BR 252 .F62 1921 c.l
Foakes-Jackson, F. J. i^^^
1941. ^, I
An introduction to the
history of ,Cl/ristianitv. A
AN
INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY
OF CHRISTIANITY
•y^^^
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AN INTRODUCTION >---
TO THE
HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
A. D. 590-1314
BY
F. J. FOAKES JACKSON
FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND PROFESSOR OF
CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS IN UNION THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY, NEW YORK
mew lorft
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
K ? T
All rights reservec
Copyright, 1921,
By the MACMIU.AN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1921.
PaiNTED IN THE UNITED STATES OT AMERICA
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
BARRETT WENDELL
PREFACE
The object of this work is to give such an introduction to
the history of the Middle Ages as to make its readers desire
more knowledge of this important epoch in the development
of mankind. I have attempted to present the main features
of the period, treated in Chapters which are rather essays
than chronicles, in the hope of stimulating further enquiry.
Of recent years comparatively little interest has been
displayed in the Middle Ages; and the subject does not
appear to be for the moment popular in the Universities
either of Great Britain or America. This may be due to
the history of the period being largely ecclesiastical, since
nothing can explain it but the realisation that a Christian
ideal dominated society. Possibly for this reason two views
of the Middle Ages have become fashionable, both equally
erroneous. On the one hand people have invested them with a
halo of sanctity, and have even maintained that in the thir-
teenth century humanity reached a height which it has never
since attained. That this century is worthy of this encomium,
despite the great men which it produced, was strenuously
denied by those who lived in it, and considered that the world
had reached the culminating point of human wickedness;
nor can the modern student wonder at this pessimism. On the
other hand, and this has contributed not a little to the present
lack of interest, it is maintained that the Middle Ages have
little to teach us. A period of superstition and ignorance has
no interest for days of enlightenment; and men who lived in
a world of aristocratic privilege have nothing in common with
those who enjoy the blessings of democracy. But the more
we know of the conditions of those times, the plainer does it
become that our problems are often the same under different
names, and that even modern views, which pass for being ad-
vanced, have their counterpart in these days. After all we
viii PREFACE
are the inheritors of the Middle Ages; and they have bequeathed
to us many of our hardest problems. The story of the Crusades
is enough to convince the most sceptical that the Near East
was one of the difficulties which our ancestors faced; and if
they failed, can it be said that we have succeeded?
The closeness of our connection with this remote period is
proved by our inability to write impartially concerning it.
We cannot as purely disinterested persons hold the balance
between the Papacy and the Empire, or discuss the Anglo-
Norman conquest of Ireland as detached spectators of a drama
which does not concern us. All we can do is to endeavour to
transport ourselves back to the past, and try to realise how
men acted under the circumstances. By this means we can
learn from men's successes and mistakes how to encounter
the problems of the present.
I had hoped to cover a longer period in this volume; but
I found it impossible to do even the barest justice to the first
part of the Middle Ages, which culminated in the close of the
thirteenth century. The destruction of the most powerful
crusading force, that of the Knights Templar, seemed a suitable
halting place. Hereafter I hope to be able to continue the
narrative in a volume, which might fitly be styled the "Decline
and Fall of the Church Empire." This Empire, like that of
Rome, has vanished, but has left its mark indelibly upon the
world.
I have deliberately employed terms which are now supposed
to be unscientific in speaking of Dark Ages and Middle
Ages, because they are the most satisfactory expressions of
my meaning. The period from Gregory I to the first half of
the eleventh century witnessed the disappearance of the civil-
ization, and, in a sense, of the very peoples of the ancient
world. Dark as they were, the times were illuminated by the
success and expansion of the Christian religion. After this
arose a new fabric of social order, called Medievalism, with
an art, political ideas and a philosophy of its own. Much has
come down to us; for, in a sense, we are still in the Middle
Ages.
PREFACE ix
Many of my friends have allowed me to occupy much
valuable time in the discussion of various points. My col-
leagues at the Union Theological Seminary have been unfailing
in their sympathy and assistance. Professor E. F. Scott has
read all the proof sheets; Professor Rockwell has revised the
bibliographies; Professor H. Ward has given me the benefit of his
advice on the economic history of Chapter XIII; Professor
Fagnani has saved me from several mistakes in Chapter XIV;
I have to thank Professor E. Munroe Smith of Columbia
University for revising and correcting the legal statements in
Chapter VIII. I have also to acknowledge the help I received
from my brother fellow Mr. B. L. Manning of Jesus College,
Cambridge, and the good advice given from the Roman
Catholic standpoint by Mrs. Charles B. Perkins of Boston,
Mass. The Index has been prepared as a gracious act of friend-
ship by Miss Helen Maud Slee. The literary assistance I
received from my friend, the late Professor Barrett Wendell,
to whose memory I have dedicated this book, was invaluable.
CONTENTS
CHAPTERS
PAGES
I. The Pillars of the Medieval Church . . . 1-27
II. The Church and the Empire 28-56
m. The So-called Dark Ages 57-85
}¥. The Church Empire of the West .... 86-114
V. The Revival and Reorganization of the Papacy . 115-144
VI. The Crusades 145-171
VII. Learning and Heresy in the Early Middle Ages . 172-196
VW4. The Medieval Church as a Disciplinary Institution 197-219
IX. The Friars — The Schoolmen — The Universities , 220-244
^. The Papacy and the House of Hohenstaufen . . 245-272
$S. The French Monarchy and the Papacy . . . 273-298
XII. England 299-327
XIII. A Survey of Society 3-8-353
XIV. Dante and the Decay of Medievalism . . . 354-381
List of Important Popes 382-385
Index 387-390
Maps:
Principal Sees and Monasteries of Western Europe . 86
Medieval Europe to Illustrate the Crusades . . 146
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
CHAPTER I
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
Monasticism and the Papacy
The Middle Ages are hard to define — Sense in which the word medieval is employed
— Why the sixth century has been selected — Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome,
classicists — Gregory the Great medieval — World renunciation — Monasti-
cism and the Papacy — Asceticism in primitive Christianity — Rapid spread of
Monasticism — Benedict of Nursia — Rule of St. Benedict — Missionary activity
of the monks — Clergy become monastic — The Breviary — Monasticism pre-
served civilization — Growth of an hierarchy of Bishops — Antioch — Alex-
andra — Constantinople and Jerusalem — Rome and the Western Church — •
The early popes — Rome becomes a holy city — Rise of the medieval papacy —
The City of Rome from Justinian to Gregory — Rome attracts pilgrims — Rome
has to depend on herself for protection — Papal estates — Gregory a Roman
Noble — Gregory at Constantinople — The Dialogues — Gregory and relics —
Primacy of Rome — Gregory and Maurice — John the Faster — Ravenna and
the ''pall" — Gregory and the Episcopate — Conversion of the English — The
Papal Administration — Dramatic appeal of the Church in Rome (a) Gregory's
procession — (b) Baptismal ceremonial — (c) The Mass — The Canon ^
Gregory's additions.
It cannot be determined precisely where the line between
medieval and early Christianity is to be drawn. The historian
who attempts to do this must know that he cannot succeed,
because there are no definite periods in history. Just as in life
it is impossible to say when a man passes from boyhood to
youth or from youth to middle age, so, because there is a con-
tinuity in history as in life, it cannot be alleged at this period a
certain age ends and another commences. Yet both in the life-
time of an individual, and also in the longer story of a great
institution Hke the Church, it is perfectly clear that certain
traits and characteristics belong to middle age rather than
youth. For this reason the first step will be to state what seem
2 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
to be characteristics of the Middle Ages, and the next to say
why a date has been chosen even somewhat arbitrarily as a
starting point.
The adjective "medieval" is applied to the civilization
which was created after the complete break up of the earlier
Graeco-Roman society. It can only strictly be employed in this
sense of the Western half of the Christian Church, because the
civilization which radiated from Constantinople was, till its
destruction by Turkish barbarism, that of the ancient world.
New Rome had for eleven centuries conserved the art, the
literature, the laws of Greece and Imperial Rome. She had
never sunk into the barbarous condition of the ancient city in
the ninth, tenth, and first half of the eleventh centuries. Nor
had the lands under the sway of the Caesars of Byzantium suf-
fered the utter destruction which had overwhelmed the Gauls,
Spain, and Britain, and compelled the reconstruction of society
with little assistance from the experience of the past.
The Western world began to build from the very founda-
tion and in so doing developed a new structure of society, a
new art, and a new learning. For a time at least the old
classical culture was abandoned, and in its place an endeavour
was made to create a civilization entirely Christian. In the
East the Empire was continued and became Christian; but in
the West a Christian Empire was deliberately recreated after
the lapse of centuries. The Gothic cathedral, with its rejection
of classic forms and its new conceptions of beauty, is a perma-
nent symbol of the spirit of medieval reconstruction; and even
scholastic learning was, not so much an attempt to bring Aris-
totle into accord with Christianity, as to make the old Christian
learning conform to the laws of the newly discovered Aristotle.
For this reason it has been decided to commence the story
of the Middle Ages neither with the Peace of the Church in
A.D. 313, nor with the so-called end of the Western Empire,
though much may be said in favour of both dates. When the
persecution, begun by Diocletian, was ended finally by the
edict of Milan, the compact between the Christian Church and
the Roman Empire to unite to rule mankind was really initi-
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 3
ated. The vision of Constantine which assured him that Jesus
would protect the army with the standard of the labarum is as
medieval as the discovery of the true Cross by his mother St.
Helena. So again, when Odovacar handed over the imperial
insignia to Constantinople with a message to the Emperor
Zeno that an Augustus was no longer needed in Italy, it was
the beginning of an era in which the barbarian Teutons openly
recognized themselves as the real rulers of the Western prov-
inces; and this might fitly be made an excuse for alleging that
the Middle Ages had already begun. The reason for choosing a
later date is, however, the distinction to be drawn between the
medieval Christian and his predecessors who may be said
more properly to belong to the classical period.
Three of the four great fathers of the West, Ambrose,
Augustine, and Jerome, were educated, if not under pagan, at
least under classical influences. Ambrose, as is well known, was
elected Bishop of Milan, when he was an unbaptized official,
present in the city in order to keep the peace between the rival
Christian factions. He had been brought up and educated as a
Roman gentleman of the fourth century. He drew many of his
ideas during his episcopate from the books he had studied in
his youth. His ethics, for example, are based as much on Cicero
as on the Wisdom books of the Old Testament or on the moral
teaching of the New. Augustine, an African born in a humbler
rank of life, but educated for academic employment, though
his mother was a devout Christian, became one himself only
after a long search. Acquiring an admiration for virtue from
Cicero's Hortensius, he sought for truth in vain among the
Manichaeans, and found it partially in Neo-platonism. All the
while he was acting as a teacher in different universities,
Carthage, Rome and Milan. As for Jerome, who was not born
in a position entitling him to take part in the administration
of the Empire, nor with the necessity of making a Hving by the
drudgery of professorial labour, he was far better equipped as
a scholar than either of his famous contemporaries, and
throughout his life he affects to deplore the fatal fascination
which the classical literature exercised on his mind. In vain did
4 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
he try to recollect that an angel had told him, "Thou art not a
Christian, but a Ciceronian."
Very different is the fourth great father. Pope Gregory I.
Like Ambrose he was born of a patrician family, and began life
as a civil administrator, rising to the dignity of prefect of Rome.
But here the parallel ceases. By education he was a Christian,
and no humanist. He has no hankering after the beauties of
antiquity; to him they are pagan and nothing more. He writes
well, because he is an honest capable man who has something
worth saying, not because he has studied the best models and
is anxious about his style. His outlook is not that of a converted
pagan, but of a Christian born and bred. In him the classical
age, which closed with Boethius, is dead and a new era has
begun.
For a spirit had come into the world which completely
changed the old order. With the cessation of persecution the
monastic movement had begun; and of the Middle Ages it may
be said that everybody was a monk at heart, in the sense that
no man was so usefully employing his life for the benefit of
others, but he acknowledged that the summons of the monas-
tery or of the hermit's cell was a call to better things, and even
sinners believed that repentance could most surely be found in
the self-torture of solitary asceticism. To all men the monastic
life represented the highest goal on this earth. In this way the
medieval ideal is quite distinct from the modern, which places
service as a citizen, as the head of a family, as a worker for
others, far above the life of contemplation, whereas in the Mid-
dle Ages it was held that the more a man devoted himself to
meditation and subjugation of the flesh to the spirit the more
pleasing was he in the sight of God. In England, and later
throughout Europe, the dissolution of the monasteries sounded
the death-knell of medievalism.
Monasticism was the first characteristic of this long period:
the second was respect for ecclesiastical authority. The priest
was not so much the minister or servant of the people as the
intermediary between them and heaven, the dispenser of those
blessings without which salvation was impossible. And higher
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 5
than all priesthood in the West was that of the supreme pon-
tiff, the representative of the Chief of the Apostles and the
Vicar of Christ upon earth. In a word monasticism and the
papacy were the cornerstones of the medieval system, with-
out which the edifice raised by the toil of ages could not stand.
As Christianity was originally neither an ascetic nor an hierar-
chical religion, the first thing to be sought is how it became
both within five centuries of its inception, if not much earlier.
No doubt Jesus Christ often withdrew to the desert for
communion with God, and fasted before he entered upon
his mission to mankind. Still He was no ascetic. He says that
he came "eating and drinking": He lived among men, sharing
in their homely festivals, and not disdaining the hospitality of
his friends. His disciples are contrasted with those of John and
of the Pharisees, who fasted often. Nor were the early Chris-
tians confused with any of the ascetic Jewish sects. But the
seriousness of the call, and the dread of impending judgment
predisposed many to stricter discipline, which, however, was
distrusted by some wiser Christians, as savouring of the Gnostic
abhorrence of material existence. But the almost morbid fear
of the early Church of anything approaching sexual impurity
led to asceticism, and to the belief that an absolutely virgin life
was far more pleasing to God than the performance of family
duties. Hence in most churches the profession of virginity be-
came increasingly popular. Martyrdom also contributed to the
practice of asceticism. Those who looked forward to the con-
test for the faith before the judge and in the arena, regarded
themselves as "athletes of Christ" and trained themselves for
the trial by abstinence and mortification; and there is but little
doubt that the extraordinary insensibility to pain manifested
was in part the result of long mental, moral, and, perhaps,
physical discipline. But with the disappearance of the danger
of martyrdom Christian zeal sought other outlets. The Church,
tolerated and favoured by imperial authority, could not satisfy
the zeal which had but recently braved the fire of persecution;
and men fled from a half heathen world to seek for God and
wrestle against the powers of evil in the remotest wilderness.
6 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
In the first decades of the fourth century the monks had spread
themselves throughout the deserts of Egypt.
PVom this time the passion for monastic Hfe spread through-
out the Christian world. It appeared next in Syria. In 340
Athanasius went to Rome, it is said, with monks in his com-
pany, who attracted much attention. Before the close of the
century it was customary to visit Egypt in order to study the
monks in their original home. By the opening of the fifth cen-
tury there were monks throughout Gaul and in distant Britain.
The movement was lay rather than clerical: it was an impulse
which drove men into the solitude of the desert, which thou-
sands were forced to obey. At first it was completely unorgan-
ized. In some instances the solitaries grouped themselves
around some renowned ascete, in others men attempted to
work out their own salvation by themselves. Gradually some
sort of order was found to be indispensable, and rules were estab-
lished for groups of monks. The first legislator was Pachom, an
Egyptian who established a community at Tabennae, an island
on the Nile. St. Basil, the great Bishop of Caesarea {ob. 379),
organized the monastic communities in his diocese and fur-
nished them with his rule which has since become the normal
standard of Christian monasticism in the East. About this time
Jerome was living among the Syrian hermits and rivalling them
in austerity. A little later Cassian visited Egypt and brought
back a report of the monastic discipline to Gaul. Rome at-
tracted hosts of monks, some of them impostors, as Jerome
asserts, who preyed on the fine ladies of the capital. Jerome
himself directed his female followers in asceticism and finally
retired to the Holy Land to found a monastery at Bethlehem,
whilst his noble and learned friends, Paula and Eustochium,
dwelt in the neighbouring nunnery. Augustine was converted
by hearing of the austerities of the monks in Egypt; and as a
bishop lived a semi-monastic life surrounded by his clergy.
His great adversary Pelagius was a monk of Britain. Within
little more than a century of its inception the monastic life had
come to be regarded as the consummation and flower of
Christianity.
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 7
The great epoch of Western Monasticism, however, began
in the sixth century with St. Benedict of Nursia, the founder
of the celebrated Benedictine rule. When quite a boy he fled
accompanied by his nurse to the site of Nero's famous villa at
Subiaco {Sub lacum). There he practised his austerities and
attracted disciples. He was exposed to many trials from the
jealousy of the neighbouring monks, and when he accepted the
duty of abbot over some of them, he was almost poisoned for
endeavouring to bring them to a sense of their obligations. As,
however, the fame of his sanctity increased he issued to his
immediate disciples his famous Rule, which, though only in-
tended for the monasteries in the neighbourhood of Monte
Cassino, became a standard for all western monks. His advice
is remarkable for its wisdom, its knowledge of human nature,
and its recognition of the duty of work as well as devotion; and
it is noteworthy that in later days every reform of Benedictine
Monasticism lay in making the rule of the saint more burthen-
some. The greatest testimony to his wisdom, however, lies in
the fact that the order, which adhered faithfully to his prin-
ciples, outshone all those who tried to surpass it in austerity;
and to this day a Benedictine monastery is almost inevitably
a home of learning. With the founder, however, work meant
field labour; and it was only later that study became a part of
the Rule.
When one studies monastic history, and sees how one ascetic
tried to surpass the other in extravagant austerities, the char-
acter of the Benedictine rule is truly surprising. The Roman in
the founder appears in his love of order, system, regularity.
There is a sense of proportion in all he enjoins and at the same
time all is placed on the highest level of duty to God and desire
to please Him. The great virtues recommended are ready
obedience to superiors, and humility, which is reached by
twelve stages. The work insisted upon is to be that best suited
to the monk. If he has a trade he may ply it for the benefit of
the monastery. The rule of cloister is to be strictly observed
and each monastery is to be, if possible, self-supporting. Ben-
edict's own monastery of Monte Cassino was destroyed by the
8 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Lombards in 580 and his monks and his rule migrated in that
year to Rome.
Nothing in the Rule of St. Benedict, or for that matter in
any other rule, provides for monks working directly for the
benefit of mankind: the ideal is seclusion. The monk may save
the world by his piety and holiness; but it is not part of his
duty to labour for that end. Yet in its great days monasticism
could never be a purely selfish pursuit of virtue, and it almost
invariably broke through the bounds of the cloister for the sake
of the world. Monasticism everywhere became a great mission-
ary agency. From East to West it was the same. Over the des-
erts of Central Asia Nestorian monks were pressing towards
China; Greek monks were making inroads into Russia; Irish or
Scottish monks were planting monasteries on islands on the
coast of Britain, exploring in boats of oxhide the inland
waterways, and preparing to invade the heathen Angles,
and to go far afield in pagan Europe with the message of the
Gospel. The same spirit was in the monks of St. Andrew's on
the Caelian Hill, whom Gregory selected to go to convert Eng-
land and make it a province of the Roman Church. Centuries
later, when Russia was groaning under the tyranny of the
Tatar Khans, it was her Christian monks who were preparing
for her vast empire by founding monasteries far beyond her
northern frontiers, and in distant Siberia. Whatever were the
original purpose and ideal of the movement, it was by monks
that the Christian reUgion was being carried beyond the
bounds of the Roman Empire at the height of its glory. The
Christianity of the new nations was, unlike that of the first
believers, a monastic creed.
With the appearance of monasticism the clergy themselves
tended to come under some sort of ascetic rule. In newly founded
missionary churches the bishop was an abbot and the clergy
a convent of Benedictine monks. But in other places the bishop
and his priests tended to form a community under some mo-
nastic rules; and it is claimed that such clergy or *' Canons,"
from the Greek word meaning a rule, existed from the very age
of the Apostles. This probably contributed to make it a law in
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 9
the West, that, unHke the East, all the priests should be un-
married.
The Hfe of the monk was naturally spent largely in prayer:
and in the West the expression of his devotion is to be found in
the Breviary. The Hours of Prayer began overnight with
Matins, succeeded before daybreak by Lauds; then followed
Prime, Tierce, Nones, Sext, Vespers and Compline. This in-
cessant round of prayer consisted originally of the recitation of
the hundred and fifty psalms but gradually developed into de-
votions more varied, and possibly more edifying. The Psalms
were rearranged and divided into Nocturns, their recitation
was broken by readings from Scripture, anthems, antiphons,
and responses. The stories of the saints were read as legenda
(things to be read, hence our word "legend"). Short expressive
prayers occur, and also hymns. A calendar regulated the offices
for the day. There was no necessary uniformity; but the basis
of all was the Psalter; out of this was gradually evolved the
Breviary which has to be said daily by every Roman Catholic
priest, and is otherwise known as the Divine Office. From this
is derived the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of
England, which has adapted a monastic service to congrega-
tional use.
For nearly a thousand years the monastic ideal was in a
sense to dominate the Western Church and it is hardly too
much to say that thereby Christianity was saved from being
utterly overwhelmed by the constant inroads of the barbarians.
Nor can it safely be said that its influence is dead, or that it
will not again assert itself in Christianity. In a falUng world,
like that of the age which ushered in the medieval period, men
were impelled to take refuge in the desert, the cloister or the
forest that they might at least save their own souls from the
impending destruction. Circumstances forced many to acknowl-
edge the emptiness and misery of life on earth and to look for
happiness outside the world. That those who did so were not all
actuated by base or cowardly motives is proved by the services
of the monks to mankind. Whether their world denying ethics
will again be demanded to save civilization time alone can show.
lO INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The Medieval Church in the West was a body which
tended more and more to centraHze authority in the Church of
Rome. Though in theory all bishops were endowed with equal
powers, those who presided over the most important cities
exercised increasing influence over their brethren. Long before
the Peace of the Church, Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch were
looked up to by all the surrounding churches, whilst Carthage
had evidently extensive jurisdiction over the numerous epis-
copate of Africa and Numidia. But not only were the bishops
of great capitals and sees of apostolic foundation regarded
with respect, those of the leading provincial cities enjoyed a
sort of local primacy. Thus before the Church entered into
relations with the Empire the principles of an hierarchy of
bishops existed, though the distinguishing titles of archbishop,
patriarch, etc., had not yet come into use.
The three sees of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch had long
been recognized as the leading bishoprics. Of these the most
ancient was Antioch, where the believers were first called
Christians, whence Barnabas and Saul started on their mission-
ary journey, where Paul withstood Peter on the question of
Gentile liberty. It was also famous for having sent Ignatius, its
bishop, the greatest of all the primitive martyrs, to die at Rome
for the Faith. The city was, moreover, recognized as the capital
of the East and its bishop was regarded as the leader of churches
stretching far beyond the frontiers of the Empire.
The peculiar position of Alexandria as capital of Egypt,
which was not a province of the Roman Republic, but the
personal property of Caesar, gave its bishop an unique status.
For a long time he was the only bishop in Egypt, nor did he
originally seek his orders at the hands of his episcopal brethren.
1 he twelve great presbyters of Alexandria elected one of their
number, and placed him in the episcopal throne. The church
could not boast an apostolic founder, but its origin was traced
to the Evangelist St. Mark, once the companion of St. Paul,
and distinguished by St. Peter as "Marcus my son." It claimed
the position of the second see after Rome.
Two other sees were destined to enjoy with Alexandria and
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH II
Antioch the dignity of a patriarchate. Constantinople or New
Rome was given by the Second General Council a place only
inferior to that of Old Rome, and after much controversy it
became the second see of Christendom; and Jerusalem which
had, after the destructions of the Jewish city by the Romans,
become a gentile city, called ^lia Capitolina, was added to
the patriarchates, though its jurisdiction was very limited.
But the West was not partitioned ©ut like the East. It was
a patriarchate of itself under the jurj|diction of the bishop of
the capital of the world. Not that the Roman Church claimed
its position because of the earthly glory of the city. It had
other and more spiritual claims to reverence. Peter and Paul
were its founders: and both had testified to the faith by death
in Rome. The martyrs of the first and most terrible persecution
by Nero suffered there. Clement, the friend of Paul and follower
of Peter, a name held in the highest honour in history and
legend, was Bishop of Rome. Ignatius had written to the
Roman Church on his way to martyrdom in the City, as to the
church which held "the primacy of love"; Irenaeus had taught
at Rome and declared that there the true tradition, handed
down from the days of its founders, was preserved. In the days
of doubt and difficulty, when in every church bishops of sus-
picious orthodoxy had presided, Arians in Constantinople and
Antioch, Monophysites at Alexandria, the Roman pontiflF had
always maintained the Faith. He had proved himself the pro-
tector of those whom the East had unjustly condemned, like
Athanasius and John Chrysostom; he had stricken down here-
tics like Nestorius and Entyches. Such were the claims of
Rome to respect in antiquity, and even though in this enumera-
tion a few less creditable incidents, like the alleged Arianism
of Liberius, have been conveniently ignored, the tradition of
the Roman Church was more honourable than that of any great
Oriental sees.
./ The See of Rome was fortunate in producing but rarely a
bishop of outstanding personality, so that its prestige was due
rather to its peculiar importance than to the commanding
genius of any individual. Indeed none of the greatest of the
12 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
early fathers, with the sole exception of Hippolytus, belonged
to the Roman Church. Rome had no worthies to compare
with the Tertullians, Cyprians and Augustines of Africa, with
Alexandrians such as Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Didymus,
and Cyril, with men of Asiatic birth like Polycarp, Irenaeus,
Polycrates of Ephesus, and Theophilus of Antioch. No mar-
tyred bishop of Rome appealed to popular imagination like
Ignatius and Pothinus of Antioch. Yet when a pope does emerge
from obscurity it is almost invariably as a man of sound prac-
tical judgment, often morally superior to his contemporaries.
The Epistle written by the Church of Rome to Corinth, which
is associated with the name of Clement, though it never occurs
in the letter, is, though a fantastic production, full of good
sense. Anicetus treated Polycarp with Christian courtesy. Vic-
tor at least saw that Montanism was likely to disturb the
church, and acted with vigour. Despite the invectives of Hip-
polytus one can recognize in Callistus an excellent adminis-
trator. In later times Julius's conduct in the Arian controversy
was admirable. Innocent, early in the next century, behaved
justly and honourably in his defence of John Chrysostom.
The early popes therefore did little to hinder, if they dis-
played no great genius in advancing, the claims of the See of
Rome. But the reverence for the City of Rome as the capital
of the Christian world grew steadily. The earliest Christians
regarded Rome as Babylon "drunk with the blood of the
saints," but in a few generations the City became holy, sancti-
fied by the blood of the martyrs. It is interesting to observe
how the church, though entitled that of St. Peter and St. Paul,
became actually entirely devoted to the memory and the
honour of St. Peter; for it is not without significance that Paul
lies far from the city on the Ostian way.
But great as was the influence of the Roman See and
Bishop, and although Leo the Great had played a most impor-
tant part in the church and even in the politics of the time, the
day of the Papacy, in the medieval sense of the term, was not
yet. As long as the Roman imperial authority was of influence in
Italy and men could look for help to the Emperor or even his
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 1 3
deputy, so long the Pope was no more than the Bishop of the
first see in Christendom. But the time was to come, when all
the civilized inhabitants of Italy groaning under barbarian
tyranny would seek help in vain from Emperor and Exarch,
and find their only resource in the Roman Pontiff. This hap-
pened at the close of the sixth century when the Romans
found an effectual protector in Gregory I, whose pontificate
suggested the idea but rarely realized, of the head of the
Roman Church representing the order of the ancient Empire
and acting as the main prop of the shaking fabric of civilization.
Rightly to understand the significance of the work of Greg-
ory the Great it is necessary to recapitulate the fortunes of
Rome from the accession of Justinian, A.D. 527.
The Catholic Church had never submitted wilHngly to the
rule of Theodoric and his Ostrogoths. Whatever were its merits,
it was barbarian and Arian; and, as Romans and Catholics,
the people resented it. When therefore Theodoric was dead,
and the Emperor was sending his armies to reconquer Italy
from the foreign yoke, they were welcomed by the native in-
habitants. But the terrible and "truceless" war against the
Ostrogoths with the repeated sieges of Rome utterly ruined
the City; and at one time it is said to have been entirely un-
inhabited. Not that it was a city of ruins: no sieges without
cannon could have made it that. It still stood with its houses,
temples, baths, theatres, and aqueducts, but all were empty
and idle. Nor would Rome as the capital of the world have in
this century attracted a population. So far as one can judge the
interest in its old glories had vanished. What drew men back
to its deserted streets were the relics of the martyrs, the
churches, and, above all, the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Rome arose from her desolation a holy city.
The tendency to regard Rome as a sacred spot began with
the removal of the seat of government from the imperial city.
It is found in the heathen poets of the period as well as among
the Christians. Damasus (366-384) restored and redecorated
the catacombs, and thus attracted pilgrims from all parts. And
as old Rome became less and less of interest, with the loss of
14 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the books and leisure necessary to study the story of ancient
days, new Rome, with her legends of Early Christian saints,
and her immense store of potent wonder-working relics became
the centre of pious pilgrimages. For it is a noteworthy fact,
and one which makes the close of the sixth century the begin-
ning of medievalism especially in the West, that the interest
in antiquity seemed to cease. The great fathers of the fourth
and fifth centuries had been, as a rule, educated in the atmos-
phere of the old world, and never lost their literary culture.
Gregory the Great, the fourth great Latin father, is, as has
been said, purely patristic. His interests are wholly Christian,
and no angel was required to rebuke him, as Jerome had been in
his vision. Rome had become uncompromisingly Christian
when he ascended the papal throne.
But further, Christian Rome, though no longer more than
the titular capital of the Empire, had perforce to become self-
protecting. The conquest of Italy by Justinian's generals,
Belisarius and Narses, and the overthrow of the Gothic king-
dom was a disaster in that it placed the peninsula under a
government, powerless to protect, and efficient only to tax
the inhabitants. The semi-civilized Ostrogoths made way for
the uncivilized Lombards, who poured in as conquerors, con-
fining the territory of the Empire to the district around Ra-
venna, the duchies of Rome and Naples and the south. Pressed
on all sides the Romans had perforce to organize in their de-
fence and were compelled to turn from the Greek administra-
tors, who were corrupt and inefficient, to their own bishop,
who thus became more and more a temporal ruler, in other
words, a Pope in the modern sense of the word.
The correspondence of Gregory I reveals that in his day
the Pope was the richest man in Italy. How acquired we know
not, but certainly at the end of the sixth century he owned land
in all parts of the Empire, and especially in Sicily. In such a
city as Rome, without industries, and a population mainly
clerical, the possession of wealth entailed the duty of feeding
the people. The Pope really took the place of the Emperor,
whose first duty had been to keep the capital fed and amused.
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 15
Gregory's energies were necessarily devoted to providing the
people with pants; and fortunately he possessed unusual
abihty in business. As a Christian bishop he naturally could
not emulate the great men of ancient Rome in giving circenses;
but, as an alternative, he provided ecclesiastical processions and
ceremonies, qualified to absorb the interest of a population
which largely consisted of an idle, if pious, proletariat.
It is noteworthy that the very greatest of the Popes have
been Romans, or men whose previous career had been entirely
devoted to the business of the Church of Rome. There have
been some really great men, who have been called upon to
preside over the Church from other countries; and even, con-
trary to early practice, from other dioceses, but these popes
have either been unpopular with the Roman people or have not
been able to survive the chmate long enough to make a mark.
St. Gregory I, perhaps the greatest, and probably the best man
who ever occupied the chair of St. Peter, was no exception. He
was a Roman of the Romans. Born of good family, descended
from a pope, Felix III (483-492) or Felix IV (526-530), the
son of a Roman noble called Gordianus and his wife Silvia,
Gregory had held the secular office of Praefectus Urbis, in
ancient days one of the most honourable in the Empire, and
even then a position of considerable importance, and great
responsibility. At his father's death, however, he made over
the fortune he inherited for religious purposes, founding seven
monasteries, the most famous being the one which he himself
joined, that of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill.
Pope Pelagius appointed Gregory his ambassador to Con-
stantinople when he remained for about seven years. Strange
to say he never was able to acquire any knowledge of the lan-
guage, though Greek was already officially employed in New
Rome. This obtuseness in being powerless to learn another
tongue shows itself not infrequently in men of undoubted
genius. St. Augustine, for example, though a Latin rhetorician
of no ordinary eminence, confesses that, when taught Greek at
school, he never could gain a working knowledge of the lan-
guage. The historian Procopius visited Italy and carried away
1 6 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
no Latin. Lord Clive, though he won the confidence of the
natives as few EngHshmen have done, and laid the founda-
tion of the British Empire in India, as much by his adminis-
trative as by his poUtical and mihtary skill, was only able to
communicate with the Hindoos through an interpreter. The
fact is that linguistic ability, whilst sometimes an indication,
is by no means a guarantee of exceptional mental power.
Gregory was unquestionably a highly gifted man despite the
fact that he was deficient in the power, or perhaps the desire,
to learn Greek.
In Gregory both the weakness and the strength of the
medieval mind appear to be almost incarnate, and it is sur-
prising, after acknowledging his versatility, his powers of or-
ganization, his ability to govern men, his singular discernment
both in political and personal affairs, to notice the limitations
of his mind in certain directions. But in these lay also his
strength. He was great not because he was before his time, but
because he represented the feelings of his age as a leader of men.
It is for this reason that it is necessary to lay more stress on
the defect of his mind than on its many excellencies, since there-
by one gains an insight into the thought of, not only his age,
but of that of many succeeding generations. In the Dialogues
written in 593 his almost unbounded credulity on certain
points is revealed. That it is not of the populus vult decipi decip-
iatur type, but absolutely sincere, is evident. The title of the
work in full is "The four books of Gregory the Pope concern-
ing the Life and Miracles of Italian Fathers and concerning
the Eternity of Souls." One book, the second, is devoted to the
Life of St. Benedict, the earliest in existence. Part of the work
records the miracles of holy men in Italy, some still alive, and
few who had not been living within the last seventy years.
The form in which the stories are related is that of a dialogue
between Gregory and his beloved son, Peter the Deacon. The
Pope, wearied with the secular business of his office, has re-
tired sad of heart to a garden. There Peter joins him and hears
his regrets that he cannot enjoy the life of those "Who with
their whole minds have left this present world." Peter, one of
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 17
those useful dull men who ask the questions and raise the ob-
jections which provoke diffuse answers, says he knows of no
such men, and if they wrought miracles, he never heard of
them. Then Gregory promises to tell him what he himself had
heard. In some instances, however, the extreme rusticity of
his informants had prevented him using their exact words.
The unseen world is all around. A Jew sleeps in a temple of
Apollo and hears demons exulting at the fact that a bishop
named Andrew had treated his housekeeper with an innocent
familiarity, which opened a prospect of worse things. Germanus,
bishop of Capua, goes to take a course of baths; and in the
natural vapours he beholds Paschasius, a deacon who was
supposed to have died in the odour of sanctity. Valentinus, *'a
shifty person and addicted to levity," is buried in a church and
dragged out shrieking by demons. The devil in the form of a
black boy attracts a monk away from prayers, and is seen
doing so by St. Benedict. Satan appears to the saint with
flaming mouth and flashing eyes. He disguises himself as a
doctor to get into a monastery, he throws down the wall and
kills a young monk. Two gossiping nuns die impenitent and
have to leave the church when the deacon cries, "If there be
any that communicate not let him depart."^
The soul is seen to depart from the body. Bystanders see
it ascend in the form of a dove. On the other hand, the soul of
Theodoric, the great Ostrogothic King of Italy, is cast down in
the sight of a hermit into the crater of Lipari. Miracles are
constant, even the dead are raised to life. As is not uncommon
in other medieval records these supernatural occurrences are
excellently attested.
The reverence for the relics of the saints and martyrs, and
the credulity with which they were regarded, had reached
almost to its climax. Gregory certainly did nothing to check
this impulse, which he doubtless considered to be highly salu-
tary. He was accustomed to send filings from the chairs of St.
Peter and St. Paul in little crosses. "Let this," he writes to
1 An interesting indication that the service then followed the Greek rather than the
Latin type. There is nothing of the kind in the Mass.
1 8 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Eulogius, "be continually applied to your eyes, for many
miracles have been wrought by this same gift." A Lombard
tried to cut open the golden casket containing these filings. An
evil spirit compelled him forthwith to cut his own throat.
When the Empress Constantina requested him to send the head
or some part of the body of St. Paul to deposit in a church she
was building, Gregory wrote explaining why this would be
impossible. Even to approach the bodies of Saints Peter and
Paul was to cause awful prodigies. His predecessor, Pelagius,
had tried to change the silver covering over the shrine of St.
Peter, and was deterred by a most alarming portent. When
Gregory tried to make some improvement near the tomb of
St. Paul a vision appeared to the custodian. When a man
touched some bones near it, he died suddenly. When the tomb
of St. Lawrence was inadvertently opened all those who saw
his body died within ten days. A cloth laid near the bodies of
the saints is sufficient to deposit in a church, and will probably
work miracles. In the time of Leo the Great, the Pope cut one
of these cloths and blood flowed. All stories of Greeks having
moved the bones of saints from Rome must therefore be in-
credible. The Empress may perhaps obtain some filings from
the chains of the Apostle; but Gregory can promise nothing.
Sometimes the priest can get a speck off' by the application of
the file, but often the chains will allow nothing to be taken
from them. Of course politeness compelled Gregory in refusing
an Empress to exaggerate the wonder-working power of the
relics; but he must have partly believed in it himself, and deaths
following contact with objects so feared and venerated may
doubtless have occurred.
It is refreshing to turn from the infirmities of so noble a
mind as that of Gregory to the qualities really demanding ad-
miration and to show how he laid the foundation of the great
and often beneficial influence of his see.
Gregory has no hesitation in affirming the primacy of his
see; but it is over other bishops and is purely spiritual; if he
shows independence towards the secular power it is on account
of its incapacity. The most glaring example of this was the
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 19
incompetency shown by the Byzantines in deaUng with Italy.
Romanus the Exarch could do nothing to hold the Lombards
in check, and the provincials were not able either to fight or to
negotiate terms. It was Gregory, if anyone, who saved Rome
from capture by Agilulf, King of the Lombards and Ariulf,
Duke of Spoleto. Maurice, the Emperor, was not unnaturally
indignant at Gregory's interference and his negotiations; and
a bitter correspondence ensued in 595 between him and the
Roman bishop. In his letter to the Emperor, Gregory up-
braids Maurice for calling him a fool, though he had certainly
been one in enduring so much at the hands of the Lombards.
He solemnly protests against the treatment he has received,
and especially at the imperial displeasure being visited upon
those who had defended Rome, namely, Gregory the Praefect
and the general Castus. It was Gregory who was mainly re-
sponsible for the peace made between the Empire and the
Lombards in 598, which lasted for two years. In the whole
business the Pope is alike a peacemaker and a patriot, the real
saviour of Italy.
With the See of Constantinople Gregory had even more
trouble than with the Emperor. It must never be forgotten
that Constantinople was New Rome, the Emperor, the Roman
Emperor, the army, the Roman army; and the inhabitants
called themselves Romans. To speak of the Greek Empire is
entirely incorrect. It was as bishop of New Rome that the
Constantinopolitan prelate claimed, so far as he dared to do
so, equality with the Pope himself. Consequently when John
the Faster, Bishop of Constantinople, took the title of
Universal Bishop, it was naturally regarded as an insult to
Old Rome.
The Church of Ravenna was also a cause of anxiety on
account of the ambition of its bishops, who did not forget
that their city was the seat of the Roman government. It turned
on the use of the pallium. This was a vestment consisting of a
long band of white wool ornamented with a varying number of
black or purple crosses. In the East it is an episcopal vestment,
the omophorion, but in the West it was a mark of honour,
20 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
granted only to the most distinguished ecclesiastics. It seems
to have been customary in early times for the Pope to ask leave
of the Emperor before he gave a pall. It was worn during the
first part of the Mass up to the reading of the Gospel; but the
Pope and the Bishop of Ravenna kept it on all the service.
The Bishop in Gregory's time was named John, formerly a
Roman priest and a friend of the Pope. However, he fell into
"the sin of pride" and insisted on wearing the pallium even
when he gave audience to the laity. The dispute continued
even after his death, when his successor Marstinianus, a friend
and disciple of Gregory, was unable to yield to the Pope on
this point. Trifling as all this may seem, it is deserving of men-
tion as illustrating the spirit of the age, in which outward sym-
bols were considered of vital importance. Gregory was not the
man to dispute about trifles; but in the question of the wearing
of the pallium the whole principle of the respective rights of
Rome and Ravenna was involved.
The great Pope showed his interest in the churches of
every part of the world as Patriarch of the West, and as chief
among the Patriarchs of the East. But Gregory was too great
a man to desire rigid uniformity, or even to exact unquestion-
ing obedience. The See of Peter has the right to correct of-
fenders, and to restrain those who would encroach on the do-
minion of others; but "when no fault requires it to be other-
wise, all bishops according to the principle of humility are
equal." He desires "no honour which shall detract from the
honour which belongs to my brethren." Toward the Eastern
Patriarchates he takes a line of his own. Antioch had St. Peter
as its bishop for seven years. Alexandria was the see of Mark,
the disciple of Peter. Consequently these churches are Petrine
and derive their authority from the Prince of the Apostles.
This argument was of course a convenient weapon to use
against the presumption of Constantinople.
Gregory's great achievement, the conversion of the English,
is an important episode in the development of the Papal
theory. Augustine was sent forth from his monastery on the
CaeHan Hill, as a general might have been sent to conquer and
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 2T
organize a new province. The island is to be duly divided into
two provinces with the old Roman cities of London and York
as metropolitan sees. Augustine is to have jurisdiction for life
and after him the senior metropolitan is to be the president.
The authority of Augustine is strictly limited to Britain — he
is to have no jurisdiction in Gaul — that belongs to his colleague
Vigilius of Aries. Augustine is to choose all that is best from
the rites of other churches for the newly planted church. Such
was the tenor of the Responsa brought by the second mission
to Augustine with Gregory's letters in answer to the report of
the success of the Gospel in Kent. They are interesting not
merely because they throw light on the conditions of the time
and the mind of Gregory, but from the tone of authority which
pervades them. The Pope issues his orders from the centre of
Christendom as to how this church planted on its outskirts is
to be organized, as an Emperor might have directed his lieu-
tenant to divide and administer a province which had just been
annexed. And it is worthy of attention how the Roman spirit
pervades Gregory's direction. He desires as little change as
possible provided the possession of what has been acquired is
made sure. Even, according to his letters, the customs of the
people and their very religious festivals are to be as little al-
tered as possible consistently with the maintenance of pure
Christianity. The new church was also thoroughly medieval
alike in the papal authority with which it was established and
the monastic tone by which it was pervaded. It was from the
monasteries of Canterbury that the light of truth was expected
to spread throughout the island.
What has been written hitherto may be open to the ob-
jection that Gregory represents a pope of a totally exceptional
type, and that what is described as happening under him
occurred in no other pontificate. Of course this criticism is in
a sense valid, nevertheless it is impossible that all should have
originated with him and have collapsed at his death. The fact
is whenever an opportunity is afforded of seeing the ancient
papal organization at work the same sort of administration is
revealed. Siricius, in the fourth century, and Leo, in the fifth,
22 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
transact business on lines somewhat similar to those of Gregory
in the sixth; and even in days of anarchy and confusion the
Roman Church never lost sight of the Christianity of the world.
Gregory inherited and transmitted a tradition as to the posi-
tion and duties of the papal chair and of the Church of Rome in
general, and it will be abundantly clear that no amount of
civil and ecclesiastical confusion in the City was able finally to
interrupt it. No sooner was order restored than the authority
of Rome revived and flourished once more. For no individual,
however transcendent his gifts, can be greater than an institu-
tion with a continuous tradition. And the Papacy was more
powerful than any of the few popes of commanding genius
who presided over it. Leo I, Gregory II, Gregory III, Nicholas
I, Gregory VII, and Innocent III left their marks indelible in
history; but they are after all but names in the story of the
great priesthood, which claimed and still claims supremacy
over the Christian conscience throughout the world. In the
pontificate of Gregory I is seen the system working, thanks to
his sanctity and force of character, under unusually favour-
able conditions.
The Church of Rome was moreover thoroughly conversant
with the art of presenting the Christian religion as an appeal
to men's imagination. Pope Pelagius died of the plague Feb.
8th, 590, and the people with one voice acclaimed Gregory the
Deacon as fitted for the papacy. Yet nothing finally could be
done till the choice of the Romans had been confirmed at Con-
stantinople. But in the meantime the plague raged and the
people dropped dead, till Gregory in a sermon in St. John
Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome, announced his intention of
assembling the people in a seven-fold litany to entreat the
mercy of God. The order of the procession is indicated in a
statement which shows the seven regions and the seven-fold
division of the Roman people, "Let the clergy set out from the
Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian with the priests of the
First region," etc. Perhaps, however, the arrangement will be
clearer in the form of a table.
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 23
DIVISION STARTING PLACE REGION
1. Clergy *SS. Cosmas and Damian Sixth
2. Abbots and their monks SS. Gervasius and Protasius Fourth
3. Abbesses and nuns *SS. Marcellinus and Peter First
4. Children *SS. John and Paul Second
5. Laymen *St. Stephen, the ProtomartyrSeventh
6. Widows St. Euphemia Fifth
7. Married women *St. Clement the Martyr Third
"Let us go forth," says Gregory, "from each of the churches
with prayers and tears; let us meet together at the Basilica of
the Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin, Mother of Our Lord God Jesus
Christ; and let us there persevere in supplications to the Lord,
with weeping and groaning, that we may be deemed worthy to
receive pardon for our sins."
It is easy to see from this address that processions in Rome
were already organized and imposing, and though it cannot be
proved what Gregory did for the ritual observances of the
Church, it is evident that they were in his time designed to
impress not only the Romans but those who visited the city.
In later days the baptismal office, as administered by the Pope
in St. John Lateran, must have been a spectacle appealing to
the religious emotions which no one could have witnessed
unmoved. This contributed greatly to the influence of the
Roman Church and to the authority of its clergy, notably of
its Supreme PontiflF.
The Great Baptismal ceremony was, however, but occa-
sional, at rare intervals throughout the Christian year. There
was, however, one service which every Christian witnessed
constantly, so fraught with mystery, so solemn, so awful, that
it is not too much to assert that it was the pivot of the religion
of the Middle Ages. The Founder of the Church had on the
night of his betrayal instituted a feast commemorative of his
Death and had called the Bread His Body, and the Wine His
Blood. From the dawn of Christianity, the Breaking of Bread,
the Eucharist, or as it was later termed in the West the " Mass "
became the central act of worship. At first, perhaps a supper or
common meal, it soon became a service with an increasing
*The Saints are mentioned in the Canon of the Mass.
24 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
tendency to assume a certain definite form. As the church de-
veloped, the Liturgy, for so the service was termed, grew in the
impressive manner in which it was performed, and in the
splendour of its ritual. It was regarded with increasing awe;
for, whereas all Christians had at first partaken of it regularly,
it gradually became customary only to do so on rare occasions,
and to attend without communicating. The essentials of the
primitive service seem to have been prayers, the reading of
scriptures and exhortation. When the preliminary exercises were
finished the deacon called on all who were undergoing penance
or were not baptized to retire. The doors were then closed and
the fully initiated Christian men and women celebrated the
death of Christ upon the Cross, before which he had instituted
the Supper. Bread and wine were solemnly offered by the
"president" of the assembly and the words of institution were
repeated. Then the people partook of the Sacred Elements and
the service was at an end. In the West the conclusion was the
sentence lie missa est, and from this dismissal of the congrega-
tion is probably derived the term missa or mass.
The great prayer of Offering — in Greek the Anaphora,
offering up — was the culmination of the Eucharistic ceremony;
and in the West it tended to become the same everywhere and
to follow the prayer used by the Roman Church. The Mass
varied in its opening details in every country of the West, even
in many dioceses, but the Canon, as it was called from its un-
changing character, became exclusively that of the Roman
Church. And yet assuredly it is not the most ancient form in
which the service was conducted, even in Rome, where it al-
most certainly was said in Greek. At the same time it was in
the days of Gregory so old and regarded with so much venera-
tion that it is wonderingly recorded that this great Pope made
two alterations which seem truly unimportant but were yet
regarded as of great significance:
(i) He added to the prayer Hanc igitur the words **And may-
est thou dispose our ways in Thy peace, and deliver us
from eternal damnation, and order us to be numbered in
the flock of thine elect."
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 25
(2) He ordered the Lord's Prayer to be said immediately after
the Canon, "Because it was the custom of the Apostles
to say this very prayer alone at the consecration of the
Host; and it seemed to me very incongruous that we should
say over the Oblation the Canon composed by a scholastic
and not say over His Body and Blood the prayer composed
by the Redeemer Himself."
As the exact words of the Canon of the Roman Mass are
not familiar to many, a translation of this noble prayer is
given in full without the addition of the rubrics which direct
the actions of the ministering priest, though these are regarded
as of great importance.
CANON OF THE MASS
Therefore, O most merciful Father, we humbly pray thee, through
Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, and entreat thee to accept and bless
these gifts, these presents, these holy unspotted sacrifices, which we
offer to thee, in the first place, on behalf of the holy Catholic Church,
which do thou vouchsafe to keep in peace, to guard, to unite, and to
govern, throughout the whole world; together with thy servants our
Pope N. and our Bishop N. [and our King N.] and all who are ortho-
dox, and who hold the catholic and apostolic faith.
Remember, O Lord, thy servants and thy handmaidens N. and
N. and all here present, whose faith is approved, and whose devotion
is known to thee; on behalf of whom we offer unto thee [or who offer
unto thee] this sacrifice of praise, for themselves and for all pertain-
ing to them, for the redemption of their souls, for the hope of their
own salvation and security, and who are paying their vows unto thee,
the eternal, living, and true God.
In communion with and reverencing the memory, in the first
place, of the glorious and ever-virgin Mary, mother of our God and
Lord Jesus Christ; as also of thy blessed apostles and martyrs —
Peter, Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholo-
mew, Matthew, Simon, and Thaddaeus, Linus, Cletus, Clement,
Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Laurence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul,
Cosmas and Damian, and of all thy saints; through whose merits and
prayers do thou grant that in all things we may be defended by the
aid of thy protection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
We beseech thee, therefore, O Lord, graciously to accept this ob-
lation of our services, and of thy whole family, and to dispose our days
in thy peace, bidding us to be delivered from eternal damnation, and
to be numbered among the flock of thine elect. Through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Which oblation, we beseech thee, O Almighty, that thou wouldest
26 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
vouchsafe in all respects to bless, approve, ratify, and make reason-
able and acceptable, that it may become to us the body and the blood
of thy most dearly beloved Son our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who on the day before he suffered took bread into his holy and
adorable hands, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, to thee, O God,
his Almighty Father, gave thanks to thee, blessed it, brake it. And gave
it to his disciples, saving, Take, and eat ye all of this. For this is My
Body.
Likewise, after supper, taking this most excellent chalice into
his holy and adorable hands, and giving thanks to thee, he blessed
it, and gave it to his disciples, saying. Take and drink ye all of this,
for this is the cup of My Blood of the new and everlasting testament,
the mystery of faith, which shall be shed for you and for many for
the remission of sins.
As oft as ye shall do these things, ye shall do them in remembrance
of me.
Wherefore also, O Lord, we thy servants, together with thy holy
people, calling to mind both the blessed passion of the same Christ,
thy Son, our Lord God, and also his resurrection from the dead, to-
gether with his glorious ascension into heaven, offer to thy most ex-
cellent majesty of thy gifts and bounties, a pure offering, a holy
offering, a spotless offering, the holy bread of eternal life, and the
chalice of everlasting salvation. Upon which do thou vouchsafe to
look with a favourable and gracious countenance, and to accept
them as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the gifts of thy righteous
servant Abel, the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and the holy
sacrifice, the pure oblation, which thy high priest Melchisedech offered
unto thee.
We humbly beseech thee. Almighty God, command these (gifts) to
be borne by the hands of thy holy angel to thy Altar on High, in
the presence of thy divine majesty, that as many of us as shall by
partaking at this Altar receive the most sacred body and blood of
thy Son, may be fulfilled with all heavenly benediction and grace,
through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Remember also, O Lord (the souls of) thy servants and hand-
maidens N. and N., who have gone before us with the sign of faith,
and sleep the sleep of peace; to them, O Lord, and to all who rest in
Christ, we pray thee that thou wouldest grant a place of refreshment,
light and peace. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
To us, also, thy sinful servants, who hope in the multitude of thy
mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with thy holy
apostles and martyrs, with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas,
Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha,
Lucy, Agnes, Caecilia, Anastasia, and with all thy Saints, into
whose company do thou admit us, we beseech thee, not weighing our
merits, but pardoning our offences. Through Christ our Lord.
By whom, O Lord, thou ever createst, sanctifiest, quickenest,
blessest, and bestowest upon us all these good things.
THE PILLARS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 27
Through him, and with him, and in him, all honour and glory
are unto thee, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy
Ghost. For ever and ever. Amen.
To this Gregory added:
Let us pray. Admonished by saving precepts, and directed by
divine institution, we are bold to say,
(The Lord's Prayer)
AUTHORITIES
The authority for the life of St. Benedict is the Vita by Gregory the Great
written about 594. A useful summary of the Rule is to be found in Mirbt s
Quellen, p. 71. The critical text by E. Woelflin (1895) has been translated
in Thatcher and McNeal, Source Book for Mediceval History, pp. 432-485.
The latest English translation is by Hunter Blair (Fort Augustus, 1906).
