAX POETRY. 331
sessions and infringing on the jurisdiction of the
clergy." ^
It was in this Southern kingdom tliat the first rude
notes of Italian poetry were heard in the soft SiciHan
dialect. Frederick himself, and his Chancellor Peter
de Vinea, were promising pupils in the gay science.
Among the treasures of the earliest Italian song are
several compositions of the monarch and of his poetic
rival. One. sonnet indeed of Peter de Vinea is perhaps
equal to anything of the kind before the time when
Petrarch set the common thoughts of all these amorous
Platonists in the perfect crystals of his inimitable lan-
guage. Of these lays most which survive are amatory,
but it is not unlikely that as the kindred troubadours
of Provence, the poets did not abstain from satiric
touches on the clergy. How far Frederick himself
indulged in more than poetic license, the invectives of
his enemies cannot be accepted as authority. It was
during his first widowhood that he indulged the heioht
of his passion for the beautiful Bianca Lancia ; this
mistress bore him two sons, his best beloved Enzio,
during so many years of his more splendid career the
pride, the delight of his heart, unrivalled for his beauty,
the valiant warrior, the consummate general, the cause,
by his imprisonment, of the bitterest grief, which in the
father's decline bowed down his broken spirit. Enzio
was born at the close of the year in which Frederick
wedded lolante of Jerusalem. The fact that lolante
died in childbed giving birth to his son Conrad, is at
least evidence that he had not altogether estranged her
from his affections. In public she had all the state and
splendor of his queen ; nor is it known that during her
1 Istorie Fiorentin. vi. c. 1.
332 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
lifetime her peace was imbittered by any more cher-
ished rivals.
Still if this brilliant and poetic state of society (even
if at this time it was only expanding to its fulness of
luxuiy and splendor) must appear dubious at least to
the less severe Christian moralist, how must it have
appeared to those who had learned their notions of
morals from the rule of St. Benedict rather than the
Gospel ; the admirers of Francis and of Dominic ; men
in whom human affections were alike proscribed with
sensual enjoyments, and in whose religious language,
to themselves at least, pleasure bore the same meaning
as sin ; men, who had prayed, and fasted, and scourged
out of themselves every lingering sympathy of our com-
mon nature ? How, above all, to one in whom, as in
Gregory IX., age had utterly frozen up a heart, already
hardened by the austerest discipline of monkhood ? It
is impossible to conceive a contrast more strong or more
irreconcilable than the octogenarian Gregory, in his
cloister palace, in his conclave of stern ascetics, with
all but severe imprisonment within conventual walls,
completely monastic in manners, habits, views, in cor-
porate spirit, in celibacy, in rigid seclusion fi-om the
rest of mankind, in the conscientious determination to
enslave, if possible, all Christendom to its inviolable
unity of faith, and to the least possible latitude of dis-
cipline ; and the gay, and yet youthful Frederick, with
his mingled assemblage of knights and ladies, of Chris-
tians, Jews, and Mohammedans, of poets and men of
science, met, as it were, to enjoy and minister to enjoy-
ment ; to cultivate the pure intellect : Avheix% if not
the restraints of religion, at least the awful authority
of churchmen, was examined with freedom, sometimes
ridiculed with sportive wit.
Chai-. III. FREDERICK AND THE CRUSADE. 333
A few months were to put to the test the obedience
of Frederick to the See of Rome, perhaps liis Christian
fidehty. By the treaty of St. Germano, the August
of the present year had been fixed for his em- a.d. 1227.
l)arkation for tlie Holy Land. Gregory, it is clear,
mistrusted his sincerity ; with what justice it is hard to
decide. However Frederick might be wantinp; in fer-
vent religious zeal, he was not in the chivalrous love
of enterprise ; however he might not abhor the Mo-
hammedans with the true Christian cordiality of his
day, he would not decline to meet them in arms as
brave and generous foes ; however the recovery of the
Saviour's tomb might not influence him with the fierce
enthusiasm which had kindled the hearers of Peter the
Hermit or St. Bernard, or perhaps that which sent forth
his grandsire, Barbarossa : yet an Oriental kingdom,
which he claimed in the right of his wife, a conquest
which would have commanded the grateful admiration
of Christendom, was a prize which his ambition would
hardly disdain, or rather at which it would grasp with
bold eagerness. Frederick was personally brave ; but
neither was his finer, though active and close-knit
frame, suited to hew his way through hosts of imbe-
lievers ; he aspired not, and could not hope, to rival the
ferocious personal prowess of our Richard Coeur de Lion,
or to leave his name as the terror of Arabian mothers.
Nor would his faith behold Paradise as the assured close
of a battle-field with the Infidels, the remission of sins as
the sure reward of a massacre of the believers in Islam.
Frederick was not averse to obtain by negotiation (and
surely, with the warnings of all former Crusades, espe-
cially that of his grandsire Barbarossa, not unwisely),
and by taking advantage of the feuds between the Sar-
334 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. B<><mv X.
acen princes, those conquests which some woukl deem
it impious to strive after but by open war. Frederick
had ah'eady received an embassy from Sultan Malek-
al-Kameel of Egypt (of tliis the Pope could hardly be
ignorant). Between the Egyptian and Damascene de-
scendants of the great Saladin there was implacable
hostility. Kameel had now recovered Damietta;^ he
had made a treaty with the discomfited Crusaders. He
hated his rival of Damascus even more bitterly than he
did the Christians. His offers to Frederick were the
surrender of the kingdom of Jerusalem, on condition
of close alliance against the Sultan of Damascus. Fred-
Negotiations erick had despatched to the East an ambas-
Kameei. sador of uo Icss rank than the Archbishop of
Palermo. The Prelate bore magnificent and accept-
able presents, horses, arms, it was said the Emperor's
own palfrey.^ In the January of the following year
the Archbishop had returned to Palermo, with presents,
according to the Eastern authority, of twice the value
of his own ; many rare treasures from India, Arabia,
Syria, and Irak, Among these, to the admiration of the
Occidentals, was a large elephant.^ To the Pope, the
negotiations themselves were unanswerable signs of
Frederick's favor to the Infidels, and his perfidy to the
cause of the Christians.*
1 In the fierce invectives of their later controversy, the Papal party at-
tributed to the tardiness, even to the treachery of Frederick, the disastrous
loss of Damietta. If he had accompanied the first German division of the
German Crusaders, the Christians would not have been witliout a leader;
and with his fame and power he might, by the conquest of Egypt, have re-
established, and forever, the Christian dominion in the East. But Fred-
ericli certainly could not have gone at that time with a force equal to this
great enterprise.
2 Ebn Ft^'rah. quoted in Michaud's Ribliographie des Croisades, p. 727.
3 Richd. de S. German, p. 1604. INIakrisi apud Reinaud. Hugo Plagen.
* The letter of Gregory IX. in Matth. Paris. " Quod detestabilius est,
Chap. III. PEEPARATIONS FOR CRUSADE. 385
Yet Frederick seemed earnestly determined to fidfil
his vow. Thougli the treaty with the Lombard cities
was hardly concluded, he had made vast preparations.
He had levied a large tax from the whole kingdom of
Sicily for the maintenance of his forces ; ^ a noble fleet
rode in the harbor of Brundusium : Frederick himself,
with his Empress lolante, passed over from Sicily and
took up his abode in Otranto.
Pilgrims in the mean time had been assembling from
various quarters. In Germany, at a great preparations
Diet at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the presence of ''^'^ ^'•"^'^^''•
King Henry, many of the Princes and Prelates had
taken the Cross. Some of these, especially the Duke
of Austria, alleged excuses from their vow. But the
Landgrave of Thuringia, the husband of Elizabeth of
Hungary, afterwards sainted for her virtues, tore him-
self from his beloved wife in the devotion to what both
esteemed the higher duty.^ The Bishops of Augs-
burg, Bamberg, and Ratisbon accompanied the Land-
grave to Italy. France seemed for once to be cold in
the Holy cause (Louis IX. was in his infancy), but in
England there had been a wide-spread pop- England.
ular movement. On the vigil of John the Baptist's
day it was rumored abroad, that the Saviour himself
had appeared in the heavens, bleeding, pierced with
cum Soldano et aliis Saracenis nefandas (Fredericus) contrahens pactiones
illis favorem, Christianis odium exhibuit manifestum." — Sub aim. 1228,
p. 348. On these rumors of the understanding between the Emperor and
Sultan Kameel no doubt Gregory founded his darker charge of Frederick's
having compelled the surrender of Damietta, not only by withholding all
relief from the Christians when masters of it, but by direct and treacherous
intercourse with the Soldan.
1 Richard de St. German, p. 1103. Alberic, ad ann. 1227. The monas-
tery of St. Germano was assessed at 450 ounces.
2 Montalembert, Vie de St. Elizabeth de Hongrie.
336 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
the nails and lance, on a cross which shone like fire.^
It was to encourage forty thousand pilgrims, who were
said already to have taken the Cross. This was seen
more than once in different places, in order to confute
the incredulous gainsayers. But of those forty thou-
sand who were enrolled, "probably no large proportion
reached Southern Italy.
The Emperor, hardly released from the affairs of
Northern Italy, was expected to have provisions and
ships ready for the transport of all this vast undisci-
plined rout, of which no one could calculate the num-
bers. Delays took place, which the impatient Pope,
ignorant no doubt of the difficulties of maintaining and
embarking a great armament, ascribed at once to the
remissness or the perfidy of Frederick. The heats
came on with more than usual violence, they were
such, it is said, as might have melted solid metal. ^
A fever broke out fatal, as ever, to the Germans.^
The Landgrave of Thuringia, the Bishops of Augs-
burg and of Angers Avere among its victims ; the
pilgrims perished by thousands. The death of the
Landgrave was attributed not only to the wanton de-
lay, but even to poison administered by the orders of
Frederick, who, in his insatiate rapacity, coveted the
large possessions of the Prince. About the appointed
day Frederick himself embarked ; the fleet set sail ; it
1 Wendover, p. 144. The reading iu Paris for quadraginta is sexaginta.
Ed. Coxe, p. 144.
2 " Cujiis ardoribus ipsa fere solida metalla liquescunt." — Card. Arragon.
in Vit. Greg. IX.
3 An impostor placed himself on the steps of St. Peter's, in the attire
and character of the Pope, and publicly sold indulgences, releasing the pil-
grims from their vows. After carrying on this strange bold fraud for some
days, he was apprehended, and paid the penalty of his imposture. — Kay-
nald. sub ann.
Chap. III. EXCOMMUNICATION OF FREDERICK. 387
lost sight of the shore ; — but three clays after the
Imperial ship was seen returning hastily to the haven
of Otranto ; Frederick, alleging severe illness, returned
to the baths of Pozzuoli, to restore his strenoth. The
greater part of the fleet either dispersed or, followino-
the Emperor's example, returned to land.
Gregory heard at Anagni (the year of Gregory's
accession had not vet expired) the return of „
^ " ^ ^ Excommu-
Frederick, the dissolution of the armament. "^'^f'O" "f
Frederick.
On St. Michael's Day, surrounded by his ^^p'- ^'^•
Cardinals and Prelates, he delivered a lofty discourse,
on the text, " It must needs be that offences come, but
woe unto him through whom they come." He pro-
nounced the excomnuinication, which Frederick had
incurred by his breach of the agreement at St. Ger-
mano. Nothing was wanting to the terror. All the
bells joined their most dissonant peals ; the clergy,
each with his torch, stood around the altar. Greo--
ory implored the eternal malediction of God against
the Emperor. The clergy dashed down their torches :
there was utter darkness. The churchmen saw in this
sentence the beginning of the holy strife, of the tri-
umph of St. Michael_ over the subtle and scaly dragon.
The sentence was followed by an address to the Apu-
lian bishops, the subjects of Frederick. " The little
Lark of St. Peter, launched on the boundless ocean,
though tossed by the billows, is submerged but never
lost, for the Lord is reposing within her : he is awak-
ened at length by the cries of his disciples ; he com-
mands the sea and the winds, and there is a great calm.
From four quarters the tempests are now assailing our
bark ; the armies of the Infidels are striving with all
their might that the land, hallowed by the blood of
VOL. V. 22
338 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Christ, may become the prey of their impiety ; the
rage of tyrants, asserting their temporal claims, pro-
scribes justice and tramples under foot the liberties
of the Church : the folly of heretics seeks to rend the
seamless garment of Christ, and to destroy the Sacra-
ments of the faith ; false brethren and wicked sons, by
their treacherous perversity, disturb the bowels and
tear open the sides of their mother." " The Church
of Christ, afflicted by so many troubles, while she
thinks tliat she is nursing up her children, is foster-
ing in her bosom fire and serpents and basilisks,^ which
would destroy everything by their breath, their bite,
and their burning. To combat these monsters, to tri-
umpli over hostile armies, to appease these restless
tempests, the Holy Apostolic See reckoned in these
latter times on a nursling whom she had brought up
with the tenderest care ; the Church had taken up
the Emj^eror Frederick, as it were, from his mother's
womb, fed him at her breasts, borne him on her shoul-
ders ; she had often rescued him from those who
sought his life ; instructed him, educated him with
care and imin to manhood ; invested him with the
royal dignity ; and to crown all these blessings, be-
stowed on him tlie title of Emperor, hoping to find
in him a protecting support, a stafi^ for her old age.
No sooner was he King in Germany than, of his own
accord, unexhorted, unknown to the Apostolic See, he
took the Cross and made a vow to depart for the Holy
Land ; he even demanded that himself and all other
Crusaders should be excommunicated if they did not
set forth at the appointed time. At his coronation as
Emperor we ourselves, then holding an inferior office
1 Regulos.
Cnu-. III. EXCOMMUNICATION OF FREDERICK. 339
under tlie most Holy Honorius, gave him the Cross,
and received the renewal of his vows. Three times
at Veroli, at Ferentino, at St. Germano, he alleo-ed de-
lays ; the Church in her indulgence accepted his ex-
cuses. At St. Germano he made a covenant, which he
swore by his soul to accomplish ; if not, he incurred
by his own consent the most awfiil excommunication.
How has he fulfilled that covenant ? When many
thousands of pilgrims, depending on his solemn prom-
ises, were assembled in the port of Brundusium, he
detained the armament so long, under the burnino-
summer heats, in that region of death, in that pesti-
lent atmosphere, that a great part of the pilgrims per-
ished, the noble Landgrave of Thuringia, the Bishops
of Augsburg and Angers. At length, when the ships
began to return from the Holy Land, the pilo-rims
embarked on board of them, on the Nativity of the
Blessed Virgin, expecting the Emperor to join their
fleet. But he, breaking all his promises, bursting every
bond, trampling under foot the fear of God, despising
all reverence for Christ Jesus, scorning the censures of
the Church, deserting the Christian army, abandoning
the Holy Land to the Unbelievers, to his own disgrace
and that of all Christendom, withdrew to the luxu-
ries and wonted delights of his kingdom, seeking to
palliate his offence by frivolous excuses of simulated
sickness.^
1 Compare with this statement Frederick's own account, published to the
workl three months after. Both he and the Landgrave had been ill; both
had a relapse; both returned to Otranto, where the Landgrave died. " Prse-
terea nondum resumpta convalescentia, galeas ingressi sumus, nos et dilec-
tus consanguineus noster Lantgravius, vestigia prsecedentium secuti. IJbi
tanta subito invasit utrumque turbatio, quod et nos in graviorem decidimus
recidivam, et idem Lantgravius post accessum nostrum apud Idrontum de
340 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
" Behold, and see if ever sorrow was like unto the
sorrow " of the Apostolic Pontiff. The Pope describes
in pathetic terms the state of the Holy Land ; attrib-
utes to the base intrigues of Frederick with the Un-
believers, the fatal issue of the treaty of Damietta;
" but for him, Jerusalem might have been recovered in
exchange for that city. That we may not be esteemed
as dumb dogs, who dare not bark, or fear to take ven-
geance on him, the Emperor Frederick, who has caused
such ruin to the people of God, we proclaim the said
Emperor excommunicate ; we command you to publish
this our excommunication throughout the realm ; and
to declare, that in case of his contumacy, we shall
proceed to still more awful censures. We trust, how-
ever, that he will see his own shame ; and return to the
mercy of his mother the Church, having given ample
satisfaction for all his guilt."
Gregory IX. had been on the throne of St. Peter not
eight months before he uttered the fulminating decree ;
in which some truth is so confounded and kneaded up
with falsehood and exaggeration ; and there is so much
of reckless wrath, such want of calm, statesmanlike
dignity, such deliberate, almost artful determination to
make the worst of everything. The passionate old
man might seem desperately to abandon all hopes of
future success in the Holy Land ; and to take vindic-
tive comfort in heaping all the blame on Frederick.^
Gregory returned to Rome ; Frederick had already
sent ambassadors solemnly to assert that his illness was
medio, proh dolor! est ereptus." — Epist. Frederic. If this was untrue, it
was a most audacious and easily confuted untruth.
1 " Hie (Gregorius IX.) tanquam superbus prinio anno pontificatus sui
coepit excommunicare Fredericum Iinperatorem pro causis frivolis et falsis."
— Abb. Urspergens. p. 247.
Chap. III. WRATH OF GREGORY. 341
real and unfeigned, the Bishops and Bari and Reggio,
and Reginald of Spoleto. By one account, the Pope
refused to admit them to his presence : at all events, he
repelled them with the utmost scorn, and so persisted in
branding the Emperor in the face of Christendom as a
hypocrite and a liar.^
Twice again, on St. Martin's Day and on Christmas
Day, the Pope, amid all the assembled hierarchy, re-
newed and confirmed the excommunication. Frederick
treated the excommunication itself with utter contempt ;
either through love or fear the clergy of the kingdom
of Naples performed as usual all the sacred offices. At
Capua he held a Diet of all the Barons of Apulia ; he
assessed a tax on both the kingdoms for an expedition
to the Holy Land, appointed for the ensuing May. He
summoned an assemblage of all his Italian subjects to
meet at Ravenna, to take counsel for this common Cru-
sade. From Capua came forth his defiant appeal to
Christendom.^ In this appeal Frederick replied to the
unmeasured language of the Pope in language not less
unmeasured. He addressed all the Sovereigns of Chris-
tendom ; he urged them to a league of all temporal
Kings to oppose this oppressive league of the Pope and
the Hierarchy. He declared that he had been pre-
vented from accomplishing his vow, not, as the Pope
falsely averred, by frivolous excuses, but by serious ill-
ness ; he appealed to the faithful witness in Heaven for
his veracity ; he declared his fixed determination, im-
mediately that God should restore him to health, to
1 There is a letter to Frederick, quoted in Raynaldus, in a milder tone,
declaring that the Pope had been blamed for the mansuetiide of his pro-
ceedings ; because he had not also censured him for many acts of tyranny
find invasion on the rights of the Church in Naples and Sicily.
2 Rich, de San. Germ.
342 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
proceed on that holy expedition. " The end of all is
at hand ; the Christian charity which should rule and
maintain all things is dried up in its fountain not in its
streams, not in its branches but in its stem. Has not
the unjust interdict of the Pope reduced the Count of
Toulouse and many other princes to servitude ? Did
not Innocent III. (this he especially addressed to King
Henry of England) urge the noble Barons of England
to insurrection against John, as the enemy of the
Church ? But no sooner had the humiliated King
subjected his realm, like a dastard, to the See of Rome,
than, having sucked the fat of the land, he abandoned
those Barons to shame, ruin, and death. Such is the
way of Rome, under words as smooth as oil and honey
lies hid the rapacious bloodsucker : the Church of
Rome, as though she were the true Chiirch, calls her-
self my mother and my nurse, while all her acts have
been those of a stepmother. The whole world pays
tribute to the avarice of the Romans. Her Legates
travel about through all lands, with full powers of ban
and interdict and excommunication, not to sow the
seed of the word of God, but to extort money, to reap
what they have not sown. They spare not the holy
churches, nor the sanctuary of the poor, nor the rights
of the prelates. The primitive Church, founded on pov-
erty and simplicity, brought forth numberless Saints:
she rested on no foundation but that which had been
laid by our Lord Jesus Christ. Tlie Romans are now
roUino; in wealth : what wonder that the walls of the
Church are undermined to the base, and threaten utter
ruin ? " ^ The Emperor concluded with the solemn
1 Matth. Paris, sub aim. 1228. Written no doubt at the end of 1227,
Dec. 6 ; received in England in 1228.
Chap. III. CONTINUED STRIFE. 348
admonition to all temjioral Sovereigns to make common
cause against the common adversary : " Your house is
in danger when that of your neighbor is on fire." But
in all this strife of counter-proclamations, the advantao-e
was with the Pope. Almost every pulpit in Christen-
dom might propagate to the ends of the earth the Pa-
pal fulminations : every wandering friar might re])eat
it in the ears of men. The Emperor's vindication, the
Imperial ban against the Pope, might be transmitted
to Imjierial officers, to munici})al magistrates, even to
friendly prelates or monks : they might be read in diets
or burgher-meetings, be affixed on town-halls or mar-
ket-places, but among a people who could not read ;
who would tremble to hear them.'
Yet the Emperor had allies, more dangerous to the
Pope than the remote Sovereigns of Christendom.
Gregory, on his return from Anagni, had been received
in Rome with the acclamations of the clergy, and part
at least of the people. But in Rome there had always
been a strong Imperialist party, a party hostile to the
ruling Pontiff. Gregory had already demolished the
palaces and castle-towers of some of the Roman no-
bles, which obstructed his view, and no doubt threat-
ened his security in the Lateran : ^ he had met with no
open resistance, but such things were not done in
Rome without more dangerous secret murmurs, Fred-
erick, by timely succors during a famine in the last
1 " D'ailleurs les moyens de publicite faciles et pui.ssans dans les mains
dii Pape. etaient presque mils dans celles des princes s^culiers, qui avant
rimprimerie ne pouvaient que difficilement se faire entendre des masses
populaires. Dans cette lutte de paroles I'avantage devoit rester au Saint
Siege, puisque la chaire dont il disposait ^tait la seule tribune de ce temps."
— Cherrier. Lutte des Papes et des Empereurs, ii. p. 239.
■^ Card. Arragon. in Vita.
344 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
winter, had won the hearts of many of the po])ulace.
He had made himself friends, especially among the
powerful Frangi])ani, by acts of prodigal generosity.
He had purchased the lands of the heads of that family,
and granted them back without fine as Imperial fiefs.
The Frangipanis became the sworn liegemen of the
Emperor's family. RoflPrid of Benevento, a famous
professor of Jurisprudence in Bologna, appeared in
Rome and read in public, with the consent of the Sen-
ate and people of Rome, the vindication of the Em-
peror.
On Thursday in the Holy Week the Pope proceeded
March 23. to liis more tremendous censures on the im-
excommu- penitent Frederick. " His crimes had now
nication. i , i • p /> i T' j.1
A. 0.1228. accumulated m tearful measure. lo the
triple offence, which he had committed in the breach
of the treaty of San Germano — that he had neither
passed the sea to the Holy Land, nor armed and de-
spatched the stipulated number of knights at his own
cost, nor furnished the sums of money according to his
obligation — were added other offences. He had pre-
vented the Archbishop of Tarento from entering his
See ; he had seized all the estates held by the Knights
Templars and Knights of St. John within his realm ;
he had broken the treaty entered into and guaranteed
by the See of Rome with the Count of Celano and
Reginald of Acerra ; he had deprived the Count Roger,
though he had taken the Cross, of his followers and of
his lands, and thrown his son into prison, and had re-
fused to release him at the representation of the Holy
See." All these were, in Frederick's estimation, his
rebellious subjects, visited with just and lawful penal-
ties. These aggravated crimes — for crimes they were
Chap. in. GREGORY DRIVEN FROM ROME. 345
assumed to be on the irrefragable grounds of Papal ac-
cusation — called for aggravated censures, Tiie Pope
declared every place in which Frederick might be,
under interdict ; all divine offices were at once to cease;
all who dared to celebrate such offices were deprived of
their functions and of their benefices. If he himself
should dare to force his way into the ceremonies of the
Chui'ch he was threatened with something worse. If
he did not desist from the oppression of the churches
and of ecclesiastical persons, if he did not cease from
trampling under foot the ecclesiastical liberties, and
from treating the excommunication with contempt, all
his subjects were at once absolved from their alleo-iance.
He was menaced with the loss of his fief, the kinodom
of Naples, which he held from, and for which he had
done homage to, the See of Rome. The holy ceremo-
nies passed away undisturbed ; but on the Wednesday
in Easter week, while the Pope was celebrating the
mass, there was suddenly heard a fierce cry, a howl as
Gregory describes it ; and the whole populace rose in
insurrection. The storm was for a time Gregory
allayed ; but after some weeks Gregory found Rome.
it necessary to leave Rome. He retired first to Reate,
afterwards to Perugia.^
Frederick, in the mean time, although under excom-
munication, celebrated his Easter with great March 26.
pomp and rejoicing at Baroli. Tidings had arrived of
high importance from the Holy Land. Gregory had
received, and had promulgated throughout Christen-
dom, the most doleful accounts of the state of the
1 Rich San. Germ. " Quocirca iidem (tlie Frangipaiiis) reversi cum Papa
rursus excommunicaret imperatorem, fecerunt ut a populo pellevetur turpi-
ter extra civitatem." — Conrad. Ursperg. Compare Vit. Greg. IX.
346 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Christians in Palestine. A letter addressed to the
Pope by Gerold the Patriarch, Peter Archbishop of
Csesarea (the Pope's Legate), the Archbishop of Nar-
bonne, the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, the
Grand Masters of the Templars and of St. John, an-
nounced, that no sooner had the news of the Emperor's
abandonment of the Crusade arrived in Syria, than
the pilgrims, to the number of forty thousand, reem-
barked for the West. Only eight hundred remained,
who were retained with difficulty, and were only kept
up to the high pitch of enthusiasm by the promise of
the Duke of Limbourg, then at the head of the army,
to break the existing treaties, and march at once upon
Jerusalem. On the other hand, a letter from Thomas
Count of Acerra, the Lieutenant of Frederick in the
Holy Land ; who now held the city of Ptolemais,
announced the death of the Sultan Moadhin of Damas-
cus.^ Moadhin was the most formidable enemy of the
Christians ; he had been at the head of a powerful
army ; his implacable hatred of the Christians had
brought all the more warlike Saracens under his ban-
ner: he had destroyed many of the strongholds, which,
if in the power of the Crusaders, might be of military
importance : he had subjected Jerusalem itself to fur-
ther ravage.
All the acts of Frederick now showed his determina-
Frederick tion to embark before the spring was passed
the Crusade, for the Holy Land. He would convince the
world, the Pope himself, of his sincei'ity. Already had
he despatched considerable reinforcements to the Count
of Acerra ; the taxes for the armament were levied
with rigor ; the army which was to accom[)any him
1 The Christians called hiin Conradin. — Rich. San. Germ.
Chap. III. ASSEIMBLY AT BAROLI. 347
was drawn together from all quarters. The death of
the Empress lolante in childbirth did not April, 1228.
delay these warlike proceedings. To Baroli Barou. ''"''
he summoned all the magnates of the kingdom, to hear
his final instructions, to witness his last will and testa-
ment, in case he should not return alive from his expe-
dition. No building could contain the vast assemblage :
a tribune was raised in the open air, from which the
Imperial mandates were read aloud. He exhorted all
the barons and prelates with their liegemen to live at
peace among themselves, as in the happy days of Wil-
liam II, Reginald Duke of Spoleto \vas appointed
Bailiff of the realm ; his elder son Henry was declared
heir both of the Empire and of the kingdom of Sicily ; ^
if he died without heirs, then Conrad ; afterwards any
surviving son of Frederick by a lawful wife. This, his
last will, could only be annulled by a later authentic
testament. The Duke of Spoleto, the Grand Justici-
ary Henry de Morro, and others of the nobles, swore
to the execution of this solemn act.
The more determined Frederick appeared to fulfil
his vow, the more resolute became the Pope in his hos-
tility. He had interdicted the payment of all taxes to
the excommunicated sovereign by all the prelates, mon-
asteries, and ecclesiastics of his realm.^ Pilcj-rims who
passed the Alps to join the army were plundered by
the Lombards ; at the instigation (so, no doubt, it was
falsely rumored, l)ut the falsehood is significant) of the
Pope himself 3 The border of the Neapolitan kingdom
was violated by the Pope's subjects of Reate ; the pow-
erful Lords of Polito in the Capitanata renounced their
1 Ric. de San Germ. p. 1005. 3 Urspergen. sub aim. 1228.
2 Ric. de San Germ.
348 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
alleo-iance to the Kino;. Frederick went down to
Brundusium ; his fleet, only of twenty galleys, rode
off the island of St, Andrew.^ Messengers from the
Pope arrived peremptorily inhibiting his embarkation
on the Crusade till he should have given satisfaction to
the Church, and been released from her ban. Frederick
paid no attention to the mandate ; he sailed to Otranto ;
as he left that harbor, he sent the Archbishop of Bari
and Count Henry of Malta to the Pope, to demand the
abrogation of the interdict : they were rejected Avith
scorn by Gregory.^
Frederick set sail with his small armament of twenty
Frederick g^Hcys, wliich Contained at most six hundred
sets sail. knights, morc, the Pope tauntingly declared,
like a pirate than a great sovereign. He could not
await, perhaps he had no inclination to place himself
at the head of a great Crusade, assembled from all
quarters of the world, and so involve himself in a long
war which he could not abandon without disgrace. He
could not safely withdraw the main part of his forces,
and expose his kingdom of Naj^les to the undisguised
hostility of the Pope, with malecontents of all classes,
especially the clergy, whom he had been forced to keep
doAvn with a strong hand. He was still in secret intel-
ligence with tlie Sultan of Egypt, still hoped to acquire
by peaceful negotiations what his predecessors had not
been able to secure by war.^ Frederick, after a pros-
in Cyprus, perous voyagc, landed at Cyprus ; there, by
acts of violence and treachery (the only account of
1 Jordanus, in Raynald. sub ann. Andreas Dandolo, apud Muratori, xii.
544. June or July.
2 Reg. Gregor., quoted by Yon Raumer, p. 445.
8 See above, p. 3.34.
Chap. III. FREDERICK IN PALESTINE. 349
tliese transactions is from liostile writers) he wrested
the tutelage of the young King from John of Ibelin,
whom he invited to a banquet, treated with honor as
his own near kinsman, and then compelled to submit to
his terms. But as the joung King was cousin to his
Empress lolante, his interference, which was solicited
by some of the leading men in the island, may have
rested on some asserted right as nearest of kin.^ From
Cyprus he sailed to Ptolemais : he was re- At ptoie-
ceived with the utmost demonstrations or joy. Sept. 7.
The remnant of the pilgrims who had not returned to
Europe welcomed their tardy deliverer as about to lead
them to conquest ; the clergy and the people came forth
in long processions ; the Knights of the Temple and
St. John knelt before the Emperor and kissed his knee ;
but (inauspicious omen !) the clergy refused the kiss of
peace, and declined all intercourse with one under the
ban of the Church.^ At the head of a great force
Frederick might have found it difficult to awe into
concord the conflicting factions which divided the
Christians in the Holy Land : they seemed to suspend
their mutual animosities in their common jealousy of
Frederick. The cold estrangement of the Frederick
clergy quickened rapidly into open hostility, i^pt^.i.
The active hatred of the Pope had instantly pursued
the Emperor, even faster than his own fleet, to the
Holy Land. Two Franciscan friars had been de-
spatched in a fast-sailing bark, to proclaim to the
Eastern Christians that he was still under excommuni-
cation ; that all were to avoid him as a profane person.
1 The mother of Henry of Cyprus was half-sister to Maria lolante, the
-nother of the Empress.
2 Matth. Paris. Urspergens. sub ann.
350 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
The Patriarch, the two Grand Masters of the Orders,
were to take measures that the Crusade was not dese-
crated by being under the banner of an excommuni-
cated man, lest the affairs of the Christians shoukl be
imperilled. The Master of the Teutonic Order was
to take the command of the German and Lombard pil-
grims ; Richai-d the Marshal and Otho Peliard of the
troops of the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus ; in
his own camp the Emperor was to be without power,
nothing was to be done in his name.^
The Knights Templars and Knights of the Hospital
Oppositioa of hardly required to be stimulated by the Papal
theTenf-^' ccusurcs to the hatred of Frederick. These
Hospitallers, associations, from bands of gallant knights
vowed to protect the pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre,
and to perform other Christian services, had rapidly
grown into powerful Orders, with vast possessions in
every Christian kingdom; and, themselves not strong
enouo;h to maintain the kinjidom of Jerusalem, were
jealous of all others. As yet they were stern bigots,
and had not incurred those suspicions which darkened
around them at a later period in their history. Fred-
erick had placed them under severe control, with all
the other too zealous partisans of the Church, in his
realm of Na])les and Sicily. This was one of the
acts which appeal's throughout among the charges of
tyrannical maladministration in the Apulian kingdom.
These i-eligious Orders claimed the same exemptions,
the same immunities, with other ecclesiastics : the mere
fact that they were submitted to the severe and impar-
tial taxation of Frederick would to them be an intoler-
able grievance. Tlieir unruly murmurs, if not resist-
1 Richard de Sail Germano, p. 1005.
Chap. III. OPPOSITIOX TO FliEDKlIICK. 361
ance, would no doubt provoke the haughty sov^ereign ;
his haughtiness would rouse theirs to still more inflexible
opposition. Perhaps Frederick's favor to the Teutonic
Order might further exasperate their jealousy. Thev
had already filled the ears of the Pope with their clam-
ors against Thomas of Acerra, the Lieutenant of Fred-
erick. Gregory had proclaimed to Christendom, to
France where the Templars were in great power, that
" the woi'thy vicegerent of Frederick, that minister of
Mahomet who scrupled not to employ his impious Sara-
cens of Nocera against Christians and Churchmen in
his Apulian kingdom, had openly taken part with the
unbelievers ajrainst these true soldiers of the Cross."
The Saracens, when the suspension of arms was at an
end, had attacked a post of the Knights Templars, and
had carried off" a rich booty. The Templars had pur-
sued the marauders, and rescued part of the spoil ;
when Thomas of Acerra appeared at the head of his
troops, and, instead of siding Avith the Christians, had
com})elled them to restore the booty to the Infidels.
Such was their version of this aflPair,^ eagerly accred-
ited by the Pope. It is more probable that the Lieu-
tenant of the Emperor acted as General of the Christian
forces ; and that this whole proceeding was in violation
of his orders, as it clearly was on both sides, of the
existing treaty. The Knights Templars and Hospital-
lers held themselves as entirely independent powers ;
fouo-ht or refused to fio-ht according to their own will
and judgment ; formed no part of one great Christian
army ; were amenable, in their own estimation, to no
1 Letter of Gregory to the Legate in France, in Matth. Paris. Compare
Hugo Plag?n. where the Marshal Richard is represented as in command of
the pilgrims.
352 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
superior military rule. If they had refused obedience
to the Lieutenant of the Emperor or the King of Jeru-
salem, thev were not likely to receive commands from
one under excommunication. Frederick himself soon
experienced their utter contumacy. He commanded
them to evacuate a castle called the Castle of the Pil-
grims, which he wished to garrison with his own troops.
The Templars closed the gates in his face, and insult-
ingly told him to go his way, or he might find himself
in a place from whence he would not be able to make
his way.^
Frederick, however, with the main army of the pil-
grims was in high popularity ; they reftised not to
march luider his standard ; he appeared to approve
of their determination to break off the treaty, and to
advance at once upon Jerusalem. Frederick, to avoid
this perpetual collision with his enemies, pitched his
camp at Recordana, some distance without the gates
of Ptolemais. He then determined to take possession
of Joppa, and to build a strong fortress in that city.
He summoned all the Christian forces to join him in
this expedition. The Templars peremptorily refused,
if the war was to be carried on, and the orders issued
to the camp, in the name of the excommunicated
Emperor. Frederick commenced his march without
them ; but mistrusting the small number of his forces,
was obliged to submit that all orders should be issued
in the name of God and of Christianity. Frederick's
occupation of Joppa, the port nearest to Jerusalem,
was not only to obtain possession of a city in which
he should be more completely master than in Ptolemais,
and to strengthen the Christian cause by the erection
1 Hugo Plagen.
Chap. III. SULTAN KAMEEL OF EGYPT. 3'3
of a strong citadel ; but as the jealous vigilance of his
enemies discerned, to bring himself into closer neigh-
borhood with the Sultan of Egypt. Kameel, the Bab-
ylonian Sultan, as he was called from the Egyptian
Babylon (Cairo), was encamped in great force near
Gaza. The old amity, and more than the amity,
somethino; like a close leao-ue between the Sultan of
Egypt and the Emperor Frederick, now appeared almost
in its full maturity. Ah*eady, soon after the loss of
Damietta and its recovery from the discomfited Chris-
tians, Sultan Kameel had sent his embassy to Frederick,
avowedly because he was acknowledged to be the
greatest of the Christian powers, and in Sicily ruled
over ^Mohammedan subjects with mildness, if not with
favor. The interchange of presents had been such as
became two such splendid sovereigns. ^ The secret of
their negotiations, carried on by the mission of the
Archbishop of Palermo to Cairo, of Fakreddin the
favorite of Sultan Kameel to Sicily, could be no secret
to the watchful emissaries of the Pope.
There had been mortal feud between Malek Ka-
meel of Egypt and Malek Moadhin of Damascus.
Malek Moadhin had called in the formidable aid of
Gelal-eddin, the Sultan of Kharismia, who had made
great conquests in Georgia, the Greater Armenia, and
Northern Syria. Sultan Kameel had not scrupled to
seek the aid of the Christian against Moadhin ; no
doubt to Frederick the lure was the peaceful establish-
ment of the kingdom of Jerusalem, in close alliance
with the Egyptian Sultan.^ On the death of Moad-
hin the Damascene, Sultan Kameel had marched at
1 See the Arabian history of the Patriarchs of Alexandria.
2 Abulfeda.
VOL. V. 23
354 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
once into Syria, occupied Jerusalem, and the whole
southern district : he threatened to seize the whole
dominions of Moadhin. But a third brother, Malek
Ashraf, Prince of Khelath, Edessa, and Haran on the
Euplirates, took up the cause of David, the young son
of Moadhin. The Christians, reinforced by Freder-
ick's first armament under Thomas of Acerra, upon
this had taken a more threatening attitude ; had begun
to rebuild Sidon, to man other fortresses, and to make
hostile incursions. Sultan Kameel affected great dread
of their power: he addressed a letter to his brother
Ashraf, expressing his fears lest, to the disgrace of the
Mohammedan name, the Christians should wrest Jeru-
salem, the great conquest of Saladin, from the hands of
the true believers. Ashraf was deceived, or chose to
be deceived : he abandoned the cause of the young
Sultan of Damascus ; he agreed to share in his spoils ;
Sultan Kameel was to remain in Palestine master of
Jerusalem, to oppose the Christians ; while Ashraf un-
dertook the siege of Damascus. Such was the state
affairs when Frederick suddenly landed at Ptolemais.
Sultan Kameel repented that he had invited him ; he
had sought an ally, he feared a master. The name
of the great Christian Emperor spread terror among
the whole Mohammedan population.^ Had Frederick,
even though he brouo;ht so inconsiderable a force,
at once been recognized as the head of the Crusade ;
had he been joined cordially by the Knights of the
Temple and of the Hospital, his name had still been
imposing, he might have dictated his own terms. The
dissensions of the Christians were fatal — dissensions
which could not be disguised from the sagacious Mo-
hammedans.
1 Abulfeda.
Chap. III. FREDERICK AND KAMEEL. 355
Almost the first act of King Frederick on his arrival
in Palestine was an embassy, of Balian Prince of Tyre
and Thomas of Acerra his Lieutenant, to the camp of
his old ally Sultan Kameel ; they were received with
great pomp ; the army drawn up in array. The em-
bassy returned to Ptolemais with a huge elephant and
other costly presents. The negotiations began at the
camp of Recordana ; they were continued at Joppa.
The demands of Frederick were no less than tlie abso-
lute surrender of Jerusalem and all the adjacent dis-
tricts ; the restoration of his kingdom to its full extent.
The Sultan, as much in awe of the zealots of Moham-
medanism as Frederick of the zealots of Christianity,
alleged almost insuperable difficulties. The Emir Fak-
reddin, the old friend of Frederick, and another named
Shems Eddin, were constantly in the Christian camp.
They not merely treated with the accomplished Em-
peror, who spoke Arabic fluently, on the subjects of
their mission, but discussed all the most profound ques-
tions of science and philosophy. Sultan Kameel af-
fected the character of a patron of learning ; Frederick
addressed to him a number of those philosophic enigmas
which exercise and delight the ingenious Oriental mind.
Their intercourse was compared to that of the Queen
of Sheba and Solomon. There were other Eastern
amusements not so becoming the Christian Emperor.
Christian ladies met the Mohammedan delegates at
feasts, it was said with no advantage to their virtue.
Among the Sultan's presents was a bevy of dancing
girls, whose graceful feats the Emperor beheld with too
great interest, and was not, it was said, insensible to
their beauty. The Emperor wore the Saracen dress ;
356 LATIN CHRISTIANETY. Book X.
lie became, in the estimation of the stern Churchmen,
a Saracen.^
The treaty dragged slowly on. Sultan Kameel could
not be ignorant of the hostility against Frederick in
the Christian camp : if he had been ignorant, the
knowledge would have been forced upon him. The
Emperor, by no means superior even to the superstition
of the land, had determined to undertake a pilgrimage
almost alone, and in a woollen robe, to bathe in the Jor-
dan. The Templars wrote a letter to betray his design
to the Sultan, that he might avail himself of this op-
portunity of seizing and making Frederick prisoner, or
even of putting him to death. The Sultan sent the let-
Negotiations ter to the Emperor.^ From all these causes,
witli Sultiu r- 1 ci I 11 IP
Kameel. the toiic ot tlic Dultan uaturally rose, that or
Frederick was lowered, by the treason of which he was
obliged to dissemble his knowledge, as he could not re-
venge it. Eastern interpreters are wont to translate all
demands made of their sovereigns into humble petitions.