Good accounts of Benedict are to be found in Milman's Latin Christianity ,
Bk. II, Ch. VI and in Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders, Vol. IV, Ch. XVI.
See also Montalembert, Monks of the West (E. T.) ; Grisar, History of Rome
and the Popes (E. T.), Vol. HI, pp. 18 ff
The writings of Gregory the Great are in Migne, Pat Lat., Vols. 75-79.
Those most valuable for his biography are his Letters in fourteen books and
the Dialogues. Selected Epistles, translated by J. Barmby, appeared in the
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, Vols. XII and XIII; the old
translation of the Dialogues was reedited by E. G. Gardner in 191 1. The
chief contemporary authorities are Gregory of Tours (d. circa 594) and
the Liber Pontificalis, the record of each Pope. The official Life by Paul the
Deacon was written by order of John VIII (872-882). The Lombard, John
the Deacon, wrote the short Life a century earlier, as did also Bede, Hist.
Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Bk. II.
Milman, History of Latin Christianity, Bk. II, Ch. VII and Bk. IV. 3;
Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders,\o\N, Ch. VII. The two volumes of F. Homes
Dudden, Gregory the Great, His Place in History and Thought, are most ex-
haustive as is also Sir H. Howorth's Gregory the Great.
For the difficult study of the Roman 'Canon' see Duchesne, Christian
Worship, Its Origin and Evolution, E. T., pp. 176 ff Srawley, Early History
of the Liturgy, Ch. VIII. Most important is the Article 'Canon' by Adrian
Fortescue, Catholic Encyc, Vol. HI, pp. 255-267. According to the Liber
Pontificalis Gregory added to the prayer Hafic Igitur, "And mayest thou
dispose our days in thy peace, and may we be delivered from eternal damna-
tion, and be numbered with thy flock." John the Deacon is the authority
for the addition of the Lord's Prayer after the Canon. See F. Homes Dudden,
op. cit., p. 265.
CHAPTER II
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE
The Popes dependent on Constantinople — Importance of period — Honorius I —7
MohammedJ — Divisions in Eastern Church — Monophysitism — Constans II —
Leo the Isaurian -^ Images — Hostility to Image Worship — Iconoclasm -^The
Franks — Progress of the Lombards — Arguments for the Temporal Power -^ The
conversion and donation of Constantine — Donation a forgery — Rise of the
Prankish Kingdom — The House of Arnulf — A series of able popes — Pippin
crowned — End of the Exarchate — Pope Stephen II crosses the Alps — Letter
from St. Peter — • Charles the Great — Barbarism in Rome — Donation of Pippin
confirmed — Hadrian I — The Papal Court — Leo III attacked in Rome —
Charles acts as judge — Leo III declares his innocence — Charles crowned
emperor — Unity of the Empire — The Papacy and the Empire.
The Roman Church after Gregory the Great's death sank
back into humble dependence on the court of Constantinople,
from which it arose as the founder of the Empire of the West.
For more than a century the popes were nominees of the Em-
peror, or of the Exarchs of Ravenna, elected it is true by the
Romans, but having to obtain the imperial permission to as-
cend the chair of Peter. Twenty-four popes were made between
A.D. 604 and 708, some occupying the see but a few months.
Often a year and more intervened between the death of a pope
and the accession of his successor. Hardly a single name on the
list arrests our attention, and, of the two who reigned more
than a very few years, one fell into suspicion of heresy, and the
other died confessing the orthodox faith in exile. The facts
about nearly all these seventh century pontiffs are obscure
and as a rule the sole authority is the Liber Pontificalis.
Yet if the history is obscure, the period is important. It
was one of much expansion in the West, where the prestige
of the Roman See was continually on the increase. One is
amazed at hearing on the one side of the misery and squalor
of the city, and on the other of the splendour ofthe new churches
which were rising upon every side. No danger of travel could
28
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 29
keep pilgrims from the shrine of St. Peter, and no calamities
could lower the respect in which the popes continued to be
held. Slowly but surely the foundations of the papal supremacy
in the West were being laid. In the East suddenly, when the
Christian empire of Rome was enjoying a complete triumph
over Zoroastrian Persia, a storm cloud broke in Arabia, which
has darkened the countries then subject to the Caesars ever
since. The rise of Islam in the deserts of Arabia, its terrific inrush
into the civilized world, its repulse in the West, and the re-
vival of the spirit of the Eastern Empire to stem the tide, be-
long to the period covered by the seventh and eighth centuries.
Finally, the last phases of the Monophysite question, Mono-
theletism and Iconoclasm, precipitated the division of Chris-
tendom.
To enumerate the popes of the seventh century is an un-
profitable task and only the more prominent deserve even a
passing attention. The memory of Gregory immediately after
his death was not held in the respect which one might expect. In
his profuse charity he was considered to have diminished the pat-
rimony of the Church. Only the miracle of a vision witnessed
by his biographer, the deacon Peter, joined to the unpopu-
larity of his successor Sabinian, saved his reputation. Of the
four popes during the next nineteen years there is nothing
noteworthy, except that Boniface III obtained from Phocas
an acknowledgment of the primacy of the See of Rome,
and the same Emperor granted to Boniface IV the use of the
famous temple of the Pantheon, which was converted into a
church in honour of the Virgin and all the martyrs. In A.D.
625 Honorius was made pope and reigned till 638, a munificent
pontiff, with statesmanlike ability, but unfortunate in leaving
behind him a reputation of doubtful orthodoxy.
Honorius followed up the work of Gregory by attending
to the Christian mission to the Teutonic races of Britain,
sending the bishop Birinus to the West Saxons, the most pagan
{paganissimos), according to Bede, of all the tribes. The Pope
can hardly have realized the subsequent importance of the
Anglo-Saxon peoples to the Papacy. Nevertheless he deserves
30 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the credit of promoting their conversion. The England, which
the Church called to a sense of national unity, was destined to
be conspicuous for its devotion to the Roman See. Not only
did the island show its filial admiration to the popes by zeal-
ously adopting Roman culture and upholding the claims of
Peter against all opposition at home, and sending kings and
princes to the holy places of the City; it also poured forth a
stream of missionaries to conquer the barbarians of northern
Europe for the Mother Church. Following in the wake of the
Irish monks, English preachers of the Gospel were to be found
in every country, and in every instance as advocates of all for
which the Roman Church then stood.
Honorius spared no expense in building and decorating
churches, thereby rendering Rome attractive to visitors from
all parts of the world. Evidently conditions were improving in
his days and Rome was enjoying a season of comparative
prosperity. This Pope covered the central door leading to the
basilica of St. Peter's with plates of silver nine hundred and
seventy pounds in weight, and placed two great candelabra
before the shrine. He also built and restored many churches,
notably that of St. Adriana, martyr of Nicomedia, into which,
according to Gregorovius, he converted the ancient Boule or
Senate House. In a poem in his honour Honorius is called the
good bishop, the duke of the people {bonus AntisteSy Dux
plehis).
But in the days in which Honorius was building and re-
pairing churches in Rome the world was being threatened
with a catastrophe, rumours of which, probably, only reached
the city. Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622,
three years before the accession of Honorius as Pope; and
before his death, Omar had taken Damascus and Jerusalem.
By A.D. 650 Persia, the one civilized power in the world,
except Rome, was overrun; Egypt, the peculiar province of
the Emperor since the days of Augustus, became the property
of the successors of Mohammed. It seemed as though the new
faith would overwhelm the Christian world.
The surprising thing was the feebleness of the resistance
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 31
of the Christians, many of whom surrendered without striking
a blow. True the provincials were disarmed; but the Roman
armies had been uniformly successful under Heraclius, the
Emperor who had conquered Persia; and in former days many
cities on the Eastern frontier had put up a brave defence
against invasion. But no enthusiasm for the Empire was
shown when the armies of Islam appeared, and apparently
little for the Christian cause. Egypt and Syria were irrevocably
lost almost without a decisive battle.
An explanation may be found in the religious condition of
the Roman world. The condemnation of Nestorius had alien-
ated a vast body of Christians and forced them to take refuge
outside the Empire. The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451)
which condemned Eutyches had alienated Egypt. The problem
of maintaining the union of the Empire was a religious one,
and the government of Constantinople found a formidable
obstacle in the Chalcedonian definition, which had attempted
to settle once and for all the relation of the Godhead and the
Manhood in the Person of Christ. The Early Church was for a
long time content with insisting on the reality of the human
body of the Lord, without entering into the difficult question
of the relation of the divine and human natures in His Person.
When the controversy became acute in the fifth century the
orthodox doctrine was settled by a compromise between two
divergent views. The Eastern Church, and especially Alex-
andria, adhered to the teaching that our Lord was entirely
divine with a human body, the Western fathers agreed with
those of Antioch in maintaining that in Christ there were two
natures, a human and a divine. Both views, if logically carried
to a conclusion, produced a heresy; the Alexandrian was in
danger of denying that Christ had any real manhood at all;
the Antiochene of maintaining that in Christ there were two
distinct personalities, Man and God. Hence arose two opposite
heresies, that of Eutyches, which was condemned in A.D. 451
by the Council of Chalcedon, and that of Nestorius, which had
previously been repudiated by the Council of Ephesus, A.D.
431. The Council of Chalcedon had been guided in this very
32 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
technical controversy by an explanation of the difficulty by
Pope Leo the Great, in a document known as the Tome, which
showed that the human and divine natures co-existed in our
Lord's single Person, and that he manifested each on different
occasions. For example, *'He suffered as Man, and rose from
the dead as God." The Popes regarded Leo's settlement as a
great achievement and fiercely resented any attempt to set it
aside. The Eastern Church, on the other hand, were only
partially satisfied and demanded a fuller explanation of the
mystery. The Alexandrians, moreover, regarded the pro-
ceedings of Chalcedon which condemned their bishop Diosco-
rus as an insult to St. Cyril, their most honoured bishop who
had been the means of bringing about the refutation of Nes-
torius. Thus from the middle of the fifth century the East
had been profoundly divided on this abstruse question.
To understand the importance of this it must always be
borne in mind that the Byzantine system was already begin-
ning to be entirely bound up with orthodoxy. Already the
Emperor was the consecrated divine representative of the true
Faith of the Church, and the function of the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople was to see that he never deviated a hair's breadth
from it. The consequence was that until the dogma could be
absolutely and finally settled there could be no unity. The
great obstacle was the Chalcedonian formula, and, above all,
the Tome of Leo. The price the Egyptians and Syrians de-
manded before entering into full communion with Constanti-
nople was that these should be modified. This was recognized
in A.D. 478 by the Emperor Zeno and the patriarch Acacius,
who put forward the Henoticon or "Scheme of Union." It was
the clue to the policy of Justinian who forced Pope Vigilius
to agree to the condemnation of the Three Chapters, extracts
from the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyr-
rhus, and Ibas of Edessa, at the Fifth Council in A.D. 553,
And now that the Moslem power was threatening the Christian
world, and the perverse nationalism of the Coptic church of
Alexandria was drawing them away from what they called
the Melchites (or royal party) of Constantinople, the Emperor
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 33
Heraclius suggested with the concurrence of his Patriarch
Sergius a further compromise. They proposed that the Mono-
physite controversy should be laid foreverto rest by a confession
that whilst Christ had two natures, the human and the divine,
he had but one drastic energy, or to put it into plainer words,
One Will; hence the name Monothelite was given to the
controversy which ensued; and the document which made the
suggestion was called the Ecthesis.
In every instance the Monophysites were partially appeased
by the concessions offered, and the peace of the East might have
been assured for the opposition of the Roman See and its par-
tisans in Constantinople. It is to be observed that the Em-
peror never issued any proposal without the consent of the
Patriarch, and generally at his suggestion.
Whenever the Empire was strong the Papacy was forced to
submit, notably by Justinian, who had dragged Pope Vigilius
to Constantinople, and, contrary to the wishes of the Western
Church, compelled him to assent to the condemnation of the
Three Chapters. Indeed half a century later Gregory the
Great had difficulty in settling a schism in Istria caused by the
disgust of the Church there at the weak compliance of Vigilius.
The proposal of Heraclius aroused no opposition at first; and
Pope Honorius accepted the compromise of Monothelitism,
perhaps from liberality, or loyalty to the wishes of the Emperor,
probably because he did not clearly comprehend the issue.
But the Papacy did not long hesitate which side to take; and by
A.D. 642 Theodorus II had excommunicated Pyrrhus the
Patriarch, the Pope using ink into which he placed a drop of
the Blood of Christ consecrated in the Eucharist, to sign the
document.
Constans II, who soon succeeded HeracHus, was a man of
enterprise and vigour who maintained the Empire in times of
unusual difficulty. He left an evil reputation, partly because
of his stern and unamiable character, but mainly due to the
stigma of unorthodoxy. Extremely unpopular with his subjects
at Constantinople, who believed him to be the murderer of
his brother, Constans was to be found in all parts of his do-
34 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
minions; and was the last of the Byzantine emperors to visit
Rome, which he despoiled of many of its remaining objects of
value. He was specially detested for his severe treatment of
Pope Martin I, whom he summoned to Constantinople and
finally exiled to Cherson, where he died a martyr for his zeal
for orthodoxy in A.D. 655. The Pope had formally condemned
not only the Ecthesis of Heraclius but also the Typ^of Constans,
a later document more impartially worded than the Ecthesis,
commanding all dispute about the Two Wills to cease.
The exile and death of Martin revealed to the popes their
impotence to withstand the court of Constantinople, and even
after the death of Constans, when his son Constantine Pogo-
natus (the Bearded) pronounced in favour of orthodoxy and
allowed Monothelitism to be condemned by the Sixth General
Council of A.D. 680, the Papacy had still to feel its dependence.
Ten years later the Council "in Trullo" (A.D. 690) ordained,
with complete disregard to the wishes of Rome, its famous
canons, which have since governed the Greek Church.
This period was marked by the steady decay of the Roman
Empire in Italy. The popes are mere names, many were Greeks
or Syrians, but all seem to have maintained the dignity of the
Roman See to the best of their power. One, Constantine
(708-715), visited Constantinople and was treated with due
honour. He was succeeded by Gregory H; and shortly after-
wards Leo, the Isaurian, ascended the imperial throne. Rome
was now destined to enjoy a series of great Popes, and Constanti-
nople one of able and energetic Emperors.
It is not easy to realize how nearly Christian civilization
was to perishing in both East and West between A.D. 717 and
732, but neither Leo, the deliverer of Constantinople, nor
Charles Martel, the saviour of Gaul, have won a place among
the champions of the Cross, one being tainted with heresy,
and the other with laying unholy hands on the property of the
Church. The phenomenal success of Islam for a time paralyzed
Christendom, which, however, recovered and long fought the
new fanaticism on equal terms. Within fifty years of Mo-
hammed's flight to Medina the armies of the Crescent threat-
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 35
ened Constantinople and the Caliph Moawiya was only re-
pulsed by the newly invented Greek fire. A generation later
Leo the Isaurian again delivered the city after a long siege by
Moslemah. Africa and Spain had already fallen under the
Muslim yoke; and in A.D. 732 Charles Martel only just stayed
the tide at the decisive battle of Tours. With Leo's victory
over Moslemah a new spirit seemed to animate Byzantium.
The emperors were for generations men of ability, the people
were ruled under just and impartial laws, the finances were well
administered and the Roman army (for so it was called) re-
verted to its best traditions and not only held the infidel at
bay, but drove him to acknowledge its superiority. Good as
were the armies of the Caliphs in the eighth and following cen-
turies, that of the Caesars of Byzantium was confessedly the
best in the world.
But the victorious armies of Leo fell under the influence
of their enemies, Mohammedan and Jewish, and winced under
the taunt that they were idolaters. For generations images or
pictures which the early Christian had regarded with horror
had multiplied in the churches and were looked upon with
superstitious reverence and even worshipped almost as separate
deities. Ten years after his succession Leo and his soldiers
sought to remove the reproach and to return to the practice
of the primitive faith.
The Christian Church had never shared in the Jewish
horror of the representation in Art of holy things or even of
the holiest Persons. From the earliest day of the Catacombs,
the Roman Christians decorated the resting places of their
dead with figures, borrowed from the conventional art of the
time, yet given a graceful symbolism of their own. The Apollo
Kriophorus became Christ bearing home the lost sheep; salva-
tion by baptism was typified by the Ark and Jonah in pictures,
borrowed, it may be, from representations of heathen origin;
the fish recalled the name of Jesus, as Christ, Son of God and
Saviour. Nay, amid the flowers and fruit with which the walls
were decorated there were to be seen children sporting (amo-
retti), the little cupids of the art of the day. In process of time,
36 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
with the honour of the martyrs, the visible tokens of their
existence in the form of relics were treasured by the faithful,
and after the discovery of the Holy Places men were reminded
constantly of the reality of the events which had brought sal-
vation to the world. As pagans crowded into the Church efforts
were made to instruct the converts, many unable to read, in
Christian verities by pictures, and a distinctly Christian art
developed. The saints, the blessed Virgin, our Lord in human
form, even God himself, began to be represented so as to ap-
peal to human eyes. Together with relics and holy places these
pictures were regarded with superstitious awe and were adored
with a devotion hardly distinguishable from that paid to the
Godhead. It may even be said that, to the ignorant, visible
objects were taking the place of Him, whom philosophy was
constantly withdrawing more and more from the range of
human understanding. A Christian art was developing; but
art, as such, was not producing superstitious reverence for
the objects perceived. As with a child who devotes herself to
some battered doll to the neglect of the costliest product of
the toy shop, so the ignorant, whether pagan or Christian,
worships not the supreme efforts of Phidias or Raphael, but
some shapeless idol, some smoke-begrimed picture as inherent
with peculiar sanctity, powerful to work miracles and to answer
prayer.
The Roman army, stung by the taunts of their Moham-
medan enemies, and composed of sterner stuff than the inhab-
itants of the great cities and the denizens of the innumerable
monasteries, must have felt the reproach that they were
idolaters acutely. The soldier seems to have been animated by
a species of Protestantism, for it is remarkable that all the
Iconoclast emperors were successful warriors, a fact not de-
nied by their bitterest opponents. In addition to this there
was still the shadow of the Monophysite controversy. Image
worship was specially distasteful to the upholders of one
nature of Christ. According to the theology of Cyril, and in-
deed all the orthodox, the Word assumed not the nature of
an individual, but human nature. He did not become a man but
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 37
took upon himself Manhood. Consequently he could not be
circumscribed in personality; and the Monophysite declared
it heresy to represent him as a man. To portray Christ was
therefore a corruption of the Faith. It appears, moreover, that
the cultus of the Virgin and saints had developed very rapidly
since the severance of the Monophysites from the Church.
Even the reverence for the Virgin was comparatively recent.
There is little trace of it in the Gospels or in the writings of
the earlier fathers; and in the Nestorian and Eutychian
controversies of the fifth century, the chief argument against
the refusal to apply to her the favourite title Theotokos was,
not that to withhold it was an insult to her, but that it was
a denial of the true Incarnation of the Word. To abolish the
adoration of the holy images and all that it connoted was not
merely to remove the reproach of idolatry from Christianity,
but also to take a step towards the reconciliation of the Mono-
physites to the Orthodox Church, and therefore to raise up a
formidable Christian people enthusiastic for Church and Em-
pire in the heart of Islam. These then were some of the causes
of the policy of Leo the Isaurian, when he put forward the
edict against the worship of images or pictures (called indiffer-
ently icons).
However laudable the motives of Leo may have been, the
attempt to put down the practice of adoring the sacred images
was certain to arouse a storm. Furious controversies, result-
ing in bloodshed, had been provoked by difference of language,
often too technical to be intelligible save to professed theo-
logians. But the destruction of images and pictures appealed
to the common people. Every monk who found a picture in
his cell a stimulus to devotion; every priest who tried to im-
press on his flock a scriptural truth, or as was more probable,
the merits of a local saint; every invalid who looked for help
from a wonder-working picture; every devout woman, who
relied for protection on the portrait of her favourite saint, —
all inevitably united to resist the decrees. But when the
imperial order reached the West, where there were no Mono-
physites, and the danger from Islam was less pressing, and
38 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
when even the sacred and venerable image of St. Peter was in
danger of being removed from Rome, the people rose in frenzy
against the Emperor, especially as it was becoming increas-
ingly evident that there was no help to be looked for against
the Lombards. Gregory II, whose pontificate of fifteen years
was not unworthy of his more famous namesake, persisted in
urging loyalty to the Emperor, but at the same time was vig-
orous in his protests against the impiety of Leo. In a letter of
amazing ignorance, at any rate of Scripture, the Pope is cred-
ited with defying Leo, comparing him to the impious Uzziah
who was punished for destroying the Brazen Serpent! The
letter is, however, of doubtful genuineness, nor is it easy to
credit it as emanating from such a Pope as Gregory II. In
another letter the Pope lays down a doctrine of separation of
the functions of Church and State, which must have sounded
strange to the court of Byzantium, and to the Emperor who had
declared himself Emperor and Bishop. The impending sever-
ance between Eastern and Western ideals is seen in Gregorj^'s
repudiation of the Caesaro-papalism of Leo, by maintaining
that the priesthood was independent of the secular Christian
ruler, although this had centuries before been the attitude of
Ambrose in Italy, and his contemporary Martin in Gaul.
Leo had arrayed against him the most powerful religious
elements in the world, the Roman Church, the monks, the
women, and all the ignorant and superstitious. But he was not
a man to be daunted; and his son, Constantine, surnamed
Copronymus — a disgusting name taken from a filthy story
of his baptism as an infant — was more determined, and in
A.D. 754, supported by the Patriarch of Constantinople, he
held a council which entirely forbade the use of images in
worship. Martyrs were not wanting to attest their faith in
the sacred icons.
Just when the relations between Papacy were most strained,
it became evident that the Popes must seek a more eflRcient
ally than the Caesar at Byzantium. They found one in a new
Prankish dynasty, which they, or their faithful friend and
missionary, St. Boniface, were active in promoting. The step
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE
39
was rendered necessary by the rapid success of the Lombards
in Italy, and also by the confiscation of the papal estates in
Sicily by Leo as a punishment for Gregory II's obstinacy about
the images. This was a most important step towards the See
of Rome becoming a sovereign state. In the whole course of
the relations between the Roman Church and the Byzantine
Emperors the status of the Pope was always that of a subject,
who could be treated exactly like the Patriarch of Constanti-
nople, be deposed, or, if necessary, be haled to the court, as
was Martin I, to answer for the contumacy, or be deprived of
his estates like any other disobedient subject. But if the
Patriarch was made to feel his dependence on the Emperor,
he was at least protected by the government and maintained
in opulence and splendour, whereas the Pope had to do the best
he could to defend himself against the aggressions of the
enemies of Rome and to maintain his position without any
assistance. Under such circumstances a position of dependency
was intolerable, and the Papacy had to seek aid elsewhere.
Amid these difficulties the Temporal Power originated, and
the theories connected with it took an abiding hold on all
future Popes. From the middle of the eighth century to the
present time the object of the Roman church has been to
secure independence of any secular control in Italy, and to be
supported by some strong power outside the limits of the
peninsula.
The Lombards appeared to be on the high road towards the
establishment of a solidly united kingdom of Italy, All that stood
in their way were Ravenna and Rome. With the capture of
these cities their hegemony was secure. It was no longer, as
it had been in the days of Gregory the Great, that Rome was
threatened by barbarian hordes of heretics. The Lombards
had now been settled for many generations in Italy and had
become devout sons of the Church. During the thirty-two years'
reign of their great king Liutprand, the fatal effects of their
reverence for the Roman see became increasingly apparent.
Though he advanced to the very gates of the City, he shrank
before the majestic presence of Gregory II and actually *'re-
40 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Stored" to the Pope the cities he had taken from the Empire.
The word "restored" is full of significance, because it implied
a new claim on the part of the Popes, who, when they lost
their vast estates in Sicily, began to demand the imperial
territories in Italy. Already therefore the way was being
prepared for the foundation of the States of the Church and
the Temporal Power.
The acquisition of territory by the Papacy began when
Liutprand presented Gregory II with Sutri, which he had
taken from the Empire, and the Roman records describe the
gift as "a restitution" (restituit). Further donations of territory
were made by this generous monarch, and were augmented by
the liberality of the Emperors. The more evident it became
that the Byzantine government was unable to hold its Italian
provinces, and that these were in danger of falling into the
hands of the Lombards, the stronger grew the conviction that
the legitimate heirship to the remaining fragments of the
Roman dominion in Italy belonged to the See of Rome. Hence
the insistence of the Popes that whatever they acquired from
the Lombards was, not a benefaction, but a restitution, and
in the negotiations between the Papacy and their kings the
words "restituere propria propriis^' occur.
But though compelled by the stern logic of facts to lay
claim to a temporal dominion in Italy in order to secure their
position, the Popes were desirous of producing documentary
evidence to show that they were entitled to it as well as to
the large spiritual prerogatives which they desired for them-
selves. The story of the means employed is historically im-
portant as revealing the beliefs of the age, and the anxiety of
the Papacy for a legal status.
Around the name of Constantine, the first Christian Em-
peror, there grew a vast mass of legendary matter connected
with his relation to the church of Rome, notably the story of
his conversion and baptism by Pope Sylvester and his do-
nation of jurisdiction over the Western world to the same Pope.
The conversion legend is the earlier by centuries and takes
form in a variety of different versions, all abounding in ana-
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE
41
chronisms and filled with improbabilities. It first appears in a
sermon by James, Monophysite bishop of Sarug in Mesopo-
tamia, preached about A.D. 473, together with the story of
Constantine's leprosy as a cure, for which a bath in the blood
of infants was prescribed. The Emperor was induced by his
servants to try the effect of baptism. Accordingly the bishop
(not named) anointed Constantine, and thereby cured him of
his leprosy; but a fire burned over the water so that he could not
enter till he had put off his royal crown. In Armenia the legend
seems to have been affected by the similar story about the
conversion of Tiridates by Gregory the Illuminator. Here,
however, the name of Sylvester appears; and Constantine is
said to have felt compunction owing to the lamentation of
the mothers whose children he had proposed to slay for his
bath in blood. By the end of the fifth century the legend
appears to have reached Rome, and to have been incorporated
in the traditions of the Church.
To this was subsequently attached the famous Donation,
which is a fictitious legal document incorporated with the
fanciful legend of the Conversion. It probably belongs to the
eighth century and was received as gospel throughout the
Middle Ages both by the defenders and by the opponents of
the papal autocracy. Its importance is not to be measured
by its lack of genuineness, for few true tales have exercised so
potent an influence on subsequent history.
Constantine addresses Sylvester, all bishops of the church,
and the clergy of Rome. He describes himself as the conqueror
of the Alemanni, Goths, Germans, Britons, and even of the
Huns who had not in his time made their appearance in Europe.
The Emperor proceeds to declare the faith he had received
from the Pope at his baptism in which the controversies of
the fifth century are carefully anticipated in words remi-
niscent of Leo's famous Tome of A.D. 449. Next Constantine
relates how the tears of their mothers induced him to abandon
trying to bathe in the blood of children as a cure for leprosy;
and that Peter and Paul had appeared to him by night, and
had told him to fetch Sylvester, who was hidden in a cave
42 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
on Mount Serapte (Soracte?) on account of the persecution
and he would baptize him and heal his leprosy. When Syl-
vester appeared Constantine asked him/' Who were these gods
Peter and Paul?" Thereupon Sylvester ordered his deacon to
show him their pictures and the Emperor confessed to all his
"satraps" that they were the men who had appeared to him
in his dream.
After this Constantine prepared for baptism. In his palace
of the Lateran he did penance for his former sins in a hair
shirt {uno cilicio). Then by imposition of the hands of the
clergy he was admitted to the presence of the pontiff {ad
ipsum pontificem veni); and there he renounced Satan, his
pomps and works, and idols made with hands, and declared
his behef in God the Father, Maker of all things visible and
invisible, and in His only Son Jesus Christ our Lord born of
the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. He made this confession
voluntarily before all the people and received baptism by a
threefold immersion. In the font he perceived a heavenly
hand, which by its touch cleansed him from his leprosy.
Clothed in white garments he received the sevenfold unction,
and on his forehead the sign of the cross. All the people said
JmeUy and the Pope added Pax tibi. Further on the day after
baptism Sylvester instructed Constantine in the mysteries of
the faith and the great power which our Saviour had given to
Peter in the assurance, "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I
will build my church." In view of this Constantine, recogniz-
ing in Peter and his successors the Vicars of Christ, granted
to them imperial dignity.
The Church of Rome is given precedence over Antioch,
Alexandria, Constantinople and Jerusalem, and the Pope
(pontifex), and his successors are to preside over all bishops
(sacerdotibus), and to decide all matters of worship and faith.
The church in the Lateran is to be known as the head and
summit of all churches in the entire world {Caput et verticem
omnium ecclesiarum in orbe terrarum). In addition to this the
Emperor built two churches, one to Peter, and the other to
Paul, and granted them lands in Judaea, Greece, Asia, Africa,
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 43
Italy, and the various islands, to be administered by Sylvester
and his successors. Then follows the gift of the Lateran palace
and the peculiar privileges reserved for the Pope. He may
wear an imperial crown and the insignia of an emperor, the
purple robe, etc.; he is to rank with the commander of the
imperial cavalry; he is to have the imperial banners and orna-
ments and all the advantages of exalted rank. As for the Roman
clergy the Emperor gave them the position of senators, pa-
tricians and consuls, and the right to be adorned hke the im-
perial soldiery. Their horses' saddle clothes were to be of the
whitest linen. Sylvester had in addition authority to receive
any Roman noble desirous of entering the monastic life.
But as the holy Sylvester in his deep humility refused to
wear the imperial crown the Emperor placed a tiara on his
head, and out of reverence he held the bridle of the Pope's
horse and acted as his groom. Feeling, moreover, that it was
not seemly that anyone should rule in Rome except Sylvester
and his successors, Constantine decided to withdraw from
Rome and to fix the seat of his empire at Byzantium, where
he intended to build a city, and call it after his own name. All
the provinces of Italy, perhaps all of the Western Empire,
were to be henceforward under the sway of Sylvester and his
successors. Those who dispute this decree, will find that Peter
and Paul will prove his enemies, and he will be burned in the
lowest hell and perish with the devil.
The date is III Kal. Aprt. Cons. Fl Constantino and
Galligano viris illustribus.
Fortunately the interest in this strange document is not
now controversial. For centuries it has been rejected by all
Catholic historians as a palpable forgery, as was demonstrated
by Laurentius Valla, a canon of the Lateran Basilica in the
fifteenth century. It is tolerably certain that the Donation was
not used to induce the Franks to create the Papal States.
Indeed the Popes did not allude to it till the eleventh century.
In the Middle Ages, however, it was universally accepted as
authentic, and Constantine was regarded as the founder of
the temporal power. Even the Greek church adopted it in sup-
44 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
port of the privileges of the clergy of Constantinople, the New
Rome. WyclifF employed it in his anti-papal argument to show
that the Pope's power came not from on high, but from Con-
stantine, an heretical emperor. Before him Dante had ex-
pressed sorrow that the decline of the spiritual purity of the
church dates from when this emperor made "the first rich
pope." The last to make any attempt to uphold the genuine-
ness of the Donation was Cardinal Baronius in the early days
of the seventeenth century. The controversy now rages about
its origin, its object, and its first appearance. It is said to be
a Frankish composition and to date not earlier than A.D. 750
nor later than A.D. 850. It is permissible, therefore, to hazard
an opinion that it was a polemic, aimed at the iconoclast
emperors at Byzantium. In the first place it endeavours to con-
trast their arrogant assertion to rule in the church with the
humility of the founder of New Rome. Then it demonstrates
the early date of the pictures of the saints. Further it shows
that the estates of the church throughout the Empire, in the
East as well as in the West, were given by Constantine and,
therefore, were most improperly confiscated by Leo the Isau-
rian. Finally the absurd privileges bestowed on the clergy
of the Roman church are just what might be expected
of those who hankered after the splendours of the Byzantine
court, whether at Constantinople or even of Ravenna. At any
rate, the document is of extreme interest as indicating the as-
pirations and ideas of the period, though it had at first but
little influence in shaping the course of events or the rise of
the papal power.
As it became increasingly evident that Italy must slip out
of the grasp of the Byzantine emperor and that the Lombards
would become masters of the peninsula, it was necessary for
the Roman church to find a protector sufficiently remote not
constantly to interfere with its influence in Italy and powerful
enough to reduce the Lombards to insignificance. With this
end in view the Popes turned to the Franks who for more than
two centuries had supported them.
The Frankish kingdom was founded by Clovis, originally
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 45
a petty king of the Salian Franks, who, in A.D. 486, overthrew
the kingdom of the Roman Syagrius, and afterwards suc-
cessively defeated the Alemanni on the Rhine, the Visigoths
in southwestern France, and the Burgundians in south-
eastern Gaul. Clovis embraced Christianity in its orthodox
form, and was baptized by St. Remigius at Rheims. At his
death in A.D. 511 his kingdom was divided among his four
sons, and was only rarely united under a single monarch.
The Frankish empire comprised Justrasia, the home of the
Franks, reaching to and beyond the Rhine; Neustriuy the
territory of the Salians, containing the cities of Soissons and
Paris; Aquitania, the old kingdom of the Visigoths, extending
from the Bay of Biscay to the Rhone; and Burgundia, the
country east of the Rhone, with the Alps as its western boun-
dary. The dynasty of Clovis, known as the Merovingian from
Merovech, the grandfather of the founder, a semi-mythical
hero born of a Frankish queen and a sea monster, or demigod,
continued for ten generations; and its history is one tale of blood,
cruelty, and lust, ending in the utter incompetence of its last
representatives. For more than a century the kings of this line
were rois faineants under the control of mighty officials known as
"Mayors of the Palace," who ruled without assuming the titles
of royalty.
Among these mayors was a Ripuarian noble, Arnulf
Bishop of Metz, who, with his friend Pippin of Landen, ad-
ministered affairs for Dagobert II A.D. 622. However, Arnulf
abandoned his bishopric in 627 and forsook the world, dying
in the odour of sanctity A.D. 641.
The house of Arnulf underwent a temporary obscuration
for more than forty years from which it emerged under the
grandson of its sainted founder Pippin, of Heristal. In A.D.
687, as Austrasian Mayor of the Palace, he won a decisive
victory over the Neustrians at Textri in Picardy; and for
twenty-seven years till A.D. 714 was virtual ruler of the Frank-
ish dominions. His death was followed by a civil war among
his sons ending in the supremacy of his natural son, Charles
Martel, the saviour of Gaul from the Mohammedans at the
46 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
battle of Tours, A.D. 732. Still, however, the Arnulfs ruled in
the name of the legitimate Merovingians, v^hose authority
as time went on became more and more shadowy. Though
bound by alliance to the Lombards in Italy, and refusing to
help the Romans at the urgent request of Pope Gregory III
(A.D. 731-741), Charles and his family were ever drawing
closer to the Papacy, as the influence of the great English
administrator and missionary Winfrid of Crediton, better
known as St. Boniface (Bonifacius or Bonifatius), increased.
Since A.D. 722, when Gregory II had consecrated him a bishop,
without a see but with a commission to exercise authority
among the barbarous nations east of the Rhine, he had ad-
vanced in power. His extraordinary devotion to the Roman
See was repaid by the unbounded confidence of successive
popes; and Charles Martel extended his patronage and pro-
tection to this energetic foreigner, who in his zeal for reforming
the morals of the church held frequent councils without re-
gard to the wishes of any local hierarchy. He even exercised
his own judgment in distributing papal honours, when com-
manded to confer them by the Pontiff. Boniface ultimately
attained to the dignity of Archbishop of Mainz and Primate of
Germany. In old age he resigned this position in order to give
rein to his missionary zeal, which led him to a martyr's
death in A.D. 755. His labours in the Prankish realm resulted
more than anything else in the establishment of the kingdom
and, indirectly, of the empire of the descendants of St. Arnulf.
In the meantime the Roman church had been constantly
^'recovering" new accessions of cities and territories. Liutprand,
the Lombard king, though he is styled almost invariably by
the papal chronicles *'most wicked," was unbounded in liber-
ality to Gregory II and III and to their successor Zacharias
(A.D. 715-752). These Popes often received cities and terri-
tories in the name of the Roman people, as though they repre-
sented in themselves the rights of Rome. Indeed the Papal
States, which were being thus rapidly acquired and consoli-
dated, were roughly the possessions of the Byzantine Empire
in Northern Italy, unconquered by the Lombards in the sixth
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 47
and seventh centuries. They thus formed a principahty, which,
extending from northeast to southwest, virtually cut Italy
in two, and was destined in future ages to make a political union
between the north and south of the peninsula impossible.
The years A.D. 740 to 744 witnessed the passing away
of an older generation and the beginning of a new era. Leo
III, the Isaurian, died in 740 and was succeeded by his son
Constantine V, a fiercer iconoclast than his father. In the next
year both Charles Martel and Gregory III passed away. In
January, 744, Liutprand, the greatest of the Lombard kings,
and the most Hberal benefactor to the Church, ended his long
reign, unregretted by the papal chroniclers, who declared that
it was in answer to the prayers of the reigning Pope Zacharias
(A.D. 741-752). The coming generation was destined to witness
the extinction of the Byzantine rule, the rise of the New Frankish
monarchy and the ruin of the Lombard power in Italy. During
the entire period the church of Rome was guided by popes,
some of whom ruled during many years, and none, except a
Stephen, who died suddenly two days after his election, for
only a few months as in the preceding and following centuries.
Many were men of remarkable ability who used every op-
portunity for aggrandizing the papacy and the prestige of
their see. Seldom was there a more remarkable succession
than from Gregory II in A.D. 715 to Hadrian I, who died in
A.D. 795. During this period of eighty years only eight popes
were elected. Hadrian's successor, Leo HI, died in A.D. 814.
Charles Martel left two sons, Carloman and Pippin, who
ruled jointly as Mayors of the Palace, but in A.D. 747 Carlo-
man retired to Mount Soracte, where he built or enlarged the
monastery of St. Sylvester, the Pope around whose name the
legends of Constantine's Conversion and Donation circle.
There he lived the life of a monk till finding his devotion
interrupted by the crowds he attracted, he fled incognito to
Monte Cassino, where he passed some time in obscurity. In
A.D. 751 Pippin assumed the sovereignty so long exercised
by his ancestors, and became king of the Franks; and with the
consent of Pope Zacharias, to whom an embassy had been
48 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
sent, he assumed the crown at Soissons, where he was solemnly
anointed by St. Boniface. The last of the Merovingians,
Childeric III, was dismissed to a monastery. Though the
details attending this transaction are obscure, the Frankish
monarchy now became united by the closest ties to the Papacy,
which had sanctioned a step, already delayed for more than
a century, by which the royal power was placed in the hands
of the family which had long exercised it. Nor was it long ere
Pippin was called upon to prove his gratitude to the Roman See.
In A.D. 751 Aistulf, king of the Lombards, dated a document
from Ravenna in Palatio. This is the only record of a most
momentous occurrence, the fall of the Byzantine rule in north
Italy. Not even the name of the last Exarch is known. But
though the fall of Ravenna is unrecorded, it was of the utmost
importance. There was now no power in Italy to stand between
the Romans as represented by the Papacy and the hated
Lombards. Aistulf seemed determined to press his advantage.
Zacharias had been succeeded by Stephen II; and during
his short pontificate (A.D. 752-757) this Pope crossed the
Alps, appealed boldly to Pippin for aid against the enemy of
his see, and succeeded in obtaining the Donation which
laid the foundation of the papal dominion. It was in
October A.D. 753 that Stephen set forth on his journey, first
to Aistulf, and then to Pippin. Despite all obstacles he
crossed the Alps and reached Northern Gaul where he re-
peated the coronation of Pippin and his consort Bertha with
their sons Charles and Carloman. Finally at the famous diet
at Quiercy (Carisiacum) he obtained the promise that Pippin
would vindicate the rights of the Roman See, if need be by
attacking the Lombards, and also the gift of extensive terri-
tories when the Lombards were defeated. This is the
Donation of Pippin, which has been long a subject of
keen dispute. On it at least was based the title to the ''State
of the Church," which may be said to date from A.D. 754, as
the foundation of the city does from the same year B.C. To
make good his promise to the Pope, Pippin invaded Italy,
and forced Aistulf to cede Ravenna and other cities to Stephen
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 49
II, or rather to the Romans. But as Aistulf did not fulfil the
terms of the treaty there was a second expedition by Pippin,
on the urgent appeal of Stephen II. When Aistulf besieged
Rome and the city was itself in danger, the Pope wrote to
Pippin two letters sent by the hand of the Abbot Werner.
But the papal messenger bore a third from one even greater
than the Pope, St. Peter himself. Together with the Ever
Virgin Mary and the entire army of the celestial host the
Apostle urges his adopted son, as he calls Pippin, to come to
the rescue of his city, his people and his tomb. Should the
king presume to disobey he is assured that he will forfeit
the Kingdom of God and eternal life. Pippin obeyed, and
forced Aistulf to hand over a great portion, but not all of the
Exarchate to the see of St. Peter. Aistulf died in A.D. 756,
and Stephen in the following year, being succeeded by his
brother Paul II. The next and last Lombard king was De-
siderius.
The work begun by Pippin was completed by his more
famous son Charlemagne or Charles the Great (A.D. 768-814).
Without entering into details it may be well to indicate the
stages by which the King of the Franks became Emperor of
the Romans and to examine the causes of this revolution in
the v/orld policy of the Popes.
The downfall of the Byzantine rule in Italy was not alto-
gether a blessing to the Romans; for if the iconoclast Emperors
stood for heresy, and the administration of the Exarchate for
extortion, at least they represented a certain measure of civil-
ization as opposed to Lombard barbarism. As history relates
the able diplomacy of the pontiffs, the officialdom of their
court and hierarchy, the decorations lavished on the churches
of Rome, the reader is apt to picture a comparatively civilized
society. The delusion is heightened by the grandiloquent
phrases employed to describe the senate, the army and the civil
institutions of the imperial city. But here and there an incident
occurs to remind one that the Rome of the eighth century
was little removed from the anarchy of savagery. When, for
example, at the death of Paul I in A.D. ^^^^j Toto, Duke of
50 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Nepi, forced his kinsman Constantine upon the Papacy, and
there was a revolution, which ended in the deposition of the
usurper and the setting up of Stephen III. The unlucky Con-
stantine was blinded, and many of his supporters, bishops
and priests, were deprived of their eyes and tongues. The de-
posed Pope was led in derision through the streets seated on a
horse with a woman's saddle and heavy weights attached to
his feet. At the Synod which followed he was brought in and
blinded as he was, attacked by the clergy, because he dared to
make a defence. Finally he was beaten by them and thrown
out of the church of the Lateran. Such disorders often occurred
whenever the strong hand of external authority happened to
be withdrawn.
It is noteworthy that despite the fact that the iconoclasm
of the emperors tended to alienate the papacy from Byzantium,
Charles and the Franks generally sympathized with them in
their condemnation of image worship, and, when Irene re-
established the practice, she and the Pope were alike in oppo-
sition to Charles. Nevertheless the ties, partly it may be of
self-interest, which bound the Papacy to the Franks were too
strong to be broken even by a difference of opinion on what
was then considered an almost vital point.
The year A.D. 774, when Charles visited Rome on his
expedition against Desiderius, which ended in the destruction
of the Lombard power in Italy, is said to have been marked by
the confirmation of the Donation of Pippin. The liberality of
Charles exceeded that of his father as he declared the Papal
States to comprise nearly two-thirds of Italy. The papal domin-
ions were to include the island of Corsica; and, starting from
Luna, on the northwest coast, the boundary was to run north
to Parma, Reggio, and Mantua to Monteselice. It was to em-
brace the entire Exarchate of Ravenna {Sicut antiquitus erat)
and the provinces of Venetia and Istria, and the entire Duchy
of Spoleto or Beneventum. According to this arrangement
Lombardy north of the Po, with Piedmont and the Riviera
were to belong to the Franks; Calabria and Sicily with perhaps
Naples, and Gaeta, to the Byzantines; and all the rest of Italy
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE
51
to the Papacy. It is needless to say that the States of the
Church were never so extensive; and no trace of the document
exists except in the Liher Pontificalis. This represents an un-
reahzed dream of Papal ambition, perhaps one which was
never seriously cherished, and certainly it never entered into
the sphere of practical politics. By A.D. 791, the end of the
pontificate of Hadrian, the temporal dominion of the Pope in
Italy was an established fact, brought into being by the
necessity of the age and recognized by the Prankish monarch
who was the one great Christian ruler in Western Europe.
HadrianI appears to have been a ruler of high character
and ability, to have won the respect of Charles, who, however,
did not allow himself to be dictated to even in ecclesiastical
matters. The Synod of Frankfort, for example, held under his
protection in A.D. 794, forbade the sacred images to be wor-
shipped, though it allowed them to be retained in the churches.
Hadrian was able to maintain his position with dignity till his
death in A.D. 795, when once more the barbarism of papal
Rome stood revealed. Hadrian, a man of noble family, had the
support of his kindred and entrusted them with positions of
authority. His two nephews, Paschalis and Campulus, held two
of the highest positions in his court, the one being Primicerius,
and the other Saccelarius.
The Papacy was at this time administered as a kingdom
by great officers around the throne, whose power exceeded
those of the various provincial princes represented by the
bishops. Already the Pope's court was modelled on the im-
perial palace; and to understand the capacity in which he con-
ferred the imperial diadem on Charles it is necessary to have
some idea of the Government of the Church and City of Rome
in the eighth century. Since the beginning of the Exarchate
of Ravenna in the seventh century, the ruling powers of the
City had been the Army and the Church. The neglect of the
Byzantine government to do anything for the protection of
Rome against the encroachments of the Lombards forced the
Popes to have considerable influence in the disposition of the
soldiers who composed the aristocracy of the city. The Ex-
52 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
ercitus Romanus took the place of the Senatus Populusque
Romanus of earlier times and exercised much influence in the
papal elections. In the time of Hadrian its duces appear' to
have been nominated by the Pope, as were most of the civil
officers. All these belonged to the ruling families of Rome,
the people being of little or no account. Far above all the
clergy stood the seven great officials of the papal court. These
corresponded to the seven diaconates of the city, and none of
those who held these positions were of priestly rank. Yet, like
the deacons of an earlier date, they were the actual rulers.
Each of these officials was head of his respective department,
or schola; and the papal court was served by a perfect host of
officials. Over all was the Pope who represented both the Ex-
ercitus, the aristocracy of Rome, and the immense clerical
administration.
The successor of Hadrian was Leo HI (A.D. 795), a man
apparently of humble origin, unable to cope with the officialdom
of Church and Army of the Respublica Romana. On St. Mark's
Day (April 25, 799), Paschahs and Campulus accompanied
Leo from the Lateran in a procession to St. Lorenzo in Lucina.
Their confederates attacked the Pope at the monastery of St.
Sylvester in Capite, dragged him from his horse, tore his
vestments, and endeavoured to deprive him of his eyes and
tongue. For a time Leo was held a captive; but his sight and
speech were restored, it is said, by a miracle, and ultimately
he managed to escape to Charles at Paderborn. The city was
now in the hands of revolutionaries, who elected no anti-
Pope but calmly awaited the coming of their over-lord, the
Prankish King.
Charles was neither moved to instant vengeance by this
outrage, nor convinced that Leo owed his liberty and recovery
to divine aid. As patron of the Roman Church, custodian of
the keys of St. Peter's tomb, and standard bearer of the Roman
City, Charles, when the insurgents sent their accusations
against Leo, felt and acted as a judge. His adviser, the English-
man Alcuin, induced him to put off his expedition against the
Saxons, and to repair to Rome. At the same time he recom-
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 53
mended deliberation in dealing with the Pope and his rebellious
subjects. Charles entered the city on November 23, 800, the
Pope having returned previously under escort. What ensued
is related with disappointing brevity in the Liher Pontificalis.
Much obscurity surrounds this transaction, and indeed all
the early pontificate of Leo III. He solemnly in the presence
of Charles cleared himself by a solemn oath of the things laid
to his charge by his enemies, and this purgation was deemed
sufficient. But it is not to be forgotten that Alcuin confesses
that one of the letters relating to the affair of the Pope was
so likely to cause offence that he considered it advisable to
put it into the fire. The suspicious circumstances attendant
on the outrage perpetrated by Paschalis and his friends and
the flight of Leo must be taken into account in estimating his
share in the step he was about to take.
On Christmas Day Charles and his suite attended Holy
Mass in St. Peter's. As he knelt at the altar, Leo HI placed a
diadem on his head, and the multitude with one voice ex-
claimed : "Life and Victory of Charles the most pious Augustus,
crowned of God, great and peace giving Emperor." The Pope
then anointed him and his son Pippin, and kneeling down
(according to the Frankish account) did him homage.
Thus did Leo accomplish one of the most momentous acts
in the history of Christendom, the significance of which has
been debated ever since. Did the Pope proclaim Charles of
his own initiative or by some preconceived plan? Did Charles
take the Empire as a gift from the Pope? Who conferred on
the Frankish king the title of Augustus? In the subsequent
controversies between the partisans of the Papacy and the
Empire an endless stream of arguments poured forth to show
that the imperial authority was delegated by the Pope, or that
the papal see was subordinate to the Emperor as God's vice-
gerent on earth. Here perhaps it is sufficient to point out a few
facts, the recognition of which may help to decide so vexed
a problem.
In the first place it should be remembered that at Con-
stantinople the Patriarchs always performed the office of
54 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
crowning a new Emperor, yet without any idea of thereby
claiming to be other than subjects of their earthly ruler.
In the second place, whilst the Byzantine ceremonial of
crowning the Emperor was solemn and orderly, the older
tradition was that the soldiers should acclaim their leader as
Emperor by sudden impulse. The Romans at this time claimed
to be the Army and as such they may have exercised the
privilege of saluting Charles as Emperor, just as in A.D. 361
the soldiers in Gaul had, to employ the expression of Gibbon,
pronounced the "fatal word Augustus" when they saluted
Julian, raised him on a shield and crowned him with a military
collar in lieu of a diadem. This combination of a Byzantine
coronation and the salutation of the Roman army may have
been arranged by Leo III and the Romans, but can hardly
have been entirely unpremeditated. This may, however, ex-
plain how the coronation and acclamation came as a surprise
to Charles and account for his having assured his biographer
Einhard that he never would have entered the church had he
known what Leo was intending to do.
By crowning Charles, Leo III had given Old Rome as well
as New an Emperor. But even then there was no idea of creat-
ing a Western as well as an Eastern Empire. In theory at
least the Empire was one and indivisible, and though there
might be two or more Emperors there could be but one Empire.
Various devices were invented to disguise the fact that Charles
had not divided the Empire by assuming the diadem. It was
declared that there was no Emperor at the time, but only
Irene, murderess of her son, ruling in Constantinople. Charles
sought to remedy his defective title by making an offer of
marriage to Irene, and later endeavoured to be accepted as a
colleague by the Byzantine Augustus. But no theory could
prevent the fact of a rupture between East and West in prac-
tice. The coronation had called into being a Western Empire.
It was also an attempt to bring the divided nations of Western
Christendom into unity by reverting to the one imperial
government with one authority over all shared between the
temporal and spiritual powers. By restoring the ancient order
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 55
it was hoped that the ancient civihzation, purified by the
Church, would return.
By the close of the ninth century two fundamental ideas
of the Middle Ages had come into being. A world federation
of Christians as expressed in the Empire, and the sovereign
authority of the Church embodied in the Papal States. For '
centuries they were both part of the political theories of
Western Europe. Their embodiment continued to exist long
after their significance was lost. The idea of an Empire ceased
to exercise its influence in the fifteenth century; but the Holy
Roman Empire, ni saint, ni Empire, ni romain, lasted till
1806. In the sixteenth century the Reformation shattered the
pretensions of the Pope to rule as a sovereign over all the
nations of Europe; but the Papal States lingered on till 1870.
Yet the statesmanship of the eighth century which amid much
barbarism and disorder conceived the idea of a united Chris-
tendom, which made the church call upon the great Prankish
chieftain to become Augustus pacificus and Charles to en-
trust the Pope with such vast power over all Christians,
cannot be despised. Its ideals were noble and were perhaps
less tainted by personal consideration than those of ages
which can boast of a far greater material civilization. There
was a sincere desire on the part of the rulers to build up what
they conceived a great Christian state in the world.
-J
AUTHORITIES
The chief authority for the history of the Popes is the Liber Pontificalis
wnich after A.D. 625 becomes the work of possibly a contemporary. See
Duchesne's Introduction, p. cxxxiii. The annotated translation by L. R.
Loomis {The Book of the Popes, 1916) ends with the year 590. The Greek
historians are Theophanes (d. 818) and Nicephorus (d. 828). Both these
writers are violent opponents of the Iconoclasts. The Life of Charles the
Great was written by his friend Einhard, or Eginhart, who also gives an
account of the translation of the relics of St. Marcellinus and Peter, a racy
account of a transaction marked more by fraud than piety, which throws a
curious light on the religion of the period. Most that is of value in the
Liber Pontificalis, etc., is to be found in Johannes Haller's Entstehung des
Kirchenstaats.
For the different topics treated in this chapter the student may consult
Gregorovius' Rome in the Middle Ages, Vol. Ill, especially for his account of
56
INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the Popes as church builders and restorers. Bede's Historia Gentis Anglo-
rum is of course the authority for Honorius' dealing with Britain. Dr.
Mann's Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. I, Part I, and
Leclercq^s edition of Hefele's Councils may be consulted. For the Rise of
Islam refer to Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. I, Ch. X, by A. A. Bevan.
Harnack's History of Dogma, and F. Loofs are authorities on the contro-
versies regarding the Person of Christ; and F. J. F-Jackson treats the subject
in his History of the Christian Church to A.D. 4.61 (sixth edition). Bright's
Age of the Fathers, Vol. II, Ch. XXXVI and following, is very valuable.
An account of Constans II and the Monothelite controversy is to be found
in Professor Kriiger's Article on "Monothelitism" in Hastings' Encyclopedia
of Religion and Ethics, where the literature on the subject is given; see also
Hefele's Councils (French Edition). For the decay of Byzantines in Italy I
recommend the study of Chs. XII (E. W. Brooks), XIX, XXI (Dr. Gerhard
Seeliger), XX (P. VinogradofF) and XXI (F. J. F-Jackson), in the Cam-
bridge Mediceval History, Vol. II. Refer to History of the Later Roman Empire
from Arcadius to Irene, by J. B. Bury, and, of course, to Gibbon's Forty-ninth
chapter. These deal also with Iconoclasm, on which see Milman, Latin
Christianity, Bk. IV, Ch. VII, and G. T. Stokes' "Iconoclastae," in the Diet,
of Christian Antiquities, — a most suggestive article. Hodgkin, haly and her
Invaders, Vol. VI, pp. 451 and 552-505, denies the genuineness of the corre-
spondence between Gregory II and Leo, the Isaurian. St. Boniface's life by
Willibald has been translated by George W. Robinson (1916). Consult
Milman, Hodgkin and the Bibliography to Ch. XVI of the Cambridge
Medieval History, Vol. II. For Frankish History and the rise of the house of
Arnulf from whom sprang Charles Martel, Pippin, and Charles the Great,
Hodgkin, op. cit.. Vol. VII, Chs. I-III, is very useful. The text of the story
of the conversion and donation of Constantine is in Haller, pp. 241 ff.
Charles' grant of territory to Hadrian is given in Hodgkin, Vol. VII, Note
E, where it is discussed. It is also in Haller, p. 54, from the Liber Pontificalis.
The perplexing question of the innocence of Leo HI is treated by Mann, Lives
of the Popes, Vol. II, pp. 19 ff. Alcuin's letters throw light on the subject. See
the Life of Alcuin, by C. J. B. Gaskoin. The Coronation of Charles is the
subject of a vast mass of literature, the introduction to which should be
Bryce's Holy Roman Empire, Ch. IV, "The restoration of the Empire of the
West."
CHAPTER III
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES
The Dark Ages a misnomer — Strength of the Papacy — Rapid decay of Charles*
Empire — Character of Louis the Pious — Two Teutonic Nations, the Germans
and the French — Feudalism — Influences on the early development of the
Church — Persecution — Church law — Organization — The Church Divine — The
Church and letters — Intellectual stimulus of theology — Feudal influences —
The Churches of East and West — Nicolas I (the Great) — Ignatius and Photius —
Splendid but precariouis position of the Patriarch of Constantinople — Elec-
tion of Ignatius as Patriarch — Ignatius opposes Bardas — Moral depravity at
Constantinople — Photius supplants Ignatius — Nicolas I excommunicates
Photius — Ignatius — Nicolas and Lothair's adultery — Hincmar of Reims —
Character of Nicolas I — The False Decretals — Universal employment of Latin —
Controversy stimulates the intellect — Devotional literature — The Dark Age
of the Papacy — Formosus — The counts of Tusculum — Anarchy in Europe —
The Saxon Dynasty — Accusations against John XII — Insecurity of the Popes —
Crescentius — Papacy dependent of Tusculum — Influence of the Papacy outside
Rome — Canute's letter — Results of the Dark Ages.
The term ''Dark Ages" is not a misnomer, though it covers
a period of decay, disorder, and confusion. At the same time
there are not wanting signs to show that the hght of reason was
by no means extinguished. On the contrary, especially in the
Church, great conservative and creative forces were at work
which preserved much of the older civilization and also brought
new conceptions of social order into being. The period from the
opening of the ninth to' the middle of the eleventh century was
characterized by the inextinguishable vitality of the Church,
and especially the Roman Church, under every conceivable dis-
advantage. This may be said to be due to (I) The inherent
strength of the Papacy. (II) The retention of the law and
languages of the Roman world. (Ill) The constant develop-
ment of religious ideas under the influence of monasticism.
(IV) The formulation of doctrines and practices, which were
accepted for centuries. That such things should have been
possible when Europe was a prey to barbarism, continually
bursting in through new and unexpected channels, is sufficient
57
58 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
proof that neither the Hght of divine guidance nor of human
intelHgence had entirely failed.
I. The newly founded Empire of the West was remark-
able for the promise it gave of better things. Charles the Great,
with all his moral defects and imperfect education, was no
mere conqueror of nations, but a man of singular enlighten-
ment, who in his later days invited learned men like Paul, the
Lombard Deacon, and Peter of Pisa to his court; and his
friendship and correspondence with the Northumbrian Alcuin,
the Christian humanist of the last half of the eighth century,
is well known. His government was statesmanlike, and his
policy enlightened, and he did all in his power to federate the
Empire which his warlike enterprises had created. It seemed
indeed at one time that the Roman Empire in the West would
become, not a theory, but a permanent reality.
But after his death on January 28, 814, a period first of slow
and soon of rapid disintegration set in. His son, Louis the Pious,
called in later time le Debonnaire, was too like his uncle
Carloman, who had retired from the world, than his father
Charles, who had remained in it to create for himself the em-
pire of the West. But Louis would have needed even greater
abilities to hold the Empire together than his father had
shown in calling it into being. The Empire one and indivisible
was a Roman conception, foreign to the ideas of the Teutonic
family into whose hands it had fallen. The tendency of the
Germanic peoples was to divide the imperial inheritance into
practically independent principalities; and each king desired
to bestow his dominions among his sons. The Church, on the
other hand, was administered by men imbued with the Roman
traditions of solidarity. Curiously enough the great ecclesi-
astics of the newly constituted Empire were, as far as their
secular ambitions were concerned, as ready to split into fac-
tions and parties as their countrymen; but as clergy they were
drawn together by a strong sense of the essential unity of the
Church.
The reign of Louis the Pious, 814-855, is the record of the
endeavours of a virtuous monarch to hold together a distracted
I
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 59
empire by justice and mercy, in an age which demanded
firm, and even ruthless methods. Louis was an indulgent father,
when it was indispensable for him as the head of the imperial
family to be a tyrant. He was conscientious rather than priest-
ridden; and one act of his gave a precedent to the first King of
Prussia and to Napoleon. On the death of his brothers, in
the presence of his father, he entered the cathedral at Aix-la-
Chapelle and taking the crown from the altar placed it on his
own head, whilst the assembled courtiers and bishops shouted,
^^Vivat Imperator Ludovicus." According to another version,
however, it was Charles who crowned his son. This was in 813;
in 816 Stephen IV crowned Louis again at Rheims. At the two
diets at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 814 and 817, the Emperor showed
himself a stern and vigorous reformer of the Church. The
strength of the Empire and the weakness of the Roman
Church was also shown in the disorders which broke out when
the news of the death of Charles the Great reached the city.
Leo Ill's long pontificate and his profuse expenditure on the
churches of Rome had apparently not endeared him to his
people; and in 814 he was threatened by a conspiracy similar
to that of Paschalis and Campulus in 798, and Louis was
apprised of the Pope's unpopularity, as his father had been
sixteen years before. Nor did any pope of marked eminence
make his appearance whilst Louis was Emperor. Neverthe-
less, as subsequent events reveal, the power of the Roman See
was steadily increasing as that of the Empire dissolved.
The historical details of the decay of the vast system built
up by the genius of Charles the Great are of little interest to
any but the professional student of the period. The changes
in the map of Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries
are kaleidoscopic and bewildering, and, even to some who are
tolerably well informed in general history, the numerous Lo-
thairs. Pippins, Charles, and Louises of the Carolingian House
are but names. But in this chaos of conflicting monarchs,
rendered darker by the invading Northmen, Hungarians, and
other barbarians, it is possible to discern certain elements out
of which modern Europe was evolved. In the first place the
6o INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Germanic people was divided into two great nations with differ-
ent ideals. The Western Franks or French formed a kingdom
of their own under a descendant of Charles the Great, They
occupied the territory which had been part of the Empire and
had never completely broken with the Roman tradition. The
shadows of the old Roman municipalities still lingered in towns,
shorn of their former splendour; and, as France came into being,
Rome revived. Even Teutonic feudalism was powerless to
destroy the ancient civilization of the old world. Thus France,
divided as it was into petty principalities, had a strong cen-
tripetal tendency; and when the last vestiges of the Carolingian
family disappeared the *'Dukes of France," who succeeded
them, steadily drew the entire country into a united whole;
and the work begun by Louis the Fat in the twelfth century
was completed by Louis the Great in the seventeenth. The
Eastern Franks, whose home lay beyond the bounds of the
ancient Empire, retained the imperial heritage of Charles the
Great; but, with the splendid title of Roman Emperors, the
power of their rulers rested on less solid foundations than the
Kings of France. They were the nominal heads of the Roman
world, but neither they nor their people were animated by the
Roman spirit. The German nation as distinguished from the
French were centrifugal. The tendency to split into small
principalities increased rather than diminished as time went
on, and by the time that France had become a coherent whole
in the eighteenth century, the German Empire was a congeries
of independent princedoms. Herein is a clue to many a prob-
lem of medieval history. France reverted to the system and
order of the ancient Empire, and arose on the ashes of an older
civilization, whilst Germany retained much of the ancient
Teutonic individualism, and never truly assimilated the ideals
of Rome, whose empire it claimed to continue.
These tendencies, however, were invisible in the ninth and
tenth centuries, and society was becoming more and more in-
fluenced by what we term the feudal system. As, with the
absence of strong rulers, the imperial theory of a united
Christian world became less and less practicable, the possi-
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 6l
bility of extensive organization vanished owing to lack of
means of communication and of the circulation of wealth, and
something had to be devised to protect society from dissolution.
Feudalism was not deliberately devised to meet the needs
of the age. It was developed, perhaps necessarily, out of
the chaotic conditions of affairs, as the inevitable outcome
of the failure of the imperial ideal of Charles and his Roman
advisers. The Teutonic principle of dividing the dominions of
a monarch among his sons led to the creation of an increasing
number of petty kingdoms; and the individualism, so strong
among the Germanic peoples, caused every chieftain to de-
velop into an Independent ruler of his own domain. Nor was
the feudal system entirely Teutonic in origin; for the Romans
were familiar with the practice of one man putting himself
under the protection of another. In theory the feudal idea was
that the strong should extend protection over the weak in
return for certain service; and that property was a trust to be
exercised for the benefit of others. This was the source of the
best side of feudalism — chivalry, the protection of the weak,
and the virtues of knighthood. But few signs of such goodly
fruit were manifested In the Dark Ages. In them feudalism
meant the substitution of the baron's castle for the municipal-
ity, internecine strife between neighbours in place of a society
kept at peace by a strong external authority, and the tyran-
nous caprice of an individual lord, instead of the supreme law
of the Empire. But perhaps the most serious blemish of early
feudalism was that its petty governments were not based on
the quasi-paternal status of the chief of a clan, but on the
strength of an aristocracy — really a more vigorous race —
which held down Its vassals, often the descendants of the old
Roman provincials, and forced them to do its will. It was prac-
tically the organized rule by members of a dominant caste
unchecked by public opinion, or even by the will of a powerful
sovereign. Still, with all Its evils, feudaUsm had the merit of
being at least a system, and was better than the anarchy which
had prevailed before its introduction. Its very extension
throughout western Europe is a proof of its necessity.
62 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The Church had organized herself in the Roman Empire
under the influence of three things: (a) Persecution, (b) law,
and (c) the civil polity of the Empire.
(a) From the day of their complete severance from Judaism
the Christians had uniformly refused to place their religion
under the protecting aegis of the Empire. True they may have
secured their property by availing themselves of the laws re-
garding benefit clubs and burial; but they never sought the
recognition of the State. Sooner than do this, they preferred
to stand completely aloof from the Caesar worship and the
admission of other faiths, which to them would have been the
price of legal toleration. To conserve their peculiar position, they
readily and even joyously endured persecution. As followers
of a religion constantly exposed to attack either by the popu-
lation or the government, they were compelled to organize
themselves and submit to a discipline almost military in its
severity. The Christians became the soldiers, the Church, the
army of Christ; the clergy acted as their officers in the war
against the world. Before the days of the great Diocletian per-
secution the Church had become engaged in a direct conflict
with the entire strength of the Empire; and although its re-
sistance was passive, it was disciplined. Irregular martyrdom
was as firmly discountenanced as guerilla warfare among or-
ganized troops; and recognition as a martyr could only be
won with the approval of the bishops, the leaders of the cam-
paign. It is not without significance that in the early days of
the second century the strongest advocate of submission to
the bishop and his council of priests and deacons was the
martyr bishop, Ignatius. Even after persecution had ceased,
its influence continued, and the Church remained an inde-
pendent army, at war with the world. However arbitrary,
therefore, the imperial authority over churchmen might be,
especially in the East, it could never repress their strong sense
of independence, and they were ready to brave a thousand
deaths in defence of what they held to be the fundamentals
of the Christian faith. But if the clergy were at times sub-
servient to the Emperor, they had at least the excuse that they
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 63
believed his power to be ordained of God. Towards no "bar-
barian" king or lord could they have any such feeling of rever-
ence. Nay, rather, unless he proved a true nursing father of
the Church, it was their duty to resist him in the name of hu-
manity, and of civilization. Thus the Church as a restraining
influence in days of anarchy owed her strength to the martyr
spirit engendered by her long contest with pagan Rome.
(b) From the first the Church had claimed and exercised
legislative powers. Beginning with the apostolic decree of the
Council of Jerusalem, a scheme of legislation had developed
comparable to that of the Empire. Christianity proved a re-
ligion attractive to the Roman lawyers, who gave the Church
the full benefit of their professional experience. Tertullian
pleaded, Cyprian legislated, and Ambrose administered in
accordance with the traditions they had received at the bar
and on the bench. The Church Councils, which made laws for
Christians, were in the truest sense representative bodies, as
the bishops, with whom the final decision rested, were dele-
gates solemnly and publicly elected to represent their respec-
tive churches. In later times it is true election became increas-
ingly less common, yet, in theory at least, every bishop was
supposed to represent the people over whom he presided.
Whenever a Church was founded among a barbarian
people the clergy introduced the Canon, or Church law of the
Roman Empire, and insisted upon the right to live under its
provisions. Compared with their converts, moreover, they were
experts in legislation, and their influence is seen in many of the
barbarian codes which were drawn up in the diff"erent kingdoms
of Europe. The conquered provincials, with whom the clergy
were as a rule in sympathy, were often allowed to live as
formerly under the Roman Law; but as this fell for a time
with abeyance in the Dark Ages, the Canon Law survived as
its best representative.
(c) Even before the Church had been recognized by Con-
stantine, its organization had begun to be modelled on that of
the Empire. At a very early date Rome, the Babylon of the
Apocalypse, had become the capital of the Christian world.
64 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
with Antioch, Alexandria, and even Carthage, which could
claim no apostolic founder, as the chief sees. In the West the
Church had survived the Empire, conserving many of the an-
cient Roman institutions, with a sense of order, and the claim
to represent, not a single people, but all humanity. It stood
indeed for the ideal of the Empire, which the fall of the Caro-
lingian dynasty had proved incapable of practical restoration.
As imperial and universal, the Church stood high above
the principalities of the Germanic peoples, as representing
the civilization of the past, as Roman in the sense of being
worldwide. Even if we regard the Church as no more than a
creation of human origin, it was yet a beacon of light amid the
darkness of the days of anarchy and disorder.
But the Church claimed to be of divine, not of human, in-
stitution, nor did any Christian people, however barbarous, or
uneducated, deny this. The clergy were regarded as being
trustees of supernatural gifts of divine grace. They dispensed
the sacraments without which no man could be saved; in their
hands were the keys of heaven. Those whose merits had won
the favour of heaven wrought signs and wonders, they could
foretell the future, they had a share in the counsels of God
Himself. In times of plague, of pestilence, of famine, their aid
was indispensable. Endowed with mysterious gifts, they com-
manded the reverence of the most hardened men in the crises
of their lives. But for them, it was believed, the powers of
evil would engulf the world.
But their influence rested on other foundations than those
of superstitious dread or selfish hope. Christianity, though
doubtless corrupted from its original purity, was still a constant
protest against unrighteousness. The Christian religion never
ceased to extol the merit of charity to the poor; and as monas-
ticism grew in strength poverty acquired an additional merit
in men's eyes. There never was a time at which the Christian
conscience was perfectly at ease on the question of slavery;
and the clergy proved a barrier, though at times but a feeble
one, against feudal oppression. Above all, however, Chris-
tianity was a religion of hope. Miserable as the world was, at
The so-called dark ages 65
least the Church offered the hope of redress in the world to
come, and the happiness of heaven to those who knew of none
on earth. The Church, therefore, was the only institution
from which any hope of a regenerated world could be
expected.
The Dark Ages would undoubtedly have witnessed the
annihilation of letters but for the Church, It is easy to point
the finger of scorn at the ignorance of the western clergy in the
ninth and tenth centuries, their boundless credulity, their
atrocious Latinity, the modicum of knowledge, mostly in-
correct, which passed for learning. But it must not be forgotten
that but for them there would have been no learning at all,
and probably not so much as a language would have survived
to conserve the traditions, even of paganism, without the
labours of the monk and missionary.
In addition to this, without theology and the need of in-
structing the people in at least the rudiments of the Faith, the
human mind would have had little mental sustenance. Even in
conserving the Faith a demand was made on the reflective
faculties. Thus after fully admitting the failures of the Church
and its degradation, it must be acknowledged that it stood
alone as representing civilization in a time when the future
progress of humanity appeared almost unthinkable.
As, however, the Church had become imperialized in the
days of the Empire and continued to be so in the East, so now
in the West it could not escape the influence of feudalism.
Although on principle opposed to class distinction, though in
the past slaves had been honoured as martyrs, and respected
as bishops, under Germanic influence, birth became more and
more an essential qualification for high oflRce in the Church.
Still the poor sought and obtained ordination, for the strength
of the Church lay in the fact that it opened its doors to piety
and ability without respect of persons; but the legislation of
the time tended to keep the bondman and tiller of the soil out
of the priesthood, and the ecclesiastical writers are never
weary of denouncing the sin of the King of Israel who made
priests of the lowest of the people. As the power and wealth
66 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
of the bishops increased, the office was entrusted to men of
noble birth who tended to become feudatories of the Empire,
and even independent rulers rather than pastors of their
flocks. In the wars and feuds, which embittered the reign of
Louis the Pious, at least as many bishops as counts played a
prominent part; and this continued for several centuries.
Already the princely prelates of Germany had taken their
place among the secular princes of the Western Empire, al-
ready the Pope of Rome had become a sovereign, who claimed
to sit with the Emperor on the throne of the world.
Such then was the strength and weakness of the Christian
Church when the darkness lay thickest over the Western
world. When we transport ourselves to the East from "old"
Rome to the "new" Rome of Constantinople things are differ-
ent; and it would have been hard indeed for a subject, say of
Charles the Fat, who visited the Byzantine court, to believe
that the hope of civilization would be realized, not on the shores
of the Bosphorus, but in the dominion of his master. Constanti-
nople was the one great city of Europe, not, like Rome, a
congeries of deserted streets and buildings, the dead memorials
of a great past, but a place teeming with a vast population,
the emporium of the trade of the world. The Romans, as her
Greek-speaking inhabitants called themselves, were stilt the
most powerful nation on earth; their army was drilled and dis-
ciplined to be more than a match even of the armies of the
Crescent; their navy, manned by excellent sailors and ren-
dered the more formidable by Greek fire, which was discharged
from a sort of cannon, protected a worldwide trade. Nor was
there any justification for the view that Byzantine Rome was
decadent. Before her were generations, capable of producing
great emperors, soldiers, statesmen, and she was long destined
to remain the chief bulwark of Christendom. Bulgarians and
Russians, as well as Saracens, had retreated and would still
retreat, baffled and defeated, from her walls. Her coinage
circulated alike in Europe and Asia. Her churches were the
admiration of the world; but Constantinople was not like Old
Rome, a city of churches and monasteries. Palaces, baths,
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 67
libraries, schools, occupied the city, her shops were filled with
wares and her quays with merchandise. In every respect the
Empire of the East had the advantage over the chaotic, newly
created, imperial system of western Europe. By the light of
these facts it is possible to understand some typical examples
of events in the Dark Ages.
An immense stride was taken in the assertion of the su-
preme power of the papacy by Nicolas I, one of the few pontiffs
honoured by posterity with the title of "the Great." His com-
paratively brief pontificate (A.D. 858-867) is memorable for
four things: (i) his defiance of the Eastern Emperor in defence
of the wrong done to Ignatius, the deposed patriarch of Con-
stantinople; (2) his firm stand for the sanctity of marriage
against Lothair, King of Lorraine; (3) his breaking the pride of
the great prelates of Gaul; (4) the appearance of those remark-
able documents in support of the worldwide authority of the
Pope known as the "False Decretals."
(l ) The splendid position of the Patriarch of Constantinople as
contrasted with that of the Bishop of Old Rome, the fact that
next to the Emperor he was the greatest man in a rich and
flourishing empire, the head of a church equally renowned for
its learning and magnificence, was neutralized in a measure by
the insecurity of his position in a corrupt and despotic court.
With all his advantages the Patriarch was always a subject,
whilst the Pope was becoming more and more of an independ-
ent sovereign. Moreover, though more than one Pope was
destined to bring discredit on the Church, Rome afforded
scope for men of commanding intellect and high moral charac-
ter; and these were enabled to make a firmer stand for right-
eousness than any Patriarch since the days of Chrysostom.
There is abundant evidence of this in the story of the See of
Constantinople in the ninth century. Leo V summoned a coun-
cil in 815, and deposed the patriarch Nicephorus, the historian,
for refusing to agree to the Emperor's iconoclastic policy. In
842 John VII, the grammarian, the wonder of his age for his
learning and mechanical knowledge, was deposed, scourged
and blinded by the image worshippers; and in 857 Michael
68 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
III, the Drunkard, deposed the saintly Ignatius, whose story
must now be told.
The Patriarch Methodius, with whose aid the regent Theo-
dora, widow of Theophilus and mother of Michael III, had
restored the images, died in 846; and the two candidates for
the vacancy were both sons of Emperors, Gregory, Bishop
of Syracuse, of Leo the Armenian, whilst Ignatius, as the son
of Michael I, represented the family which his rival's father had
dethroned. The competitors stood for different aspects of
churchmanship. In Ignatius the virtues of St. Theodore of the
Studium were incarnate; zeal for Rome, for images, for the
independence of the Church were combined in him with the
asceticism of a true monk. In Gregory, a more worldly perhaps,
a more liberal Christianity was discoverable. The election of
Ignatius was the victory of the uncompromising Church party,
favoured by Theodora, which inclined towards friendship with
the Pope of old Rome. Ignatius not only offended Gregory by
supplanting him, but refused to acknowledge him because he
had been accused of violating the canons of the Church. Thus
there was a party formed in opposition to the Patriarch, a man
of saintly character, but probably with the limitations of a
narrow monastic training. In his dispute with Gregory, Igna-
tius had won the support of Pope Benedict III.
For eleven years, till 857, Ignatius occupied his throne un-
disturbed. His position was no easy one for a man of sensitive
conscience. Theodora proved herself a capable ruler; but she
entrusted her infant son Michael to his uncle Bardas, a man of
immoral habits, who seems to have deliberately fostered the
evil propensities of his young charge, destined to be known to
posterity as the **the Drunkard." Theodora, like Irene the
earlier restorer of the images, is accused of encouraging her
son's profligacy to prolong her power as regent, though she
appears to have ruled wisely and well. But in the end Bardas
and his party proved too strong for Theodora, and an attempt
was made to force her and the Emperor's sisters to enter
a monastery. Ignatius refused to be an accomplice in this de-
sign, urging that it was uncanonical to compel unwilling persons
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 69
to enter religion. This made him a definite partisan of Theodora,
and opposed to Bardas.
The state of morahty at this time at Constantinople was
admittedly deplorable. The young Emperor indulged in dis-
graceful orgies and openly made a mock of religion. Bardas
was supposed to be guilty of an incestuous passion for his son's
wife. Theodora had married her son at the age of sixteen to a
lady named Eudocia, whom Michael deserted to live with
another of the same name, Eudocia Ingerina. At the feast of
Easter, 857, Ignatius refused the communion to Bardas. A
charge of sedition was trumped up against the patriarch and
he was exiled to Terebinthus and ordered to resign his see. As
he remained inflexible, he was deposed.
Bearing in mind the high birth and reputation for sanctity
which Ignatius enjoyed, Bardas wisely selected the best pos-
sible successor in Photius, chief secretary of state, whose vast
erudition is still recognized with gratitude by modern scholars.
Himself nobly born, the grand-nephew of the patriarch Tarasius
(A.D. 784-806), and allied to the imperial house, Photius com-
bined the wisdom of a statesman with encyclopedic learning,
in contrast to Ignatius, who was at heart little more than a
devout monk. Indeed it is related that Photius had promulgated
opinions ludicrously heretical in order to show the world the
incompetence of the Patriarch Ignatius when there was an
occasion for exhibiting a knowledge of philosophy. Like his
grand-uncle and some other Patriarchs at the time of his
election Photius was a layman; but five days were sufficient to
make him a monk, reader, subdeacon, deacon and priest, and
on the sixth, December 25, 857, he was consecrated Archbishop
of Constantinople.
There is a modern prejudice in favour of Photius, but
granted even that Ignatius was narrow and ignorant, a sup-
porter of the monastic party and the superstitious Theodora,
and a partisan of Rome, and admitting that Photius adorned
his see by his learning, and maintained its independence against
papal arrogance, nothing can conceal the fact that Ignatius was
deposed unjustly, and no attribution of motives to the Pope
JO INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
of Rome in espousing his cause can make right wrong. The
deposition of Ignatius in 857 was as unjust as that of St. John
Chrysostom four and a half centuries earlier; and the treat-
ment of Ignatius by his opponents was indefensible, though, to
do Photius justice, he protested strongly against the cruel treat-
ment of some of his rival's adherents.
What follows recalls the story of the Latrocinium in 449
when the Patriarch Flavian was deposed in defiance of St.
Leo the Great. Photius laid the case before Nicolas I. A council
was held in 862 at which the papal legates were present,
and Ignatius was deposed with the consent of the Romans.
Nicolas, on hearing what had happened, indignantly repudiated
the action of his representative, and held a council at Rome,
where Photius was excommunicated, with Zacharias, the papal
legate, and Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse. All the ordinations of
Photius were declared null and void, and the three Eastern
Patriarchs were commanded to acknowledge Ignatius. Year
after year the controversy continued. Michael tried to exert
his authority, but the days when an Eastern Emperor could
dictate to a Pope were ended. Nicolas taunts Michael with
basely allowing his dominions to be overrun by Saracens, whilst
he threatens Catholic Christians with the vain terrors of his
arms. The Pope threatened that, if the Emperor persisted, his
letter should be publicly burned in Rome. Photius, whose vir-
tues seem to have endeared him to his people, held a council in
867 and retorted on Nicolas with counter anathemas. The
Latins were charged with heresy in eight articles drawn up by
the Patriarch: I. Fasting on Saturdays. II. Allowing milk and
cheese to be eaten in Lent. III. Insisting on compulsory
celibacy of the clergy. IV. Restricting the Chrism (Confirma-
tion) to bishops. V. Saying that the Holy Ghost proceeded
from the Father and the Son. VI. Promoting deacons direct to
the episcopate. VII. Consecrating a lamb according to Jewish
usage. VIII. Shaving the beards of the clergy. Thus the dis-
tinction between the Roman and the Eastern Church was em-
phasised, and the fatal Filioque controversy brought into
prominence. The council further denied the papal supremacy.
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 71
declaring that all the privileges of Rome had passed to Con-
stantinople.
On September 24, 867, Michael the Drunkard was murdered
by his colleague Basil, a groom whom he had raised to the
purple. Photius was deposed in favour of Ignatius who pre-
sided over Constantinople till his death in 877. But even Igna-
tius could not avoid disputes with Rome. A cause of dispute be-
tween the sees was as to whose jurisdiction the new church of
Bulgaria belonged. At Constantinople Ignatius was evidently
regarded as too deferential to Old Rome, and at his death
Photius was restored, this time without serious opposition from
John VIII, the next but one in succession to Nicolas I. Once
more, in 886, Photius was deposed, but he was allowed to retire
with honour. After the Ignatian controversy the relationship
between Rome and Constantinople began to grow less, not so
much on account of ecclesiastical difference as of circumstances.
But the seeds of disunion were sown. Rome had asserted and
Constantinople had rejected her supremacy, and the Easterns
had brought against the Western Church the charge of tam-
pering with the Creed. Rome had, however, in the person of
Nicolas, enhanced her prestige by espousing the cause of in-
nocence and showing a moral tone superior to that of the more
civilized society of the Eastern Empire.
(2) The pontificate of Nicolas serves further to illustrate the
power gained by the clergy in constituting themselves the cus-
todians of the sanctity of the marriage bond. The extreme
laxity of the Carohngian house laid them open to ecclesiastical
censures, which were sometimes prudently withheld. Nicolas
was not, however, restrained by caution, especially when, as in
the case of Ignatius, the oppressed sought his aid. The Pope
stood alone in defence of an injured woman against a king, the
Emperor, and the entire hierarchy of northern Europe. The
whole story is illustrative of the low morale of the Carolingian
age. Lothair, King of Lorraine, brother of the Emperor Louis
(850-875), had married Teutberga, daughter of Boso, Count of
Burgundy. Being enamoured of a lady named Waldrada, he
determined to rid himself of his wife and brought against her
72 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
an abominable charge of misbehaviour with her own brother
Hubert, Abbot of St. Maurice. Teutberga demanded to be
tried by the ordeal of hot water, and her champion emerged
unscathed. But the judgment of heaven did not satisfy the
bishops, and at Aix-la-Chapelle she was declared guilty, and
Lothair legally married to Waldrada. All the great prelates
supported Lothair, including the Archbishops of Cologne and
Treves, and Teutberga, who now desired no more than to retire
into a convent, was forced to make a confession of her guilt.
An appeal was made to Nicolas, who sent legates into Germany.
A council was held at Metz (862) and the decrees of the former
synod were ratified without opposition from the representa-
tives of the Pope. The two archbishops went boldly to Rome as
ambassadors of Lothair, to find that Nicolas repudiated the
action of his legates, and that they themselves were excom-
municated and deposed. The Emperor Louis, determined to
avenge the insult to his brother, advanced on Rome to seize
the person of the Pope. But Nicolas was undaunted, and in the
end Lothair abandoned his episcopal friends; and at the
Eighth General Council in 868 made abject submission to the
next pontiff, Hadrian H.
(3) Even the greatest prelate among the Franks, Hincmar of
Reims, had to bow to the imperious will of Nicolas. Hincmar
was the greatest of the northern bishops, famed alike for his
learning and character. His dispute with Nicolas was due to an
appeal to Rome by Bishop Rothad of Soissons, whom Hincmar
had deprived of his see. Nicolas insisted on his restoration and
rebuked Hincmar for presuming to deprive a bishop without
consulting Rome. Indeed he lost no opportunity of asserting
the paramount authority of the Apostolic See over all bishops.
But though he extorted submission from Hincmar, Nicolas rec-
ognized his eminent qualities and respected him for his ability.
Nothing can be more unjust than to judge a man by the
results of actions which took generations to mature. True, the
high-handed manner in which Nicolas treated Photius, and his
contemptuous letters to the Emperor Michael HI did much to
alienate the Eastern Church; but at least it must be admitted
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES
73
that, however disastrous its effects, his conduct was justified
at the time. Nor can the Pope justly be made responsible for
the fact that his firmness in the cause of an injured prelate in 860
was partly the cause of a schism which came to a head in 1054.
He may more reasonably be charged with excessive arrogance
in asserting the claims of Rome, and of haughtiness in his
treatment of the northern bishops. Yet, when his times are
considered, and the character of most of the prelates, imperious
language may be pardoned in even a Christian pontiff. Hard
words are at least better than violent deeds, and Nicolas con-
fined himself to the spiritual weapon of severe reproof, nor did
he ever encourage violence in others. Nor could his age have
comprehended a gentler Pontiff. He is an example of how great
a power for good a Pope could be who dared to play an honest
part in days of social and moral anarchy. It has been necessary
to dwell on his reign because in it the highest claims of Roman
sovereignty were made, and also because hardly a generation
after his death the dreadful condition of the Papacy and the
barbarism of Rome proves what forces of evil he and his im-
mediate successors held in check.
(4) The name of Nicolas I is always associated with the
appearance of one of the most astonishing forgeries in history,
which for nearly six centuries after his death exercised unques-
tioned authority in Western Christendom. Nor can anything
illustrate better the mental condition of the age than the fa-
mous "False Decretals." Fortunately for centuries no serious
historian has attempted to defend them, and they can be dis-
cussed without offence to any person who knows the facts. It
must, however, be remembered that because a document is a
forgery or, at least, not what it professes to be, it is not on that
account unimportant to the historian. On the contrary it may
be of far greater value than a genuine production, for the very
fact that it has been deliberately manufactured and ascribed
to an earlier age makes it of great value in estimating the ideas
of the time at which it was fabricated. It matters therefore little
whether the decrees ascribed to Popes Pius I or Melchiades
were promulgated by them in comparison with the fact that
74 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
in the ninth century they were deemed of sufficient importance
to be attributed to those venerable names. That the False De-
cretals laboured to prove that in every age popes had legis-
lated for the Church is in itself a proof that at the time of their
reception it was generally admitted or at any rate desired.
The Decretals are really a book of Church law, not the
Canon law promulgated by Councils, but decrees issued by
successive pontiffs as Bishops of Rome. They foreshadow what
has finally been accepted only a generation or so ago, namely
that the edict of a Pope ranks with the decree even of a General
Council. Nothing can be more misleading than the notion that
these Decretals were promulgated by Nicolas to exalt the
importance of his office. It is tolerably certain that till within
the last years of his pontificate he knew nothing about them,
and it is an open question whether he ever used them. On the
contrary it has been established that the forgery was not even
Roman. The group of ecclesiastics who wished it to be true
lived beyond the Alps, and therefore the fraud they perpetrated
was to secure the papal authority in their own interests rather
than for the benefit of the Roman See. The successors of Nicolas
do not seem to have brought them into prominence till the
pontificate of Bruno of Toul, a German who took the title of
Leo IX in 1048.
The nucleus from which the False Decretals grew was a
collection of letters or edicts of the popes commencing with
Siricius at the close of the fourth century. This was made by
Dionysius Exiguus at the beginning of the sixth century, and
in the next century the famous Isidore of Seville published a
collection of the decrees of the authentic councils. In the ninth
century spurious collections began to make their appearance
in Gaul, first the Capitula Angilramni^ some seventy short
chapters dealing with ecclesiastical questions, professedly given
by Hadrian I to Angelramn, Bishop of Metz, or, according to
some copies, by the Bishop, to Hadrian. Next Benedict Levita
issued Capitularies, which he said were drawn up from the
archives of the archdiocese of Mainz. These were followed by
the Decretals themselves by Isidore Mercator (or Peccator),
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 75
who was popularly confused with Isidore of Seville, Hence
they are often called the "Isidorian Decretals." These were
drawn up at the request of the bishops and fall into three
parts: I. The Apostolic Canons, some sixty-four Decretals
from Clement of Rome to Melchiades (314), and the Donation
of Constantine. II. Decrees of Councils from Nicaea to the
Second Council of Seville (619). III. Decretals of Popes from
Silvester to Gregory II. These were alluded to in the Frankish
Councils of Soissons (853) and definitely cited at Quiercy (857),
Fimes (881), and Metz (857), and the founders of the Canon
Law in France speedily adopted then. Whether, therefore,
Nicolas I used them, is here unimportant, especially as the
question is both complicated and controversial, the point for
the present being that the Decretals are a proof that, so far
from there being a spirit of Gallicanism abroad among the
majority of the clergy north of the Alps, there was a strong
desire to strengthen the papal authority, possibly against the
encroachment of the tyranny of the great feudal archbishops.
The need of a strong central rule was generally felt, and the
moral superiority of the Roman bishops was widely recognized,
at any rate in the days of Nicolas and his two successors Ha-
drian II (867-872) and John VIII (872-882). Even in the darkest
days of papal degradation the reverence for the office survived
in a surprising manner outside Italy.
II. From Ireland and the shores of the Baltic to Carthage,
which is from time to time mentioned as a Christian Church
even in the tenth century, Latin was the language of devotion.
It is from Latin Chronicles and Charters that we glean the
scanty records of the Dark Ages, nor were they entirely desti-
tute of literature which has endured to this day; and, if cor-
rupt, Latin was assuredly a Hving language. The classical
model on which pure Latinity is based was probably never
adopted by the people, and the Church deliberately used the
popular dialect for the edification of their flocks. Thus the
strong common sense of Gregory the Great is shown in his re-
fusal to attempt to follow the rules of the grammarians in his
writings, his object being to make himself clear and intelligible.
76 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
His namesake and contemporary, Gregory of Tours, was even
more reckless in his disregard of form and accidence, yet his
story is most readable. In Italy and Gaul the sermo plebeius
(to use Tertullian's phrase) was in process of formation, and
enabled Latin to hold its own as the ecclesiastical language,
and also to be the common vehicle for the interchange of
ideas. Nor does there appear to have been the slightest
desire for a language intelligible to the people in the services
of the Church. The Mass was becoming more and more the
affair of the priest, with the congregation adoring in silence, and
perhaps in ignorance. Nor did severance from Rome and Italy
break the ecclesiastical employment of Latin. Indeed neither
in Wales nor Ireland did it ever fall out of use. This fact was of
immense service in maintaining a bond of union throughout
Christendom. The rapid disappearance of Greek in Rome and
throughout northern Italy is as remarkable as the universal
retention of Latin, especially when it is borne in mind that till
the middle of the eighth century the Byzantine Greeks were
rulers in Rome. Ireland seems to have been the one home of
the study of Greek in the Western Church. The monks were by
no means friendly to the classical authors, and read them with
misgivings; nevertheless they preserved them.
The Roman Law survived in compilations among some of
the barbarians, but was not studied in its integrity, and re-
mained in a measure the law of the provincials in parts of the
Empire under Germanic sway: for each conquering nation car-
ried with it its own laws and customs. The Church's part in
continuing the tradition of the Roman Law partly consisted
in its embodying in the Canon Law all the legislation affecting
the Church of the Emperors since the days of Constantine.
But the important fact to be borne in mind is that the Church
and the Church alone conserved the two elements which it had
received from the Empire, language and law, and by so doing
made a recrudescence of civilization possible.
III. The necessity of maintaining the doctrines of the
Christian faith unimpaired led to the stimulation of some in-
tellectual interest, and controversies may be cited as giv-
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES
n
ing indication of mental activity. The Monothelite heresy,
which turned on the mysterious question of whether in Christ
the divine and human energy operated separately or in one
Will, had to be explained to and repudiated by the British
Church in the seventh century. The Prankish Church was
deeply moved by the heresy of Elipandus of Toledo concerning
the Adoption of the Son, an error which arose in the West, and
employed a characteristically Latin notion. For the ninth cen-
tury the question of predestination was raised by Gotteschalk
who adopted extreme Augustinian views which were not con-
sonant with the growing ecclesiasticism of the age. There was
in addition the Filioque controversy about the procession of
the Holy Spirit; and the Westerns were beginning to defend
their unauthorized addition to the Creed of the Universal
Church. But more important than any of these was the in-
terest taken in the doctrine of the Eucharist. Already the two
views of the change in the Elements by which the Body and
Blood of Christ were given to the Church were a cause of divi-
sion. Ratramnus, following John Scotus Eriugena, favoured the
Augustinian opinion as to the importance of faith in the
recipient, and was opposed by Paschasius Radbert who main-
tained the more popular explanation that the change was
wrought by a miracle performed by the consecrating priest.
The doctrine of transubstantiation, originating in the Eastern
Church from the days of St. Basil and the Cappadocian Fathers
and further developed by St. John of Damascus, was in process
of formation. Already a feeling was manifested that the mystery
was profaned by extreme literalism in explanation, and the
way was being prepared for the development of an interpreta-
tion more in accordance with the philosophy of the time. When
all the troubles of the ages are considered, the wonder is, not
that learning sunk so low, but that so much mental activity
was possible: for, almost unnoticed, ideas were shaping them-
selves which were destined to materialise in the wonderful
civilization of Latin Christendom, which was destined to have
so many permanent effects. It is but just to apply to these so-
called Dark Ages the motto Post tenehras lux.
78 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
IV. Even greater is the debt due to the men of this sorely
tried generation for the development of the Christian services of
devotion. The writers of the Dark Ages made verses in weari-
some profusion, some bad, some tolerable, hardly any poetical;
and almost every Pope has his epithet in elegiacs. But side by
side with this verse making was a development of a new
poetry. What classicism is found in Christian writers is as a
rule frigid and artificial; but the devotion of the Church pro-
vided a language, a rhythm, and metres all its own. The Chris-
tian hymns begin to appear in the days of the decay of Latin
literature; but these are not decadent: they are the vehicle of
new thoughts, new emotions, new aspirations. Among the
greatest treasures of devotion is the Breviary, the outcome of
the monasticism of the period. Originally the devotion of the
ascetic was the Psalter; but, as the recitation of psalms tended
to become but a vain repetition, it was varied by lections from
the Old and New Testament, the lives of Saints, the sermons
of fathers, collects and anthems. A system of reasonable wor-
ship was being elaborated, at any rate for the cloister.
By the end of the ninth century, therefore, the papal
authority was widely recognised; but, with the disappearance
of the Carolingians, Rome became the prey to barbarism and
disorder. The number of popes in a century is an almost certain
indication of the state of Rome. Thus in the seventh century
twenty-one pontiffs were elected; in the eighth, when the Caro-
lingians were rising to power, twelve; in the ninth century, the
period of their decay, eleven; in the days of anarchy, between
882 and 1046, forty-one.
A long and dreary period has now to be considered, during
which the popes at times sunk to almost unimaginable depths
of infamy, though in the end the Papacy emerged full of power
to estabhsh its sway over the whole of Western Europe. The
painful story needs only to be briefly told, as the scandals of
the Church serve no end but to prove its inherent vitality.
The last great scion of the Carolingians was Arnulf, an illegiti-
mate son of Carloman, King of Bavaria. In his reign over Ger-
many (888-899) some of the vigour of Charles the Great
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 79
appears. He more than once invaded Italy, and was crowned as
Emperor by Formosus in 896. This pope is one of the most in-
teresting in the list of obscure pontiffs of the age. He was bishop
of Portus, and had been sent as a missionary to the Bulgarians
where he was in high favour with their king Boris. His election
had been tumultuous and irregular, for it was contrary to all
precedent that a bishop should be made pope. He was un-
popular as a partisan of the Germans, and at his death an
extraordinary scene was enacted illustrative of his age. Stephen
VI, his successor, had his body exhumed. Dressed in papal
habiliments the corpse was accused of, as bishop of Portus,
usurping the Roman See. It was then stripped of its vestments,
three fingers were cut off, and the body was thrown into the
Tiber. Pope Stephen was soon afterwards strangled in prison,
and under the brief pontificate of Theodore II Formosus was
reinstated and buried in St. Peter's. As the body was carried
into the Church, the images reverentially bowed their heads.
After Arnulf's death the German influence in Italy became
negligible, and the Roman See, too weak to maintain itself,
fell into the hands of the neighbouring Counts of Tusculum.
For a time two noble but immoral ladies, Theodora and her
daughter Marozia, made and unmade popes at their pleasure.
Into the bewildering story of the intrigues, marriages (often
flagrantly irregular), murders, and other crimes of the princes
of this age, it is unnecessary to enter; and one may pass on to
the death of Alberic who, after having been the virtual ruler of
Rome for twenty-two years, bequeathed his authority to his
son Octavian. Two years after his father's death Octavian
procured his election as pope, thus at the age of nineteen be-
coming head of the Church and civil ruler of the City (No-
vember, 955). He was one of the first popes to change his
name on his accession, and is known as John XII.
The condition of Europe in the tenth century was truly
appalling. On all sides Northmen, Slavonians, Hungarians were
ravaging the country whilst there seemed grave danger of
Italy, and Gaul, being submerged under the flood of Mo-
hammedanism. Slowly and gradually was the tide turning,
8o INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
partly owing to the fact that the fortified feudal castles offered
a refuge during the constant raids of the barbarians, and
also to the vigour shewn by the Christian mission. Of this
age it may truly be said that the castle and the monastery
proved the salvation of the embers of civilization. The rise
of a strong German dynasty contributed to this end when
the Dukes of Saxony established themselves as sovereigns.
Henry the Fowler (920-936) and his son, Otto I, defeated the
Danes, Slavonians and Hungarians; and Otto was finally
crowned as Emperor at Rome. His power continued under
his sons and namesakes Otto H (978-983) and Otto HI (983-
1002), and the period during which they laboured to restrain
the disorders of Italy and restore the order and glory of Charles
the Great is often known as the "age of the Ottos."
The rise of the house of Saxony in Germany gave things
a turn for the better, but it was only temporary, and its ex-
tinction gave further proof of the indispensable need of the
Roman Church for the support of a strong Emperor Uving
outside Italy.
John XII (955-963) was never more than a boy during his,
for this century, long pontificate. He was in the difficult posi-
tion of a Pope with an hereditary'claim to rule the Romans, and
he was fitted neither by his character nor his abilities for the
task. Accordingly, in 961, he sought the aid of the German King,
as his predecessors had summoned Pippin and Charles two
centuries before. But he lacked the moral dignity of the second
and third Gregories, or Zacharias. He has been described as a
perfect monster of iniquity, but his chief traducer Liutprand,
Bishop of Cremona, delights too much in scandal to be trusted
implicitly. But after making every allowance for John XII,
as a lad placed on the papal throne without experience, he
seems to have been vicious and unprincipled, totally unfit for
the humblest clerical office. Otto came as the saviour of Europe
and the reformer of the Church. He delivered the Pope from
his domestic enemies, but insisted upon a certain decency
being maintained.
The Pope was denounced by the clergy to the Emperor.
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 8 1
He was accused of turning his palace into a brothel, of ordain-
ing a deacon in a stable, of saying Mass without himself com-
municating, of simony, of consecrating a boy of ten a bishop,
of wearing armour, of hunting publicly, of calling on the Demons
Venus and Mercury, when playing dice, of not saying Mass or
the canonical hours, of not using the sign of the cross in blessing
himself, and of arson. The strange mixture of gross sips and
trivial offences is characteristic of the age. An imperial nominee
was consecrated pope as Leo VIII; but when Otto left Rome,
John XII called a rival council at which many of his own
accusers were present and, with their consent, launched counter
anathemas against his enemies.
Less than two years after John XII 's death, Otto appointed
John, Bishop of Narni, a man of learning and experience,
who reigned from 965 to 972. By him Otto I was crowned
Emperor on Christmas Day 967. That all popes of this century
cannot be involved in one general condemnation is shewn by
John XIII who was known as "the Good." Otto I himself
died on May 7, 973; and, as illustrative of the ferocity of the
Romans, when the strong hand of the emperor was removed,
the successor of John XIII, Benedict VI, was murdered within
about a year. Indeed nothing can better illustrate the insecurity
of the popes than the fact that between 955 and 985, less than
thirty years, Benedict V died in exile in Germany, Benedict
VI was murdered, John XIV died in prison, and his rival
Boniface VII was supposed to have been poisoned, and his
dead body was certainly foully outraged. Three popes only
died a natural death. At the close of the century Otto III de-
cided to try the experiment of infusing fresh blood into Rome
by procuring the election of a German pope. He selected a
kinsman of his own, Bruno, son of the Duke of Carinthia, a
great-grandson of Otto I. This pontiff was educated at Worms,
and he was able to preach in German and Italian — almost the
first notice of the language — as well as in Latin.
But Rome could not tolerate a German pope and an at-
tempt was made by Crecentius, perhaps a descendant of the
famous Marozia, to establish a Republic. He even entered into
82 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
negotiations with Constantinople to place Rome in the hands
of the Greeks and actually selected an antipope, John Phila-
gathus, Bishop of Piacenza, who took the title of John XVI.
In the end the revolution was put down. The terrible fate of
the antipope again lets light upon the barbarity of the times.
Those who arrested him "fearing he might not be sufficiently
punished," cut off his nose and ears and plucked out his eyes
and tongue. In this awful condition he was dressed in his vest-
ments and publicly degraded. The Romans then put him on
an ass with his face to the tail and drove it through the city
shouting, "Thus let the man suffer who has endeavoured to
drive the pope from his See." He was then imprisoned in a
monastery; and actually lived for fourteen years. In justice to
the age, S. Nilus, one of the few saints of the time, refused to
hold further intercourse with the Emperor who had allowed
such a thing to happen. The next German pope was the cele-
brated Gerbert, who took the title Sylvester II, implying there-
by that he and the emperor would restore the Church like Con-
stantine and Sylvester I. But Otto III, the idealistic youth
who had hoped to do so much, died in 1002, and Sylvester in
the following year, and for nearly fifty years an even darker day
set in for the See of Rome.
The intervention of the Ottos had been powerless to raise
the Papacy from its degradation; for, on the extinction of the
Saxon dynasty, the popes' condition was worse than it had been
before its intervention in Italy. The Chair of Peter, in fact,
became the private property of the Counts of Tusculum,
descendants, like so many others, of Marozia, and three succes-
sive memebers of this family occupied the Chair of St. Peter.
Two of them, Benedict VIII (loi 2-1024) ^^^ John XIX
(1024-1033), if not pious bishops, were at least energetic and
capable rulers; but the third may safely be placed among the
worst of the popes. Appointed as a child of ten or twelve
years old Benedict IX is said to have behaved like one of the
more monstrous pagan Emperors. Wearied by his infamies the
Romans chose an antipope, Sylvester III; and in 1046 Benedict
IX, tired of his office, shamelessly put it up for sale.The purchaser
I
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 83
was the arch-presbyter John, who took the name Gregory VI,
a wealthy man, who was perhaps guilty of a wrong act with not
altogether unworthy motives. At any rate he tried to recover
the papal estates for the See and to repress the flagrant robbery
of the pilgrims who still flocked to the disorderly, but still
holy, city. Benedict IX's family did not acquiesce in his
nefarious bargain, and reinstated him as pope, and Gregory
from St. Peter's denounced his rival Benedict in the Lateran.
Thus matters stood in 1048 when the Emperor Henry II made
Sylvester III a prisoner for life in a monastery, and forced
Benedict VIII to resign all his claims to the See. Gregory was
also deposed and taken to Germany and interned in a mon-
astery with his friend Hildebrand, destined years later to take
the name of the simoniacal pope, and to wage unrelenting war
against the sin of Simon Magus.
It may be permissible in forming a judgment of this disas-
trous period of papal history to utter a few reminders, (i)
That despite all the scandals of the time the papal authority
did not diminish. Events at Rome were powerless to lessen the
respect for the office. Pilgrims of all ranks flocked to the tombs
of the apostles; and that their visit to Rome did not always
produce merely superstitious reverence is shown by the noble
letter of Canute, King of England, who was actually in the City
in the days of the Tusculan Popes, and must have witnessed
a slaughter of the Romans by the German troops of the Em-
peror Conrad the Salic. But in a letter to the English people
the king expresses his sorrow for his former sins and exactions,
and promises to rule them in future more justly, showing how
deep a religious impression a visit to the City had made on his
mind. Doubtless the distant nations knew little of what went
on in distant Rome, but news can travel far and fast in un-
civilized lands, and the worst scandals are related by hostile
ecclesiastics or prejudiced pietists. (2) The popes are rarely
charged with gross immoraHty, and a John XII or Benedict IX
are the exceptions, not the rule. On the whole, the popes of the
Dark Ages were more sinned against than sinning as the num-
ber who were murdered abundantly testify. (3) Their corre-
84 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
spondence with other Churches reveals that they were by no
means indifferent to the welfare of Christianity generally, and
(4) they are in no instance responsible, as were some at a later
date, of stirring up strife between nations; possibly this may
be due to lack of power, but the fact remains. (5) Even in the
tenth century popes like Gregory V rebuked the sins of great
men like Robert, king of France.
Finally the remarkable revival not merely of papal power
but of religion is a sure proof that the corruption of the Roman
Church in its darkest days has been exaggerated. When an
evil age succeeds to a period of greatness one may reasonably
infer that the seeds the bitter fruit of which the next genera-
tion reaped were sown when all seemed fair and flourishing.
Two results of the Dark Ages may be considered in con-
clusion, (a) The Church entered them semi-pagan and emerged
wholly Christian. That is to say that, as the Hterature and
culture of the old age waned, the vigorous Christian body
ceased to borrow from either, and developed something entirely
its own. That it needed to be again leavened by the older
culture is undeniable; but it set men on the track of founding
a society on a basis professedly Christian. This distinguishes
medieval from modern civilization, (b) The sufferings of the
Roman Church at the hands of the State whether Roman,
Byzantine, Gothic, Lombard, or Italian, made an ineradicable
impression on the Papacy. From the time of its revival one
idea consistently animated the institution — never to allow the
secular power to dominate it. This was the cause of the furious
fight with the German Roman Emperors, of its breaking down
any attempt to unite Italy under a single head, of war with a
king so devoted to its service as Philip II of Spain. In recent
times it has shown itself in its hostility to Garibaldi, Victor
Emmanuel, and all who desired to make Italy one, in its per-
sistent determination never to surrender its claim to temporal
power, in its readiness to support any nation ready to encourage
the hope that the popes may one day again rule central Italy.