The Arabian historian has thus, perhaps, selecting a
few sentences out of a long address, toned down the
words of Frederick to Sultan Kameel to abject suppli-
cation. " I am thy friend. Thou art not ignorant
that I am the greatest of the Kings of the West. It
is thou that hast invited me to this land ; the Kings
i " Quod cum maxima verecundia referimus et rubore, Imperatori Solda-
nus audieiis quod secundum morem Saracenicum se haberet, misit canta-
trices quie et saltatrices dicuntur, et joculatores, personas quidem non solum
iufames verum etiam de quibus inter Christianos haberi mentio non debe-
bat. Cum quibus idem priuceps hujus mundi vigiliis, potationibus, et in-
dumentis, et omni modo Saracenus se gerebat." — Epist. Gerold. apud
Rayuald. 1229, v.
2 Matthew Paris, and the Arabian historians in Reinaud, p. 429. Addi-
'ion to Michaud.
Chap. III. NEGOTIATIONS WITH SULTAN KAMEEL. 357
and the Pope are well informed of my journey. If I
return having obtained nothing, I shall forfeit all con-
sideration with them. And after all, Jerusalem, is it
not the birthplace of the Christian religion ? and have
you not destroyed it ? It is in the lowest state of ruin ;
out of your goodness surrender it to me as it is, that I
may be able to lift up my head among the kings of
Christendom. I renounce at once all advantages which
I may obtain from it." To Fakreddin, in moi'e inti-
mate converse, he acknowledged, according to another
Eastern account, " My object in coming hither was not
to deliver the Holy City, but to maintain my estima-
tion among the Franks." He had before made large
demands of commercial privileges, the exemption of
tribute for his merchants in the ports of Alexandria
and Rosetta. The terms actually obtained, at their
lowest amount, belie this humiliating petition. The
whole negotiation was a profound secret to all but Fred-
erick and the immediate adherents to whom he conde-
scended to communicate it.
At length Frederick summoned four Syrian Barons :
he explained to them that the state of his Feb ii.
affairs, the utter exhaustion of his finances, made it im-
possible for him to remain in the Holy Land. There
were still stronger secret reasons for hastenino; the con-
elusion of the treaty. A fast-sailing vessel had been
despatched to Joppa, wdiich announced that the Papal
army had broken into Apulia, and were laying waste
th( whole land, and threatened to wrest from Frederick
his beloved kingdom of Sicily. The Sultan of Baby-
lon, he told the Barons, had offered to surrender
Jerusalem, and other advantageous conditions. He
demanded their advice. The Barons rej^lied that under
358 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
such circumstances it might be well to accept the terms ;
Terms of ^^^ ^^^'^Y i^^sisted Oil the right of fortifying
treaty. ^^iq walls of Jcrusalcm. The Emperor then
summoned the Grand Masters of the Temple and the
Hospital and the English Bishops of Winchester and
Exeter ; he made the same statement to them. They
answered, that no such treaty could be made without
the assent of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, in his double
capacity as head of the Syrian Church and Legate of
the Pope. Frederick superciliously replied that he
could dispense with the assent of the Patriarch. Ger-
old, before his adversary, became his most implacable
foe.
One week after the first interview the treaty was
Feb. 18. signed : there is much discrepancy in the
articles between the Mohammedan and Christian ac-
counts ; the Mohammedans restrict, the Christians
enlarge the concessions. The terms transmitted by
the Patriarch to the Pope, translated from the Arabic
into the French, were these : — I. The entire surren-
der of Jerusalem to the Emperor and his Prefects.
II. Except the site of the Temple, occupied by the
Mosque of Omar, which remained absolutely in the
power of the Saracens : they held the keys of the gates.
III. The Saracens were to have free access as pilgrims
to perform their devotions at Bethlehem. IV. Devout
Christians were only permitted to enter and pray within
the precincts of the Temple on certain conditions. V.
All wrong committed by one Saracen upon another in
Jerusalem was to be judged before a Mussulman tri-
bunal. VI. The Emperor was to give no succor to
any Fi'ank or Saracen, who should be engaged in war
against the Saracens, or suffer any violation of the
Chap. III. FREDERICK AT JERUSALEM. 359
truce. VII. The Emperor was to recall all who were
engaged in any invasion of the territory of the Sultan
of Egypt, and prohibit to the utmost of his power every
violation of such territory. VIII. In case of such vio-
lation of the treaty, the Emperor was to espouse and
defend the cause of the Sultan of Egypt. IX. Tripoli,
Antioch, Karak, and their dependencies were not in-
cluded in this treaty.^
The German pilgrims rejoiced without disguise at
this easy accomplishment of their vows ; they were
eager to set out to offer their devotions in the Holy
Sepulchre. Frederick himself determined to accom-
plish his own pilgrimage, and to assume in Frederick in
his capital the crown of the kingdom of Jeru- March 17. '
salem. Attended by the fliithful Master of the Teu-
tonic Knights, Herman of Salza, and accompanied by
Shems Eddin, the Saracen Kadi of Naplous, he arrived
on the eve of Sunday, the 19th of March, in Jerusa-
lem : he took up his lodging in the neighborhood of the
Temple, now a Mohammedan mosque, under the guar-
dianship of the Kadi ; there were fears lest he should
be attacked by some Mohammedan fanatic. But the
Emperor had not arrived in Jerusalem before the Arch-
bishop of Caesarea appeared with instructions from the
Patriarch of Jerasalem to declare him under excom-
munication, and to place the city of Jerusalem under
1 These articles are obviously incomplete; they do not describe the ex-
tent of the concessions, which, according to other statements, included,
with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the whole district between
Joppa and Jerusalem. There is nothing said, if anything was definitively
agreed, as to the right of the Emperor to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem;
nor of the condition that the Saracens were only to enter Jerusalem un-
armed, and not to pass the night within the walls. The important stipula-
tion of the surrender of all Christian prisoners without ransom is altogether
omitted.
360 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
the ban. Even the Sepulchre of the Lord was under
interdict; the prayers of the pilgrims even in that holiest
place were forbidden, or declared unholy. No Chris-
tian rite could be celebrated before the Christian Em-
peror, and that disgrace was inflicted in the face of all
the Mohammedans !
Immediately on his arrival the Emperor visited the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The church was
silent ; 7iot a [)riest appeared : during his stay no mass
was celebrated within the city or in the suburbs. An
Enolish Dominican, named Walter, performed one
solitary service on the morning of the Sunday. Fred-
erick proceeded again in great pomp and in all his
imperial apparel to the Church of the Sepulchre. No
prelate, no priest of the Church of Jerusalem was there
who ventured to utter a blessing. The Archbishops
of Palermo and of Capua were present, but seem to
Coronation of l^ave taken no part in the ceremony. The
Frederick, imperial crown was placed on the high altar ;
Frederick took it up and with his own hands ]:»laced it
on his head. The Master of the Teutonic Order de-
livered an address in the name of the Emperor, which
was read in German, in French, in Latin, and in Ital-
ian. It ran in this strain : " It is well known that at
Aix-la-Chapelle I took the Cross of my own free-will.
Hitherto insuperable difficulties have impeded the ful-
filment of my vow. I acquit the Pope for his hard
judgment of me and for my excommunication : in no
other way could he escape the blasphemy and evil
report of men. I exculpate him further for his writing
against me to Palestine in so hostile a spirit, for men
had rumored that I had levied my army not against
the Holy Land, but to invade the Papal States. Had
Chap. III. CORONATION OF FREDERICK. 361
the Pope known my real design, he would have writ-
ten not against nie, but in my favor : did he know how
many are acting here to the prejudice of Christianity,
he would not pay so much respect to their comj^laints
and representations. ... I would willingly do all
which shall expose those real enemies and false friends
of Christ who delight in discord, and so put them to
shame by the restoration of peace and unity. I will
not now think of the high estate which is my lot on
earth, but humble myself before God to whom I owe
my elevation, and before him who is his Vicar upon
earth.'' ^ The Emperor returned through the streets
wearing the crown of Jerusalem. The same day he
visited the site of the Temple, whereon stood the
Mosque of Omar.
The zealous Mohammedans were in bitter displeasure
Avith Frederick, as having obtained from their easy
Sultan the possession of the Holy City ; yet their re-
ligious pride watched all his actions, and construed
every word and act into a contempt of the Chris-
tian faith, and his respect, if not more than respect,
for Islam. The Emir Shems Eddin, so writes the
Arabic historian, had issued rigid orders that noth-
ing should be done which could offend the Emperor.
The house where the Emperor slept was just below the
minaret from which the Muezzin was wont to proclaim
the hour of prayer. But in Jerusalem the Muezzin did
more. He read certain verses of the Koran ; on that
1 If this is the genuine speech, quoted by Von Rauiner from the unpub-
lished Regesta in the Papal archives, it may show the malice of the Patri-
arch Ceroid, who thus describes it: — "Ita coronatus resedit in cathedra
Patriarchatus excusando malitiam suam et accusando ecclesiam Ronianam,
imponens ei quod injuste processerat contra eum; et notabilem earn fecerat
invective et reprehcnsive de insatiabili et simoniali avaritia."
362 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
night the text, " How is it possible that God had for his
son Jesus the son of Marj ? " The Kadi took alarm ;
he silenced altogether the officious Muezzin. The Em-
peror listened in vain for that sound which in the silent
night is so solemn and impressive. He inquired the
reason of this silence, which had continued for two
days. The Kadi gave the real cause, the fear of
offending the Chiistian Emperor. " You are wrong,"
said Frederick, " to neglect on my account your duty,
your law, and yom' religion. By God, if you should
visit me in my realm, you will find no such respectful
deference." The Emperor had declared that one of
the chief objects of his visit to the Holy Land was to
behold the Mohammedans at prayer. He stood in
wondering admiration before the Mosque of Omar ; he
surveyed the pulpit from which the Imaun delivered
his sermons. A Christian priest had found his way
into the precincts with the book of the Gospels in his
hand ; the Emperor resented this as an insult to the
religious worship of the Mohammedans, and threatened
to punish it as a signal breach of the treaty. The
Arabic historian puts into his mouth these words :
" Here we are all the servants of the Sultan ; it is he
that has restored to us our Churches." So writes the
graver historian. ^ There is a description of Frederick's
demeanor in the Temple by an eye-witness, one of the
ministering attendants, in which the same ill-suppressed
aversion to the uncircumcised is mingled with the desire
to claim an imperial proselyte. " The Emperor was
red-haired and bald, with weak sight ; as a slave he
would not have sold for more than 200 drachms."
Frederick's language showed (so averred some Mo-
1 Makrizi, in Reinaud.
Chap. III. ANGER OF MOHAJIMEDANS AT THE TREATY. 363
hammedans) that he did not believe the Christian re-
ligion ; he did not scruple to jest upon it. He read
without anger, and demanded the explanation of the
inscription in letters of gold, " Saladin, in a certain
year, purified the Holy City from the presence of those
who worship many Gods." ^ The windows of the
Holy Chapel were closely barred to keep out the de-
filements of the birds. " You may shut out the birds,"
said Frederick, " how will ye keep out the swine ? "
At noon, at the hour of prayer, when all the faithful
fall on their knees in adoration, the Mohammedans in
attendance on Frederick did the same ; among the rest
the aged preceptor of Frederick, a Sicilian Mussulman
who had instructed him in dialectics. Frederick, in this
at least not going beyond the bounds of wise tolerance,
betrayed neither surpiise nor dissatisfaction.
After but two days the Emperor retired from the in-
terdicted city ; if he took no steps to restore the walls,
some part of the blame must attach to his religious
foes, who pursued him even into the Holy City with
such inexorable hostility.
Both the Emperor and the Sultan had wounded the
pride and offended the religious prejudices of unpopularity
the more zealous among their people. To °^ "*^ '''*"^'^'
some the peaceful settlement of the war between
Christian and Mussulman was of itself an abomina-
tion, a degenerate infringement of the good old usage,
which arrayed them against each other as irreclaim-
able enemies : the valiant Christians were deprived of
the privilege of obtaining remission of their sins by the
pillage and massacre of the Islamites : the Islamites of
winning; Paradise by the slauo-hter of Christians. The
1 The Mohammedans so define the worshippers of the Trinity.
364 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Sultan of Eo;3'pt, so rude was the shock throughout the
world of Islam, was obliged to send ambassadors to
the Caliph of Bagdad and to the Princes on the Eu-
phrates to explain his conduct. The surrender of Je-
rusalem was the great cause of affliction and shame.
The Sultan in vain alleged that it was but the un-
walled and defenceless city that he yielded up ; there
were bitter lamentations among all the Moslems, who
were forced to depart from their homes ; sad verses
were written and sung in the streets. The Imauns
of the Mosque of Omar went in melancholy proces-
sion to the Sultan to remonstrate. They attempted to
overawe him by proclaiming an unusual hour for
prayer. Kameel treated them with great indignity,
and sent them back stripped of their silver lamps and
other ornaments of the Mosque. In Damascus was
the most loud and bitter lamentation. The Sultan
of Damascus was besieged in his capital by Malek el
Ashraf. The territory, now basely yielded to the
Christians, was part of his kingdom ; he was the right-
ful Lord of Jerusalem. There an Imaun of great
sanctity, the historian Ibn Dschusi himself, was sum-
moned to preach to the people on this dire calamity.
The honor of Islam was concerned ; he mounted the
pulpit : " So then the way to the Holy City is about
to be closed to faithful pilgrims : you who love com-
munion with God in that hallowed place can no
longer prostrate yourself, or water the ground with
your tears. Great God ! if our eyes were fountains,
could we shed tears enough ? If our hearts were clo-
ven, could we be afflicted enough ? " The whole as-
sembly burst into a wild wail of sorrow and indignation.^
1 Reinaud. Extrait des Auteurs Arabes. — Wilken, vi. p. 493.
Chap. III. POPE CONDEMNS THE TREATY. 365
Frederick announced this treaty in Western Chris-
tendom in the most magnificent terms. His letter to
the King of England bears date on the day of his en-
trance into Jerusalem. He ascribes his trium])h to a
miracle wrought by the Lord of Hosts, who seemed no
longer to delight in the multitude of armed men. In
the face of two great armies, that of the Sultan of
Egypt and of Sultan Ashraf encamped near Gaza, and
that of the Sultan (David) of Damascus at Naplous,
Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the district of Shar-
on, and Sidon, had been freely ceded to him : the Mo-
hammedans were only by sufferance to enter the Holy
City. The Sultan had bound himself to surrender all
prisoners, whom he ought to have released by the treaty
of Damietta, and all Avho had been taken since. ^ The
seal of this letter bore a likeness of the Emperor, with
a scroll : over his head "the Emperor of the Romans,"
on the right shoulder "the King of Jerusalem," on the
left " the King of Sicily."
Far different was the reception of the treaty by the
Pope, and by all who sided with, or might be expected
to side with, the Po])e. It was but a new manifestation
of the perfidy, the contumacy, the ingratitude to the
Church, the indifference of the Emperor to religion, if
not of his apostasy. A letter arrived, and was actively
promulgated through Western Christendom, from Ger-
old, Patriarch of Jerusalem, describing in the blackest
colors every act of the Emperor. In the treaty the
dignity, the interests of religion and of the Church, the
dignity and interests of the Patriarch, had been, it
might seem studiously neglected ; even in the teri'itory
conceded by the Sultan some of the lands belonging to
the Knights Templars were comprehended, ncme of
1 The letter in Matthew Paris.
366 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
those claimed by the Patriarch. Gerold overlooked
his own obstinate hostility to Frederick, while he dwelt
so bitterly on that of Frederick to himself. The letter
Letter of the began with Frederick's occupation of Joppa ;
Patriarch. |^jg avowcd partiality to the interests of the
Mohammedans, his neglect, or worse, of the Christians.
At least five hundred Christians had fallen since his
arrival, not ten Saracens. All excesses, all breaches
of the truce were visited severely on the Christians,
connived at or disregarded in the Mohammedans. A
Saracen who had been plundered was sent back in
splendid apparel to the Sultan. All the Emperor's
suspicions intercourse with the Saracens, his Moham-
medan luxuries, his presents of splendid arms to be
used by Infidels against true Believers, were recounted ;
the secrecy of the treaty and its acceptance with the
signature of the Sultan as its sole guarantee. The
Master of the Teutonic Order had insidiously invited
him (the Patriarch) to accompany the Emperor to
Jerusalem. He had demanded first to see the treaty.
There he found that the Sultan of Damascus, the true
Lord of Jerusalem, was no party to the covenant ;
" there were no provisions in favor of himself or of the
Church ; how could he venture his holy person within
the power of the treacherous Sultan and his unbeliev-
ing host?" The letter closed with a strong complaint
that the Emperor had left the city without rebuilding
the walls. But the Patriarch admitted that Frederick
had consulted the bishops of Winchester and Exeter,
the Master of the Hospitallers, the Preceptor of the
Temple, to advise and aid him in this work : their re-
ply had been cold and dilatory ; and Frederick depart-
ed from the city.^
1 Epist. Gerold. Patriarchs, apud Matth. Paris.
Chap. III. LETTER TO ALBERT OF AUSTRIA. 367
Even before tlie arrival of Gerold's letters, the Pope,
in a letter to the Archbishop of Milan and Letter of
his suffragans, all liegemen of the Emperor, Archwsho"
had denounced the treaty as a monstrous rec- "^ *'"'""•
onciliation of Christ and Belial ; as the establishment
of the worship of Mohammed in the Temple of God ;
and thus " the antagonist of the Cross, the enemy of
the faith, the foe of all chastity, the condemned to hell,
is lifted up for adoration, by a perverse judgment, to
the intolerable contumely of the Saviour, the inexpi-
able disgrace of the Christian name, the contempt of
all the martyrs who have laid down their lives to purify
the Holy Land from the worldly pollutions of the
Saracens." ^
Albert of Austria was the most powerful enemy who
might be tempted to revolt against Frederick in his
German dominions, the greatest and most dangerous
vassal of the Empire. Him the Pope addressed at
greater length, and with a more distinct enu- June is.
meration of four flagitious enormities with which he
especially charged the Emperor. First, he had shame-
lessly presented the sword and other arms which he had
received fi-om the altar of St. Peter, blessed by the
Pope himself, for the defence of the faith. Letter to
and the chastisement of the wicked, to the Austria.
Sultan of Babylon, the enemy of the faith, the adver-
sary of Christ Jesus, the worshipper of Mohammed,
the son of Perdition ; he had promised not to bear
arms against the Sultan, against whom as Emperor he
was bound to wage implacable war. The second was
a more execrable and more stupendous offence ; in the
Temple of God, where Christ made his offering, where
1 Ad Epis. Mediol. June 13, 1229.
368 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X
he had sat on his cathedral throne in the midst of the
doctors, the Emperor had cast Christ forth, and placed
Mohammed, that son of perdition ; he had commanded
the law of God to keep silence, and permitted the free
preaching of the Koran ; to the Infidels he had left the
keys of the Sanctuary, so that no Christian might enter
without their sufferance. Thirdly, he had excluded
the 'Eastern Christians of Antioch, Tripoli, and other
strong places, from the benefit of the treaty, and so be-
trayed the Christian cause in the East to the enemy.
Lastly, he had so bound himself by this wicked league,
that if the Christian army should attempt to revenge
the insult done to the Redeemer, to cleanse the Tem-
ple and the City of God from the defilements of the
Pagans, the Emperor had pledged himself to take part
with the foe. Albert of Austria was exhorted to dis-
claim all allegiance to one guilty of such capital treason
against the majesty of God, to hold himself ready at
the summons of the Church to take up arms against
the Emperor.
The last acts of Frederick in Palestine are dwelt
upon both by the Patriarch and the Pope ; they are
known almost entirely by these unfriendly representa-
tions. Frederick returned from Joppa to Ptolemai's in
no placable mood with his implacable enemies leagued
against him in civil war.^ The Patriarch had attempt-
ed t(; raise an independent force at his own command :
1 " Prffiterea qualiter contra ipsum Iniperatorem, apiid Aeon, postmodum
redeuntem, pmedicti Patriarchse, Magistri domuum hospitalis et templi se
gesserint, utpote qui contra ipsum, intestina bella moverint in civitate prse-
dicta, his qui interfuerunt luce clarius extitit manifestum." — Rich. San
Germ. It is remarkable how many privileges and grants he made to the
Teutonic Order: it is manifest that his object was to raise up a loj'al coun-
terpoise to the Templars and Hospitallers. — Boehmer, Regesta, sub ann.
Chap. III. LAST ACTS OF FREDERICK IN PALESTINE. 369
if the pilgrims should retire from the Holy Land he
Avould need a body-guard for his holy person. He })ro-
posed, out of some large sums of money left for the
benefit of the sacred cause by Philip Augustus of
France, to enroll a band of knights, a new Order, for
this end. Frederick declared that no one should levy
or command soldiers within his realm without his will
and consent. With the inhabitants of Ptolemais Fred-
erick had obtained, either by his affable demeanor or
by his treaty, great popularity. He summoned a full
assembly of all Christian people on the broad sands
without the city. There he arose and arraigned the
Patriarch and the Master of the Templars as having
obstinately thwarted all his designs for the advance-
ment of the Christian Cause, and having pursued him
with their blind and obstinate hostility. He summoned
all the pilgrims, having now fulfilled their vows, to de-
part from the Holy Land, and commanded his Lieu-
tenant, Thomas de Acerra, to compel obedience to these
orders. He was deaf to all remonstrance ; on his re-
turn to the city, he seized all the gates, manned them
with his crossbowmen, and while he permitted all the
Knights Templars to leave the city, he would admit
none. He took possession of the churches, and occu-
pied them with his archers. The Patriarch assembled
all his adherents and all the Templars still within the
city, and again thundered out his excommunication.
Frederick kept him almost as a prisoner in his palace ;
his partisans were exposed to every insult and attack,
even those who were carrying provisions to the palace.
Two bold Franciscans, who on Palm Sunday paim Sunday.
denounced him in the Church, Avere dragged ''"
from the pul|)it, and scourged through the streets. But
VOL. V. 24
370 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book A.
these violences availed not against the obstinate endur-
ance of the Churchmen. After some vain attempts at
reconciliation, the Patriarch placed the city of Ptole-
mais under interdict. These are not all the charges
against Frederick ; it was made a crime that he de-
stroyed some of his sliips, probably unserviceable : his
arms and engines of war he is said to have sent to the
Sultan of Egypt.
On the day of St. Peter and St. Paul the Emperor
May 3. Set Sail for Europe : his presence was im-
periously required. In every part of his dominions
the Pope, with the ambitious activity of a temporal
sovereign, and with all the tremendous arms wielded
by the spiritual power, was waging a war either in
open day, or in secret intrigues with his unruly and
disaffected vassals. The ostensible cause of the war
was the aggression of Frederick's vicegerent in Apulia,
^arin Reginald Duke of Spoleto. Frederick had
Apulia. Yeil Reginald to subdue the revolt of the
powerful family of Polito. These rebels had taken
refuge in the Papal territory ; they were pursued by
Reginald. But once beyond the Papal frontier the
Duke of Spoleto extended his ravages, it might seem
reviving certain claims of his own on the Dukedom of
Spoleto. Frederick afterwards disclaimed these acts of
his lieutenant, and declared that he had punished him
for the infringement of his orders.^ But the occasion
was too welcome not to be seized by the Pope. He
levied at once large forces, placed them under the com-
mand of Frederick's most deadly enemies, his father-
in-law, John de Brienne, the ejected King of Jerusalem,
1 The most particular account of these wars is in Rich, de San Germane,
apud Muratori, t. vii.
Chap. III. ENGLAND. 371
and the Cardinal John Colonna, with the King's re-
volted subjects, the Counts of Celano and of Aquila ;
the martial Legate Pelagius, who had commanded the
army of Damietta, directed the whole force. A report
of Frederick's death in Palestine (a fraud of which he
complains with the bitterest indignation) was industri-
ously disseminated. John de Brienne even ventured
to assert that there was no Emperor but himself. The
Papal armies at first met with great success ; many
cities from fear, from disaffection to Frederick, from
despair of relief, opened their gates. The soldiers of
the Church committed devastations almost unprece-
dented even in these rude wars. But Gregory was not
content with this limited war ; he strove to arm all
Christendom against the contumacious Empeior who
defied the Church. From the remotest parts, from
Wales, Ireland, England, large contributions were de-
manded, and in many cases extorted, for this holy war.
Just at this juncture England contributed in a peculiar
manner, even beyond her customary tribute, to the Pa-
pal treasury : the whole of such revenue was devoted
to this end.
A dispute was pending in the Court of Rome con-
cernino; the See of Canterbury. On the death Election
to Arch-
of Archbishop Stephen, the monks of Can- bishopric of
terbury elected Walter of Hevesham to the July, 1228.
primacy. The King refused his assent, and the objec-
tions urged were sufficiently strange, whether well-
founded or but fictitious, against a man chosen as the
successor of Becket. The father of Walter, it was
said, had been hanged for robbery, and Walter himself,
during the interdict, had embraced the party opposed
to King John. The suffragan bishops (they always
372 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
resented their exclusion from the election) accused
Walter of having debauched a nun, by wliom he had
several children. Appeal was made to Rome ; the
Pope delayed his sentence for further inquiry. The
ambassadors of the King, the Bishops of Chester and
Rochester, and John of Newton in vain labored to
obtain the Papal decision. One only argument would
weigh with the Pope and the Cardinals. At length
they engaged to pay for this tardy justice the tenth of
all movable property in the realm of England and
Ireland in order to aid the Pope in his war against the
Emperor. Even then the alleged immoralities were
put out of sight ; the elected Primate of England was
examined by three Cardinals on certain minute points
of theology, and condemned as unworthy of so noble a
see, " which ought to be filled by a man noble, wise,
and modest."^ Richard, Bishop of Lincoln, was pro-
posed in the name of the King and the suffragan bish-
ops, and received his appointment by a Papal Bull.
In France, besides the exertions of the Legate, the
Archbishops of Sens and of Lyons were commanded
by the Pope himself to publish the grave offences of
Frederick against the Holy See, and to preach the
Crusade against him. In Germany, Albert of Austria
had been urged to revolt ; in the North and in Den-
mark the Legate, the Cardinal Otho, preached and
promulgated tlie same Crusade.^ He laid Liege under
an interdict, and King Henry raised an army to besiege
1 He was asked whether our Lord descended into hell, in the flesh or not
in tiie flesh; on the presence of Christ in the sacrament; how Rachel, being
already dead, could weep for her children; on the power of an excommuni-
cation, unrightly pronounced; on a case of marriage, where one of the
parties had died in infidelity. To all these his answers were wrong.
2 Raynald. in nota.
Chap. III. RETURN OF FREDERICK. 373
tlie Cardinal in Strasburg. The Pope praised, as in-
spired by tlie Holy Ghost, the chivalrous determination
of the Prince of Portugal, to take up arms in defence
of the Church of Christ. The Lombards, on the other
hand, were sternly rebuked for their tardiness in send-
ing aid against the common enemy, the Pope crave
them a significant hint that the deserters of the cause
of the Church might be deserted in their turn in their
hour of need.
The rapid return of the Emperor disconcerted all
these hostile measures. With two well-armed May 15 and
barks he landed at Astore, near Brundu- ij"[^rn'oP^-
sium ; many of the brave German pilgrims ^''^''i''™''-
followed after and rapidly grew to a formidable force.
His first act was to send ambassadors to the Pope, the
Archbishop of Bari, the Bishop of Reggio and Herman
de Salza, the master of the Teutonic order. The
overtures were rejected with scorn. An excommuni-
cation even more strong and offensive had been issued
by the Pope of Perugia.^ The first clause denounced
all the heretics with names odious to all zealous believ-
ers. After the Cathari, the Publicans, the Poor Men
of Lyons, the Arnaldists, and under the same terrific
anathema as no less an enemy of the Church, followed
the Emperor Frederick ; his contumacious disregard of
the excommunication pronounced by the Cardinal of
Albano was thus placed on the same footing with the
wildest opinions and those most hostile to the Church.
After the recital of his offences, the release of all his
subjects from their allegiance, came the condemnation
of his adherents, Reginald of Spoleto and his brother
1 This bull must have been issued in June, not in August. See Boeh-
mer, p. 335. Raynaldus, sub ann.
374 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Bertoldo. With the other enemies of tlie Church were
mingled up the Count de Foix, and the Viscount of
Beziers ; the only important names which now repre-
sented the odious heresy of Southern France. Some
lesser offenders were included under the comprehen-
sive ban. These were all, if not leagued together
under the same proscription, alike denounced as ene-
mies of God and of the Church. The conquering
army of the Pope was on all sides arrested, repelled,
defeated ; the rebellious barons and cities returned to
their allegiance ; Frederick marched to the relief of
Capua ; the strength of the Papal force broke up in
confusion. Frederick moved to Naples where he was
received in triumph. In Capua he had organized the
Saracens whom he had removed from Sicily, where they
had been a wild mountain peo])le, untamably and utter-
ly lawless, to Nocera: there he had settled them, fore-
seeing probably their future use as inhabitants of walled
cities and cultivators of the soil. This was a force
terrible to the rebellious churchmen who had espoused
the Papal cause. From San Germano Frederick sent
forth his counter appeal to the Sovereigns of Europe,
representing the violence, the injustice, the implacable
resentment of the Pope. The appeal could not but
have some effect.
Christendom, even among the most devout adherents
Christendom of the Papal Supremacy, refused to lend itself
against the ^ n • n ^ i -r» • rr" mi
Pope. to the nery passions ot the aged Pontifr. 1 he
Pope was yet too awful to be openly condemned, but
the general reluctance to embrace his cause was the
strongest condemnation. Men throughout the Chris-
tian world could not but doubt by which party the real
interests of the Eastern Christians had been most be-
Chap. III. CHRISTENDOM AGAINST THE POPE. 375
trayed and injured. The fierce enthusiasm whicli
would not receive advantages unless won from the
unbeliever at the point of the sword had died away :
men looked to the effect of the treaty, they compared
it with the results of all the Crusades since that of God-
frey of Bouillon. Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, were
in the power of the Christians : devout pilgrims might
perform unmolested their pious vows ; multitudes of
Christians had taken up their abode in seeming security
in the city of Sion. But if, thus trammelled, opposed,
pursued by the remorseless excommunication into the
Holy Sepulchre itself, Frederick by the awe of his im-
perial name, by his personal greatness, had obtained
such a treaty ; what terms might he not have dictated,
if supported by the Pope, the Patriarch, and Knights
Templars.^ Treaties with the Mohammedan powers
were nothing new ; they had been lately made by
Philip Augustus, and by the fierce Richard Coeur de
Lion. The Christians had never disdained the policy
1 It has been observed that the three contemporary historians, Matthew
Paris, the Abbot Urspergensis, and Richard of San Germano, are all
against the Pope. " Verisimile enim videtur, quod si tunc Imperator cum
gratia ac pace Romanse Ecclesiae transisset, longe melius et efficacius pros-
peratum fuisset negotium Terra; Sanctaj." — Richard de San Germano
adds, that if the Sultan had not known that Frederick was excommuni-
cated by the Pope, and hated bj' the Patriarch, he would have granted
much better terms. Compare Muratori, Annal. d' Italia, sub ann.; and in
Wilken the extract from Theuerdank : —
" Waren deni Kaiser die gestanden,
Die ihm sin Ehre wanden (entwandten)
Das Grab und alle diese Land,
Die stunden gar In seiner Hand :
Nazareth und Bethlem,
Der Jordan und Jerusalem,
Dazu manig heilig Stat,
Da Gott mitt seinem Fussen trat,
Syria und Juda," &c.
— Wilken, vi. p. 509
376 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
of takino; advantao;e of the feuds among the Mohamme-
dan sovereigns and allying themselves M^itli the Sultan
of Egypt or the Sultan of Damascus. Even the Pope
himself had not denied all peacefal intercourse with the
Unbelievers. Frederick positively asserted that he had
surprised and had in his possession letters addressed by
the Pope to Sultan Kameel, urging him to break off
his negotiations with the Emperor. Gregory after-
wards denied the truth of this charge ; but it was pub-
licly averred, and proof offered, in the face of Chris-
tendom.^ Frederick had appealed to witnesses of all
his acts, and they, at all events the English Bishops of
Winchester and Exeter, the Master of the Hospitallers,
the Master of the Teutonic Order, had given no coun-
tenance to the envious and rancorous charges of the
Patriarch.
There was a deeper cause of dissatisfaction through-
out tliat Hierarchy, to which the Pope had always
looked for the most zealous and self-sacrificing aid.
The clergy felt the strongest repugnance to the levy
of a tenth demanded by the Pope throughout Christen-
dom, to maintain wars, if not unjust unnecessary,
against the Emperor. No doubt the lavish and j)artial
favor with which he treated the Preaching and Beg-
ging Friars had already awakened jealousy. Gregory
had sagaciously discerned the strength which their in-
fluence in the lowest depths of society would gain for
Oct. 4, 1228. the Papal cause. He had solemnly canon-
ized Francis of Assisi 2 — one of his most confidential
counsellors was the Dominican Gualo. So active had
1 Epist. Petr. de Vinea.
- Gualo was his emissarj^ if not his Legate, in Lombardy. lie was ac-
tive in framing the peace of San Germane. — Epist. Gregor., Oct. 9, 1226.
Chap. III. DISAPPROBATION OF THE CRUSADE. 377
the Friars been in stirring up revolt in the kiiifclum of
Naples, that the first act of Reginald of Spoleto had
been their expulsion from the realm.
Christendom had eagerly rushed into a Crusade
against the unbelievers ; it had not ventured to disap-
prove a Crusade against the heretics of Languedoc ;
but a Crusade (for under that name Gregory IX.
levied this war) against the Emperor, and that Em-
peror the restorer of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was
encountered with sullen repugnance or frank opposi-
tion. It was observed as a strange sio-ht that when
Frederick's troops advanced against those of the Pope,
they still wore the red crosses which they had worn in
Palestine. The banner of the Cross, under which
Mohammedans fought for Frederick, met the banner
with the keys of St. Peter.^
The disapprobation of silent disobedience, at best of
sluggish and tardy sympathy if not of rude disavowal
and condemnation, could not escape the all-watchful
ear of Rome. Gregory had no resource but in his own
dauntless and unbroken mind, and in the conviction of
his power. The German Princes had refused to de-
throne King Henry : some of the greatest influence,
Leopold Duke of Austria, the Duke of Moravia, the
Archbishops of Saltzburg and of Aquileia, the Bislio]) of
Ratisbon, were in Italy endeavoring to mediate a peace.
The Lombards did not move ; even if the Guelfs had
been so disposed, they were everywhere controlled by
a Ghibelline opposition. One incident alone was of
more encouraging character. Gregory was still at Pe-
rugia an exile from rebellious Rome. But a terrific
1 " Iinperator cum crucesignatis contra clavigeros liostes properat." —
Rich, de San Germane, p. 1013.
378 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
flood liad desolated the city. The religious fears of the
populace beheld the avenging hand of God for their
disobedience to their spiritual father; the Pope re-
turned to Rome in triumph.^
Peace was necessary to both parties, negotiations
Nov. 1229. were speedily begun. The Pope was sud-
denly seized with a sacred horror of the shedding of
May, 1230. humau blood. A treaty was framed at San
Germane which maintained unabased the majesty of
the Pope.^ In truth, by the absolution of the Emperor
with but a o-eneral declaration of submission to the
Church, without satisfaction for the special crime for
which he had undergone excommunication, the Pope,
virtually at least, recognized the injustice of his own
Treaty of Sail censures. Of the affairs of the Holy Land,
juDei4, i230. of the conduct of the Emperor, of the treaty
with the Sultan, denounced as impious, there was a
profound and cautious silence. In other respects the
terms might seem humiliating to the Emperor ; he
granted a complete amnesty to all his rebellious sub-
jects, the Archbishop of Tarentum and all the bishops
and churchmen who had fled the realm ; even the rein-
statement of the insurgent Counts of Celano and Aversa
in their lands and domains in Germany, in Italy, in
Sicily ; he consented to restore all the places he occu-
pied in the Papal dominions, and all the estates which
he had seized belonging to churches, monasteries, the
Templars, the Knights of the Hospital, and generally
1 Not only was there a great destruction of property, of corn, wine, cat-
tle, and of human life, but a great quantity of enormous serpents were cast
on shore, which rotted and bred a pestilence. This is a story more than
once repeated in the later annals of Rome — on what founded? — Gregor.
Vit.
2 Albanensi Episcopo, apud Raynald. 1229.
Chap. III. TREATY OF SAN GERMANO. 379
of all who had adhered to the Church. He renounced
the right of judging the ecclesiastics of his realm by the
civil tribunals, excepting in matters concerning royal
fiefs ; he gave up the right of levying taxes on ecclesi-
astical property, as well that of the clergy as of mon-
asteries. It is said, but it appears not in the treaty,
that he promised to defray the enormous charges of the
war, variously stated at 120,000 crowns and 120,000
ounces of gold ; but in those times promises to pay
such debts by no means insured their payment. Fred-
erick never fulfilled this covenant. If to obtain abso-
lution from the Papal censures Frederick willingly
yielded to these terms, it shows either that his firm
mind was not proof against the awe of the spiritual
power which inthralled the rest of Europe, or that he
had the wisdom to see that the time was not come to
struggle with success against such tyranny. He might
indeed hope that, erelong, to the stern old man who
now wielded the keys of St. Peter with the vigor of
Hildebrand or Innocent III. might succeed some fee-
bler or milder Pontiff. Already was Gregory ap-
proaching to or moi-e than ninety years old.^ He
was himself in the strength and prime of manhood,
nor could he expect that this same aged Pontiff would
rally again for a contest, more long, more obstinate,
and though not terminated in his lifetime, more fatal
to the Emperor and to the house of Hohenstaufen.
Frederick had been released from the ban j^ gs
of excommunication at Ceperano by the Car- ^''p'" ^' ^^^-
dinal John of St. Sabina ; he visited the Pope at
1 1 confess that this extreme old age of Gregory IX. does not seem to me
quite clearly made out. At all events, after every deduction, he was of an
extraordinary age to display such activity and firmness.
380 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Anagni. They met, Frederick with dignified sub-
mission, the Pope with tlie calm majesty of age and
position, held a conference of many hours, appeared
together at a splendid banquet, and interchanged the
kiss of peace ; the antagonists whose mortal quarrel
threatened a long convulsion throughout Christendom
proclaimed to the world their mutual amity.^
Nearly nine years elapsed before these two antag-
sept. 1, 1230, onists, the Pope Gregory IX. and the Era-
to 1239, Paim :J ^ "^ , , . . . . 11
Sunday. pcror !• reclenck II. resumed then' mimitigable
warfare, — years of but dubious peace, of open amity
yet secret mistrust, in which each called upon the other
for aid against his enemies ; the Pope on Frederick
against the unruly Romans, Frederick on the Pope
against the rebellious Lombards, and liis rebellious son ;
June n, 1234. but whcrc each suspected a secret understand-
ing with those enemies. It is remarkable that both
Frederick and the Pope betook themselves in this inter-
val of suspended war to legislation. Frederick to the
1 Frederick de,5cribes the interview: — "Deinde ut post absolutionem ex
prsesentia corporiim mentium serenitas sequeretur, primo Septembris apos-
tolicam sedem adivimus, et sanctissimum patrem dominum GreRorium, Dei
gratia summum Pontiticem vidimus reverenter. Qui aftectiune paterna
nos recipiens, et puce cordium sacris osculis federata, tarn benevole, tam
benigne propositum nobis suae intentionis aperuit de ipsis quae precesserant
nil omittens, et singula prosequens evidentis judicio rationis, quod etsi nos
precedens causa comuioverit, vel rancorem potuerit aliquem attulisse, sic
benevolentia, quain persensimus in eodem, omnem motum lenivit aninii,
et nostrain amoto rancore serenavit adeo voluntatein, ut non velimus ulte-
rius prajterita memorari qure necessitas intulit, ut virtus ex necessitate pro-
dens operaretur gratiam ampliorem." — Monument. Germ. iv. 275. There
is something very striking in this. The generous awe and reverence of
Frederick for the holy old man, considering his deep injuries (I envy not
those who can see notliing but specious hypocri.sj' in Frederick), and the
Christian amenity of the Pope, considering that Frederick, a short time be-
fore, had been called a godless heretic, almost a Mohammedan. Their
mutual enmity is lost in mutual respect.
Chap. III. FREDERICK 11. AS LEGISLATOR. 381
promulgation of a new jurisprudence for his kinodom
of Naples and Sicily ; Gregory of a complete and au-
thoritative code of the Decretals which formed the
statute law by which the Pajjacy and the sacerdotal
order ruled the world, and administered the internal
government of the Church. During the commence-
ment of this period Frederick left the administration
of affairs in Germany, though he still exercised an im-
perial control, to his son Henry. The rebellion of
Henry alone seemed to compel him to cross a.d. 1235.
the Alps and resume the sway. His legislation aspired
to regulate the Empire ; but in Germany from the
limits imposed on his power, it was not a complete and
perfect code, it was a succession of remedial laws. His
earliest and most characteristic work of legislation was
content to advance the peace, prosperity, and happiness
of his own Southern realm.
The constitution of his beloved kingdom was thus
the first care of Frederick. As a legislator he com-
mands almost unmingled admiration ; and the aim and
temper of his legislation whether emanating from him-
self, or adopted from the counsel of others, may justly
influence the general estimate of a character so vari-
ously represented by the pas.sions of his own age, pas-
sions which have continued to inflame, and even yet
have not died away from the heart of man.^ The ob-
ject of Frederick's jurisprudence was the mitigation,
as far as possible the suppression, of feudal violence and
oppression ; the assertion of equal rights, equal justice,
1 Even in our own day M. Iliifler, for instance, seems to revive all the
rancor of the days of Innocent IV. Even Boehmer is not above this fatal
influence. This part of my work was finished before the publication of the
" Regesta Imperii," to which, nevertheless, I am bound to acknowledge
much obligation.
382 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
equal burdens ; the toleration of different religions ;
the promotion of commerce by wise, almost premature
regulations ; the advancement of intellectual culture
among his subjects by the establishment of universities
liberally endowed, and by the encouragement of all the
useful and refined arts. It is difficult to suppose a wise,
equal and humane legislator, a blind, a ruthless tyrant ;
or to reconcile the careful and sagacious provision for
the rights and well-being of all ranks of his subjects
with the reckless violation of those rights, and with
heavy and systematic oppression ; more especially if
that jurisprudence is original and beyond his age. The
legislator may himself be in some respects below the
lofty aim of his laws ; Frederick may have been driven
to harsh measures to bring into order the rebellious
magnates of the realm, whom his absence in Asia, the
invasion and the intrigues of the Papal party, cast loose
from their allegiance ; the abrogation of their tyran-
nical privileges may have left a deep and brooding dis-
content, ready to break out into revolt and constantly
enforcing still more rigorous enactments. The severe
guardian of the morals of his subjects may have claimed
to himself in some respects a royal, and Asiatic indul-
gence ; he may have been compelled by inevitable wars
to lay onerous burdens on the people, he may have been
compelled to restrict or suspend the rights of particular
subjects, or classes of subjects, by such determined hos-
tility as that of the clergy to himself and to all his
house ; but on the whole the laws and institutions of
the kingdom of Naples are an unexceptionable and im-
perishable testimony at least to his lofty designs for the
good of mankind ; which history cannot decline, or
rather receives with greater respect and trust than can
Chap. III. FREDERICK II. AS LEGISLATOR. 383
be claimed by any contemporary view of the acts or of
the character of Frederick II. It is in this lijiht only
» . . . . .
as ilkistrating the Hfe of the great antagonist of the
Churcli that they belong to Christian history, beyond
their special bearing on religious questions, and the
rights and condition of the clergy.^
The groundwork of Frederick's legislation was the
stern supremacy of the law ; the submission of all, even
the nobles, who exercised the feudal privilege of sep-
arate jurisdictions, to a certain extent of the clergy, to
the king's sole and exclusive justice. This was the
great revolution through which every feudal kingdom
must inevitably pass sooner or later.^ The crown must
become the supreme fountain of justice and law. The
first, and most difficult, but necessary step was the uni-
formity of that law. There was the most extraordinary
variety of laws and usages throughout the realm, Ro-
man, Greek, Gothic, Lombard, Norman, Imperial-
German institutes ; old municipal and recent seignorial
rights,^ The Jews had their special privileges, the
Saracens their own customs and forms of procedure.
The majestic law had to overawe to one system of obe-
dience, with due maintenance of their proper rights, the
nobles, the clergy, the burghers, and the peasants, even
3 The constitutions of the Emperor Frederick may be read in Canciani,
voL i. sub fine. I am much indebted for a brief, it appears to rrie verj'
sensible and accurate comment in the Considerazioni sopra la Storia di
Sicilia, by the Canonico Gregorio (Palermo, 1805), and to my friend M.
von Raumer's earliest and best work, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen.
2 King Roger (see the Canonico Gregorio, t. iii.) had already vindicated
a certain supremacy for the King's Justiciary. King Roger's legislation is
strikingly analogous to, Gregorio thinks borrowed from that of his remote
kinsman William, our Norman Conqueror. In France this was among the
great steps first decisively taken by St. Louis.
3 Canciani, Preface.
384 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
the Jews and the Mohammedans. Frederick wisely
determined not to aspire so much to be the founder of
an absolutely new jurisprudence, as to select, confirm,
and harmonize the old institutions.^
The religious ordinances of the Sicilian constitution
Laws relating demand our first examination. Frederick
to religion, maintained the immunities of the worshippers
of other religions, of the Jews and the Arabians, with
such impartial equity, as to incur for this and other
causes the name of Jew and Saracen. But the most
faithful son of the Church could not condemn the here-
tic with more authoritative severity, or visit his offence
with more remorseless punishment.^ Heresy was de-
scribed as a crime against the offender himself, against
his neighbor and against God, a more heinous crime
even than high treason. The obstinate heretic was
condemned to be burned, his whole property confis-
cated, his children were incapable of holding office or
of bearing testimony. If such child should merit
mercy by the denunciation of another heretic, or of a
concealer of heretics, the Emperor might restore him to
his rank. Schismatics were declared outlaws, incapa-
ble of inheriting, liable to forfeiture of their goods. No
one might petition in fiivor of a heretic : yet the re-
pentant heretic might receive pardon ; his punishment,
after due investigation of the case by the ecclesiastical
power, was to be adjudged by the secular authority.
1 The code was published at Amalfi, Sept. 1231; Rich. San Germ, sub
ann. 1231; in Sicily by Richard de Montenegro, High Ju.sticiarj% during
the same year. Append, ad Malater. p. 251. Gregorio, iii. 14.
2 Compare the edicts issued at Ravenna, Feb. 22, 1232, and March,
against the Lombard heretics. They might have satisfied St. Dominic or
Simon de Montfort. Reenacted at Cremona, 1238; at Padua, 1239.—
Monument. Germ. iv. 287, 288. Also letter of June 15, ex Regest. Greg.
IX. In H5fler, p. 344.
Chap. III. LAWS AGAINST HERETICS. 385
But these laws were directed against a particular class
of men, dangerous it was thovio;lit no less to the civil
than to the religious power ; actual rebels against the
Church, rebels likewise against the Emperor, who was
still the conservator of pure orthodoxy, and betraying
at least rebellious inclinations, if not designs hostile
towards all power. They were neither enacted nor
put in force against the Greek Christians, who were
still in considerable numbers in the kingdom of Sicily,
had their own priests, and celebrated undisturbed their
own rites. They were those heretics which swarmed
under various denominations, Cathari or Paterins, from
rebellious and republican Lombardy, the hated and
suspected source of all these opinions. In all the
states of the Pope, in Rome itself, not merely were
there hidden descendants of the Arnoldists, but all the
wild sects which defied the most cruel persecutions in
the Noi'th of Italy, spread their doctrines even within
the shadow of the towers of St. Peter. Naples and
Aversa were full of them,^ and derived them from re-
bellious Lombardy ; and Frederick, whose notions of
the imperial power were as absolute as Gregory's of
the Papal, not only would not incur by their protection
such suspicions, as would have inevitably risen, of har-
boring or favoring heretics, he scrupled not to assist
in the extermination of these insolent insurrectionists
against lawful authority.^
1 " Adeo quod ab ItaliiB finibus, praesertim a partibus Longobardia? in
quibus pro certo perpendimus ipsoruni nequitiam amplius abundare, jam
usque ad reguum nostrum su£e perfidiae rivulos derivarunt." — I. i. tit. i.
" Quod dolentes referimus, in regno nostro Siciliae Neapolin, et Aversam,
partesque vicinas dicitur infecisse." — Frederic. Epist. apud Epist. Gregor.
iv. 1.31.
2 Gregor. Vit. Richard de San Germ. See also the Edict of the Senator
and people of Rome. — Apud Iia3-nald. 12-31. Compare (afterwards) Fred-
voL. V. 25
386 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
The Constitution of Frederick endeavored to reduce
the clergy into obedient and loyal subjects at once by
the vigorous assertion of the supreme and impartial
law, and by securing and extending their acknowl-
edged immunities. The clergy were amenable to the
general law of the realm as concerned fiefs, could be
impleaded in the ordinary courts concerning occupancy
of land, inheritances, and debts : they had jurisdiction
over their own body, with the right of inflicting canon-
ical punishments : but besides this they were amenable
to the secular laws, especially for treason, or all crimes
relating to the person of the King.^ They were not
exempt from general taxation ; they were bound to
discharo-e all feudal oblio-ations for their fiefs. On the
other liand, the crown abandoned its claim to the rev-
enues of vacant bishoprics and benefices : ^ three un-
exceptionable persons belonging to the Church were
appointed receivers on behalf of the successor. On
the election of bishops the law of Innocent III. was
recognized ; the chapter communicated the vacancy to
the Crown, and proceeded to elect a fit successor ; that
successor could not be inaugurated without the consent
of the King, nor consecrated without that of the Pope.
Tithes were secured to the Church from all lands, even
from the royal domains ; ^ the Crown only enforced the
expenditure of the appointed third on the sacred edi-
fices, the churches and chapels. All special courts of
the hioher ecclesiastics as of the barons were abro-
gated; the crown would be the sole fountain of justice:
erick's letter commanding the heretics throughout Lombardy to be commit-
ted to the flames.
1 i. 42. A law of King William.
2 iii. 28. Serfs and villains were not to be ordained, iii. 1, 3.
3i. 7.
Chap. III. NOBLES — CITIES — PEASANTS. 387
but the holders of the great spiritual fiefs sat with the
great Barons under the presidency of the high Chan-
cellor. Excepting in cases of marriage, no separate
jurisdiction of the clergy was recognized over the laity.^
Appeals to Rome were allowed, but only on matters
purelj^ ecclesiastical ; and these during wars with the
Pope were absolutely forbidden. The great magnates
of the realm received likewise substantial benefits in lieu
of the privileges wrested from them, which were peril-
ous to the public peace.^ All their separate jurisdic-
tions of noble or prelate were abolished ; the King's
judiciary was alone and supreme. But their fiefs were
made hereditary, and in the female line and to col-
laterals in the third degree.^
The cities were emancipated from all the jurisdic-
tions of nobles or of ecclesiastics ; but the cities.
municipal authorities were not absolutely left to their
free election. The Sicilian King dreaded the fatal
example of the Lombard Republics : all the superior
governors were nominated by the Crown ; the cities
only retained in their own hands the inferior appoint-
ments, for the regulation of their markets and havens.*
The law overlooked not the interests of the free peas-
ants, who constituted the chief cultivators of Peasants,
the soil ; or that of the serfs attached to the soil. Ab-
solute slavery was by no means common in Sicily ; the
serfs covild acquire and hold property. The free peas-
1 Frederick asserted and exercised the right of declaring the children of
the clergy, who by the canon law were spurious, legitimate, with full title
to a share in all the inheritances of all the goods of their parents, unless
they were fiefs; and ci^pability of attaining to all civil offices and honors.
For this privilege they paid an annual tax of five per cent, to the royal ex-
chequer. This implied the marriage of the clergy to a great extent. — Pet.
de Vin. vi. 16. Constitut. iii. 25.
2 i. 46. 3 iii. 23, 2-1. 4 i. 47.
388 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
ants were numerous ; the measures of Frederick tended
to raise the serfs to the same condition. He absolutely
emancipated all those on the royal domain. The es-
tablishment of his courts enabled all classes to obtain
justice at an easy and cheap rate against their lords ;
the extraordinary aids to be demanded by the lord were
limited by law, that of the lay feudal superior, to aids
on the marriage of a daughter or sister, the arming the
son when summoned to the service of the King, and
his ransom in captivity ; that of the higher ecclesias-
tics and monasteries, to the summons to the King's
service, and receiving the King at free quarters ; jour-
neys to Church Councils, summoned by the Pope, and
Consecrations. Frederick was so desirous to promote
the cultivation of the soil, that he exempted new set-
tlers in Sicily from taxes for ten years ; only the Jews,
who took refuge from Africa, were obliged to pay such
taxes, and compelled to become cultivators of the land.
But of all institutions, the most advanced was the
Parliaments, system of representative government, for the
fii'st time regularly framed by the laws of the realm.
Besides the ancient Parliaments, at which the mag-
nates of the realm, the great ecclesiastical and secular
vassals of the Crown assembled when summoned by
the King's writs, two annual sessions took place, on
the 1st of March and the 1st of August, of a Par-
liament constituted from the different orders of the
realm.^ All the Barons and Prelates appeared in
person ; each of the larger cities sent four represen-
tatives, each smaller city two, each town or other place
one ; to these were joined all the great and lesser Bail-
1 One of the cities appointed for the meeting of Parliament in Apulia
was Lentini; in Sicily, Piazza. Compare Gregorio, iii. p. 82.
Chap. III. OTHER LAWS. 389
iffs of the Crown. Tlie summons to the Barons and
Prehites was directly from the King, that of the cities
and towns from the judge of the province. They were
to clioose men of probity, good repute, and impar-
tiality. A Commissioner from the Crown opened the
Parliament, and condncted its proceedings, which lasted
from eight to ten days. Every clerk or layman miijht
arraign the coiiduct of any public officer, or offer his
advice for the good of his town or district. The deter-
minations which the royal Commissioner, with the ad-
vice of the most distinguished spiritual and temporal
persons, approved, were delivered signed and sealed by
him directly to the King, excepting in unimportant
matters, which might be regulated by an order from
the Justiciary of the Province.
The criminal law of Frederick's constitution was,
Avith some remarkable exceptions, mild beyond prece-
dent ; and also administered with a solemnity, impar-
tiality, and regularity, elsewhere unknown. The Chief
Justiciary of the realm, with four other judges, formed
the great Court of Criminal Law ; and the Crown
asserted itself to be the exclusive administrator of
criminal justice. ^ Besides its implacable abhorrence
of heresy, it was severe and inexorable against all dis-
turbers of the peace of the realm, and those who en-
dangered the public security. Private war ,2 and the
execution of the law by private hands, was rigidly for-
bidden. Justice must be sought only in the Kino-'s
courts. The punishment for every infringement of
1 Gregorio, 1. iii. c. iv. "Nobis aliquando, quibus solum ordinationem
justitiariorum ubicunque fuerimus, reservamus." — 1. i. t. 95. This was
cart of the "merum imperium " of the sovereign. — i. t. 49.
•■2 i. 8.
390 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
this statute was decapitation and forfeiture of goods.
Arms were not to be borne except by the King's offi-
cers, employed in the court or on the royal affairs/ or
by knights, knights' sons, and burgliers, riding abroad
from their own homes. Whoever drew his sword on
another paid double the fine imposed for bearing it ;
whoever woundetl another lost his hand ; whoever
killed a man, if a knight, was beheaded, if of lower
rank, hanged. If the homicide could not be found,
the district paid a heavy fine, yet in proportion to the
wehrgeld of the slain man ; but Christians paid twice
as much as Jews or Saracens, as, no doubt, bound more
especially to know and maintain the law. The laws
for the preservation of female chastity were singular
and severe. Even rape upon a common prostitute
was punished by beheading, if the charge was brought
within a certain time : ^ whoever did not aid a woman
suffering violence was heavily fined. But in these
cases a false accusation was visited with the same pun-
ishment. Mothers who betrayed their daughters to
whoredom had their noses cut ofip;^ men who con-
nived at the adultery of their wives were scourged.
A man caught in adultery might be slain by the hus-
band ; if not instantly slain, he paid a heavy fine.
The trials by battle and ordeal were abolished as vain
and superstitious : the former allowed only in cases of
murder, poisoning, or high treason, where there yssis
strong suspicion ))ut not full proof. It was designed
to work on the terror of the criminal ; but if the ac-
cuser was worsted, he was condemned in case of high
treason to the utmost penalty ; in other cases to pro-
portionate punishment. Torture was only used in cases
1 Gregorio, i. 9. 2 j. OQ. ' iii. 48, 50.
Chap. III. COMMERCIAL PROGRESS. " 391
of hea\y suspicion against persons of notoriously evil
repute.^
These are but instances of the sj^irit in which Fred-
erick framed his legislation, which aimed rather to ad-
vance, enrich, enlighten his subjects than to repress
their free development by busy and perpetual inter-
ference. His regulations concerning commerce were
almost prophetically wise ; he laid down the great
maxim that commercial exchange benefited both j)ar-
ties ; he permitted the export of comi as the best
means of fostering its cultivation. He entered into
liberal treaties with Venice, with Asia, Genoa, and
the Greek Empire, and even with some of the Sara-
cen powers in Africa. By common consent, both par-
ties condemned the plundering of wrecks, and ])ledged
themselves to mutual aid and friendly reception into
their harbors. The King himself Avas a o-reat mer-
chant ; the royal vessels traded to Syria, Egypt, and
other parts of the East. He had even factors who
traded to India.^ He encouraged internal commerce by
the establishment of great fairs and markets ;^ manu-
factures of various kinds began to prosper.
But that which — if the constitution of Frederick
1 Frederick's legislation was not content with abolishing these barbarous
forms of testimony, almost the only available testimony in rude unlettered
times. He laid down rules on written evidence; documents must be ou
parchment, not on perishable paper; he prohibited a certain kind of obscure
and intricate writing, in use at Xaples, Amalti, and Sorrento; and ordered
the notaries to write all deeds legibly and clearly. The Emperor himself
laid down regulations to test the authenticity of a certain document. —
Gregorio, iii. p. 61.
'■^ " Fredericus II. erat omnibus Soldanis Orientis particeps in mercinioniis
et amicissinius, ita ut usque ad Indos currebant ad commodum suum, tani
per mare, quam per terras, institores." — Matth. Par. 544.
3 See edict for annual t'airs at Sulmona, (Japua, Lucera, Bari, Tarentum,
Cosenza, Reggio, Jan. 1234. — Rich. San Germ.
392 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
had continued to flourish, if the institutions had worked
out in peace their natural consequences — if the house
of Hohenstaufen had maintained their power, splendor
and tendencies to social and intellectual advancement,
if they had not been dispossessed by the dynasty of
Charles of Anjou, and the whole land thrown back by
many centuries — might have enabled the Southern
kino-dom to take the lead, and anticipate the splendid
period of Italian learning, philosophy, and art, was the
universities ; the establishments for education ; the en-
couragements for all learned and refined studies, im-
agined by this accomplished King. Even the revival
of Greek letters might not have awaited the conquest
of Constantinojjle by the Turks four centuries later.
Greek was the spoken language of the people in many
parts of the kingdom ; the laws of Frederick were
translated into Greek for popular use ; the epitaph of
the Archbishop of Messina in the year 1175 was
Greek.' There were Greek priests and Greek congre-
gations in many parts of Apulia and Sicily ; the privi-
leges conferred by the Emperor Henry VI. on Messina
had enacted that one of the three magistrates should
be a Greek. Hebrew, and still more Arabic, were
well known, not merely by Jews and Arabians but by
learned scholars. Frederick himself spoke German,
Italian, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. He de-
clared his own passionate love for learned and philo-
sophical studies. Nothing after the knowledge of af-
fairs, of laws and of arms, became a monarch so well ;
to this he devoted all his leisure hours, these were the
liberal pursuits which adorned and dignified human
life.2 In Syria, and in his intercourse with the Eastern
1 Von Rauiiier, p. 556. 2 Peter de Vinea, iii. 07.
Chap. III. INTELLECTUAL PEOGRESS. 393
moncarchs, he liad oLtiiined great collections of books ;
he caused translations to be made from the Arabic, and
out of Greek into Latin, of some of the philosophic
works of Aristotle and the Almagest of Ptolemy.^
The university of Naples was his great foundation ;
Salerno remained the famous school of medicine ; but
the university in the ca])ital was encouraged by liberal
endowments, and by regulations with regard to the re-
lations of the scholars and the citizens ; the price of
lodgings was fixed by royal order ; sums of money
were to be advanced to youths at low interest, and
could not be exacted during the years of study. The
King held out to the more promising students honora-
ble em])loyments in his service. Philosophical studies
appeared most suited to the genius of Frederick ; nat-
ural history and the useful sciences he cultivated with
success ; but he had likewise great taste for the fine
arts, especially for architecture, both ornamental and
military. He restored the walls of many of the great-
est cities ; built bridges and other useful works. He
had large menageries, supplied from the East and from
Africa. He sometimes vouchsafed to send some of the
more curious animals about for the instruction and
amusement of his subjects. The Ravennese were de-
1 lie employed the celebrated Michael Scott (the fabled magician) in the
translation of Aristotle. Among the Papal documents relating to England
in the British Museum are several letters concerning this remarkable man,
patronized alike by Frederick and by the Popes. Honorius III. writes
(.Jan. 16, 1225. p. 214) to the Archbishop of Canterbury to bestow prefer-
ment on Michael Scott : " Quod inter literatos done vigeat scientise singu-
lari." M. Scott (p. 229) has a license to hold pluralities. (P. 246} he is
named b}' the Pope Archbishop of Cashel, and to hold his other benefices.
(P. 2.53) he refuses the Archbishopric: " Dum linguam terra; illius se igno-
rare diceret." He is described as not only a great Latin scholar, but as
familiar with Hebrew and Arabic.
394 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
lighted with the appearance of some royal animals.
He was passionately fond of field sports, of the chase
with the hound and the hawk ; his own book on fal-
conry is not merely instrnctive on that sport, but is a
scientific treatise on the nature and habits of those
birds, and of many other animals. The first efforts of
Italian sculpture and painting rose under his auspices ;
the beautiful Italian language began to form itself in
his court : it has been said above that the earliest
strains of Italian poetry were heard there : Peter de
Vinea, the Chancellor of Frederick, the comi)iler of
his laws, was also the writer of the earliest Italian son-
net. Nor was Peter de Vinea the only courtier who
emulated the King in poeti-y ; his beloved son Enzio,
many of his courtiers, vied with their King and his
ministers in the cultivation of the Italian language ;
and its first fruits the rich harmonious Italian poetry.^
His own ao;e beheld with admirino- amazement the
magnificence of Frederick's court, the unexampled
progress in wealth, luxui'y, and knowledge. The realm
was at peace, notwithstanding some disturbance by
those proud barons, whose interest it was to maintain
the old feudal and seignorial rights ; the reluctance of
the clergy to recede from the complete dominion over
the popular mind; and the taxation, which weighed,
especially as Frederick became more involved in the
Lombard war, on all classes. The world had seen no
1 Some of these poems I have read in a collection of the Poeti del Primo
Secolo, Firenze, 1814. A small volume has beeiv published by the Literary
Union of Stuttgard (1543), Italienische Lieder des Ilohenstaufischen Hofes
in Sicilieu. It contains lays by thirteen royal and noble authors. Dante,
in his book De Vulgari Eloquentia, traces to the court of Frederick the
origin of the true and universal Italian language. We return to this sub-
ject.
Chaf. III. DANGER TO THE CHURCH. 395
court so splendid, no system of laws so majestically
equitable ; a new order of things appeared to be aris-
ing; an epoch to be commencing in human civilization.
But this admiration was not universal : there was a
deep and silent jealousy, an intuitive dread in the
Church, 1 and in all the faithful partisans of the Church
of remote, if not immediate danger; of a latent desion,
at least a latent tendency in the temporal kingdom to
set itself apart, and to sever itself from the one great re-
ligious Empire, which had now been building itself up
for centuries. There was, if not an avowed indej)en-
dence, a threatening disposition to independence. The
legislation, if it did not directly clash, yet it seemed
to clash, with the higher law of the Church ; if it did
not make the clergy wholly subordinate, it degraded
them in some respect to the rank of subjects ; if it did
not abrogate, it limited what were called the rights and
privileges, but which were in fact the separate rule and
dominion of the clergy ; at all events, it assumed a
supremacy, set itself above, admitted only what it
chose of the great Canon Law of the Church ; it was
self-originating, self-asserting, it had not condescended to
consult those in whom for centuries all political as well
as sjji ritual wisdom had been concentred ; it was a leg-
islation neither emanating from, nor consented to by
the Church. If every nation were thus to frame its
owm constitution, without regard to the great unity
1 The Pope seemed to consider that Frederick's new constitutions must
■ be inimical to the Church. " Intelleximus siquidem quod vel proprio motu,
vel seductus inconsultis consiliis perversorum, novas edere constitiitiones
iutendis ex quibus necessario sequitur ut dicaris Ecclesia^ persecutor et ob-
rutor publican libertatis." — lib. v. Epist. 91, apud Raynald. 1231. He re-
proaches the Archbishop of Capua as " Frederico constitutiones destructivas
saIuti:^ et institutivas enormium scandalorum edenti voluntarius obsequeus."
— Ajiud Hofler, ii. p. 333.
396 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
maintained by the Church, the vast Christian confeder-
acy would break up ; Kings might assume the power
of forbiddino; the recurrence to Rome as the religious
capital of the world ; indejiendent kingdoms might as-
pire to found independent churches. This new knowl-
edge too was not less dangerous because its ultimate
danger was not clearly seen ; at all events, it was not
knowledge introduced, sanctioned, taught by the sole
great instructress, the Church. Theology, the one
Science, was threatened by a rival, and whence did
that rival profess to draw her wisdom ? from the Hea-
then, the Jew, the Unbeliever ; from the Pagan Greek,
the Hebrew, the Arabic. That which might be in it-
self harmless, edifying, improving, when taught by the
Church, would but inflame the rebellious pride of the
human intellect. What meant this ostentatious toler-
ation of other religions, if not total indifference to
Christ and God ; if not a secret inclination to apos-
tasy ? What was all this splendor, but Epicurean or
Eastern luxury ? What this poetry, but effeminate
amatory songs ? Was this the life of a Christian
King, of a Christian nobility, of a Christian people ?
It was an absolute renunciation of the severe discipline
of the Church, of that austere asceticism, which how-
ever the clergy and religious men alone could practise
its angelic, its di^'ine perfection, was the remote virtue
after which all, even Kings (so many of whom had ex-
changed their worldly robes for the cowl and for sack-
cloth) ought to aspire, as to the ultimate culminating
height of true Christianity. It was Mohammedan not
merely in its secret indulgences, its many concubines,
in which the Emperor was still said to allow himself
Mohammedan license ; some of his chosen companions,
Chap. III. FREDERICK'S SICILIAX COURT. 897
his trusted counsellors, at least liis instructors in science
and philosophy were Mohammedans ; ladies of that
race and religion appeared, as has been said, at his
court (in them virtue was a thing incredible to a sound
churchman). The Saracens whom he had transplant-
ed to Nocera Avere among his most faithful troops, fol-
lowed him in his campaigns; it was even reported, that'
after his marriage with Isabella of England, he dis-
missed her English ladies, and made her over to the
care of Moorish eunuchs.
Such to the world was the fame, such to the Church
the evil fame of Frederick's Sicilian court ; exaggerated
no doubt as to its splendor, luxury, license, and learn-
ing, as well by the wonder of the world, as by the
abhorrence of the Church. Yet, after all, out of his
long life (long if considered not by years but by events,
by the civil acts, the wars, the negotiations, the jour-
neyings, the vicissitudes, crowded into it by Frederick's
own busy and active ambition and by the whirlino- cur-
rent of affairs) the time during which he sunned him-
self in this gorgeous voluptuousness must have been
comparatively short, intermittent, broken. At eighteen
years of age Frederick left Sicily to win the Imperial
crown : he had then eight years of the cold German
climate and the rude German manners durino- the estab-
lishment of his Sovereignty over the haughty German
Princes and Prelates. Then eight years in the South,
but during the four first the rebellious Apul- ^ ^ ^^^
ian and Sicilian nobles were to be brought '''^^'^'*-
under control, the Saracens to be reduced to obedience,
and transported to Apulia : throughout the ^ ^ ^225
later four was strife with the Lombaixl cities, '°i228.
strife about the Crusade, and preparation for the voyage.
398 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. . Book X.
Then came his Eastern campaign, his reconcihation with
the Church. Four years followed of legislation ; and
A D 1230 perhaps the nearest approach to indolent and
to 1234. luxurious peace. Then succeeded the revolt
of his son. Four years more to coerce rebellious Ger-
AD 1234 many, to attempt in vain to coerce rebel-
■ to 1238. lious Lombardy : all this was to close, with
his life, in the uninterrupted immitigable feud with
Gregory IX. and Innocent IV.
The Pope Gregory IX. (it is impossible to decide
The Deere- ^^^^"^^ ^^^' influenced by the desire of overawing
''''^- this tendency of temporal legislation to assert
its own independence) determined to array the higher
and eternal law of the Church in a more august and
authoritative form. The great code of the Pa])al De-
cretals constituted this law ; it had now long recog-
nized and admitted to the honors of equal authority
the bold inventions of the book called by the name of
Isidore ; but during the Pontificate of Innocent III.
there had been five distinct compilations, conflicting in
some points, and giving rise to intricate and insoluble
questions.^ Gregory in his old age aspired to be the
Justinian of the Church. He intrusted the compila-
tion of a complete and regular code to Raimond de
Pennaforte, a noble Spaniard, related to the royal
house of Arragon, of the Dominican Order, and now
the most distinguished jurist in the University of Bo-
logna. Raimond de Pennaforte was to be to the
1 " Sane diversas constitutiones, et decretales epistolas, prsedecessorum
nostrorum in diversa sparsas volumina, quarum aliqute propter nimiam
similitudinem, et qua?dam propter contrarietatem, nonnulliB etiam propter
suam prolixitatem, confusionem inducere videbantur; aliquai vcro vaga-
bantiir extra volumina supradicta, qure tanquam incertae frequenter in ju-
diciis vacillabant." — In Praefat.
Chap. III. GREGORY AND THE DECRETALS. 399
Canon what Irnerius of Bologna had been to the
revived Roman Law. It is somewhat singular that
Raymond had been the most famous antagonist of the
Arabian school of learning, the most admired champion
of Christianity, in liis native Spain.
The first part of these Decretals comprehended the
whole, in a form somewhat abbreviated ; abbreviations
which, as some complained, endangei-ed the rights of
the Church on important points ; but were defended
by the admirers of Raymond of Pennaforte, who de-
clared that he could not err, for an angel from Heaven
had constantly watched over his holy work.^ The
second contained the Decretals of Gregory IX. himself.
The whole was promulgated as the great statute law of
Christendom, superior in its authority to all secular laws
as the interests of the soul were to those of the body, as
the Church was of greater dignity than the State ; as
the Pope higher than any one temporal sovereign, or
all the sovereigns of the world. Though especiallv the
law of the clergy, it was the law binding likewise on the
laity as Christians, as religious men, both as demand-
ing their rigid observance of all the rights, immunities,
independent jurisdictions of the clergy, and concernino*
their own conduct as spiritual subjects of the Church.
All temporal jurisprudence was bound to frame its
decrees with due deference to the superior ecclesiastical
jurisprudence ; to respect the borders of that inviola-
ble domain ; not only not to interfere with those matters
over which the Church claimed exclusive cognizance,
but to be prepared to enforce by temporal means those
decrees which the Church, in her tenderness for human
1 Chiflet, quoted by Schroeck, xxvii. 64. Raymond de Pennaforte w.-is
canonized by Clement VIII., in 1601.
400 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
life, in her clemency, or in her want of power, was
unwilling or unable herself to cany into execution.
Beyond that sacred circle temporal legislation might
claim the full allegiance of its temporal subjects ; but
the Church alone could touch the holy person, punish
the delinquencies, control the demeanor of the sacer-
dotal order ; could regulate the power of the superior
over the inferior clergy, and choose those who were to
be enrolled in the order. The Church alone could
administer the property of the Church ; that property
it was altogether beyond the province of the civil
power to tax ; even as to feudal obligations, the Chui'ch
would hardly consent to allow any decisions but her
own : though compelled to submit to the assent of the
crown in elections to benefices which were temporal
fiefs, yet that assent was, on the other hand, counter-
balanced by her undoubted power to consecrate or to
refuse consecration. The Book of Gregory's Decretals
was ordered to be the authorized text in all courts and
in all schools of law ; it was to be, as it were, more and
more deeply impressed into the minds of men. Even
in its form it closely resembled the Roman law yet
unabrogated in many parts of Europe ; but of course
it comprehended alike those who lived under the differ-
ent national laws, which had adopted more or less of
the old Latin jurisprudence ; it was the more universal
statute-book of the more wide-ruling, all-embracing
Rome.
Chap. IV. PEACE OF NINE YEARS. 401
CHAPTER IV.
RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES BETWEEN GREGORY IX. AND
FREDERICK II.
During the nine years of peace between the Empire
and tlie Papacy, Pope Gregory IX. at times Peaceofniue
poured forth his flowery eloquence to the ilsfrto^ilg,
praise, ahnost the adulation, of the Emperor ; '^'"^ "Qday.
the Emperor proclaimed himself the most loyal subject
of tlie Church. The two potentates concurred only
with hearty zeal in the persecution of those rebels
against the civil and ecclesiastical power, the heretics.^
1 During this period of peace an obscure heresy, that of the Stedinger,
appeared or grew to its height in the duchy of Oldenburg; the Pope and
the Emperor would concur in inflicting summary punishment on these
rebels. Ilartung, the Archbishop of Bremen, had long appealed to Rome.
On one occasion he returned with full power to subdue his refractory spirit-
ual subjects, bearing, as he boasted, a singular and significant relic, — the
sword with which Peter had struck off the ear of Malchus. More than thirty
years after, .Vrchbishop Gerhard, Count de la Lippe, a martial prelate,
turned not his spiritual but his secular arms against them. Among their
deadly tenets was the refusal to pay tithes. The Pope recites the charges
against them, furnished of course by their mortal enemies. They wor-
shipped the Evil One now as a toad, which they kissed behind and on
the mouth, and licked up its foul venom; now as a man, with a face won-
derfully pale, haggard, with coal-black ej'es. They kissed him; his kiss
was cold as ice, and with his kiss oozed away all their Catholic faith. The
Pope would urge the Emperor to take part in the war against these
wretches. Conrad of Marburg, the hateful persecutor of the saintlj' Eliza-
beth of Hungary, now the Holy Inquisitor, was earnest and active in tiie
cause. The Stedinger withstood a crusading army of 40,000 men ; were
defeated with the loss of 6000. Many fled to other lands; the rest submit-
ted to the Archbishop. The Pope released them from the excommunica-
voi>. V. 20
402 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
At Rome multitudes of meaner religious criminals were
burned ; many priests and of the lower orders of clergy
degraded and sent to Monte Casino and other ricrid
monasteries as prisoners for life.^ The Pope issued
an act of excommunication rising in wrath and terror
above former acts. Pei'sons suspected of heresy were
under excommunication ; if within a year they did not
prove themselves guiltless, they were to be treated as
heretics. Heretics were at once infamous ; if judges,
their acts were at once null ; if advocates, they could
not plead ; if notaries, the instruments which they had
drawn were invalid. All priests were to be publicly
stripped of their holy dress and degraded. No gifts
or oblations were to be received from them ; the clerk
who bestowed Christian burial on a heretic was to dis-
entomb him with his own hands, and cast him forth
from the cemetery, which became an accursed place
unfit for burial. No lay person Avas to dispute in pub-
lic or in private concerning the Catholic faith : no de-
scendant of a heretic to the second generation could be
admitted to holy orders. Annibaldi, the senator of
Rome and the Roman people, passed a decree enacting
condign punishment on all heretics. The Emperor,
not content with suppressing these insurgents in his
hereditary dominions, had given orders that throughout
Lombardy, their chief seat, they should be sought out,
delivered to the Inquisitors,^ and there punished by the
tion: but it is curious to observe, he onl}' censures their disobedience and
insurrection; he is silent of their heresy. — Raynaldus, sub ann. 1233;
Shroeck, xxix. 641, &'c. The original authorities are Albert. Stad. Ger.
Monach. apud Boehmer — above all the Papal letters.
1 Vit. Gregor. IX. Rich. San German. Raynald. sub ann. 1231.
2 Gregory in one letter insinuates that Frederick had burned some good
Catholics, his enemies, as pretending that they were or had been heretics.
— Kpist. 244. Raynald. p. 85.
Chap. IV. PERSECUTIONS OF HERETICS. 403
secular arm.^ One of his own most useful allies, Ec-
celin di Romano, was in danger. Eccelin's two sons,
Eccelin and Alberic, offered to denounce him to the
Inquisition. There was, what it is difficult to describe
but as profound hypocrisy, or worse, on the part of the
Pope: he declared his unwillingness to proceed tdjust
vengeance against the fiither of such pious sons, who by
his guilt would forfeit, as in a case of capital treason,
all their inheritance ; the sons were to persuade Eccelin
to abandon all connection with heresy or with heretics :
if he refused, they were to regard their own salvation,
and to denounce their father before the Papal tribunal.'"^
It is strange enough that the suspected heretic, sus-
pected perhaps not unjustly, took the vows, and died in
the garb of a monk ; the pious son became that Eccelin
di Romano whose cruelty seems to have defied the ex-
aggeration of party hatred.
But in all other respects the Pope and the Emperor
were equally mistrustful of each other ; peace was dis-
guised war. Each had an ally in the midst of the
other's territory whom he could not avow, yet would
not abandon. Even in these perverse times the con-
duct of the Romans to the Pope is almost inexplicable.
No sooner had the Pope, either harassed or threatened
by their unruly proceedings, withdrawn in wrath, or
under the pretext of enjoying the purer and cooler air,
to Reate, Anagni, or some other neighboring city, than
Rome began to regret his absence, to make overtures
of submission ; and still received him back with more
1 See ante, note, p. 385.
2 The age msiy be pleaded in favor of Gregory IX. What is to be said
of the comment of the Papal annalist, Raynaldus ? — " Nee mirum cuiquani
videri potest datum hoc filiis adversus parentem consilium, cum numinis, a
quo descendit omnis paternitas, causa humanis affectibus debet antefurri."
p. 41. Raynald. 1231.
404 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
)'ai)turous demonstrations of joy -^ In a few montlis they
began to be weary of their qniet : his splendid build-
ings for the defence and ornament of the city lost their
imposing power, or became threatening to their liber-
ties ; he was either compelled or thought it prudent to
retire. Viterbo had become to the Romans what Tus-
culum had been in a former century ; the Romans
loved their own liberty, but their hate of Viterbo was
stronger than their love ; the fear that the Po})e might
take part with Viterbo brought them to his feet ; that
he did not aid them in the subjugation of Viterbo re-
kindled their hostility to him. More than once the
Pope called on the Emperor to assist him to put down
his insurgent subjects : Frederick promised, eluded
his promise ; ^ his troops were wanted to suppi'ess
rebellions not feigned, but rather of some danger,
at Messina and Syracuse. He had secret partisans
everywhere : when Rome was Papal, Viterbo was Im-
])erialist ; when Viterbo was for the Pope, Rome was
for the Emperor. If Frederick was insincere in his
maintenance of the Pope against his domestic enemies,
Gregory was no less insincere in pretending to renounce
all alhance, all sympathy with the Lombards.^ But
1 Rich, de S. Germ., sub aim. 1231, 1233. He returned to Rome, March
1233. He was again in Anagni in August !
2 Rebellion, reconciliation, 1233. New rebellion, beginning of 1234.
" Quo Fredericus imperator apud sanctum Gennanum certa relatione com-
perto, qui fidele defensionis presidium ecclesiie Roman a? promiserat, et fidei
et majestatisoblitus, Messanam properans, nullo persequente, decessit, hosti-
bus tanti favoris auxilium ex cessione daturus." — Vit. Gregor. Compare
Pope's letter (Feb. 3, from Anagni, and Feb. 10.) But in fact there was
a dangerous insurrection in Messina; the King's Justiciaiy had been
obliged to fly. Frederick had to put down movements also at Syracuse and
Nicosia. — Ann. Sicul. Rich. San Germano.
3 The Chronicon Placentinum has revealed a renewal of the Lombard
League at Bologna, Oct. 26, 1231, and a secret mission to the Pope. p. 98.
Chap. IV. GREGORY AND THE LOMBARDS. 405
this connection of the Pope with the Lombard League
required infinite management and dexterity : the Lom-
bai'd cities swarmed with heretics, and so far were not
tlie most becoming alhes of the Pope.^ Yet this alh-
ance miglit seem an affair, not of policy only, but of
safety. Gregory could not disguise to himself that so
popular, so powerful a sovereign had never environed
the Papal territories on every side. If Frederick (and
Frederick's character might seem daring enough for jo
im[)ious an act) should despise the sacred awe which
guarded the person of the Pope, and scorn his excom-
munications, he was in an instant at the gates of Rome,
of fickle and treacherous Rome. He had planted his
two colonies of Saiacens near the Apulian frontier ;
they at least would have no scruple in executing his
most irreverent orders. The Pope was at his mercy,
and friendless, as far as any strong or immediate check
on the ambition or revenge of the Emperor. The
Pope in supporting the Lombard republics, assumed
the lofty position of the sacred defender of liberty, the
assertor of Italian independence, when Italy seemed in
danger of lying prostrate under one stern and despotic
monarchy, which would extend from the German Ocean
to the further shore of Sicily. At first his endeavors
were wisely and becomingly devoted to the maintenance
of peace — a peace which, so long as the Emperor re-
frained from asserting his full imperial rights, so long
1 A modern writer, ratlier Papal, thus describes the state of Italy at that
lime: " Alle Kreise und Stiinde derjenigen Theils der Nation, den man als
den eigentlichen Triiger der Intelligenz in Italien betracliten miisste, waren
geistig frei und machtig genng, wo ihre Interessen deiien der Kirchc ent-
gegen waren, die letzeren mit Fiissen zu treten, nicht bloss einzelne Podes-
taten, oder das Geld-interesse des gemeinen Volkes, sondern oft alle gebil-
deten Stadtbewohner wagten es keck den Bannstrahlen des Papstes hohn
lu sprechen." — Leo, Geschichte der Italien, ii. 234.