So enduring has been the terror inspired by Leo the Isaurian,
the Lombard kings, the rulers of Tuscany, the Counts of Tus-
THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES 85
culum, the descendants of Theodora and Marozia. To this
day the determination of the Papacy to be a sovereign power
is a menace to the peace of the world.
AUTHORITIES
The authorities for the reign of Louis the Pious are the Annals of Einhart.
His Life by Theganus, Chorepiscopus of Treves (c. 835) in Migne, Pair. Lat.,
Vol. 104, and The Life of JVala, the famous minister of the Emperor, by
Paschasius Radbert, in Migne, P. L., VoL 120. This book is called Epi~
taphium Arsenii and the names in it are fictitious. The clue to them has
been supplied by Mabillon, the great Benedictine. The book is hostile to
the Emperor. An excellent introduction to the study of Feudalism is the
article in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 10, by Professor G. B. Adams
of Yale. He gives a good bibliography, referring to the works of F. W.
Maitland, J. H. Round, P. VinogradofF, Stubbs, etc. For the Pontificate of
Nicolas I the main authorities is his Life in the Liher Pontificalis (Duchesne,
Vol. II), probably v^^ritten by the librarian Anastasius, and the Pope's letters,
in Migne, P. L., Vol. 119 — three others in Vol. 129. Milman, Tlist. of Latin
Christianity, Bk. V, Ch. IV, gives a good account of his pontificate. Mann,
Lives of the Popes, Vol. Ill, should be consulted, especially the bibliographies.
The works of Photius are in Migne, Patr. Graec, Vols. 101-105. For the
controversy see A. Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church (1907). The
best edition of the False Decretals is P. Hinschius (Leipzig, 1863). See
Davenport, The False Decretals (Oxford, 1916).
On the use of Latin see H. 0. Taylor's Classical Heritage of the Middle
Ages and his Medieval Mind.
The Breviary is treated of in the articles of the Catholic Encyclopedia,
'Breviary' and 'Hymnody'. The account of the Christian Hymns which found
their way into the Breviary is very interesting. From Prudentius and Am-
brose in the fourth century there was a stream of Christian poetry in all the
countries of the West. Perhaps the best known Hymns of the Dark Ages are
those of Vcnantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers (fl. 600).
CHAPTER IV
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST
Loss and gain of the Church — The Church a reproduction of the Empire — The
Roman — Provinces of Gaul — Aries — Embrun and Aix — Narbonne — Auch
— Tarentaise — Vienne — Bourges — Besan^on — Lyons — Sens — Treves (Trier)
— Cologne — Reims — Rouen Provinces beyond the Rhine — Mainz — Mag-
deburg — Hamburg and Bremen. Vast church principalities of Germany.
Northern Italy — Milan — Ravenna — Patriarchate of Aquileia. No archbishops
in Central Italy. South Italian Archbishoprics. Spain — Ancient divisions and
sees — Toledo — Tarragona — Valentia — • Saragossa — Granada — Elvira. Por-
tugal. England. Scotland and Ireland. Scandinavia ■ — Conversion of the
Northmen — Denmark — Lund — Trondheim — Conversion of Norway. Con-
version of Eastern Europe. Conversion of the Slavs — Cyril and Methodius —
Moravia — Bohemia. Hungary, Poland. Germans and Slavs. Russia. Eastern
Church — The Patriarchates — Primacy of Rome — The Church of Rome —
Policy of Rome during the Middle Ages — The Papal Court — The Cardinals
— The Consistory — Legates.
A clue to the understanding of the Middle Ages is found
by bearing in mind that the Church reproduced and continued
the Roman Empire, and even when the last shadow of the im-
perial government had disappeared the ecclesiastical provinces
remained virtually the same as the ancient civil divisions which
had existed at the close of the fourth century. This, as will be
shown, was particularly true of Roman Gaul, the archbishop-
rics of which from the eighth century onward were practically
identical with the provinces in the days of Theodosius the Great,
and even of Diocletian. In the East the same phenomenon is
observable; and it may be broadly asserted that the Church
Empire reproduced that of Rome.
The enquiry about to be undertaken may be tedious but
is certainly desirable. To survey the Christian world is a neces-
sary preliminary to comprehending the course of events during
many centuries. The Church was an organization, so wide-
spread, so compact, and yet so complex, that the policy of
86
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 87
Europe throughout the Middle Ages is unintelHgible unless
some idea is prsented as to its divisions, its boundaries, and its
government.
The Church Empire had, on the one hand, shrunk, and on
the other expanded as compared with the imperial dominions
of ancient Rome. At the time of the coronation of Charles the
whole southern coast of the Mediterranean was in the hands of
the infidels; and Syria and the East were no longer predom-
inantly Christian. On the other hand the Church was extending
its frontiers by adding Europe east of the Rhine, and north-
ward to the Baltic. The time was not far off when Russia and
the Scandinavian lands were to become Christian. There had
also long been a vigorous thrust of missionary eflPort eastward,
and the Gospel had been carried as far as China. Even the
inrush of the Mohammedans did not check the expansive
power of Christianity, which in the darkest days of civiliza-
tion was a successful missionary religion; though from the
twelfth to the fifteenth century the territory occupied by it
seemed to recede rather than to advance.
In the present chapter special attention will be devoted
to the Church of Western Europe, first within, then outside
the ancient limits of the Roman Empire. To describe the non-
Roman provinces of the Church it will be necessary to consider
how these were added to its Empire and to dwell for a brief
space on Christian missionary activities. Finally an attempt
must be made to explain the method of ecclesiastical adminis-
tration and especially the constitution of its centre, the Church
of Rome.
Roman Gaul, which was bounded by the Rhine, may first
be considered because here the provincial divisions of the an-
cient Empire were most closely reproduced in the jurisdictions
of the archbishops who possessed authority over the bishops
of the*'dioceses"whichcomposed their"provinces." By a curious
inversion, these words, borrowed from the imperial adminis-
tration, meant exactly the opposite in the ecclesiastical from
what they had signified in the secular world, where a "diocese"
implied a collection of "provinces."
INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
I. The provinces of Gaul west of the Rhine were:
Colonia Agrippina — Cologne corresponding roughly to Germania I
in A.D. 390
" " Belgica I
" " Maxima Sequano-
rum
Alpes Peninae et
Graiae
" " Alpes Maritimae
" " Belgica II
" " Lugdunensis I
Viennensis
Narbonensis I
Treviri
=
Treves
Vesontio
=
Besanjon
Darentasia
=
Tarentaise
Eburodum
=
Embrun
Remi
=
Reims
Lugdunum
=
Lyons
Vienna
=
Vienne
Aquae Sextiae
=
Aix
Arelate
z=
Aries "I
Narbonne J
Narbona
=
Elimberris, or
Augusta Auchorum"
Auch
Bituricae
=
Bourges
Burdegala
==
Bordeaux
Turones
=
Tours
Rotomagus
=
Rouen
Senones
=
Sens
" " Narbonensis II
Novempopulana
" " Aquitanica I
" " Aquitanica II
Lugdunensis III
" " Lugdunensis II
" " Lugdunensis IV
The history of the ecclesiastical provinces of Gaul begins
with that of Aries, a see since 1802 no longer in existence.
Once it was most important, not only because Aries was in
the fifth century the chief city of southern Gaul, but on account
of its famous bishops, and its contest for supremacy with the
bishops of Vienne and Narbonne. Aries was an important
episcopal see in early Christian times, but in the Middle Ages
except in giving the name to the Burgundian regnum Areta-
lense, it did not play a great part in history. Julius Caesar had
granted it privileges as a Roman colony, founded by his lieu-
tenant Tiberius Claudius Nero; and it was evidently a great
commercial centre enjoying the favour of successive Emperors.
Constantine chose it as a place of residence, and for a time it
assumed his name and was known as Constantina. This may
account for its having been selected by him for the first Chris-
tian council held under imperial patronage in 314. Ecclesias-
tically it comes into prominence during the pontificate of Zosi-
mus (417-418), when it had succeeded Treves as the seat of
government in Gaul. Zosimus made its bishop, Proculus, into
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 89
a sort of papal legate, giving him jurisdiction over the neigh-
bouring provinces. Its famous bishop Hilary of Aries stood
out for the independence of his see in the days of Leo the
Great, and he was for a time forced by the Pope to confine
himself to his own city; but the next Pope Hilarius (461-468)
again recognised Aries as a leading see; and in the beginning
of the sixth century, in 513, the bishop Caesarius received the
pall from Pope Symmachus, this being the first time on record
of such an honour being bestowed as a sign of archiepiscopal
dignity. Caesarius acted throughout his occupancy of the see
as the papal representative of Gaul; and in the days of Gregory
the Great, it was at the hands of Vigilius, Archbishop of Aries,
that Augustine obtained consecration. After this the papal
connection with Aries became less close, and the importance
of the province diminished. Its territory was gradually reduced
till it became one of the least prominent of the French prov-
inces. It was in early days the most important centre of papal in-
fluence in Gaul. The other southern provinces were Embrun,
Aix, Narbonne and Auch. Embrun and Aix were made arch-
bishoprics in 794; but in 1791 the former ceased even to be
the see of a bishop, and was placed under the charge of the
bishop of Gap, so that its cathedral is now no more than a
parish church. The modern archdiocese is Aix, which includes,
as has been indicated, the more celebrated and ancient province
of Aries.
Like Embrun, Narbonne has fallen from its high estate
and become a church in the diocese of Carcassonne; but down
to the time of the Albigensian crusade in the thirteenth cen-
tury the Archbishop was a prelate of great influence, his au-
thority extending into the Spanish peninsula, and he had the
legal right of presiding over the estates of Languedoc. The
traditional founder of Narbonne was Paulus, in whom tradition
found Sergius Paulus, the distinguished convert of St. Paul.
According to Gregory of Tours, however, he was one of the mis-
sionaries who came to Gaul at the time of the persecution of
Decius in the third century.
The fourth southern metropolitan see was Auch (Elimberris,
90 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Augusta Auchorum). Its history, if more continuous than those
enumerated, is not of particular interest, though down to 1789
the Archbishop enjoyed the title of Primate of Aquitaine.
Starting again from east to west were the provinces of
Tarentaise, Vienne, Bourges, and Bordeaux. Tarentaise was
recognised as a metropolitan see with three suffragans by Leo
III (793-816), but in subordination to the Archbishop of
Vienne. The province was part of the territory which was
alternately held by France and Savoy, and since i860 has be-
longed to France. In 1181 the Archbishop was declared by
Frederick Barbarossa to be a Prince of the Empire. The
ancient city Darantasia was destroyed by the Saracens in
the tenth century, and the bishops removed to the right bank
of the river Isere and their new home was known as Moustier
(the monastery). Hence the see is sometimes known as Mous-
tier en Tarentaise. After 1791 it ceased to be an archdiocese,
and is now in the province of Chambery.
Like Tarentaise, the more famous archepiscopal see of
Vienne has disappeared; and now is a town in the diocese of
Grenoble, though the primate of the next province has been
styled since the Concordat of 1801 "Archbishop of Lyons and
Vienne." In early times there was great ecclesiastical rivalry
between Vienne and Aries; and as early as 450 Leo the Great
gave the Bishop of Vienne the power of ordaining the bishops
of Tarentaise, Valence, Geneva and Grenoble. The see pro-
duced a goodly crop of saints — most of its early bishops were
canonized — one pope, Guy of Burgundy (Callistus II), 11 19 to
1 1 24, was archbishop from 1084 to 1 1 19. He was a son of William
the Great (Tete Hardie), Count of Burgundy, and was a near
relation of almost every sovereign in Europe. On his election
as pontiff he confesses that he was abandoning a poor arch-
bishopric with great regret for "an honourable but most
grievous burthen"; for everybody in Burgundy was either his
relation or his dependent. As his dispute with St. Hugh Bishop
of Grenoble shows, Archbishop Guy was vigorous in advancing
the power of Vienne; nor did he forget his old home as Pope.
He gave into the Archbishop's authority as suffragans the
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 9I
Bishops of Grenoble, Valence, Die, Viviers, Geneva and Mau-
rienne; he placed the Archbishop of Tarentaise under him and
gave him primacy over the provinces of Bourges, Narbonne,
Bordeaux, Aix, Auch, and Embrun with the title of Primate of
Primates. The Archbishop of Vienne was also Count and
Archchancellor of the Kingdom of Aries, when it became
united to the Empire.
Eastward of Vienne lay the immense province of Bourges,
the largest in medieval France. This and the neighbouring
provinces were rivals for the primacy of Aquitaine, though the
name of the district as a political division had disappeared
after the thirteenth century.
Again, working from east to west, are the provinces of
Besan9on, Lyons, Sens, and Tours. Besancon (Vesontio) was
not the metropolitan see of the modern province, which in-
cluded Verdun and Toul, and, till 1870, Metz; but its jurisdic-
tion extended into Switzerland over the Sees of Lausanne
and Bale.
The venerable see of Lyons (Lugdunum), the scene of the
persecution in 177, has been continuously an important
Christian centre. It was probably founded as a Greek speaking
church by Asiatic Christians. Situated at the confluence of
the Rhone and the Saone, the city has always been a leading
commercial centre. At the end of the sixth century it
was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Burgundy. Under
Charles the Great, its Archbishop Leidrade and his successor,
the *'Chorepiscopus," Agobard were the great opponents of the
Adoptianist heresy. It was the scene of several councils and
was in April, 1079 given the primacy over the provinces of
Tours, Sens and Rouen. The Archbishop in the twelfth century
exercised considerable temporal power, confirmed by the Em-
peror Frederick Barbarossa. The see was renowned for its
peculiar *'use" in the liturgy, and was the capital of the Gal-
lican rite; and in the thirteenth century it was almost a second
Rome. It was troubled alike by the Waldensians, the Poor men
of Lyons, and in the days of the Reformation by the Calvin-
ists. At Lyons in 1128 the Feast of the Immaculate Conception
92 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
was first celebrated; and the introduction of this unauthorized
festival drew down a reproof from St. Bernard.
The Archbishopric of Sens (Senones) in the twelfth century
included Paris, which was not raised to metropolitan rank till
1622. Both sees, however, were of ancient origin; and Sens
acknowledged in a measure the primacy of Reims. Eastwards
of Sens lay the province of Tours. The archbishop's see re-
ceived lustre from having been founded by St. Gatien, one of
the twelve missionaries to Gaul in the third century and from
having been occupied by St. Martin, the most popular of
Gallican saints, and by the historian Gregory of Tours. Its
jurisdiction extended over Touraine and Britanny, and it was
regarded as one of the most important in France. Till the reign
of Philip Augustus, the archbishop had the right of coining
money. The monasteries and relics of Tours made the city
especially famous.
The last four archbishoprics of Gaul still working from
eastward to west were Treves, Cologne, Reims and Rouen.
When Gaul is spoken of it must never be confused with
France, for many of the provinces thus far enumerated were
outside the limits of the modern kingdom. Treves, now thor-
oughly German, was the capital of Roman Gaul, and was. one
of the most important cities in the Western Empire. Like so
many of the medieval provinces of Gaul Treves has fallen
from its estate as an archbishopric and has become a suffragan
see under Cologne. But till the beginning of the nineteenth
century it was one of the greatest of sees in northern Europe.
The archbishop was Archchancellor of the Empire, a prince,
and one of the seven electors: with the primate of Germany
(Mainz) and the Archbishop of Cologne, he ranked among the
sovereign princes of Europe.
To the Archbishop of Cologne belonged since the twelfth
century the dignity of Imperial Chancellor for Italy, and the
city was sometimes called the northern Rome. The history of
the Archbishops of Cologne in the Middle Ages may be de-
scribed as one of great princes who were constantly occupied
with aggrandising their position in the Empire, for in addition
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 93
to their ecclesiastical office they were Dukes of Westphalia, a
title first bestowed on Philip I of Heinsburg (1167-1191).
St. Ingelbert was the only prelate whose influence was distinctly
religious, the archbishops being as a rule powerful nobles.
The western neighbour of Cologne was Reims, the primatial
see of France. The Archbishop was specially distinguished by
having the sole right to crown the kings of France. On such
occasions he and his suffragans the Bishop-Dukes of Laon and
Langres, and the Bishop-Counts of Beauvais, Chalons, and
Noyon officiated as the six spiritual peers of France, the tem-
poral being the Dukes of Burgundy, Guienne, and Normandy,
and the Counts of Champagne, Flanders, and Toulouse. The
splendid cathedral took from 121 1 to 13 11 to complete; and its
tragic fate is one of the most melancholy incidents of the
recent war. The Benedictine Monastery of St. Remi was extra-
diocesan, hke Westminster Abbey in England. In it was pre-
served the sacred ampulla containing the oil wherewith St.
Remigius had anointed Clovis.
The last see in Roman Gaul to be here enumerated is
Rouen. The pallium was granted to Grimo by Pope Zacharias
in 744 and the archbishops claimed the primacy of Normandy
and Neustria, and acknowledged no higher authority, except
that of Rome. Curiously enough the chapter was like the
Archbishopric independent of all control but that of the Pope.
Under the Norman and Plantagenet kings Rouen was naturally
closely connected with England.
Outside Gaul on the east of the Rhine lay the large ecclesias-
tical provinces of Germany beyond the frontiers of the ancient
Roman Empire. The first organizer of the Papal Empire in this
district was that truly remarkable English missionary Winfrid
or Boniface of Crediton, successively Archbishop of Cologne
(745) and Mainz (748), and finally a missionary and martyr in
Rhenish Prussia. His activity as an organizer began in Bavaria,
where he set up the four bishoprics of Salzburg, Freising,
Ratisbon and Passau (739). After the death of Charles Martel
he established bishoprics in Franconia at Wiirzburg, Eich-
statt, and Buraburg.
94 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
From the time of Boniface Mainz or Mayence, the ancient
Moguntium, became the primatial see of Germany. The juris-
diction of the Archbishop extended from the borders of modern
Italy to Hamburg, and in our period included Bavaria, the
duchy of Austria, and Styria.
In 841 a missionary province was created at Hamburg,
which was intended to include the unconverted Scandinavian
lands; but the metropolitan see was finally settled at Bremen,
and by the establishment of the northern provinces of Lund,
Drontheim, and Upsala its jurisdiction was greatly restricted.
A later province was that of Magdeburg founded by Otto I in
968 for the Wendish lands beyond the Elbe and Saale.
A study of the map of medieval Germany reveals the im-
mense territorial power of the Church. Not merely the electoral
archbishops, but many of their suffragans, exercised princely
authority over a great part of the Empire and the great abbots
also enjoyed sovereign rights. Thus, west of the Rhine, Cam-
bray, Liege, Treves, Cologne, Metz, Strassburg, Verdun, Toul,
Basel, Sion (Sitten) and the Abbey of Mirbach, were all eccle-
siastical principalities. In the north the Bishops of Bremen,
Utrecht, Minden, Miinster, Paderborn, Osnabriick — George
Ill's son, the Duke of York, was lay Bishop of Osnabriick — were
rulers of considerable districts. The abbots of Hersfeld and
Fulda enjoyed similar privileges; and, of course, the civil juris-
diction of such prelates as Mainz, Salzburg and Magdeburg, to
mention only metropolitan sees, were very extensive. It is suf-
ficient to say that, owing to the policy of Otto I, a large part of
the German Empire was directly governed by ecclesiastical
princes, and to emphasize the importance of this fact in estimat-
ing the strength and weakness of the Church within the confines
of the Empire.
To return to the boundaries of the Roman Empire, the
Western Church had its provinces in northern Italy, Spain and
Britain.
The provinces of Italy present a difficult problem, com-
plicated by the fact that the south repeatedly passed under
different masters — Greeks, Lombards, Saracens, Normans,
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 95
Germans, Angevins and Spaniards. In northern Italy four
provinces were comparatively modern; Pisa was detached from
Rome in 1092, Genoa from Milan in 1133, whilst Florence did
not become an archbishopric till 1420, nor Siena till 1459. The
first pair of provinces, Genoa and Pisa, divided Corsica be-
tween them. There remain therefore three provinces north of
Rome, two in Cisalpine Gaul, Milan (Mediolanum), Aquileia,
and Ravenna.
Milan was the governmental capital of Italy in the fourth
century, and the scene of the labours of St. Ambrose which
gave the see an enduring reputation throughout the Catholic
Church. With its great traditions and its famous Ambrosian
liturgy, this church enjoyed an eminence enhanced by the high
character of many occupants of the see, representing as it did
the traditions of the Lombard nation. Ravenna for a longer
period than Milan was a capital city, having been the seat of
government of the western Emperors of the fifth century, and
of the Exarchs at a later period. From the days of the Emperor
Valentinian III, in the fifth century, the Archbishop had four-
teen bishops under him. Its Archbishops had disputed the pre-
eminence of Rome itself; and its churches are among the most
venerable in Italy. The authority of the Patriarch of Aquileia
extended over Venetia, as did that of the Archbishop of Milan
over Lombardy. In the days of the Lombard invasion the
Patriarch removed to Grado; and owing to the schism due to
the Three Chapters controversy, there was a dispute as to
which city was the seat of the Patriarchate. Istria was included
in this ecclesiastical province.
The province of Rome in the northern part of the peninsula
was part of the jurisdiction of the Pope as Bishop of Rome.
In the canon, falsely called Nicene, the Roman bishop is given
authority over the "suburbicarican" churches. By this is
probably meant, not those in the immediate neighbourhood of
Rome, the later sense of the word, but the cities under the
Praefecture of the City in the old Roman Empire. This included
all Italy south to a line drawn from Ancona to Lucca and
Sicily. But it must not be forgotten that southern Italy,
96 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
during the days of the Lombard invasions, was under Con-
stantinople, and for a long time was a Greek speaking country,
looking rather to the New than to the Old Rome.
The first provinces to be formed were Bari, Otranto, Reggio,
Catania and Syracuse. Naples, Capua, Sorrento, Beneventum,
Taranto, Salerno and Amalfi obtained archbishops between
962 and 987; more ecclesiastical provinces were added by the
Normans; and in the Middle Ages there were more arch-
bishops in Southern Italy than in the whole of Roman Gaul,
or almost in Britain, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia to-
gether.
The ecclesiastical history of Spain was interrupted by the
amazing success of the Saracen invaders in the eighth century,
and by the stubborn reconquest of the land by the Christians
whom they had dispossessed. Under the Roman Empire the
peninsula was divided in six provinces — Tarraconensis, Gal-
laecia, Lusitania, Baetica, Cathaginiensis. In these the most
important bishoprics were Tarragona, Lucus and Bracara (in
Gallaecia), Emerita (in Lusitania), Hispalis, or Seville (in
Baetica), and Toledo (in Carthaginiensis). These were apparently
the metropolitan sees in Visigothic times. The great invasion
of the Saracens (710-713) destroyed the old boundaries, and
though the conquerors tolerated Christianity few sees in
Spain except in the extreme north have had an unbroken ex-
istence. Reduced to take refuge in the northeastern district of
Gallicia and Asturias, the Christians of Spain began the age-
long work of driving back their unbelieving conquerors. En-
couraged by the presence of the national saint, James the son
of Zebedee, the protomartyr of the Apostles, at Santiago di
Compostella, they steadily advanced southward till in 1492
the last Moorish kingdom of Granada succumbed to Ferdinand
and Isabella.
It was possible to travel from the shores of the Bay of
Biscay to those of the Mediterranean without stepping outside
the territory subject to the Archbishop of Toledo, the Primate
of Spain, one of the greatest prelates in Christendom, and the
head of the most severely Catholic of churches; though it
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 97
received the Roman doctrine with a respect which was
not always accorded to its claim to Papal authority. The
unbroken record of primates begins in 1058. Besides Toledo
the provinces which are on the coast of the Mediterranean are
the Catalonian archbishopric of Tarragona, founded in 1091,
and of Valentia, both part of the ancient kingdom of Aragon.
Inland, and included in the same kingdom, is the province of
Caesaraugusta (Saragossa). The two southern provinces were
those of Granada, the last to be won from the Mohammedans,
created an archiepiscopal see in place of the older Eliberis
(Elvira) in 1492, and Seville. These with the provinces of
Compostella in the west, between Spain and Portugal, and of
Burgos in the north complete the Spanish archbishoprics.
The kingdom of Portugal was under three archbishops —
Braga, Lisbon (Olysipona) and Evora. Lisbon, which in 1716
was made a Patriarchate, was only made an archbishopric in
1394-
The part of Britain which was under the Roman sway,
was divided by Gregory the Great into two provinces, originally
intended to be at London and York, and to rank in order of
seniority of the archbishop. Though inferior in age to Aries,
Canterbury, as the home of Augustine when he received the
pall, is one of the oldest of western archbishoprics. Its juris-
diction, though more extended than that of most of the metro-
politan sees of Gaul, was not equal in area to that of Toledo,
Magdeburg or Mainz. York had at one time but a single suf-
fragan in Durham, but in the twelfth century Carlisle became a
see. It was after a long struggle that southern Britain was
divided between the two ecclesiastical provinces of Canter-
bury and York in this order of precedence. At the close of the
eighth century, when OfFa, King of Mercia, became dominant
among the Anglo-Saxon kings, he attempted to make his
kingdom a separate province with the metropolitan see at Lich-
field; and from 787 to 803 there was an archbishop there. The
Council of Clovesho, however, in 803 confirmed the decision of
Pope Leo III, restoring the rights of Canterbury, and with-
drawing the pallium from Lichfield, which resumed its original
98 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
position as a suffragan bishopric.^ In the twelfth century the
archdeacon of St. Davids, Giraldus Cambrensis, was inde-
fatigable in his efforts to obtain the pall for the Bishop of his
native see, as Metropolitan of Wales, but without success. The
struggle for supremacy between Canterbury and York dis-
tracted the Church of England for generations, as did also the
question of the boundaries of their respective jurisdictions. It
must not be forgotten that in the Middle Ages all points of
precedence were settled by the Pope. The Archbishops of Can-
terbury after 1126 were legati nati of the popes; but their
powers could always be placed in abeyance by the appoint-
ment of a legatus a latere.
The Scottish bishops were subject in early times to the
Abbot of lona, but they had no fixed limits, and were missionary
rather than diocesan. In 843 Kenneth, King of Scotland, made
Dunkeld the leading see, and in 906 this position was trans-
ferred to St. Andrews. But there were few sees before the
twelfth century; and no pall was granted to a metropolitan by
the Pope. At the end of the eleventh century St. Margaret,
Queen of Scotland, offered submission to Archbishop Lanfranc
of Canterbury. Then York put in a claim, which was recog-
nized by the Popes and confirmed by English Councils. This
was distasteful to the Scottish prelates; and in 11 88 they
were declared subject to no one but the Holy See. They were
not, however, constituted as a province, but chose one of their
number as Conservator to execute their decrees.
Ireland seems to have retained the practice of having
missionary bishops attached to monasteries, but without
dioceses. The Danish and Norwegian settlers at Dublin,
Waterford, and Limerick when they were converted to Chris-
tianity appear to have turned to Canterbury rather than to
the Celtic bishops. The four archbishoprics, into which Ireland
was subsequently divided, date from the Synod of Kells, 11 52,
when Eugenius III sent the pallium to Armagh, DubHn,
Cashel and Tuam. During the Middle Ages there was a con-
• Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, tried to get his see of Winchester
made a metropolitan see with seven suffragans.
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 99
tinual dispute as to whether the primacy was vested in DubHn
or Armagh; but ultimately Armagh was recognised as the
leader.
The Scandinavian countries naturally were late in entering
the Christian fold and, as has been indicated, were originally
placed under the jurisdiction of Hamburg, and later of Bremen.
With their conversion and organization as Christian kingdoms
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were made ecclesiastical
provinces with metropolitans at Lund, Upsala and Drontheim.
The first great missionary who desired to convert the
Northmen was St. Liudger (d. 809), who had studied under
Alcuin and, like his master, was highly favoured by Charles
the Great. His success in the dominions of the Emperor as a
preacher to the heathen Saxons made Charles forbid him to
undertake the work, and the actual pioneer in northern mis-
sionary enterprise was St. Anschar (Ansgarius) who under the
patronage of the Emperor Louis le Debonnaire laboured as a
missionary in Denmark and Sweden, and became bishop of
Hamburg, being also appointed legate by Gregory IV. Hamburg
was completely destroyed by Eric, King of Jutland, and in 857
Anschar became Archbishop of Bremen. He had previously
entered Sweden with the ambassadors of Louis and preached
the Gospel there.
The progress of Christianity in Denmark was marked by
alternate advances and reverses; and it was not till the days
of Canute the Great (1014-1035) that Christianity definitely
triumphed. In 1104 Lund became an archiepiscopal see with
seven suffragans. The seat of the primate was in what is now
the south of the kingdom of Sweden, but was then part of
Denmark. In the thirteenth century Esthonia was under Lund.
The Archbishopric of Upsala, including Finland, formed the
Swedish province. The organization of the two northern king-
doms of Sweden and Norway was due to the mission of the famous
Englishman, Nicholas Breakspeare, Cardinal of Albano, after-
wards Pope Hadrian IV, as papal legate, under whom the first
Swedish national council was held at Linkoping in 11 52; but
lOO INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
it was not till after twelve years, in 1164, that Upsalawas cre-
ated an archbishopric by Pope Alexander III. In heathen days
it was a most famous sanctuary, and human sacrifices were
offered at its temple. The cathedral dates from 1287. The
University obtained in 1477 its charter from Sixtus IV through
Archbishop Jakob Ulfsson, and the last Catholic Archbishop
was Olaus Magnus (d. 1588), the historian of the northern
nations. The most extensive of the Scandinavian provinces was
that of Trondheim or Drontheim (Nidrosia, Urbs Thrudensis)
which embraced the northern islands, the Faroes, Shetland,
Orkneys and Hebrides, the most southerly being the Isle of
Man. Iceland was also a part of this province, as was Green-
land till the extinction of the Norse settlement at Gardar in
the fifteenth century. This province was created by Break-
speare.
The conversion of Norway will always be connected with
the two kings who bore the name of Olaf. The first of these,
Olaf Tryggevesson (995-1000), was a mighty sea-rover, who
embraced Christianity on being converted by a monk of the
Scilly Islands, and henceforward abstained from attacking
Christian England, devoting his sword and his energies tO'
the conversion of his own people. He modelled his church on
that of England, of whose priests he made free use in the work
of spreading the Gospel in Norway. He was defeated in a sea
fight by the combined navy of the Swedes and Danes and
perished by leaping into the sea from his ship the "Long Snake,"
the greatest war vessel of the north. Olaf II, known as the Fat,
and afterwards as St. Olaf (1016-1030), though not the son,
was a worthy follower of his predecessor, and his vigorous
zeal for Christianity was not dissimilar. He is regarded as the
patron saint of Norway, and was canonized in 1164. He is
commemorated in the City of London by the Church of St.
Olave, Hart Street. In the name Sodor and Man, applied to
the tiny diocese of the island, there is a recollection of the old
Norwegian occupation of the western islands of Britain, Sodor
meaning the southern land. The one solitary spot on the
American continent within the Church Empire of the West
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST lOI
was Greenland, with its episcopal see at Gardar, which disap-
peared, probably early in the fifteenth century.
The conversion of Eastern Europe went on throughout the
Middle Ages from the middle of the ninth century. The see
of Magdeburg was estabUshed by Otto I with a view of con-
verting the Wendish lands beyond the Elbe. The Wends were
members of the Slavic race which occupies the greater part of
Eastern Europe as Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovaks,
Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and Bulgarians. The archbishopric of
Magdeburg originally extended beyond the River Oder and
even the Vistula far into Poland. The coasts of the Baltic,
Pomerania, Russia, Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia long re-
mained heathen. Indeed, no sees were established in Pomerania
east of the Oder till i i8o. The Archbishopric of Riga, which in-
cluded most of the Eastern coasts of the Baltic, dates from 1253.
The conversion of the Slavic peoples was one of the chief
missionary labours of the medieval period. The chief apostles
of Slavic Christianity were Cyril and Methodius, the inventors
of its alphabet and the first preachers of Christianity, who
still rank among the greatest saints in the Church of Russia.
These properly belong to Greek Christianity, but as their work
was recognised by the popes of the ninth century, they take
their place among the pioneers of the Western Church. Con-
sidering their fame, remarkably little is definitely known of
their lives and labours, and the statements of historians re-
garding them are singularly discordant. It must constantly be
borne in mind that, in any discussion of their relation towards
the Roman See, the period is that of the undivided Church, and
one also when Rome and Constantinople were at amity. Nor
do Cyril and Methodius appear to have had any connection
with the Bulgarian Church, which at its inception was a debat-
able land between the jurisdictions of New and Old Rome.
The main portion of the great Slav race which occupies no
small part of Europe adhered to the See of Constantinople,
and the lesser to the Church of Rome. But it is remarkable
that whereas the Germanic races took over the Latin language
in their liturgies the Slavs, in a large part of the territory
I02 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
occupied by them, adopted their own language for the worship
of the Church.
The names of Cyril and Methodius are familiar: their acts
are so little known, that a short notice of them may not here
be out of place. They were Greeks of Thessalonica of noble
birth and both embraced the monastic life. Cyril was selected
to go to Khazars as a missionary. He was then known by his
secular name of Constantine. The Khazars belonged to a
Turkish race living on the shores of the Caspian, a rich and
powerful people who played an important part in Byzantine
history, and had even given an Empress to Constantinople.
They were the object of missionary endeavour on the part of
Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians; but the influence of
Judaism was decidedly predominant. One of their Chagans is
said to have prayed with the Moslems on Friday, the Jews on
Saturday, and the Christians on Sunday. Cyril, perhaps ac-
companied by his brother, was well received, but his mission
cannot have been very successful, except for the fact that at
Cherson, where he was learning the Khazar language, he was
fortunate enough to recover the body of St. Clement I, the
famous Roman bishop who had been drowned in the sea by
command of Trajan. This happened about 860; and in 864 Cyril
was sent with his brother Methodius to convert the Moravians.
They were evidently men of learning, for Cyril had filled the
post of librarian at Constantinople to the erudite Archbishop
Photius, and must therefore have been recognised as one of
the great scholars of his age, and have been qualified by his
education for the work he subsequently achieved.
Moravia was a Slavonic land extending into modern
Hungary, as far as the River Gran; nominally it was under the
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Passau, and was a sort of client
state of the Western Empire. Under two powerful princes,
Radislaus and Swatoplak, it was in the later years of the ninth
century, an important country, though its Christianity before
the arrival of Cyril and Methodius was really but nominal. It
ultimately became subject to Bohemia. The Slavs demanded
Christianity to be presented in their own language, and the
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST 103
missionaries gratified them by translating the Scriptures and
the Divine Liturgy. To do this they had, Hke Ulfilas in the
fourth century, to devise a suitable alphabet, which is still
known as the Cyrillic, or Glagolitic (Slavonic glagol, a word).
From this the modern Russian alphabet is derived; but the old
script is still used in the Slavonic liturgical books. The liturgy
they translated was, naturally, that of the Church of Con-
stantinople; and, as the churches of East and West were in
communion, there could be no question about Rome's accept-
ing it. But at this time, as there was no little dispute as to
whether Moravia was to be under German or Constantino-
politan influence, Nicholas I summoned the brothers to Rome.
He died before their arrival; and the decision as to the
church they had founded rested with his successor Hadrian H.
The question of the Slavonic Mass was naturally a vexed one.
It had been supposed that as Hebrew, Greek and Latin were
the languages inscribed on the Cross, the Divine Offering could
only be made in one of them; therefore that it was impious to
translate the Liturgy. Another question arose as to the jurisdic-
tion of the German hierarchy in Slavonic lands. The Pope, in
fact, was called upon to mediate and to decide whether the new
converts were to be allowed to be Christians, and at the same
time to enjoy the privileges of their nationality.
The visit of Cyril and Methodius to Rome is commemorated
in the subterranean basiUca of St. Clement, where Nicholas I
is depicted as bringing the relics of that early Pope from the
Vatican to the church, though the actual Pope at the time was
Hadrian H. The Slavonic liturgy was sanctioned with a pro-
viso that the Epistle and Gospel should be read first in Latin;
and Methodius was consecrated Archbishop of the Slavs in
the ancient province of Pannonia. Cyril died in Rome, and was
buried in the Church of St. Clement. Methodius returned to
his work among the Slavs to find that the German bishops of
Passau and Salzburg were far from approving the action of
the Pope. The deep-seated hatred of the two races burst forth
in the ecclesiastical dispute. Methodius was arrested in 871,
beaten, insulted, and for two years was immured in a dungeon.
I04 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
A papal legate, Paul of Ancona, was sent by John VIII, the
successor of Hadrian II. Methodius was liberated; but the
Slavic Liturgy was forbidden, and the Mass commanded to
be said in Latin or Greek. In 879 Methodius was again sum-
moned to Rome and once more acquitted. Again the Slavonic
liturgy was approved; but after the death of Methodius
(April 6, 885) the approval was withdrawn by Pope Stephen
VI. The liturgy made for the Moravians was transplanted to
the Slavs in the East and North, and has become that of the
Church of Russia. The Moravian nation was ruined by the
invading Magyars. But even as late as 1248 Pope Innocent IV
was petitioned to permit the use of the Roman Mass in Sla-
vonic in Croatia — written *'in the characters invented by St.
Jerome." This rite is still in use in four dioceses.^ The mistakes
made in regard to the use of Slavonic, due to German influence
at Rome, were in part responsible for the loss of the Slav church
to Western Christendom.
Another Slavic people in whose conversion the West co-
operated was the Bulgarian. As a heathen people, the Bul-
garians had long been the scourge of the Roman Empire in
the Balkan peninsula. They were not Slavs, but akin to the
Huns, Tartars, Avars, and Finns. Their home was between
the Ural mountains and the Volga; and in 679 they crossed
the Danube, and, after subjugating the Slav peoples, they
threatened Constantinople. Under their King Krum (802-815)
they utterly defeated the Emperor Nicephorus. In the end their
victorious aristocracy assimilated themselves to the subject
Slavs, adopting their language. In 864 they accepted Christian-
ity under Bogoris, or Boris, and they ascribe their conversion
to Cyril and Methodius, who, however, do not seem to have
visited their country. The legend is that the sister of Boris
was a Christian and procured for her brother the services of
Methodius (not the Slavic apostle as is often said), who was a
famous painter. Instead of depicting a hunting scene as com-
manded, the artist made a picture of the last judgment, which
so terrified the king that he accepted baptism, the Emperor
* Mann, Lives of the Popes, Vol. Ill, pp. 238 ff.
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST I05
Michael III acting as his sponsor. Then ensued a long struggle
between Rome and Constantinople for dominance over the new
church, which ultimately joined the Greeks as an autocephalous
church with a metropolitan see of its own.
The Bohemians were first approached by the German mis-
sionaries, but their natural antipathy to their neighbours pre-
vented their accepting Christianity at their hands. Their first
prince was baptized about 873 by Methodius. They obtained
the right to have an ecclesiastical province of their own, when
Prague was given an archbishop in 1344 under the Roman
obedience.
The Hungarians or Magyars were not Slavs, and the origin
of the nation is somewhat mysterious; but they appeared in
the later years of the ninth century as formidable invaders,
till their defeat by Otto I in 955. They gradually adopted the
Christian faith, their apostle being St. Adalbert, Bishop of
Prague, and afterward Archbishop of Gnesen, who baptized
their Duke Geiza and his son, the famous king St. Stephen of
Hungary. Stephen (997-1038) was the real founder of the
Church of Hungary and was supported by Otto Hi's friend,
Pope Sylvester H (Gerbert), the wonder of his age for his
learning and ability. Stephen sought the crown of Hungary
from the Pope who granted it with extraordinary honours in
1000 or looi, giving him the title of the "Apostolic King," and
making him the legate of the Holy See in his dominions.
Hungary formed two provinces, that of Gran, the primatial
see, one of the greatest in the Middle Ages, and Kaloosa-Bacs.
Sylvester also presented Stephen with the famous "holy crown."
The history of the conversion of Poland, once one of the
greatest kingdoms in Europe, is obscure; but the prince Miec-
zylaw I and his people became Christians in 966. It was then
under German suzerainty; but the next prince Boleslaw (992-
1025) asserted his independence, and was in the last year of
his fife crowned king. He had obtained also the independence
of his church from Sylvester II and the provincial see was es-
tablished at Gnesen with six suffragans who were increased to
fifteen by 1079.
I06 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
There remain only the countries on the shores of the
Baltic, whose inhabitants belonged also to the Slav race and
were added at a later period to the Roman Church; and when
mention has been made of Lithuania and Russia, the survey of
the territory occupied by medieval Christianity will be well-
nigh completed.
A very important feature in the history of the Middle
Ages is the constant rivalry between the Germans and their
eastern neighbours; and, though the term is somewhat loosely
applied, their contest with the Slavonic peoples. The ambition
of the Teutons was to press eastward and northward, and,
above all to become dominant on the Baltic. This found ex-
pression in the two military monastic orders — the Teutonic,
and the Knights of the Sword. For a long period the influence
of the Germans in imposing their civilization on the Baltic
provinces was widely felt.
The Russian Church was outside the jurisdiction of the
Roman See, though Catholic writers have attempted to show
that for a considerable time it was Catholic rather than Or-
thodox. But from their first appearance in the ninth and tenth
centuries the Russians were closely connected with Con-
stantinople. The name Russian is supposed to be derived from
the Scandinavians, who under Rurik and his descendants
ruled the Slavic inhabitants. They frequently threatened Con-
stantinople with their fleets; but ultimately, under Vladimir,
who was baptized in 998, they accepted Christianity as the
religion of the State, During a great part of the Middle Ages
(i 238-1464) Russia was under the Tartars of the Great and
Golden Hordes, who were heathens and afterwards Moham-
medans, but, whatever religion they professed, they displayed
unusual toleration of Christianity. The Roman See was by
no means unmindful of Russia; and throughout the Middle
Ages emissaries were sent thither to induce its princes to
recognise the Catholic Church. But the Christianity of Russia
was always oriental, and remained outside the polity of the
churches of the West.
During the period of the Crusades the Latin Church had
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST I07
naturally its provinces in the East with its Patriarchate at
Jerusalem, and, after the capture of Constantinople in 1204,
the Patriarch there was a Latin; but this subject of Latin
Christianity in the East deserves fuller treatment else-
where.
The Oriental Church in the Middle Ages was divided be-
tween the four Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Jeru-
salem and Alexandria. This arrangement was made by the
Council of Chalcedon, 451. But after the inrush of the Moham-
medans, three out of the four Patriarchates were torn from the
Empire, and remained under Saracen rule. Constantinople,
therefore, virtually stood for the Roman Empire in the East.
Despite the fact that it was a city of comparatively new founda-
tion, lacking all the venerable traditions of Jerusalem and
Antioch, the cradles of Christianity, and of Alexandria, the first
great home of learning in the Church, Constantinople as New
Rome held the primacy, which the churches outside the Empire
and under Arab dominion could not dispute. Besides the Patri-
archates, Cyprus formed an independent (autocephalous) prov-
ince under the Archbishop of Constantia, and a great many
bishoprics enjoyed freedom from metropolitan authority. The
preponderating influence of the Roman Empire in the East is
shown by the fact that whereas in Gaul the boundaries of the
old provinces remained unchanged, under Constantinople the
importance of a see varied with the political status of the city.
The Patriarchate of Constantinople comprised all Asia Minor,
the Islands of the ^Egean, the Balkan peninsula, including the
coast of the Adriatic, and the Peloponnesus. It also extended
along the Black Sea eastward and northward to the Crimea.
Antioch had also an extensive jurisdiction reaching as far south
as the ancient territory of Moab on the east of Jordan, em-
bracing Phoenicia, Syria, Euphratensia, Osroene, Armenia, and
even Iberia. Bosra, Damascus, Emesa, Edessa, MeUtene and
Tarsus were among its Metropolitan sees. Jerusalem was really
little more than a province, and its Patriarch presided over
the Holy Land and the Arabian deserts to the south, with an
archbishopric at the old Edomite city of Petra. Egypt and
Io8 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Ethiopia were in the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which in its
Christian days ranked second only to Rome.
The Roman Church in the days of Ignatius enjoyed what
the fervid martyr describes as a ''primacy of love," which the
force of events made into an overwhelming predominance at
any rate in the Western Church. But for the present purpose
the vexed question of the rights of Rome may be set aside, as
one object of this chapter is to state the kind of jurisdiction the
Roman Church exercised in the Middle Ages. It must be borne
in mind that great as was the position of the Pope in these cen-
turies his authority was not merely personal but represented
the elaborate organization over which he presided. It is not
unimportant that in the first letter from Rome, that of
St. Clement to the Corinthians, the writer does not mention
his own name, but speaks in that of the Roman Church,
and that Ignatius addresses, not the bishop, but the Church
at Rome. In the Decian persecution in the third century when
Pope Fabian was martyred, and no successor could be chosen,
the presbyters at once took the initiative in addressing Cyprian
of Carthage; and throughout its history the Papacy has been
sustained by a powerful body of men, trained in the arts of
administration and rendered the more efficient by a long tradi-
tion of government. This tends to explain the steady continuity
of the polity of the Roman See and how it was that, even when
the Popes individually were immoral, incompetent, or, perhaps,
merely unfortunate, they did the institution comparatively
little damage. Of course circumstances aided the immense in-
fluence of the Holy See; the prestige of the Church founded by
the joint labours of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the promise
of the Head of the Church to Peter {Tu es Petrus), the glory
of the City as the capital of the world, its precious relics of
the martyrs, and, it must be added, the wisdom displayed in
the midst of the trials and controversies of the fourth and fol-
lowing centuries. To the newly converted barbarian of the
North the name of Rome appealed with irresistible force; and,
when his princes and prelates saw the City with their eyes,
their impression of its grandeur and sanctity was enhanced.
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST I09
The Church of Rome was presided over by its Bishop to
whom, as time went on, was reserved the name of Papa or
Pope, a title happily combining reverence with affection. In
the neighbourhood of Rome were other bishops, who tended
to form an advisory council to the Pontiff. Besides this from
a very early time there had been as many as forty-six churches
in Rome, and these rapidly multiplied. The presbyters in charge
of the most important of these churches were men of consider-
able weight and influence whose advice was naturally sought.
In the third century Pope Fabian divided the city into districts
which were presided over by officials with the humble rank
of deacons, charged with administrative duties, which gave
them even more power than the priesthood, and even the
episcopate. From the days of Gregory I the whole energy
of the City was devoted to ecclesiastical matters with the
object of rendering its church as venerable and inspiring as
possible to visitors from all parts of the world. Whether it
was the initiatory rite of Baptism, administered at Easter, or
the coronation of an Emperor, nothing was omitted which
could add to the impressiveness of the Roman Church. Nor
were the arts of government neglected. Rome was rarely dis-
tinguished for its theologians, its orators, or even its saints.
It is not often we find, even in Popes, men of great eminence;
learning was sought elsewhere. But the Roman clergy had a
singular aptitude for affairs and even in the darkest ages the
business transacted in its chancery was considerable.
As in the days of its secular glory, ecclesiastical Rome
never allowed her champions to conquer for themselves. When
they annexed a new Christian province they were expected to
do so for Rome; and the way in which they were set over the
country they had converted is illustrative of this. The Arche-
piscopate of the West, unlike that of the East, was of ecclesi-
astical, not of secular appointment, and was used for the pur-
pose of binding the recipient of that dignity closer to the Holy
See.
No western archbishop was allowed to exercise his function
as ruler of his province till he had received the pallium from
no INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Rome. For this purpose he had to go in person to the Pope,
unless under special circumstances it was sent to him. He
was made, therefore, constantly to realise that he owed his
powers not to the dignity of the see, but to the favour of the
Pope. An Archbishop might be at any time superseded by a
special emissary from Rome holding legatine authority,
and this could even be bestowed upon one of his suffragans.
Powerful therefore as were many of the great prelates, and
independent as they sometimes showed themselves to be,
they were held by strong ties under the influence of the
Roman See.
The power of the Roman Church was in the hands of the
Pope and his entourage, which, at any rate by the eighth cen-
tury, resembled the court of a Roman Emperor. Seven great
officials ranking ecclesiastically as sub-deacons, but held in
estimation as princes, administered the aff"airs of the papacy.
The primicerius notariorum was in charge of the scriniiim, or
Chancery. During a vacancy he with the Archpresbyter and
Archdeacon represented the Pope. With the secundicerius as
under secretary he was at the head of the government, and
these offices were naturally coveted by the leading citizens.
The other ministers were the arcarius, or treasurer, the sacel-
larius, or paymaster, the protoscriniariuSy or keeper of the
archives, the primus defensor, or chief administrator of the
farms of the church, and the nomenclator, or adminiculator,
the minister of grace and protector of the poor: these great
officers were considered also as dignitaries of the Empire. Foreign
nations were at an early date represented by their schools.
The earliest was the school of the Angles, founded in 727 by Ina,
King of Wessex; there were also schools of Frisians, Franks,
Lombards, and Greeks. There was even a "school of the Jews,"
who were at least tolerated in Rome.
The name Cardinal, as designating an office which pos-
sesses princely power and dignity, was originally bestowed on
the principal clergy, not only of Rome, but of other churches.
The word, derived from cardo, a hinge, was once applied to
every priest attached to a central church, but, about the sixth
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST III
century, it had taken the significance of "principal," and came
to be appUed to the priest in charge of the "titular" churches in
Rome, which apparently had existed from very early times. In
the ninth century Pope John VIII entrusted these leading
presbyters with the supervision and discipline of the clergy in
the City. To them especially were entrusted the services in the
four great cemetery churches — St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Laurence
and St. Maria Maggiore. A list of "titular" churches in the
twelfth century has been preserved.*
With the Cardinal Priests were associated Deacons, who
bore the same honourable appellation. These were originally
the heads of the "regions" into which early Christian Rome was
divided. It must not be forgotten that in the early Church in
the West, as in that of the East today, the diaconate was not
merely a step towards the priesthood, but a distinct order with
special administrative and liturgical duties. In the Middle
Ages the Archdeacon, as head of the college of deacons, super-
vised the finances of the see and the discipline of the clergy,
and was next to the Pope the most influential personage in
the Church. It may be noted in passing that the word cardinalis
was loosely applied to some inferior clergy connected with the
Pope, in one instance "cardinal acolytes" are mentioned.
The Cardinal Bishops were seven, holding sees in the
neighbourhood of Rome, known as "suburbicarican." These
were Ostia, Porto, Albano, Sabina, Tusculum (Frascati),
Praeneste, and Santa Rufina. Calixtus II (1119-1124) united
Sancta Rufina with Porto, and since his day there have been
only six.
Thus the Cardinals were originally the dignified clergy of
the Roman church — each order, bishop, priest, and deacon,
being represented. Gradually they became permanent assessors
with the Pope in the regulation of the business of the Church,
and their council was known by the old imperial name of the
"Consistory." It was practically a papal senate sitting to ad-
minister the affairs of the Church. After the Reformation the
business was transacted chiefly by permanent committees
1 Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, Vol. II, p. 440 and Vol. Ill, p. 444.
112 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
known as "Congregations"; but in the Middle Ages the Consis-
tory's duties were administrative and judicial. The first step,
however, in the recognition of the Cardinalate as a distinct
order was the transference of the right of papal election to
that body by Nicholas II (1058-1061). The text of the decree
of the council held by Nicholas II became within thirty years
of its promulgation a matter of dispute; but it certainly pro-
vided that the Cardinal Bishops were to confer and select a
candidate, whose name they were to submit to the other Car-
dinals for election as Pope, with the approval, however, of the
Roman clergy and laity. Alexander III placed the election in
the hands of all the Cardinals. After the time of this Pope it
became customary for Popes to bestow the Cardinalate outside
Rome; and great ecclesiastics throughout Christendom were as
a special favour made Cardinal Priests, a titular church in
Rome being assigned to them. Till the fifteenth century it was
customary for an Archbishop or Bishop created a Cardinal
to resign his see; but since the Council of Constance it has
been possible to retain it. Thus the College of Cardinals has
become representative of the Churches and countries under the
Roman obedience. The Cardinals in the later Middle Ages
were given the right to rank as equal of kings and princes, and
placed above all metropolitans and even patriarchs.
In early times a representative of the Papacy was sent to
Constantinople to look after the interests of the Roman Church.
Such a one was Gregory the Great, who spent seven years in
Constantinople as the apocrisiarius, or responsalis of the
Roman See. The popes communicated with the churches over
which their jurisdiction extended through "legates." These
played an important part in the administration of the medieval
Church; and the question whether the papal representative
should be received or not was frequently raised between the
Pope and the European princes.
The legates came under the categories of misst, a latere^
and nati. The missus was a special envoy of the popes de-
spatched on extraordinary occasions. The legatus a latere was
a more important personage. He was always a Cardinal and
THE CHURCH EMPIRE OF THE WEST II3
on his arrival he naturally took precedence of all ecclesiastical
authority as representing the Pope in person. In later times
when a Bishop was also a Cardinal and was created legatus a
latere he enjoyed precedence over the Metropolitan himself.
In this way the privileges conferred by the gift of the pallium
were precarious as the Pope might at any time send or nomi-
nate a legatus a latere, whose authority, however, had generally
first to be recognised by the sovereign.
Certain Metropolitans were given the privilege of legatine
powers by virtue of their office. The Archbishops of Lyons,
Treves, Canterbury, Toledo, Salzburg, etc., were so invested
and were called legati nati. But in practice their authority as
papal representatives was not great, and they could, as has
been stated, always be superseded by the appointment of a
legatus a latere.
Such was the medieval Church Empire, wide in extent,
united in doctrine, organized elaborately, with authority grow-
ing constantly more centralized. Despite the political divisions
of Europe the Church remained a single body, super-national,
with its own rulers and its universal language. If we visit a
great cathedral today we admire the vastness of the building
and the remains which surround it, and are astonished at the
way in which each century contributed to its augmentation
and magnificence. But it must be remembered that the most
ornate cathedral in our days is but a shell compared with what
it was in all its splendour in the Middle Ages, with its vast
army of monks or canons, its gorgeous ceremonial, its priceless
shrines, its princely bishops, many surrounded by royal state.