406 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
as the Guelfs ruled undisturbed in those cities in which
tlieir interests predominated, the repubHcs were content
to observe ; the lofty station of the mediator of such
peace became his sacred function, and gave him great
weio-ht with both parties.^ But nearly at the same
.^. , time an insurrection of the Pope's Roman
Affairs of ^
Rome. subjects, morc daring and aggressive than
usual, compelled him to seek the succor of Fred-
erick, and Frederick was threatened with a rebellion
which the high-minded and religious Pope could not
but condemn, though against his fearful adversary.
For the third or fourth time the Pope had been com-
May, 1234. pcllcd to retire to Reate. Under the senator-
ship of Luca di Sabelli the senate and people of Rome
had advanced new pretensions, which tended to revolu-
tionize the whole Papal dominions. They had demol-
ished part of the Lateran palace, razed some of the
palaces of the cardinals, proclaimed their open defiance
of the Pope's governor, the Cardinal Rainier. They
had sent justiciaries into Tuscany and the Sabine
countrv to receive oaths of allegiance to themselves,
and to exact tribute. The Pope wrote pressing letters
addressed to all the princes and bishops of Christen-
dom, imploring succor in men and money ; there was
but one near enough at hand to aid, had all been will-
ino-. The Pope could not but call on him whose title
as Emperor was protector of the Church, who as King
May 20, 1234. of Naplcs was fii'st vassal of the pajjal see.
Frederick did not disobey the summons : with his young
son Conrad he visited the Pope at Reate. The Cardinal
1 See the letter to Frederick, in which he assumes the full power of ar-
bitration between the Emperor and the League. — Monument. Germ. iv.
299, dated June 5, 1233.
Chap. IV. PEACE WITH ROME. 407
Rainier had thrown himself with the Pope's forces into
Viterbo ; the army of Frederick sat down before Re-
spampano, a strong castle which the Romans occupied
in the neighborhood as an annoyance, and as a means,
it might be, of surprising and taking Viterbo. But
Respampano made resistance ; Frederick him- Sept. 12.34.
self retired, alleging important affairs, to his own do-
minions. The Papalists burst into a cry of reproach at
his treacherous abandonment of the Pope. Yet it was
entirely by the aid of some of his German troops that
the Papal army inflicted a humiliating defeat on the
Romans, who were compelled to submit to the Apriue
terms of peace dictated by the Pope,^ and en- ^"^'
forced by the Emperor, who was again with the Pope
at Reate. Angelo Malebranca, " by the grace of God
the illustrious senator of the gentle city " (such were
the high-sounding phrases), by the decree and author-
ity of the sacred senate, by the command and instant
acclamation of the famous people, assembled in the
Capitol at the sound of the bell and of the trumpet,
swore to the peace proposed by the three cardinals, be-
tween the Holy Roman Church, their Father the Su-
preme Pontiff, and the Senate and people of Rome.
He swore to give satisfaction for the demolition of the
Lateran palace and those of the cardinals, the invasion
of the Papal territories, the exaction of oaths, the
occupation of the domains of the Church. He swore
that no clerks or ecclesiastical persons belonging to the
1 " Milites in civitate Viterbio collocavit, quorum quotidianis insultibus
et depredationibus Roinani adeo sunt ve.xiiti, ut nou multo post cum Papa
pacem subirent." — God. Colon. The author of the life of Gregory saj-.s
that the Emperor, instead of aiding the Pope, idled his time away in
hunting: " Majestatis titulum in officium venaturae commutans .... in
sapturam avium sollicitabat aquilas triiimphales."
i08 LATIN CIIRISTIAXITY. Book X.
families of the Pope or cardinals should be summoned
before the civil tribunals (thus even in Rome there
was a strong opposition to those immunities of the
clergv from temporal jurisdiction for temporal offences).
This did not api)ly to laics who belonged to such house-
holds. He swore to protect all pilgrims, laymen as
well as ecclesiastics, who visited the shrines of the
Apostles.^ The peace was reestablished likewise with
the Emperor and his vassals — with Anagni, Segni,
Velletri, Viterbo, and other cities of the Papal terri-
tories. But even during this compulsory approxima-
tion to the Emperor, the Pope, to remove all suspicion
that he might be won to desert their cause, wrote to
the Lombards to reassure them. However, he might
call upon them not to impede the descent of the Impe-
rial troops from the Alps, those troops were not directed
against their liberties, but came to maintain the liberties
of the Church.
But if the rebels against the Pope were thus his im-
mediate subjects the Romans, the rebel against Fred-
erick was his own son. Henry had been left to rule
Germany as king of the Romans ; the causes and in-
Rebeiiion of ^^^^d tlic objccts of his rebellion are obscure.^
King Henry. jT[gj^i.y appears to liave been a man of feeble
character ; so long as he was governed by wise coun-
1 Apud Raynald. ann. 1235.
2 In the year 1232 Frederick began to entertain suspicions of his son,
and to be discontented with his conduct. Henry (but 20 years old) met liis
father at Aquileia, promised amendment, and to discard his evil counsel-
lors. — Hahn. Collect. Monument, i. 222. Frederick might remember the
fatal example of the Francoirian house; the conduct of Henry Y. to Henry
lY. The chief burden of Henry's vindication, addressed, Sept. 1234, to
Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim, is that the Emperor had annulled some of
his grants, interfered in behalf of the house of Bavaria (Louis of Bavari.i
had been guardian of the realm during his minority).
Chap. IV. REBELLION OF KING HENRY. 409
sellers, filling liis high office without blame ; released
from their control, the slave of his own loose passions,
and the ])assive instrmncnt of low and designino- men.
The only impulse to which the rebel son could appeal
was the jjride of Germany, whicli would no lon<>-er con-
descend to be governed from Italy, and to be a prov-
ince of the kingdom of Apulia. Unlike some of his
predecessors. Pope Gregory took at once the high Chris-
tian tone : he would seek no advantage from the un-
natural insurrection of a son against his fiither. All
the malicious insinuations against Gregory are put to
silence by the fact that, during their fiercest war of
accusation and recrimination, Frederick never charo-ed
the Pope with the odious crime of eneoura<'ino- his
son's disobedience. Frederick passed the May, 1235.
Alps with letters from the Pope, calling on all the
Christian prelates of Germany to assert the authority
of the King and of the parent. Henry had held a
council of princes 1 at Boppart to raise the standard of
revolt, and had entered into treasonable league with
Milan and the Lombard cities. The rebellion was as
weak as Avanton and guilty; Frederick entered Ger-
many with the scantiest attendance ; the af- July, 1235.
frighted son, abandoned by all his partisans, met him
at Worms, and made the humblest submission.^ Fred-
erick renewed his pardon; but probably some new
detected intrigues, or the refusal to surrender his
castles, or meditated flight,'^ induced the Emperor to
1 God. Colon. Chron. Erphurd. apud Boehmer Pontes R. G.
2 " Ipso mense, nullo obstante, Alenianniam intrans, Henriciim regem
filium suum ad niandatum siiiim recepit, quern duci Bavariic custodiendum
sommisit." — Rich. San Germ.
3 God. CoL Annal. Erphurdt. Quotation from Ann. Argentin. in Boch-
mer's Regesta, p. 254.
410 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
send his son as a prisoner to the kingdom of Naples.
There he remained in such obscurity that liis death
might have been unnoticed but for a passionate lamen-
tation which Frederick himself sent forth, in which he
adopted the language of King David on the loss of his
ungrateful but beloved Absalom.^
Worms had beheld the sad scene of the ignominious
arrest and imprisonment of the King of the Germans :
that event was followed by the splendid nuptials of the
Emperor with Isabella of England.
But though the Pope was guiltless, we believe he
Lombards ^^^ guiltless, the Lombards were deep in this
King^Henry\ couspiracy agaiust the power and the peace
rebellion. ^f Frederick. They, if they had not from
the first instigated, had inflamed the ambition of
Henry : ^ they had offered, if he would cross the Alps,
to invest him at Monza with the iron crown of Italy .^
Frederick's long-suppressed impatience of Lombard
freedom had now a justifiable cause for vengeance.
The Ghibelline cities — Cremona, Parma, Pisa, and
others ; the Ghibelline Princes Eccelin and Alberic,
May 1, 1236. the two SOUS of the suspected heretic Eccelin
II. (who had now descended from his throne, and
taken the habit of a monk, though it was rumored that
his devotion was that of an austere Paterin rather than
1 Besides this pathetic letter in Peter de Vinea, iv. 1, see the more ex-
traordinary one, quoted by Hiifler, addressed to tlie people of Messina.
2 Galvaneo Fiamma has these words: " Henricus composuit cum Medio-
lanensibus ad petitionem Domini Papa;." — c. 264. "Et tunc facta est lega
fortis inter Ilenricum et Jlediolanenses ad petitionem Papre contra Impera-
torem patrem suum." — Annal. Mediolan., Muratori, xvi. 624. These are
Milanese, certainly not Ghibelline writers !
3 During this year (1235) Frederick assisted with seemingly deep devo-
tion at the translation to Marburg of the remains of St. Elizabeth of Hun-
gary. 1,200,000 persons are said to have been present. — Montalembert,
Vie de St. Elizabeth d'Hongrie.
Chap. IV. LOMBARDS LEAGUED WITH PRINCE HENRY. 411
that of an orthodox recluse) summoned the Emperor
to reheve them from the oppressions of the Guelfic
league, and to wreak his just revenge on Aug. r236.
tliose aggressive rebels. Frederick's declaration of war
was drawn with singular subtlety. His chief object,
he declared, was the suppression of heresy. The wide
prevalence of heresy the Pope could not deny ; to es-
pouse the Lombai-d cause was to espouse that at least
of imj)uted heresy ; it was to oppose the Emperor in
the exercise of his highest imj>erial function, the pro-
motion of the unity of the Church. The Emperor
could not leave his own dominions in this state of spir-
itual and civil revolt to wacre war in foreiirn lands : so
soon as he had subdued the heretic he was prepared to
arm against the Infidel. Lombardy reduced to obedi-
ence, there would be no obstacle to the reconquest of
the Holy Land. Yet thougli thus embarrassed, the
Pope, in his own defence, could not but interpose his
mediation ; he commanded both parties to submit to
his supreme arbitration. Frederick yielded, but reso-
lutely limited the time ; if the arbitration was not
made before Christmas, he was prepared for war. To
the most urgent remonstrances for longer time he
turned a deaf and contemptuous ear : he peremptorily
challenged the Legate whom the Pope had appointed,
the Cardinal Bishop of Pra^neste, and refused to accept
as arbiter his declared enemy. ^ Frederick had already
begun the campaign : Verona had opened her gates ;
he had stormed Vicenza, and laid half the Nov. i, i236.
eity in ashes. He was recalled beyond the Alj)s by
the sudden insurrection of the Duke of Austria. Greg-
i Compare the letter, apud Raynakl. sub ann. 1236; more complete in
Hofler, p. 357, and 360.
■112 LATIN CHRISTIAXITY. Book X.
ory so far yielded, that in place of the obnoxious
Cardinal of Prteneste, he named as his Legates the
March, 1237. Cardinals of Ostia and of San Sabina. He
commended them with high praise to the Patriarchs of
Aquileia and of Grado, to the Archbishops of Genoa
and Ra\'enna, whom, with the suffragan and all the
people of Northern Italy, he exhorted to join in obtain-
ing the blessings of peace. But already he began to
murmur his complaints of those grievances which after-
wards darkened to such impious crimes. The Frangi-
panis were again breaking out into turbulence in
Rome : ^ it was suspected and urged that they were in
the pay of Frederick. Taxes had been levied on the
clergy in the kingdom of Naples ; they had been sum-
moned before civil tribunals ; the old materials of
certain cluu'ches had been profanely converted by the
Saracens of Nocera to the repair of their mosques.
The answer of Frederick was lofty and galling. He
denied the truth of the Pope's charges ; he appealed to
the conscience of the Pope. Gregory demanded by
what right he presumed to intrude into that awful
sanctuary.^ " Kings and princes were humbly to re-
pose themselves on the lap of priests ; Christian Em-
perors were bound to submit themselves not only to
the supreme PontiflP, but even to other bishops. The
Apostolic See was the judge of the whole world ; God
1 " Hoc anuo Petrus Frangipane, 1236, in urbe Roma pro parte Impera-
toris guerram movit contra Papam et Senatorem." — Rich. Sau Germ.
2 " Quod nequaquam incaute ad judicanda secreta conscientire no.striB . .
. . evolasses; cum regum coUa et principum videas genibus sacerdotum,
et Christiani Imperatores subdere debeant executiones suas non solum Ro-
mano Pontifici, quin etiam aVu^ pnesulibus non prseferre, nee non Dominus
sedem apostolicam, cujus judicio orbem terrarum subjicit, in occultis et
manifestis a nemine judicandam, soli suo judicio reservavit." — Greg.
Epist. 10, 253, Oct. 23, 1236, apud Raynald.
Chap. IV. BATTLE OF CORTE NUOVA. 413
had reserved to himself the sole judgment of the mani-
fest and hidden acts of the Pope. Let the Emperor
dread the fate of Uzzah, who laid his profane hands on
the ark of God." He urged Frederick to follow the
example of the great Constantine, Avho thought it ab-
solutely wicked that, where the Head of the Christian
religion had been determined by the King of Heaven,
an earthly Emperor sliould have the smallest power,
and had therefore surrendered Italy to the Apostolic
government, and chosen for himself a new residence in
Greece.^
Frederick returned from Germany victorious over
the rebellious Duke of Austria ; his son Second
Conrad had been chosen King of the Ro- on^taiy.
mans. He crossed the Alps with tln-ee thousand Ger-
man men-at-arms, besides the forces of the Ghibelline
cities : he was joined by ten thousand Saracens from
the South. His own ambassadors, Henry the Master
of the Teutonic Order and his Chancellor Peter de
Vinea, by whom he had summoned the Pope to his
aid against the enraged Lombards, had returned from
Rome without accomplishing their mission. At the
head of his army he Avould not grant au- Aug. 12.37.
dience to the Roman legates, the Cardinal Bishop of
Ostia and the Cardinal of St. Sabina, who peremp-
torily enjoined him to submit to the arbitration of
the Pope. The great battle of Corte Nuova might
seem to avenge the defeat of his ancestor Nov. 27, 1237.
Frederick Barbarossa at Legnano. The Lombard
army was discomfited with enormous loss ; the Car-
roccio of Milan, defended till nightfall, was stripped of
its banners, and abandoned to the conqueror. Fred-
1 Ibid.
414 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
erick entered Cremona, the palaces of which city
would hardly contain the captives, in a splendid ova-
tion. The Podesta of Milan, Tiepolo, son of the
Doge of Venice, was bound on the captive Carroccio ;
which was borne, as in the pomp of an Eastern poten-
tate, on an elephant, followed by a wooden tower, with
trumpeters and the Imperial standard. The pride of
Frederick at this victory was at its height ; he sup-
posed that it would prostrate at once the madness of
the rebels ; he called upon the world to rejoice at the
restoration of the Roman Empire to all its rights.^
The Carroccio was sent to Rome as a gift to the peo-
ple of the gentle city : it was deposited in the Capitol,
a significant menace to the Pope.^ But where every
city Avas a fortress, inexpugnable by the arts of war
then known, a battle in the open field did not decide
the fate of a leao-ue which included so many of the
noblest cities of Italy. Frederick had passed the
winter at Cremona ; the terror of his arms had en-
forced at least outward submission from many of the
1 See the letter in Peter cle Vinea. " Exultet jam Romani Imperii cul-
men .... mundus gaudeat universus . . . confundatur rebellis insania."
— Frederick disguised not, he boasted of the aid of his Saracens. He de-
scribes the Germans reddening their swords with blood, Pavia and Cremona
wreaking vengeance on the tyrannous Milanese, " et suas evacuaverunt
pharetras Saraceni."'
2 " Quaiido ilkim ad almae urbis populum destinavit." A marble men i-
ment of this victory was shown in 1727. — Muratori, Dissert, xxvi. t. ii. p.
491. The inscription was: —
" Ergo triumphorum urbis memor esto priorum,
Quos tibi mittebant reges qui bella gerebant."
— Francisc. Pipin. apud Muratori. — Compare the (Ghibelline) Chronicon
de Rebus in Italia gestis, discovered by M. Panizzi in the British Museum,
and printed with the Chronicon Placentinum at Paris, 1856. Quod caroc-
ciam cum ajnid Romam duxissent, domiiius papa usque ad mortem doluit.
The Pope would have prevented its admission into the city, but was over-
awed by the Imperialist party. — p. 172.
Chap. IY. • FREDEKICK MASTER OF ITALY. 415
leaguers. Almost all Piedmont, Alexandria, Turin,
Susa, and the other cities raised the Ghibelline ban-
ner. Milan, Brescia, Piacenza, Bologna, remained
alone in arms ; even they made overtures for submis-
sion. Their offers were in some respects sufficiently
humiliating ; to acknowledge themselves rebels, to sur-
render all their gold and silver, to place their banners
at the feet of the Emperor, to furnish one thousand
men for the Crusades ; but they demanded in return
a general amnesty and admission to the favor of the
Emperor, the maintenance of the liberties of the citizens
and of the cities. Frederick haughtily demanded abso-
lute and unconditional surrender. They feared, they
might well fear, Frederick's severity against rebels.
With mistimed and impolitic rigor he had treated the
captive Podesta of Milan as a rebel ; Tiepolo was sent
to Naples, and there publicly executed. The Repi;b-
lics declared that it Avas better to die by the sword than
by the halter, by famine, or by fire.^ Frederick, in the
Slammer of the next year, undertook the ^ ^ to
siege of Brescia; at the end of two months, ^^'"•i^ss.
foiled by the valor of the citizens and the skill of their
chief engineer, a Spaniard, Kalamandrino, he was
obliged to burn his besieging machines, and retire
humiliated to Padua.^ But without aid the Lombard
liberties must fall : the Emperor was master of Italy
from the Alps to the straits of Messina ; the knell of
Italian independence was rung ; the Pope a vassal at
the mercy of Frederick.
The dauntless old man rose in courage with the
danger. Temporal allies were not absolutely wanting.
Venice, dreading her own safety, and enraged at the
» 1 Eich. de San Germ. 2 ggg b_ Museum Chronicon, p. 177.
416 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
execution of her noble son, Tiepolo, sent proposals for
alliance to the Pope. The treaty was framed ; Venice
agreed to furnish 25 galleys, 300 knights, 2000 foot-
soldiers, 500 archers ; she was to obtain, as the price
of this aid, Bari and Salpi in Apulia, and all that she
could conquer in Sicily.^
The Pope wrote to the confederate cities of Lom-
bardy and Romagna, taking them formally under the
protection of the Holy See.''^ Genoa, under the same
fears as Venice, and jealous of Imperialist Pisa, was
prepared with her fleets to join the cause. During
these nine years of peace, even if the former transgres-
sions of Frederick were absolutely annulled by the
treaty and absolution of St. Germano, collisions be-
tween two parties both grasping and aggressi^'e, and
with rights the boundaries of which could not be pre-
cisely defined, had been inevitable : pretexts could be
foujid, made, or exaggerated into crimes against the
spiritual power, which would give some justification
to that power to put forth, at such a crisis, its own
peculiar weapons ; and to recur to its only arms, the
excommunication, the interdict, the absolution of sub-
jects from their allegiance. Over this power Gregory
had full command, in its employment no scruple.
On Palm Sunday, and on Thursday in Holy week,
Excommu- witli all the civil and ecclesiastical state which
March 20 to he could asscmblc around him, Gregory pro-
March 24. . . . " -^ 1,
1239. nounced excomnnuiication against the tiin-
peror ; he gave over his body to Satan for the good of
his soul, absolved all his subjects from their allegiance,
laid under interdict every place in which he might be,
degraded all ecclesiastics who should perform the ser-
1 Dandolo, 3.56. Jlarin. iv. 223. 2 Greg. Epist. apud Hahn. xviii.
Cha?. IV. GREGORY AGAINST FREDERICK. 417
vices of the Cluircli before him, or maintain any inter-
course with him ; and commanded the promulo-ation
of this sentence with the utmost solemnity ^^^ ^233
and publicity throuirhout Christendom. These ''harRcs
■^ ^ _ ~ against the
were the main articles of the impeachment ^^peror-
published some months before : — I. That in violation
of his oath, he had stirred up insurrection in Rome
against the Pope and the Cardinals. II. That he had
arrested the Cardinal of Prwneste while on the business
of the Church among the Albigenses. III. That in
the kingdom of Sicily he had kept benefices vacant to
the ruin of men's souls ; unjustly seized the goods of
churches and monasteries, levied taxes on the clergy,
imprisoned, banished, and even punished them with
death. IV. That he had not restored their lands or
goods to the Templars and Knights of St: John. V.
That he had ill-treated, plundered, and expelled from
his realm all the partisans of the Church. VI. That
lie had hindered the rebuilding of the church of Sora,
favored the Saracens, and settled them among Chris-
tians. VII. That he had seized and prevented the
nephew of the King of Tunis from proceeding to Rome
for baptism, and imprisoned Peter, Ambassador of the
King of England. VIII. That he had taken posses-
sion of Massa, Ferrara, and especially Sardinia, beino-
part of the patrimony of St. Peter. IX. That he had
thrown obstacles in the way of the recovery of the
Holy Land and the restoration of the Latin Empire in
Constantinople, and in the affairs of the Lombards re-
jected the interposition of the Pope.
Frederick was at Padua, of which his most useful
ally, Eccelin di Romano, had become Lord by all his
characteristic treachery and barbarity. There were
\ OL. V. 27
418 LATIN CHKISTIANITY. Book X-
great rejoicings and festivities on tliat Palm Sunday;
races and tournaments in honor of the Emperor. But
some few Guelfs were heard to murmur bitterly among
themselves, " This w^ill be a day of woe to F)-ederick ;
this day the Holy Father is uttering his ban against
him, and delivering him over to the devil ! " On the
arrival of the intelligence from Rome, Frederick for a
time restrained his wrath : Peter de Vinea, the great
Justiciary of the realm of Naples, pronounced in the
presence of Frederick, who wore his crown, a long ex-
cul})atory sermon to the vast assembly, on a text out of
Qvid — " Punishment when merited is to be borne with
Fredericks paticucc, but wdicu it is uudeserved, with sor-
the charg°es.° row."^ He declared, "that since the days
of Charlemagne, no Emperor had been more just,
gentle, and magnanimous, or had given so little cause
for the hostility of the Church." The Emperor him-
self rose and averred, that if the excommunication had
been spoken on just grounds, and in a lawful manner,
he would have given instant satisfaction. He could
only lament that the Pope had inflicted so severe a cen-
sure, wdthout grounds and with such precipitate haste ;
even before the excommunication he had refuted with
the same quiet arguments all these accusations. His first
reply had been in the same calm and dignified tone.^
Nov. 1238. The Pope had commissioned the Bishops of
Wurtzburg, Worms, Vercelli, and Parma to admonish
the Emperor previous to the excommunication. In
their presence, and in that of the Archbishops of Pa-
1 Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare ferencla est
Qu3B venit indigiio pcEna dolenda venit.
2 Peter de Vinea, i. 21, p. 1.56. The refutation of the charges, according
to Matthew Paris (sub ann. 1239), was anterior to the exeommunication.
Chap. IV. FREDERICK'S REPLY TO POPE'S CHARGES. 419
lermo and Messina, the Bishops of Cremona, Lodi,
Novara, and Mantua, many abbots, and some Domin-
ican and Franciscan friars, he had made to all their
charges a full and satisfactory answer, and delivered his
justification to the Bishops: — I. He had encouraged
no insurrection in Rome ; he had assisted the Pope with
men and money ; he had no concern in the new feuds.
II. He had never even dreamed of arrestino; the Car-
dinal of Pra3neste, though he might have found just
cause, since the Cardinal, acting for the Pope, had in-
flamed the Lombards to disobedience and rebellion.
III. He could give no answer to the vague and unspe-
cified charges as to the oppression of the clergy in the
realm of Naples ; and as to particular churches he
entered into long and elaborate explanations.^ IV. He
had restored all the lands to which the Templars and
Knights of St. John had just claim ; all but those
which they had unlawfully received from his enemies
during his minority ; they had been guilty of aiding
his enemies durino- the invasion of the kingdom, and
some had incurred forfeiture : their lands, in certain
cases, were assessable ; were this not so, they would
soon acquire the whole realm, and that exempt from all
taxation. V. No one was condemned as a partisan of
the Pope ; some had abandoned their estates from fear
of being prosecuted for their crimes. VI. No church
had been desecrated or destroyed in Lucera ; that of
Sora was an accident, arising out of the disobedience
of the city ; he would rebuild that, and all which had
1 See especially, iii a letter in Hofler, his justification for the refusal to re-
build the church at Sora. The city had rebelled, had been razed, church
and all, and sown with salt. Frederick had sworn that the cit}- should
never be a2;ain inhabited : why build a church for an uninhabited wilder-
ness?
420 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
fallen from ao;e. The Saracens, who lived scattered
over the whole realm, he had settled in one place, for
the security of the Christians, and to protect rather
than endano-er the faith. VII. Abdelasis had fled from
the court of the King of Tunis ; he was not a prisoner,
but living a free and pleasant life, furnished with horses,
clothes, and money by the Emperor. He had never
(he appealed to the Archbishops of Palermo and Mes-
sina) expressed any desire for baptism. Had he done
so, no one Avould have rejoiced more than the Emperor.
Peter Avas no Ambassador of the King of England.
VIII. The pretensions of the Pope to Massa and Fer-
I'ara were groundless, still more to Sardinia, his son
Enzio had married Adelasia, the heiress of that island ;
he was the rightful King. IX. The King prevents no
one from preaching the Crusade ; he only interferes
with those who, under pretence of preaching the Cru-
sade, preach rebellion against the Sovereign, or, like
John of Vicenza, usui-p civil power. As to the affairs
of Lombardy, the Pope had but interposed delays, to
the frustration of his military plans. He would will-
ingly submit to just terms ; bvit after the unmeasured
demands of the Lombards, and such manifest hostility
on the part of the Pope, it would be dangerous and
deo-radino; to submit to the unconditional arbitration of
the Pope.
The indignation of Frederick might seem to burst
out with greater fury from this short, stern suppression.
March 10. He determined boldly, resolutely, to measure
his strength, the strength of the Emperor, the King of
Sicily, so far the conqueror (notwithstanding the failure
before Brescia) of the Lombard rejiublics, against the
strength of the Popedom. The Pope had declared
Chap. IV. FREDERICK REMONSTRATES. 421
war on causes vague, false or insignificant ; the true
cause of the war, Frederick's growing power and his
successes in Lombardy, the Pope could not avow ;
Frederick would appeal to Christendom, to the world,
on the justice of his cause and the unwarranted enmity
of the Pope. He addressed strong and bitter remon-
strances to the Cardinals, to the Roman people, to all
the Sovereigns of Christendom. To the Cardinals he
had already written, though his letter had not reached
Rome before the promulgation of the excommunication,
admonishing them to moderate the hasty resentment of
the Pope. He endeavored to separate the cause of the
Pope from that of the Church ; but vengeance against
Gregory and the family of Gregory could not satisfy
the insulted dignity of the Empire ; if the authority of
the Holy See, and the weight of their venerable college,
thus burst all restraint, he must use all measures of de-
fence ; injury must be repelled with injury.^ Some of
the Cardinals had endeavored to arrest the precipitate
wrath of Gregory ; he treated their timid prudence
with scorn. To the Romans the Emperor expressed
his indignant wonder that R<mie beino; the head of the
Empire, the people, without reverence for his majesty,
ungrateful for all his munificence, had heard tamely the
blasphemies of the Roman Pontiff against the Sovereign
of Rome ; that of the whole tribe of Romulus there
was not one bold patrician, of so many thousand Roman
citizens not one, who uttered a word of remonstrance, a
word of sympathy with their insulted Lord. He called
on them to rise and to revenge the blasphemy upon t^lie
blasphemer, and not to allow him to glory in his i)re-
sumption, as if they consented to his audacity.'^ As he
1 Apud Petrum de ViiifA, i. vi.
2 " Quia ciim idem hlasphcmator noster ausus non fuisset in nostri nominis
422 LATIN "JIIRISTIAXITY. Book X.
was bound to assert the honor of Rome, so were they
to defend the dignity of the Roman Emperor.
Before all the temporal Sovereigns of the world, the
, , ,v. Emperor entered into a long vindication of all
Appeal to the X i i -r>
Princes of ]-jjg j^p^g towards the Church and the Pope ;
Christeudom. . .
April 20. i^Q appealed to their justice against the unjust
and tyrannous hierarchy. " Cast your eyes around !
lift up your ears, O sons of men, that ye may hear !
behold the universal scandal of the world, the dissen-
sions of nations, lament the utter extinction of justice !
Wickedness has gone out from the Elders of Baby-
lon, who hitherto appeared to rule the people, whilst
judgment is turned into bitterness, the fruits of jus-
tice into wormwood. Sit in judgment, ye Princes, ye
People take cognizance of our cause ; let judgment go
forth from the fiice of the Lord and your eyes be-
hold equity." The Papal excommunication had dwelt
entirely on occurrences subsequent to the peace of
St. Germano. The Emperor went back to the com-
mencement of the Po[)e's hostility : he dwelt on his
ingratitude, his causeless enmity. " He, who we hoped
thouo-ht only of things above, contemplated only heav-
enly things, dwelt only in heaven, was suddenly found
to be but a man ; even worse, by his acts of inhumanity
not only a stranger to truth, but without one feeling of
humanity." He charged the Pope with the basest du-
])licity ; ^ he had professed the firmest friendship for the
Emperor, while by his letters and his Legates he was
bla^plicmiam prorumpere, de tanta prpesumptione gloriari non possit, quod
valeutibus et volentibus Eomanis, contra nos talia perpetrasset," &c. —
Apud Petr. de Vin. i. vii. Matth. Par. 332.
1 " Asserens quod nobis omnia planissima faciebat, cujus contrarium per
nuncios et literas manifeste procurarat; prout constat testimonio plurium
nostrorum fidelium qui tunc temporis erant omnium conscii velut ex eis
quidam participes, et alii principis fectionis."
Chap. IV. FREDERICK'S APPEAL TO THE PRINCES. 423
acting the most hostile part.'^ This charge rested on
his own letters, and the testimony of his factious
accomplices. The Pope had called on the Emperor
to defy, and wage war against, the Romans on his
behalf, and at the same time sent secret letters to
Rome that this war Avas waged without his knowledge
or command, in order to excite the liatred of the Ro-
mans against the Emperor. Rome, chiefly by his power,
had been restored to the obedience of the Pope ; what
retiu'n had the Pope made? — befriending the Lomliard
rebels in every manner against their rightful Lord ! ^
No sooner had he raised a powerful army of Germans
to subdue these rebels, than the Pope inhibited their
march, alleging the general truce proclaimed for the
Crusade. The Legate, the Cardinal of Prseneste,
Avhose holy life the Pope so commended, had encour-
aged the revolt of Piacenza. Because he could find
no just cause for his excommunication, the Pope had
secretly sent letters and Legates through the Emjiire,
through the Avorld, to seduce his subjects from their
allegiance. He had promised the ambassadors of
Frederick, the Archbishop of Palermo, the Bishops
of Florence and Reggio, the Justiciary Thaddeus of
Suessa, and the Archbishop of Messina, that he Avould
send a Legate to the Emperor to urge the Lombards to
obedience ; but in the mean time he sent a Legate to
Lombardy to encourage and inflame their resistance.
1 lie brought the charge against the Pope of writing letters to the Sultan,
dissuading him from making peace, letters which he declared had fallen
into his hands.
■^ '' Audite mirabilem circumventionis modum ad depressionem nostra;
justitiie excogitatum. Duni paceni cum nobis habere velle se simularet ut
Lnmbardos ad tempus, per treugarum siifFragia, respirantes, contra nos
fortius postmodum in rebellione confirmet." — Epist. ad H. R. Angh";e.
Uymer, sub ann. 1238.
424 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
NotwitlistandincT his answer to all the charo;es against
him, which had made the Bishops of the Papal party-
blush by their completeness ; ^ notwithstanding this
unanswerable refutation, the Pope had proceeded on
Palm Sunday, and on Thursday in the Holy Week, to
excommunicate him on these charges ; this at the insti-
gation of a few Lombard Cardinals, most of the better
Cardinals, if report speaks true, remonstrating against
the act. " Be it that we had offended the Pope by
some public and singular insult, how violent and inor-
dinate these proceedings, as though, if he had not vom-
ited forth the wrath that boiled within him, he must
have burst ! We grieve from our reverence for our
Mother the Church ! Could we accept the Pope, thus
oui" avowed enemy, no equitable judge to arbitrate in
our dispute with Milan ; Milan, favored by the Pope,
though by the testimony of all religious men, swarm-
ing with heretics ? " ^ " We hold Pope Gregory to be
an unworthy Vicar of Christ, an unworthy successor
of St. Peter ; not in disrespect to his office, but of his
person, who sits in his court like a merchant weighing
out dispensations for gold, himself signing, writing the
bulls, perhaps counting the money. He has but one
real cause of enmity against me, that I refused to
marry to his niece my natural son Enzio, now King of
Sardinia. But ye, O Kings and Princes of the earth,
lament not only for us, but for the whole Church ; for
her head is sick ; her prince is like a roaring lion ; in
the midst of her sits a frantic prophet, a man of false-
1 " Quanquam de patris instabilitate confuses se filii reputarent, ac vere-
cundia capitis rubor ora perfuiideret." — p. 156.
'^ This very year Frederick renewed his remorseless edicts against the
Lombard heretics. — Feb. 22. Monument. Germ. 1 326, 7, 8.
Chap. IV. APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 425
hood, a polluted priest ! " He concludes by calling all
the princes of the world to his aid ; not that his own
forces are insufficient to repel such injuries, but that
the world may know that when one temporal pi'ince is
thus attacked the honor of all is concerned.
Another Imperial address seems designed fur a lower
class, that class whose depths were stiiTed to Appeal to the
hatred of the Emperor by the Preachers and •='"^'"""''''^'-
the Franciscans. Its strong figurative language, its
scriptural allusions, its invective against that rapacity
of the Roman See which w^as working up a sullen dis-
content even among the clergy, is addressed to all
Christendom. Some passages must illustrate this
strange controversy. " The Chief Priests and the
Pharisees have met in Council against their Lord,
against the Roman Emperor. ' What shall we do, say
they, for this man is triumphing over all his enemies ? '
If we let him alone, he will subdue the glory of the
Lombards : and, like another Caesar, he will not delay
to take away our place and destroy our nation. He
will hire out the vineyard of the Lord to other laborers,
and condemn us without trial, and bring us to ruin."
" Let us not await the fulfilment of these words of
our Lord, but strike him quickly, say they, with our
tongues ; let our arrow^s be no more concealed, but go
forth ; so go forth as to strike, so strike as to wound ;
so be he wounded as to fall before us, so fall as never
to rise again ; and then will he see what profit he has
in his dreams." Thus speak the Pharisees who sit in
the seat of Moses. ..." This father of fathers,
who is called the servant of servants, shutting out all
justice, is become a deaf adder ; refuses to hear the
vindication of the King of the Romans ; hurls male-
426 LATIN CHRISTLVNITY.' Book X.
diction into the world as a stone is hurled from a sling ;
and sternly, and heedless of all consequences, exclaims,
' What I have written, I have written.' "
In better keeping Frederick alludes to the words of
our Lord to his disciples after his resurrection, " That
Master of Masters said not, ' Take arms and shield, the
arrow, and the sword ; ' but, ' Peace be with you.' "
On the avarice of the Pope he is inexhaustible. " But
thou having nothing, but possessing all things, art ever
seeking what thou mayest devour and swallow up ; the
whole world cannot glut the rapacity of thy maw, for
the whole world suflficeth thee not. The Apostle Peter,
by the Beautiful Gate, said to the lame man, ' I have
neither silver nor gold ; ' but thou, if thy heap of
money, which thou adorest, begins to dwindle, imme-
diately beginnest to limp with the lame man, seeking
anxiously what is of this world.^ . . . Let our
Mother Church then bewail that the shepherd of the
flock is become a ravening wolf, eating the fatlings of
the flock ; neither binding up the broken, nor bringing
the wanderer home to the fold ; but a lover of schism,
the head and author of offence, the father of deceit ;
ao-ainst the rights and honor of the Roman King he
protects heretics, the enemies of God and of all the
faithful in Christ ; having cast aside all fear of God, all
respect of man. But that he may better conceal the
malice of his heart, he cherishes and protects these ene-
mies of the Cross and of the faith, under a certain sem-
blance of piety, saying that he only aids the Lombards
lest tlie Emperor should slay them, and should judge
more rigorously than his justice requires. But this fox-
like craft will not deceive the skilful hunter. . . .
1 In one place he calls him " Gregorius gregis disgregatur potius."
Chap. IV. GREGORY'S REPLY. 427
O grief ! rarely dost thou expend the vast treasures of
the Church on the poor ! But, as Anagni bears wit-
ness, thou hast commanded a wonderfol mansion, as it
were the Palace of the Sun, to be built, forgetful of
Peter, who long had nothing but his net ; and of Jeru-
salem, which lies the servant of dogs, tributary to the
Saracens ; ' All power is from God,' writes the Apos-
tle ; ' whoso resists the power resists the authority of
God.' Either receive, then, into the bosom of the
Church her elder son,' who without guile incessantly
demands pardon ; otherwise, the strong lion, who feigns
sleep, with his terrible roar will draw all the fat bulls
from the ends of the earth, will plant justice, take the
rule over the Church, plucking up and destroying the
horns of the proud ! " '^
The Pope, in his long and elaborate reply, exceeded
even the violence of this fierce Philippic. It Pope's reply,
is thus that the Father of the Faithful commences his
manifesto against the Emperor in the words of the
Apocalypse : " Out of the sea is a beast arisen, whose
name is all over written ' Blasphemy ; ' he has the feet
of a bear, the jaws of a ravening lion, the mottled
limbs of the panther. He opens his mouth to blas-
])heme the name of God ; and shoots his poisoned
arrows against the tabernacle of the Lord, and the
saints that dwell therein. . . . Already has he
laid his secret ambush against the Church, he openly
sets up the battering engines of the Islnnaelites ; builds
schools for the perdition of souls,^ lifts himself up
against Christ the Redeemer of man, endeavoring to
1 " Filium singularem."
2 Peter de Vinea, i. 1.
3 Gregory no doubt alludes to the universities founded by Frederick.
428 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
efface tlie tablets of his testament Avitli the pen of he-
retical wickedness. Cease to wonder that he has drawn
against us the dagger of calumny, for he has risen up
to extirpate from the earth the name of the Lord.
Rather, to repel his lies by the simple truth, to refute
his sophisms by the arguments of holiness, we exorcise
the head, the body, the extremities of this beast, who
is no other than the Emperor Frederick."
Then follows a full account of the whole of Fred-
erick's former contest with Gregory, in which the
Emperor is treated throughout as an immeasured liar.
" This shameless artisan of falsehood lies when he says
that I was of old his friend." The history of the prep-
aration for the Crusade, and the Crusade is related
with the blackest calumny. To Frederick is attributed
the death of the Crusaders at Brundusinm, and the
poisoning of the Landgrave of Thuringia, insinuated as
the general belief. The suppression of heresy in Lom-
bardy could not be intrusted to one himself tainted by
heresy. The insurrections in Lombardy are attributed
to the Empei'or's want of clemency ; the oppressions
of the Church are become the most wanton and bar-
barous cruelties ; " the dwellings of Christians are
pulled down to build the walls of Babylon ; churches
are destroyed that edifices may be built where divine
honors are offered to Mohammed." The kingdom of
Sicily, so declares the Pope, is reduced to the utmost
disti'ess.^ By his unexampled cruelties, barons, knights,
1 Read the Canonico Gregorio's sensible account of the taxation of Sicily
by Frederick II. " Occupato di continuo nelle guerre Italiane, intento
a reprimere nei suoi stati i movimenti dei faziosi, e della iinphnabile ira dei
suoi nemici oppresso e dai Roniani Pontefici sempre consternato, ebbe cosi
varia e travcgliata fortuna, e fu in tali angustie di continuo redutto, ed ai
suoi moiti e pressanti e sempre nuovi bisogni piii non trovo gli ordinari
Chap. IV. GUEGOUYS REPLY. 429
and otliers have been degraded to the state and condi-
tion of slaves ; ah'eady the greater part of the inhabi-
tants liave nothing to He upon but liard straw, nothing to
cover tlieir nakedness but the coarsest clothes ; nothing
to appease their hunger but a little millet bread. The
charge of dilapidation of the Papal revenues, of venal
avarice, the Pope repels with indignation : " I, who by
God's grace have greatly increased the patrimony of
the Church. He falsely asserts that I was enraged at
his refusing liis consent to the marriage of my niece
with his natural son.^ He lies more impudently when
he says that I have in return pledged my faith to the
Lonibartls against the Empire." Throughout the whole
document there is so much of the wild exaggeration of
passion, and at the same time so much art in the dress-
ing out of facts ; such an absence of the grave majesty
of religion and the calm simplicity of truth, as to be
surprising even Avhen the provocations of Frederick's
addresses are taken into consideration. But the heavi-
est charge was reserved for the close. " In truth this
pestilent King maintains, to use his own words, that
the world has been deceived by three impos- charge about
. "^inTi the three im-
tors;^ Jesus Christ, Moses, and Mahomet : posters.
proventi della corona, e le antiche rendite del regno sufficiente. Indi av-
venne, che da quel tempo in poi fu constretto ad ordinare i pii; sottili modi,
perche accrescesce le pubbliche entrate, e nuovi contribuzioni, comccche
fosse, si procacciasse : anzi le cose in processo di tempo aspramente e per
molta irritaziou di animo si exacerbarono." — t. iii. p. 110. No doubt, as
hi-i finances became more and inore exhausted by war, the burdens must
have been heavier. But the flourishing state of Sicilian commerce and ag-
riculture during the peaceful period but now elapsed, confutes the vjruient
accusation of the Pope.