Perhaps nothing in England is more typical of what the
Church signified in the Middle Ages than the cathedral of
Ely in England, which utterly dominates the little fenland city
clustered around its towers. Here is the religious as contrasted
with the secular life, when the Church ruled the world. In the
next chapter it will be necessary to show how this power was
welded into a single weapon to be employed for the Popes who
presided over Christendom, and later the story must be told
how this Empire of Church declined and fell.
114 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
AUTHORITIES
There are some excellent maps showing the church provinces of Italy,
France, Spain and Germany in the Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte, by Heussi
and Mulert. Larger maps are found in the Historical Atlas of Modern
Europe, edited by Reginald Lane Poole. The ones most used here are (37)
Germania Sacra, (19) Anglia Sacra, (21) Anglia Monastica, (75) The Four
Easteryi Patriarchates, (61) Ecclesiastical Organization of the Spanish Peninsula,
(69) Italia Sacra, (57) Gallia Sacra. There is a valuable account of the
origin of the Slavs in the Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. II, Ch. XIV, by
T. Peisker.
There is a very thorough investigation in the bringing of the relics of
St. Clement to Rome by Cyril and Methodius in Lightfoot's Apostolic
Fathers (St. Clement of Rome). For the claims of the Papacy based on the
Lord's words, "Thou art Peter" see Denny, Papalism (very hostile). On
the origin of the Cardinalate the Catholic Encyclopedia should be consulted.
For the subject of the titular churches Grisar, History of Rome and the Popes,
the Popes in the Middle Ages, Vol. I, and Gregorovius' Rome in the Middle Ages
(both in English translations).
CHAPTER V
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF THE PAPACY
Need of the Roman Church in the Xlth Century for strong Popes — Monasticism —
Reforms of the Monasteries ■ — Cluny — The hermits of Fonte Avellana — The
Franconian Emperors — The German Popes — Hildebrand — St. Leo IX —
Simony — Clerical celibacy — Leo's journeys in the North — The Normans —
Schism of East and West — Prosperity of the Byzantine Empire — The Emperor
Constantine IX and the Patriarch Michael — Greeks declare Latins to be hereti-
cal — Leo IX's replies to the Greeks — The legates at Constantinople — Effects
of the schism — Hildebrand in power — Early doctrine of the Eucharist —
Justin — Ambrose and Augustine — Paschasius Radbertus — • Ratramnus — Ber-
engar — Papal elections — The married clergy — Alexander II — Imperial
Antipopes — The Pope and the Normans — The Houses of Lorraine and Tus-
cany -^ The Empire — Election of Hildebrand — Breach between Henry IV
and the Papacy — Excommunication of Henry IV — Canossa — Donation of
Matilda — Guibert Antipope as Clement VII — Death of Henry IV — Investi-
ture dispute arranged — Work of Hildebrand.
The achievement of the days of darkness was to build up
the fabric of the medieval Church of the West; and by the
middle of the eleventh century the wandering of the nations
had virtually ceased, and the Church was mistress of the whole
of Europe, the western part of which was ready enough to
acknowledge the Pope as its spiritual father. But the Papacy
was in the position of being influential abroad, and weak at
home. It could be sure of a respectful hearing from England,
Denmark, or Hungary; but in Rome itself the papal throne
was frequently insecure, and even the Holy Father's person was
Hable to insult. For, from the day on which the Papacy broke
off its connection with the Eastern Emperors, the institution
was seldom strong enough to stand alone. It was only occa-
sionally that powerful pontiffs, like Nicolas I or John VIII,
were able to maintain themselves unaided; for as a rule a pope
had to depend upon the strongest of the turbulent barons in
the neighbourhood of Rome, or, at best, upon the Emperor.
The German Popes, appointed by the Ottos or Henry III, were
"5
Il6 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
often able and saintly men; but they did not really supply the
need. What the Church demanded was a pope capable of
standing alone, responsible to the Church and to God only,
and independent of secular authority. A ruler, moreover, was
required who would inspire awe and reverence throughout
Christendom by his austere self-discipline and saintly life.
The virtues demanded were not those of common life, but
those nourished by the severe restraint of the cloister. Such
men the eleventh century produced; and a line of rulers of this
type long continued to occupy St. Peter's chair. This explains
the immense strength of the Papacy. An able secular ruler
might be succeeded by a weakling, a profligate, and a child,
whose long minority would be a signal for an outburst of
anarchy; but, provided the election was free and untrammelled,
the new Pope was sure to resemble his predecessor in being a
man of mature years, who had won his way to the front by his
ability.
To this also is due the remarkable endurance of the Church-
Empire of the West, which maintained its unity virtually un-
broken for nearly five centuries; whilst the kingdoms and prin-
cipalities of the world were scenes of constant convulsions.
Kingdoms rose and fell, dynasties disappeared, the greatest
potentates endured the strangest vicissitudes of fortune, and
all the time Rome administered the Church, and her emissaries
carried her decrees to the remotest parts of the known earth.
The period treated of in this chapter covers the consolidation
of the rule of the Church and may well be considered as the
heroic epoch of the Papacy.
The strength of the Church in the tenth and eleventh
centuries lay in the monasteries, in which alone any sort of
security could be found for the pursuit of Christian virtue.
Any reform of the clergy was therefore bound to be on ascetic
lines. The restoration of monastic purity, with which the names
of St. Benedict of Aniane, St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, the great monastery of Cluny, and St. Peter Damian are
connected, had been long going on, and was about to be felt
in the Papacy. The ascendancy of monasticism was marked by
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY I17
the type of men who rose to power in the Church, stern as-
cetics, uncompromising upholders of the rights of their order,
divorced more than the priests and bishops of former days from
the ordinary human sympathies of Hfe. It was an iron age and
demanded men of iron to rule it; and the churchman was no
match for the warrior if he could not oppose to the discipline
of arms the stern training of the cloister. Spiritual weapons had
to be used as relentlessly as the carnal sword, and these could
only be employed by men whose austerity impressed their
opponents with awe. Moreover, the Church could no longer be
the instrument of the secular state, but demanded freedom of
action untrammelled by worldly authority. The problem was how
to maintain the requisite independence, and yet to retain the
enormous wealth and power which had been lavished upon
the clergy.
The men and the spirit requisite for the work of reviving the
honour of the Church were produced by the reform of the
monasteries, the only sources of spiritual power during the
darkest period of Christianity. True, monasteries degenerated,
and zeal cooled, but the institution possessed inherent vitality
and powers of recuperation. The most famous and always the
dominant rule was that of St. Benedict of Nursia, who, though
he never contemplated establishing his laws outside the mon-
asteries which he himself founded in Italy numbering fourteen,
including the great houses of Subiaco and Monte Cassino,
was eventually recognised as the monastic legislator of the
West. It is generally agreed that the Benedictine rule was a
model of wise discretion as a guide to monastic life. It pre-
scribed no arduous penances, its choir services left the monks
time for work, and eventually for study, and it never aimed
at centralisation, but left each of its abbeys free to work out
its own system. However, monasticism decayed, till in the
ninth century another St. Benedict — of Aniane — who enjoyed
the friendship of Louis the Pious, endeavoured to make the
discipline more exacting and to bring his group of monasteries
under a superior abbot; but his scheme of reform ended with
his death, and remained in abeyance till the tenth century.
Il8 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
In 910, William the Pious, Count of Auverne and Duke of
^ Aquitaine, founded the monastery of Cluny and committed
it to the charge of its first Abbot, St. Berno. Under a succession
of able rulers, almost unbroken for more than two centuries,
Cluny became the model for other monasteries, especially in
France, and among the many houses which embraced its rule
were the two original Benedictine ones of Subiaco and Monte
Cassino. The rule lacked the freedom of the ancient laws of
the first Benedict: it did not insist as he had done on manual
I labour, but made the choir services almost constant. The
Cluniacs were under the control of the great Abbey, whose
\ church was the largest in Western Europe, and the "daughters
^ of Cluny" were to be found throughout France, and, after the
Conquest, in a few places in England. Even where this rule
was not embraced an extraordinary impulse was given by it to
Benedictine monasticism. In the days of the restoration of the
Papacy in the eleventh century, Cluny became a veritable
nursery of great Popes.
But the hermits were destined to play a part as well as
the Coenobite monks; and one of the most prominent of the
reformers was the stern mystic St. Peter Damiani. At Fonte
Avellana, in the Apennines near to Gubbio, a body of solitaries
established themselves at the close of the tenth century, and
astonished the world by the severity of their discipline, the
multiplicity of their fasts, and the extraordinary ingenuity
with which they devised tortures for themselves. The most
famous of these religious athletes was St. Dominic Loricatus,
so called because he wore armour on his naked body. These
hermits were preeminently skilled in the use of the "discipline,"
which they are credited with having introduced, and lashed
themselves remorselessly. The performances of St. Dominic in
this self-inflicted punishment moved even Peter Damiani to
despairing emulation. It was customary to scourge oneself with
a thousand lashes whilst reciting thirty psalms, that is to say
with five thousand for the whole Psalter. One Lent Dominic
accomplished two hundred and forty Psalters with the full
compliment of lashes. If these self tortures move in a modern
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY II9
man a feeling of contemptuous pity, it is well to remember that
some of these hermits were far from being useless ascetics;
and that Peter Damiani, their Prior, was one of the leading
minds in his day; nor can the Middle Ages be understood unless
these facts be taken into account. But it need cause no surprise
that men who were thus unsparing of themselves, should have
been absolutely relentless in carrying through reforms, which
they believed were necessary to save the world from the
power of Satan.
With Henry II the last representative of the family of
the Ottos died out, and the Empire fell to the Franconian or
Salian house, the first of whom was Conrad II, the Salic, a
vigorous and able prince, succeeded in 1039 by his son Henry
III, who in 1046, as we have seen, put an end to the scandalous
papal rule of Benedict IX.
There followed a succession of popes virtually the nominees
of the German Caesar, men of exemplary lives but as a rule
occupying the pontifical throne for brief periods. There were
no less than seven popes in fifteen years, the most important
of whom, St. Leo IX, reigned for five.
The first of these popes was Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg,
who took the name of Clement II and crowned Henry III.
Never before since the days of the Byzantine rule had the
chair been occupied, save on two occasions, by other than
an Italian.
Indeed it may here be said that the appointment of northern
ecclesiastics as Popes generally proved disastrous, and hitherto,
even when a virtuous and well intentioned Emperor inter-
vened to reform the Roman Church, his efforts proved at best
transitory. This was finally demonstrated in the German Popes
of this century, men of high character but unsuited to the
situation; and it became clear that to retain its position as
arbiter of Western Christendom the reform of the Church of
Rome must come from within.
At this juncture the influence began to be felt of one whose
commanding personality was destined to dominate Europe till
the day of his death in 1085, first as the power behind the throne,
I20 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
and then from 1073 as Pope. This man's work laid the founda-
tion of the medieval hierarchy in all its power and splendor.
Born of obscure parentage, insignificant in appearance, owing
everything to his genius and force of character, Hildebrand,
afterwards St. Gregory VII, may well be considered the Na-
poleon of the Papacy.
He first appears as the friend and fellow exile of Gregory
VI, the Pope who, probably actuated by a pure motive, and
certainly with the approval of Peter Damiani, bought the
scandalous Benedict IX out of the Papacy. When Henry III
arrived in Rome Gregory IV admitted that he had been guilty
of Simony and resigned without a murmur, accepting banish-
ment from the City. Whether Hildebrand was ever a monk
is an open question. His enemies accuse him as being a "bad
monk" who had left his cloister, and his admirers connect him
with the great monastery of Cluny which he visited in the pon-
tificate of Leo IX. Anyhow, he first appears conspicuously on
the scene in connection with that Pope.
In Leo IX appears the first uncompromising churchman
to mount the papal throne in the eleventh century. Of illustrious
and even royal birth, his ambitions and outlook were purely
those of the ecclesiastic. He had for twenty years been bishop
of Toul, though the Emperor Conrad, his cousin, was desirous
that he should hold a more important position. But in his
saintly unworldliness Bruno, for so he was called, preferred to
remain bishop of an insignificant see. His kinsman, Henry III,
at the request of the Romans designated him for the papal
throne. Bruno entertained the suggestion most unwillingly,
and declined entirely to accept the position as an imperial
nominee. In the guise of a pilgrim in company with Hilde-
brand, he approached the gates of the City and asked the
people to accept him as Pope. He was enthroned on Feb. 12,
1049, and reigned for five years till April 19, 1054, during which
brief period he completely changed the position of the Papacy.
The great events which characterised his pontificate were (i)
The Condemnation of (a) Simony, and (b) clerical inconti-
nence; (2) Tours in Europe for the reformation of the Church:
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 121
(3) Troubles with the Normans; and (4) Breach of relations
with Michael Caerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople.
(i) (a) The weakness of the Church was the scandalous
traffic in clerical dignities. Down to the humblest office money
was the one acknowledged means of obtaining preferment.
The Papacy, as has been shown, was not exempt from the
evil, nor was it ever completely eradicated from the Church.
But in the eleventh century Simony stood in the way of all
reform in the direction desired by the stricter clerical party. A
clergy who had notoriously bought their offices could not be
free from the powerful patrons who had put them into these
positions, nor could they hope to enjoy the respect of their
people. Nor was the definition of Simony confined to the mon-
etary transaction which procured the presentation of a benefice.
Later Hildebrand, as Gregory VII, recognised three species of
the crime. There was the material advantage by which a man
paid in money or property {munus a manu) ; the pledge to sup-
port the patron by approving his actions {munus a lingua);
and the inducement of promising to pay him honour and undue
service {mu7ius ah obsequio). Thus the object of legislation
against Simony was to make each cleric able to discharge his
office unfettered by any obligation to the patron, and to give
the patron no excuse for not appointing the best man. Of
course, in theory positions like bishoprics and abbacies were
elective, but in the chaos of the time free elections were as
impossible throughout Europe as they had long been in Rome;
and even in the freest election bribery was not inconceivable.
At his councils at Rome and Reims, Leo forced Simony to be
publicly condemned and thus paved the way for the fierce
controversy about investiture in the days of his successor.
(b) Closely bound up with Simony was the more difficult
question of a celibate clergy. A married priest places himself
in the power of his master, be he emperor, king, or feudal
lord. Not only so, but if he holds a rich benefice and is himself
a man of birth and influence it tends to the creation of heredi-
tary ecclesiastical principalities, in which spiritual fitness is
liable to disappear before temporal considerations. Still more
122 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
was the idea of a married priesthood repugnant to the stern
monastic principles which dominated the Western Church of
the age. But the question was incapable of a summary settle-
ment. In the East marriage was permitted and even insisted
upon in parish priests before ordination; though the episcopate
and higher dignities were accessible only to monks. In the
West many clergy lived more or less openly and blamelessly
with their wives. On the other hand, human nature was too
strong for those who dare not accept the marriage tie for fear
of censure, and gross and open immorality was the deplorable
result. Damiani determined freely to expose the evils of the
time, not in the interest of legal marriage, but by the stern
repression of all incontinence under the most dreadful penal-
ties. He published a book with the fearful title of Gomorrhianus,
in which he laid bare the terrible offences in which the clergy
had little scruple in indulging and offered it to Leo IX. Leo
accepted the work, but not all its inferences. A man of stainless
Hfe and a personal austerity, which caused him to be regarded
as a saint even in his lifetime, Leo as a high born noble had
mixed in camps and courts, and had been engaged in diplo-
matic duties. He was not therefore disposed to listen to the
ravings of a saint who was a hermit by choice, spending days
in the recitation of psalms and self-inflicted flagellations. But
at Rome and elsewhere the Pope condemned clerical marriage
and pronounced all sacramental acts performed by simoniacal
or married priests as null and void.
(2) In his short pontificate of five years Leo IX proved
himself an indefatigable traveller, constantly crossing the Alps
in his endeavours to impress Europe with an overwhelming
sense of the preeminent dignity of the Roman See. He was a
zealous collector and translator of relics, and an inflexible
asserter of papal authority. As Pope he became more and more
Italian and ultramontane in the conception of his office. Con-
secrated early in 1049, he held a synod in the Lateran, and
after placing Hildebrand in charge of the disordered finances
of the See, he started for Germany. By the early summer he
reached Cologne where he was magnificently received by
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 1 23
Archbishop Herman whom he made Chancellor of the Apostolic
See. He reduced to utter subjection Godfrey of Lorraine, who
had rebelled against the Emperor Henry HI, and then crossed
into France to hold a synod at Reims and to attend to the trans-
lation of the patron saint Remigius. He upheld the dignity of
Rome inflexibly, forced the prelates of the North to acknowl-
edge its supremacy without question, and humbled the pride
of the Spanish archbishop of Compostella, who had claimed
for his see the title of "ApostoUc." Three times did he cross the
Alps, not always to find the German prelates in a submissive
mood; but miracles marked his progress, and even in his life-
time he was revered as a saint.
(3) The Normans had now made their power felt in southern
Italy and Sicily and Leo had to come into conflict with that
formidable people, who were destined to have no small part
in completing the work of making the Pope supreme in the
West. The conflict with them resulted in the humiliation of
Leo IX, but in the ultimate advantage of the Papacy.
After their settlement in France in the tenth century the
adventurous Normans came to Italy as mercenaries of the
Byzantines. They soon, however, set up a principality of their
own which passed into the hands of Robert Guiscard, the son
of Tancred of Hauteville, a baron of Coutances. The dispute
between the Papacy and the new Lords of Apulia was caused
by the cession of the city of Benevento by the emperor to Leo
IX in exchange for his rights over a German see. The Pope,
it must be recollected, was not only a saintly ecclesiastic, de-
voted to the spiritual interest of his order, but had been
brought up in a family inured to arms, and as Bishop of Toul
had led his vassals to the aid of the Emperor. With a con-
siderable force he advanced against the Normans, whose puny
frames filled the Suabian troops with contempt. But the battle
of Cividale, 1053, convinced the world of the invincibility of
the Norman cavalry. Leo's Germans died at their post, the rest
of the papal army fled in confusion. The Normans were, how-
ever, as pious as they were prudent. They fell on their knees
before their captive and treated the fallen Pope with deep
124 NTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
respect. But the defeat broke Leo's heart. The serious party of
the clergy, Peter Damiani at their head, blamed Leo for his
having appealed to carnal weapons, and the Pope died in the
following year. Four years later, on August 23, 1059, the Nor-
man Guiscard was recognised by Nicolas II as Duke of Apulia
and Calabria and future Lord of Sicily. Thus the Normans
became the vassals of the Papacy, and the most valiant and
strenuous protectors. This alliance was fraught with most
momentous consequences.
(4) But Leo IX's reign was also marked by the final sev-
erance between Byzantine and Papal Christianity. The circum-
stances under which this occurred are somewhat obscure, and
the catastrophe came suddenly; nor does its importance appear
to have been realised by any contemporary historian. For
many years the relations between Rome and Constantinople
had been by no means unfriendly; and since the days of Photius
there had only been occasionally such trifling frictions as
were natural between two churches, each of which had its own
peculiar claims to preeminence, and differed as to rites and
ceremonies. But even so, Pope and Patriarch maintained on
the whole friendly and even brotherly relations, and neither
seems to have dreamed of considering the other as in any way
departing from the Faith. The Latin rite was practiced in
Constantinople, and the Greek offices were freely used in
dioceses and monasteries under the Roman obedience. The
controversy was, so far as the Greeks were concerned, conducted
on the same lines as the Photian dispute and the assertions
of the supremacy of Rome by Leo IX were much the same as
those made by Nicolas I and his successors. The only difference
was that the quarrel about Photius arose for a definite reason,
his usurpation of the patriarchal throne, and ended when the
cause of Rome's indignation was no longer in existence, whereas
the controversy in Leo IX's day came like a bolt from the blue
and became a permanent reason for the two Churches remain-
ing apart. Rightly to understand it, it is necessary to relate
briefly a chapter in Byzantine history.
From A.D. 975 to 1025 Basil II was Emperor; and under
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 1 25
him the ancient glories of Rome revived. In the triumph in
which he celebrated his victories he was hailed by the mul-
titude as Slayer of Bulgars, "His reign was the culminating
point," says Finlay, "of Byzantine greatness. The eagles of
Constantinople flew during his life, in a long career of victory,
from the banks of the Danube to those of the Euphrates, and
from the mountains of Armenia to the shores of Italy." Basil's
reign was succeeded by a period of prosperity, the Emperors
being the husbands of his nieces, Zoe and Theodora, the
daughters of his brother Constantine VIII.
In 1042, after many revolutions and seditions in Con-
stantinople, Zoe gave her hand to Constantine Monomachus,
who, as ninth of his name, reigned till 1055. This Emperor
appears to have been a man of good natural gifts and not ill
disposed, but without sufficient strength of character really to
rule, especially when owing his position to the preference of
his elderly wife. In fact the power of this Emperor was over-
shadowed by that of the Patriarch, a man of stern character
and insatiable ambition, combined with skill in utilising the
popular prejudices to further his cause. Michael Cerularius
came of a great family, and had once been a candidate for the
Empire. In the Church he displayed the qualities of a politic
and grasping temporal ruler. He seems to have regarded the
Papacy as a king might regard a neighbouring state with which
it was desirable to pick a quarrel; and though there was ap-
parently no pretext for one, Cerularius was sure that once it
arose he would have the support of his people. The Katapan,
Argyros, who commanded the Byzantine forces in Southern
Italy, was working with the Pope against the Normans in
the interests of the Empire. The Patriarch regarded him as an
enemy, and when the Normans won the battle of Cividale, and
the Pope was their prisoner it seemed a favourable opportunity
for Constantinople to strike a blow at its rival. It was an
oblique one. The Bulgarian Church since the victories of Basil
II was bound closer than ever to the Patriarchate and the
Archbishop of Acrida, its metropolitan see, was a Greek named
Leo. Evidently he was prompted by Michael Cerularius to
126 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
write to the Bishop of Trani inviting him to abandon two
Latin usages as uncathoHc, namely, the employment of un-
leavened bread in the Eucharist, and fasting on Saturday.
These, Leo said, savoured of Judaism and should be given
up. The letter was addressed "to the Bishop of Trani, all
the bishops of the Franks, and the most reverend the
Pope."
This attack was followed up by a more vigorous paper by
Nicetas Stethatos, a monk of the Studium, in which all the
practices of the Latins objectionable to the Greeks were at-
tacked. The insertion of the word Filioque in the Creed and the
Latin prohibition of marriage of priests being added to the
charges of Leo. These "horrible infirmities" the monk attributes
to perversions of the faith which had been deliberately en-
couraged by Jewish influence in Rome. The patriarch next
openly declared war by closing all the churches in Constanti-
nople in which the Latin rite was celebrated. As it is generally
supposed that the rupture was due solely to the insertion of
the word Filioque in the Latin Creed, it may be well here to
remark that, though this was made a grievance, though it was
the subject of debate whenever reunion was discussed, the great
charge against the Latins was that they were guilty of heresy
because they used unleavened bread {azems) in the Eucharist;
for this was not merely regarded as an innovation in discipline
and practice, but as a heresy, inasmuch as to make Christ in
the Sacrament of unleavened bread was to be guilty of the
error of Appollinarius, who denied the Saviour a human soul.
Unleavened bread was, in fact, "soulless bread." As a matter
of fact the charges made against the Latins had all been ad-
vanced by Photius, when the Romans condemned his usurpa-
tion of the Chair of Ignatius, and had hardly troubled the two
Churches since the schism had been healed.
Leo's reply was an echo of the language of Nicolas I to
Photius. Disdaining the charges of heresy, the Pope asserted
in the most uncompromising fashion the absolute supremacy
of Rome over all other sees. This language was most unac-
ceptable to all the Easterns. Peter the Patriarch of Antioch,
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 12/
who was no admirer of Michael Cerularius, could not accept
the unqualified primacy of Rome, and in language which re-
calls the arguments of Irenaeus for four Gospels he declares the
five Patriarchates of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch and Jerusalem to be as necessary to the Church as are
the five senses to the body.
The Pope sent three legates to Constantinople with letters
addressed, not to the patriarch, but to the Emperor Con-
stantine IX. They were Cardinal Humbert, Frederick the
Chancellor of the Church (afterwards Stephen IX), and Peter,
who had been formerly Archbishop of Amalfi. The papal letters
are dated January 24, 1054, and Leo died on the 19th of April
following.- The Emperor seems to have done what he could to
give the legates an honourable reception. The monk Nicetas was
compelled to express regret for his treatise against the Roman
See. But Michael was unpracticable. He refused to hold con-
versation with the legates and was evidently preparing to con-
vene an imposing Synod against them. On July i6th they an-
ticipated him by solemnly placing a bull excommunicating
Michael Cerularius on the altar of St. Sophia. The Emperor
tried once more to mediate, but Michael was inexorable and
the rupture was complete. The papal throne was actually
vacant when this momentous event occurred.
Hereafter it will be necessary to discuss the many attempts
made to heal this unhappy schism. I^: was caused by the bold
bid by the Patriarch for supreme power. Michael Cerularius
had in his youth been almost raised to the imperial throne. He
aspired in mature life to reign over the world from the seat of
the Patriarch. By his defiance of Rome he had united the
Eastern Church as it had never been united before, as his
attack on Western innovations and papal arrogance was en-
tirely in accordance with popular feeling. He was, as the philoso-
pher Psellus calls him, a "democrat," and he perfectly understood
how to use the prejudices of the people for his own ends. His
success, a generation before the crusades and on the eve of the
first Turkish inroad into Asia Minor, proved fatal to the pro-
gress of a divided medieval Christianity.
128 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Three short pontificates followed that of Leo IX, those of
Victor II, Stephen IX, and Nicholas II. The Emperor Henry III
died in October, 1056, leaving his infant heir Henry IV under
the guardianship of the Pope. There was now no Emperor to con-
trol the papal elections or interfere with the poHcy ofthe Roman
Church. Stephen IX, of the anti-imperial house of Lorraine,
was at the time of his election Abbot of Monte Cassino, the
birthplace of Benedictine monasticism, a position which he re-
tained as Pope. One of the most important acts of his brief
pontificate was to nominate Peter Damiani Cardinal Bishop
of Ostia, thereby ranging himself definitely on the side of the
extreme wing of the monastic party.
What followed the death of Stephen (March 29, 1058) is
instructive in showing that the old power and ambition of the
Counts of Tusculum had still survived. The Cardinal Bishop of
Velletri, John Mincius, ofthe family of Crescentius, was hastily
elected and placed in the papal chair. He was evidently not a man
of evil repute, for Stephen IX had considered him as a possible
successor, but under him the old days of anarchy seemed
likely to revive. He took the family papal name of Benedict X.
At any rate the party of reform was alarmed, and, led by Hil-
debrand, they induced the Empress Agnes, widow of Heniy
III, to allow the election of a Burgundian named Gerard,
Archbishop of Florence, who reigned as Nicolas II. The new
Pope obtained the aid of Robert Guiscard, of the Normans of
Southern Italy and also of the powerful house of Lorraine.
Benedict X abdicated in favour of Nicolas II and the influence
of the local nobility was broken.
But the above mentioned Popes, though all noble by origin
and far from contemptible in character, are mere names com-
pared to the great Cardinal Deacon who for a generation di-
rected the policy of the Holy See. From the death of Leo IX,
in 1054, till his own death as Gregory VII in 1085, the real
Pope was Hildebrand. The resignation of Benedict X was al-
most entirely due to his influence; and whether true or not, the
story, that when Benedict X died, Hildebrand expressed his
sorrow for his action in assisting at the humiliating deposition
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 1 29
of this Pope, is typical of the man's stern sense of justice to
himself, as well as to the rest of mankind.
Three events mark the influence of Hildebrand, and these
determined the future of the Church: (i) the condemnation of
Berengar of Tours for his views of the Eucharistic sacrifice,
(2) the legislation affecting papal election, (3) the subjugation
of the married clergy of Milan.
(i) The great doctrine, which in the primitive Church
was never a cause of serious dispute, was the one concerning
the presence of the Saviour in the Supper which he had or-
dained. Even when different explanations were given, it was be-
yond controversy that the words "This is my Body" and "This
is my Blood" must be taken as meaning what they implied.
That the faithful received these holy mysteries when they par-
took of the consecrated elements there was no doubt. But at
the same time when it was necessary to use with precision
philosophical terms like "substance," "nature" and the Hke
about the Trinity to express the relation of one "person" to
another, or about the twofold nature of our Lord as God and
Man, it was but natural that similar language should be ap-
plied to the Eucharist, in which the visible bread and wine
became the means of making believers partakers of the invisible
Body and Blood of their Redeemer. In the second century the
sacrament was explained in simple words by Justin Martyr:
"For not as common bread or common drink do we receive
these; but like as Jesus Christ our Saviour being made flesh
through the word of God had both flesh and blood for our salva-
tion, so also were we taught that the food for which thanks are
given by the prayer of his word, and by which our blood and
fleshly conversion are nourished, is both the flesh and blood of
that Jesus, who was made flesh."
Two centuries later we find the Greek fathers using the
terms transmute and transelementize, but not for centuries
do we meet with the more famous word transubstantiation.
There were two trends of thought in regard to the Eucharistic
gift in the Western Church, initiated by St. Ambrose and St.
Augustine respectively. Both acknowledged the presence of
I30 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the Lord; but Ambrose dwelt most on the priestly aspect of
the miracle, and Augustine regarded it as one of faith. This
difference of opinion was not fundamentally serious, and gave
rise to no controversy; it only indicated tendencies which
were to develop later. The teaching of Ambrose on this subject
was due, as was much of his doctrine, to Oriental influence. It
was not till 840 that Paschasius Radbertus, a monk of Corbey,
brought the matter into prominence by publishing a treatise
on the Eucharistic mystery, in which he asserted the Presence
of Christ on the altar in terms which seemed to many materi-
alistic. He was answered by another monk of Corbey named
Ratramnus, who was supported by Eriugena: these two in-
clining to the Ambrosian rather than the Augustinian side.
The controversy slept until the eleventh century, when it was
revived by Berengar, a deacon of Tours, one of the great
teachers of the time, who may have numbered St. Bruno, the
founder of the Carthusians, among his disciples. Of his doctrine
this much may be said, that it was opposed to the grossly
materialistic explanations of the Presence current at the time,
which degraded the great mystery into a magical conversion.
In his endeavours to meet this error Berengar was suspected
of denying the Presence and making the Eucharist no more
than a commemoration. He made several recantations and
was vigorously opposed by Lanfranc, Abbot of Bee, and later
Archbishop of Canterbury. To refute this "heresy," Hildebrand
was sent to France, and seems to have shown a real liberality
of spirit towards Berengar, defending him from his persecutors,
whilst himself steadfastly adhering to the doctrine of the
Church. In this the future Pope appears to have exhibited the
best traditions of Rome, impartiality in the midst of a heated
controversy, and unwilHngness to deal harshly with speculative
error.
(2) In early days the churches as a rule elected their own
bishops, and certainly in early times the Roman Christians
chose theirs by popular vote. As has been indicated, from the
seventh century there was no little interference in the election
from the outside. First the Emperors or their Exarchs at Ra-
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY I3I
venna had to sanction the election, then the new Frankish
Caesars claimed the same right, and, with the fall of the house
of Charles the Great, the nobles presumed to nominate their
friend. s When this scandal reached its height, the Western
Emperors were called in to select suitable popes; and Henry
III exercised a sort of private patronage, till his death in 1056.
At the second Lateran Council, held in 1059 under Nicolas II,
it was decreed that henceforward the Cardinal Bishops should
select a candidate, a Roman if possible, and the election should
be confirmed by the other Cardinals and by the clergy of
Rome. This laid the foundation of the power of the Cardinalate
and paved the way for the election of the Pope by that body
in conclave. Its immediate result was to reassert the right of
the Romans to choose their own Pope and to put an end to any
sort of lay nomination. It was in fact the determination of
the clerical and monastic party, headed by Hildebrand and
Peter Damiani, to separate the Church as far as possible from
the world and to exalt the authority of the Roman See over all
other churches. It was not for nothing that Gerard, Bishop of
Florence, had assumed the name of Nicolas II, as his policy
tallied with that of Nicolas the Great.
(3) After Nicolas II's death, in 1061, the great contest with
the married clergy was fought out, with Milan as the stage.
Milan, like its rival Ravenna, never forgot that it had once been
the capital of Italy and proudly refused to acknowledge the
authority of Rome over its affairs. Its Archbishops, ever mind-
ful that they represented no less a person than St. Ambrose,
steadfastly asserted their independence. Milan had been de-
stroyed by the Lombards, who made Pavia their capital; but
it rose from its ashes in the ninth century under the fostering
care of its Archbishops, especially Anspert (868-881) and
Heribert (loi 8-1045). Heribert, a truly magnificent prelate
and statesman, caused Conrad the Salic to be crowned King of
Italy, suppressed the power of his rival and namesake of Ra-
venna, withstood the military forces of the Empire, and finally
died amid the tears of the people of Milan, who regarded his
memory as that of a saint. Like most of his clergy, Heribert
132 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
was a married man; for the priests of Milan boasted that St.
Ambrose had allowed them to take wives, not clandestinely,
but openly by "ring and dowry." These Lombard priests, more-
over, were considered admirable clergymen, and their lives
were the boast of the province. So exasperating was this to
the sterner party of Hildebrand and Peter Damiani that in
their judgment, whilst elsewhere clerical concubinage was
merely sin, the married priests of Milan were guilty of the far
graver offence of heresy. Strangely enough the first opponents
of Heribert were themselves heretics, the followers of one
Gerard, who seem to have held Manichaean views resembling
those of the Bogomils and of the Albigensians. Heribert dealt
with great severity towards them; and as one of their tenets
was that death in torment was the chief purification from sin,
he gratified this proclivity by burning a large number in a vast
pyre in Milan.
Heribert was succeeded by Guido, a man of less force of
character, and under him the storm against the married clergy
broke with the utmost fury. The leaders were Ariald, a man of
humble birth, and a noble named Landulf. But behind them
was Anselm, Bishop of Lucca, afterwards Pope Alexander H,
and Peter Damiani. The latter by his eloquence and furious
invectives, secured the triumph of the celibate clergy. The
popular voice was against the old aristocratic married priest-
hood, and the victorious party were called Patarines, either
because they belonged to the rabble, or were accused of the
heresy oppressed by Heribert.
The comparatively long pontificate of Anselm of Badaggio,
Bishop of Lucca, as Alexander H (1061-1073) is notable for
(i) the beginning of a series of imperial anti-popes, (2) the rise
of the Normans as the supporters of the Papacy, (3) for the
power of the houses of Lorraine and Tuscany, (4) for the early
days of Henry IV. All these were a preparation for the tre-
mendous struggle with the German power begun by Hildebrand
as Pope Gregory VH.
(i) The exact wording of the decree of the Council of the
Lateran in 1059 is not certain, the point at issue being whether
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPAC 133
any rights were reserved for the Franconian House in sanction-
ing the papal election. It was certain that Henry HI had prac-
tically nominated every pontiff since the deposition of Gregory
VI and his rivals. The council met in the infancy of his son
Henry IV, and according to some respected, and to others en-
tirely disregarded his claims. Anselm of Lucca had been elected
without consulting the Germans, and was distasteful to the
Lombards as representing the intolerance of Hildebrand and
Damiani. Already it was recognized that, whoever was pope,
the real enemy was Hildebrand. Hildebrand, according to a
contemporary epigram, had made Alexander II a pope, and the
Pope had made him a God. Guibert, the Chancellor of the
Empire in Italy, assembled a council at Basle which elected
Cadalous, Bishop of Parma. He took the title of Honorius II.
War was thus openly declared, the monastic party with
Hildebrand, Peter Damiani, and the Normans supporting
Alexander II, and the Antipope being backed by the Lombard
clergy and the upholders of the Imperial power in Italy.
(2) Political influences were naturally deeply involved in
the coming struggle, and the rise of the Norman power was a
serious menace to German influence in Italy. This wise and
adventurous people had recognized the importance of being on
good terms with the Popes, now about to become all powerful;
and, since the defeat of Leo IX at Cividale, they had done their
best to conciliate the papal government. In accepting their
aUiance Nicolas II had followed the traditional papal policy,
pursued till the middle of the nineteenth century, of keeping
southern Italy apart from the northern end of the peninsula.
In 1071 Sicily fell into Norman hands, thereby giving the com-
mand of the Mediterranean to that enterprising nation. It is
not surprising therefore, that when Wilham the Norman ap-
pealed against Harold, Alexander II gave a decision in his
favour and decided to bless his expedition to secure the crown
of England; especially as Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury,
was deemed by Rome to be a schismatical occupant of the
primatial see. This interference with the afi^airs of the Anglo-
Saxons may have been unjust, though really it proved a blessing
134 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
in disguise. Their history for the past century had been far
from glorious, and the country needed able leaders to raise its
people to a higher level of civilization. It is to the credit of
the Normans that they performed their task of conquering Eng-
land so thoroughly that it was both speedy and permanent,
and to that of the Anglo-Saxons, that they submitted to the
inevitable, and united with their conquerors in making a great
nation. The two people commingled within a few generations;
but the Norman and Anglo-Saxon spirit exist still side by
side. The one has been shown throughout history by the power
of inspiring respect mingled with fear, which has made Eng-
lishmen in the past able to rule the inferior races of the world,
less to their own advantage, than to that of their subjects; whilst,
in so far as it is Anglo-Saxon, England has been gifted with
an obstinate obtuseness which is not its least valuable asset.
Thus the necessities of papal policy in the eleventh century
contributed to the growth and development of the British race.
(3) The Normans were not the only rivals of the Caesars
in Italy. The powerful house of Lorraine were hereditary
enemies of the Franconian line; and Godfrey IV was allied by
his marriage with a Tuscan princess. His wife was Beatrice,
the widow of the Marquis Boniface and the mother of^latilda,
the most celebrated woman of the eleventh century. The strong-
hold of Matilda was Canossa, which had been the fortress of
her great-grandfather Azzo, or Atto, who had become Count
of Modena and Reggio. The cities of Ferrara and Brescia were
added to the dominions of his son, Tedaldo; and his grandson
Boniface II, the Pious, obtained Tuscany. He was murdered
in 1052, leaving his widow Beatrice and her daughter Matilda.
The immense power of this family and the alliance of Beatrice
with Godfrey of Lorraine, brother of Pope Stephen IX, made
them suspected by Henry III; and, for marrying without the
consent of her feudal lord, Beatrice was kept m custody by
the Emperor till 1056, when Godfrey made his peace. Matilda's
dominions were of the utmost importance in the coming struggle
between Emperor and Pope, as they lay direct in the way of any
advance to Rome.
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 135
(4) Henry IV, King of the Romans, was born 1050 and was
consequently six years of age when he succeeded on the death
of his father Henry HI, The real rulers of the Empire were the
powerful feudatories, especially the princely archbishops. These
exercised great authority over the bishops, and in their desire
to acquire wealth ruthlessly despoiled the monasteries. The ra-
pacity of these prelates was in itself an argument for the vigor-
ous crusade made by the papal party against Simony. The
leading metropolitans, if not in rank at least in ability, were
Hanno of Cologne and Adalbert of Bremen. Hanno threw his
influence on the side of the legitimate pope, Alexander H, and
therefore of Peter Damiani and Hildebrand. With the aid of
the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz he seized the boy king,
Henry IV, and boldly removed him from the influence of the
Empress Agnes his mother. But Henry preferred, as he grew up,
to put himself into the hands of Adalbert, Archbishop of
Bremen. Between Adalbert and Hanno was constant rivalry.
Hanno sought the support of the episcopate, Adalbert that of
the nobles. Ultimately Hanno prevailed and with his victory
the triumph of Alexander II over his rival Cadalous (Honorius
II) was complete. Under such influences the young King arrived
at the age of manhood.
Alexander II died on April 21, 1073. And now the clergy
and people in Rome would wait no longer, and with one voice
proclaimed Hildebrand as Pope. He ascended the throne as
Gregory VII, whether in memory of his predecessor, Gregory
I, the greatest of the popes, or of his patron Gregory VI, whose
exile he had shared when he had been forced by imperial au-
thority to make way for a German. For many years he had been
the dominant figure in Christendom. He had been employed
as the papal agent in many lands, and throughout successive
pontificates he, and not the occupant of St. Peter's seat, had
stood for the Roman traditions. His immediate predecessors,
with the exception of Alexander II, who was an Italian rather
than a Roman, had all been foreigners. Gregory was Roman
by training, he represented the tradition not only of the Church
but of the Republic. To him even the City was nothing compared
136 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
to the world in which it was his duty to bring under the Roman
sway. As a Christian priest he might have taken as his motto
Pascere suhjectos, but, as a Roman, he would have left Virgil's
words debellare superbos unchanged. The law which he sought to
ji impose on mankind, demanded unquestioning obedience to the
commands of the Holy See. Kings and princes were but laity,
who if they sinned must be rebuked and chastened by their
spiritual superiors: for *'gold is not so much more precious than
lead as the sacerdotal dignity is higher than kings." Over
certain realms Gregory claimed an ahum dominium on the
ground that they had been made over to the custody of St.
Peter. These were Spain, Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia, Russia
(now under Constantinople) and England. But despite these
claims, which to us may seem preposterous, Gregory was not
blinded by his arrogance. He knew a man when he met him, and
he frankly recognised that such an one as William the Conqueror
could speak his mind even to a pope. Nor does his conduct
towards Berengar reveal Gregory as intolerant in theological
controversy. He condemned Berengar's opinion on the Eu-
charist, but showed no bitterness to the individual; he treated
him as a man of intellect who had come to a wrong conclusion,
but ought not on that account to be hounded out of the
Church.
Gregory surveyed the world of his time with the eye of a
statesman, a priest and a prophet; and it might be said that
in his eyes "Behold it was very bad." In Germany, Henry IV
was determined to assert the authority of the imperial crown
to the utmost and to bring the Church under his power, con-
trolling the See of Rome as his great predecessors had done.
The profligacy of Philip I of France was bound to draw down
the censures of the Church. Lombardy was still seething with
discontent at the treatment of the married clergy. In Southern
K Italy the power and craft of Robert Guiscard was a menace to
the papal dominions. In all parts of the world the bishops were
tainted with the sin of Simony which Gregory was bent upon
suppressing. But the Pope was able to count on three alli^.
The Roman people, despite the misery he brought upon them,
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 1 37
were loyal. The monks stood by him, not only because his party
was animated by their ideals, but on account of the unsatiable
greed with which the great metropolitans and bishops plun-
dered the abbeys, especially in Germany, And upon the whole,
the common people sided with the Pope. At least he was the
enemy of their tyrants — his high pretensions did not touch
them. They cared little or nothing for the freedom of the
clergy from outside dictation, especially when papal interference
promised to secure them better and more zealous priests. In
the ensuing struggle the cause of the Pope was undoubtedly
the popular one.
It is now desirable to sketch in a few words the condition
of Germany at Gregory's accession. Henry IV had had all the
disadvantages entailed by a long minority. His authority had
been in the hands of ambitious and self-seeking prelates and
princes of the Empire. He himself had been educated as a king
and had not been schooled in self-discipline or control. He had
been forced into a marriage which he detested, though it after-
wards proved a singularly happy one. The Empire was dis-
tracted by factions, and by the enmity of the Saxons to the
Franconian house. Henry IV was twenty-three years of age at
the time of Gregory's accession. He was a man of commanding
presence and of much natural ability, determined to crush
opposition, and to become master of his dominions.
Gregory VII began his pontificate on April 22, 1073, and
in June the Saxons openly revolted against Henry IV. The Pope
and King were not on unfriendly terms, though Gregory from
the first accused Henry of having been guilty of Simony.
Henry meekly acknowledged his responsibility to the Pope,
whose aid he desired, as his war with the Saxons was far from
successful. On February 24 in the following year (1074) the royal
castle of the Hartzburg was taken and the Saxons insulted the
remains of Henry's relatives buried there, and desecrated the
chapel, for which the king demanded the spiritual censures of
the Pope as against these profane and rebellious subjects. In the
meantime Gregory in a Synod in Rome condemned Simony i
and clerical marriage; and an embassy was sent to enforce the
138 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
decrees in Germany, and met with a very discouraging re-
ception. Siegfried of Mainz, the primate of Germany, had al-
ready pubHshed them in March; and at the Synod of Erfurt,
October, 1074, at which they were debated, closed amid con-
fusion. The Pope was not deterred by this opposition. His de-
crees were sterner than ever against the married clergy, they
were to be degraded from their office, and thrust into the ranks
of the penitents. The people were incited to rise against them.
No sacrament administered by a priest in concubinage was
to be reckoned valid. Their wretched wives were torn from
them and treated with brutal severity. The clergy protested:
popular favour was on the side of the Pope and they were power-
less. At the same time the Council at Rome, February, 1075, ab-
solutely forbid the practice of bishops or beneficiaries doing
homage to any secular authority or receiving investiture by
ring and staff. The idea was to render the immense estates of
the Church hitherto held by feudal tenure absolutely inde-
pendent and to set up within the Empire a power amenable to
no earthly authority except that of the Pope. It was a declara-
tion of war against Henry IV, who on June 9, 1075, had crushed
the Saxons at Hohenburg and was therefore once more a power
in his dominions.
Next there occurred an event recalling the days of old
Roman savagery in the days of Charles the Great. A turbulent
noble named Cencius seized the Pope and thrust him into a
dungeon. The indignant people rose in support of their pontiff
and Gregory soon had the ruffian who had insulted his person at
his feet. It was believed that Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna,
the Chancellor of the Empire in Italy, was privy to the outrage.
At any rate, the breach with the Empire was now complete.
Henry IV was summoned to appear at Rome by February 22,
1076, to answer for his offences under pain of excommunication.
Henry retorted by a decree issued from a Synod held at Worms
deposing Gregory. The Lateran Council, big with the fate of
an empire, met on February 21. The circumstances remind us of
the Rome described by Livy. A serpent was seen climbing an
egg. It suddenly struck what appeared to be a shield and re-
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 1 39
coiled in mortal agony. The Pope and his successors sat in
deliberation over the prodigy, when suddenly Roland the am-
bassador of Henry entered and pronounced his sentence against
Gregory. Thereupon Gregory interpreted the sign of the egg. The
serpent was the devil whose discomfiture would be sure. Henry ,
was solemnly excommunicated. The effect in Germany was dis- '
astrous to the royal party. The nobles and prelates fell away.
William, Bishop of Utrecht, who had denounced the Pope, died
in torments, Henry IV was defeated by the Saxons, and Gregory
pushed his advantage relentlessly. He ordered Henry's sub-'
jects to desert their excommunicated King. At the Diet at ^
Tribur the princes renounced their allegiance. The Pope an- .
nounced that he would hold his court at Augsburg on February
25, 1077.
Henry now resolved on preventing this by himself seeking
Gregory and demanding absolution at his hands. Accordingly
he crossed the Alps and in January found the Pope at Canossa,
the strong castle of Matilda of Tuscany. There he did his
famous penance, and "to go to Canossa" has become a by-word
for surrendering to the ecclesiastical authority. The scene was
dramatic, the King is said to have waited in the snow three
days for the inflexible Pontiff" before he relented. Gregory in-
sisted on insuring the genuineness of his penitence by all the
terrors of the Consecrated Host. Only the tears and entreaties ^
cf Matilda induced the Pope to relent.
It is easy to overestimate the importance of Canossa. In
fact it is still an open question whether King or Pope had the
advantage. It was the Pope's object to go to Augsburg and de-
pose Henry. This was prevented by the speedy submission of
the King, which also inclined his German subjects to espouse
his cause against papal tyranny. At any rate Henry was ab-
solved and free from all the awful penalties of one under the
ban of the Church. At least his adherents could communicate
with him without danger of hell fire. The truce was of but brief
duration and when the struggle was renewed the King was in a
better position than he had been in 1076.
Canossa was no more than a highly dramatic episode in
140 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the long struggle between the Papacy and the Empire on the
question of investiture. It was the cause of a truce between
Henry IV and the Papacy, the prelude of a far fiercer struggle.
About six weeks after the king's penance the German diet met
at Forcheim March 13, 1077, and in the presence of the papal
legates Henry was deposed and Rudolf of Swabia elected king
in his place. Gregory, however, declared that the election had
been made without his knowledge and consent; but this natu-
rally did not prevent civil war in Germany, though for two
years the Pope remained neutral. The year for Canossa, how-
ever, was also memorable not only for the death of the Empress
Agnes, mother of Henry IV, but of the famous donation by
Matilda of all she had or might hereafter^ acquire to St.
Peter in the person of Gregory .,'^9*^ he wa>r went on the Saxon
party opposed to J^b^ry complained bitterly of the papal in-
decision; and, at mst, in March, 1080, a Synod was held in the
Lateran to decide between the two kings. Gregory delivered
a tremendous allocution to the assembled bishops and clergy,
and pronounced sentence of excommunication against Henry.
War was now open and the Pope secured the powerful help of
I the Normans by sending his friend Desiderius, Abbot of Monte
( Cassino, to Robert Guiscard. Henry in the meantime was pre-
paring a combination in Northern Italy against Matilda of
Tuscany, and a council of the prelates of his faction was called
at Brixen in the Austrian Tyrol.
At Brixen Gregory was deposed and in his place Guibert
j of Ravenna was raised to the popedom with the title of Clement
III. Thus the policy of setting up an imperial antipope was re-
peated, and, as usual, resulted in failure. In this instance the
mistake was the more glaring on the part of Henry in view of
the high character, abilities and reputation of Hildebrand.
Guibert would also have been far more dangerous as Arch-
bishop of Ravenna and Chancellor of the Empire in Italy,
especially as his see had long contested the Roman supremacy.
The crisis came in the same year at the battle of the Elster,
October 15, 1080, when Rudolf of Swabia was killed when about
to inflict a severe defeat on his rival. The same day the Henri-
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 14I
cians won a victory over the army of Matilda, and Henry IV j
without any rival in Germany was able to devote his entire '
energies to the subjugation of Gregory VII. In March, 108 1,
the German King entered Italy. For three years Rome was be- [
sieged and Matilda's lands ravaged by the Germans. In 1084, I
Gregory having secured the aid of the Normans was relieved
in Rome by Robert Guiscard. The army which came to save
the Pope ruined the City. Composed as it was of men of all
races, including Saracens, it sacked the town remorselessly and )
from this time it may be said that ancient Rome ceased to I
exist and modern Rome took its place. Gregory VII seems to
have been little moved even by the ruin of Rome. He retired
with Guiscard to Salerno where he died, with the words on
his lips, "I have loved justice and hated iniquity and therefore
I die in exile." Just before the arrival of the troops of Guiscard,
Henry IV had received the imperial crown at the hands of ,
Clement III. Thus he became Emperor by his coronation at [
Rome but at the hand of an antipope.
Though the struggle between the Empire and the Papacy
lasted till 11 22, the main interest ceased with the death of
Hildebrand, whose successors were Victor III (1086-1087),
who had been known as Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cas-
sino; Urban II (1088-1099), before his accession Bishop of
Ostia, a Frenchman and a pupil of St. Bruno; Paschal II
(1099-1118); Gelasius II, and Calixtus II, under whom the
investiture dispute was settled. The Crusades in a measure
diverted the interest of the Church from the strife between
Pope and Emperor, the heroic element of which had been
buried with Hildebrand, who, stern and relentless as he was,
was incapable of any description of baseness. It would appear ■
that this humbly born man was the truest aristocrat of his
time. Naturally of a kindly disposition he was on principle
severe, unyielding, and arrogant in asserting the supreme
majesty of his office. But he was too proud to be dishonest or
to resort to trickery. If he and Peter Damiani may have shown
a harshness which a Christian might deplore, they did nothing
which a gentleman could condemn. But their successors fought
142 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
with baser weapons than they deigned to use. Under Urban II,
Matilda and her friends stirred up Conrad, the son of Henry
IV, a weak, treacherous and superstitious youth, to rebel
against his father and accept the crown of Italy. The days of
Paschal witnessed the more unfilial and hypocritical conduct
of another son, afterwards Henry V, who used the clergy as
his tools against his father, Henry IV died wretchedly in 1106,
after having been actually imprisoned by his son, who, when
he came to the throne, threw his clerical supporters contempt-
uously aside, and forced the Pope to crown him Emperor in
Rome.
It was not till 11 22 that the question of investiture was
settled with the Empire by the Concordat of Worms, 11 22,
between Henry V and Calixtus III. The terms were as follows:
The Emperor surrendered the ceremony of investiture by
ring and staff, and granted the clergy the right of free election.
He restored all the Church of Rome had lost and promised to
protect its rights. In return the Pope granted that all elections
of bishops and Abbots should take place in the presence of the
Emperor or his deputy. In Germany every bishop elect was to
n receive his temporalities by the touch of the royal sceptre,
I except those held directly from the See of Rome. Bishops were
I also bound to perform their feudal duties. Outside Germany
every bishop in the Empire was to receive all his temporalities
within six months of his consecration. These terms are virtually
those made between Henry I of England and Paschal II. A
struggle which had lasted nearly half a century ended in a com-
promise which might have been arrived at in a short conference.
Whether Hildebrand would have assented to such an arrange-
ment is doubtful.
This chapter opened with the Papacy just free from the
tyranny and caprice of the Tusculan counts with a clergy too
feeble to choose or support a pope of their own. Several popes
in succession were appointed by the Emperor — all Germans
from his native dominions. At last a true Roman made his
influence felt in the person of Hildebrand, who, supported by
the powerful monastic party, first placed men after his own
THE REVIVAL AND REORGANIZATION OF PAPACY 1 43
heart on the papal throne, and finally ascended it himself and
defied the power of the Empire to dispute his claim. By the
statesmanship of Hildebrand the Roman Church practically
acquired the right of choosing the Pope; and though this was
restricted to the chiefest of the clergy, it was more than had
been enjoyed for many centuries. In vain did the imperial
nominees dispute with the man selected by the Roman Church.