1 This is not strictly a denial of the fact of such proposals, or at least of
advances by the Pope. This charge of early nepotism is curious.
2 A book was said to have existed at this time, with this title; it has
never been discovered. I have seen a vulgar production with the title, ot
modern manufacture-
430 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Duuk X.
that two of these died in honor, the third was hanged
on a tree. Even more, he has asserted distinctly and
loudly that those are fools who aver that God, the Om-
nipotent Creator of the world, was born of a Virgin."
Such was the blasphemy of which the Pope ar-
raigned the Emperor before Christendom. Popular
rumor had scattered abroad through the jealousy of the
active priesthood, and still more through the wandering
Friars, many other sayings of Frederick equally revolt-
ing to the feelings of the age ; not merely that which
contrasted the fertility of his beloved Sicily with the
Holy Land, but sayings which were especially scornful
as to the presence of Christ in the sacrament. When he
saw the host carried to a sick person, he is accused of
saying, "How long will this mummery last?"^ When
a Saracen prince was present at the mass, he asked
what was in the monstrance : " The people fable that
it is our God." Passing once through a corn-field, he
said, " How many Gods might be made out of this
corn ? " " If the princes of the world would stand by
him he would easily make for all mankind a better
faith and better rule of life." ^
Frederick was not unconscious of the perilous Avork-
ings of these direct and indirect accusations upon the
popular mind. He hastened to repel them ; and to
turn the language of the Apocalypse against his ac-
cuser. He thus addressed the bishops of Christendom.
Frederick's After declaring that God had created two
rejoinder. gveat lights for the guidance of mankind, the
Priesthood and the Empire : — " He, in name only
1 " Quam diu durabit Triiffa istaV "
'•^ Peter de Vinea, i. 31. He was said also to have laid down the maxim,
" Homo nihil aliud debet credere, nisi quod potest vi et ratione natura; pro-
bare." — Apud Raynald.
Chap. IV. STATE OF THE PUBLIC MIXD. 431
Pope, has called us the beast that arose out of the sea,
whose name was Blasphemy, spotted as the panther.
We again aver that he is the beast of whom it is writ-
ten, ' And there went out another horse that was red,
and power was given to him that sat thereon to take
away peace from the earth, that the living should slay-
each other.' For from the time of his accession this
Father, not of mercies but of discord, not of consola-
tion but of desolation, has plunged the whole world
in bitterness. If we rightly interpret the words, he is
the great anti-Christ, who has deceived the whole world,
the anti-Christ of whom he declares us the forerunner.
He is a second Balaam hired by money to curse us ; the
prince of the princes of darkness who have abused the
propliecies. He is the angel who issued from the abyss
having the vials full of wormwood to waste earth and
heaven." The Emperor disclaims in the most emphatic
terms the speech about the three impostors; rehearses
his creed, especially concerning the Incarnation, in the
orthodox words ; expresses the most reverential respect
for Moses : " As to Mahomet, we have always main-
tained that his body is suspended in the air, possessed
by devils, his soul tormented in hell, because his works
were works of darkness and contrary to the laws of the
Most High." The address closed with an appeal to
the sounder wisdom of the Prelates, and significant
threats of the terrors of his vengeance.
The effect of this war of proclamations, addressed,
only with a separate superscription, to every July i.
King in Christendom, circulated in every kingdom,
was to fill the hearts of the faithful with terror, amaze-
ment, and perplexity. Those who had espoused neither
the party of the Emperor nor of the Pope fluctuated
432 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
in painful doubt. The avarice of the Roman See had
ahenated to a great extent the devotion of mankind,
otherwise the letter of the Pope w^ould have exasper-
Pubiic ated the world to madness ; they would have
opinion in . . . , . . . ,
Christendom, riseii ui One Wide insurrection against the
declared adversary of the Church, as the enemy of
Christ. "But alas ! " so writes a contemporary his-
torian, " many sons of the Church separated them-
selves from their father the Pope, and joined the
Emperor, well knowing the inexorable hatred between
the Pope and the Emperor, and that from that hatred
sprung these fierce, indecent and untrustworthy invec-
tives. The Pope, some said, pretends that from his
love to Frederick he had contributed to elevate him to
the Empire, and reproaches him with ingratitude. But
it is notorious that this was entirely out of hatred to
Otho, ^vhom the Pope persecuted to death for asserting
the interests of the Empire, as Frederick now asserts
them. Frederick fought the battle of the Church in
Palestine, which is under greater obHgation to him
than he to the Church. The whole Western Church,
especially the monasteries, are every day ground by the
extortions of the Romans ; they have never suffered
any injustice from the Emperor. The people subjoined,
' What means this ? A short time ago the Pope ac-
cused the Emperor of being more attached to Moham-
medanism than to Christianity, now he is accused of
calling Mohammed an impostor. He speaks in his let-
ters in the most Catholic terms. He attacks the person
of the Pope, not the Papal authority. We do not be-
lieve that he has ever avowed heretical or profane
oi)inions ; at all events he has never let loose upon us
usurers and plunderers of our revenues.' " ^
1 Matt. Paris, sub aim. 1239.
Chap. IV. ENGLAND. 433
This was written in an English monastery. In Eno--
land as most heavily oppressed, there was the strono-est
discontent. The feeble Henry HI., thonMi brother-
in-law of the Emperor, trembled Ijefore the faintest
whisper of Papal authority. But the nobles, even the
Churchmen, began to betray their Teutonic indepen-
dence. Robert Twenge, the Yorkshire knioht, the
ringleader of the insnrrection against the Italian in-
truders into the English benefices, ventured to Rome,
not to throw himself at the Pope's feet and to entreat his
pardon, but Avith a bold respectful letter from the Earls
of Chester, Winchester, and other nobles, remonstrat-
ing against the invasion of their rights of patronage.
Gregory was compelled to condescend to a more mod-
erate tone ; he renounced all intention of usurpation on
the rights of the barons. Robert Twenge received the
acknowledgment of his right to present to the church
of Linton. All the Prelates of the realm, assembled at
London, disdainfully rejected the claim made for proc-
urations for the Papal Legate Otho, whom two years
before they had allowed to sit as Dictator of the
Church in the council of London.^ " The greedy ava-
rice of Rome," they said, " has exhausted the English
church ; it will not give it even breathing time ; we
can submit to no further exactions. What advantao-e
have we from the visitation of this Legate ? Let him
that sent him here uninvited by the native clergy,
maintain him as lono; as he remains here." The Leo--
ate, finding the Prelates obstinate, extorted a laroe sum
for his procurations from the monasteries.
The Emperor highly resented the publication of the
sentence of excommunication in the realm of the
1 Wilkins, Concilia, 1237. Compare page 318.
VOL. V. 28
434 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
brother of his Empress Isabella. He sent a haughty
message,^ expostulating with the King for permitting
this insult upon his honor ; he demanded the dismissal
of the Legate, no less the enemy of the kingdom of
England than his own ; ^ the Legate who was exacting
money from the whole realm to glut the avarice of the
Pope, and to maintain the Papal arms against the Em-
peror. Henry HI. sent a feeble request to Rome, im-
ploring the Pope to act with greater mildness to Fred-
erick ; the Pope treated the message with sovereign
contempt. Nor did the Legate behave with less inso-
lent disdain to the King. Henry advised him to
quit the kingdom ; " You invited me here, find me
a safe-conduct back." In the mean time he proceeded
ao-ain to levy his own procurations, to sell (so low was
the Pope reduced), by Gregory's own orders, dispensa-
tions to those who had taken on them vows to proceed
to the Holy Land. At length, at a council held at
Reading, he demanded a fifth of all the revenues of the
English clergy, in the name of the Pope to assist him
in his holy war against the Emperor. Edmund Rich
the Primate yielded to the demand, and was followed by
others of the bishops.-^ But Edmund, worn out with age
and disgust, abandoned his see, withdrew into France,
1 Letters to the Barons of England (Boehmer, Oct. 29, 1239), Rymer,
1238? To the King, March 16, 1240. Matt. Paris, 1239.
2 Henry, before the declaration of the Pope against the Emperor, had
sent a small force, under Henry de Turberville and the Bishop Elect of Va-
lence, to aid Frederick against the insurgent Lombards. The armj- was
accompanied by a citizen and a clerk of London, John Mansel and W.
Hardel, with money. — Paris, sub ann. 1238. Matt. West. The Pope
broke out into fury against the King.
3 Edmund had aspired to be a second Becket; he had raised a quarrel
with the King on the nomination to the benefices; but feebly supported by
Gregory in his distress, he recoiled from the contest.
Chai'. IV. PAPAL EX'rORTIOX. 435
and in the same monastery of Pontigny, imitated the
austerities and prayers, as he could not imitate the ter-
rors, of his great predecessor Becket. The lower
clergy were more impatient of the Papal demands. A
crafty agent of the Pope, Pietro Rosso ^ (Peter the
Red), travelled about all the monasteries extortino-
money ; he falsely declared that all the bishops, and
many of the higher abbots, had eagerly paid their con-
tributions. But he exacted from them, as if from the
Pope himself, a promise to keep his assessment secret
for a year. The abbots appealed to the King, who
treated them with ntter disdain. He offered one of his
castles to the Legate and Peter the Red, to imprison
two of the appellants, the Abbots of St. Edraundsbury
and of Beaulieu. At Northampton the Legate and
Peter again assembled the bishops, and demanded the
fifth fi'om all the possessions of the Church. The
bishops declared that they must consult their arch-
deacons. The clergy refused altogether this new levy ;
they would not contribute to a fund raised to shed
Christian blood. The rectors of Berkshire were more
bold ; their answer has a singular tone of fearless Eng-
lish freedom ; " they would not submit to contribute
to funds raised against the Emperor as if he were a
heretic ; though excommunicated he had not been con-
demned by the judgment of the Church ; even if he
does occupy the patrimony of the Chiirch, the Church
does not emjiloy the secular arm against heretics. The
Church of Rome has its own patrimony, it has no right
to tax the churches of other nations. The Pope has
the general care over all churches, but no property in
their estates. The Lord said to Peter, ' What you
1 De Rubeis.
436 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; ' not ' What
you exact on earth shall be exacted in heaven.' The
revenues of the Church were assigned to peculiar
uses, for the relief of the poor, not for maintenance of
war, especially among Christians. Popes, even when
they were exiles and the Church of England was at its
Aiisaiuts, wealthiest, had made no such demands." Yet
^^^' partly by sowing discord among his adversa-
ries, partly by flattery, partly by menace, the Legate
continued, to the great indignation of the Emperor, to
levy large sums for the Papal Crusade in the dominions
of his brother-in-law.^
In France Pope Gregory attempted to play a loftier
Offer of im- g^M^^ by an appeal to the ambition of the
toRoberTo? TOJ^^ house ; he would raise up a new French
France. Pepin or Charlemagne to the rescue of the
endangered Papacy. He sent ambassadors to the
court of St. Louis with this message : — " After ma-
ture deliberation with our brethi'en the Cardinals we
have deposed from the imperial throne the reigning
Emperor Frederick ; we have chosen in his [)lace
Robert, brother of the King of France. Delay not
to accept this dignity, for the attainment of which
we offer all our treasures, and all our aid." The
Pope could hardly expect the severe rebuke in which
the pious King of France couched his refusal of this
tempting offer. " Whence this pride and audacily of
the Pope, which thus presumes to disinherit and depose
a King who has no superior, nor even an equal, among
Christians ; a King neither convicted by others, nor by
his own confession, of the crimes laid to his charge ?
Even if those crimes were proved, no power could de-
1 M. Paris, sub ami. 1240.
Chap. IV. E:\rPIRE OFFERED TO ROBERT OF FRANCE. 437
pose liiiii but a general council. On his transgressions
the judgment of his enemies is of no weight, and his
deadliest enemy is the Pope. To us he has not only
thus far appeared guiltless, he has been a good neigh-
bor ; we see no cause for suspicion either of his worldly
loyalty, or his Catholic faith. This we know, that he
has fought valiantly for our Lord Jesus Christ both by
sea and land. So much religion we have not found in
the Pope, who endeavored to confound and wickedly
supplant him in his absence, while he was engaged in
the cause of God." ^ The nobles of France did more,
they sent ambassadors to Frederick to inform him of the
Pope's proceedings, and to demand account of his faith.
Frederick was moved by this noble conduct. He sol-
emnly protested his orthodox belief. " May Jesus
Christ grant that I never depart from the faith of my
magnanimous ancestors, to follow the ways of perdition.
The Lord judge between me and the man who has
thus defamed me before the world." He lifted his
hands to heaven, and said in a passion of tears : " The
God of vengeance recompense him as he deserves.
If," he added, " you are prepared to war against me, I
will defend myself to the utmost of my power." " God
forbid," said the ambassadors, " that we should wage
war on any Christian without just cause. To be the
brother of the King of France is sufficient honor for the
noble Robert."
In Germany the attempt of the Pope to dethrone the
Emperor awoke even stronger indignation. Two princes
to whom Gregory made secret overtures refused the
perilous honor. An appeal to the Prelates of the Em-
pire was met even by the most respectful with earnest
1 Paris, sub aim. 1239.
438 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
exliortations to peace. In one address tliey declared
the universal opinion that the Avhole quari'el arose out
of the unjustifiable support given by the Pope to the
Milanese rebels ; and they appealed to the continued
residence of the Papal Legate, Gregory of Monte
Longo, in Milan as manifesting the Pope's undeniable
concern in that obstinate revolt.^ Popular German
poetry denounced the Pope as the favored of the Lom-
bard heretics, who had made him drunk with their
gold.^ Gregory himself bitterly complains " that the
German princes and prelates still adhered to Frederick,
the oppressor, the worse than assassin, who imprisons
them, places them under the ban of the Empire, even
puts them to death. Nevertheless they despise the
Papal anathema, and maintain his cause." ^ Gregory
was not fortunate or not wise in the choice of his par-
tisans. One of those partisans, Rainer of St. Quentin,
presumed to summon the German prelates to answer at
Paris for their disloyal conduct to the Pope. The
Pope had invested Albert von Beham Archdeacon of
Albert of Passau, a violent and dissolute man, with full
Beham. powcr ; lic uscd it to threaten bishops and
even archbishops, he dared to utter sentences of excom-
munication against them. He alarmed the Duke of
Bavaria into the expression of a rash desire that they
had another Emperor. It was on Otho of Bavaria
that Albert strove to work with all the terrors of dele-
1 Apud Hahn. Monument, t. i. p. 234. " Testimonium generalis opinionis
quod in favorem Mediolanensium, et suorum sequacium incessentis taliter
in eum .... quod G. de Monte Longo legatus vester, apud Mediolanen-
ses continuam moram traliens, fideles imperii modis omnibus, quibus potest,
a fide et devotione debita nititur revocare."
2 See the quotation from Bruder Weinher, the Minnesinger, in Gieseler.
3 Dumont apud Von Raumer.
Chap. IV. ALBERT VON BEHAM. 439
o'ated papal power. There was a dispute between
the Archbishop of Meiitz and Otho concerning the
convent of Laurisheini. Albert as Papal Legate sum-
moned the Primate to appear at Heidelberg. The
archbishop not appearing was declared contumac-ious ;
an interdict was laid on Mentz. In another quarrel of
Otho with the Bishop of Freisingen, tlie imperialist
judges awarded a heavy fine against Otho. Von Be-
ham, irritated by songs in the streets, " The Pope is
o'oing down, the Emperor going up,"' ^ rescinded the
decree on the Pope's authority, and commanded the
institution of a new suit. Von Beham ordered the
Archbishop of Saltzburg and the Bishop of Passau to
excommunicate Frederick of Austria for his adherence
to the Emperor ; summoned a council at Landshut ;
placed Siegfried Bishop of Ratisbon, the Chancellor of
the Empire, under tlie ban ; threatened to a.d. 1240.
summon the Archbishop of Saltzburg and the Bishop
to arraign them under processes of treason ; " He
would pluck their mitres from their heads." The
Bisho}) of Passau, in his resentment, threatened to
arm his men in a Crusade against Albert von Beham.
Albert did not confine himself to Bavaria, he threat-
ened the Bishops of Augsburg, Wurtzburg, Eichstadt,
with the same haughty insolence. The consequence
of all this contempt thus thrown on the greatest prel-
ates was, that the imperialists everywhere gained cour-
age. The Emperor, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the
Marquis of Meissen, Frederick of Austria, treated the
excommunication as a vulgar ghost, an old wives' tale.^
1 " Riiit pars Papalis, privvaluit Iinperialis."
2 " Ut tremenduni olim cxcominunicationii* nomen, non mas,^is quam
conpitaleiii larvam, aut mitriciilarum nseuias metuerent, probrosum rati
4-1:0 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
But the great prelates did not disguise their wrath ;
their dishke and contempt for Von Beham was ex-
tended to his master. " Let this Roman priest," said
Conrad Bishop of Freisingen, " feed his own Italians ;
we who are set by God as dogs to watch our own folds,
will keep off all wolves in sheep's clothing." Eberhard
Archbishop of Saltzburg not only applied the same
ionominious term to the Pope, but struck boldly at the
whole edifice of the Papal power ; we seem to hear a
premature Luther. He describes the wars, the slaugh-
ters, the seditions, caused by these Roman Flamens, for
their own ambitious and rapacious ends. '' Hilde-
brand, one hundred and seventy years ago, under the
semblance of religion, laid the foundations of Anti-
christ. He who is the servant of servants would be
the Lord of Lords. . . . This accursed man, whom
men are wont to call Antichrist, on whose contumelious
forehead is written, ' I am God, I cainiot err,' sits in
the temple of God and pretends to universal domin-
ion." ^ Frederick himself addressed a new proclama-
tion to the princes of Germany. Its object was to
separate the interests of the Church from those of the
cruda militarium honiinum pectora capi, angique religionibus, qua< sacrifi-
culi ut vanissimas superstitiones despicerent." — Brunner, xii., quoted in
the preface to the curious publication of Hofler, "Albert von Beham,"
Stuttgard, 1847. Frederick of Austria held a grave assembly of Teutonic
Knights, Templars, and Hospitallers, three abbots, five myst*. These
'• Alberti impudentia irrisa; exsibilati qui huie misero nundinatori operam
pra-starent cujus merces fumosque prater Bohemum Regem, et Bavariie
Ducem nemo astimaret." — Ibid. " Neque deerant inter sacrificulos scur-
ra; qui omnia Alberti fulmina, negarent se vel una piaculari faba procura-
tos, p. xix." Albert was in poverty and disgrace about the time of Greg-
ory's death, May 6, 1241. — Hdfler, p. -30.
1 Aventinus, Annal. Brunner doubts the authenticity of this speech of
the Archbishop of Saltzburg. It rests on the somewh;it doubtful authority
of Aventinus. It sounds rather of a later date.
Chap. IV. PROCLAMATION OF FREDERICK. 441
Pope ; those of the Bishop of Rome from Gregory.
" Since his ancestors the Ciesars had lavished wealth
and dignity on the Popes, they had become the Em-
peror's most implacable enemies. Because I will not
recognize his sole unlimited power and honor hiin more
than God, he, Antichrist himself, brands me, the t; uest
friend of the Church, as a heretic. Who can wish
more than I that the Christian community should
resume its majesty, simplicity, and peace ? but this
cannot be, until the fundamental evil, the ambition, the
pride, and prodigality of the Bishop of Rome, be
rooted up. I am no enemy of the priesthood ; I honor
the priest, the humblest priest, as a father, if he will
keep aloof from secular affairs. The Pope cries out
that I would root out Christianity with force and by
the sword. Folly ! as if the kingdom of God could be
rooted out by force and by the sword ; it is by evil
lusts, by avarice and rapacity, that it is weakened, pol-
luted, corrupted. Against these evils it is my mission
of God to contend with the sword. I will give back
to the sheep their shepherd, to the people their bishop,
to the world its spiritual father. I will tear the mask
from the face of this wolfish tyrant, and force him to
lay aside worldly affairs and earthly pomp, and tread
in the holy footsteps of Christ." ^
On the other hand, the Pope had now a foi'ce work-
ing in every realm of Christendom, on every class of
mankind, down to the very lowest, Avith almost irresist-
ible power. The hierarchical religion of the age, the
Papal religion, witli all its congenial imaginativeness,
its burning and unquestioning faith, its superstitions,
1 Frederick wrote to Otho of Bavaria (Oct. 4, 12-10) to expel Albert von
Beham from his dominions. — Aventin. Ann. Boior. v. 3, 5.
442 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
was kept up in all its intensity by the preachers and
the mendicant friars. Never did great man so hastily
commit himself to so unwise a determination as Inno-
cent III., that no new Orders should be admitted into
that Church Avhich has maintained its power by the
constant succession of new Orders. Never was his
greatness shown more than by his quick perception and
total repudiation of that error. Gregory IX. might
indeed have more extensive experience of the use of
these new allies : on them he lavished his utmost favor ;
he had canonized both St. Dominic and St. Francis
Friars witli extraordinary pomp ; he intrusted the
May 6, 1241. jyiost important aflPairs to their disciples. The
Dominicans, and still more the Franciscans, showed at
once the wisdom of the Pope's conduct and their own
oTatitude by the most steadfast attachment to the Papal
cause. They were the real dangerous enemies of Fred-
erick in all lands. They were in kings' courts ; the
courtiers looked on them with jealousy, but wei'e
obliged to give them place ; they were in the humblest
and most retired villages. No danger could apj)al, no
labors fatigue their incessant activity. The first act of
Noy. 1240. Frederick was to expel, imprison, or take
measures of precaution against those of the clergy who
were avowed or suspected partisans of the Pope. The
friars had the perilous distinction of being cast forth in
a body fi'om the realm, and forbidden under the sever-
est penalties to violate its borders.^ In every Guelfic
city they openly, in every Ghibelline city, if they dared
not openly, they secretly preached the crusade against
1 " Capitula edita sunt, in primis ut Fratres Prsdicatores et Minores, qui
sunt oriundi de ten-is infidelium Lombardiaj expellantur de rejfno." —
Rich, de San Germ. Gregory asserts tliat one Friar Minor was burned. —
Greg. Bull, apud Raynald. p. 220.
Chap. IV. JOHN OF VICENZA. 443
the Emperor.^ Milan, chiefly througli their preaching,
redeemed herself from the charge of connivance at the
progress of heresy, by a tremendous holocaust of vic-
tims, burned without mercy. The career of John of
Vicenza had terminated before the last strife ; ^ but
John of Vicenza was the type of the friar preachers in
their height of influence ; tliat power cannot be under-
stood without some such example ; and though there
misht be but one John of Vicenza, there were hun-
dreds working, if with less authority, conspiring to the
same end, and swaying with their conjoint force the
popular mind.
Assuredly, of those extraordinary men who from time
to time have appeared in Italy, and by their j^^^ ^j.
passionate religious eloquence seized and for a ^^'^'^"^•
time bound down the fervent Italian mind, not the least
extraordinary was Brother John (Fra Giovanni), of a
noble house in Vicenza. He became a friar preacher :
he appeared in Bologna. Before long, not only did the
populace crowd in countless multitudes to his pulpit ;
the authorities, with their gonfalons and crosses, stood
around him in mute and submissive homage. In a
short time he preached down every feud in the city, in
the district, in the county of Bologna. The women
threw aside their ribbons, their flowers — their modest
heads were shrouded in a veil. It was believed that
he wrought daily miracles.^ Under his care the body
1 It is, however, very remarkable that even now the second Great Master
of the Franciscans, expelled or having revolted from his Order, Brother
Elias, a most popular preacher, was on the side of Frederick.
2 There is an allusion to John of Vicenza in a letter of Frederick. —
Hofler, p. 363.
3 But, says an incredulous writer, " Dicevasi ancora ch' egli curasse ogni
malattia, e che cacciasse i demoni; ma io non potei vedere alcuno da lui
liberato, bench^ pure usassi ogui mezzo per vederlo; ne potei parlare con
444 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
of St. Dominic was translated to its final resting-place
with the utmost pomp. It was said, but said by un-
friendly voices, that he boasted of personal conversa-
tion with Christ Jesus, with the Virgin Mary, and with
the angels. The fi'iar preachers gained above twenty
thousand marks of silver from the prodigal munificence
of his admirers. He ruled Bologna with despotic sway ;
released criminals ; the Podesta stood awed before him ;
the envious Franciscans alone (their envy proves his
power) denied his miracles, and made profane and buf-
foonish verses against the eloquent Dominican. ^
But the limits of Bologna and her territory were too
narrow for the holy ambition, for the wonderful powers
of the great preacher. He made a progress through
Lombardy. Lombardy was then distracted by fierce
wars — city against city ; in every city faction against
faction. Wherever John appeared was peace. Padua
advanced with her carroccio to Monselice to escort him
into the city. Treviso, Feltre, Belluno, Vicenza, Ve-
rona, Mantua, Brescia, heard his magic words, and
reconciled their feuds. On the shores of the Adige,
August 28 about three miles from Verona, assembled the
1233. whole of Lombardy, to proclaim and to swear
to a solemn act of peace. Verona, Mantua, Brescia,
Padua, Vicenza, came with their carroccios ; from Tre-
alcuno che affirmasse con sicurezza di aver veduto qualche miracolo da lui
operate." — Salimbeni.
1 " Et Jiihannes Johannisat
Et saltando choraizat:
Modo salta, modo salta,
Qui coelorum petis alta.
Saltat iste, saltat ille,
Resultant cohortes mille ;
Saltat chorus Dominarum,
Saltat Dux Venetiarum."
— from Salimbeni, Von Raumer, iii. p. 656.
Chap. IV. WAR. 445
viso, Venice, Ferrara, Bologna, thronged nvimberless
votaries of peace. The Bishops of Verona, Brescia,
Mantua, Bologna, Modena, Reggio, Treviso, Vicenza,
Padua, gave the sanction of their sacred presence. The
Podestas of Bologna, Treviso, Padua, Vicenza, Brescia,
Ferrara, appeared, and other lords of note, the patri-
arch of Aquileia, the Marquis of Este. It was asserted
that 400,000 persons stood around. John of Vicenza
ascended a stage sixty feet high ; it was said that his ser-
mon on the valedictory words of the Lord, " JNIy peace
I leave with you," was distinctly heard, wafted or
echoed by preternatural powers to every ear.^ The
terms of a general peace were read, and assented to by
one universal and prolonged acclamation. Among
these was the marriage of Rinaldo, son of the Marquis
of Este, Avith Adelaide daughter of Alberic, brother
of Eccelin di Romano. This was the gauge of univer-
sal amity ; these two great houses would set the exam-
ple of holy peace. Men rushed into each other's arms ;
the kiss of peace was interchanged by the deadliest
enemies, amid acclamations which seemed as if they
would never cease.
But the waters of the Po rise not with more sudden
and overwhelming force, ebb not with greater rapidity,
than the religious passions of the Italians, esped'ally
the passion for peace and concord. John of Vicenza
split on the rock fatal always to the powerful spiritual
demagogues, even the noblest demagogues, of Italy.
He became a politician. He retired to his native Vi-
cenza ; entered into the Council, aspired to be Lord
1 Even the Franciscans were carried away by the enthusiasm ; they
preached upon his miracles; they averred that he had in one day raised
ten dead bodies to life.
446 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
and Count ; all bowed before him. He proceeded
to examine and reform the statutes of the city. He
passed to Verona, demanded and obtained sovereign
power ; introduced the Count Boniface, received hos-
tages for mutual peace from the conflicting parties ; he
took possession of some of the neighboring castles ;
waged fierce war with heretics ; burned sixty males
and females of some of the noble families ; published
laws. Vicenza became jealous of Verona ; Padua
leagued with Vicenza to throw off the yoke. The
Preacher, at the head of an anned force, appeared at
the gates, demanded the unconditional surrender of the
walls, towers, strongholds of the city. He Avas re-
pelled, discomfited, by the troops of Padua and Vicen-
za, taken, and cast into prison.
He was released by the intercession of Pope Greg-
ory IX. ^ The peace of Lombardy was then accordant
to the Papal policy, because it Avas embarrassing to
Frederick II. He returned to Verona : but the spell
of his power was broken. He retired to Bologna, to
obscurity. Bologna even mocked his former miracles.
Florence reftised to receive him : " Their city was
populous enough ; they had no room for the dead
wliich he would raise." ^
Christendom awaited in intense anxiety the issue of
this war — a war which, according to the declaration
1 It is said that he was afterwards commissioned by Innocent IV. to pro-
claim the Papal absolution in Vicenza, from excommunication incurred by
the succors furnished bj' that city to Frederick II. and Eccelin di Romano.
Tiraboschi has collected all the authorities on John of Bologna with his
usual industry. — Storia della Lit. Ital. vol. xiv. p. 2.
2 See in Von Raumer how the Grammarian Buoncompagni assembled the
people to see him fly, on wings which he had prepared. After keeping
them some time in suspense, he coolly said, " This is a miracle after the
fashion of John of Vicenza." — Von Raumer, from Salimbeni.
Chap. IV. WAR PROCLAIMED. 447
of the Emperor, would iiot res})ect the sacred person
of the Pope, and woukl enforce, if Frederick were
victorious, the absolute, unlimited supremacy of the
temporal power. This war was now proclaimed and
inevitable. The Pope must depend on his own armies
and on those of his Italian allies. The tenths and the
fifths of England and of France might swell the Papal
treasury, and enable him to pay his mercenary troops ;
but there was no sovereign, no army of Papal parti-
sans beyond the Alps which would descend to his res-
cue. The Lombards might indeed defend their own
cities against the Emperor,^ and his son King Enzio,
who was declared imperial vicar in the north May 25. 1239.
of Italy, was at the head of the Germans and Saracens
of the Imperial army, and had begun to display his
great military skill and activity. The strength of the
maritime powers, who had entered into the league, was
in their fleets ; though at a later period Venetian forces
appeared before Ferrara. The execution of Tiepolo
the podesta of Milan, taken at the battle of Corte Nuo-
va, had inflamed the resentment of that republic : they
seemed determined to avenge the insult and wrong to
that powerful and honored family. But the Pope,
though not only his own personal dignity, but even the
stability of the Roman See was on the hazard, with
the calm dauntlessness which implied his full reliance
on his cause as the cause of God, confronted the ap-
palling crisis. Some bishops sent to Rome by Fred-
erick were repelled with scorn. The Pope, as the
1 The legate of the Pope, Gregory of Monte Longo, at Milan, raised the
banner of the Cross — sumpto mandato ejus signo crucis, et paratis duobus
vexillis cum crucibus et davibus intus — marched towards Lodi, destroying
church-towers (turres ecclesiarum) and ravaging the harvests. — B. Mu-
seum Chronicon, p. 177.
448 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
summer heats came on, feared not to leave fickle
Rome : he retired, as usual, to his splendid palace at
Anao;ni. Durino; the rest of that year successes and
April, 1239. failures seemed nearly bn lanced.^ Treviso
threw off the Imperial yoke; even Ravenna, supported
by a Venetian fleet, rebelled. The Emperor sat down
before Bologna, obtained some great advantages humil-
iating to the Bolognese, but, as usual, failed in his
attempt to capture the town. These successes before
September. Bologua wci'c balanced by failure, if not de-
feat, before Milan. Bologna was not so far discomfited
but that she could make an attack on Modena. In
November the Pope returned to Rome : he was re-
ceived with the utmost honor, with popular rejoicings.
Nov. 1239. He renewed in the most impressive form the
excommunication of the Emperor and all his sons,
distinguishing with peculiar rigor the King Enzio.
The Emperor passed the winter in restoring peace in
Ghibelline Pisa. The feud in Pisa was closely con-
nected with tlie affairs of Sardinia.^ Pisa claimed the
sovereignty of that island, which the all-grasping Pa-
pacy declared a fief of the Roman See. Ubaldo, of
1 The castles of Piumazzo and Crevacuore were taken. Piumazzo was
burned; the captain of the garrison was burned in the castle: 500 taken
prisoners. — July.
2 The Sardinian atfair was another instance of the way in which an as-
sertion once made that a certain territory or right belonged to the See of
St. Peter, grew up into what was held to be an indefeasible title. The
Popes had made themselves the successors of the Eastern Emperors. Their
own declaration that Naples was a tief of the Holy See (having been ac-
knowledged by the Normans to piece out their own usurpation) became a
legal inalienable dominion. The claim to Sardinia rested on nothing more
than the assertion that it was a part of the territory of the Roman See (it
was no acknowledged part of the inheritance of the Countess Matilda). —
Rich, de San Germ. The strange pretension that all islands belonged to
the See of Rome, as well as all lands conquered from heretics, if already
heard was not vet an axiom of the canon law.
Chap. IV. ADVANCE OF FREDERICK. 449
the noble Guelfic house of Visconti, had married Ade-
lasia, the heiress of the native Judge or Potentate of
Galhira and of Tura : he bought the Papal absolution
from a sentence of excommunication and the recogni-
tion of his title bv abandoning the right of Pisa, and
acknowledging the Papal sovereignty. Pisa heard this
act of treason with the utmost indignation. The Ghe-
rardesci, the rival Ghibelline house, rose against the
Visconti. Ubaldo died ; and Frederick (this 1240.
was among the causes of Gregory's deadly hatred)
married the heiress Adelasia to his natural son, whom
he proclaimed king of Sardinia. The Ghibellines of
Pisa recognized his title.
With the early spring the Emperor, at the head of
an imposing, it might seem irresistible force, February.
advanced into the tei'ritories of the Church. Foligno
threw open her gates to welcome him. Other cities
from fear or affection, Viterbo from hatred of Rome,
hailed his approach. Ostia, Civita Castellana, Corneto,
Sutri, Montefiascone, Toscanella received the enemy
of the Pope. The army of John of Colonna, which
during the last year had moved into the March against
King Enzio, was probably occupied at some distance :
Rome might seem to lie open ; the Pope was at the
mercy of his foe. Could he depend on the fickle Ro-
mans, never without a strong Imperial faction ? Greg-
ory, like his predecessors, made his last bold, desperate,
and successful appeal to the religion of the Romans.
The hoary Pontiff set forth in solemn procession, en-
circled by all the cardinals, the whole long way from
the Lateran to St. Peter's. The wood of the true
cross, the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul were borne
before him ; all alike crowded to receive his benedic-
YOL. V. 29
450 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
tion. The Guelfs wei*e in a paroxysm of devotion,
which spread even among the overawed and unresisting
Ghibellines.-^ In every church of the city Avas the sol-
emn mass ; in every pulpit of the city tlie friars of St.
Dominic and St. Francis appealed to the people not to
desert the Vicar of Christ, Christ himself in his Vicar;
they preached the new Crusade, tliey distributed crosses
to which were attached the same privileges of pardon,
and so of eternal life, if the wearers should fall in the
glorious conflict, awarded to those who fought or fell
for the holy sepulchre of Christ.
To these new crusaders Frederick showed no com-
passion ; whoever w^as taken with the cross was put to
death without mercy, even if he escaped more cruel
and ignominious indignities before his death.
The Emperor was awed, or was moved by respect
March, 1240. for liis venerable adversary : he was either not
strong enough, or not bold enough to march at once on
Rome, and so to fulfil his own menaces. He retired into
Apulia ; some overtures for reconciliation M^ere made ;
Frederick endeavored to detach the Pope from his
allies, and to induce him to make a separate peace.
But the Pope, perhaps emboldened by the return of
some of his legates with vast sums of money from
England and other foi'eign countries, resolutely refused
to abandon the Lombard League.^ Up to this time he
had affected to disavow his close alliance, still to hold
the lofty tone of a mediator ; now he nobly determined
to be true to their cause. He bore the remonstrances,
1 According to the B. Museum Chronicle, he laid down his crown on the
relics and appealed to them — " Vos, Sancti, defendite Romam, si homines
Romani nollunt defendere." The greater part of the Romans at once took
the Cross, p. 182.
2 Peter de Vinea, i. -36. Canis. Lect. (Efele Script. Bohem. i. 668.
Chap. IV. GENERAL COUNCIL. 451
on this, perhaps on some other cause of quarrel, of his
ablest general, the Cardinal John Colonna. Colonna
had agreed to a suspension of arms, which did not
include the Lombards ; this the Pope refused to ratify.
Colonna declared that he would not break his plighted
faith to the Emperor. " If thou obeyest not," said the
angry Pope, " I will no longer own thee for a cardinal."
" Nor I thee," replied Colonna, " for Pope." Colonna
joined the Ghibelline cause, and carried over the
greater part of his troops.^
Ferrara in the mean time was forever lost to the
Imperialist side. Salinguerra, the aged and faithful
partisan of the Emperor, was compelled to capitulate
to a strong force, chiefly of Venetians. They April,
seized his person by an act of flagrant treachery : for
five years Salinguerra languished in a Venetian prison.
The Emperor advanced again from the South, wasted
the Roman territory, and laid siege to Bene- May.
vento, which made an obstinate resistance. The Em-
peror was at St. Germano ; but instead of ad- August.
vancing towards Rome, he formed the siege of Faenza.
The Pope meditated new means of defence. Impe-
rial armies were not at his command ; he determined
to environ himself with all the majesty of a spiritual
sovereign ; he would confront the Emperor at the head
of the hierarchy of Christendom ; he issued a.d. 1241.
a summons to all the prelates of Europe for a General
Council to be held in the Lateran palace at Easter in
the ensuing year ; they were to consult on the impor-
tant affairs of the Church.
The Emperor and the partisans of the Emperor had
appealed to a general Council against the Pope ; but a
^ This quarrel was perhaps rather later in point of time.
452 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Council in Rome, presided over by the Pope, was not
the tribunal to which they would submit. Frederick
would not permit the Pope, now almost in his power,
thus to array himself in all the imposing dignity of
Sept. 13 ^^^6 acknowledged Vicar of Christ. He wrote
^^**^' a circular letter to the Kings and Princes of
Europe, declaring that he could not recognize nor suffer
a Council to assemble, summoned by his archenemy,
to which those only were cited who were his declared
foes, either in actual revolt, or who, like the English
prelates, had lavished their wealth to enable the Pope
to carry on the war. " The Council was convened not
for peace but for war." Nor had the summons been
confined to hostile ecclesiastics. His temporal enemies,
the Counts of Provence and St. Bonifazio, the Marquis
of Este, the Doge of Venice, Alberic di Romano, Paul
Traversaria, the Milanese, were invited to join this un-
hallowed assembly. So soon as the Pope would aban-
don the heretical Milanese, reconciliation might at once
take place ; he was prepared to deliver his son Conrad
as hostage for the conclusion of such peace. He called
on the Cardinals to stand forth ; they were bovmd by
their duty to the Pope, but not to be the slaves of his
passion. He appealed to their pride, for the Pop(\ not
content with their counsel, had summoned prelates
from all, even the remotest parts of the world, to sit in
judgment on affairs of which they knew nothing.^ To
the Prelates of Europe he issued a more singular warn-
ing. All coasts, harbors, and ways were beset by his
fleet, which covered the seas : " From him who spare,!
not his own son, ye may fear the worst. If ye reach
1 Quoted from Pet.de Yin. in Bibl. Barberina, No. 2138, by Von Rau
mer, p. 96.
Chap. IV. PRELATES AT GENOA. 453
Rome, what perils await you ! Intolerable heat, foul
water, unwholesome food, a dense atmosphere, flies,
scorpions, serpents, and men filthy, revolting, lost to
shame, frantic. The whole city is mined beneath, the
hollows are full of venomous snakes, which the summer
heat quickens to life. And what would the Pope of
you ? Use you as cloaks for his iniquities, the organ-
pipes on which he may play at will. He seeks but his
own advantage, and for that would undermine the free-
dom of the higher clergy ; of all these perils, perils to
your revenues, your liberties, your bodies, and yoiu*
souls, the Emjjeror, in true kindness, would give you
this earnest warning." Many no doubt were deterred
by these remonstrances and admonitions. Yet zeal or
fear gathered together at Genoa a great concourse of
ecclesiastics. The Legate, Cardinal Otho, brought
many English prelates ; the Cardinal of Palestrina ap-
peared at the head of some the greatest dignitaries of
France ; the Cardinal Gregory, of Monte Longo, with
some Lombard Bishops, hastened to Genoa, to urge the
instant preparation of the fleet, which was to convey
the foreign prelates to Rome.^ Frederick was seized
with apprehension at the meeting of the Council. He
tried to persuade the prelates to pass by land through
the territories occupied by his forces ; he offered them
safe conduct. The answer was that they could have
no faith in one vmder excommunication. They em-
barked on board the hostile galleys of Genoa. But
Frederick had prepared a powerful fleet in Sicily and
Apulia, under the command of his son Enzio. Pisa
1 The Pope expressed great anger against the Cardinal Gregory of Monte
Longo, for not having provided a fleet of overwhelming force. See his
tonsolatory letter to the captive bishops, Raynald. p. 273.
454 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
May 3, 1241. joined him with all her galleys. The Geno-
ese Admiral, who had the ill-omened name Ubbriaco,
the Drunkard, was too proud or too negligent to avoid
the hostile armament. They met off the island of
Meloria ; the hea\dly laden Genoese vessels were worst-
ed after a sharp contest ; three galleys were sunk,
twenty-two taken, with four thousand Genoese.^ Some
of the prelates perished in the sunken galleys ; among
the prisoners were three Cardinals, the Archbishops of
Rouen, Bordeaux, Auch, and Besan^-on ; the Bishops
of Carcassonne, Agde, Nismes, Tortona, Asti, Pavia,
the Abbots of Clairvaux, Citeaux, and Clugny ; and
the delegates from the Lombard cities, Milan, Brescia,
Piacenza, Genoa.^ The vast wealth which the Cardi-
nal Otho had heaped up in England was the prize of
the conqueror. The Prelates, already half dead with
sea-sickness and fright, no doubt with very narrow ac-
commodation, crowded together in the heat and close-
ness of the holds of narrow vessels, exposed to the
insults of the rude seamen and the lawless Ghibelline
soldiery, had to finish their voyage to Naples, where
they were treated with greater or less hardship, accord-
ing as they had provoked the animosity of the Emper-
or. But all were kept in rigid custody.^ Letters from
Louis of France, almost rising to menace, and after-
wards an embassy, at the head of which was the Abbot
1 The battle was not likely to be fought without fury. The Genoese
boasted to the Pope that they had taken three galleys before the battle be-
gan, beheaded all the men, and sunk the ships. They then complain of the
barbarity of Frederick's sailors, not only to the innocent prelates, but to
their conductors.
2 The Archbishops of St. James (of Compostella), of Aries, of Tarragona,
of Braga, the Bishops of Placentia, Salamanca, Orense, Astorga, got back
safely to Genoa. — Epist. Laurent, apud Kaynald. p. 270.
3 Matth. Paris, sub ann. 12-tl.
Chap. IV. FREDERICK TICTORIOUS. 455
of Clugny (who liimself was released before), demand-
ed and obtained at length the liberation of the French
prelates ; but the cardinals stiil languished in prison till
the death of Gregory.
Faenza and Benevento had withstood the Imperial
arms throughout the winter. Faenza had April, 1241.
now lallen ; the inhabitants had been treated April 14.
with unwonted clemency by Frederick. Benevento
too had fallen. The Papal malediction might seem to
have hovered in vain over the head of Frederick ;
Heaven ratified not the decree of its Vicar on earth.
On one side the victorious troops of Frederick, on the
other those of John of Colonna, were wasting the Pa-
pal dominions ; the toils were gathering around the
lair of the imprisoned Pope. At that time arrived the
terrible tidings of the progress made by the Mongols in
Eastern Europe : already the appalling rumors of their
conquests in Poland, Moravia, Hungary, had reached
Italy. The Papal party Avere loud in their wonder
that the Emperor did not at once break off his war
against the Pope, and hasten to the relief of Christen-
dom. So blind was their animosity that he was ac-
tually accused of secret dealings Avith the Mongols; the
wicked Emperor had brought the desolating hordes of
Zengis-Khan upon Christian Europe.^ But Frederick
would not abandon what now appeared a certain, an
immediate triumph.
Even this awful news seemed as unheard in the camj)
of the Emperor, and in the city where the unsubdued
Pope, disdaining any offer of capitulation, defied the
terrors of capture and of imprisonment ; he was near
one hundred years old, but his dauntless spirit dictate!
1 Matth. Paris, sub ann.
456 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
these words : " Permit not yourselves, ye faithful, to
be cast down by the unfavorable appearances of the
present moment ; be neitlier depressed by calamity nor
elated by prosperity. The bark of Peter is for a time
tossed by tempests and daslied against breakers ; but
soon it emerges unexpectedly from the foaming billows,
and sails in uninjured majesty over the glassy surface."^
The Emperor was at Fano, at Narni, at Reate, at Tiv-
oli : Palestrina submitted to John of Colonna. Even
tliju the Pope named Matteo Rosso Senator of Rome
in place of the traitor Colonna. Matteo Rosso made a
sally fi-om Rome, and threw a garrison into Lagosta.
July. The fires of the marauders might be seen
from the walls of Rome ; the castle of Monteforte,
built by Gregory from the contributions of the Crusad-
ers and of his own kindred, as a stronghold in wliich
the person of the Pope might be secure from danger,
fell into the hands of the conqueror ; but still no sign
of surrender ; still nothing but harsh defiance. The
August 21. Pope was released by death from this degra-
dation. His death has been attributed to vexation ; but
extreme age, with the hot and unwholesome air of
Rome in August, might well break the stubborn frame
of Gregory at that advanced time of life. Frederick,
in a circular letter addressed to the Sovereigns of Eu-
rope, informed them of the event. " The Pope Greg-
ory IX. is taken away from this world, and has escaped
the vengeance of the Emperor, of whom he was the
implacable enemy. He is dead, through whom peace
was banished from the earth, and discord prospered.
For his death, though so deeply injured and implacably
1 See letter to the Venetians, Lombards, and Bolognese. — Apud Ray-
nald. p. 271.
Chap. IV. DEATH OF THE POPE. 457
persecuted, we feel compassion ; that compassion had
been more profound if he had Hved to estabhsh peace
between the Empire and the Papacy. God, we trust,
will raise up a Pope of more pacific temper ; wliom we
are prei)ared to defend as a devout son, if he follow not
the fatal crime and animosity of his predecessor. In
these times we more earnestly desire peace, when the
Catholic Church and the Empire are alike threatened
by the invasion of the Tartars ; against their pride it
becomes us, the monarchs of Europe, to take up
arms." ^ Frederick acted up to this great part of de-
hvering Christendom from the yoke of these terrible
savages. Immediately on the death of Gregory he de-
tached King Enzio with four thousand knights, to aid
the ai-my of his son Conrad, King of the Romans.
The Mongols were totally defeated near the Delphos, a
stream which flows into the Danube ; to the house of
Hohenstaufen Europe and civilization and Christendom
OAved this great deliverance.
Frederick suspended the progress of his victorious
arms in the Roman territory that the Cardinals might
proceed to the election of a new Pope. There were
but §ix Cardinals in Rome; Frederick consented to
their supplication that the two imprisoned Cardinals,
James and Otho, giving hostages for their return to
captivity, should join the conclave. There were fierce
dissensions among these eight churchmen ; five were
for Godfrey of Milan, favored by the Emperor, three
for Romanus. One died, not without suspicion of
poison ; the Cardinal Otho returned to his captivity ;
the Emperor, delighted with his honorable conduct,
treated him with respectful lenity .2 In Sep- Sept. 23.
1 Peter de Vin. i. 11. 2 p.aynald. p. 277.
458 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
tember, tlie choice to which the Cardinals were com-
pelled by famine, sickness and violence, fell on Godfrey
Oct. 6, 1241. of Milan, a prelate of gentle character and
profound learning ; in October Coelestine IV. was dead.
The few remaining cardinals left Rome and fled to
Anagni.
For nearly two years the Papal throne was vacant.
The King of England remonstrated with the Emperor,
on whom all seemed disposed to throw the blame ; the
ambassadors returned to England, if not convinced of
the injustice, abashed by the lofty tone of Frederick.
The King of France sent a more singular menace. He
signified his determination, by some right which he
asserted to belong to the Church of France, through
St. Denys, himself to proceed to the election of a Pope.
Frederick became convinced of the necessity of such
election ; none but a Pope could repeal the excommu-
nication of a Pope. In addresses, which rose above
each other in vehemence, he reproached the cardinals
for their dissensions. " Sons of Belial ! animals without
heads ! sons of Ephraim who basely turned back in
the day of battle ! Not Jesus Christ the author of
Peace, but Satan the Prince of the North, sits in the
midst of their conclave, inflaming their discords, their
mutual jealousies. The smallest creatures might read
them a salutary lesson ; birds fly not without a leader ;
bees live not without a King. They abandon the bark
of the Church to the waves, w^ithout a pilot." ^ In the
July, 1242. mean time, he used more effective arguments ;
he advanced on Rome, seized and ravaged the estates,
even the churches, belonging to the Cardinals. At
length they met at Anagni, and in an evil hour for
1 Pet. de Vin. xiv. 17.
Chap. IV. ACCESSION OF INNOCENT IV. 459
Frederick the turbulent conclave closed its labors. The
choice fell on a cardinal once connected with the inter-
ests, and supposed to be attached to the per- Juue, 1243.
son of Frederick, Sinibald Fiesco, of the Genoese
house of Lavagna. He took the name of Innocent
IV., an omen and a menace that he would tread in the
footsteps of Innocent III. Frederick was congratulated
on the accession of his declared partisan ; he answered
coldly, and in a prophetic spirit : " In the Cardinal I
have lost my best friend ; in the Pope I shall find mv
worst enemy. No Pope can be a Ghibelline."
460 LATIN CHRISTIAIJITY. Book X.
CHAPTER V.
FREDERICK AND INNOCENT IV.
Yet Frederick received the tidings of the accession
of Innocent IV. with all outward appearance of joy.
He was at Amalfi ; he ordered Te Deum to be sung in
all the churches ; he despatched the highest persons of
his realm, the Archbishop of Palermo, the Chancellor
June 26 Peter de Vinea, Thaddeus of Suessa, and the
Admiral Ansaldo, to bear his congratulations to the
Pope. " An ancient friend of the noble sons of the
Empire, you are raised into a Father, by whom the
Empire may hope that her earnest prayers for peace
and justice may be fulfilled."
Innocent could not reject these pacific overtures :
Offers of ^^6 ^^"^ ^^ ^^^^ ambassadors to Frederick at
peace. Auialfi, tlic Archbishop of Rouen, William
formerly Bishop of Modena, and the Abbot of St. Fa-
cundus. They were to demand first the release of all
the captive prelates and ecclesiastics ; to inquire what
satisfaction the Emperor was disposed to offer for the
crimes, on account of which he lay under excommuni-
cation ; if the Church (this could scarcely be thought)
had done him any wrong, she was prepared to redress
such wrong ; they were to propose a General Council
of temporal and spiritual persons, Kings, Princes, and
Prelates. All the adherents of the Church were to be
Chap. V. FREDERICK'S POWER. 4(51
included in the peace. Frederick demanded the with-
drawal of the Papal Legate, Gregory di Monte Longo,
from Lombardy ; he demanded the release of Salin-
guerra, the Lord of Ferrara ; he complained that honor
was shown to the Archbishop of Mentz, who was under
the ban of the Empire (he had been appointed Papal
Legate in Germany) ; that the Pope took no steps to
suppress heresy among the Lombards ; that Aug. 26.
the Imperial ambassadors were not admitted to the
presence of the Pope. It was answered by Innocent,
that the Pope had full right to send his Legates into
every part of Christendom ; Salinguerra was the pris-
oner of the Venetians, not of the Pope ; the Archbishop
of jNIentz was a prelate of the highest character, one
whom the Pope delighted to honor ; the war waged by
the Emperor prevented the Church from extirpating
the Lombard heretics ; it was not the usage of Rome
to admit persons under excommunication to the holy
presence of the Pope.
Frederick might seem now at the summit of his
power and glory : his fame was untarnished Frederick's
by any humiliating discomfiture ; Italy unable ^'^'^^'^■
to cope with his victorious armies : the Milanese had
suffered a severe check in the territory of Pavia : King
Enzio had displayed his great military talents with suc-
cess : the Papal territories were either in his occupa-
tion, or with Rome itself were seemingly capable of no
vigorous resistance : his hereditary dominions were at-
tached to him by affection, the Empire by respect and
awe. He might think that he had full right to demand,
full power to enforce, in the first place, the repeal of
his excommunication. But the star of the Hohen-
staufen had reached its height ; it began to decline, to
462 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
darken ; its fall was almost, as rapid and precipitate as
its rise had been slow and stately.^
The first inauspicious sign was the defection of Vi-
Defectionof terbo. The Cardinal Rainier, at the head
Viterbo. q£ ^^le Guelfic party, drove Frederick's garri-
son into the citadel, destroyed the houses of the Ghibel-
lines, and gathered all the troops which he could to
defend the city. Frederick was so enraged at this re-
volt, that he declared, if he had one foot in Paradise,
he would tvirn back to avenge himself on the treacher-
ous Viterbans. He immediately, unwarned by per-
sept. 9to petual failures, formed the siege. The de-
Nov. 13. fence was stubborn, obstinate, successful ; his
engines were burned, he was compelled to retire, stipu-
lating only for the safe retreat of his garrison from the
citadel. Notwithstanding the efforts of Cardinal Otho
of Palestrina, who had guaranteed the treaty, the gar-
rison was assailed, plundered, massacred. To the re-
monstrance of Frederick, the Pope, who was still under
a kind of truce with the Emperor, coldly answered, that
he ought not to be surprised if a city returned to its
allegiance to its rightful Lord. The fatal example of
the revolt of Viterbo spread in many quarters : the
Marquises of Montferrat and Malespina, the cities of
Vercelli and Alexandria deserted the Imperial party.
Even Adelasia, the wife of King Enzio, sought to be
reconciled with the Holy See. Innocent himself ven-
tured to leave Anagni, and to enter Rome : the Im-
perialists were aAved at his presence ; his reception, as
Nov. 15. usual, especially with newly crowned Popes,
was tumultuously joyful. The only sullen murmurs,
which soon after almost broke out into open discontent,
1 Von Raumer, iv. 67.
Chap. V. TKEATY. 463
were among the wealthy, it was said mostly the Jews,
who demanded the payment of 40,000 marks, borrowed
in his distress by Gregory IX. Innocent had authority
enough to wrest from the Frangipanis half of the Col-
osseum, and parts of the adjacent palace, where they
no doubt hoped to raise a strong fortress in the Impe-
rial interest.
The Emperor again inclined to peace, at least to ne-
gotiations for peace. The Count of Tou- Treaty.
louse, the Chancellor Peter de Vinea, and 1244.
Thaddeus of Suessa, appeared in Rome with full
powers to conclude, and even to swear and guarantee
the fulfilment of a treaty. The terms were hard and
humiliating ; the Emperor was to restore all the lands
possessed by the Pope and the Pope's adherents at the
time of the excommunication ; the Emperor was to
proclaim to all the sovereigns of Christendom that he
had not scorned the Papal censure out of contempt for
the Pope's predecessor, or the rights of the Church ;
but, by the advice of the prelates and nobles of Ger-
many and Italy, treated it as not uttered, since it had
not been formally served upon him ; he owned his error
on this point, and acknowledged the plenitude of the
Papal authority in spiritual matters. For this offence
he was to make such compensation in men or money
as the Pope might require ; offer such alms and observe
such fasts as the Pope should appoint ; and respect the
excommunication until absolved by the Pope's com-
mand. He was to release all the captive Prelates, and
compensate them for their losses. These losses and all
other damages Avere to be left to the estimation of three
Cardinals. Full amnesty was to be granted, the im-
perial ban revoked against all who had adhered to the
464 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Bijoiv X.
Cliurcli since the excommunication. This was to be
applied, as far as such offences, to all who were in a
state of rebellion against the Emperor. The differ-
ences between the Emperor and his revolted subjects
were to be settled by tlie Pope and the College of Car-
dinals within a limited time to be fixed by the Pope.
But there was a saving clause, which appeared to ex-
tend over the whole treaty, of the full undiminished
rights of the Empire.^ The Emperor was to be re-
leased from the excommunication by a public decree of
the Church. To these and the other articles the im-
perial ambassadors swore in the presence of tlie Em-
peror Baldwin of Constantinople, the Cardinals, the
Senators, and people of Rome. The Emperor did not
disclaim the terms proposed by his ambassadors ; but in
March 31 ^^^® treaty there were some fatal flaws, which
^'^- parties each so mistrustful, and justly mis-
trustful of the other, could not but discern, and wliich
rendered the fulfilment of the treaty almost impossible.
Was the Emperor to abandon all his advantages, to re-
lease all his prisoners (one of the stipulations), sur-
render all the fortresses he held in the Papal dominions,
grant amnesty to all rebels, fulfil in short all these hard
conditions at once, and so leave himself at the mercy
of the Pope : then and not till then, not till the Pope
had exacted the scrupulous discharge of every article,
was he to receive his tardy absolution ? Nor was the
affair of the Lombards clearly defined. Innocent (per-
haps the Emperor knew this) had from the first de-
1 " Jurabit precise stare mandatis domini Papte : salva tamen sint ei ho-
nores etjura quoad conservationem inte^am sine aliquadiminutione Imperii
et honorum suorum." —If these undefined rights were to be respected, the
Pope's decisions concerning the Lombards were still liable to be called in
question.
Chap. V. FLIGHT OF THE POPE. 405
clared tliat lie would not abandon their cause. Was
the Emperor to be humiliated before the Lombards as
he had been before the Pope, first to make every con-
cession, with the remote hope of regaining his imj)erial
rights l)y the Papal arbitration ? ^ According to the
Papal account, Frederick began to shrink back from
the treaty to which he had sworn ; the Pope was fully
prepared on his part for the last extremity .^ He left
Rome, where his motions had perhaps been watched ;
he advanced to Civita Castellana under the pretext of
approaching the Emperor. The bickerings, however,
still continued ; the Emperor complained that all the
secret terms agreed on with the Pope were publicly
sold for six pennies in the Lateran ; the Pope demanded
400,000 marks as satisfaction for the imprisonment of
the Prelates. The Lombard affairs were still in dis-
pute. The Pope having seemingly made some slight
concession, proceeded still further to Sutri. There at
midnight he suddenly rose, stole out of the ^jj^^^ ^f
town in disguise, mounted a powerful horse, ^^^ ^°p^"
like the proud Sinibald the Genoese noble he pressed
its reeking flanks, so as to escape a troop of 300 cavalry
which the Emperor — to whom perhaps his design had
been betrayed — sent to intercept him, out- June 28.
1 " Si latent! morbo, videlicet de negotio Lombardorum, medicina non
esset opposita, pax omnino precedere non valebat." — Cod. Epist. Vatic.
MS., quoted by Von Raumer.
2 See ^latth. Paris, sub ann. 1244. " Imperator, illo instigante, qui pri-
mus superbivit, a forma jurata et humilitate satisfactionis compromisse su-
perbiendo penitens infeliciter resiluit." Of course, the biographers of Pope
Innocent are loud on the deceit and treachery of Frederick (Vit. Innocent
IV.). But if Innocent resolutely refused (and this seems clear) to revoke
the excommunication until Frederick had absolutely fulfilled all the stipu-
lations, the charge of duplicity must be at least equally shared. In truth,
if Frederick was not too religiously faithful to his oaths, the Pope openly
asserted his power of annulling all oaths.
VOL. V. 30
4(36 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
rode all his followers, and reached Civita Vecchia,
where the Genoese fleet of twenty-three well-armed
galleys, which had been long prepared for his flight (so
June 29. little did Innocent calculate on a lasting
treaty), was in the roads.^ He was in an instant on
board one of the galleys. The next morning, before
the anchor was weighed, arrived five cardinals, who
had been outstripped by the more active Pope. Seven
others made their way to the north of Italy. The
Pope's galleys set sail, a terrible storm came on, which
July 7. threatened to cast them on an island which
belonged to Pisa. After seven days they entered the
haven of Genoa. The Genoese had heard of the ar-
rival of their illustrious fellow-citizen at Porto Yenere.
They received him with a grand procession of the
nobles with the Podesta, the clergy with the Arch-
bishop at their head. The bells clanged, music played,
the priests chanted " Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the Lord." The Pope's followers replied,
" Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare
of the fowler: the snare is broken, and we are de-
livered." 2
The Emperor was furious at this intelligence ; he
too had his scriptural phrase — "The wicked flees
when no man piu'sueth." He complained bitterly of
the negligent watch kept up by his armies and his
fleets. He sent the Count of Toulouse to invite, to
press the Pope to return, and to promise the fulfilment
of all the conditions of the truce. Innocent replied
1 It was given out that he fled to avoid being captured by those 300 Tus-
can horse, who were sent to seize him. But the flight must have been pre-
arranged with the Genoese fleet.
2 Psalm cxxiv. 7.
Chap. V. INNOCENT IN FRANCE. 467
that after such flagrant violations of faith, he would
not expose himself or the Church to the imminent
perils escaped with such difficulty. Frederick, in an
address to Mantua, denounced the flight of the Pope
as a faithless revolt to the insurgents against the Em-
pire, as though he supposed that Innocent at Genoa,
Avhere he remained three months, would place him-
self at the head of his Lombard League.
But he was not safe in Genoa. The Emperor was
in Pisa. Through the revolted cities of Asti July 7.
and Alexandria, by secret ways Innocent crossed the
Alps, and on the 2d of December arrived at Lyons.
The Pope at Lyons became an independent poten-
tate. Lyons was not yet within the realm of France,
though to a certain degree under her protection. It
belonged in name to the Roman Empire ; but it was
almost a free city, owning no authority but that of the
Archbishop. It was proud to become the residence of
the Supreme PontiflF.
His reception in France was somewhat more cool
than his hopes might have anticipated from August,
the renowned piety of Queen Blanche and in France.
her son Saint Louis. The King with his mother vis-
ited the monastery of Citeaux ; as they approached the
church they were met by a long procession of five hun-
dred monks from the convent of that saintly Order,
entreating the King with tears and groans to aid the
Holy Father of the Faithful against that son of Satan
his persecutor, as his ancestor Louis VII. had received
Pope Alexander. The first emotion of the King was
to kneel in the profoundest reverence. But his more
deliberate reply was, that he was prepared to protect
the Pope against the Emperor so far as might seem
468 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
fit to the nobles, his counselloi'S. The counsellors of
Louis refused at once to grant permission that so dan-
gerous and costly a guest should take up his residence
in Rheims. The King of Arragon repelled the ad-
vances of the Pope. We shall hereafter see the con-
duct of Henry and the Barons of England. Innocent
remained at Lyons ; though thus partially baffled, he
lost no time in strikino; at his foe. He summoned all
kings, princes, and prelates to a Council on St. John
Dec. 27, 1244. the Baptist's day, upon the weighty affairs of
Christendom ; he cited Frederick to appear in person,
or by his representatives, to hear the charges on which
he might be arraigned, and to give the satisfaction
A.D. 1245. which might be demanded. In the mean time
meditating a still heavier penalty, and without await-
ing the decree of the Council, he renewed the excom-
munication, and commanded it to be published again
throughout Christendom. In France, Spain, and Eng-
land many of the clergy obeyed, but a priest in Paris
seems to have created a strong impression on men's
wavering minds. " The Emperor and the Pope mutu-
ally condemn each other ; that one then of the two
who is guilty I excommunicate, that one who is guilt-
less I absolve."^ But even in Lyons the haughty de-
meanor, the immoderate pretensions, and the insatiable
rapacity of Innocent IV. almost endangered his safety ;
it is the greatest proof of the deep-rooted strength of
the Papal power, that with a sullen discontent through-
out Christendom, with a stern impatience of the intol-
erable burdens imposed on the Church as well as on
the laity, with open menaces of revolt, it still proceeded
and successfully proceeded to the most enormous act
1 Matt. Paris. Fleurv, Ixxxix. c. 17.
Chav. V. EXALTATION OF THE POPE. 4G9
of authority, the deposition of the Emperor in wliat
fhnmed to be a full Council of the Church.
In the short period, since the Pontificate of Inno-
cent III., a great but silent change had taken jjlace in
the Papacy. Innocent III. was a mighty feudal mon-
arch at the head of a loyal spiritual aristocracy : tlie
whole clergy rose, with their head, in power ; they
took pride in the exaltation of the Pope ; the Pope not
merely respected but elevated the dignity of the bishops
and abbots ; each in his sphere displayed his ponij), ex-
ercised his power, enjoyed his wealth, and willingly
laid his unforced, unextorted benevolences at the foot
of the Pai)al throne. But alrtady the Pope had begun
to be — Innocent IV. aspired fully to become — an
absolute monarch with an immense standing army,
which enabled him to depress, to humihate, to tax at
his pleasure the higher feudatories of the spiritual
realm ; that standing army was the two new Orders,
not more servilely attached to the Pope than encroach-
ing on the privileges as well as on the duties of the
clergy. The elevation of an Italian noble to the Pa-
pacy already ga\'e signs of that growing nepotism which
at last sunk the Head of Christendom in the Italian
sovereign.^ Throughout the contest Pope Innocent
blended with the inflexible haughtiness of the Church-
man ^ the inexorable passionate hatred of a Guelfic
Burgher towards a rival GhibelHne, the hereditary foe
1 Nic. de Curbio, in Vit. Innocent IV.
2 Innocent held high views of the omnipotence of the Papacy: — " Cum
.eueat omnium credulitas pia fidelium quod apostolica; sedis auctoritas in
ecclesiis universis liberam habeat a Dei providentia potestateni ; nee ar-
bitrio principum stare cogitur, ut eorum in electionem vel postulationem
negotiis requirat assensum." —Ad Eogeni Henric. MS. B. M. v. 19. Late-
ran, Feb. 1244.
470 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
of his liouse, that of the Sinibaldi of Genoa. There
had been rumors at least that Gregory IX. resented the
scornful rejection of his niece as a fit bride for a nat-
ural son of the Emperor. It was now declared that
Frederick had offered to wed his son Conrad to a
niece of Sinibald Fiesco, the Pope Innocent IV. That
scheme of Papal ambition was afterwards renewed.
Among the English clergy the encroachments of the
Pope, especially in two ways, the direct taxation and
usurpation of benefices for strangers, had kindled such
violent resentment, alike among the Barons and the
Prelates, as almost to threaten that the realm would
altogether throw off" the Papal yoke. It was taunt-
ingly said that England was the Pope's farm. At this
time the collector of the Papal revenues. Master Mar-
tin, was driven ignominiously, and in peril of his life,
from the shores of the kingdom. Martin had taken up
his residence in the house of the Templars in London.
Fulk Fitzwarenne suddenly appeared before him, and,
with a stern look, said, " Arise — get thee forth ! De-
part at once from England ! " " In Avhose name speak-
est thou?" "In the name of the Barons of England
assembled at Luton and at Dunstable. If you are not
gone in three days, you and yours will be cut in pieces."
Martin sought the King : " Is this done by your com-
mand, or by the insolence of your subjects?" "It is
not by my command ; but my Barons will no longer
endure your depredations and iniquities. They will
rise in insurrection, and I have no power to save you
from being torn in pieces." The trembling priest im-
plored a safe-conduct. " The devil take thee away to
hell," said the indignant King, ashamed of his own
impotence. One of the King's officers with difficulty
Chap. V. EXPULSION OF MARTIN FROM ENGL-\jS^D. 471
conveyed Martin to the coast ; but he left others be-
hind to insist on the Papal demands. Yet so great
was the terror, that many of the Italians, who had been
forced (this was the second grievance) into the richest
beneHces of England, were glad to conceal themselves
from the popular fury. The Pope, it is said, gnashed
his teeth at the report from Martin of his insulting ex-
pulsion from England. Innocent, once beyond the
Alps, had expected a welcome reception from all the
great monarchs excej)t his deadly foe. But to the King
of England the Cardinal had made artful suggestions
of the honor and benefit which his presence might con-
fer on the realm. " What an innnortal glory for your
reign, if (unexampled honor !) the Father of Fathers
should personally a})pear in England ! He has often
said that it would give him great pleasure to see the
pleasant city of Westminster, and wealthy London."
The Kino-'s Council, if not the Kino; returned the
unn-racious answer, " We have already suffered too
much from the usuries and simonies of Rome ; we do
not want the Pope to pillage us."^ More than this,
Innocent must listen in patience, with suppressed indig-
nation, to the " grievances " against which the Nobles
and whole realm of England solemnly protested by their
proctors : the subsidies exacted beyond the Peter's-
pence, granted by the generosity of England ; the
usurpation of benefices by Italians, of whom there was
an infinite number; the insolence and rapacity of the
Nuncio Martin.^
1 Matth. Paris, however in some respects not an absolutely trustworthy
authority for events which happened out of England, is the best unques-
tionablv for the rumors and impressions prevalent in Christendom — ru-
mors, which as rumors, and showing the state of the public mind, are not
to be disdained by history.
2 Matth. Paris, 1245.
472 LATIN CIIUISTIANITY. Cook X.
The King of France, as has been seen, and the King
of Arragon courteously declined this costly and danger-
ous visit of the fugitive Pope. The Pope, it was re-
ported, was deeply offended at this stately and cautious
reserve ; on this occasion he betrayed the violence of
his temper : " We must first crush or pacify the great
dragon, and then we shall easily trample these small
basilisks under foot." Such at least were the rumors
spread abroad, and believed by all who were disposed
Church of tx) assert the dignity of the temporal power,
Lvons. ^^. ^^.^^^ groaned under the heavy burdens of
the Church. Even Lyons had become, through the
Pope's ill-timed favoritism, hardly a safe refuge. He
had endeavored to force some of his Italian followers
into the Chapter of Lyons, the Canons swore in the
face of the Pope that if they appeared, neither the
Archbishop nor the Canons themselves could j^revent
their beino; cast into the Rhone. Some indeed of the
French prelates and abbots (their enemies accused
them of seeking preferment and promotion by their
adulatory homage) hastened to show their devout at-
tachment to the Pope, their sympathy for his perils -and
sufferings, and their comj)assion for the destitution of
which he loudly complained. The Prior of Clugny
astonished even the Pope's followers by the amount of
his gifts in money. Besides these he gave eighty pal-
freys splendidly caparisoned to the Pope, one to each
of the twelve Cardinals. The Pope appointed the
Abbot to the office, no doubt not thought unseemly, of
his Master of the Horse : he received soon after tlie
more appropriate reward, the Bishopric of Langres.
The Cistercian Abbot would not be outdone b}- his
rival of Clugny. The Archbishop of Rouen ibr the
Chap. V. COUNCIL OF LYONS. 473
same purjiose loaded bis see with debts : lie became
Cardinal Bisliop of Albauo. The Abbot of St. Denys,
who aspired to and attained the vacant Archbishopric,
extorted many thousand livres from his see, which he
presented to the Pope. But the King of France, the
special patron of the church of St. Denys, forced the
Abbot to regorge his exactions, and to beg them in
other quarters. Yet with all these forced benevolences
and lavish oflPerings it was bruited abroad that the
Church of Rome had a capital debt, not including
interest, of 150,000/.
The Council met at Lyons, in the convent of St.
Just, on the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, council of
Around the Pope appeared his twelve Cardi- Juue26.
nals, two Patriarchs, the Latin of Constantinople, who
claimed likewise to be Patriarch of Antioch, and de-
clared that the heretical Greeks had reduced by their
conquests his suffragans from thirty to three, and the
Patriarch of Aquileia, who represented the church of
Venice ; the Emperor of Constantinople, the Count of
Toulouse, Roger Bigod and other ambassadors of Eng-
land who had their own object at the Council, the re-
dress of their grievances from Pajjal exactions, and the
canonization of Edmund Archbishop of Canterbury.
Only one hundred and forty prelates represented the
whole of Christendom, of whom but very few were
Germans. The Council and the person of the Pope
were under the protection of Philip of Savoy at the
head of a strong body of men-at-arms, of Knights of
the Temple and of the Hospital. Philip, brother of
the Count of Savoy, was in his character a chief
of Condottieri, in his ])rofession an ecclesiastic ; he
enjoyed vast riches from spiritual benefices, was high
474 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
in the confidence of the Pope. Aymeri Archbishop of
Lyons, a pious and gentle prelate, beheld with deep
sorrow the Po})e as it were trampling upon him in his
own diocese, despoiling his see, as he was laying in-
tolerable burdens on the whole church of Christ. He
resigned his see and retired into a convent. Philip of
Savoy, yet but in deacon's orders, was advanced to the
metropolitan dignity ; he was at once Archbishop of
Lyons, Bishop of Valence, Provost of Bruges, Dean of
Vienne. Of these benefices he drained with remorse-
less rapacity all the rich revenues, and remained at the
head of the Papal forces. And this was the act of a
Pope who convulsed the world with his assertion of
ecclesiastical immunities, of the sacrilegious intrusion
of secular princes into the affairs of the Church. Dur-
ing four pontificates Philip of Savoy enjoyed the title,
and spent the revenues of the Archbishopric of Lyons.
At length Clement IV. insisted on his ordination and
on his consecration. Philip of Savoy threw off", vmder
this compulsion, the dress (he had never even pre-
tended to the decencies) of a bishop, married fii'st the
heiress of Franche Comt^, and afterwards a niece of
Pope Innocent IV., and died Duke of Savoy. And
the brother of Philip and of Amadeus Duke of Savoy,
Boniface, was Primate of England.^
This then was the Council which was to depose the
Emperor, and award the Empire. Even before the
opening of the Council the intrepid, learned, and elo-
quent jurisconsult Thaddeus of Suessa, the principal
proctor of the Emperor,'-^ advanced and made great
1 Gallia Christiana, iv. 144. M. Paris, sub ann. 1251.
2 Sismonili says that Peter cle Viiiea was one of the Emperor's represen-
tatives; that his silence raised suspicion of his treason. Was he there?
The whole defence seems to have been intrusted to Thaddeus.
Chap. V. COUNCIL OF LYONS. 475
offers in the name of his master : to compel the Eastern
Empire to enter into the unity of the Church : to raise
a vast army and to take the field in person against the
Tartars, the Charismians, and the Saracens, the foes
which threatened the life of Christendom ; at his own
cost, and in his own person, to reestablish the king-
dom of Jerusalem ; to restore all her territories to the
See of Rome ; to give satisfaction for all injuries.
" Fine words and specious promises ! " replied the
Pope. " The axe is at the root of the tree, and he
would avert it. If we were weak enough to believe
this deceiver, who would guarantee his truth ? " " The
Kings of France and England," answered Thaddeus.
" And if he violated the treaty, as he assuredly would,
we should have instead of one, the three greatest mon-
archs of Christendom for our enemies." At the next
session the Pope in full attire mounted the pulpit ; this
was his text : " See, ye who pass this way, was ever
sorrow like unto my sorrow." He compared his five
afflictions to the five wounds of the Lord : the deso-
lations of the Mongols ; the revolt of the Greek
Church ; the progress of hei-esy, especially that of the
Paterins in Lombardy ; the capture and destruction of
Jerusalem and the devastation of the Holy Land
by the Charismians ; the persecutions of the Emperor.
He wept himself; the tears of others interrupted his
discourse. On this last head he enlarged witli bitter
eloquence ; he accused the Emperor of heresy and
sacrilege, of having built a great and strong city and
peopled it with Saracens, of joining in their super-
stitious rites ; of his close alliance with the Sultan of
Kgypt ; of his voluptuous life, and shameless inter-
course with Saracen courtesans : of his unnumbered
476 LATIN CIiraSTIANITY. Book X.
perjuries, his violation of treaties : he produced a vast
number of letters, sealed with the imperial seal, as ir-
refragable proofs of these perjuries.
Thaddeus of Suessa rose with calm dauntlessness.
Thaddeus ^^ ^"° ^^^^ letters with the Papal seal, dam-
of Suessa. ^^-^^„ proofs of the Pope's insincerity. The
assembly professed to examine these conflicting docu-
ments ; they came to the singular conclusion that all
the Pope's letters, and all his offers of peace were con-
ditional ; those of the Emperor all absolute. But
Thaddeus was not to be overawed ; he alleged the
clashing and contradictory letters of the Pope which
justified his master in not observing his promises. On
no point did the bold advocate hesitate to defend his
sovereign ; he ventured to make reprisals. " jNIy lord
and master is arraigned of heresy ; for this no one can
answer but himself ; he must be present to declare his
creed : who shall presume to read the secrets of his
heart ? But there is one strong argument that he is
not guilty of heresy (he fixed his eyes on the prel-
ates) ; he endures no usurer in his dominions." The
June 26. audieucc knew his meaning — that was the
heresy with which the whole world charged the Court
of Rome. The orator justified the treaties of the Em-
peror with the Saracens as entered into for the good
of Christendom ; he denied all criminal intercourse
with Saracen women ; he had permitted them in his
presence as jongleurs and dancers, but on account of
the offence taken against them he had banished them
forever from his court. Thaddeus ended by demand-
ing delay, that the Emperor his master might api)ear
in person before the Council. The Pope shrunk from
this proposal : " I have hardly escaped his snares. If
Chap. V. THADDEUS OF SUESSA. 477
lie comes hither I must withdraw. I liave July.
no desire for martyrdom or for ca})tivitj." But the
ambassadors of France and Enghand insisted on the
justice of the demand : Innocent was forced to consent
to an adjournment of fourteen days. The Pontiff was
relieved of his fears. Frederick had advanced as far
as Turin. But the hostile character of the assembly
would not allow of his appearance. " I see that the
Pope has sworn my ruin ; he would revenge himself
for my victory over his relatives, the pirates of Genoa.
It becomes not the Emperor to ai)pcar before an assem-
bly constituted of such persons." On the next meeting
this determination encouraged the foes of Frederick.
New accusers arose to multiply charges against the
absent sovereign : many voices broke out against the
contumacious rebel against the Church. But Thad-
deus, though almost alone, having stood unabashed be-
fore the Pope, was not to be silenced by this clamor of
accusations. The Bishop of Catana^ was among the
loudest ; he charged Frederick with treason against the
Church for his imprisonment of the Prelates, and with
other heinous crimes. " I can no longer keep silence,"
broke in Thaddeus, " thou son of a traitor, who was
convicted and hanged by the justiciary of my Lord,
thou art but following the example of thy father."
Thaddeus took up the desperate defence, before such
an assembly, of the seizure of the Prelates. The Pope
again mingled in the fray ; but Thaddeus assumed a
lofty tone. "God delivered them into the June 29.
hands of my master ; God took away the strength of
the rebels, and showed by this abandonment that their
imprisonment was just." " If," rei)lied the Pope, " the
1 Cariuola in Giannone.
478 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Emperor had not mistrusted liis own cause, he would
not have dechned the judgment of such holy and
righteous men : he was condemned by his own guilty
conscience." " What could my lord hope from a
council in which presided his capital enemy, the Pope
Gregory IX., or from judges who even in their prison
breathed nothing but menace ? " " If one has broken
out into violence, all should not have been treated with
this indignity. Nothing remains but ignominiously to
depose a man laden with such manifold offences."
Thaddeus felt that he was losing ground ; at the
July 17. third sitting he had heard that the daugh-
ter of the Duke of Austria, whom Frederick projjosed
to take as his fourth wife (the sister of the King of
England had died in childbed), had haughtily refused
the hand of an Emperor tainted with excommunica-
tion, and in danger of being deposed. The im})atient
Assembly Avould hardly hear again this perilous adver-
sary ; he entered therefore a solemn appeal : " I appeal
from this Council, from which are absent so many
great prelates and secular sovereigns, to a general and
impartial Council. I appeal from this Pope, the de-
clared enemy of my Lord, to a future, more gentle,
more Christian Pope." ^ This appeal the Pope haugh-
tily overruled : " it was fear of the treachery and the
cruelty of the Emperor which had kept some prelates
away : it was not for him to take advantage of the
consequences of his own guilt." The proceedings
were interrupted by a long and bitter remonstrance
of England against the Papal exactions. The Pope
adjourned this question as requiring grave and mature
consideration.
1 Annal. Cicseii. Concil. sub ann.
Chap.V. deposition OF FREDERICK. 479
With no fui'tJier deliberation, witliout further inves-
tigation, witli no vote, apparently with no^^f^^^^^f
participation of the Council, the "Pope pro- ^<^^°'^''''>^-
ceeded at great length, and rehearsing in the dai-kest
terms all the crimes at any time charged against Fred-
erick, to pronounce his solemn, irrefragable decree:
" The sentence of God must precede our sentence : we
declare Frederick excommunicated of God, and dejiosed
from all the dignity of Empire, and from the kingdom
of Na})les. We add our own sentence to that of God :
we excommunicate Frederick, and depose him from all
the dignity of the Empire, and from the khigdom of
Naples." The Emperor's subjects in both realms were
declared absolved from all their oaths and allegiance.
All who should aid or abet him were by the act it-
self involved in the same sentence of excommuni-
cation. The Princes of Germany were ordered to
proceed at once to the election of a new Emperor.
The kingdom of Naples was reserved to be disposed
of, as might seem to them most fit, by the Pope and
the Cardinals.
The Council at this sentence, at least the greater
part, sat panic-stricken ; the imperial ambassadors ut-
tered loud groans, beat their heads and their breasts in
sorrow. Thaddeus cried aloud, " Oh, day of wrath,
of tribulation, and of agony ! Now will the heretics
rejoice, the Charismians jjrevail ; the foul Mongols pur-
sue their ravages." " I have done my part," said the
Pope, " God must do the rest." He began the hymn,
" We glorify thee, O God I " His partisans lifted up
their voices with him ; the hymn ended, there was pro-
found silence. Innocent and the prelates turned down
their blazing torches to the ground till they smouldered
480 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
and went out. " So be tlie glory and the fortune of
the Emperor extinguished upon eartli."
Frederick received at Turin the report of his de-
thronement ; he was seated in the midst of a splendid
court. " The Pope has deprived me of my crown ?
Whence this presumption, this audacity? Bring hither
my treasure chests." He opened them. " Not one of
my crowns but is here." He took out one, placed it
on his own head, and with a terrible voice, menacing
gesture, and heart bursting with wrath, exclaimed, " I
July 31. hold my crown of God alone ; neither the
Pope, the Council, nor the devil shall rend it from
me ! What ! shall the pride of a man of low birth
degrade the Enn)eror, who has no superior nor equal on
earth? I am now released from all respect; no longer
need I keep any measure with this man." ^
Frederick addressed his justification to all the kings
and princes of Christendom, to his own chief officers
and justiciaries. He called on all temporal princes to
make common cause against this common enemy of the
temporal power. " What might not all Kings fear from
the presumption of a Pope like Innocent IV. ? " He
inveighed against the injustice of the Pope in all the
proceedings of the Council. The Pope was accuser,
witness, and judge. He denounced crimes as notorious
which the Emperor utterly denied. " How long has
the word of an Emperor been so despicable as not to be
heard against that of a priest ? " " Among the Po])e's
few witnesses one had his father, son and nephew con-
victed of high treason. Of the others, some came from
Spain to bear witness on the affairs of Italy. The utter
falsehood of all the charges was proved by irrefragable
1 Peter de Vinea, i. 3.
Chap. V. FREDERICK'S APPEAL TO CHRISTENDOM. 481
documents. But were tliey all true, liow will they jus-
tify the monstrous absurdity, that the Emperor, in
whom dwells the supreme majesty, can be adjudo-ed
guilty of high treason ? that he who as the source of
law is above all law, should be subject to law ? To
condemn him to temporal penalties who has but one
superior in temporal things, God ! We submit our-
selves to spiritual penances, not only to the Pope, but
to the humblest priest ; but, alas ! how unlike the clergy
of our day to those of the primitive church, who led
Apostolic lives, imitating the humility of the Lord !