They might hold Rome, but they were never really popes.
In breaking the formidable faction of the married clergy,
especially in Lombardy, the party of Hildebrand separated
every ordained man from the ordinary Hfe of humanity. The
celibate priest was made to feel that he belonged to another
order of mortals. Thus the extreme clericalism of the Middle
Ages comes more and more into relief. By making it impossible
for a clergyman to have honourable offspring the order was
prevented from becoming a caste; but this was at the expense
of being a class, isolated from ordinary men, and devoted to
its own honour and advancement.
Events have shown that by his bold assertion of the claims
of the Church against the Empire Gregory VII was support-
ing a reality against what was after all a fiction. Caesar, as a
world power, existed mainly in the imagination: he was no
more than a German king. Nor did the disunited and disorgan-
ized Empire represent humanity. The Church was a fact; its
influence was felt by every man in Europe. Gregory VII in-
deed stood for a great cause and it was for the good of the
world that, at any rate in his days, it should prevail.
AUTHORITIES
For the monastery of Cluny, see the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, p. 72,
where there is a picture of the Abbey before its destruction in 1790, also
Lavisse, Histoire de France, Vol. II. The works of St. Peter Damiani are
in Migne, P. L., Vols. 144-145. On his censures of the Temporal Power
and on the blame laid on Leo IX for leading an army against the Normans by
others, see Gregorovius, Vol. IV, p. 86, E. T. The letter of Damiani is in his
Epistles, Lib. IV, Ep. IX.
On Simony and Investiture see Articles in the Catholic Encyclopedia;
also Dean Church's Life of St. Anselm. For Celibacy of the clergy the reader
should consult the Article in the Catholic Encyclopedia and Vacandard in
144 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the Die. de Theologie, s.-v. Celibat. The books in English are Lea, History
of Sacerdotal Celibacy, and Bishop Wordsworth, The Ministry of Grace, pp.
206-256. See also Milman, Latin Christianity, Bk. VI, Ch. III.
The history of the Eastern Empire during this period is related in Findlay,
History of the Byzantine Empire, Bk. II, Part II. For the Schism Louis
Brehier, Le Schisme Oriental du XI Siecle is invaluable. The chief contem-
porary authority is the historian and philosopher Psellus.
For the Eucharistic controversy Batiffol, Etudes d'kist. et de theologie
positive (Paris, 1905); Darwell Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy
Eucharist; and J. H. Srawley, art. "Eucharist (to the end of the Middle Ages)''
in Hastings' Diet, of Religion and Ethics, Vol. V, pp. 555-557. For Gregory
VII consult Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, Vol. VII, who
discusses the original authorities. There are three English Lives: Bowden,
Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII ; W. R. Stephens' Hildebrand and his
Times, also A. Mathew, Life and Times of Hildebrand, which should be read
with discrimination. Bryce's Holy Roman Empire should be read and re-
read by every student.
For the terrible destruction of Rome by the Normans, consult Gregorovius'
Rome in the Middle Ages, Vol. IV, 247 ff., also F. Marion Crawford, Ave
Roma Immortalis, Ch. IV. Professor Charles Homer Haskins of Harvard's
The Normans in European History (1916) is a most interesting sketch of
the subject.
CHAPTER VI
THE CRUSADES
Cause of the progress of Islam — The rehgious conquerors became secular princes —
Appearance of non-Arab influences — Revival of the Byzantine power — The
Turks in Asia Minor — Hakim, Fatimite Sultan of Egypt — Necessity for a Cru-
sade — Favourable prospects for Western attack on Palestine — Pilgrimages to
Jerusalem — Plan of the Crusades — Urban II at Clermont — The common
people go on a crusade — The four crusading armies — Jerusalem taken — The
Christian kingdom of Jerusalem — The Patriarch of Jerusalem — Trade —
Byzantine rivalry — Feudal Palestine — The military orders — Fall of Edessa
, second crusade — The Comnenid — Saladin — Third Crusade — Death of Frederic
Barbarossa — Richard I takes Cyprus — End of third crusade — Fourth cru-
sade — Venetians employ crusaders against Zara — Latin capture of Constanti-
nople — Results of the capture of Constantinople — The Latin Empire in the
East — Disasters and mistakes of 13th century — Crusades and Frederick II —
Louis IX — Fall of St. Jean d'Acre — Consideration of the crusades — Advance
of Islam as a conquering power — The Mongols — Theories about the crusades —
Abandonment of crusades — Christian missions replace crusades — Voyages to
the Far East — Mongols embrace Islam — The Ottoman Turks.
The extraordinary success of the warriors of the Arabian
deserts when they first overran Syria, Egypt, Persia, the North-
ern coast of Africa, and Spain, was not merely due to their
mihtary prowess or to the fanaticism with which their new
faith inspired, but to a statesmanhke moderation which is
wholly admirable. They were not Huns, spreading terror and
destruction on every side, or, like the early Danish and Norse
pirates, bent solely on plunder. They came in irresistible
strength offering three alternatives — to accept Islam, to pay
tribute, or the sword. Those who acknowledged Allah and his
prophet became one with the conquerors, and those who paid
tribute often obtained some return for their money, which the
Roman Empire rarely gave, and were assured of protection
from their enemies by the hosts of Islam. Moreover, not only
did the conquerors refuse to impose their religion on any one;
they respected the convictions of all their subjects, and ortho-
dox and schismatical Christians enioved equal privileges,
145
146 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
whilst the Jew was tolerated and even honoured. Nor was it
to the interest of the Moslems to convert all men, as by ac-
cepting Islam the convert ceased to play the indispensable
part of a tax payer. All this was in direct opposition to the
policy of the Christian Roman Empire, which excluded from
the privilege of citizenship all who refused to acknowledge
the dominant orthodoxy. The result was that the armies of
the Crescent often advanced without striking a blow, and the
Romans opposed to them fought surrounded, not by sympa-
thetic fellow-worshippers, but by Monophysites or Nestorians,
who almost openly sympathised with the invaders. From the
death of Mohammed in 632 to the battle in Gaul when the
Moslem host was defeated by Charles Martel at Tours, exactly
a century later, the record of the progress of Islam is with this
single exception the story of rapid and unbroken success.
It would here be superfluous to relate the story of the ad-
vance of the Mohammedan conquerors who had within a few
years subdued a territory extending from the Western coast of
Spain to the frontier of India and had founded an empire
under the Caliph, or successor of the Prophet. A movement
inspired by the desire to spread a new faith rapidly became
secularised, and even the near successors of Mohammed
changed from saintly and austere warriors into ambitious
princes. The first of these was Moawiya, the governor of Syria
who in 661 wrested the caliphate from Ali, the first cousin and
son-in-law of the Prophet, and established the seat of empire
over the entire Mohammedan world at Damascus. His dynasty,
of the stock of the original Arab conquerors, lasted till A.D. 750
and is known as the Omayyads. They represented the best
Arab tradition of primitive Islam, with its scrupulously tolerant
attitude to other religions. Under their successors, the Abba-
sids of Bagdad, Persian rather than Arabian influence was
dominant, and the presence of the Seljukian Turks already
began to manifest itself. Thus the power which had been
originally built up by the Arab race passed into other and
ruder hands, and the united caliphate was replaced by Mo-
hammedan dynasties, often at war with one another.
THE CRUSADES I47
The Byzantine Empire, moreover, recovered from the im-
potence it had shown to stem the invasion which had advanced
so far that in 717 Constantinople had almost fallen before the
Saracen fleet and army. The City found a deliverer in Leo, the
Isaurian, who saved his capital and reorganized his Empire.
From this time for many generations the Romans of the East
held Asia Minor firmly against all attempts of the Moslem;
and the Empire advanced with renewed strength for more than
two centuries after the reforms of Leo. Under the Macedonian
dynasty, it showed amazing vitality; and in the days of
Basil II reached its highest level of prosperity; and its bound-
aries actually extended from the Adriatic to the Euphrates.
After his death in 1025, signs of weakness began to reveal them-
selves; and in 1063 the Emperor Romanus Diogenes was de-
feated by the Turkish Sultan Alp Arslan in battle. This was
followed by the establishment of the Sultanate of Rum (Rome)
in the heart of Asia Minor. The Abbasid caliphate, however,
was constantly becoming weaker; and in 968 Egypt fell into
the hands of the Fatimid dynasty. Under this rule the Chris-
tians and Jews no longer enjoyed the toleration which the
Saracens had accorded to them on principle; but were subject
to the caprice of tyrants, who alternately persecuted and
petted them.
The most formidable of these was Hakim (996-1020), who
claimed divine honours, and became the founder of the sect of
the Druses of Mount Lebanon. His was the period of the great
persecution of non-Moslems in Egypt.
All this combined to make a great effort on the part of
Christendom against Islam a political as well as a religious
necessity. Not only was there a danger that the Holy Sepulchre
might no longer be accessible to the devout, but it appeared
as though the Turks might at any time capture Constanti-
nople. Yet a campaign of the Western Christians against the
Moslem power had certain favourable prospects.
Since 1091 the Normans had been masters of Sicily, which
had long been occupied by the Saracens; and if the Byzantines
had lost ground, they at least held all the islands of the iEgean
148 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Sea together with Crete and Cyprus. Regarded in a purely
secular aspect, therefore, an attack by the Christian world on
that of the Moslems was no means without prospect of success,
had it only been possible for the two Churches and Empires
to act in harmony. But the arrogant ambition of Michael
Cerularius in reviving the ancient grievances of Constantinople
against Rome had made such a combination difficult. A pre-
text had, however, to be found in order to unite the races o^
the West in the enterprise.
The victories of the Crescent did not put an end to pil-
grimages to Jerusalem by Christians, which the Arab con-
querors had understood and appreciated. Just at the time of
Charles the Great's coronation at Rome, the Caliph Haroun'
al Rashid granted the Western Emperor the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre: thus Charles became the patron of the Chris-
tians visiting Palestine. The Prankish Monarch continued to
be recognised as the Christian protector of pilgrims till the
eleventh century.
With the accession of the Fatimid dynasty the benevolent
attitude of the Moslem rulers towards the Christian pilgrims
ceased, and in 1009 Hakim destroyed the church of the Holy
Sepulchre; and his persecution of his Jewish and Christian
subjects lasted till 1020. In 1027 Constantine VHI made a
treaty with Al-Zahir, son of Hakim; and thus the Byzantine
Emperors became protectors of the Christians. The church
of the Sepulchre was rebuilt and finished in 1048, when Con-
stantine IX (Monomachus) was Emperor and Nicephorus
patriarch of Constantinople. During the eleventh century
pilgrimages were constant; and those who joined them ex-
perienced little serious trouble. The conversion of Hungary
opened a convenient route for the peoples of Western Europe;
hostels were established by the way, and men became
familiar with the different roads to the Holy Places. Even the
schism of the Churches failed to stay the flood of pilgrims,
who sometimes went in companies numbering thousands. It was
really the success of the Turks, and the grave peril of the
Eastern Christian world, which aroused Western Europe to
THE CRUSADES 1 49
make an effort to deliver the places most holy in the eyes of
believers from infidels more barbarous and cruel than the orig-
inal followers of the Prophet. The first to suggest an expedi-
tion analogous to a crusade was Gregory VII in the early years
of his pontificate. In a letter to Henry IV the Pope offered
himself to go at the head of an army to deliver the oppressed
Christians of the East. But it was not for twenty-two years
that definite steps to this end were taken.
Popular opinion attributes the preaching of the Crusades
to the fervent eloquence of Peter the Hermit, who went
throughout Europe proclaiming the suffering and degradation
to which the Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem were subjected.
That he was a preacher of the holy war is certain; but nearly
half a century had to elapse before he was generally credited
with having originated the plan to deliver Palestine from
the infidel. The idea as has been remarked was due to Gregory
VII, and took shape ten years after his death under his next
successor but one. If the credit of inaugurating the movement
belongs to Urban II, he must have been a man of exceptional
sagacity and political insight. At the council of Piacenza (1095),
at the very moment the fortunes of Henry IV had reached
their nadir, with his rebellious son Conrad supported by
the Church, with his wife making charges of unmentionable
atrocity against him, which were accepted without hesitation
by the assembled prelates. Urban proclaimed his grand scheme
for saving the Eastern Empire from the Moslems, and rescuing-v
the Holy Sepulchre from profanation. Nor did he appeal to
the irrational impulse which led the humbler classes to start
on a journey eastward in tumultuous disorder; he summoned
the best armies of Europe to lay aside their feuds and unite
to save Christendom. The expedition if successful promised
unbounded glory and influence for the clergy of the West and
for the Holy See. With the Western Empire at his feet humbled
in the person of Henry IV, with the Eastern Caesar acknowl-
edging him as his deliverer, with an army consisting of the
flower of European chivalry marching at his command, the
mastery of the world seemed within the grasp of the Vicar of
150 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Christ. All that Gregory VII had striven for — the Christian-
ization of all men and the formation of a league of nations
living in peace and harmony — -might be attained by the new
movement under the Roman Church.
As a Frenchman, Urban II sought for help to further his
bold policy in his own country; and Clermont was the scene of
the inauguration of the first crusade. The fact that the crusad-
ing impulse emanated from a French pope and found its chief
adherents on French soil has had a powerful influence on the
world policy of subsequent centuries; for France has never
lost sight of the claim she then acquired to play a prominent
part in the affairs of the nearer East. Urban's speech as re-
ported played on every string of the human nature of the age.
It appealed to the romantic spirit, to the desire of glory, to
the hope of certain entry into heaven, to the prospect of the
wealth of the conquered enemies. He promised remission of
penance to all who should take the Cross; and from the Council
of Clermont, as is admitted even by Roman Catholics, dates
the relaxation of the discipline of the Church, which was so
fatal to the morality of later ages. The enthusiasm was im-
mense: with cries of "God wills it," multitudes took the cross.
Nor was this a mere form; all the terrors of excommunication
threatened crusaders who would not go when called upon.
Everywhere the bishops were enjoined to preach the Crusade.
But the enthusiasm was not confined to the class whom it was
desired to reach. Owing to the preaching of Peter the Hermit
and others, the humblest were seized with a restless mania
to wander in search of Jerusalem. Whole families moved
from home with all their belongings in ox wagons, the
credulous people asking when they saw a distant city, "Is this
Jerusalem?" These irregular bands spread devastation on all
sides; first they pillaged and massacred the Jews, then they
rendered themselves intolerable in Hungary where many
perished at the hands of the enraged inhabitants. Arrived at
Constantinople the Emperor Alexius Comnenus let them cross
into Asia Minor where most were annihilated by the Turks.
Few returned of the irregular armies which under Walter the
THE CRUSADES I5I
Pennyless started in quest of the Holy Sepulchre. The real
Crusade was conducted with more deliberation and under dif-
ferent auspices.
There were four armies. The first, under Godfrey de Bouil-
lon, Duke of Lower Lorraine and his brother Baldwin, followed
the Danube; they then passed through Hungary and reached
Constantinople on December 23, 1096. A second, led by Hugh,
brother of Philip I of France, Robert, son of William the
Conqueror, and Stephen, Count of Blois, embarked from Apulia
and crossed to Dyrrachium, whence they took the Egnatian
way to Constantinople. This army reached Constantinople by
May, 1097, and there joined the main force at Nicea. The
Southern French, under the Count of Toulouse, formed the
third army and were accompanied by the Bishop of Puy, the
papal legate. After a toilsome journey through Servia and
Dalmatia these came to Constantinople at the end of April,
1097. The Normans of Southern Italy, under Robert Guis-
card's eldest son Bohemond, and his nephew Tancred, formed
the fourth army. By May, 1097, the entire crusading force
was in Asia Minor. In June Nicea was taken by the Crusaders
, from the Turks, and on July ist their victory on the plains of
Dorylaeum opened to their army the road across Asia Minor.
The first principality founded by the Westerns in the East
was that of Edessa, taken by Baldwin, brother of Godfrey de
Bouillon on March 9, 1098. On June 2, 1098, Antioch was in
the hands of the Crusaders. It was nearly a year before the
march to lerusalem was resumed; and the Crusaders were dis-
tracted by their intestine disputes and by the factions of the
Count of Toulouse and the Norman chiefs. The possession of
Jerusalem at this time was disputed by the Turks and the
Fatimites of Egypt and the Egyptians had retaken the city
from their rivals in August, 1098. The Christian army appeared
before its walls in June, 1099, and on July 15th the city was
captured. Every excess conceivable seems to have been per-
petrated by the crusading army, and their victory was marked
by a series of unspeakable atrocities.
The news that Jerusalem was in Christian hands, naturally
152 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
caused much enthusiasm in Europe, and the crusading armies
were largely reinforced, the Germans who had thus far held
aloof being now infected by the common enthusiasm. Though
the difficulties of the victorious hosts were still considerable,
they set to work to organize the various Christian principal-
ities which had been founded, on a plan which is an excellent
illustration of the operation of feudal law.
The first Crusade had left the whole coast between Egypt
and Asia Minor in Christian hands. Its divisions were (i) the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, which stretched southward as far as
the Red Sea and northward to the Lebanon; (2) the Duchy of
Tripoli, north of the Kingdom; (3) the Principality of Antioch;
and (4) the Duchy of Edessa. Under a single capable head these
provinces might united have proved a formidable bulwark of
Christendom despite the ever threatening menace of the
Moslems. But the conquest had been inspired by the Pope and
accomplished by feudal barons, mostly French, and the terri-
tory it had acquired had the disadvantage of being governed
by an aristocratic theocracy. Still, considering its dangerous
position and the defects of its government, it prospered wonder-
fully. At the head was the king of Jerusalem, whose power was
jealously limited by his barons in their Court of Liegemen or
High Court; supplemented by the Court of Burgesses. In every
fief the power of the lord was restrained by a mixed assembly
of knights and burgesses. In fact a parliamentary govern-
ment was set up in a new country, unimpeded by tradition or
ancient prescriptive rights; and in the constitution of the
crusading kingdom of Jerusalem there is a practical attempt
to realise the ideal government of the eleventh century.
Military service was made more efi^ective than in other feudal
kingdoms. The king was the commander of the army which was
bound to serve not for a limited period, but for the whole war.
But the soldiers received pay, and were indemnified for the
loss of their horses and animals.
But although the feudal army of the kingdom of Jerusalem
was an improvement on those of Europe, it could not have the
same efficiency as a professional soldiery. This was supplied
THE CRUSADES 1 53
by the monastic military orders, the first of which was the
Hospitallers. They were founded for the purpose of defending
pilgrims and caring for the sick; but in 11 13, under Gerard de
Puy, they became a military order, pledged to fight the infidel
in defence of the Christian states. In 11 18 nine knights vowed
to the Patriarch of Jerusalem to observe a rule of poverty,
chastity and obedience. The king gave them a lodging near the
Temple and they called themselves "Knights Templars."
This famous order was divided into three grades: Knights, all
of whom were noble; Sergeants, belonging to the middle class;
and Chaplains. These two orders formed the standing army of
the Prankish conquerors of Palestine and were free alike of civil
and episcopal control, being subject only to the Pope. They
held all the strongest fortresses in the country as well as im-
mense estates in Europe. They were indeed one of the strongest
organizations in the world, combining the monastic and mili-
tary professions, both of which were held in the highest esteem.
The Latin Church was also firmly established. The Patri-
archate of Jerusalem was the spiritual lord of the Holy Land,
and of hardly less importance than the king. He ruled over
five metropolitans. There were also numerous and wealthy
monasteries. The various bodies separated from the Greek
Church, Nestorians, Monophy sites, etc., hastened to unite to
the Church and their adherents formed the middle class in
Christian Palestine.
Trade also developed rapidly and the Christian world came
in touch with the far East. Certainly the advantages of the
Crusades were not all either religious or sentimental. New
wealth was created, new ideals inaugurated, fresh energy given
to the society of the Western world. As has been shown, an
ideal feudal government had been evolved of a limited mon-
archy, with all classes represented and a great impulse towards
Christian unity had begun. It is now necessary to see wherein
were the elements of failure.
The Eastern Empire could not free itself from jealousy at
the progress of the barbarian Franks of the West. Yet the
struggle was not between the rival Emperors; for the German
154 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Csesars, Henry IV and V and Lothar, took no part in the
Crusades. The crusading kingdom was in fact an international
enterprise — all nations contributed to its population, though
the main element was French. But the fatal effects of the
movement were hereafter to be seen in the blow it struck
at the power of Constantinople, the real bulwark of Christian
Europe.
The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and its dependent prin-
cipalities, instead of maintaining good relations with the only
neighbouring Christian power, was at constant variance with
the Byzantines. It was the policy of the Emperors to regard
Antioch as a fief and to make the crusading princes do homage
for their possessions. This the Prince of Antioch and the Count
of Edessa rendered with much reluctance; and, as though they
had not enough to do to guard their dominions against the
encroaching Moslem powers, they had not the prudence to
conciliate the Greeks.
At the end of 1144 Edessa was captured by the Atabek of
Mossul and in the following year Pope Eugenius III, under
the more powerful influence of St. Bernard, declared for a
crusade. At Vezelay, in France, and at Spires, in Germany,
the eloquence of Bernard prevailed and the crusade was com-
manded by Louis VII, king of France, and the Emperor
Conrad III. If this, the second crusade, lacked the spontaneous
enthusiasm of the first, at least it embarked under more
specious auspices, preached by the leading saint and most
influential churchman of the age, and supported by the two
great monarchs of the Latin West. But it ended in a pitiable
disaster and the conduct of the German soldiers on the march
completely alienated the sympathy of the Byzantine Christians.
The French were better disciplined and less obnoxious to the
Greeks; nevertheless it is significant that Louis VII was ad-
vised to attack Constantinople in conjunction with Roger,
king of Sicily. The diplomacy of Manuel Comnenus prevented
this alliance, the idea of which was carried out little more than
a generation later.
In most popular accounts of the Crusades little or noth-
THE CRUSADES 1 55
ing is frequently related about the Eastern Empire; and
it used to be very widely assumed that the Byzantine
Caesars were effeminate princes who spent their lives in luxu-
rious retirement, hedged in by a ridiculous court etiquette,
whilst their dominions were being steadily diminished. It is
therefore necessary to remind the reader that from 108 1 to
1 181 there were three successive Emperors with long reigns,
all distinguished above their contemporaries for their pru-
dence, goodness and martial vigour. Despite the crushing
defeat of Romanus Diogenes by the Seljukian Turks in
1071 and the establishment of the sultanate of Rum in the
heart of Asia Minor, the Eastern Empire was still a great
naval and military power, which even the Normans were
compelled to respect. All the house of Comnenus were men
of distinction; and the three Emperors whose reign covers
the twelfth century were worthy of being classed among the
great rulers of the world. Alexius Comnenus, who received
the Empire at the point of extinction and restored it to a
position of influence, was, as is witnessed by his attitude
towards the Crusaders, one of the most prudent of princes.
His son John, according to a popular story called by his sub-
jects John the Handsome, because, though insignificant and
unsightly in appearance, his was the best of rulers, has been
called the Byzantine Marcus Aurelius. John's successor,
Manuel, was an intrepid, if not always successful warrior,
as fearless in exposing himself to danger as any French
or Norman knight. The adventures of Andronicus, the last of
this series of emperors, are in themselves a veritable romance.
It is now no longer possible to draw a sharp contrast between
the vigorous and progressive Franks and the effeminate Greek
rulers of the twelfth century.
The rise of Nour-ed-din, and later of Salah-ed-din, better
known as Saladin, brought about a third expedition from the
West. Egypt had been under the sway of the Fatimite caliphs,
who were not orthodox; and to this was in part due the weak-
ness of the Moslem world. The kingdom of Jerusalem was
already extending southward and a Christian conquest of Egypt
156 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
was at one time conceivable. But the rise of a great leader
gave strength and unity to Islam, and was the signal for the
downfall of the Christian kingdom. In 11 54 Nour-ed-din
from Damascus began to threaten the Christian principality
of Antioch. But though he took prisoner Bohemond III and
the Count of Tripoli the power of the Comnenian emperors
was too great to allow him to attack Antioch itself. Nour-ed-
din died in 1174, and the victorious career of Saladin began.
Master of the Mohammedan world of Egypt, Syria, and the
possessions of the Seljukian Turks in Asia Minor, Saladin
completely hemmed in the Christian states in the East; but
it was not he who provoked the quarrel which led to their
downfall. To this the collapse of the dynasty of the Comneni
contributed; for the last of that able house, Andronicus, a
brutal but not incapable tyrant, made way for Isaac Angelus,
under whom the ancient vigour of New Rome seemed to de-
cay. But the disorganization of the Christian states in Syria,
due in part to the fact that the Templars owned no ruler but
the absent Pope, brought about the catastrophe. Renaud de
Chatillon, the Grand Master, disregarding the treaty between
the Christians and Moslems, attacked a caravan and captured
Saladin's sister. This was the signal for war and the Christian
army was utterly defeated by the Lake of Tiberias in July,
1 187; and on October 2d of the same year Saladin entered
Jerusalem. Only Tyre and Antioch remained in Christian
hands. The work of nearly a century was undone: a third
crusade became necessary.
But the Europe in which the holy war was preached was
not that of Urban II, of Godfrey de Bouillon, and of Peter
the Hermit. The appeal of Pope Clement III was readily
responded to by the princes of Europe; but there was none of
the popular enthusiasm of the First Crusade. Policy as much as
piety moved the armies of the Cross.
There were two expeditions — ^the German under the Em-
peror Frederic Barbarossa; and the French and English,
commanded respectively by Philip Augustus and Richard
Cceur de Lion. The imperial army, numbering, according to
THE CRUSADES 1 57
the chroniclers, a hundred thousand men or more, took the
land route through the Byzantine dominions. Their advance
was marked by a violence and brutality which still further
alienated the sympathies of the Greeks from the cause of the
crusaders. On June 10, 1 190, a disastrous accident cost the
Emperor Frederic I his hfe when crossing a river in Asia Minor,
and put an end to the expedition. Only a few plague stricken
survivors of the great army reached the crusading force be-
fore St. Jean d'Acre. The crusade centred itself around this
city, the siege of which is one of the most famous in history.
From 1 1 89 to 1 191 it resisted the Immense Christian army; but
in the end it capitulated.
Richard I of England on his way to the Holy Land was
driven to the shores of Cyprus and captured the island from
Isaac Comnenus, who had been proclaimed emperor by the in-
habitants. This was the first direct blow struck by a crusader
against the Empire of Constantinople, which never recovered
the island thus unscrupulously seized by the English monarch.
Richard sold Cyprus, first to the Templars, and later to Guy
de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem. But despite the capture of
Acre and the valour of Cceur de Lion, the Third Crusade did
not succeed in taking Jerusalem. The quarrels among the
crusading chiefs, notably Philip Augustus and Richard, made
concerted action impossible and even the death of Saladin in
1 193 did not enable the Christians to gain the Holy City. All
that Richard could do, not by arms but by negotiation, was
to secure English pilgrims access to Jerusalem.
The last act of the drama of the long Third Crusade,
which lasted till 1198, was an attempt of the imperial house of
Hohenstaufen, under Henry VI, to gain supremacy in the East.
But the emperor died at Messina, September 28, 1197, and in
the following year peace was signed and the Christians left
in possession of the port of Beyrout. One of the permanent
results of the German crusade was the establishment of the
Teutonic Order on the model of the Hospitallers and Templars.
The fame of these knights was, however, destined to be gained
far away from Palestine.
158 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The story of the Crusades is by no means finished in 11 98;
but the spirit of the first soldiers of the Cross was already
practically dead. Though doubtless unaware of the fact, most
of the princes who took the Cross were fighting, not a holy
war, but one with the object of finding an outlet for the com-
merce of Europe. The ports of Palestine, not the Holy Sepul-
chre, was the chief object of most expeditions. The pure en-
thusiasm of an earlier day had vanished, and given way to the
modern theory that the "trade follows the flag." The Fourth
Crusade about to be described is one of the most shameful
episodes in Christian history.
Innocent III, who was chosen £ope in 1198, was in some
respects the ablest of all the medieval pontiffs. Cardinal
Lothar, of the noble house of Segni, was elected at the age of
thirty-eight, and threw into his task the energy of youth com-
bined with the ripe experience of a man bred to the work of
administration. The political situation at the time of his ac-
cession was unusually delicate. The Norman ascendancy in
Sicily had passed by marriage into the hands of the Emperors
of the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, and the power of
Germany in the East was becoming formidable to the papal
influence. Henry VFs crusade was, in fact, a menace to the
papal power; as already the idea of annexing the empire of the
Greeks by seizing Constantinople had been broached. With
the city of Rome and the papal dominions held as in a vice by
a monarch, master of Northern and Southern Italy, especially
if he also possessed Constantinople and could support the
claims of its Patriarch, the hope that the Papacy could control
the world would be at an end. Innocent III recognised this;
and resolved that the next crusade after the death of Henry
VI must be a papal, not an imperial, thrust to the East. For
this reason he devoted himself heart and soul to the project.
In two respects the Fourth Crusade resembled the First. Its
leaders were not kings; and it is associated with the preaching
of Fulk of Neuilly, as the First was with that of Peter the Her-
mit. The principal crusaders were the Count of Champagne,
Simon de Montfort (the elder), the Count of Blois and GeofFry
THE CRUSADES 159
of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne, and the historian
of the war. Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, had been chosen
as commander when the army was ready for departure. But the
real directing power was not that of Pope, preacher, or prince,
but the Venetians, the most active traders of this age.
The expedition was planned to embark at Venice. The
nobles and their retainers on their arrival found all prepared
to convey them to their destination upon payment of their
fares. As the money was not forthcoming, the Venetians in-
sisted on their working for it by assisting in the capture of the
Christian city of Zara from the king of Hungary. The scandalous
agreement was opposed by the better crusaders; but the ex-
pedition started accompanied by Dandolo, the blind Doge of
Venice, who himself took the Cross. Zara was captured in
November, 1202.
Affairs in Constantinople invited western intervention. The
emperor, Isaac Angelus, had been blinded and deposed; and
his successor Alexius III, was bidding against his nephew
Alexius, the scrn of Isaac. The Pisans, the commercial rivals of
the Venetians,' were favoured by the reigning Emperor, and the
Venetians, who naturally supported the deposed Isaac and his
son, persuaded the crusader-S-to^o to Constantinople in order
to restore the rightful sovereign. The semibarbarous Latins
were amazed at the sight of the beautiful city, which had sur-
vived all the devastation of the Dark Ages and lay before their
eyes in all its splendor. But the glories of New Rome neither
daunted their courage nor moved them to compunction. There
were two sieges, in 1203 and 1204; and on April 13th the im-
perial city was abandoned to the brutality of the crusaders.
Its wealth was pillaged, the art of antiquity perished, the
altars and shrines were not spared, and piety throughout
Europe was stimulated by gifts of relics ravished from the
churches of the Greeks. This amazing crime was followed by
the establishment of the short-lived Latin Empire in Constan-
tinople. No one protested more earnestly and vigorously against
what had been done than Innocent III; but he was obliged to
submit to the inevitable and to recognise the new order.
k.
l6o INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY "
Before, however, describing the establishment of the Latin
kingdom it is necessary to review the situation. Throughout
the twelfth century the Greeks had shown themselves full of
vigour and enterprise. Despite the inrush of the Seljukian
Turks and the establishment of the sultanate of Rum, they had
held their own and even compelled the Latin princes of Syria
to acknowledge their supremacy. Three emperors, men of
ability, reigned, as has been already stated, for ninety-nine
years — Alexius I, famed for his skilful diplomacy, John for his
virtue, and Manuel, the knight errant of the Eastern Empire.
With the fall of the Comneni virtue seemed to have gone out
of the Greeks; but even then they were able to recover suffi-
ciently once more to set up their native princes in Constantinople
in 1 261. But the conduct of the crusaders had done worse than
weaken the ancient Empire, the eastern bulwark of the Chris-
tian world. Richard I, by taking Cyprus, and the Venetians and
their allies, by sacking Constantinople, completed the schism
provoked by the ambition of Michael Cerularius and aggra-
vated by the arrogance of the Latin envoys in excommuni-
cating the Patriarch in his own cathedral. Henceforward dis-
trust of the Latins became rooted in the Greek mind; and
Western Christianity appeared more dangerous than Islam
itself. Cooperation was henceforward almost impossible and
the empire of Turkey in Europe, though deferred for more than
two centuries, became inevitable.
The news that Constantinople was taken was received with
enthusiasm in the West. The Pope, though he had excommu-
nicated the Venetians for turning a crusading army against
Christians, was compelled to accept the situation. By his con-
sent a Latin Empire and Patriarchate were established. The
choice of the electors to the Empire fell not, as might have been
expected, upon Boniface of Montferrat, but on account of the
opposition of the Venetians, upon Baldwin, Count of Flanders.
The Patriarchate was given by the Venetians to their country-
man Moroslnl. The new empire was organised on purely feudal
lines, and lacked the coherence indispensable to the rule of
foreigners; the Church, despite the prudent efforts of Innocent
J
THE CRUSADES l6l
III and his legate the Cardinal of St. Susanna, was arrogantly
Latin. The Greeks set up independent kingdoms, the most
notable being the Empire of Nicaea, which became the rallying
point of the discontented clergy as well as laity. At last Michael
Palaeologus obtained the assistance of the Genoese against the
Venetians, who had hitherto been masters of the situation, and
by their aid, the last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, evacuated
Constantinople in 1261, and the Greeks were once more in
possession of their capital.
The opening of the thirteenth century witnessed new de-
partures in the development of Christianity. It is often as-
serted that in this century the high water mark of medieval
civilization was attained. Judged by the men who were born or
flourished within it, the age is one of the most glorious in his-
tory. Innocent III, St. Dominic and St. Francis, Thomas
Aquinas and Dante, to name only the most prominent, would
ennoble any century, but judged by its fruits it is one of the
most disastrous in history. The capture of Constantinople, the
establishment of the Inquisition, following the cruel Albigensian
war, the malignity with which the Popes pursued the house
of Hohenstaufen to its destruction, throw over the period a
cloud of infamy; and not the least of the disgraces of the time
was the perversion and ruin of the Crusades. Within the first
sixteen years, under Innocent III, there occurred, first the
capture of Constantinople, secondly the hideous abuse of the
crusading spirit by directing it, under the same promise of
pardon as was given to those who warred against the infidel,
to wage war against heretics in Christian Europe; and lastly,
those deplorable and unaccountable outbursts of fanaticism,
like the Children's Crusade, with the miserable result of many
wretched children being kidnapped and sold in the slave
markets.
Before the death of Innocent III the Emperor Frederic II
took the Cross; and at the great Council of the Lateran
(121 5) a crusade was proclaimed and was ordered to start on
June I, 1 2 17. But with the Christian states in the West at
hopeless variance, and with the imminence of a struggle be-
l62 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
tween the Papacy and the Empire, which was destined to
throw all earlier ones into the shade, there was but little hope
that Christendom could hold its own against the reviving
strength of Islam. By 1291, with the fall of St. Jean d'Acre,
the last traces of Christian domination in Palestine had en-
tirely disappeared. The causes which led to this result and ul-
timately to the appearance of the Turks in Europe must now
be considered.
The crusade begun in 121 8 differed from the earlier ones on
the principal attack being delivered against Egypt, and in the
political game which throughout its course was being played be-
tween the Church and Empire. Frederic II ought to have
been the leader; but for nine years he repeatedly made prep-
arations to start and deferred doing so. In the meantime
the conduct of the expedition was in the hands of the papal
legate, and of Jean de Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, whose
daughter Frederic had married. Frederic's delays, and his known
ambitions, so provoked the Pope that Gregory IX actually
excommunicated him on September 19, 1227; and Frederic II's
expedition to the East in the following year transferred the
bitter quarrel to the scene of the Crusade. The Grand Masters
of the Orders of Knighthood forbade their soldiers to obey
the excommunicated Emperor, and the friars openly preached
against him. Nevertheless Frederic succeeded where others
had failed; and by peaceful negotiation Jerusalem, Nazareth
and Bethlehem were handed over to the Christians in 1229.
But it was only for a short time. The quarrel between
Frederic II and the Papacy divided Europe and the Christian
power in the East decayed. Then came the Mongol invasion,
which threatened Germany and even Venice, and overspread
Hungary with ruin. Turning southward the Mongols made a
treaty with the Sultan of Egypt, and in 1244 Jerusalem once
more passed out of Christian hands.
Rightly to understand the disasters to the Christian cause
in the following years it is necessary to follow closely the
politics of Western Europe, the currents and cross currents of
which made the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem inevitable.
THE CRUSADES 163
The only character, among the leading men, who emerges with
credit is Louis IX of France, one of the few monarchs who
attained to sanctity by the honest discharge of his duty and
by his capacity to show himself superior to the factions, whether
imperial or papal, which divided Christendom, and almost
brought it to ruin. In 1248 Louis embarked for Egypt and in
the following year, on June 7th, he captured Damietta. In De-
cember he advanced on Babylon (Cairo) to meet with a fatal
defeat in which the Christian army was destroyed and the king
and his brother, Charles of Anjou, made prisoners. Louis was
liberated on condition of his evacuating Damietta and paying
a large ransom; but he stayed in the Holy Land for four years
trying to strengthen the cause of the Cross and to obtain
favourable treatment for the Christian prisoners in Egypt. It
was not till 1254, on hearing of the death of his mother Blanche
of Castile, who had acted as regent, that he returned to France.
But the Christian cause was being lost, not in Palestine and
Egypt, but at home. The popes were bent on the destruction
of the power of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Frederic II died
in 1250 and the popes involved themselves in a policy which
was destined to destroy their influence by placing their defence
in the hands of Charles of Anjou. That ambitious prince shat-
tered the last hope of the Hohenstaufen at the battle of Taglia-
cozzo in 1268, became king of the two Sicilies, and attempted
to carry out for his own benefit the policy of Henry VI and
Frederic 11. For this reason all plans for uniting Europe in a
crusade were thwarted; and even the union of the Greek and
Latin churches, proclaimed at Lyons in 1274, was prevented
by the selfish schemes of the Christian princes. The crusade
of Louis IX against Tunis in 1270 was marked by the death
of the royal saint whose enterprises have been the cause of the
French ambitions in Mohammedan lands, which revived in the
nineteenth century. In addition to the strife of princes in Eu-
rope, the two mercantile powers of Venice and Genoa were
striving for the trade supremacy in the East, and were quite
prepared to sacrifice that of Christianity in order to defeat
one another in the race for wealth. The crusading spirit was
164 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
in fact dead. The mamelukes of Egypt who had succeeded to
the dynasty of Saladin once more gained, from Christian and
Mongol alike, the supremacy of Palestine. St. Jean d'Acre,
the last great crusading stronghold, surrendered after a
glorious defence; and in 1291 the kingdom of Jerusalem came
to an end.
To understand the crusading movement it is necessary to
disabuse the mind of two opposite prejudices. To some the
very name crusade suggests romance. The soldiers of the Cross
are in sharp contrast to all other warriors. Inspired by a high
ideal they left home and lands to fight for a cause which could
bring them no profit in this world. To save the Sepulchre of
Christ, the scenes of His labours, and of our redemption, they
dedicated their arms to His service. This makes the Middle
Ages with all their faults superior to those of the modern world.
Then men were ready to do and to dare all for what they be-
lieved to be the will of God, and the recumbent figure of the
knight in an ancient church, with his hands in the attitude of
prayer and his legs crossed, is a reminder that there was a time
when men had nobler ideals than we now cherish.
On the other hand, there are those to whom the crusades
appear to be the crowning point of human folly and ecclesi-
astical wickedness. The Church, according to these, stirred up
the worst of men to attack a people more advanced in civili-
zation, and induced them to go to their ruin by vain promises
of future happiness. The crusades are the ripened fruit of the
ignorance, prejudices, and superstition of the Dark Ages.
They are the crowning crime of medieval Europe, the supreme
example of that infatuation which a bad religion is able to
inspire.
Neither estimate is true. The noble spirit of the crusades
was by no means universal, nor was the folly everywhere ap-
parent. The crusades were the outcome of the awakening of
Western Europe in the eleventh century. It was not senseless
fanaticism which made men realise the importance of Palestine.
True they were attracted by the thought that it was the scene
of the Saviour's life, but it was also the key to the Empire and
THE CRUSADES 165
commerce of the East. It was the base also from which Egypt
could be won back for the Christian world, and this project
seemed at times capable of being accomplished. The crusades
^ were in short an attempt to solve the problem of today — the
■ settlement of the question of the nearer East. They failed be-
cause the powers of the West could not be brought to co-
operate. Each feared the others' success. When the Papacy
seemed likely to be the chief gainer, the Empire intervened;
when the German sovereigns appeared to be in the way of
establishing themselves as the Christian masters of the Medi-
terranean, France stepped in to secure the prize. The Byzan-
tines, in the days of their power under the Comneni, tried to
secure the lands conquered by the Franks, and the Franks re-
taliated by abusing the weakness of Constantinople. Properly
conducted the crusades might have saved Europe untold suffer-
ing. The chances of success were often of the brightest. But
all was marred by the disorganization of the armies of the
Cross, and the anarchy of the Christian states in the East.
Not for the last time did the crusades show the futility of the
concert of the powers, the joint action of Christian armies,
spheres of influence, and leagues of nations. If they succeeded
better than some modern attempts and had more durable re-
sults, they failed for very similar reasons.
The loss of St. Jean d'Acre in 1291 is one of the landmarks
of the Middle Ages. Christendom, which had been constantly
advancing during the previous centuries, began to recede not
only in the territory which it occupied in its ideals. It was the
same in one sense with its great rival, the religion of Mo-
hammed. True this was destined vastly to increase the sphere
of its influence; but whereas, till the death of Saladin it had
competed with Christianity as a civilizing power, after the
middle of the thirteenth century it became identified with
barbarism.
The reason for this decline is to be found in the rise of the
Mongol power in the remote East. The hordes of barbarians
who had overwhelmed the Roman world in Europe had all
acknowledged the religion of the Cross and were incorporated
1 66 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
In the churches of Old or New Rome. But with the rise of the
mighty empire of Genghis Khan in central Asia the Mongols
overran Eastern Europe, reduced Russia to subjection, and
spread terror throughout Hungary and the Balkans. Others es-
tablished their authority in Persia, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor,
and Syria.
The invaders at first maintained a strict impartiality as to
religion. Nestorian Christians were in their army and the
Khans showed an interest in the Faith, nor did they reject
the preachers of Catholic doctrine. In fact the Christians
looked not without hope towards the invaders to assist them
against Islam. For a brief period there was a surprising revival
of missionary activity in the Western Church, into which the
Friars threw themselves with enthusiasm. China seemed to be
opening to their efforts and the travels of such men as the
Polos, Venetian merchants, paved the way for the Gospel.
Although there were no more Christian expeditions to con-
quer the Holy Land, the interest in the crusades had by no
means ceased, and, if the pen had been mightier than the
sword, Jerusalem would have been easily brought under the
dominion of the Cross. A literature to account for the failure
of the crusades sprang up and innumerable theories were ad-
vanced to secure future success. The rising school of French
lawyers were especially active, notably Pierre Dubois of
Coutances, and William of Nogaret. In 1307 Dubois ad-
dressed his treatise, "On the recovery of the Holy Land" to
Edward I of England, who had always taken an interest in
the crusades, since his own expedition to the East in 1270.
Like all other writers Dubois attributed the loss of Palestine
to the discords among the Christian princes. To remedy this
evil a general council was to be held to reconcile them all, and
engage them in the great enterprise. The Church was to be
purified by the confiscation of its property, and the Cardinals
were to live in holy poverty in France, whither the Pope was
to repair after ceding his temporal power to Philip the Fair.
Above all the quarrels of the two military orders were to be
ended by the fusion of the Templars and the Hospitallers into
THE CRUSADES 1 67
a single body. With the immense church revenues a Christian
army was to be formed of which each prince was to contribute
his quota. The armies of the different nations were to be
strictly disciplined and to march each under its own banner,
and distinguished from the others by a peculiar uniform. Each
city was to have its own "dux beUi." But, as the real obstacle
to success was the persistent commerce which the Christians
carried on with infidels, an international court of three bishops
and three laymen was to be created, with power to punish
any nation guilty of treasonable intercourse with the enemy.
Schools were to be established to teach oriental languages, and
to promote intercourse with the Christians of the East. Such
were the theories advanced in the book De recuperatione
Terra Sancta. William of Nogaret was more intent on the
practical scheme of ruining the Order of the Templars for the
benefit of the French crown. This crime, as will appear here-
after, for whatever may have been the faults of the Knights,
there is no doubt as to their military efficiency, was perpetrated
by intrigue with the Papacy, and by legal chicane.
But everything in the fourteenth century contributed to
the abandonment of the East by the Western powers of Europe.
The papal government had been moved to Avignon in France,
and the prestige of the institution had fallen far below that
which it had previously, and in a measure deservedly, enjoyed.
No longer was it possible for a papal excommunication to con-
vulse a kingdom. In vain did pope after pope launch thunders
against those who dared to trade with Egypt. Spiritual terrors
could not make men disregard the interests of finance. Friar
Florentine of Padua showed that Egypt could be conquered
by a three years' commercial boycott; but this did not prevent
the Venetians from supplying that country with indispensable
commodities, even seUing Christian slaves destined to swell the
ranks of the formidable army of mamelukes. In addition to
this the hundred years' war between England and France had
broken out and prevented either nation from crusading enter-
prises. As for the Empire it was hopelessly weakened by its
strife with the Papacy, and besides the invading Mongols were
1 68 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
threatening its frontiers. The days of the Council of Clermont
with its cry of "God wills it," could never return.
A nobler side to the gloomy picture is the extension of
Western Christian missions in the far East. St. Francis of
Assisi started to preach to the Moslems in 121 2 and a few
years later appeared before the Sultan of Egypt and declared
his message. He was dismissed with the honour which Mo-
hammedans often pay to the inspired even though professing
another religion. It is recorded of him that he endeavoured to
prevent the Christians from engaging in battle with the Sara-
cens, and he left behind him eleven of his disciples to declare
the Gospel. In 1220 a Franciscan province was organized
by Brother Benedict of Arizzo. But the great missionary of
the century was Raymond Lull, who planned his work on al-
most modern Unes. Son of a Catalonian noble who had settled
in Majorca, Lull had lived a secular life devoting his time to
learning and the gay science of the troubadours. Becoming
more serious he abandoned the world after providing for his
wife, and devoted himself to the study of missionary work.
In 1275 he planned his "Grand Art," in which he endeavoured
to combine all knowledge. By his persuasion the King of Ma-
jorca founded a monastery for thirty Franciscan friars to study
Arabic. For ten years Lull gave them instruction, and wrote
Arabic tracts wherewith to convert the Mohammedans. He
recognised that the Gospel could not be propagated by force of
arms, that crusading was the wrong method, and that what
was needed was to try Christ's manner of converting mankind.
He spent his life advocating the cause of his mission before
popes, kings, and councils, notably that of Vienne in 131 1.
He went to Tunis and preached in constant danger of his life,
and after suffering persecution and imprisonment was dis-
covered, though disguised as an Arab, and put to death in
1 3 14, a martyr in his eightieth year.
The remoter East seemed to offer a more promising field,
and in 1253 there was a Society of "Voyagers for Christ"
formed at the suggestion of St. Louis, Peregrinantes proper
ChristuMy founded by Innocent IV and composed of Francis-
THE CRUSADES 169
cans and Dominicans. At the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury most of Asia was part of a vast Mongol empire, the head
of which with the title of "Son of Heaven" made Kambalik
(Pekin) his residence, and his authority extended over China,
Mongolia, Thibet and Indo China. The other great Mongol
kingdoms were those of the Golden Horde — Russia, including
the Caspian and the Ural mountains, Persarmenia, and Trans-
oxiana and Chinese Turkestan. In these the Nestorians had
long laboured with success and the Papal missions were en-
couraged by the patronage of many of the rulers. The golden
age of Latin missionary enterprise was the pontificate of John
XXH (1316-1334), who was constantly sending missionaries,
generally Franciscans and Dominicans, to the remotest parts
of the East. Arch-episcopal provinces were founded, each with
several suffragans. As early as 1279 the Franciscan preachers
had reached China, and in 1308 an archbishop of Pekin was
nominated by the Pope with seven suffragans under him, and
in 13 14 there were no less than fifty Franciscan converts in the
country. Friar Ordeni of Pordenone, an indefatigable traveller
who visited India, traversed the Indian Ocean, and reached
Southern China by sea, testifies to the fact that everywhere
Christians were to be found labouring in the mission field.
But this bright prospect was destined soon to be com-
pletely overclouded. The Mongol dynasty of China was over-
thrown in 1368, and with it the hopes of founding a Christian
Church. There is a mention of an Archbishop of Pekin in 1456,
but it is not known whether he was permitted to reside there.
All trace of the church in China seems to have vanished. The
closing years of the fourteenth century saw the rise of the
famous Timour, or Tamerlane, the conqueror of India. With
him the Mongol power became definitely Mohammedan, em-
bracing the creed of Islam in its most persecuting form. The last
hope of medieval Christianity in the Far East was dissipated
and became scarcely a memory. The noble effort to conquer
the East by the preaching of Christ failed, more creditably it
is true, but as completely as that of subduing Islam by the
sword of the Christian warrior.
170 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
It is now necessary to record the appearance of the most
terrible foe Christianity had yet encountered in the rise of the
Ottoman Turks. With the abandonment of the Holy Land in
1 291 things gradually had gone back to the condition before
the Crusades. The pilgrimages to Jerusalem were resumed and
Franciscan convents were established in connection with
various holy places in Palestine. The Hospitallers had seized
Rhodes, which nominally belonged to the Greeks, but had
become a haunt of pirates. The de Lusignans reigned as kings
of Cyprus, maintaining a formidable navy and a sumptuous
court. Crusades were projected, the princes of Europe at times
solemnly took the Cross, but nothing practical was effected.
The empire of the Greeks decayed but as yet Europe was
practically intact and entirely Christian. At last, in 1366, the
Ottoman Turks gained a footing on the Gallipoli peninsula,
and henceforward Crusades ceased to be offensive and became
defensive wars. Christianity had in the fifteenth century to
fight, not for conquest, but for existence.
AUTHORITIES
For the First Crusade the contemporary authorities are Guibert of No-
gent, Gesta Dei per Francos, an anonymous Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hiero-
solymitorum; Raymond of St. Gilles (Migne, P. L., 156), and Fulcher of
Chartres. William, Archbishop of Tyre (d. 1199), is the writer who makes
Peter the Hermit the originator of the scheme, which none of those who
lived at the time have done. The Greek authority is Anna Comnena, Life
of her Father, the Emperor Alexius Comnenus (Migne, P. G., Vol. 131). The
reader is advised to consult the bibliography to Urban II, in Mann's Lives
of the Popes, Vol. VII, and L. Brehier, L'eglise et I' orient des croisades. He
should of course read Gibbon, Ch. LVIII.
The Feudal Kingdom of Jerusalem and the laws of its Assize are described
in Gibbon at the end of Ch. LVIII. I have found L. Brehier's op cit.. Chap-
ter V, on the organization of the Christian States most useful. See his arti-
cles on "Crusades" and "Jerusalem" in the Catholic Encyclopedia. There are
copious bibliographies in Workman's article on "Crusades" in Hastings'
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. For maps see the works referred to in
Chapter IV. For Medieval Jerusalem use Conder, The City of Jerusalem.
The conduct of the Germans in the Second Crusade is described by Odo
of Deuil, De Profectione Ludovici, VII (Migne, P. Z,., Vol. 135), who repro-
bates the cruelty and wanton destruction they exhibited at Constantinople.
See J. Cotter Morison, Life and Times of St. Bernard, Bk. IV. For the Later
Crusades there is S. Lane Poole's Saladin and E. Pears' Fall of Constanti-
THE CRUSADES 171
nople. Bishop Stubbs edited the original works about Richard I of England's
crusade in the iRo//j^ S^nVj. G. de Villehardouin and Joinville are contempo-
rary authorities for the Capture of Constantinople and the Crusade of St.
Louis IX to Egypt. These are among the oldest books in French prose.
Rennell Rodd, The Princes of Achaia, should be consulted for the Latin
Empire in Byzantium. Brehier, op. cit., is most interesting on the subject
of the plans for a crusade after the fall of Acre. Consult R. Lane Poole,
Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, for Pierre du Bois.
CHAPTER VII
LEARNING AND HERESY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
The Trivium and Quadrivium — Augustine and Dionysius — Cassiodorus — Monas-
tic schools — St. Anselm — Plato and Aristotle — Nominalism and realism —
East and West — Meagreness of the "sciences" — School books — Few books and
much thought — Abelard ^- Anselm of Laon — Abelard a monk — Arnold of
Brescia — St. Bernard — Influence of St. Paul on Christian thought — Marcion —
Paul of Samosata — The Manichaeans — Innovations in the Church — Paulician-
ism — Anticlericalism — The Bogomili — Heresy in the West — Languedoc —
Low condition of the church — The Albigensians — Peter of Brueys — Henry
the Deacon — Rapid spread of heresy — Tolerant attitude of the Church — Cis-
tercians sent Languedoc — St. Dominic — Peter of Castelnau murdered — A
crusade proclaimed — Albigensian war — Persecution.