Then were they visited of angels, then shone around
by miracles, then did they heal the sick and raise the
dead, and subdue princes by their holiness not by arms !
Now they are abandoned to this world, and to drunken-
ness ; their religion is choked by their riches. It were
a work of charity to relieve them from this noxious
wealth ; it is the interest of all princes to deprive them
of these vain superfluities, to compel them to salutary
poverty." ^
The former arguments were addressed to the pride
of France ; the latter to England, which had so long
groaned under the rapacity of the clergy. But it was
a fatal error not to dissever the cause of the Pope from
that of the clergy. To all the Emperor declared his
steadfast determination to resist with unyielding firm-
ness : " Before this generation and the generations to
come I will have the glory of resisting this tyranny ;
let others who shrink from my support have the dis-
grace as well as the galling burden of slavery." The
humiliation of Pope Innocent might have been endured
even by the most devout sons of the Church ; his
1 Peter de Vin. lib. i. 3.
VOL. V. 31
482 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
haughtiness and obstinacy had ahnost ahenated the
pious Louis ; his rapacity forced the timid Henry of
England to resistance. Perhaps the Papacy itself
might have been assailed without a general outburst
of indignation ; but a war against the clergy, a war of
sacrilegious spoliation, a w^ar which avowed the neces-
sity, the expediency of reducing them to Apostolic sim-
plicity and Apostolic poverty, was in itself the heresy
of heresies. To exasperate this indignation to the
utmost, every instance of Frederick's severity, doubt-
less of his cruelty, to ecclesiastics, M'as spread abroad
with restless activity. He is said to have burned them
by a slow fire, drowned them in the sea, dragged them
at the tails of horses. No doubt in Apulia and Sicily
Frederick kept no terms with the rebellious priests and
friars who were preaching the Crusade against him ;
urging upon his subjects that it was their right, their
duty to withdraw their allegiance. But under all cir-
cumstances the violation of the hallowed person of a
priest was sacrilege : while they denounced him as a
Pharaoh, a Herod, a Nero, it was an outrage against
law, against religion, against God, to do violence to a
hair of their heads. And all these rumors, true or un-
true, in their terrible simplicity, or in the gathered
blackness of rumor, propagated by hostile tongues, con-
firmed the notion that Frederick contemplated a revo-
lution, a new era, which by degrading the Clergy
would destroy the Church.^
The Pope kept not silence ; he was not the man
1 " De haeresi per id ipsum se reddens suspectum, merito omneni quem
hactenus habebat in omnes populos igniculum famas propriaB et sapientiae
impudenter et imprudenter extinxit atque delevit." — Mat. Par. p. 459.
Hofler quotes Albert of Beham's MS.
Chap. V. POPE'S REPLY TO IMPERIAL MANIFESTO. 483
who would not profit to the utmost by this error. He
replied to the Imperial manifesto : " When the sick
man who has scorned milder remedies is subjected to
the knife and the cautery, he complains of the cruelty
of the physician : when the evil doer, who has despised
all warning, is at length punished, he arraigns his judge.
But the physician only looks to the welfare of the sick
man, the judge regards the crime, not the person of the
criminal. The Emperor doubts and denies that all
things and all men are subject to the See of Rome.
As if we who are to judge angels are not to give sen-
tence on all earthly things. In the Old Testament
priests dethroned unworthy kings ; how much more is
the Vicar of Christ justified in proceeding against him
who, expelled from the Church as a heretic, is already
the portion of hell ! Ignorant persons aver that Con-
stantine first gave temporal power to the See of Rome ;
it was already bestowed by Christ himself, the true king
and priest, as inalienable from its nature and absolutely
unconditional. Christ founded not only a pontifical but
a royal sovereignty, and committed to Peter the rule
both of an earthly and a heavenly kingdom, as is indi-
cated and visibly proved by the plurality of the keys.^
* The power of the sword is in the Church and derived
from the Church ;' she gives it to the Emperor at his
coronation, that he may use it lawfully and in her de-
fence ; she has the right to say, ' Put up thy sword into
its sheath.' He strives to awaken the jealousy of other
temporal kings, as if the relation of their kingdoms to
1 " Non solum pontificalem, sed regalem constituit principatum, beato
Petro ej usque successoribus terreni simul ac ccjelestis imperii commissis
habenis, quod in pluralitate davium competenter innuitur." This passage
is quoted by Von Raumer from the Vatican archives, No. 4957, 47, and from
the Codex Vindobon. PhiloL p. 178. See also Hiifler, Albert von Beham.
484 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
the Pope were the same as those of the electoral king-
dom of Germany and the kingdom of Naples. The
latter is a Papal fief; the former inseparable from the
Empire, which the Pope transferred as a fief from the
East to the West.^ To the Pope belongs the corona-
tion of the Emperor, who is thereby bound by the con-
sent of ancient and modern times to allegiance and sub-
jection."
War was declared, and neither the Emperor nor the
Pope now attempted to disguise their mutual immitiga-
ble hatred. Everywhere the Pope called on the sub-
jects of the Emperor to revolt from their deposed and
excommunicated monarch. He assumed the power of
dispensing with all treaties ; he cancelled that of the
city of Treviso with the Emperor as extorted by force ;
thus almost compelling a war of extermination ; ^ for if
April 26. treaties with a conqueror were thus to be cast
aside, what opening remained for mercy ? In a long
and solemn address, he called on the bishops, barons,
cities, people of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily to
throw off the yoke under which they had so long
groaned of the tyrant Frederick. Two Cardinals,
Rainier Capoccio and Stephen di Romanis, had full
powers to raise troops, and to pursue any hostile meas-
ures against the King. The Crusade was publicly
preached throughout Italy against the enemy of the
Church. The Emperor on his side levied a third from
the clergy to relieve them from the tyranny of the
Pope. He issued inflexible orders that every clerk or
religious person who, in obedience to the command of
the Pope or his Legate, should cease to celebrate mass
or any other religious function, should be expelled at
1 " In feodum transtulit occideutis." - Raj-nald. sub ann.
Chap. V. CRUSADE AGAINST FREDERICK. 485
once from his place and from his city, and despoiled of
all his o;oods, whether his own or thoSe of the Church.
He promised his protection and many advantages to all
who should adhere to his party ; he declared that he
would make no peace with the Pope till all those eccle-
siastics who might be deposed for his cause should be
put in fidl possession of their orders, their rank, and
their benefices.^ The Mendicant Friars, as they would
keep no terms of peace with Frederick, could expect no
terms from him ; they were seized and driven beyond
the borders. The summons of the Pope to the barons
of the realm of Sicily to revolt found some few hearers.
A dark conspiracy was formed in which were engaged
Pandulph of Fasanella, Frederick's vicar in Tuscany,
Jacob Morra of the family of the great justiciary, An-
drew of Ayala, the Counts San Severino, Theobald
Francisco, and other Apulian barons. It was a con-
spiracy not only against the realm, but against the life
of Frederick. On its detection Pandolph of Fasanella
and De Morra, the leaders of the plot, fled to, and
were received by, the Pope's Legate. The Cardinal
Rainier, Theobald and San Severino seized the castles
of Capoccio and of Scala, and stood on their defence.
The loyal subjects of Frederick instantly reduced
Scala ; Capoccio with the rebels fell soon after. Fred-
erick arraigned the Pope before the world, July 18.
he declared him guilty on the full and voluntary
avowal of the rebels,^ as having given his direct sanc-
1 Peter de Vin. i. 4.
2 See in Hijfler the letter of the Pope to Theobald Francisco, and all the
others of the kingdom of Sicily who returned to their loyalty to the Roman
See: "God has made his face to shine upon you, by withdrawing your
persons from the dominion of Pharaoh. From the soldiers of the repro-
bate tyrant, you have become champions of our Lord .Jesus Christ."' — Ap-
pendix, p. 372.
486 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
tion not only to the revolt, but to the murder of the
Emperor.^ " This they had acknowledged in confes-
sion, this in public on the scaffold. They had received
the cross from the hands of some Mendicant Friars ;
they were acting under the express authority of the
See of Rome." Frederick at first |)roposed to parade
the chief criminals with the Papal bull upon their fore-
heads through all the realms of Christendom as an
awful example and a solemn rebuke of the murderous
Pope ; he found it more prudent to proceed to imme-
diate execution, an execution with all the horrible
cruelty of the times ; their eyes were struck out, their
hands hewn off, their noses slit, they were then broken
on the wheel.^ The Pope denied in strong terms the
charge of meditated assassination ; on the other hand,
he declared to Christendom that three distinct attempts
had been designed against his life, in all which Fred-
ei'ick was the acknowledged accomplice. On both
sides probably these accusations were groundless. On
one part, no doubt, fanatic Guelfs might think them-
selves called upon even by the bull of excommunica-
tion, which was an act of outlawry, to deliver the
Church, the Pope, and the world from a monster of
perfidy and iniquity such as Frederick was descril)ed in
the manifestoes of the Pope. Fanatic Ghibellines
might in like manner think that they were doing good
service, and would meet ample even if secret reward,
should they relieve the Emperor from his deadly foe.
They might draw a strong distinction between the
rebellious subject of the Empire, and the sacred head
of Christendom.
1 " Et priedictie mortis et exhwreditationis nostne summum poiitificem
asseriiiit autliorem." — Peter de Viii. ii. x.
2 Matth. Paris, sub ann. 1246, 7.
Chap. V. ORTHODOXY OF THE EMPEROR. 487
The Pope pledged himself solemnly to all who would
revolt fi'om Frederick never to abandon them to his
wrath, never on any terms to make peace with the per-
fidious tyrant ; " no feigned penitence, no simulated
humility shall so deceive ns, as that, when he is cast
down from the height of his imperial and royal dignity,
he should be restored to his throne. His sentence is
absolutely irrevocable ! his reprobation is the voice of
God by his Church : he is condemned and forever !
His viper progeny are included under this eternal im-
mitigable proscription. Whoever then loves justice
should rejoice that vengeance is thus declared against
the common enemy, and wash his hands in the blood
of the transgressor." So wrote the Vicar of Christ ! ^
Frederick took measures to relieve himself from
the odious imputation of heresy. The Arch- a.d. 12-i6.
bishop of Palermo, the Bishop of Pavia, the Abbots
of Monte Casino, Cava, and Casanova, the Friar
Preachers Roland and Nicolas, men of high repute,
appeared before the Pope at Lyons, and declared them-
selves ready to attest on oath the orthodox belief of the
Emperor. Innocent sternly answered, that they de-
served punishment for holding conference with an ex-
communicated person, still severer penalty for treating
him as Emperor. They rejoined in humility, " Re-
ceive us then as only representing a Christian."
The Pope was compelled to appoint a commission of
three cardinals. These not only avouched the.rejwrt of
the ambassadors, but averred the Emperor prepared to
assert his orthodoxy in the presence of the Pope. In-
nocent extricated himself with address : he May 23, i246.
declared the whole proceeding, as unauthorized by
1 Apud Hofler, p. 383.
488 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
himself, hasty, and presumptuous : " If he shall appear
unarmed and with but few attendants before us, we will
hear him, if it be according to law, according to law." ^
Even the religious Louis of France could not move
the rigid Pope. In his own crusading enthusiasm, as
strong as that of his ancestors in the days of Urban,
Louis urged the Pope to make peace with the Emperor,
that the united forces of Christendom mio-ht makci
head in Europe and in Palestine against the unbeliev-
ing enemies of the Cross. He had a long and secret
interview with the Pope in the monastery of Clugny.
Innocent declared that he could have no dealings with
the perfidious Frederick. Louis retired, disgusted at
finding such merciless inflexibility in the Vicar of
Christ.^ But not yet had the spell of the great magi-
cian begun to work. The conspiracy in the kingdom of
Sicily was crushed ; Frederick did not think it wise to
invade the territories of Rome, where the Cardinal
Rainier kept up an active partisan war. But even Vi-
terbo yielded ; the Guelfs were compelled to submit by
the people clamoring for bread. Prince Theodore of
Antioch entered Florence in triumph. The Milanese
had suffered discomfiture ; Venice had become more
amicable. Innocent had not been wanting in attempts
to raise up a rival sovereign in Germany to supplant
the deposed Emperor. All the greater princes coldly,
almost contemptuously, refused to become the instru-
ments of the Papal vengeance : they resented the
presum])tion of the Pope in dethroning an Emperor
of Germany.
1 '• Ipsum super hoc, si de jure, ct sicut de jure fuerit audiamus." — Apud
Raynald. 1246.
■■^ Matt. Paris, 1246.
Chap. V. OTHO OF BAVARIA. 489
The Papal Legate, Philip Bishop of Ferrara, in less
troubled times would hardly have wrought powerfully
on the minds of Churchmen. He was born of poor
parents in Pistoia, and raised himself by extraordinary
vigor and versatility of mind. He was a dark, melan-
choly, utterly unscrupulous man, of stern and cruel
temper ; a great drinker ; ^ even during his orisons he
had strong wine standing in cold water by his side.
His gloomy temperament may have needed this excite-
ment. But the strength of the Papal cause was Albert
von Beham.^ Up to the accession of Innocent IV., if
not to the Council of Lyons, the Archbishops of Saltz-
burg, the Bishops of Freisingen and Ratisbon and
Passau, had been the most loyal subjects of Frederick.
They had counteracted all the schemes of Albert von
Beham, driven him, amid the universal execration for
his insolence in excommunicating the highest prelates,
and rapacity in his measureless extortions, from South-
ern Germany. We have heard him bitterly lamenting
his poverty. Otho of Bavaria, who when once he em-
braced the cause of the Hohenstaufen adhered to it with
honorable fidelity, had convicted him of gross bribery,
and hunted him out of his dominions. Albert now
appeared again in all his former activity. He had been
ordained priest by the Cardinal Albauo ; he was nomi-
1 "Multas crudelitates exercuit. Melancholicus, et tristis et furiosus, et
filius Belial. Magnus potator." — Salimbeni, a Papal writer quoted by
Von Raunier, p. 212.
2 Hiifler affirms that because Albert von Beham, in one of his furious
letters to Otho, calls Frederick the parricide, the murderer of Otho's father,
that it is a striking proof that Frederick was guilty of that murder. — p.
118. The letter is a remarkable one. Hofler's is one of those melancholy
books, showing how undying is religious hatred. Innocent himself might
be satisfied with the rancor of his apologist, and his merciless antipathy
to Frederick.
490 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
nated Dean of Passau ; but the insatiable Albert knew
his own value, or rather the price at which the Pope
and his cardinals calculated his services: he insisted on
receiving back all his other preferments. The Pope
and tlie Cardinals held it as a point of honor to main-
tain their useful emissary. ^
Already before the elevation of Innocent, at a meet-
Sept. 1241. ing at Budweis, a league of Austria, Bohe-
mia, and Bavaria, had proposed the nomination of a
new Emperor. Eric King of Denmark had refused
it for his son, in words of singular force and dignity.
At Budweis Wenceslaus of Bohemia had fallen off to
the interests of the Emperor : there were fears among
the Papalists, fears speedily realized, of the Imperialism
of Otho of Bavaria. A most audacious vision of
Poppo, the Provost of Minister, had not succeeded in
appalling Otho into fidelity to the Pope. The Queen
of Heaven and the Twelve Apostles sent down from
Heaven ivory statues of themselves, which contained
oracles confirming all the acts of Albert ; writings
were shown with the Apostolic seals, containing the
celestial decree.^ Albert had threatened, that if the
electors refused, the Pope would name a French or
Lombard King or Patrician, without regard to the Ger-
mans.
The meeting at Budweis so far had failed ; but a
1 He complains that they prevented him from collecting 300 marks of
silver, which otherwise he might have obtained. HiJfler cannot deny the
venality of Albert von Beham, but makes a long apology, absolutely start-
ling in a respectable writer of our own day. The new letters of Albert
seem to me more fatal to his character than the partial extracts in Aven-
tinus.
^ " Quorum decreta cum divinre mentis decretis examussim conspirantia,
ambobus cwlestis senatus-consulti in eburneis descripta sigillis, inspiciendi
copiam factum." The sense is not quite clear; I doubt my own rendering.
Chap. V. OHIO OF BAVARIA. 491
dangerous approximation had even then been made
between Sifried of Mentz, hitherto loyal to Frederick,
who had condemned and denounced the rapacious quses-
torship of Albert von Beham, and Conrad of Cologne,
a high Papalist.i ^\^[^ approximation grew up into an
Anti-Imperialist League, strengthened as it April 20.
was, before long, by the courageous demeanor, the flight,
the high position taken by Innocent at Lyons ; still
more by the unwise denunciations against the whole
hierarchy by Frederick in his wrath. Now the three
great rebellious temporal princes — Otho of Bavaria,
the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Austria — are the
faithful subjects of Frederick ; his loyal prelates, Saltz-
burff, Freisingen, Ratisbon, are his mortal enemies.
Not content with embracing the Papal cause, they en-
deavored by the most stirring incitements to revenge
for doubtful or mendaciously asserted wrongs, by the
dread of excommunication, by brilliant promises, to stir
up Otho of Bavaria to assume the Imperial crown.
Otho replied, " When I was on the side of the Pope
you called him Antichrist ; you declared him the source
of all evil and all guilt : by your counsels I turned to
the Emperor, and now you brand him as the most enor-
mous transgressor. What is just to-day is unjust to-
morrow : in scorn of all principle and all truth, you
blindly follow your selfish interests. I shall hold to my
pledges and my oaths, and not allow myself to be blown
about by every changing wind." Otho of Bavaria per-
sisted in his agreement to wed his daughter with Con-
rad, son of Frederick. Every argument was used to
dissuade him from this connection. Three alternatives
were laid before him : I. To renounce the marriage of
1 Boehmer, p. 390. See citations.
492 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Bodic X.
his daughter with Conrad, Frederick's son ; if so, the
Pope will provide a nobler bridegroom, and reconcile
him fully with Henry, elected King of the Romans.
II. To let the marriage proceed if Conrad will renounce
his father. Albert von Beham was busy in inciting
the unnatural revolt of Conrad from his father. III.
The third possibility was the restoration of Frederick
to the Pope's favor : he must await this ; but in the
mean time bear in mind that the victory of the Church
is inevitable.^ The King of Bohemia, the Dukes of
Austria, Brabant, and Saxony, the Margraves of Meis-
sen and Brandenburg, repelled with the same contempt-
uous firmness the tempting offer of the Imperial crown.
At last an Emperor was found in Henry Raspe, Land-
grave of Thuringia. Henry of Thuringia was a man
of courage and ability ; but his earlier life did not des-
ignate him as the champion of Holy Church.^ He
was the brother-in-law of the sainted Elizabeth of
Hungary, now the object of the most passionate relig-
ious enthusiasm, sanctioned by the Pope himself. To
her, in her desolate widowhood, Henry had shown little
of the affection of a brother or the reverence of a wor-
1 " Quia si omne aurum haberetis, quod Rex Solomon habuit, ordiuationi
SanctiE Romanic Ecclesia?, et divin;e potentise non poteritis repugnare, quia
necesse est ut in omni negotio semper Ecclesia Dei vincat." — p. 120. The
marriage took place, Sept 6, 1246. The rhetorical figures in this address
of Albert of Beham, if it came not from the Pope himself, were sufficiently
bold : " The Pope would not swerve from his purpose though the stars
should fall from their spheres, and rivers be turned into blood. Angels and
archangels would in vain attempt to abrogate his determination." " Nee
credo angelos aut arehangelos sufficere illi articulo, ut eum possint ad ves-
trum bene placitum inclinare."
2 The electors to the Kingdom of Germany were almost all ecclesiastics.
The Archbishops of Meutz, Cologne, Treves, Bremen; the Bishops of
Wurtzburg, Naumbourg, Ratisbon, Strasbui'g, Henry (Elect) of Spires;
D'Akes Henry of Brabant, Albert of Saxony ; with some Counts. — May
22.
Chap. V. DEATH OF THE ANTI-EMPEROK IIEXKY. 493
shipper ; dark rumors charged liim wltli having poi-
soned her son, his nephew, to obtain his inheritance.
He had been at one time the Lieutenant of the Em-
peror in Germany. Even Henry at first dechned the
perilous honor. He yiekled at length as to a sacrifice :
" I obey, but I shall not live a year."
Innocent issued his mandate,^ his solemn adjuration
to the prelates to elect, with one consent, Henry of
Thuringia to the Imperial crown. He employed more
powerful arguments : all the vast wealth which he still
drew, more especially from England, was devoted to
this great end. The sum is variously stated at 25,000
and 50,000 marks, which was spread through Germany
by means of letters of exchange from Venice. The
greater princes still stood aloof; the prelates espoused,
from religious zeal, the Papal champion ; among the
lower princes and nobles the gold of England worked
wonders. On Ascension Day the Archbishops a.d. i246.
of Mentz, Cologne, Treves, and Bremen, the Bishops
of Metz, Spires, and Strasburg, anointed Henry of
Thuringia as King of Germany at Hochem, Augusts,
near Wurtzburg. His enemies called him in scorn the
priest king.2 The sermons of the prelates and clergy,
who preached the Crusade against the godless Fred-
erick, and the money of the Pope, raised a powerful
army ; King Conrad was worsted in a great battle near
Frankfort ; two thousand of his own Swabian soldiers
passed over to the enemy. But the cities, now rising
to wealth and fi-eedom, stood firm to Frederick : they
defied, in some cases expelled, their bishoi)s. Henry
1 See the very curious letter in Hofler, p. 195, on the determination of
the Pope.
2 Matt. Paris. Chronic. Erphurt. Ann. Argentin. apud Boehmer, Fontes.
494 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
of Tliuringia attempted to besiege first Reutlingen, then
Feb. 17, 1247. Ulm ; was totally defeated near that city, fled
to his Castle of Wartburg, and died of grief and vex-
ation working on a frame shattered by a fall from his
horse.
Frederick was still in the ascendant, the cause of the
Pope still without prevailing power. The indefatiga-
ble Innocent sought throughout Germany, throughout
Europe : he even summoned from the remote and bar-
barous North Hakim King of Norway to assume the
crown of Germany.^ At last William* of Holland, a
Oct. 3, 1247. youth of twenty years of age, under happier
auspices, listened to the tempting offers of the Pope ;
but even Aix-la-Chapelle refused, till after a siege of
some length, to admit the Papal Emperor to receive
the crown within her walls : he was crowned, however,
by the Papal Legate, the Cardinal of St. Sabina.
From this time till Frederick lay dying, four years
after, at Fiorentino, some dire fatality seemed to hang
over the house of Hohenstaufen. Frederick had ad-
vanced to Turin ; his design no one knew ; all conjec-
tured according to their wishes or their fears. It was
rumored in England that he was at the head of a pow-
erful force, intending to dash down the Alps and seize
the Pope at Lyons. The Papalists gave out that he
had some dark designs, less violent but more treacher-
ous, to circumvent the Pontiff. Innocent had demand-
ed succor from Louis, who might, with his brothers and
the nobles of France, no doubt have been moved by
the personal danger of the Pope to take up arms in his
cause.2 Frederick had succeeded, by the surrender of
1 Letter to William of Holland.
2 Matt. Paris. In the letters to Louis and to his mother Blanche the
Chap. V. SIEGE OF PARMA. 495
the strong castle of Rivoli to Thomas Duke of Savoy,
in removing the obstructions raised by that prince to
the passage of the Alps. The Duke of Savoy played
a double game : he attacked the Cardinal Octavian,
who was despatched by the Pope with a strong chosen
body of troops and 15,000 marks to aid the Milanese.
The Cardinal reached Lombardy with hardly a man ;
his whole treasure fell into the hands of the Duke of
Savoy. Others declared that Frederick was weary of
the war, and had determined on tlie humblest submis-
sion. He himself may have had no fixed and settled
object. He declared that he had resolved to proceed to
Lyons to bring his cause to issue in the face of the
Pope, and before the eyes of all mankind.^ He was
roused from his irresolution by the first of those dis-
asters which went on darkenino; to his end. June, 1247.
The Pope was not only Pope ; he had powei-ful compa-
triots and kindred among the great Guelfic houses of
Italy. This, not his spiritual powers alone, gave the
first impulse to the downfall of Frederick. In Parma
itself the Rossi, the Correggi, the Lupi, connected
with the Genoese family of the Sinibaldi, maintained a
secret correspondence with their party within the city.
The exiles appeared before Parma with a strong force ;
the Imperialist Podesta, Henry Testa of Arezzo, sallied
forth, was repulsed and slain ; the Guelfs entered the
city with the flying troops, became masters of the cita-
del : Gherardo Correggio was Lord of Parma.
This was the turning-point in the fortunes of Fred-
Pope intimates tliat tiiey were ready to march an army not only to defend
him in L3'^ons, but to cross the Alps.
1 Nicolas de Curbio, in Vit. Innoc. IV. " Causie nostril justitiam prae-
sentialiter et potenter in adversarii nostri facie, coram transalpinis gentibus
posituri."' — Petr. de Yin. ii. 49.
496 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
erick ; and Frederick, by the horrible barbarity of
Turnino'- ^^^s rcveiige agaiiist the revolted Parmesans,
Frederick's might seem smitten with a judicial blind-
fortunes, ness, and to have labored to extinguish the
generous sympathies of mankind in his favor. His
M^rath against the ungrateful city, Avhich he had en-
dowed with many privileges, knew no bounds. He
had made about one thousand prisoners : on one day
he executed four, on the next two, before the walls,
and declared that such should be the spectacle offered
to the rebels every day during the siege. He was with
August 2. difficulty persuaded to desist from this inhu-
man warfare. Parma became the centre of the war ;
on its capture depended all the terrors of the Imperial
arms, on its relief the cause of the Guelfs. Around
Frederick assembled King Enzio, Eccelin di Romano,
Frederick of Antioch, Count Lancia, the Marquis
Pallavicini, Thaddeus of Suessa, and Peter de Vinea.
On the other hand, the Marquis Boniface threw him-
self with a squadron of knights into the city. The
troops of Mantua, the Marquis of Este, Alberic di Ro-
mano, the martial Cardinal Gregory of Monte Longo
at the head of the Milanese ; the Count of Lavagna,
the Pope's nephew, at the head of four hundred and
thirty cross-bowmen of Genoa and three hundred of
his own, hovered on all sides to aid the beleaguered city.
Parma endured the storm, the famine : Frederick had
almost encircled Parma by his works, and called the
strong point of his fortifications by the haughty but
ill-omened name of Vittoria. After many months'
siege, one fatal night the troops of Parma issued from
Feb. 18, 1248. the city, and surprised the strong line of forts,
the Vittoria, which contained all the battering eno-ines.
Chap. V. SIEGE OF PARINU. 497
stores, provisions, arms, tents, treasures, of the Impei'ial
forces. So little alarai was at first caused, that Thad-
deus of Suessa, who commanded in Vittoria, exclaimed,
" What ! have the mice left their holes ? " In a few
moments the whole fortress was in flames, it was a heap
of ashes, the Imperial garrison slain or prisoners ; two
thousand were reckoned as killed, including the IVIar-
quis Lancia ; three thousand prisoners.^ Among the
inestimable booty in money, jewels, vessels of gold and
silver, were the carroccio of Cremona, the Imperial
fillet, the great seal, the sceptre and the crown. The
crown of gold and jewels was found by a mean man,
call in derision " Shortlegs." He put the crown on his
head, was raised on the shoulders of his comrades, and
entered Parma, in mockery of the Emperor. Among
the prisoners was the faithful and eloquent Thaddeus
of Suessa. The hatred of his master's enemies was in
proportion to his value to his master. Already both
his hands were struck off ; and in this state, faint with
loss of blood, he was hewn in pieces.^ And yet could
Frederick hardly complain of the cruelty of his foes —
cruelties shown when the blood was still hot from bat-
tle. Only three days before the loss of the Vittoria,
Marcellino, Bishop of Arezzo, a dangerous and active
partisan of the Pope, who had been taken prisoner,
and confined for months in a dungeon, was brought
forth to be hanged. His death was a strange wild con-
liision of the pious prelate and the intrepid Guelf. He
was commanded to anathematize the Pope, he broke
out into an anathema against the Emperor. He then
1 Muratori, Annal. sub aim.
2 Compare in Hcifler's ' Albert von Beham " the curious Latin songs on
the defeat of Frederick before Parma. All the monkish bards broke out in
gratulant hymns.
VOL. V. 32
498 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
bcj^an to chant the Te Deum, while the furious Saracen
soldiers tied him to the tail of a horse, bound his hands,
blindfolded his eyes, dragged him to the gibbet, where
he hung an awful example to the rebels of Parma. He
was hanged, says the indignant Legate of the Pope,
" like a villain, a plebeian, a nightman, a parricide, a
murderer, a slave-dealer, a midnight robber." ^
This was but the first of those reverses, which not
only obscured the fame, but wrung with bitterest an-
guish the heart of Frederick. Still his gallant son
May 26, Euzio made head against all his father's foes :
^^^ in a skirmish before Bologna Enzio was
wounded and taken prisoner. Implacable Bologna
condemned him to perpetual punishment. All the
entreaties to which his father humbled himself; all
his own splendid promises that for his ransom he would
gird the city with a ring of gold, neither melted nor
dazzled the stubborn animosity of the Guelfs ; a cap-
imprison- tive at the age of twenty-four, this youth, of
ment of , 1 1 . 1 1 1
Euzio. beauty equal to his bravery — the poet, the
musician, as well as the most valiant soldier and con-
summate captain — pined out twenty-three years of
life, if not in a squalid dungeon, in miserable inactivity.
Romance, by no means improbable, has darkened his
fate. The passion of Lucia Biadagoli, the most beau-
tiful and high-born maiden of Bologna, for the captive,
her attempts to release him, were equally vain : once
he had almost escaped, concealed in a cask ; a lock of
his bright hair betrayed the secret.''^ Nor had Freder-
ick yet exhausted the cup of affliction ; the worst was
1 Matt. Paris, sub ann. 1249. Letter of Cardinal Rainier. However ex-
travagant this letter, the tact can hardly have been invention.
2 Bologna gave him the mockery of a splendid funeral. " Sepultus est
maxi'iio cum honore." — B. Museum Chronicon, p. 340.
Chap. V. PETER DE VINEA. 499
to come : suspected, at least, if vinproved treachery in
another of his most tried and faithful servants. Thad-
deus of Suessa had been severed from him by death,
his son by imprisonment, Peter de Vinea was to be so,
by the most galling stroke of all, either foul treason in
De Vinea, or in himself blind, ungrateful injustice.
Peter de Vinea had been raised by the wise p^^^^ ^^
choice of Frederick to the highest rank and ^'"®^-
influence. All the acts of Frederick were attributed
to his chancellor.^ De Vinea, like his master, was a
poet ; he was one of the counsellors in his great scheme
of legislation. Some rumors spread abroad that at the
Council of Lyons, though Frederick had forbidden all
his representatives from holding private intercourse
with the Pope, De Vinea had many secret conferences
with Innocent, and was accused of betraying his mas-
ter's interests. Yet there was no seeming diminution
in the trust placed in De Vinea. Still to the end the
Emperor's letters concerning the disaster at Parma are
by the same hand. Over the cause of his disgrace and
death, even in his own day, there was deep doubt and
obscurity. The popular rumor ran that Frederick was
ill ; the physician of De Vinea prescribed for him ; the
Emperor, having received some warning, addressed De
Vinea : " My friend, in thee I have full trust ; art thou
sure that this is medicine, not poison ? " De Vinea
replied : " How often has ray physician ministered
healthful medicines ! — why are you now afraid ? "
Frederick took the cup, sternly commanded the j^hysi-
eian to drink half of it. The physician threw himself
at the King's feet, and as he fell overthrew the liquor.
Rut what was left was administered to some criminals,
1 There is some doubt whether he was actually chancellor.
500 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
who died in agony. The Emperor wrung his hands
and wept bitterly : " Whom can I now trust, betrayed
by my own famihar friend ? Never can I know
security, never can I know joy more." By one ac-
count Peter de Vinea was led ignominiously on an ass
through Pisa, and thrown into prison, where he dashed
his brains out against the wall. Dante's immortal verse
has saved the fame of De Vinea : according to the poet,
he was the victim of wicked and calumnious jealousy.^
The next year Frederick himself lay dying at Fio-
june. 1250. reutino. His spirit was broken by the defeat
Frederick II. of Parma; a strange wayward irresolution
came over him : now he would march fiercely to Lyons
and dethrone the Pope ; now he was ready to make the
humblest submission ; now he seemed to break out into
paroxysms of cruelty — prisoners were put to the tor-
ture, hung. Frederick, if at times rebellious against the
religion, was not above the superstition of his times.
He had faith in astrology : it had also been foretold
that he should die in Firenze (Florence). In Fioren-
Dec. 13, 1280. tino, a town not far from Lucera, he was
seized with a mortal sickness. The hatred which pur-
sued him to the grave, and far beyond the grave, de-
scribed him as dying unreconciled to the Church, mis-
erable, deserted, conscious of the desertion of all. The
1 " I son colui, clie tenne ambo le chiavi
Del cuor di Frederigo, e che le volsi
Serrando e desserando, si soavi * *
La meretrice, che mai dal ospizio
Di Cesare non torse gli occhi putti,
Morte commune, e delle corte vizio
Infiammo contra me V animi tutti.
E gl' infiammati infiammar si Augusto,
Che i lieti onori tornaro in tristi lutti."
et seq. — Inferno, xiii. 58.
Chap. V. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF FREDERICK. 501
inexorable liatred pursued his family, and charged his
son Manfred with hastening his death by smothering
him with a pillow. By more credible accounts he died
in Manfred's arms, having confessed and received abso-
lution from the faithful Archbishop of Palermo. His
body was carried to Palermo in great state, a magnifi-
cent tomb raised over his remains, an epitaph proclaim-
ino- his glory and his virtues was inscribed by his son
Manfred.^ In his last will he directed that all her
rights and honors should be restored to the Holy
Church of Rome, his mother ; under the condition
that the Church should restore all the rights and
honors of the Empire. In this provision the Church
refused to see any concession, it was the still stubborn
and perfidious act of a rebel. All his other pious
leo-acies for the rebuilding and endowment of churches
passed for nothing.
The world might suppose that with the death of
Frederick the great cause of hostility had been re-
moved; but he left to his whole race the inheritance
of the implacable hatred of the Papal See ; it was ex-
tinguished only in the blood of the last of the house of
Hohenstaufen on the scaflPold at Naples.
It might indeed seem as if, in this great conflict, each
had done all in his power to justify the extreme sus-
picion, the immitigable aversion, of his adversary ; to
stir up the elements of strife, so that the whole world
was arrayed one half against the other in defence of
vital and absorbing principles of action. It was a war
of ideas, as well as of men ; and those ideas, on each
1 " Si probitas, sensus, virtutum gratia, census,
Nobilitas orti possent obsistere morti
Non foret extinctus Fredericus qui jacet intus."
502 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
side, maintained to the utmost imaginable height.
That the justice of Frederick was a stern absolutism
cannot be denied ; that his notion of the Imperial
power was not merely irreconcilable with the fierce
and partisan liberties of the Italian republics, but with
all true fi'eedom ; that he asjtired to crush mankind
into order and happiness with the iron hand of autoc-
i-acy. Still no less than autocracy in those times could
coerce the countless religious and temporal feudal tyr-
annies which oppressed and retarded civilization. The
Sicilian legislation of Frederick shows that order and
happiness were the ultimate aim of his rule : the asser-
tion of the absolute supremacy of law ; premature ad-
vance towards representative government ; the regard
to the \velfare of all classes ; the wise commercial regu-
lations ; the cultivation of letters, arts, natural philos-
ophy, science ; all these if despotically enforced, were
enforced by a wise and beneficent despotism. That
Frederick was honored, admired, loved by a great part
of his subjects ; that if by one party he Avas looked on
with the bitterest abhorrence, to others he was no less
the object of wonder and of profound attachment, ap-
pears from his whole history. In Sicily and Naples,
thouoli the nobles had been held down with an inflexible
hand, though he was compelled to impose still heavier
taxation, though his German house had contracted a
large debt of unpopularity, though there might be more
than one conspiracy instantly and sternly suppressed, yet
there was in both countries a fond, almost romantic at-
tachment, to his name and that of his descendants.
The crown of Germany, which he won by his gallant
enterprise, he secured by his affability, courtesy, chival-
rous nobleness of character. In Germany, not all the
Chap. V. FREDERICKS RELIGION. 503
influence of ihe Pope could for a long time raise up a
formidable opposition ; the feeble rebellion of his son,
unlike most parricidal rebellions of old, was crushed on
his appearance. For a long time many of the highest
churchmen were on his side : and when all the church-
men arrayed themselves against him, all, even his most
dangerous enemies among the temporal princes, rallied
round his banner ; the Empire was one ; it was difficult
to find an obscure insignificant prince, with all the
hierarchy on his side, to hazard the assumption of the
Imperial croAvn.
The religion of Frederick is a more curious problem.
If it exercised no rigorous control over his Hengioa of
luxurious life, there was in his day no indis- ''''®'^*'™^-
soluble alliance between Christian morals and Christian
religion. This holy influence was no less wanting to
the religion of many other kings, who lived and died
in the arms of the Church. Frederick, if he had not
been Emperor and King of Sicily, and so formidable to
the Papal power, might have dallied away his life in
unrebuked voluptuousness. If he had not threatened
the patrimony of St. Peter, he might have infringed on
the pure precepts of St. Peter. Frederick was a perse-
cutor of the worst kind — a persecutor without bigotry :
but the heretics were not only misbelievers, they were
Lombard rebels. How far he may have been goaded
into general scepticism by the doubts forced upon him
by the unchristian conduct of the great churchmen :
how far, in his heart, he had sunk to the miserable
mocking indifference betrayed by some of the sarcasms,
current, as from his lips, and which, even if merely gay
and careless words, jarred so harshly on the sensitive
religion of his age, cannot be known. Frederick cer-
504 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
tainly made no open profession of unbelief; he re-
peatedly offered to assert and vindicate the orthodoxy
of his creed before the Pope himself. He was not
superior, it is manifest, to some of the superstitions of
his time ; he is accused of studying the influence of the
stars, but it may have been astrology aspiring (under
Arabic teaching) to astronomy, rather than astronomy
grovelling down to astrology. That which most re-
volted his own age, his liberality towards the Moham-
medans, his intercourse by negotiation, and in the Holy
Land, with the Sultan and his viziers, and with his own
enlightened Saracen subjects, as well as his tei'rible
body-guard at Nocera, will find a fairer construction in
modern times. How much Europe had then to learn
from Arabian letters, arts and sciences ; how much of
her own wisdom to receive back through those chan-
nels, appeared during the present and the succeeding
centuries. Frederick's, in my judgment, was neither
scornful and godless infidelity, nor certainly a more ad-
vanced and enlightened Christianity, yearning after
holiness and purity not then attainable. It was the
shattered, dubious, at times trembling faith, at times
desperately reckless incredulity, of a man forever un-
der the burden of an undeserved excommunication, of
which he could not but discern the injustice, but could
not quite shake off the terrors : of a man, whom a
better age of Christianity might not have made re-
ligious ; whom his own made irreligious. Perhaps the
strongest argument in favor of Frederick, is the gen-
erous love which he inspired to many of the noblest
minds of his time ; not merely such bold and eloquent
legists as Thaddeus of Suessa, whose pride and con-
scious power might conspire with his zeal for the Im-
Chap. V. POPE INNOCENT IV. 505
perial cause, to make him confront so intrepidly, so elo-
quently, the Council at Lyons ; it was the first bold en-
counter of the Roman lawyer with the host of Canon
lawyers. Nor was it merely Peter de Vinea, whose
melancholy fate revenged itself for its injustice, if he
ever discovered its injustice, on the stricken and deso-
late heart of the King : hut of men, like Herman of
Salza, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Ordei.
Herman Avas, by all accounts, one of the most
blameless, the noblest, the most experienced, most
religious of men. If his Teutonic Order owed the
foundation of its greatness, with lavish grants and im-
mmiities, to Frederick, it owed its no less valuable
religious existence, its privileges, its support against
the hostile clergy, to the Popes. Honorius and Greg-
ory vied with the Emperor in heaping honors on De
Salza and his Order. Yet throughovit his first conflict,
De Salza is the firm, unswerving friend of Frederick.
He follows his excommunicated master to the Holy
Land, adheres to his person in good report and evil re-
port ; death alone separates the friends.^ The Arch-
bishop of Palermo (against whom is no breath of
calumny) is no less, to the close of Frederick's hfe, his
tried and inseparable friend ; he never seems to have
denied him, though excommunicate, the offices of re-
ligion ; buried him, though yet unabsolved, in his ca-
thedral ; inscribed on his tomb an epitaph, which, if
no favorable proof of the Archbishop's poetic powers,
is the lasting tribute of his fervent, faithful admiration.
On the other hand, Innocent IV. not only carried
the Papal claims to the utmost, and asserted p^p^ j^^^.
them with a kind of ostentatious intrepidity : '^''"'^^^■
1 In Voigt, Geschichte Preussens, is a very elaborate and interesting ac-
count of Herman of Salza, and the rise of the Teutonic Order.
506 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
" We are no mere man, we have the place of God
upon earth ! " but there was a personal arrogance in
his demeanor, and an implacability which revolted even
the most awe-struck worshippers of the Papal power.
Towai'ds Frederick he showed, blended wath the hauo;h-
tiness of the Pope, the fierceness of a Guelfic partisan ;
he hated him with something of the personal hatred of
a chief of the opposite faction in one of the Italian re-
publics. Never was the rapacity of the Roman See so
insatiate as under Innocent IV. ; the taxes levied in
England alone, her most profitable spiritual estate,
amounted to incredible sums. Never was ao-o-ression
so open or so daring on the rights and exemptions of
the clergy (during the greater part of the strife the
support of the two new Orders enabled the Pope to
trample on the clergy, and to compel them to submit
to extortionate contributions towards his wars) : never
was the spiritual character so entirely merged in the
temporal as among his Legates. They were no lono-er
the austere and pious, if haughty churchmen. Cardi-
nal Rainier commanded the Papal forces in the states
of St. Peter with something of the ability and all the
ferocity and mercilessness of a later Captain of Con-
dottieri ; Albert von Beham, the Archdeacon of Pas-
sau, had not merely been detected, as we have seen, in
fraudulent malversation and shamefully expelled from
Bavaria, but when he ajipeared again as Dean of Pas-
sau, his own despatches, which describe his negotiations
with tlie Duke of Bavaria, show a repulsive depth of
arrogant iniquity. The incitement of Conrad to rebel-
lion against his fiither seems to him but an ordinary
proceeding. The Bishop of Ferrara, the Legate in
Germany, was a drunkard, if not worse. Gregory of
Chap. V. PKOCEEDINGS OF THE POPE. 507
Monte Longo, during the whole period Papal repre-
sentative in Lombardy, the conductor of all the nego-
tiations with the republics, the republics which swarmed
with heretics, was a man of notorious incontinence ;
Frederick himself had hardly more concubines than
the Cardinal Legate.
Immediately on the death of Frederick, the Pope
began to announce his intention of return- The Pope after
T J -r^ j^ • IT the death of
nig to Italy. Peter Uapoccio was ordered to Frederick.
ascertain the state of feeling in the kingdom of Sicily.
The Pope himself raised a song of triumph, addressed
to all the prelates and all the nobles of the realm :
" Earth and heaven were to break out into joy at this
great deliverance." ^ But the greater number of both
orders seem to have been insensible to the blessing ;
they were mourning over the grave of him whom the
Pope described as the hammer of persecution. The
aged Archbishop of Palermo and the Archbishop of
Salerno openly espoused the cause of Conrad ; the
Archbishop of Bari, Frederick's deadly enemy, seemed
to stand alone in the Papal interest. Strangers, the
Subdeacon Matthew, and a Dominican friar, were sent
into Calabria and Sicily to stir up the clergy to a sense
of their wrongs. In Germany Conrad was arraigned
as a rebellious usurper for presuming to offer resist-
ance to William of Holland. He was again solenmly
excommunicated ; a crusade was preached against him.
The Pope even endeavored to estrange the Swabians
from their liege lord : " Herod is dead ; Archelaus
aspires to reign in his stead." In an attempt to mur-
der Conrad at Ratisbon, the Abbot Ulric Dec. 25, 1253.
is supposed to have been the chief actor ; the Bishop
i Raynald. sub aiin. 1251-
508 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
of Ratisbon was awaiting witliout the walls the glad
tidings of the accomplishment of the assassination.^
The Archbishop of Mentz, Christian, a prelate of great
piety, broaches the unpalatable doctrine that, as far as
spiritual enemies, the word of God is the only lawful
sword ; but as for drawing the sword of steel, he held
it unbefitting his priestly character. He is deposed for
these strange opinions.^ A youth, the Subdeacon Ge-
rard, is placed on the Primate's throne of Germany.
Monarchs, however, seemed to vie in giving honor
The kings do to thc triumphant Pontiff on his proposed re-
nocentiv. turu to Romc. The Queen-mother Blanche
of France (Louis IX., her son, was now prisoner in
the East) offered to accompany him with a strong
body of French troops. Henry of England expressed
his earnest desire to prostrate himself at the feet of
the Holy Father before he departed for the south.
Alphonso of Castile entreated him to trust to the arms,
fleets, and protection of Spain rather than of France.
Before he bade farewell to the city of Lyons, whose
pious hospitality he rewarded with high praise and
some valuable privileges,^ he had an interview within
the city with his own Emperor William of Holland.
1 " Qui episcopus foras niuros civitatis cum multis armatis eventum rei
solicitus expectabat." — Herin. Alt. apud Boehmer, ii. 507. See Chron.
Salis. Fez. i. 362.
2 "At jure episcopatu dejectum ob principatum conjunctum exploratum
est; cum non modo prsesulem sed etiam principem agere, ac vim insultan-
tium ecclesiae vi repellere oporteret." Such is the commeut of the ecclesi-
astical annalist Rajmaldus, sub ann.
3 The morals of Lyons were not improved by the residence of the Papal
court. It was openly declared by Cardinal Hugo, " Magnam fecimus, post-
quam in banc urbem venimus, utilitatem et eleemosynam: quando enim
primo hue venimus, tria vel quatuor prostibula invenimus; sed nunc rece-
dentes unum solum relinquimus; verum ipsum durat continuatum ab
orientali parte civitatis usque ad occidentalem." — Matt. Paris, p. 819.
Chap. V. RETURX TO ITALY. 509
After that he descended the Rhone to Vienne, to
Orange, and then proceeded to Marseilles. Apniig.
He arrived at Genoa ; the city hailed her holy son
with the utmost honors. The knights and nobles of
the territory supported a silken canopy over his head
to protect him from the sun. On Ascension May 17.
Day he received the delegates from the cities of Lom-
bardy. Ghibellinism held down its awe-struck and dis-
comfited head. Rome alone was not as yet thought
worthy, or sought not to be admitted to the favor of
his presence, or he dared not trust,^ notwithstanding
his close alliance with the Frangipani (whom he had
boughtV that unruly city. He visited Milan, his return
r> ■ \r T^ HTl to Italy.
lirescia, Mantua, rierrara, Modena, every- July 24.
where there was tumultuous joy among the Guelfs.
While he was at Milan Lodi made her submission :
the Count of Savoy abandoned the party of the Ho-
henstaufen. On All-Saints'-Day he was at Faenza ;
on the 5th of November he stayed his steps, and fixed
his court at Perugia. For a year and a half he re-
mained in that city ; Rome was not honored with the
presence of her Pontiff till Rome compelled that pres-
ence.
Among the first resolutions of Innocent was the sup-
pression of heresy, more especially in the Ghibelline
cities, such as Cremona. A holocaust of these outcasts
would be a fit offering of gratitude to heaven for the
removal of the perfidious Frederick. It was his design
to strike in this manner at the head of the Ghibelline
interests in Lombardy. The sum of Eccelin di Roma-
no's atrocities, atrocities which, even if blackened by
Guelfic hatred, are the most frightful in these frightful
1 Nic. de Curbio, c. 30.
510 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
times, must be still aggravated by the charge of heredi-
tary heresy. It may well be doubted if such a monster
could have relioion eiiouo;h to be a heretic : but Eccelin
was dead to spiritual censures as to the reproaches of
his own conscience.
But the affairs of the kingdom of Naples occupied
the thouo-hts of Innocent. Though the firm hand of
Manfred had maintained almost the whole realm in al-
legiance, the nominal rule was intrusted by King Con-
rad to his younger brother Henry. The denunciations,
intrigues, and censures of the Pope had wrought on
certain nobles and cities. A conspiracy broke out si-
multaneously in many places, at the head of which was
the Count of Aquino ; in Apulia the cities of Foggia,
Andrea, and Barletta ; in the Terra di Lavoro Capua
and Naples were in open rebellion. Capua and Naples
defied all the forces of Manfred. The Pope had al-
ready assumed a sovereign power, as if the forfeited
realm had reverted to the Holy See. He had revoked
all Frederick's decrees which were hostile to the
Church : he had invested Henry Frangipani with
Manfred's principality of Tarentum and the land of
Otranto ; he had bestowed on the Venetian Marco Zi-
ani, the kinsman of the captain executed by Frederick,
the principality of Lecce.
Conrad had already with some forces crossed the
Conrad in Alps ; he had been received by the few faith-
Oct. i25i. ful Ghibelline cities in Lombardy, Verona,
Padua, Vicenza. But throughout Central Italy the
Guelfic faction prevailed ; the Papal forces were strong.
He demanded of the Venetians, and as they were glad
to get rid of Conrad from the north of Italy, he ob-
tained ships to convey him to the south ; he landed at
Chap. V. KINGDOM OF NAPLES. 511
Siponto, near Manfredonia. He was received by Man-
fred and by the principal nobility as their j^„ g ^252
deliverer. Aquino, Suessa, San Germano Aum^st
fell before him, and Capua opened her gates ; °"'' ^^^'
Naples was stormed, sacked, and treated with the ut-
most cruelty. Innocent beheld the son of Frederick,
though under excommunication, in full and undisturbed
possession of his hereditary kingdom. Innocent looked
in vain for aid in Italy ; his own forces, those of the
Guelfs, had not obeyed the summons to relieve Naples.
Eccelin di Romano and the Ghibellines occupied those
of Lombardy ; the Guelfs of Tuscany and Romagna,
now superior to the Ghibellines, had broken out into
factions among themselves ; the fleets of Genoa were
enffaged against the infidels. Innocent looked abroad :
the wealth of England had been his stay in former ad-
versities. He had already sent an oiFer of the kingdom
of Naples to the brother of King Henry, Richard of
Cornwall ; but Richard, from timidity or prudence,
shrunk from this remote enterprise. He alleged the
power of Conrad ; his own relationship with the hoiise
of Swabia : in his mistrust he went so far as to demand
guarantees and hostages for the fulfilment of p^p^i decree.
his contract on the part of the Pope. But Henry^A^*'
his feeble brother, Henry of England, was croX'of''^
not embarrassed by this prudence. He ac- ^^"on.*°'
cepted the offer of the investiture for his ^^^' ^^^'
second son Edmund ; in his weak vanity he addressed
Edmund in his court, and treated him as already the
King of Sicily. The more prudent Nuncio of the
Pope enjoined greater caution ; but all that the King
could abstract from his own exchequer, borrow of his
brother Richard, extort from the Jews, exact by his
512 LATIK CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
justices on their circuit, was faithfully transmitted to
Rome, and defrayed the cost of the Papal armament
against Conrad. For this vain title, which the Pope
resumed at his earliest convenience, Henry III. en-
dangered his own throne : these exactions precipitated
the revolt of his Barons, which ended in the battle of
Lewes.
But while Innocent IV. was thus triumphing over
the fall of his great enemy ; while he was levying taxes
on the tributary world ; while he was bestowing the
empire of Germany on William of Holland, assuming
the kingdom of Naples as an appanage escheated to the
See of Rome, and selling it to one foreign prince after
another, he was himself submitting to the stern dicta-
tion of the people and the Senator of Rome. The
Frangipanis could no longer repay with their vigorous
support the honors bestowed upon their family by the
grant of the principality of Tarentum. The popular
The Senator P^^^J was iu the asccudaut ; Brancaleone, a
Brancaieone. golognesc of great fame as a lawyer, was
summoned to assume the dignity of Senator of Rome.
He refused for a time to place himself at the head of
the unruly people ; he consented only on the prudent
condition that thirty hostages of the noblest families in
Rome should be sent to Bologna, Nor would he con-
descend to accept the office but for the period of three
years. He exacted a solemn oath of obedience from
every citizen. At first the nobles as well as the people
appear to have acquiesced in the stern, just rule of the
Senator. No rank, no power could protect the high-
born ; no obscurity, nor the favor of the populace, the
meaner criminal. His first act was to hang from the
windows of their castles some citizens notorious and
CiiAP.V. BEANCALEONE. Olo
convicted as lioniicicles ; other rebels he suspended on
gibbets.^ Amung his first acts was to summon the
Bishop of Rome to take up his residence in his diocese ;
it Avas not becoming that the Queen of cities should sit
as a widow without her Pontiff Innocent hesitated;
a more imperious message summoned him to instant
obedience; at the same time the Perugians received a
significant menace ; that if they persisted in entertain-
ing the Pope, the Romans would treat them May 25, 1253.
as they had already treated other cities in the neighbor-
hood, whom they had subdued by force of arras. Inno-
cent trembled and complied ; he entered Rome with a
serene countenance but heavy heart. He was received
with triumph by the Senator and the whole people.
In the spring Innocent again withdrew from Rome to
Assisi ; the pretext was the consecration of the mag-
nificent church of St. Francis.^ But the impatient
people murmured at his delay ; the Senator Branca-
leone again sent messengers to expostulate in haughty
humility with the Pope ; " it became not the pastor to
abandon his flock : he was the Bishop not of Lyons,
of Perugia, of Anagni, but of Rome." The peo})le of
Assisi, like those of Perugia, were warned by the fate
of Ostia, Porto, Tusculum, Albano, Sabina, and of
Tivoli, against which last the Romans were in arms.
Innocent was compelled to return ; he passed by Narni,
and ao;ain he was received with outward demonstrations
of joy ; but now secret murmurs and even violent rec-
lamations were heard that the Pope owed the people
of Rome great sums for the losses sustained by his long
1 Raynald. sub ann. 1254.
'•2 Matt. Paris, sub ann. 1252. Curbio, Vit. Innocent. IV. Compare Gib-
bon, xii. 278, ch. l.xix.
VOL. V. 33
514 LATIN CHKISTIANITY. Buok X.
absence. Pilgrims and suitors had been few ; the}^ had
let no lodgings ; their shops had been without custom-
ers ; their provisions unsold ; their old usurious profits
of lending money had failed. The Pope could only
take refuge in the rigid justice of the Senator ; Bran-
caleone allayed or awed the tumult to peace.
Yet at the same time Innocent was pursuing his
Early in 1254. scliemcs upou the kingdom of Naples without
Naples. fear or scruple. Conrad at first had made
overtures of submission.^ He was strong enough to
indulge the hereditary cruelty which he unhappily dis-
played in a far higher degree than the ability and splen-
dor of his forefathers,^ and to foster ignoble jealousy
against his bastard brother, Manfred, to whom he owed
the preservation of his realm, but whose fame, extraor-
dinary powers of body and mind, influence, popularity
overshadowed the authority of the King. He grad-
ually withdrew his confidence from Manfi-ed, and de-
spoiled him of his power and honors.^ With admirable
prudence Manfred quietly let fall title after title, post
after post, possession after possession ; nothing remained
to him but the principality of Tarentum, and that bur-
dened with a heavy tax raised for the royal treasury.
The King dismissed, under various pretexts, the kin-
dred of Manfred, Galvaneo and Frederico Lancia, Bon-
ifacio di Argoino, his maternal uncle. The noble exiles
found refiige with the Empress Constantia, Manfred's
1 To the Pope's first envoy, according to Spinelli, Conrad haughtily re-
plied, " Ch^ farei meglio ad impacciarsi con la chierica rasa." — Diario,
apud Muratori.
2 " vi fece gran giustizia, e grande uccisione." — M. Spinelli, Diario,
apud Muratori, R. I. S. xii. Bartholomeo di Neocastro, c. iii. Murat. R.
I. S. xiii.
3 Giannone, p. 485.
Chap. V. DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY. 515
sister, at Constantinople : Conrad, Ly liis ambassadors,
insisted on their expulsion from that court.
But the Pope, in his despair at this unexpected
strength displayed by the House of Swabia, had re-
course to new measures of hostility. Conrad, like his
ally Eccelin, was attainted of heresy ; both were sum-
moned to appear before the presence of the Pope to
answer these charges ; and to surrender themselves
unarmed, unprotected into the hands of their enemy.
Conrad, whose policy it was rather to conciliate than
irreconcilably to break with the Pope, condescended
to make his appearance by his proctor in the Papal
Court.
But death was on the house of Hohenstaufen.
Henry, the younger son of Frederick, a Death of
youth of twelve years old, came from Sicily Dec. 1253.
to visit his brother Conrad ; he sickened and died.^
No death could take place in this doomed family, the
object of such unextinguishable hate, without being
darkened from a calamity into a crime. Conrad was
accused of poisoning his brother, and by the Pope him-
self. Even the melancholy of Conrad at the loss of his
brother, perhaps a presentiment of his own approaching
end, was attributed to remorse. He hardly raised his
head again ; he wrote letters to the court of England,
full of the most passionate grief. In another year Con-
rad himself was in his grave : he was seized with a
violent fever, and died in a few days. Of or conrad.
his death the guilt, for guilt the Guelfs were^'^^^^^^^'
1 Matt. Paris, sub ann. Nic. de Jamsilla. The Pope is said to have
proposed to marry his niece to Henry (Paris, p. 832). A treaty was begun.
Conrad during the negotiations was poisoned, but recovered. He accused
the Pope of this poisoning (ibid. 852). The Pope himself accused Conrad
of poisoning Henry.
516 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
determined to see, was laid on Manfred.^ Conradin,
almost an infant, not three years old, was the one legit-
imate heir of Barbarossa and of Frederick II. The
Conradin. Consummate sagacity of Manfred led him to
declare that he would not accept the Regency of the
realm which Conrad (perhaps in some late remorse, or
in the desperate conviction enforced on his death-bed,
that Manfred alone could protect his son) had thought
of bequeathing to him, jNIanfred awaited his time : he
left to Berthold, Marquis of Homburg, the commander
of the German auxiliaries of Conrad, the perilous post,
knowing perhaps at once the incapacity of Berthold,
and the odiousness of the Germans to the subjects of
Sicily. Berthold, according to the will of Conrad,
assumed the Regency, took possession of the royal treas-
ures, and, in obedience to the dying instructions of
Conrad, sent a humble message entreating peace and
the parental protection of the Pope for the fatherless
orphan. Innocent was said to have broken out into a
paroxysm of joy on hearing the death of Conrad. But
he assumed a lofty tone of compassion ; enlarged upon
June 19. his owu merciful disposition ; granted to Con-
radin the barren title of King of Jerusalem, and ac-
knowledged his right to the Dukedom of Swabia. But
the absolute dominion of the kingdom of Naples had
devolved to the Roman See : when Conradin should be
of age, the See of Rome might then, if he should
appear not undeserving, condescend to take his claims
into her gracious consideration.
Innocent had again, perhaps on account of the sum-
mer heats, escaped from Rome, and was holding his
court at Anagni. He spared no measures to become
1 Jamsilla, Malespiua.
Chap. V. MANFRED. 517
master of the kingdom of Naples. He issued extraor-
dinary powers to William, Cardinal of St. Eustachio,
to raise money and troops for this enterprise. The
Cardinal was authorized to impawn as security to the
Roman merchants, the Church of Rome, all the castles
and possessions of the separate churches of the city, of
the Campagna and the Maritima, and of the kingdom
of Sicily. He was to seize and appropriate to the use
of the war the possessions and revenues of all the va-
cant Bishoprics ; and of all the Bishoprics, though not
vacant, whose prelates did not espouse the Papal cause.
He had power to levy taxes, and even money through-
out the realm ; to confiscate all the estates of the ad-
herents of Frederick and of his son, who should not,
after due admonition, return to their allegiance to the
Pope. He might annul all grants, seize all fiefs, and
regrant them to the partisans of Rome. By these ex-
ertions, a great army was gathered on the frontier.
From Anagni the Pope issued his bull of excommuni-
cation against Manfi'ed, the Marquis of Homburg, and
all the partisans of the house of Conrad.^ The Regent,
the Marquis of Homburg, found that many of the
nobles were in secret treaty with the Pope ; he let the
sceptre of Regency fall from his feeble hands ; and
amidst the general contempt abdicated his trust.
All eyes were turned on Manfred ; all who were
attached to the house of Swabia, all who abhorred or
despised the Papal government, all who desired the in-
dependence of the realm, counts, barons, many of the
higher clergy, at least in secret, im})li)red Manfred
Manfred to assume the Regency. Manfred, ""''" '
consununate in the art of self-command, could only be
1 Apud Raynald. 1254, Sept. 2.
518 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
forced in these calamitous times to imperil his honor by
taking up this dangerous post. Rumors indeed wei'e
abroad of the death of Coni-adin ; and Manfred was
the next successor, according to the will of his father
Frederick.^ He assumed the Regency ; threw a strong
force of Germans into St. Germano ; fortified Capua
Date doubt- ^^^ ^^^® adjacent towns to check the progrer.s
fui. 1254 q£ ^Yie Papal arms. But everywhere was
rebellion, defection, treachery. The Papal agents had
persuaded or bribed Pietro Roffo, the Regent, under
Berthold of Homburg, of Calabria and Sicily, and raised
the Papal standard. Berthold's own conduct indicated
treachery ; he sent no troops to the aid of Manfred,
but roved about with his Germans, committing acts of
plunder, and so estranging the people from the Swabian
rule. He retained possession of the royal treasiu-es.
Richard of Monte Negro had already, in hatred of
Berthold, made his peace with the Pope ; other nobles
were secretly dealing for the renewal of their fiefs, or
for the grant of escheated fiefs, with the Pope, who
claimed the right of universal sovereign. Even in
Capua a« conspiracy was discovered against the power
and against the life of Manfred.
Manfred was as great a master in the arts of dissim-
conductof ulation as the Pope himself He found it
Manfred. necessary at least to appear to yield. Al-
ready the Papal agents had sounded his fidelity ; he
now openly appealed to the magnanimity of the Pope
1 Nic. Jamsilla makes Manfred legitimate; his mother, Bianca Lancia,
was the ffth wife of Frederick. But Manfi-ed does not seem to have as-
serted his own legitimacy. Malespina (though Papalist) writes, " Tanquam
ex damnato coitu derivatus, defectum natalium paciatiir, nobilis tamen
naturiB deeus utriusque parentis, qua ortus ejus esse meruerat generosus,
niatulam fere defectus hujus expiabat." — Apud Hurter, viii. 787.
Chap. V. CONDUCT OF MANFRED. 519
as the protector of the orplian ; he expressed his wilHng-
ness to admit the Pope into the reahn, reserving his own
rights and those of his royal ward. Innocent was in a
transport of joy. In his most Inxnriant language he
dwelt on the moderation, the delight in mercy, the
parental tenderness of the Roman See: he received
Manfred into his highest favor. Not regarding his
grant to the Frangipani, he invested Manfred (Gal-
vaneo Fiamma, his uncle, receiving in his name the
ring of investiture) with the Principality of Tarentum,
with the County of Gravina, Tricarico, and the Honor
of Monte St. Angelo : he added the Countship of An-
drea, which he had obtained in exchange for other
territories from the Marquis of Homburg : with this
he invested Frederick Lancia, Manfred's other uncle.
Manfred met all these advances with his consummate
self-command. He received the Pope on his entrance
into his kingdom at Ceperano, prostrated himself at his
feet, led his horse, as he passed the bridge over the
Garigliano.i The pride of Innocent was at its height
in seeing Naples in his power, the son of Frederick at
his feet. He lavished honors on Manfred ; proclaimed
him Vicar of the realm as far as the Faro. Manfred
persuaded the Pope to scatter his forces all through the
provinces, and by their means controlled the Germans,
whom he could not trust, and who began quietly to
withdraw to their own country.^ The people hailed
Manfred as Vicar of the Pope. They enjoyed again,
and under a Swabian Prince not environed by German
soldiery, their full religious ceremonies.
1 On this homage, says Spinelli, " et onneuno se ne meravigliao assai."
— Apud jMuratorl.
2 Giiiimone, in he.
520 LATIN CIIiaSTIAXITY. Book X.
The Pope entered the kingdom as though to take
The Pope possessioii of the reahn : after a short delay
in Naples. _,, „ . ,. . . , ■,
Oct. 27, 1254. at iheano irom indisposition, he entered
Capua in state ; he entered Naples in still greater
pomp. His nephew, William Fiesco, Cardinal of St.
Eustachio, his Legate, received the homage of the
prelates and the nobles, with no reservation of the
rights of the King or of the Prince, but absolutely
in the name of the Pope, to whom had devolved the
full sovereignty. Manfred himself was summoned to
take the oath of allegiance. In his deep dissimulation
he might have eluded this trial ; he was perhaj)s await-
ing the death of the Pope, now old and in bad health ;
but an accidental circumstance compelled him jjrema-
turely to throw oiF the mask, Borello d' Anglone, as
the reward of his revolt to the Pope, had recei'.-ed the
grant of the county of Lesiiia, an under-fief of Man-
fred's principality. Manfred summoned him to do hom-
age ; Anglone, confident in the Pope's favor, returned
a haughty denial. Manfred appealed to the Pope. The
oracle spoke with his usual cautious ambiguity, he had
granted to Borello none of the rights of ^Manfred.
Berthold of Homburg was on his way to do homage to
the Pope ; Manfred witiidrew, lest he should encounter
him in Capua ; his guards fell in with those of Borello ;
strife arose, Borello, unknown to Manfred, was slain.
Death of Maufrcd sent his messengers, declarino- him-
Borello i r^ i i • i,. i p i t^
d' Anglone. sclt I'cady to pi'ovo himseli before the Pope
Manfred. guiltlcss of the dcatli of Borello. He was
summoned to answer in person. He received secret
intelligence from his uncle Galvaneo Lancia, that the
treacherous Berthold of Homburg, instead of espousing
his cause, had secretly betrayed it ; that his liberty at
Chap. V. MAXFKED IN KEVOLT. 521
least was threatened, if not his life. He mounted his
horse, with few followers ; after many wild adventm'es,
he reached the city of Lucera, occupied chiefly by the
Saracenic allies of his father. In despite of the Ger-
man knights who commanded in the city in the name
of Berthold of Homburg, he was received with the
loudest acclamations. He was proclaimed Prince and
Sovereign. Before the people he swore to maintain
and defend the rights and title of the King his nephew,
and his own, the liberty and the good estate of the
realm, and of the city.
In a short time he was master of Foggia, had gained
a brilliant victory over the Papal troops, and those of
the jNIarquis of Homburg.
Innocent had already entered into negotiations with
that enemy afterwards so fatal to Manfred. He had
once sold the realm of Sicily to Edmund of England,
and received at least some part of the price : he had
now, regardless of his former obligations, or Dec. 1254.
supposing them forfeited by the inactivity or less lavish
subsidies of England, offered the realm to Charles of
Anjou, the brother of the King of France. All his
solemn engagements were, to Innocent IV., but means
to advance his immediate interests. He might seem as
if he would try to the utmost his own power of abso-
lution, to release himself from the most sacred obliga-
tions.^
But death, which had prostrated the enemies of
Innocent before his feet, and had reduced the Death of
Innocent
house of Swabia to a child and a bastard, Dec. 7, 1254.
1 Petr. de Vinea, Epist. ii. 45. I here agree with M. Cherrier: " Trop de
faits attestent qu'Iiinocent IV. n'etait sincere avet: persdiine; qu'il pro-
mettait et se retractait avec line C'gale facilite, suivant I'^Ut de ses af-
taires." — t. iii. p. 394.
522 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
now laid his hand on Innocent himself. He died mas-
ter of Naples, the city of his great adversary, in the
palace of Peter de Vinea, the minister of that adver-
sary. He left a name odious for ambition, rapacity,
implacable pride, to part, at least, of Christendom. In
England, where his hand had been the heaviest, strange
tales were accredited of his dying hours, and of what
followed his death. It was said that he died in an
agony of terror and remorse; his kindred were bitterly
wailing around his bed, rending their garments and
tearing their hair : he woke up from a state seemingly
senseless, " Wretches, why are ye weeping ? have I not
made you all rich enough ? " He had been, indeed,
one of the first Popes, himself of noble family, who by
the marriage of his nieces, by heaping up civil and ec-
clesiastical dignities on his relatives, had made a Papal
family. On the very night of his death a monk, whose
name the English historian conceals from prudence,
had a vision. He was in Heaven, and saw God seated
on his throne. On his right was the Holy Virgin, on
his left a stately and venerable matron, who held what
seemed a temple in her outstretched hand. On the
pediment of this temple was written in letters of gold,
" The Church." Innocent was prostrate before the
throne, with clasped and lifted hands and bowed knees,
imploring pardon, not judgment. But the noble ma-
tron said, " O, equitable judge, render just judgment.
I arraign this man on three charges : Thou hast founded
the Church upon earth and bestowed upon her precious
liberties ; this man has made her the vilest of slaves.
The Church was founded for the salvation of sinners ;
he has degraded it to a counting-house of money-chang-
ers. The Church has been built on the foundation-
Chai'. V. DEATH OF INNOCENT. 523
stones of fliith, justice, and truth ; lie has shaken ahke
faith and morals, destroyed justice, darkened truth."
And the Lord said, " Depart and receive the recom-
pense thou hast deserved ; " and Innocent was dragged
away. " Whether this was an unreal vision, we know
not," adds the historian, " hut it alarmed many, ^nd
grant it may have amended them."
Nor was this all. The successor of Innocent was
himself warned and terrified by a dream of not less
awful import. In a spacious palace sat a judge of ven-
erable majesty ; by his side a stately matroii, environed
by a countless company. A bier was carried out by
mean-looking bearers ; upon it rested a corpse of sad
appearance. The dead arose, cast himself before the
throne, " O God of might and mercy, have pity upon
me ! " The judge was silent, the matron spoke : " The
time of repentance is passed, the day of judgment is
come. Woe to thee, for thou shalt have justice, not
mercy. Thou hast wasted the Church of God during
thy life ; thou hast become a carnal man ; disdained,
despised, annulled the acts of thy holy predecessoi^s ;
therefore shall thine own acts be held annulled." The
severe judge uttered his sentence ! The bier was hur-
ried away. The dead, sent to a place which the
Christian may charitably hope was Purgatory. Pope
Alexander tremblingly inquired who was the dead man.
His guide replied, " Sinibald, thy predecessor, who died
of grief, not for his sins, but for the defeat of his
army." The affrighted Alexander, when he awoke,
ordered masses and alms to mitigate the purgatorial
suffering of his predecessor ; he endeavored to retrieve
Innocent's sins by cancelling some of his acts ; to one
who offered rich presents to buy a benefice, the Pope
524 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
replied, " No, my friend, lie who sold churches is
dead." 1
Such were the current and popular tales, which
showed that even the Pope could not violate the great
principles of Christian justice and generosity and mercy,
with impunity, or without some strong remonstrance
finding its expression. If Innocent, indeed, had not
trampled on the rights of the clergy, these murmurs
had not been so deep and loud : it was this that imper-
sonated, as it were, the Church, to demand his condem-
nation. It was not Imperialist or Ghibelline hatred,
but the hatred of churchmen which invented or prop-
agated these legends.
In England, indeed, not only after his death, but
during his life, the courageous English spirit had allied
itself with the profoundest religious feeling to protest
against the rapacity and usurpation of the Italian Pope.
It had found a powerful and intrepid voice in Robert
Grostete Bishop of Lincoln. Robert Grostete, during
his life, had manfully resisted and fearlessly condemned
the acts of the haughty PontiflP : after his death he had
been permitted, it was believed, to appear in a vision.
Robert Grostete was of humble birth : at Oxford
his profound learnino; Avon the admiration of Roger
Bacon. He translated the book called the Testament
of the Twelve Patriarchs. He went to France to make
himself master of that language. He became Arch-
deacon of Leicester, Bishop of Lincoln. As Bishop
of that vast diocese he began to act with a holy rigor
unprecedented in his times. With him Christian morals
were inseparable from Christian faith. He endeavored
to bring back the festivals of the Church, which had
1 All these are from Matt. Paris.
Chap. V. ROBERT GROSTETE. 525
grown into clays of idleness and debauchery, to their
sacred character ; he would put down the Feast of
Fools, held on New- Year's Day. But it was against
the clergy, as on them altogether depended the holiness
of the people, that he acted with the most impartial
severity. He was a Churclnnan of the highest hierar-
chical notions. Becket himself did not assert the im-
munities and privileges of the Church with greater
intrepidity : rebellion against the clergy was as the sin
of witchcraft ; but those immunities, those privileges,
implied heavier responsibility ; that authority belonged
justly only to a holy, exemplar}', unworldly clergy.
Everywhere he was encountered with sullen, stubborn,
or open resistance. He was condemned as restless,
harsh, passionate : he was the Ishmael of the hierarchy,
with his hand against every man, every man's hand
against him. The Dean and Chapter of Lincoln were
his foremost and most obstinate opponents ; the clergy
asserted their privileges, the monasteries their Papal
exemptions ; the nobles complained of his interference
with their rights of patronage, the King himself that
he sternly prohibited the clergy from all secular offices ;
they must not act as the King's justiciaries, or sit to
adjudge capital offences. His allies were the new
Orders, the Preachers and Mendicants. He addressed
letters of confidence to the generals of both Orders.
He resolutely took his stand on his right of refusing
institution to unworthy clergy.^ He absolutely refused
to admit to benefices pluralists, boys, those employed in
the King's secular service, in the courts of judicature
or the collection of the revenue ; in many cases for-
eigners ; he resisted alike Churchmen, the Chancellor
1 Godwin, de Prsesul. Matt. Paris.
526 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
of Exeter; nobles, he would not admit a son of the
Earl of Ferrars, as under age ; the King, whose indig-
nation knew no bounds ; he resisted the Cardinal Leg-
ates, the Pope himself.
As a Churchman, Grostete held the loftiest views of
the power of the Pope : his earlier letters to the Pope
are in the most submissive, almost adulatory tone ; to
the Cardinals they are full of the most profound rev-
erence. The Canon Law is as eternal, immutable, uni-
versal as the law of God. The Pope has undoubted
power to dispose of all benefices ; but for the abuse of
that power hell-fire is the doora.^ The resistance of
the clergy to their Bishop involved the bishops and
themselves in vast expense ; there was a perpetual ap-
peal to Rome. Twice Grostete appeared in Lyons :
the second time he was received with respect and
courtesy by the Pope and Cardinals. The Pope even
permitted him to read in his own presence and in the
full consistoiy, a memorial against the abuses of the
Court of Rome (the Curia), of its avarice and venality,
its usurpations and exemptions, hardly surpassed in its
rigorous invective in later times. Grostete returned to
England with a decree against the refractory Chapter
of Lincoln, ample powers to reform his diocese, and
the strong support of the seeming favor of the Pope.
The Pope even condescended to limit to some extent
the demands of the Italian clergy on English benefices.
Yet on his return even the firm mind of Grostete was
shaken by the difficulties of his position : he meditated
1 " Scio et veraciter scio, domini Papse et sanctas Romanse Ecclesife hanc
esse potestatem, ut de omnibus beneficiis ecclesiasticis libere possit ordi-
nare, scio quoque quod quicquid abutitur hac potestate, . . . aedificat ad
ignem Gehenna." — Epist. 49, apud Brown. Fasciculus ii. 339.
Chap. V. ROBERT GROSTETE. 527
retirement fi'om the intractable world ; but lie shook
off the unworthy sloth, and commenced and carried
through a visitation of his diocese unprecedented in its
stern severity. The contumacious clergy were com-
pelled to submit, and accepted his conditions ; the mon-
asteries opened their reluctant gates, and acknowledged
liis authority. In the convents of nuns he is said to
have put their chastity to a strange and indelicate test,
which shows at once the coarseness of the times and
the laxity of morals. Yet he extorted from the monk-
ish historian, who pei'haps had suffered under his rigor,
the admission that his sole object was the salvation of
souls. ^
On Innocent's triumphal return to Italy he had
become, as it were, wanton in his invasions on the
impoverished English Church. It was rumored, in-
credible as it seems, that he demanded provision for
three hundred of the Roman clergy.^ Robert Gros-
tete was summoned to the test of his obedience to the
See of Rome. He had ordered a calculation to be
made of the ecclesiastical revenues possessed by stran-
gers in England. It amounted to 70,000 marks : the
King's income was not one third of the sum. Gros-
tete received command, through his Nuncio, to confer
a canonry of Lincoln on the nephew of Innocent, a
boy, Frederick of Louvain. Grostete was not daunted
by the ascendant power of the Pope.^ His answer
1 Paris, sub ann.
2 There are many mandates for benefices in favor of Italians. — MS. B.
M. E. g. Stephen the Pope's chaplain to hold the rich archdeaconry of
Canterburj' with the archdeaconry of Vienne, et alia beueficia. vii. sub
ann. 12.52, p. 110; a Colonna, 21-3. An Annibaldi De , and John of
Civitella, 289; one or more prebends, with or without cure of souls.
8 Paris.
528 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
was a firm, resolute, argumentative refusal : " I am
bound by filial reverence to obey all commands of the
Apostolic See ; but those are not Apostolic commands
which are not consonant to the doctrine of the Apos-
tles, and the Master of the Apostles, Christ Jesus.
The most holy Apostolic See cannot command that
which verges on the odious detestable abomination,
pernicious to mankind, opposed to the sanctity of the
Apostolic See, contrary to the Catholic faith. You
cannot in your discretion enact any penalty against
me, for my resistance is neither strife nor rebellion,
but filial affection to my father, and veneration for my
mother the Church." ^
It was reported in England, that when this letter
reached the Pope, he cried out in a passion of wrath,
" Who is this old dotard who presumes to judge our
acts ? By St. Peter and St. Paul, if we were not re-
strained by our generosity, we would make him a fable,
an astonishment, an example, and a warning to the
world ? Is not the King of England our vassal,
rather our slave ? Would he not, at a sign from
us, throw this Bishop into prison and reduce him to
the lowest disgrace ? " With difficulty the Cardinals
allayed his wrath : they pleaded the Bishop's irre-
proachable life, his Catholic doctrine ; they more than
insinuated the truth of his charges. The condemna-
tion of Grostete might revolt the whole clergy of
1 The letter in Brown. Faseiculii8, p. 400.
There is a point which I find it difficult to explain. In the former epis-
tle to the Legate Otlio {quoted above), Epist. 49 — seemingly of an earlier
period — Grostete writes: "Licet post meam consecrationem in Episcopum
nepos Domini Papre promotus sit in una de optimis pr»bendis in Lincol-
niensi Ecclesia." This could not be another nephew of Innocent; at the
time of his nomination he must have been a boy indeed. Another writer
(Ann. Burton) calls him puerulus.
Chap. V. VISION TO INNOCENT. 529
France and England, " for he is held a great philos-
opher, deeply learned in Greek and Latin letters, a
reader in theology, a devout preacher, an admirer of
chastity, a persecutor of Simoniacs." The more mod-
erate or more astute counsels prevailed. Papal letters
were framed which in some degree mitio-ated the abuses
of these Papal provisions. The Pope acknowledged,
almost in apologetic tone, that he had been driven by
the difficulties of the times and the irresistible urgency
of partisans to measures which he did not altogether
approve. All who possessed such benefices were to be
guaranteed in their free enjoyment, all who had expect-
ancies were to be preferred to other persons, but these
benefices were not to go down, as it were, by hereditary
descent from Italian to Italian : on decease or vacancy
the patron, prelate, monastery, or layman, might at
once present.^
On Grostete's death it was believed that music was
heard in the air, bells of distant churches tolled of their
own accord, miracles were wrought at his grave and
in his church at Lincoln. But it was said likewise that
the inexorable Pontiff entertained the design of hav-
ing his body disinterred and his bones scattered. But
Robert Grostete himself appeared in a vision, dressed
in his pontifical robes before the Pope. " Is it thou,
1 This letter is dated Perugia, Ann. Pontific. 10, 1252. It is in the Bur-
ton Annals, and in the Additamenta to Paris. In Rymer there is another
quite dilferent in its provisions. There the Pope asserts that he has made
very few appointments. But "Westminster adds to. Paris: " Inventum est
quod nunquam aliquis predecessorum suorum in triplo aliquos sui generis
vel patrije tot ditaverat." There is a strange clause in Innocent's letter,
expressive of the wild times and the exasperation of the public mind : if a
papal expectant should be murdered (si perimi contigerit, as if it were an
usual occurrence), no one should be appointed who had not previously
cleared himself of all concern iu the murder.
VOL. V. 34
530 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.
Sinibald, thou miserable Pope, who wilt cast my bones
out of their cemetery, to thy disgrace and that of the
Church of Lincoln ? Better were it for thee to respect
after their death the zealous servants of God. Thou
hast despised the advice which I gave thee in times
of respectful humility. Woe to thee who hast de-
spised, thou shalt be despised in thy turn ! " The
Pope felt as if each word pierced him like a spear.
From that night he was wasted by a slow fever. The
hand of God was upon him. All his schemes failed,
his armies were defeated, he passed neither day nor
night undisturbed. Such was believed by a large
part of Christendom to have been the end of Pope
Innocent IV. ^
1 It is a significant fact that Grostete was never canonized. This honor
was granted to the cloistral virtues of his predecessor, Hugh of Lincoln ; to
his contemporary, Edmund Eich of Canterbury. Edmund had ingloriously
retired from his difficult post of primate ; his timid piety despaired of re-
forming his clergy; he was embarrassed between the King and his Barons;
between the King compelled to resist the exactions of the Pope, and the
Pope whose demands Edmund would have gratified to the full. He took
refuge in the retreat of Becket, Pontigny; but with nothing of Becket's
character. Yet the mild prelate shared with Becket the honors of a saint.
Grostete was canonized only by the reverence of his country. Even Paris
after his death found out his virtues. Of these not the least was his oppo-
sition to the King and to Rome (fuit Domini Papre et Regis redargutor
manifestus; Romanorum malleus et contemptor); the instructor of the
clergj', the support of scholars ; the preacher of the people ; persecutor only
of the incontinent. At table he was liberal, plentiful, courteous, cheerful,
and affable; in church, devout, tearful, penitent; as a prelate, sedulous,
venerable, indefatigable.
END OF VOL. V
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11