The mind of the Middle Ages found its best expression in
stone. Whether in the city, the cathedral, or the castle, it is
preeminent for the excellence of its work and the variety of its
design. No two cathedrals are alike, yet scores are poems in
themselves. And it may be truly said that in those days men
not only worked but thought in stone. Out of barbarism they
built a new civilization with hard and durable material. Their
master minds were above all strong, whether Popes like Greg-
ory VII and Innocent III, legalists like the great French and
Norman lawyers, rulers like Edward I of England, saints and
sinners; all alike laboured with a view to the permanence of
their work. Their object was to create a stable religious and
political system, an enduring philosophy and legal code, and
generally to settle all questions on a firm basis. In this attempt
the merits and defects of medievalism are equally apparent.
The educational system was based on the seven liberal arts
as enumerated in A.D. 425 by Martianus Capella, an African
neo-Platonist, in an allegory on the marriage of Philology and
Mercury. The three first — the Trivium — are Grammar, Dia-
lectic, Rhetoric. The remaining. Geometry, Arithmetic, As-
tronomy, and Harmony, make up the Quadrivium. The author
172
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1 73
most used in medieval studies was Anicius Boethius, the min-
ister of Theodoric at Rome and the last of the Latin philos-
ophers, who with Symmachus was for some unknown reason
imprisoned and put to death in A.D. 525. During his imprison-
ment Boethius wrote his De Consolatione Philosophies, for many-
generations one of the most widely read of books. He also pre-
served parts of Aristotle for the Latin world by his translations
and comments, and by his commentary on Porphyry's Intro-
duction to the Categories of Aristotle he provided logical
material for the endless controversies in the medieval schools.
Several theological treatises were also ascribed to him.
The theology was mainly based on Augustine's, but al-
most equally potent was the influence of Dionysius the Areo-
pagite (Acts XVII, 34), the convert of St. Paul, and the first
Bishop of Athens. The writings attributed to him really belong
to the fifth century, and are the work of some neo-Platonic
Christian philosopher. They deal with the two hierarchies of
heaven and earth. God in the Trinity is above all; all, angels
as well as men, are united with God through Jesus. Between
God and man is the ninefold celestial hierarchy, who raise man
to God by the three stages of purification, illumination, and
perfection. The ecclesiastical hierarchy like the celestial is com-
posed of three triads. The three sacraments are Baptism =
purification. Communion = enlightening, Chrism (or anoint-
ing) = perfection. The next triad are the threefold ministry of
Hierarchs, Light Bearers, and Servers. Below these is that of
the Monks, the Laity, and Catechumens. The tendency of these
writings is mystical, their object being the union with the
divine, and they were a powerful stimulus to all medieval
imaginings.
Such were some of the most powerful influences on the
development of medieval thought in its earlier stages, to which
may be added the increasing interest in the law of the Church
as evidenced by the many collections of decretals and canons,
and the devotional services, especially in the various monastic
Breviaries. Despite the prevailing ignorance of Greek in Latin
Europe, Greek ideas had much fascination, though access to
174 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
them was almost invariably second hand. Neo-platonism had
a very important part to play in the development of Western
thought. Before considering this subject, it may be well to
survey briefly the system of instruction which prevailed before
the appearance of what is known as scholasticism.
The honour of first employing Benedictine monks in literary
labour probably belongs to Cassiodorus, long the minister of
the successive barbarian rulers in Italy in the sixth century,
who at the age of seventy retired to Vivarium in the southern
extremity of the peninsula, where he lived a monastic life,
dying in extreme old age. His literary labours were indefati-
gable, but a survey of them is enough to show how much of
his work, and, indeed, of many of the "fathers" is compilation.
His book treats of the art and discipline of the Liberal studies,
and on the Trivium and Quadrivium, which were supposed to
embrace the whole circuit of human knowledge.
In the seventh and eighth centuries learned monks began to
play a considerable part in the life of the time. Monastic
schools flourished, notably in Ireland, where the study of
Greek, and even Hebrew, was diligently followed. Later the
religious houses of England became the homes of learning and
produced men of erudition like Bede, Aldhelm, and Alcuin.
The eleventh century witnessed a remarkable revival of
learning; and scholars began to attract numerous pupils. One
of the earliest was Berengar, whose view of the Eucharist
caused so much perturbation. He was the pupil of Fulbert of
Chartres, whom he succeeded in Tours at the school of St.
Martin in 1029. Later the school of Bee, the monastery founded
by the Norman knight Herluin, into which the learned Italian
Lanfranc was attracted, began to draw away students even
from Berengar; and was destined to become still more famous
under Anselm, who succeeded and eclipsed the fame of Lan-
franc as a teacher at Bee. Both these eminent men became
successively Archbishops of Canterbury. There were also three
great teachers, who handed down their principles one to the
other, Roscelin of Chartres, William of Champeaux and the
celebrated and unfortunate Abelard. All these, orthodox as
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 175
well as those suspected or condemned for heresy, were powerful,
original, and courageous thinkers.
Anselm, though recognised as a saint and doctor of the
Church, was not one of those whose timid orthodoxy is con-
tented with repeating what others have said. He was rather a i
pioneer of a new philosophy, and even of a new theology. An- '•
selm's faith taught him that the doctrine of the Church was 'j
true, and his intellect demanded that it should also be in ac- j
cordance with reason. Accordingly he set to work to discover
the reasonableness of every Christian dogma, and though, as
a believer, he felt bound to accept the teaching of the Church,
as a trained thinker he felt at liberty to reject any explana-
tion which seemed contrary to reason, and to substitute for it
one which, without invalidating the doctrine, made it accord
with the judgment of a fair mind. Thus in his famous Cur
Deus Homo he rejects the venerable explanation that the
death of Christ was a ransom paid to the devil, though it was \
supported by an unbroken chain of patristic testimony, and
substitutes for it the more reasonable theory that Christ of-
fered himself as a satisfaction to the claims of divine justice,
which demands its due before pardon can be given to man- ^
kind. In his opinion every Christian mystery appealed, not
only to the faith, but also to the reason of the believer. As
archbishop Anselm showed himself a most deferential subject
of the Pope; and the" courage with which he defied the kings
of England on behalf of the claims of the Church, is matched
by the resolute stand he made in maintaining the claims of
reason in questions of theology.
The intricacy of the problems, which exercised the minds
of the thinkers of the eleventh century, proves that, however ■
low Europe may have been in political and material civiliza-
tion, its condition was not one of intellectual barbarism, nor is ;
the impatience with which the modern man regards the sub-
ject of their speculations, or his ready condemnation of them
as ignorant and foolish, a proof of the superiority of his intel-
ligence. The period was one in which great restriction of
knowledge was combined with much mental activity.
176 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The question at issue was the old difference between the
spirit of the teaching of Plato and that of Aristotle. The Pla-
tonic theory is that all we perceive by the sense are shadows
of forms (ideas) which truly exist in the super-sensual world.
The real world is the unseen, the objects we perceive are but
types. In this sense men are regarded not as individuals but
as visible indications of the real humanity which can only be
apprehended by the intellect. The tendency of this Realism
is mystical: it regards the whole as all important to the neg-
lect of the parts of which it is composed. In other words per-
sonality is of little account, and the supreme goal of life is
not self-development but the loss of self in God, the Idea of
Ideas. The other method led men to argue in the opposite
direction, from the known to the unknown, and to regard the
form or idea not as a reality but as a name we apply in gener-
alising from the individual to the conception of the genus to
which he belongs. This leads to a higher regard for the parts,
of which the whole is made up, to thinking of mankind as
consisting of individuals, the salvation of each one of whom
is a matter of interest.
From considering universals less as realities than as names
applied to general conceptions, this mode of thinking is called
Nominalism as opposed to Realism. Not that this twofold
method is confined to Greek or scholastic thought. It applies
to all theological and political conceptions, even to the mod-
ern socialistic disregard of individual liberty and development
in the interests of "humanity," an abstraction in which birth,
race, character and countless other factors, play no part.
Such then was the problem of philosophy which men in the
Middle Ages set themselves with varying fortunes to solve. It
will be hereafter shown that so far from being constant, or-
thodox opinion was at one time in favour of the realistSy in
another of the nominalists.
The equipment with which the philosophers of the eleventh
century started on their quest was indeed limited. The mo-
nastic spirit of the age discouraged the study of the classics,
which were read by a few ardent students, not without mis-
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1 77
givings. And the Western student not only had scanty appa-
ratus, but was held within strict limits by the need for main-
taining theological orthodoxy. It is therefore greatly to the
credit of the West that, whilst in Constantinople, with all the
accumulated literary treasures of antiquity, with its schools
and professors, scholarship was tied so firmly to the past as to
make progress of thought well-nigh impossible, in the half 1
barbarous Paris at the close of the eleventh century the
human intellect was preparing to tackle the gravest problem
of philosophy.
It is almost with a shock that one realises how amazingly
simple were the "sciences" of the Trivium and Quadrivium,
that Geometry meant no more than an elementary and mostly
incorrect geography, and that mathematical studies were
mainly directed to the seasons of the Church. There is an in-
teresting description of the books used at Reims by the fa-
mous Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), a ;
man whose learning was so vast that he was gravely sus- '
pected by subsequent generations of being a magician. He used
in his teaching the Isagogues of Porphyry, translated by the
rhetorician Victorinus, and he interpreted these secundum
Manlium, i.e. according to the principles of Boethius. Then
there were the Categories of Aristotle, id est prcedicamentorum
librunij Peri ermenias — the Topica, which were translated by
Tully into Latin, and "expounded by Manlius the consul."
For rhetoric or literature Gerbert taught from three poets,
Virgil, Statius, and Terence, the satirists, Juvenal, Persius,
and Horace, and Lucan the historiographer. Aristotle it
may be remarked was only known as a logician, as none
of his philosophical works had yet penetrated into Western
Europe.
There is in the Library of Caius College, Cambridge, a
manuscript containing a list of books which should be part of
a wide education. Dr. Haskins of Harvard who has edited it
attributes it to the end of the twelfth century; and it is re-
markable the stress it lays on classical studies, which at a late
date were comparatively neglected for the scholastic philos-
178 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
ophy.i The scholar is to have a note-book, the master a ferule
to strike him on the hand for his minor faults, and a cane to
use in extremities. But he is not to have a whip or a "scor-
pion," or to beat the boy cruelly. When the pupil has learned
his alphabet he should read Donatus, the Eclogues of The-
odulus, and the moral compendium attributed to Cato. Then
he is to go on with Virgil, Horace, Lucan, Ovid, some of whose
amatory poetry should be avoided, as also his Fasti. Next
Statius, Cicero's De Oratore, de Amicitia, the TusculanSy de Senec-
tute, etc. He is to read Martial and Petronius (with omissions).
The other authors recommended are Solinus, Sidonius, Quintus
Curtius, Livy, etc. His grammatical text books should be
Donatus and Priscian and he should study prosody. If he
wishes to pursue the liberal arts he must read Boethius, the
Isagogues of Porphyry, and the Categories of Aristotle, also his
Metaphysics, and the De Interpretatione of Apuleius. The other
subjects treated of are astronomy, medicine, church and canon
law.
The last paragraph of the MS is specially interesting as
revealing how the scriptures were regarded. The Old as well as
the New Testament must be studied. First the Pentateuoh or
rather the Heptateuch, which also includes Joshua, and
Judges. Then the pupil should hear Ruth, Kings, and Chron-
icles, and also Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, and Esther.
Happy is he if he meets with Ethe (.?Ezekiel), Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Daniel and the Twelve Prophets. Let him feed the godly medi-
tations of his mind on Job. Let him approach Proverbs, Eccle-
siastes, and Song of Songs. Useful for hearing is Wisdom,
which is ascribed to Philo, and Ecclesiasticus, composed by
Jesus the son of Sirach, as is also the book of Maccabees. No
words can express how profitable are the Psalms. The New
Testament contains the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, the
Canonical Epistles, Acts, and Revelation.
Rightly to understand the mind of Western Europe in the
twelfth century one must grasp the fact that its very meagre
learning, confined to a few books in a single language, was
^Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. xx, 1909.
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1 79
enjoyed by some of the ablest men who have appeared in his-
tory. It was an age of great statesmen, architects, saints and
thinkers, whose work has endured to this day. In it men boldly
tackled some of the most difficult problems of philosophy.
Perhaps they were aided by their very disadvantages. A pro-
found mind if it has few books to feed upon gains strength by
concentration. In an age of active intelligence men who learn
little, think much. The human mind was awakening after a
long sleep but full of renewed strength, and the ignorant
Western Church produced far greater men than the learned
scholars of Byzantium.
Nothing, however, is so illustrative of the learning of the
Middle Ages than the career of Abelard, the most original and
courageous thinker of the twelfth century: Abelard may truly
be called the knight errant of learning of his age. To him
every famous scholar was a rival, whom he burned to contend
and vanquish. The son of a Breton noble, he left his patrimony
to his brothers, and wandered forth in search of adventures in
the schools. He assumed, like Voltaire, a name which was not
his own, and made it immortal. Born in 1079 and dying in
1 142 his career was not the uneventful life of a cloistered
scholar, but one of constant excitement; he enjoyed prosper-
ity and popularity, but also had to bear great reverses. No
scholar of his age could stand before him nor did he ever suc-
cumb till he encountered a saint in the person of Bernard.
Abelard was perhaps originally a pupil of Rocelin, the chief
nominalist of his time, but when about twenty years of age,
he appeared at the episcopal school of Notre Dame at Paris,
nominally as a pupil of William of Champeaux, Archdeacon
and Master of the Cathedral School. William was the cham-
pion of the then orthodox Realism, and the most famous
dialectician in Europe. But he was no match for his young
disciple. Abelard's questions exposed his inferiority to the
whole class and after a long and bitter strife William's school
was emptied and his pupils flocked to the new teacher. Thor-
oughly humbled as a scholar, William received the reward of
his orthodoxy in the bishopric of Chalons, where he could
l8o INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
practice piety under the guidance of Bernard, and enunciate
his opinions without fear of profane interruption.
Having humbled his rival in dialectic, and thereby made
himself enemies without number, Abelard next turned to the
theologians. Anselm of Laon was the most admired expositor
/ of Scripture of his time. Gifted with learning and an amazing
memory, he was a typical professor, in so far that he was
able to tell his pupils all that others had said. Abelard came,
heard, and scoffed. His companions in jest suggested that he
should give a better lecture. He accepted their challenge and
invited them to choose a subject. They offered Ezekiel, one of
the obscurest books in the Old Testament, Abelard presented
himself in the lecture room the next morning. A few came to
laugh at his failure. They retired amazed at his learning, and
day by day his scholars multiplied, leaving their old master to
speak to empty benches. Abelard returned to Paris, and there
took the chair vacated by William of Champeaux. He was
now the most famous teacher in the world, and even the
rumour that he was heretical could not deter men from crowd-
, ing to hear him. His pupils numbered five, or, perhaps, seven
thousand. Rich, handsome and popular he had now reached
the apex of his prosperity.
Then followed his intrigue with the noble Heloise,^ his mar-
riage and the cruel mutilation at the hands of ruffians hired by
her uncle Fulbert. In his disgrace and misery Abelard becarne a
monk of St. Denys in Paris, where he was subjected to end-
less petty persecutions at the hands of his superiors. But he
still had powerful friends and devoted admirers.
Although the monastic spirit dominated Western Europe,
there were two parties, one of which may be called "human-
ist" and the other "rigorist." Abelard since his misfortune
had honestly embraced the monastic life, and his epistles to
Heloise in reply to her ardent letters are in accord with the
ascetic spirit of the age. But in the cloister he was more able
to bring his body than his intellect into subjection, and men
* Abelard was not a priest and probably not even in major orders. The turpitude
of his conduct has been unduly emphasised.
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES l8l
with human sympathies ralHed to him. Suger, Abbot of St.
Denys, one of the first of the great ecclesiastical statesmen
who made modern France, was his friend, so for a time was
Pope Innocent II, and the saintly Abbot of Cluny. Peter the
Venerable was full of admiration for Heloise, and of friend-
ship for Abelard. But the rigorists, who numbered saints in
their ranks, scented danger in the teaching of Abelard, espe-
cially in his Sic et Non, in which he places in opposite columns |
the divergent opinions of the fathers of the Church. At their I
head was Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian ascetic
and mystic, who exerted unbounded authority over successive
popes and virtually dominated the Church of his time. Abe-
lard's books were burnt at Soissons in 1121 and twenty years
later he was brought before a council at Sens. His condemna-
tion was virtually a foregone conclusion and he was hardly
given a hearing. His appeal to Rome was contemptuously dis-
missed. He retired to Cluny where he was placed in the charge
of Peter the Venerable, and treated with much tender consider-
ation till his death in 1142. His nominalism was orthodoxy in
the next century, but had he then been condemned, he would
probably have been burned. This fate befell his pupil, Arnold
of Brescia, a man of sterner stuff than the cultured Abelard.
Abelard, though his orthodoxy was suspected by the Ber-
nards of his day, did nothing to subvert the existing order.
His teaching may have appeared dangerous, his philosophy
unspiritual, and he indulged in freaks of ill-timed erudition,
as when he offended his colleagues in the monastery of St.
Denys, by saying that their patron was not the author, known as
Dionysius the Areopagite. As a monk, however, he made himself
unpopular by trying to reduce the monastery of St. Gildas in
Brittany, of which he was Abbot, to some condition of dis-
cipline and order. He was nevertheless allowed to end his
days in peace. Not so his more turbulent pupil Arnold.
Arnold was a Lombard, a native of Brescia, which, like
other north Italian cities in the twelfth century, was full of
the spirit of civic patriotism. He was a monk with a reputa-
tion for austerity, which even his adversaries could not deny.
1 82 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
He had crossed the Alps to study under Abelard, and returned
to take part in the distracted politics of Brescia. As a monk,
vowed to poverty, Arnold was justified in denouncing the
wealth and luxury of the clergy of his age; and, had he done no
more, not even St. Bernard could have blamed him; but he de-
sired to reform the entire fabric of society on a democratic
basis. In 1139 he appeared before Innocent II's Council of the
Lateran, charged by the Bishop of Brescia, not with heresy,
but with schism of the most serious kind. The assembled pre-
lates condemned him to banishment; and he repaired, first to
Zurich, and finally to those Alpine valleys, where opinions
akin to those of the Waldenses, who afterwards looked up to
him as one of their founders, were held. Like Abelard, Arnold
found friends among men of spotless orthodoxy, and one of
his patrons was pope, though for but five months (1143-1144),
as Celestine II. In the pontificate of Eugenius III (1145-1153)
Arnold appeared in Rome, then the scene of civil disturbances,
owing to the determined efforts of the inhabitants to set up a
republic in the face of the Pope and the aristocracy. He was
excommunicated by Eugenius HI, who had been a Cistercian
monk, and was a devout disciple of St. Bernard. Though pre-
viously unversed in public affairs Eugenius, as Pope, showed
much tact in dealing with the republic and its opposition to
, the temporal power of the Papacy. Arnold, though not the
j nominal head, was a moving spirit in the attempt to place
1 Church and Empire under the people. His eloquence, charm of
manner, and austerity of life won him many admirers, but in
the end he succumbed to the weight of constituted authority.
Hadrian IV, a stern practical Englishman, succeeded Eugenius
III, and dealt firmly with the republicans. For the first time
the Holy City was smitten by a papal interdict. This reduced
the contumacious citizens to submission, and Arnold escaped.
I The Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, and the Pope were for
once in agreement that Arnold must be suppressed. He was
arrested, sent to Rome, and put to death in 1155.
The great opponent alike of Abelard and Arnold was St.
Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, the Peter Damian of another
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1 83
age. Agreeing with his adversaries on the subject of monastic
austerity, and on the need for the reform of the secularly-
minded clergy and religious of his age, he was a firm upholder
of the papal authority, swift to detect the smallest symptom
of independence. He at once recognised the dangers which
might arise if Abelard were allowed freedom of thought, and
Arnold of action, and set himself to oppose the tendencies of
his age. Nor were the gloomy forebodings of the saint wholly
without justification.
It is impossible to support the claim that the Middle Ages
were ages of faith untroubled by doubts or heresy. On the
contrary the persistence and variety of unorthodox opinions
were very marked, especially in the twelfth century.
It is frequently asserted that S. Paul, if he did not create
the Christian religion, at any rate called Gentile Christianity
into being. But a careful estimate of the eflFect of the Pauline
writings on the development of the Early Church inspires cau-
tion in accepting such a hasty generalization. It is true that
his writings were honoured as those of the Apostle and univer-
sally accepted, and that some of his positive commands were
faithfully fulfilled. But it can safely be asserted that the the-
ology of Paul was not always that of the Early Church: and
that his doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not the
Church's view of the resurrection of the flesh. The points on
which the Pauline teaching lays most emphasis, those of jus-
tification by faith, election by God's grace, the redemptive
power of the Cross, were not of primary interest in primitive
Christian circles. Nor is there any reason to believe that the
Gentile churches were called into being solely by Pauline in-
fluence; and the importance attached to the work of St. Peter,
if based mainly on tradition, cannot be entirely without foun-
dation. Indeed it would be no easy task to discover in the
first two centuries an entirely Pauline Church, or, for that
matter, a piece of orthodox Pauline literature outside the
Canon of the New Testament.^
^Much as I admire, I cannot agree with Dr. Inge's estimate of the Apostle in his
Outspoken Essays.
184 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The influence of St. Paul was in fact more personal than
universal, and he affected the mass less than the individual.
Popular legends concerning him were few. His cultus was not
widely prevalent; but men, who thought for themselves, when
they read the New Testament, turned to him. One of the
most original thinkers of the second century was Marcion of
Sinope, who thought that he recognised in the apostle's anti-
Judaism real Christianity, as well as a revelation of God as he
truly was, an embodiment of the love of the Gospel, rather
than of the justice, proclaimed in the Law. Marcion's inter-
pretation of Paul was remarkably attractive, and he became
the founder of the most formidable of the Gnostic sects, the
more dreaded by the orthodox, because his system was not
paganism thinly disguised under a Christian phraseology, but
professed to be thoroughgoing Christianity with moral de-
mands even more stringent than those of the Church. The
Marcionists, moreover, were not a cultured sect content to
propagate their opinions; but a church, with buildings, a
priesthood, and even martyrs, of their own. The organization
continued at least as late as the seventh century and its prin-
ciples outlasted the Marcionite body to reappear constantly in
various forms. Marcion was in one sense a Gnostic, notably
for his docetism which denied the reality of the human
Christ; but in another a rigid puritan, and follower of Paul.
But in the following century there arose another Paul
whose influence as a heretic almost equalled that of the Apos-
tle as a teacher of truth. Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Aniioch
(c. 260), affirmed the doctrine, destined to become so dangerous
to Western orthodoxy, that Jesus mstead of bemgGodwho be-
came Man, was a man who became God. This view was in
accord with the pagan method of considering that the bene-
factors of humanity could be deified, yet it also squared with
the Christian idea that we can through Christ become one
with God. Centuries after Paul's doctrine had been con-
demned by the Catholic Church and he had been deprived of
his bishopric, Adoptianism had to be repudiated by the
Church of the West. "^
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1 85
Marcion and Paul of Samosata considered themselves
Christians, but another reHgion appeared in the third century,
with the important consequence of a revolt from the Church in
later years, in that of ^anij with its dualism, its secret mys-
teries. Its grades of initiates, culminating in the "perfect"
adepts. This strange combination of Persian and Christian
beliefs inspired terror and provoked persecution, and at the
same time proved irresistibly attractive. Even Augustine was
for a time spellbound by its fascination.
Amid the furious controversies which divided the Christians
of the East among Catholics, and Arians, and Monophysites of
every conceivable variety, strange opinions were cherished in
secret, the Church being kept in the path of orthodoxy, less
by persecution than by the wise toleration, or actual encour-
agement of certain innovations. The cult of the Blessed Vir-
gin and of the Saints, the passionate reverence for relics, the
worship of holy pictures and crosses satisfied the desire of
many for the indulgence of superstition and of a passion for
the marvellous. A sensuous religion was thus supplanting the
more spiritual Christianity of antiquity. And at this very
time Mohammedanism was making a startling appeal to the
affrighted East by its severe simplicity as a religion, and the
marvellous success of the arms by which it was supported
and propagated.
The older heresies revived and flourished in the south-
eastern corner of Asia Minor on the Saracen frontier in the
form of Paulicianism. The sect arose in the neighbourhood of
Samosata, the home of the famous Paul, Bishop of Antioch.
Their enemies declared that they took their designation from
him; but it seems more probable that they assumed the name
in honour of Paul the Apostle, whose tenets they professed to
hold. Indeed their leaders often took Pauline names, Timothy,
Titus, Epaphroditus, etc., as special disciples of their master.
They eventually became so strong that the sect had to be sup-
pressed by force.
The Paulicians were heretics on certain points for they
held adoptionist views in regard to our Lord's person, main-
1 86 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
tained that he was created and not creator, and rejected the
CathoHc doctrine of the Logos. Thus far they held the views
promulgated by Paulus of Samosata, though they maintained
that this was the real teaching of Paul the Apostle. They
went counter to the deepest religious feeling of their age by
denying that the Blessed Virgin was ever-virgin, and they
refused her the title of Theotokos (she who bore God).
Apparently they gave the Eucharist a mystical interpretation,
refused to venerate the Cross — regarding it as an accursed
symbol — denied infant baptism and indeed declared "we are
in no haste to be baptized, for baptism means death." They
were strongly prejudiced against the clergy, but some of them
counselled their followers to conform to Catholic usages.
They also held strongly dualistic doctrines and some main-
tained that it was not God whom Moses saw but the devil.
It is extremely difficult to decide whether these Paulicians
were a sort of early Protestants, objecting to the growing
hierarchical pretensions of the Church, or decided heretics.
This affects all the enquiry into these puritans (cathari)
of the Middle Ages, it being the object of their opponents
to show that, under the innocent appearance of a pretended
desire for purity of worship, was concealed indulgence in all
the worst forms of ancient heresy, in the errors of Marcion,
of Paul of Samosata, and above all in the dreaded dualism of
the arch-heretic Mani.
Something closely resembling Paulicianism appeared in
Bulgaria in the sect of the Bogomili (friends of God) who were
supposed to derive their origin from a certain eponymous
founder Bogomil in the tenth century. This Slavic sect had
many of the characteristics which make people of that race
such formidable fanatics. Their opinions were introduced into
Southern France and the terror their heresy inspired is seen in
the fact that " Bougre" or "Bulgarian" became the vilest con-
ceivable term of abuse, and that the Albigensian heretics
were thus branded.
The first great Western heresy appeared in Spain under
the name of its leader Priscillian in the days of the Emperor
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1 87
Gratian (375-380). He was at first acquitted, but was put to
death by the usurping Emperor Maximus to the horror of St.
Martin, Bishop of Tours. What PrisciUian's actual heresy was
is not certain; he was accused by Spanish bishops, against
whom the charge of gluttony was brought, of excessive asceti-
cism of a Manichaean type. Some of his writings were preserved, '
and, as was customary, attributed to orthodox fathers; nor do
these show many traces of heresy. But throughout the corre-
spondence of Pope Leo I, there are warnings to the Spaniards
to be on their guard against Priscillianism. Later, in the
eighth century, Elipandus, Bishop of Toledo, was found guilty
of Adoptianism and the great Synod of Frankfort (794) con-
demned this heresy. It is to be noticed that these heresies
of an Eastern character made their way into Western Eu-
rope through Spain, which, though furthest from the East,
was always extremely susceptible to its influence.
The Pelagian dispute about free will, which constantly
exercised the Western Church, and those concerning the Pres-
ence in the Eucharist may be here passed over, as the really
burning question at this period was the heresy of an oriental
type which probably combined old Gnostic ideas with a puri-
tan severity {Catharism)^ a dislike of pomp and externals in /
worship, and a bitter hostility to the clergy and to the Church 1
as a divine institution. Such was the teaching which grew up
and flourished in Southern Gaul, almost overthrew the power
of the hierarchy, and provoked terrible reprisals.
Feudal France in the early part of the thirteenth century
extended in the south only to the Rhone, and did not include
Provence. Marseilles, Aries, Lyons and Vienne lay within the
frontiers of the Empire, and the southern coast of France ex-
tended only from the western mouth of the Rhone to the fron-
tier of Spain. But the comparatively small district between
the Mediterranean and the Garonne was one of the richest in
Europe. Nominally attached to the French crown, it was in
no sense French, being inhabited by a people who regarded
northern France as a foreign land, spoke a diff^erent language, ;
and had customs and institutions more akin to those of the
1 88 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
ancient Empire of Rome than to those of feudal Europe. It is
represented as gay and pleasant land, with a luxurious nobil-
ity, devoted to music and poetry, and thriving cities, attract-
ing the commerce of the world, in place of the gloomy baro-
nial fortresses and monasteries of the stern north. Naturally its
people were in close touch with the superior civilization of
Mohammedan Spain; and as there, the Jews were tolerated
and even respected. It is not too much to say that in the
twelfth century southern France was the scene of a premature
renascence. The ruler, almost a sovereign, of this district was
Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. Under him were his five
great feudatories: (i) the Viscount of Narbonne; (2) the Vis-
count of Beziers; (3) the Count of Foix; (4) the Countship.of
Montpellier belonging to Pedro, King of Arragon; and (5) the
Countships of Quercy and Rhodez. Raymond VI was not the
man to cope with a crisis of exceptional difficulty, nor were
the people of a prosperous and civilized province a match for
what must have appeared to them a savage irruption of north-
ern barbarians, only too ready if an excuse should off^er to at-
tack a rich land, with exposed frontiers and unwarlike inhab-
itants.
Nowhere was the Church in worse odour than in Langue-
doc. There it was despised by the nobility, many of whom are
said to have declared that they would rather see a son of
theirs a Jew than a priest. Among the people it was detested;
and their religious instincts led them to embrace views akin,
partly to the ancient Paulician heresy, and partly to a prema-
ture Protestantism. To monastic severity they opposed an
enthusiasm for their opinions, as ardent as that of St. Ber-
nard and his Cistercians. Martyrdom was desired and sought
as eagerly as in the days of the primitive Church. The heresy
prevalent in this age was twofold. The followers of J^eter
Waldo and the Poor Men of Lyons were orthodox in belief,
save as regards the power of the priesthood, the doctrine of
the Mass, and the rejection of all sacraments save the two
instituted by Christ himself. Waldo, before he promulgated
his extreme opinions, even sought permission to preach from
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1 89
Pope Alexander III. The simplicity of life practised by him |\
and his followers rivalled and surpassed that of the monks.
No one aspersed his moral character, or accused him of laxity
in his teaching. The sect was bitterly anti-hierarchical and as I
such sufficient to incur the hostility of a powerful clergy.
But other teachers were distinctly heretical, if not anti-
Christian, in their doctrine. The Cathari, or Albigensians, as
they were called from their chief centre, Albi, were accused of
opinions dangerous to the Faith, which may be summarised '
thus: Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven and given
material bodies as a punishment. Satan is the Lord of this
world, and the author of the harsher parts of the Old Testa-
ment. There is no purgatory or hell but in this world, where
we are at home in the body and "absent from the Lord"
(Phil. 1:23). There is no resurrection, because flesh cannot in-
herit the higher kingdom. This can only be done by the com-
plete surrender of the lower nature. As Christ, our example,
received the Spirit, so must every "good man" become a ve-
hicle for the Paraclete. Water immersion is nothing, the only
baptism being that of the Spirit. Believers were the lower
grade of this church. The highest were the perfect who had
received the co7isolamentjrni, a sort of ordination open alike to
men and women. This was often deferred to the time of death;
but, if a man or woman received it earlier, the most rigid as-
ceticism and chastity were indispensable; and the perfect one
was regarded almost as an incarnation of Christ. The extrav-
agances of these "good men," as they called themselves, have
in later times been manifested among the Russian sects, and
they were specially directed to the discouragement of the prop-
agation of the human race. Probably the multitude regarded
the Cathari with respect because of their extreme asceticism,
and were ignorant of the dualistic Gnosticism actually em-
bodied in their teaching. They did, however, occasionally
arouse the fury of the people, and suff'ered death at the hands
of indignant mobs.
In the time of St. Bernard two teachers forced themselves
into prominence, Peter of Brueys, and Henry the Deacon.
I90 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Peter is known from the Confutation of his doctrine by Peter
the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny. He was more Hke the Icono-
clasts of the eighth century than a Manichaean. He is accused
of denying infant baptism, paying no honour to the cross, re-
fusing to allow prayers for the dead, compelling the clergy to
marry even by torture, neglecting the fasts of the church, etc.
His followers were known as Petrobrusians; and their leader
was burned at St. Gilles in Lahguedoc, by the mob infuriated
by his heretical doctrines. Henry the Deacon's career shows
how active preachers of his type were. He is found in Lau-
sanne, at Le Mans, in Gascony, and in Toulouse. He was loud
in his denunciations of the clergy. Gifted with extraordinary
eloquence, he attracted even the priests whose sins he con-
demned. At Le Mans he produced a great sensation among
the people, especially the more abandoned portion of the fe-
male sex. These repented, threw their jewels and costly gar-
ments into the flames; and by Henry's influence were married
as penitents to youths of good position, who, like their brides,
assumed the coarsest of garments. Hildebert, Bishop of Le
Mans, was almost abandoned by his flock when he returned
from an absence, because of Henry's preaching, but he dis-
missed the hierarch with pitying contempt. At Toulouse
Henry met with equal success. In vain did Eugenius III send
the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia to refute him. The Cardinal in
despair had to summon St. Bernard, whose preaching is said
to have restored the city to peace and orthodoxy.
But the evil in Languedoc was too deep-seated to be sub-
dued even by the preaching of such a saint as Bernard and
within fifty years of his death the whole country was notori-
ously full of heretics; and the influence of the Church seemed
hopelessly lost. The contagion was moreover spreading both in
France and Flanders and only by drastic means could its prog-
ress be stayed. What was done opens a new and terrible
chapter in the history of Christianity.
No student of this period can fail to be impressed by the
fact that hitherto the history of the Church had been marked
by a toleration, truly remarkable when the deep and almost
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES 191
fanatical temper of the time is taken into account. Hilde-
brand, Peter Damiani, William the Conqueror, Bernard may
have been stern; but not one of them can be charged with the
judicial murder of men because of their religious opinions.
Berengar was often forced to recant, but never threatened
with death; Abelard's story is pathetic; but his "Calamities"
might have befallen an Oxford latitudinarian of our day,
though he might not have found an orthodox friend as loyal
as Peter the Venerable. Arnold of Brescia, it was true, was
burned or hanged, but for offences which were certainly polit-
ical, and churchmen were to be found deeply regretting that
he had not been punished by exile and imprisonment. Here-
tics were undoubtedly put to death in various parts of Europe
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, sometimes by the civil
power, more frequently by riotous mobs; but as a rule the
bishops tried to rescue those condemned for heresy from the
peril of death. St. Augustine's unfortunate remark about com-
pelling the Donatists to come into the Church was quoted in
support of proceedings, which were unheard of till he had
been dead for more than seven centuries. The Church could
not be called tolerant during that period; but, despite the
treatment of certain individuals, the clergy could not as a rule
be described as bloodthirsty.
The able and devoted Innocent III determined to cope /
with the evil in heretical Languedoc. No sooner had he be- '
come Pope than he sent two Cistercians as Legates to enforce
a vigorous suppression of heresy and to address themselves to
the temporal nobles in order that they might extirpate the
Waldenses, Cathari, and Patarines,^ authorising them to seize
their property and to put them to death. But even the nobility,
and especially their ladies, were not free from heresy, and the
next step was to appoint two inquisitors, Peter, the Cistercian
Abbot of Castelnau, and another, with authority to assume all
the powers hitherto vested in the bishops. The inquisitors
proceeded vigorously and deposed and suspended bishops who
* The Patarines were the Cathari of Northern Italy. They are mentioned in Chap-
ter V.
192 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
showed any tendency to leniency. A third inquisitor was ap-
pointed, Arnold, the Abbot of Citeaux, the head of the whole
Cistercian order. A bishop of Toulouse was next chosen who
would certainly not spare heresy, in the person of Fulk, once
j a gay troubadour, who had retired to the cloister and emerged
as a man possessed by a spirit of the most unscrupulous big-
otry.
For eight years Peter of Castelnau and his associates
preached, on the whole ineffectively, against the heretics; and
were joined by the Bishop of Osma and his friend, the future
[ Saint Dominic. Disgusted at the pomp with which the Abbot
and his colleagues were journeying through the land, the
Spaniards declared that this was no way to convert heretics
whose false humility must be met by true humility, and ex-
horted the papal envoys to go without purse and scrip like
the Apostles. They dismissed their own horses and attendants,
and clothed as simple monks headed the mission, the legates
following their example. But even this had little effect. The
heretics still held their meetings, and the Count of Toulouse
and his colleagues remained indifferent. At last in 1207 Peter
of Castelnau excommunicated Count Raymond and laid the
land under an interdict. In a violent letter Innocent con-
5 firmed this sentence.
The excommunication of the Count of Toulouse was fol-
f lowed by the murder of Peter of Castelnau in January, 1208,
for which, despite all evidence to the contrary, the Count was
' held to be responsible. Innocent now summoned the King of
France to join a crusade against the land guilty of heresy and
•murder. Philip Augustus, powerful and ambitious as he was,
was not thought to be likely to refuse to support the cause of
the Church when it squared with his own ambition to make
himself really, and not merely in name, master of Southern
j France. Philip, however, was too politic to engage in the enter-
prise. Nevertheless a vast host joined in the new Crusade
under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, whose son made
so great a name in English history. This Simon combined in
himself the fanaticism of a champion of the Christian faith
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES I93
with the rapacity of a feudal baron. He had joined in the
Fourth Crusade; but had indignantly refused to be a party to
the Venetian scheme of paying its expenses by besieging the
Christian city of Zara. Thus far he had shown himself a man
of integrity; but from his conduct in the war in Languedoc his
fanaticism seems to have dulled his earlier scruples, though he
at times displayed during the campaign the virtues of a/
Christian knight.
Into the details of this frightful war it is not necessary to
enter. A vast army of crusaders assembled. Beziers was the
first city to fall and it is said that the war cry of the crusad-
ers was, "Slay them all, God will know his own." ^ Whether
this was actually said is immaterial, indiscriminate massacre
was the spirit of the whole war; but in the end the crusading
zeal even of Simon de Montfort was lost in his determination '
to carve out a kingdom for himself. Count Raymond was al- \
ternately excommunicated and restored after performing hu-
miliating penances, but always despoiled more and more of
his hereditary dominions. Innocent III, naturally a just man,
was powerless to check the rapacity of the victorious nobles of
Northern France. Like the Fourth Crusade and the capture of
Constantinople, the Albigensian war was a horrible crime
perpetrated in the name of religion; and piety was once more
a pretext for plunder.
But the danger through which the Church had passed was
not forgotten, and ushered in an era of dogma enforced by re- ,
lentless persecution. The thirteenth century, for all its achieve-
ments, marks the beginning of the decay of the medieval sys-
tem. The fourth Council of the Lateran in 121 5 crystallised
the doctrine of the Western Church. The council met on St.
Martin's day, November 1 1 th, and Innocent after preaching from
the words, "With desire have I desired to eat this passover with
^ These atrocious words are attributed to Arnold, the papal legate. The Catholic
Encyclopedia quotesTamlzey deLzTToque, Revue des Quests Historiques, i866,1, 168-191,
and says they were never pronounced by him. They are not quoted by the authori-
ties on the spot. The authority for them is Caesarius of Heisterbach, V. 2, who appar-
ently thinks they did Arnold credit. Arnold in his letter to Innocent III says terms
were offered to the inhabitants before the attack on Beziers was made.
194 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
you," caused seventy canons prepared by himself to be read,
which were accepted by the assembled prelates. The council
lasted only till the end of the month.
The first canon embodied a declaration of faith. The open-
ing clause contains the doctrine of the Trinity and adds that
all things were created by God — even the demons, who were
created good, fell into sin, and led man astray.
The next part is an exposition of the Catholic faith in the
Incarnation, in the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord's
Body and Spirit, in His second coming as Judge when all will
rise in their own bodies to inherit eternal punishment or eternal
salvation.
Thirdly it is affirmed that there is but one universal
Church outside which no one can be saved. In it Christ is the
Priest and the Victim. His Body and Blood are truly in the
sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine.
These are transubstantiated by divine power in order that we
may partake of His Body, as He partook of our body. Only a
priest can consecrate this sacrament, according to the power
of the keys. Baptism must be in the name of the Trinity, and
is valid if the invocation is right, whoever the minister may
be. Those who receive it obtain salvation; if they fall into sin,
they may recover their innocence by true penitence. Not only
virgins who live lives of continence deserve salvation, but also
married persons if they please God by a pure faith and by
good works.
A casual perusal of this canon would except for the use of
the expression transubstantiation reveal nothing more than a
declaration of the faith of the Church, and even in the first
dogmatic employment of a word, which subsequently became
as much a matter of controversy as the famous homoousios of
the first General Council, only gave expression to the doctrine
generally accepted in the Christian Church. Yet underlying
the whole confession of faith it is possible to recognise a de-
nial of the main heresies of the Albigensians.
I. The demons as well as the angels are God's creation is
an explicit denial of dualism.
LEARNING AND HERESY IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES I95
2. The insistence on the corporal ascension refutes the
Gnostic view of matter, on which the heretics dwelt so persist-
ently.
3. The affirmation that the power of consecrating the
bread and wine in the Sacrament is inherent in the Catholic
priesthood alone, precludes the use of the words of consecra-
tion being efficacious, by whomsoever they are uttered, unlike
the baptismal formula which is valid if pronounced by ordi-
nary persons.
4. The insistence on the regenerating power of repent-
ance condemns any revival of the ancient view that baptism 1
(usually given to adults) was the only way of obtaining pardon.
5. The declaration that married persons were saved is
against the Marcionite and Catharist doctrine condemning all
profession of Christianity which did not include the practice
of absolute continence.
The twenty-first Canon, making confession to a priest
compulsory, is so important as to demand treatment in an-
other chapter; for this was the greatest weapon devised
against heresy.
One word of caution, however, is needed in conclusion.
The spirit of the age can never be understood if it is thought
that either the philosophic or social theories, or the heresies
described here, represent the Christianity usually accepted.
The average man, whether priest or layman, was untroubled
by dogma, and his religion was generally a mixture of genuine
piety and some of the crudest superstitions of primitive soci-
ety, of which the story of the Albigensian crusade is witness.
AUTHORITIES
The works of Boethius are to be found in the Loeb Classical Library.
There is an English translation of Dionysius the Areopagite by John Parker.
For the contents of the Trivium and Quadrivium see J. Bass Mullinger, The
University of Cambridge from the Earliest Times to IS3S, P- 25; also C. J. B.
Gaskoin's Alcuin, pp. 36 ff.; Paul Abelson, The Seven Liberal Arts, a Study in
Medieval Culture (1906); the article "Liberal Arts" in Paul Monroe's Cyclo-
pedia of Education; and P. R. Cole, Later Roman Education in Ausonius,
CapeJla and the Theodosian Code, with Translations and Commentary (1909);
also Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship.
196 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
For the distinction between Plato and Aristotle see F. W. Bussell, Re-
ligious Thought in the Middle Ages, pp. 509 ff. This book should be con-
stantly referred to by those who desire further knowledge of the subjects
treated in this chapter. If its passages are intricate, it is a mine of learning.
Abelard's works are in Migne, P. L., 178. The books particularly rec-
ommended are Cotter Morison, Life of St. Bernard; McCabe, Peter Abelard;
Adams, Mount St. Michel and Chartres; R. Lane Poole, Illustrations of the
History of Medieval Thought; H. O. Taylor, Medieval Mind, Vol. II. For
the Paulicians and their successors consult F. C. Conybeare, The Key of
Truth. Bussell, op. cit. Gibbon's account of them is in Ch. LIV. J. B.
Bury, History of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Albigensian War is de-
scribed by Peter de Vaux Cernay (Migne, P. L., Vol. 213), who accompanied
his uncle to the war. The material is collected in Guizot's Collection des
Memoires. Refer to Milman, Latin Christianity, Bk. IX, Ch. VIII. Con-
sult H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, Vol. I. There
is a good bibliography in Lavisse et Rambaud, Hist. Gener., Vol. II, p. 291.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION
Penance in early church — Supposed effect of baptism — Unpardonable sins — Cal-
listus — All sins pardoned — Grades of penitents — Excommunication — Pub-
licity a cause of scandal — Severity of penance — General repentance — The
Penitentials — Auricular confession ■ — The Lateran decree — Evolution of the
system — Church jurisdiction — Canon Law, civil and criminal — Difficulty of
enforcing canonical penalties — Horror of heresy — The order of preachers —
Bishops responsible for extirpating heresy — The Papal inquisition — Procedure —
Inquisition not intentionally cruel — Popular fear of heresy — Severity — Auto-
da-fes — Relapsed heretics — Jews exempt from inquisition — Deaths for heresy
not numerous — Surprising examples of mercy.
In order rightly to understand the coercive powers claimed
and exercised by the Church it is necessary briefly to recapit-
ulate the facts concerning its penitential discipline from the
earliest times.
There is much plausibility in the theory that the ideas
first connected with baptism were influenced by the mystery
religions of the age, namely, that the rite eff'ected a complete
change of nature in the recipient. The mortal sinner emerged
from the water an immortal saint, possessed by a new spirit
or principle of life. He had died and been buried with Christ,
and he rose again with his Lord in the life-giving rite which he
had instituted. In view of the immediate coming of the Sa-
viour at the end of the world this seemed a perfectly credible
effect of the sacrament; and, in theory, all baptized Christians
were saved and all were sinless. Such, indeed was one aspect of
the teaching of St. Paul, St. Peter and St. John in the New
Testament. But these apostles were not mere theorists, but
men daily in touch with practical life, and they soon recog-
nised that the baptized Christian was liable to relapse into
the sins which had beset him in his unregenerate condition.
To remedy this they modified their views. Paul by subjecting
the offender, for his own good, to spiritual punishment and
197
198 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the pressure of public opinion/ and John by distinguishing be-
tween those sins into which the best of men may fall, and
more heinous offences which make them unfit for the society
of Christians. These in the first Epistle are termed sins "not
unto death," and sins "unto death." ^ At the same time there
was a feeling of horror that a baptized man should fall into
gross sin, and the very fact of his having done so indicated
that he was rejected by God, and that he could not be "re-
newed unto repentance."^ From the first the three sins which
made restoration hopeless were considered to be apostasy into
heathenism, homicide, and fornication. By these the grace of
baptism was annihilated. Such then was the discipline of
primitive Christianity. At baptism the candidate understood
that if he was guilty of any of these crimes, he was like the
soldier who deserted to the enemy, only the death to which
he was condemned was spiritual and not temporal. But a
more merciful spirit was gradually being manifested. In the
second century Hermas, a baptized Christian famous for his
continence, felt that all was not well with him^ and especially
with his family. In a vision a special revelation was vouch-
safed to him and he was informed by an angel that the grace
of baptism could be renewed by one and only one repentance,
a second penance was no more possible than a second bap-
tism.'* Even one chance after baptism was an exceptional
privilege and for more than a generation this was deemed as
an excessive indulgence by the ssverer members of the Church.
Whether this penance could free one guilty of the three greater
sins is not expressly stated.
Early in the third century the Church of Rome was pre-
sided over by Callistus who, whatever may have been his
faults, was one of the ablest and most farsighted of the early
popes. Greatly to the indignation of the rigorists of his age,
represented by Tertullian and Hippolytus, he recognised that
' I Cor. V. 1-9; see also II Cor. ii. 5-10; but whether the same offender is referred
to is an open question.
* I John V. 16-17. ' Heb. vi. 4-6.
* Shepherd of Hermas, iv. 3.
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 1 99
the sins of the flesh, even if committed after baptism, could be
sincerely repented of, and he issued an "edict" proclaiming
that adulterers and fornicators might be allowed the benefit of
one regeneration by penance.^ Still, however, the apostate re-
mained forever excluded from the pale of the Church, possibly
on account of the offence, being rare, possibly also to the fact
that many who denied the faith had no desire for readmission
to the community,^ and it was not till the Decian persecution
in A.D. 250 that these cases demanded serious consideration.
Owing to the influence of the confessors and martyrs, Cyprian
of Carthage and Cornelius of Rome gave them the chance of
the one penance and established the rule that no sin, however
heinous, was beyond the power of loosing committed by the
Lord to his Apostles. One result of this leniency was the seri-
ous and persistent schism of Novatian, who absolutely denied
the right of the Church to readmit to communion those who
proved faithless to their Lord in times of trial.
Before the Peace of the Church therefore penance was re-
garded as a surprisingly benevolent concession to human
frailty in giving a second chance to baptized persons who had
defiled the white robe by grave sin.
By the middle of the third century a definite penitential
discipline seems to have been evolved and is found in the writ-
ings of Gregory Thaumaturgus, the successful missionary
bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. By this time the Christians
had church buildings of their own which enabled them to
give a dramatic significance to their penitential ceremonial.
The great Christian service was the Eucharistic offering; and
this was divided already into two parts, (i) the public prayers,
and (2) instruction and the consecration and participation of
the Elements. The one public, the other confined to baptized
persons in full communion with the Church. A grave sinner
was utterly thrust out of the assembly and might not enter
the sacred edifice. He had to remain in the open air and with
'Tertulllan, De Pudicitia, Introd.
2 Pliny in his letter to Trajan (x. 96) says that some of those he had examined had
left the Church years before.
200 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
tears and groans beseech the faithful to intercede for him
to God, and the bishop that he might once more cross the
threshold of the church. It was only by gradual stages that
the penitent won the full communion which was implied in
the participation in the Eucharist. Sometimes it took years
before he was even admitted to the narthex or porch where he
stood and heard the preliminary service. The next stage found
him within the nave prostrate on the ground whilst the con-
gregation stood joining in the prayers. He was then promoted
to the condition of a "bystander" and was allowed to remain
after the catechumens and other penitents had left the
church, but was not allowed to partake of the holy mysteries.
Finally he became a full member of the Church and com-
municated with the faithful.
This elaborately graded system of penance was pecuHar to
the East, but wherever public acts of contrition were per-
formed there was exclusion from the ranks of the faithful and
the contrite sinner was expected to show his sorrow by sup-
plication for pardon, by wearing sordid garments and fasting
and prayer. His very penalty was regarded as a privilege by
which he was restored to those blessings which he had justly
forfeited. The minister of penance was generally the bishop,
though later, especially in Rome and Constantinople, a priest
was appointed to look after the candidates for absolution. But
the sentence by which the sinner was excluded from the
Church was pronounced by the bishop, who remitted the pen-
alty by the imposition of his hands.
Such a system as that of ancient penitential discipline pre-
supposed that the sins thus atoned for were notorious and
scandalous, and that the ecclesiastical authorities, especially
the bishops, were in charge of comparatively small communi-
ties. There were, however, other factors which appear to have
attracted little attention before they forced themselves into
notice.
Of the three great crimes, Apostacy was a public act. Mur-
der was naturally not frequent and generally notorious and
sins of impurity alone could be possibly concealed. But these.
'»... .^^MEDIEIi^l ♦CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 20I
perhaps more than any other, troubled an awakened conscience.
Nor was the Eucharist ever regarded by the sinner as a rem-
edy, but rather as a participation with Christ, fraught with
great danger to those who approached the Sacred Mysteries
unworthily. Many sinners felt themselves ipso facto excom-
municated and dare not return to communion till they had
cleansed themselves from guilt. These made confession to a
priest — a special official was appointed in the Church of Con-
stantinople— and voluntarily entered the ranks of the peni-
tent, submitting to the severe penalties imposed by the
Church in order to win the coveted purification of the one
penance. But this was often the cause of scandal, as the pres-
ence of a contrite person in the ranks of penitents caused not
little surmise as to the nature of his sin; and at Constantino-
ple, owing to a lady's confession that she had been seduced by
a deacon of the church, it was considered advisable to abolish
the office of penitentiary presbyter. The severity of the pen-
ances deterred sinners from confessing their guilt; for a candi-
date for forgiveness had to practise such austerities as made
ordinary life impossible. With his hair garment, his severe
fasts, enduring for years, his constant presence at the services,
and his compulsory abstinence from all domestic joy, his con-
dition was practically that of an ascetic. Nor did Pope Leo
the Great (440-461) allow the penitent, after he had obtained
his hard won pardon to join, relax his discipline. For the rest
of his life he was forbidden to cohabit with his wife, to serve
in the army, or to practise in the law court. By this time, how-
ever, the church had become more merciful than in early days,
and no man who sought reconciliation at his death was re-
fused. But death-bed penance was rightly deemed unsatisfac-
tory, especially when the sinner had evidently hoped to avoid
the inconvenience of a life of penitential sorrow. Conse-
quently in many places, and notably in Gaul, it became a
custom to institute general instead of personal penances, and
at the beginning of Lent the whole congregation was recognised
as sinful and needing reconciliation. Thus Ash Wednesday
assumed importance as a day of universal repentance.
202 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
In Britain first with the Celtic monks, who were very ac-
tive in the sixth and seventh centuries on the Continent, and
later with the Roman missionaries a scheme of prescribed pen-
alties were embodied in Penitentials. These were originally in-
tended for the monastic disciples of the Celtic abbots, part of
whose necessary discipline was to confess their sins; but the
laity also sought the consolation of unburthening their con-
sciences to the priest and private confession became more and
more prevalent throughout the Christian world, which gradu-
ally tended to adopt the British practice of exacting no pub-
lic penance and reconciliation of the penitent.
Thus the doctrine of penance had undergone considerable
modification in the course of ages. All acknowledged that the
church had the power to bind and loose given to Peter and to
the Apostles by Christ himself, but at first it was felt that this
must not be used towards baptized persons guilty of the
gravest sins. Then one penance was allowed, next death-bed
reconciliation was never refused; a discipline was also estab-
lished, which proved unworkable and a cause of offence. This
resulted in the gradual disuse of public penance, and the tacit
abandonment of the possibility of but one post-baptismal re-
pentance. On the contrary people were exhorted to come fre-
quently to the priest in order to tell their sins and receive ad-
vice, healing discipline and pardon. It remained only to regu-
late this system. By this time, it must be remembered, the
Mass was usually attended by non-communicants and the
laity partook of the mysteries at rare intervals and prepared
for doing so by confession. Thus fortified by an assurance that
God had pardoned them, they could approach the altar.
It was not, however, till the Fourth Lateran Council in 121 5
that confession was organized, regulated and made obligatory on
every believer. The decree has been slightly modified in so far as
it is no longer obligatory to confess only to the parish priest and
that Christian burial is no longer denied to those who disobey.
Its provisions are:
Every member of the Church after attaining years of dis-
cretion is to confess to his own priest at least once a year. He
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 203
is to fulfil the penance imposed on him to the best of his abil-
ity and to communicate at least at Easter, unless advised to
the contrary by the priest. The penalty for disobedience is
excommunication and refusal of Christian burial. If anyone
wishes to confess to an outside priest his confession is invalid
unless the parish priest has given leave. Under no circum-
stances may the secrets of the confessional be disclosed; a
priest guilty of this is to be thrust into a monastery to do per-
petual penance for the rest of his life.
Thus was evolved the Roman confessional, with all its tre-
mendous power for good and evil, with the priest acting as
judge of the penitent and the physician of his soul. Penitence,
first a privilege, had in process of time come to be regarded as
a duty. Originally a voluntary act, for no man needed to sub-
mit to it unless he really desired to return to the fold, it was
made a necessary discipline. In like manner confession of sin,
once almost purely informal, was insisted upon as a duty in-
cumbent upon every Christian when he or she came to years
of discretion; and pardon, which had been granted but once
and was frequently given only on the deathbed, was bestowed
at intervals throughout a lifetime. The ancient discipline of
severity with all its publicity had been replaced by a system
of private penance, but terrible indeed were the consequences
to those who neglected the invitation of the Church when con-
fession became a duty for all. But the coercive powers of the
Church were public as well as private, and it is now desirable
to give a sketch of its jurisdiction and the so-called Courts
Christian.
From the very earliest times the Christian Churches had
set up courts of their own. St. Paul had recommended the
Corinthians to do this, rather than to go to law with one
another before unbelieving judges. Perhaps even our Lord
had the same object in view, when he advised his disciples, if
they had a grievance against a brother to tell it "to the
church." ^ At a very early date the Christian bishop acted
^I Cor. vi. 4; Matt, xviii. 15-17. It is doubtful whether the words of our Lord
can be so interpreted. They hardly seem to be a genuine saying of His.
204 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
as the judge in the community. With the Peace of the
Church his judicial position was increasingly recognised by
the Roman law. In Visigothic Spain and England he was
an assessor with the civil judges, but this was in accordance
with national, not Roman, custom. In the West the Metro-
politan claimed a superior jurisdiction, but this was not al-
ways allowed, the bishops being generally the supreme tri-
bunal in the diocese. As the work increased the bishop de-
puted officials to hear and decide causes, and the custom arose
in many places of giving the archdeacon a separate tribunal of
his own. But in process of time the final appeal lay with the
Pope, and Rome became the central point in the Christian
system. Thus a vast system of law courts and procedure grew
up, and the Church administered affairs on principles far more
scientific than the lay courts, with their crude ideas of decid-
ing civil or criminal cases.
The law of these ecclesiastical courts — "Courts Christian"
as they were termed — was the Canon Law of the Church.
Ever since the fifth century there had been collections of the
Canons of diflPerent councils and the decretals of popes. These
formed an immense Corpus Juris which was reduced to shape
by Gratian, a teacher at Bologna, in his Decretum about A.D.
1 148. In the East the ecclesiastical law was quite as elaborate
and complicated as in the West and was embodied in what was
called the nomocanon.
The Canon Law dealt with a wide range of subjects which
for the present purpose may be divided into Civil and Crim-
inal. The Civil Law of the church dealt with questions of
property, the fabrics and ornaments of churches, the dues of
the clergy, tithes, offerings, etc., marriage, testamentary dis-
position of property — mostly personal, as realty came under
feudal law: even contracts were a matter for the church courts
as the breach of certain agreements involved the sin of per-
jury. Then the Courts Christian claimed as coming before
them cases in which the clergy were involved as plaintiffs;
and this frequently brought about a conflict with the lay
courts. In the Middle Ages it is hardly an exaggeration to say
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 205
that law occupied at least as much of the time of the clergy as
their religious duties; for the administration of all the law,
civil as well as ecclesiastical, was long in their hands. In fact the
Canon Law was fully as important as the law of the State. To
this day the degree of LL.D., Doctor of Laws, really means
one who has studied Canon and Civil Laws, as opposed to the
D.C.L., Doctor in Civil Law.
But the Canon Law dealt with offences; and as such had a
criminal side. At first, as has been shewn, the only penalty
which the clergy could inflict was excommunication. The of-
fender was driven out of the community and became no more
than a heathen and a publican to the Christian brotherhood.
If a penalty was imposed it was by way of penance, a
favour granted very sparingly and providing a means of re-
turning to the fold of the Church. But penance was not prop-
erly a penalty at all, but it was purely voluntary and was
regarded rather as a remedy than as a punishment. Even those
prescribed in the penitentials were possibly originally part of
the discipline which monks had accepted voluntarily. Gradually
public acts of penance for notorious sin were imposed on of-
fenders; and this came about when a sentence of excommuni-
cation was, not sending an unworthy Christian back to a pagan
world, but involved all the penalty of social ostracism. Little
but death could be looked for by a person finally cut off from
the Church, when all his countrymen as Christians were com-
pelled under threat of a like sentence to avoid him. Thus it
came to pass that a man condemned to penance, heavy fines,
or scourging, was really punished criminally by the Church.
Many offenders were sentenced to rigorous confinement in a
monastery.
But the Church in many countries, notably England, had
no means of exacting its penalties. True its decrees were en-
forced by the king's officials; and it was forbidden to inflict
vindictive penalties by its own fundamental law. Unlike the
sentence of a lay court which condemned a man to severe
punishment in order to mark the seriousness of his offence and
to deter others, that of a Court Christian was intended to
2o6 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
bring the culprit to a better frame of mind, and was profess-
edly ''for his soul's sake."
The clergy, by which was meant everybody in the remot-
est degree connected with the Church, that is in minor orders,
and included a large proportion of the population, claimed to
be amenable only to the Courts Christian. This proved a
fruitful cause of dispute between the Church and the Sover-
eign, on account of the fact that the Church by its constitu-
tion provided no adequate penalty for the more serious crimes.
Thus the church courts could only sentence a murderer who
ought to be hanged for the good of society, to be confined in a
monastery for the good of his soul.
But until the law books of Justinian began to be intensively
studied in the twelfth century, and men trained in the Civil
Law began to replace unlearned judges in the secular courts,
the Canon Law was, not only infinitely more humane, but also
more scientific than any system in existence, as the clergy with
all their shortcomings represented the best civilization known
in the Western world.
The crime, however, which was regarded with the greatest
horror and was believed to be most dangerous was heresy. All
men believed that the future life was infinitely more impor-
tant than the transitory existence of men in this world, as it
was eternal for happiness or for an indescribable misery. Out-
side the Church this misery was inevitable; and for the man
who left the fold, the damnation of hell was certain. This be-
lief was universal, and the laity feared the danger of dying
outside the Church intensely. The man therefore who tried to
seduce them beyond its pale and to bring them into danger of
everlasting fire was infinitely worse than the murderer and de-
served the extremest punishment. Church law, however, made
the better instructed clergy shrink from bloodshed, especially
as they knew it to be a fundamental principle of Christianity
that persuasion and not force must be applied to keep men in
the Church. Consequently, as has been said, the heretic was
more in danger from the fury of the people than from the big-
otry of the clergy.
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 207
The earliest heretics were as a rule clergy. In earliest time
the Gnostics numbered laity and women among their teach-
ers, though Marcion was a presbyter and the son of a bishop.
But the heresiarchs were all members of the clerical order.
Arius was a priest, Nestorius a bishop, Entyches a monk. The
laity were as a rule orthodox and earnestly desired to remain
so. Nor can it be wondered at that heresy flourished most
among those who had not merely to receive humbly the
teaching of the Church, but to consider all that it implied.
And it must be borne in mind that most of the heresy of the
early Middle Ages, at any rate in the West, turned on deep
mysteries unintelligible to an uninstructed layman and was
debated in a language which he did not understand. In the
twelfth century, however, the clergy had mainly, by the abuse
of their privileges, become objects of deep distrust, and heresy
became anti-clerical. The wild and un-Christian views of the
Manichaean Albigenses owed their chief attraction to the
lives of their exponents, being models of asceticism, self-denial
and even decency compared with those of the majority of the
Catholic clergy. With the close of the Albigensian War there-
fore a new regime was inaugurated. It had come to pass that
the devout minded laity were arrayed against the clergy; and
that after trying the effect of armed force to repress heresy,
the machinery of Law was devised to make its recrudescence
impossible. With the thirteenth century the Inquisition, in
the sense of an organized enquiry into heresy, came into being.
The blame of the institution of this awful tribunal has
been laid at the door of one of the best men of Christian an-
tiquity. Augustine of Hippo had in reference to the Donatists
used language, which was employed to justify its institution
nearly eight hundred years after his death. Rightly to under-
stand the institution, it must always be borne in mind that
heresy was considered by clergy and laity alike as the most
serious of crimes and both were agreed that it must be sup-
pressed at all costs. This notion long outlived the Middle
Ages; for both in England and Scotland there were executions
for it in the seventeenth century. In justice to the Church,
208 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
moreover, the procedure against this offence was not devised
by it but taken over from the criminal procedure of the Ro-
man Law. Without any attempt to palhate the horrors of the
system it is well to remember that the object of all criminal
law for many generations was primarily to strike terror; and
the idea was that it was better that some innocent people
should perish than one guilty person escape. In criminal cases
the accused was regarded as guilty till he had proved his inno-
cence, and hardly any advantage the law could take was con-
sidered unfair.^ Moreover, the worse the crime the less chance
the prisoner was given. In England, for example, no man down
to the eighteenth century was allowed the benefit of counsel to
help him if accused of high treason, unless to speak on points of
law. The record of a state trial in the days of the Tudors is
much the same as of one by the Inquisition, the tortures of which
were not worse than those employed in criminal procedure.
The terrible thing is that the harsh law of ancient Rome
was put into operation in defence of Christianity; and that
often what was construed to be heresy was really the enuncia-
tion of truths which were fundamental to the teaching of the
Gospel. With this warning against doing injustice to a system
so iniquitous and alien to the spirit of the Christian religion, it
is proposed to describe the origin of the Papal Inquisition.
The Dominican order of Friars Preachers was the result of
Dominic's resolution to combat the Albigenses with its own
weapons. The object was to outmatch the heretics in self-
denial and to refute them by argument. Thus Dominic and his
followers rapidly became the trained theologians of the Cath-
olic Church. Whether the saint encouraged the persecution in
Languedoc or not is a matter for careful scrutiny. His admir-
ers maintained that he was a perfect hammer of heretics, the
glory and stay of the inquisitorial tribunals. They now con-
*This is perhaps an extreme statement and I quote a note of Dr. Munroe Smith
which he was kind enough to make. "I do not think that the inquisitorial procedure
was harsh or unfair until the fourth century and not even then except in treason cases.
Nothing is so cruel as fear; and Hinschius thinks the inquisitorial procedure in the
ecclesiastical courts gave fair protection to the accused." (See Hinschius in Holtzen-
dorfF, Realencyclopadie, 3d ed. or any of the older editions.)
I
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 209
tend that he did his utmost to restrain the horrors of the time.
Assuredly, however, he is not personally responsible for the
Inquisition, which was organized after his death. He was, how-
ever, in Toulouse at the time of the murder of Peter of Cas-
telnau in 1208 and during the sack of Beziers. He met Simon de
Montfort, in September, 1209, and enjoyed the friendship of this
bigoted crusader. It is to his prayers that the striking victory
of Montfort over Peter of Aragon at Muret, 121 3, is said to
have been due; and the notorious persecutor of heretics, Fulk
of Toulouse, encouraged him in organizing his Preachers.
However, whether Dominic approved of persecution or not,
he certainly was a marked figure as a religious leader and pro-
moter of piety. His chief work in Gaul was the organization of
an order of women at Prouille, into which the Catholic ladies
were attracted; and this became the Second Order, the First,
that of Preachers, being confirmed by Honorius III, December 22,
1216. Dominic himself was made Master of the Sacred Palace,
or the special theologian to assist the Pope in matters pertain-
ing to doctrine. The Order was established in Rome and given
the church of St. Sixtus; and it spread rapidly throughout
Europe.
Up to this time the bishops had been made responsible for
the suppression of heresy in their dioceses. On the whole they
lacked the necessary qualifications in face of the revival of
erroneous opinions in the twelfth century. Many were en-
gaged by secular duties, imposed on them by the necessity of
their positions of princes ruling large territories. All were in-
evitably occupied in administering large estates, and gather-
ing the funds needed to maintain extensive retinues. Many
had had the training of lawyers, one may say, of civil servants.
Few were expert theologians, capable of dealing with fanatics
so plausible and crafty as the leaders of the Cathari, or so
versed in Scripture as the followers of Waldo. Moreover, they
were on the whole tolerant, and averse to hunting out crimi-
nals who did not disturb the peace of their dioceses. But in the
thirteenth century the temper of the Church changed. It had
come to a death struggle, between the Papacy and the Em-
21 0 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
pire, as well as between Orthodoxy and Catharism; and the
new orders of the Friars had arisen as zealous champions of
the Church.
The first law prescribing the penalty of death by burning
for heresy naturally came from a secular ruler. Frederic II so
ordered it in 1224, and seven years later, in 1231, he was fol-
lowed by Pope Gregory IX's decretal ordering the con-
demned heretics to be handed over to the secular arm. Though
suspected of being a free thinker and notoriously consorting
with Mohammedans, perhaps on that account, the Emperor
was a ruthless persecutor of the Cathari, Paterines and other
heretics in his Northern Italian dominions. But there had been
several executions, all more or less irregular, and still heresy
persisted; the fact being that the diocesan system was not
adapted to the extermination of what was deemed to be the
most serious of crimes.
To remedy this the Papal Inquisition gradually took the
place of the Episcopal, but only by slow degrees and after
much opposition.
An Inquest, or Inquisition, was held by delegates appointed
by the Pope to seek out and try heretics. As a rule they were
Dominicans, and went on their assises attended by their
police or ''familiars," who were often armed, for the duties of
an inquisitor were not discharged without danger. The inquis-
itor was instructed to act with the bishop but often there was
much rivalry between the two jurisdictions, which the Pope
had difficulty in adjusting.
On the arrival of the Inquisitors all the inhabitants were
assembled together and the Faith was expounded to them.
Then a period of grace was proclaimed, during which people were
encouraged to make confession if they were guilty of heresy.
Those who confessed were not harshly treated but fined, sent
on pilgrimages or condemned to wear a cross for a certain
period. After the period of grace the inquisitors began to
arrest suspects. These were exhorted to confess and in-
creasing pressure was put upon them. They were first told
that their crimes were known and that unless they confessed
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 211
they would inevitably be burned. If they persisted, the
confinement was made more severe; their amount of food was
reduced and they were left in misery to reflect on their mis-
deeds. When worn out they were visited by "tried men," or
experts, skilful in extorting admission of heresy. If these
failed torture was employed. It might only be used once, and
according to the law it does not appear to have been needlessly
cruel, it being expressly stated that no limb should be injured,
nor life endangered. It was only by abuse that it was any-
thing like the horrible thing often depicted. Nevertheless it
was often very dreadful, and by legal fictions it was sometimes
made to last many days. Even witnesses were racked. But the
law was milder than that of the civil ruler, though the secrecy
of the proceedings of the Inquisition made illegal cruelties in-
evitable.
The principles on which heretics were proceeded against
were those of Roman criminal law with its three forms of ac-
tion: accusation, denunciatioji, and inquisition. The accuser
formally inscribed himself as responsible for the action under
penalty. The public officer by denunciation summoned the
court to take action. In the inquisition the offender was sum-
moned and imprisoned and the indictment was presented to
him, with the proviso that further charges could not be made
to aggravate his guilt. He was persuaded to confess and if he
was not prepared to do so the witnesses were examined, but
not in his presence. Care was, however, to be taken that the
accusers should be men of repute and not inspired by personal
malice. The judge, generally the Ordinary or Bishop, was to
be convinced that there was reasonable presumption of guilt
before he instituted proceedings. The inquisitor, Bernard Gui,
enunciates that the purpose is "That the rashness of the per-
verse be punished in such a way as to avoid injuring innocent
persons."
It is but just to admit that the papal legislation as a rule
was directed to secure, not only justice, but a certain human-
ity; and, as many pontiffs were trained lawyers, they had a
natural dislike to violent or illegal procedure. Innocent III,
212 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the sternest asserter of papal supremacy, waged constant war
on the superstition and absurdity of ordeals, trials by combat,
and the ridiculous procedure of a barbarous age. Indeed, one
of the objects of his legislation and that of his successors in
the matter of heresy, was to give the accused, if not a fair
trial, at least some sort of a trial before condemnation. At
least the setting up of inquisitorial courts was better than
mobs burning heretics wholesale or crusading armies slaying
them to shouts of "Slay on, God will know his own." Bad as it
was, the record of Bernard Gui, who between 1308 and 1322
found six hundred and twenty-six persons guilty of heresy and
burned forty of them, contrasts favourably with the slaughter
which took place before the procedure was legalised.
Before passing final judgment on the inquisitorial process
it is at least necessary to take a hasty glimpse of the working
of the institution as devised in the thirteenth century.
In treating of the legislation and procedure against crimes,
which we are inclined to pronounce either venal or purely im-
aginary like heresy or witchcraft, it must be borne in mind
that severity was invariably popular and that the harsh legis-
lation came, not from the heart of cruel priests, kings or gov-
ernments, but in answer to the demands of public sentiment.
In the records of witch-trials the people firmly believed that
they or their friends had been injured by supernatural means
and clamoured for the punishment of those responsible for
their sufferings. It was the same as regards heresy and it has
been truly remarked of the twelfth century, "The people dis-
liked what was to them the extreme dilatoriness of the clergy
in pursuing heretics." ^ Heresy was, in addition, deemed the
most fearful of crimes and all rulers, civil and ecclesiastical,
were in cordial agreement that at all costs it must be extir-
pated, not only to save their fellow creatures from the pains
of everlasting hell, but to maintain the very existence of soci-
ety. However men might deplore the degeneracy of the clergy
of the age, and denounce the abuses of their lives or the venal-
ity of the Roman Curia, they were unanimous in agreement
^ Catholic Encyclopedia, Art. Inquisition, Vol. VIII, p. 28, col. 2.
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 21 3
that the CathoHc Faith must be preserved at all hazards. Nor
were the Catharist sects against whom the laws were mainly
directed harmless enthusiasts for a biblical religion; but often
under a guise of conformity were promoting actually unchris-
tian beliefs and practises. For the spread of these and other
revolts against the Church the conduct of the clergy may
have been responsible; but none the less the world believed
that false doctrines must be suppressed.
Accordingly heresy was proceeded against as the greatest
of crimes and the accused given but little chance of clearing
himself. The most practised lawyers examined him and twisted
his every word into an admission of guilt. He was told that
the evidence against him was overwhelming; but he was never
allowed to see his accusers nor to know even their names. No
one was permitted to appear in his defence, and his only
chance was to admit his guilt and to accept the sentence of the
Church. The suspect was surrounded by spies; it was practi-
cally tantamount to heresy for his nearest and dearest to con-
ceal his guilt if they were cognisant of it. Even those under
the legal age might bear testimony against him. Nor did death
deliver him from the far-reaching arm of the Inquisition. He
might, even after his decease, be accused of heresy; and if
guilty, his body was exhumed and his children suffered the
confiscation of goods and the infamy they would have been
liable to had he been condemned alive. The inquisitors them-
selves obtained an authority which even individual popes
would have been powerless to control. Only very powerful
states, like Venice, dared to exclude their tribunals; and these
were equally severe to heretics, and in some instances even
more so than the Church. The story of the misfortunes of the
Counts of Toulouse, in and after the Albigensian crusades, was
enough to warn any temporal ruler against mildness in deal-
ing with the enemies of the Faith.
When the accused had been convicted of heresy the sen-
tences had to be pronounced and to give them more solemnity
a fixed day was appointed to conclude the business of an in-
quisitorial tribunal. Here there is a curious mixture of the the-
214 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
ory of the primitive Church and the practice of the Roman
Law.
Theoretically the Church could not punish. Its sentences
were not penalties but fatherly advice to the sinner to submit
himself voluntarily to penance. Only in extreme cases was a
heretic cast out of the Church. No one in fact was sentenced
by the court unless he had confessed and abjured his sin. Had
he failed to do so he was expelled from the Christian body.
The penitent, therefore, was not sentenced but advised to be-
take himself to some monastery and undergo due penance or
to pay a fine for the benefit of the poor, wear a cross, or go
on a pilgrimage. Some of the sentences are apparently mild,
some really diabolically severe, many entailed a life of the
severest penal monastic discipline. But over all self-accused
and convicted heretics hung the terrible prospect that if they
broke prison, disregarded their penances, or in any way re-
sumed their errors, nothing could save them from being treated
as relapsed heretics, handed over to the secular arm and
burnt alive. Here, however, inquisitors of the Church were at
times more merciful than the law, and interposed between the
secular arm, which was seldom unwilling to inflict sentence of
death on the wretched relapsed heretic. In the treatment
of the relapsed there is evidently a survival of the old belief
that penitence can only once be given, and, after it is abused,
rejection by the faithful is inevitable.
Another survival of ancient belief is seen in the fact that
no unbaptized person was amenable to a church court. A Jew,
for example, could never be brought before the Inquisition;
for, according to the precepts of the Church, no one can be
made a Christian save by persuasion. In the Spanish Inquisi-
tion in the fifteenth century the "Jews" who suff^ered were
converted Jews, who had accepted Christianity to escape ex-
pulsion from the country, and had reverted to the customs of
their ancestors, the slightest sign of the observance of which
was deemed a proof of heresy.
The Inquisition was mainly confined to the Latin nations
of Southern Europe. Among the Teutonic and Scandinavian
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 21 5
people it had no footing till a late period. In England the
burning of a deacon, who had apostatised and married a Jewess
in 1222, was regarded with horror; and no law sanctioned such
an execution till, as late as 1400 an anti-clerical Parliament
passed the Act De Heretico Comhurendo to check the excesses
of the Lollards, who were suspected of radical political tend-
encies. Fourteen years later Henry V instituted mixed tribunals
to try heretics, instead of leaving the sentence wholly to the
bishops.
As is natural, Protestants have been loud in their condem-
nation of the whole system of the Inquisition and have dwelt
upon its many undoubted abominations. Roman Catholics have,
on the contrary, pointed to its constitution and have endeav-
oured to show that as a legal tribunal it was rather more than
less merciful than others of former days. The number of deaths
it inflicted has certainly been greatly exaggerated; and in the
thirteenth century, in which it originated, it must have caused
less misery than when it was employed against the Reformers
in the sixteenth. Assuredly, then, neither Catholics nor Pro-
testants can bear the blame of being the only persecutors nor
can cruelties in the name of religion be said to have been
worse than those more recently perpetrated for or against
vested interests. The whole question can now be subjected to
an impartial discussion; and only those who still persist in
maintaining that intolerance of opinion ought to be practised
in order to restrain the right of men and women to think for
themselves, are to be condemned.
One noteworthy fact, however, remains to be noticed. The
Inquisition was the outcome of the old theory of penance
which after repeated modifications throughout the centuries was
evolved into the institution which has been described in this
chapter.
Severe and terrible, however, as the Church was towards
the heretic, towards other criminals great mercy was some-
times shown. The two murders which thrilled Christendom in
their day was the slaying of Thomas Becket at the altar of his
metropolitan Cathedral at Canterbury in 11 70 and the assas-
2l6 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
sination of the Dominican Inquisitor and saint Peter Martyr
in a wood near Milan in 1252. It was in the interest of the
Church that the crime kiUing Becket should be branded as
one of the most atrocious in history. The Preachers regarded
Peter as the glory of the Dominican order. Yet the four knights
who slew Becket were allowed to live, not in misery and ob-
scurity, but in high positions of honour; the fact being that the
law which shielded the clerk guilty of murder from the secular
punishment of death, also protected the murderer of a clergyman
from the vengeance of the law, because his was an ecclesiastical
offence. It is even stranger that the priest who killed Peter
Martyr was allowed to end his days in a Dominican monastery,
where his penitence won him in popular estimation spiritual
promotion, second only to that gained by his victim; and he
ranks, though not officially, among the beatified. It is these
examples which reveal the strange working of the mind of medi-
eval churchmen.^
The Inquisition was the weapon devised to beat down
heresy, but a little before its institution a powerful antidote
to rebellion was perfected in the form of the JMildict. The
'There is a most interesting letter to the Bishops of Winchester, Norwich, and Ely
preserved in Hook's Archbishops of Canterbury (Anglo-Norman period), Vol. II, p.
516 fF., by Richard (1174-1184), the successor of Becket. It begins thus: "In the
Church of England a custom has arisen, baneful to all, and in every way to be repre-
hended .... If a Jew or a layman of the lowest grade be killed, the murderer is
immediately sentenced to the punishment of death; whereas if any one has killed a
priest or clergyman of the lower or higher order, the Church, contented (contenta)
with excommunication only, or, I should rather say contemned {contempta) through it,
refuses the aid of a carnal weapon." The archbishop mentioned a particularly
atrocious instance of a certain William Frechet and his wife, who avowed having
killed a priest at Winchester, and went to Rome to get absolution.
The murderers of Becket did penance, and were all considerable men after the
crime. Tradition, of course, says they all perished miserably. But the facts are that all
four prospered. Hugh de Moreville was a wealthy gentleman in the North of England
in thercignof King John; Reginald Fitzurseissaid to have fled to Ireland and have taken
the Irish equivalent of his Norman name, being known as MacMahon (son of the
Bear) ; William de Tracy founded a famous family still represented in England. Stanley,
Historical Memorials of Canterbury, II (The Murder of Becket). The murderer of St.
Peter Martyr, Pietro Balsamo,. known as Catino, finally repented; and he is represented
among the Dominican saints as the " blessed Acerinus." (Lea, Hist. Inquisit.)
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 217
word interdicere means to forbid; but interdictum was used in
a legal sense, and meant the interlocutory edict of the praetor
forbidding something to be done till the case in dispute had
been finally decided. In the law in Scotland the word interdict
is the equivalent to the English injunction. The word in its
ecclesiastical sense does not occur before the eleventh century.
The thing, however, is older; and it is an open question when
the first "interdict" in its more modern sense was issued. It
was practically a general excommunication, a curse imposed
on a place and its inhabitants. Excommunication was terri-
ble enough in its consequence. Even emperors and kings were
crushed under its weight. The faithful were warned under the
most dreadful penalties to avoid the person under the ban of the
Church. It was at the risk of their eternal salvation that they
so much as ate with him. To show him any kindness was to
participate in his sin, and perhaps to share in the penalty.
But at least the excommunication was intended for a guilty
individual, and it was hoped that its effect would be to bring him
to a sense of his sin. An interdict could plead no such justifica-
tion. It smote the innocent as well as the sinners and was at
times intended to bring pressure to bear on an offending prince
by forcing his suffering subjects to demand that the ban, which
his conduct towards the Church had brought down upon them,
should be removed.
The interdict is still used and as lately as 1909 Pope Pius
imposed one on a north Italian city for fifteen days as a punish-
ment. But it is long since it has been used to bring a recalcitrant
ruler to submit to the Church. It is said that these "local"
interdicts, which punished cities or districts by withholding the
sacraments of the Church, date from the days of St. Basil; but
the great age of interdicts was the age of Innocent III (1198-
1216), who used them frequently and remorselessly. No less
than fifty-seven belong to his reign. Interdicts could be pro-
nounced over places by the bishop; but his ban was confined to
his own diocese. The Pope had the power to "interdict"
whole countries, and to secure the observance of his decrees.
The most famous interdicts were pronounced against Scotland \
2l8 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
by Alexander III in 1181, against the City of Rome by his
predecessor Hadrian IV, against France in 1200, because King
PhiHp Augustus had repudiated his wife, against England, for
the contumacy of John for not receiving Stephen Langton as
Archbishop, against Jerusalem because of the presence of the
rebellious and excommunicated Emperor Frederic II. Thus no
prince was too powerful, no place too holy to escape from the
pressure of a papal interdict.
In 1200 all churches in the dominions of Philip Augustus
were ordered to be closed, the Mass was not to be celebrated;
but on Fridays the host was to be consecrated by a priest
and a single acolyte, and no one might receive the sacrament
except the dying. No layman might enter a church, he could
not even hear the priest repeat the offices. Even in Passion
Week the Eucharist might not be celebrated. Only on the very
greatest festivals was Mass allowed. Nor might the women be
"churched" after childbirth, or the dying receive Extreme
Unction. But more terrible than anything else, the burial of
the dead was forbidden, the churchyards were closed, and the
laity were warned that it was a great sin to bury in unconse-
crated ground. While the interdict lasted baptism was with-
held from the children, and unbaptised infants allowed to go
to endless punishment. In the interdict in the reign of John
in England corpses, even those of bishops, were unburied, till
at last the Bishop of London was induced to issue a bull which
permitted the citizens to be buried in waste land belonging to
St. Bartholomew's Priory. Sometimes interdicts were launched
for the purpose of forcing peoples to pay real or imaginary dues
to the Church, and the island of Cyprus was threatened once
if the arrears of its tithes were not forthcoming. It is true that
all the clergy of a kingdom seldom agreed to observe an inter-
dict, (that of 1 208-1 21 2 was only partially enforced in England) ;
but, as long as the Popes were powerful enough to use this
weapon in a superstitious age, they had the princes of the
West under their control by working on the terrors of their
unfortunate subjects.
MEDIEVAL CHURCH AS A DISCIPLINARY INSTITUTION 219
AUTHORITIES
For the first part of this chapter I have been dependent on the two
volumes of O. D. Watkins, A History of Penance, a work of great learning
and research with invaluable extracts from all the documents bearing on the
subject. For the rest I am greatly indebted to Henry Charles Lea's History
of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, 3 vols. I have also made extensive
use of the articles in the Catholic Encyclopedia, and of F .W. Maitland's
Canon Law in England. A layman writing on law is beset by pitfalls; and,
if I have avoided any of these, it is due to Professor Munroe Smith of
Columbia University, New York, who kindly read my manuscript.
CHAPTER IX
THE FRIARS — THE SCHOOLMEN — THE UNIVERSITIES
Francis of Assisi — Popularity of the movement — Utilised by the Church — Danger
of Franciscanism — Innocent III and Francis — Cardinal Ugolino, later Gregory
IX — Brother Elias — The Church at Assisi — Absolute rule of poverty — Brother
Leo's Sacrum Commercium — The Everlasting Gospel — Lives of St. Francis —
Party of the strict observance — The Legend of the Three Companions — Bona-
ventura's Life of Francis — The Fioretti — The Dominicans — Tertiaries —
Monks and Friars — The new learning of the 13th century — Aristotle — Contrast
between Dominicans and Franciscans — The Summce — Alexander of Hales —
Bonaventura — Philosophy of Bonaventure — Albert the Great and Thomas
Aquinas — Duns Scotus — Friar Bacon — Study of Law — Gratian's Decre-
tum — Medicine — Scholasticism and the classics — Universities — Monastic
schools — Bologna — Paris.
The thirteenth century was an age of great ideas. In it
medieval civilization found its best expression; but at the same
time it sow^ed the seed of its own decay. It was the era of new
ideals of life, a new philosophy, and in a sense of the dawn of
modern Europe. Within its first decade a movement began,
destined to revolutionise men's views of religion and to place
in the hands of the Church a formidable force for its contest
with the rulers of the world.
The appearance of St. Francis is one of the most extraor-
dinary events of the Middle Ages. He resembles in some re-
spects the more evangelical of the heretics of the period, notably
Peter Waldo. The son of a wealthy merchant, he was indul-
gently brought up and when young he was conspicuous as a
man of pleasure. Suddenly he was converted and sold his
father's property to give the money to the poor. On being re-
jected by his father he offered himself naked to the bishop of
Assisi, who gave him a coarse robe and allowed him to dedicate
himself to God. Fired by the example of Christ, who had no-
where to lay his head, Francis dedicated himself to the Lady
Poverty. He practiced self renunciation to the utmost limit,
but without moroseness. As the "Poor Man" he espoused
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 221
Poverty in a spirit of knightly romance and poetic gaiety. He
gave himself up to work among the outcasts of society, tending
the lepers with especial care. His enthusiasm attracted count-
less disciples who followed him without any thought of be-
coming a new order, but simply with the idea of obeying
Christ's injunction to forsake all and follow Him. Francis made
his headquarters at Assisi at the Portiuncula where he and his
companions taught the simplest of gospels. He called his early
friends his "Knights of his Round Table."
The movement was essentially popular and lay. Francis'
acted with prophetic rather than priestly authority. In 121 2,
though only a deacon, he admitted St. Clara to the monastic
life and gave her the veil. Thus he inaugurated what became
the female side of FrancisCanism, the Poor Clares, or Minor-
esses. What Francis did, rather than to plan an order, was to
set up an ideal, a Christlike following of Poverty. His "rule"
was not a code of laws, but the simplest of Gospel precepts.
His brotherhood was one consisting of the poorest of the poor,
the Minores, as contrasted with the Majores of the Italian city
states. Further, Francis was not in any sense conventional.
He was never a monk at heart, but always a child of genius.
He was enthusiastic for the promulgation of his message
throughout the world and sent his brethren {fratres — friars)
to proclaim it far and wide. He himself went and preached
before the Sultan of Egypt at Damietta, and he established
missions in the Holy Land. But there was nothing formal in
his Rule and he himself was the most impulsive of men, paying
little regard to what people expected of him, often causing
offence by his very simplicity and naturalness. Francis was no
scholar, his training had been that of a layman; and he loved
nature rather than books. He gave the only Bible in the Por-
tiuncula to a poor widow, saying that as she had given two sons
to the order, it was only right that he should assist her. He,
half jestingly, forbade a brother to have a Breviary of his own.
On his deathbed instead of showing the usual monkish repug-
nance, almost necessary for a reputation for sanctity at this
time, he asked to see a lady who had given him a lamb to be
222 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
his companion; and "Brother Giacomina," as he called her,
was present when he died. All the stories of him reveal a sim-
plicity of heart, which refused to be restrained by man's ideas
of what a typical saint should be. In this lay the originality of
the singularly beautiful character of the Poor Man of Assisi.
In his essay on Ranke's History of the Popes, Macaulay ex-
tols the wisdom of Rome in its treatment of St. Francis. The
passage is as brilliant as it appears to the writer of this chapter
to be misleading. Macaulay dwells on the consummate policy
of the Roman Church in dealing with enthusiasts. "The ig-
norant enthusiast whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy,
and whatever the polite and learned may think, a most dan-
gerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. She
bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a garb of coarse dark
stuff, ties a rope round his waist, and sends him forth to teach
in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away
from her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of those who
respect his spiritual character, and are grateful for his instruc-
tions. He preaches, not exactly in the style of Masillon, but
in the way which moves the passions of uneducated hearers;
and all his influence is employed to strengthen the Church of
which he is the minister."
On the surface these words apply to Franciscanism; but
further acquaintance reveals a fallacy underlying them. The
Church showed marvellous skill in directing the movement
into the desired current. But it is no exaggeration to say that
the Franciscanism which exercised so powerful an effect, and
became so useful to the Church, was not the movement in-
augurated by Francis, but one engineered by clearer heads
and colder hearts than his. The rank and file of the order be-
came a kind of irregular army, invaluable to the cause of the
Papacy; its leaders strengthened the intellectual influence of
the Church. Its enthusiasts, on the contrary, became a danger
which all the power of the Inquisition was evoked to destroy.
The appearance of St. Francis was a danger at least as
threatening as that of heresy in Languedoc. The very beauty
of the man's character made him a formidable peril. Nothing
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 223
could have made Francis into an heresiarch or a radical. He
lacked the arrogance of the one, and the restless discontent of
the other. Revolutionaries are almost always unlovable; their
fierce indignation at all they consider abuses, their passion to
uproot what seems to impede the progress of humanity,
whether in religion or politics, makes them unpleasant to live
with. Their very love inspires them with a passion of hatred.
Francis lacked all these traits. He did not lash the clergy with
abuse like Henry the Deacon; he had a passionate reverence
for the Mystery of the Altar; he sought no political ideals, like
Arnold of Brescia. All he required for himself, all that he asked
of his followers was to follow the example of Christ, and to
practice utter renunciation as the spouse of Holy Poverty. /^
Herein lay the danger. There was but one St. Francis, and
he had scores of imitators; and, in religion especially, admirers
who try to emulate often simply caricature the original.
Moreover, what had begun as a following of pure evangelical
principles might in less worthy hands become a dangerous
heresy, subversive of the foundations of society. If the world
were to be flooded by hosts of undisciplined admirers of
Francis, Holy Poverty might degenerate into something very
unholy indeed, and their efforts be concentrated on an attack
upon the Church which was, after all, the great property
holder of the thirteenth century. Nor were indications want-
ing later as to what a general undisciplined Franciscan move-
ment might have been.
Such a situation called for all the unrivalled diplomacy of
Rome, and it justified its reputation by the skill displayed in
meeting the difficulty. Francis and his company visited Inno-
cent HI, taking with them a simple evangelical rule of pov-
erty. The Pope was at first disposed to dismiss these uncouth
petitioners. A vision — perhaps reflection — induced him to lis-
ten when they returned. He sent them away with kind words,
gave all the tonsure, admitting them thereby into the ranks
of the clergy, and told them verbally that they might go and
preach. But he committed himself to nothing, gave them no
documents and let things take their course. Thus Francis
224 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
could neither say that the Pope had rejected him, nor show
any proof that he was acting under authority from Rome.
The Cardinals took up the matter and showed interest in the
ideals of Francis. Chief among these was Ugolino, Bishop of
Ostia, already an aged man, who was destined as Gregory IX
to rule in extreme old age with a vigor often denied to youth.
Of noble birth, a statesman and a lawyer, Ugolino may have
had a sincere admiration for one so holy and so different from
himself as Francis; but he doubtless saw in the Saint a most
fitting instrument to promote the interests of the Holy See.
At any rate he supplied the new order with the guidance
necessary to make it a permanent institution. He found a
most efficient helper in one of Francis's followers and friends.
Brother EHas is one of the most perplexing figures in the
movement. Though sprung from the common people, he was
learned and ambitious, with the masterful spirit of a born
ruler. He was a layman all his life; and for many years — they
ultimately became bitter enemies — cooperated with Ugolino
both as Cardinal, and as Pope Gregory IX. Both possessed a
power of organizing an order in such a way as to give it per-
manence by diverting it from its original object. The first pol-
icy of the Papacy was to induce Francis to consent to amalga-
mate with the Dominicans or some other order, but here the
Saint showed an unexpected firmness, and in most respectful
terms declined to let his followers be merged. Failing this, it
was necessary to provide Franciscanism with a rule; and a
definite one was sanctioned in 1223 by Honorius III. Francis
had already withdrawn from the leadership of his society,
which was exercised by Elias as his Vicar General. Given up
to austerities and devotion, the influence of Francis in prac-
tical matters became more and more negligible, though he
and his faithful companions, like Brother Leo, saw and de-
plored the Order's coming degeneracy, which was bound to
follow their abandonment of the ideal of utter poverty. But it
was not till the death of Francis that Ugolino and Elias came
out into the open. Though Francis had expressed a strong ob-
jection to his order having churches, save of the poorest de-
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 225
scription, it was decided that so sacred a body as his could
only rest in a church which should rival the most sumptuous
in Christendom; and Elias proceeded to prepare this and to
collect money to make it worthy of the greatest saint of the
age.
Brother Elias has been proclaimed to be the "Paul" of
the Franciscan movement; and, though the analogy between
it and Christianity is frequently pressed, it is most precarious.
If it is true that Paul by relaxing the severe Judaism of the
primitive Church so far popularised the new religion as to
make it worldwide, Elias certainly did something similar to
Paul. St. Francis was absolutely uncompromising in insisting
on poverty and gospel simplicity. The church at Assisi, and
the ceremonies of his canonization were a distinct repudiation
of both. The order was to become a permanent institution,
with activities everywhere, especially in the growing univer-
sities. The Founder was to become a saint of the first magni-
tude, an object of unbounded reverence, as the one man who
had been honoured by bearing on his body the marks of the
Lord Jesus, in the Stigmata^ the five wounds in hands, feet,
and side. Those in the hands were asserted to be in the exact
form of the nails which had transfixed the sacred hands of the
Redeemer.
This reversal of all Francis had taught was not brought
about without opposition. His original disciples were stalwart
for his insistence on absolute poverty, as was his Testamenty
written in his last days (1226). In it, whilst enjoining the
profoundest reverence to the priesthood and the most unfal-
tering orthodoxy of belief, Francis declares that he and his
brethren loved poor and abandoned churches, and were ig-
norant men, submissive to all. He had worked with his own
hands and desired his friars to do the same. They were not to
receive churches, habitations and all that men build for them,
nor to request bulls in their favour from Rome. This was no
new Rule: Francis had caused a short and simple Rule to be
written, which the Pope had confirmed. Above all the Breth-
ren were not to make glosses either in the Rule or in the will,
226 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
but to receive them as they were written in a clear and simple
manner.
In July, 1227, less than a year after Francis's death,
Brother Leo wrote the Sacrum Commercium^ a dialogue be-
tween Francis and Holy Poverty, in which she explains all the
shifts which would be made to displace her in the Order, and
all the pleas which Avarice, under the guise of Prudence, will
prefer. To the same period, and probably also to Brother Leo,
is due the Speculum Perfectionis, in which Francis is repre-
sented as perfectly uncompromising in his insistence on Pov-
erty. Even books may not be owned by his Friars.
Such then was the attitude of the immediate followers of
Francis, the Spirituals, who took him literally and desired to
carry out his wishes. But a life so idealised demands a belief
that the perpetuation of human society is a matter of indif-
ference, and is usually accompanied by a hope that something
will happen to make the present conditions of life entirely un-
necessary. Even to the literal acceptation of the Sermon on
the Mount, the Apocalypse is a necessary complement. Its sig-
nificance must be that the things of this life are so unimpor-
tant that the end of all things is at hand. To human nature
angelic self-renunciation demands some sort of interim ethic: it
is only possible to accept such counsels of perfection, because
this world has a brief course left to run. Spiritual Franciscan-
ism consequently had its eschatology based on the Everlast-
ing Gospel of Abbot Joachim of Flore {d. 1200); and it was
believed that the end of the age was fixed for 1260. But the
policy of the Church of Rome looked to a longer future; and
Ugolino and Elias legislated and acted so as to make Francis-
canism permanent.
To understand the policy of the "liberal'* Franciscan
party it is desirable to study the history of how the Life of
the Founder came to be written and how his Rule was modi-
fied.
In view of the disputes within the Order, the rivalry of the
Dominicans and the hostility of the monks and parish priests,
it became necessary that the facts of the life of a Saint, so
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 22/
popular and so honoured by the Roman Church, should be
put before the world in as edifying a light as possible. Accord-
ingly in the year which followed the Canonization, July i6,
1228, Thomas of Celano, by order of Gregory IX, composed
his life of St. Francis. This, though the earliest hfe, is not the
most primitive account, because it has an obvious bias in
favour of Elias, then an especial favourite of the Pope. How-
ever, in representing Francis as favourable to Elias, Celano
had certainly not erred as the Saint was greatly under the
fascination of the influence of Elias, the ablest of his followers.
Elias was Minister General from 1232 to 1239, His arbitrary
rule disgusted the educated Franciscans on the one hand, and
also exasperated the Spirituals. With his fall and his bitter
quarrel with Gregory IX, the party of the stricter observance
reasserted its influence, and the Life by Thomas of Celano be-
came undesirable. Accordingly under the generalate of Cres-
centius de Jesi (1244 to 1247) the Brethren who had anything
to tell were invited to send in their communications. The final
result of this was the Legend of the Three Companions, the
Friars Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. Here the early story of the
Saint is told with great freshness and simplicity but all the
later part of his career is omitted — possibly it was excised —
and the reader is brought suddenly to his closing hours, death
and canonization. Immediately after this Thomas of Celano
produced the first part of his Second Life. The second part
came when Giovanni di Parma was general (1247-1257). In
this the changes in policy in the headquarters of the Order are
seen. Poverty is now praised and the position of the Spiritual
party strongly asserted.
The last phase of the struggle was the generalate of St.
Bonaventure. The friends of Giovanni di Parma received the
predictions of Abbot Joachim; but the new age did not come
in 1260. Bonaventure, a learned professor of Paris, threw his
whole weight on the side of those who wanted to make the
Order a school of piety and learning. The Spirituals were con-
fined in monasteries. Giovanni di Parma, by the special favour
of Cardinal Ottobon, was permitted to retire to the Convent
228 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
of Greccio; and at the Chapter of Narbonne Bonaventure was
commissioned to write the official Hfe of St. Francis. At the
next chapter held at Paris all copies of other legends were
ordered to be destroyed, in order that Bonaventure's Life
might be the sole authority. It is only by good fortune that
the earlier lives have been preserved. In the authorised ver-
sion of the Legend Francis is presented, not, in his natural
simplicity, but as a typical wonder-working Saint; nor do the
smooth periods of Bonaventure give the real man, of whom in
later literature we get glimpses in the Fioretti or Little Flowers
of St. Francis. The Saint as well as the Order had been changed
and forced into a conventional mould. One thing, however, is
evident from the story of the evolution of Franciscanism under
ecclesiastical pressure that, but for what occurred, the Order
would never have exerted the influence it did, nor have proved
so great an example of rapid degeneration.
It has been already shown how Dominic was moved to
found his Order of Preachers. His story lacks the romance
which is attached to the origin of Franciscanism. A noble
Spaniard brought up in clerical surroundings, he could never
touch the imagination in the way St. Francis had done. Yet
during his lifetime Dominic enjoyed the favour of the papal
court and was recognised as a valued adviser. But whilst
Francis was sending forth his Friars far and wide, Dominic
had for some time but seven devoted adherents; and though
later his order grew very rapidly, it increased more slowly than
^ that of Francis. The two saints met in Italy. Dominic visited
Assisi, and was so amazed at the simplicity of the life of
the Portiuncula, that he made the decision to follow Poverty.
But the real barrier between them was that Francis was a
believer in evangelical simplicity, whilst Dominic, having to
combat heresy, realised the need of learning. In vain there-
fore did he put on the cord of Francis, and beg that their
work might be united in one order; their ideas were too in-
compatible, and other means had to be used to make the
Franciscans include the learned of this world. Still, though
in both orders poverty and learning were in the end skilfully
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 229
combined, the Friars of St. Francis were always the professed
companions of the Poor, whilst those of St. Dominic were the
accredited champions of the Church,
Dominic had instituted an order of Tertiaries, which had
great influence on the development of the friars. Men and
women who lived in the world were eligible. They lived under
a sort of monastic rule adapted to secular life and gave the
Dominicans a devoted body of lay folk of whose support they
were assured. Though Francis had demanded absolute poverty,
his followers allowed their friends to become Tertiaries, and
thus gained the same advantages as their rivals.
The impulse which drove men and women into these men-
dicant orders marks a change in the development of Chris-
tianity; and in this respect St. Dominic was a pioneer. For cen-
turies the monks had retired from the sinful world to lead a life
of contemplation. Only circumstances made them take an
active part as missionaries and reformers. The ideal they set
before them was to be alone in communion with God. But by
the twelfth century monasticism had spent its strength. There
were no new orders, and few monasteries were founded. Hence-
forward the object of all who felt a call to a higher life was not
so much to leave the world as to stay in it, though not to be of
it, and to help men by acts of benevolence, or to become
spiritual soldiers in defence of the Church.
A new ideal such as this results in a stimulus to intellectual
activity; and circumstances contributed to make the appear-
ance of the Friars coincident with the learned revival known as
Scholasticism, due to the introduction of the philosophy of
Aristotle into Western Europe.
Hitherto Aristotle had only been known in the schools as
a teacher of Logic through his Categories and De Interpretatione.
In the twelfth century the Jewish Aristotelians, Avicenna,
Averroes and Maimonides brought his philosophy and science
into notice; and first through Arabic, and later through trans-
lations direct from the Greek, the whole of his writings were
known in Western Europe by 1272. After a long period of
speculation about the highest mysteries, based on insufficient
230 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
data, a complete system of philosophy was available; but this
was naturally suspected as heathen teaching, which had come
into the schools through the medium of Jewish and Moham-
medan philosophers. The teaching of Aristotle was conse-
quently condemned by authority in 1210 and 1215. But ec-
clesiastical censures which could reduce emperors and kings to
submission, and lay waste far and fertile territories, were of
no avail against the new learning, which became dominant in
the schools and rising universities and soon occupied the at-
tention of the Friars.
As might be expected, each order was influenced by the
purpose for which it was originally intended. The Dominicans
were preachers and theologians. Their warfare was with heresy:
their chief arguments were based on appeals to the reason. As
teachers they naturally inclined to a logical system of theology,
and fell back upon the Scriptures and the traditions of the
Church. All innovations in religion were repugnant to them, as
to men pledged to maintain the Faith pure and unimpaired.
Their favourite teachers were St. Paul and Augustine, and their
object was to make their scholars clear, logical and dogmatic.
The Franciscans, on the other hand, appealed rather to the
emotion. They aspired to bring the Gospel to the poor and
unhappy. Their ideal Teacher was the Jesus of the early Gos-
pels, who went about among the common people as their
friend. Their work in hospital and lazar house inclined them
to the study of sickness in all its forms and, therefore, of
medicine, and caused them to have an interest in the practical
rather than in the speculative sciences. As missioners, they
were anxious to discover what would best appeal to the re-
ligious emotions of the people, and were more solicitous to
kindle zeal than to reproduce antiquity. It is not therefore
surprising to find that the severe theologians who attempted
to answer all possible objections were Dominicans, and the ad-
vocates of such innovations of belief, like that of the Immacu-
late Conception of the Virgin, Franciscans. Nor was it un-
natural that the Order of St. Francis should produce the
pioneer of modern science in Friar Roger Bacon.
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 23 1
In the thirteenth century the typical Franciscan doctors were ■
Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura, and Duns Scotus, and the
leading Dominican scholars were Albert the Great and Thomas
Aquinas. It is noteworthy that two of the Franciscans were of
British birth; of the others named, Bonaventura and Aquinas
were Italians, and Albert the Great a German. The main
scenes of their activities were Paris, Oxford, and Cologne.
The text books of the Schools were called Summcz, or Com-
pendiums of Theology. Such a work was Abelard's Sic et Non,
in which he puts the opposite opinions of the Fathers parallel
to one another. There were many similar books but the most
famous was the Sentences of Peter Lombard. This, the hand-
book for the "Masters" who taught in the schools, is in four
books. The first is "The object of our happiness, God; The
seco7id means of attaining this happiness, Creatures; the
thirdy Virtues, Men and Angels, that is the special means of
happiness, and subjects of happiness. The topic of these three
books is things (res), that of the fourth is signs (signa), i.e.,
the sacraments." The object of this and like works was to state
Christian doctrine in a clear and logical form so as to prove a
starting point for philosophical teaching. The Scholasticism of
the thirteenth century may be described as Summcs plus
Aristotle. Peter Lombard lived before the recovery of Aris-
totle; and the first of the new scholastics was an Enghshman,
Alexander of Hales, who taught in Paris in about 1220. In
1 22 1 he entered the Franciscan Order and died in 1247. He was
known as the "Irrefrangible Doctor" and his great work was
a Summa U^iiversce Theologies. He was the first to give the
impulse in the direction of the Aristotelian philosophy and his
disciples were the great schoolmen of the century. He is spe-
cially noteworthy for the use he makes of Aristotle's Ethics in
his moral teaching.
Alexander of Hales was followed by an even more famous
Franciscan — Bonaventura, the biographer of St. Francis,
known as the "Seraphic Doctor." He was born before the death
of the Saint and is said to have been brought to him to be
healed when a little child. Bonaventura seems to have been a
232 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
versatile man, capable of profound enquiry, mystical piety,
and administrative power. He was the seventh General of the
Franciscan order and his work in this capacity may have drawn
him aside somewhat more than some of his contemporaries
from his studies. The year before his death at the Council of
Lyons he was made Cardinal Bishop of Albano.
The discussion of the philosophy of Bonaventura belongs
properly to a philosophical work; here it is sufficient merely to
indicate the general trend of his mind. Of it, one may perhaps
say that philosophy is subordinate to theology, and theology
to the desire for mystical communion with God. The highest
light is Scripture, the sacraments are the true remedy for the
soul, all knowledge should minister to the thought of God and
man's relationship to him. Herein lies the whole purport of
scholasticism. Theology is the queen of the sciences, the end of
all knowledge being God. Thus far it diflPers in no respect from
all which bears the name of Platonism, the object of which is
directed to the Supreme Being, the Idea of Ideas. Natural
science is consequently only of secondary importance if it
ministers to mere utility, or to the comfort and convenience
of the human race. Astronomy, for example, is not primarily
intended to aid us in navigating ships, or forecasting the sea-
sons but to raise our minds to the contemplation of Eternal
Truths. Christian philosophy differs from that of the ancients
in so far as it assumes a revelation which places the Truth
within our reach. The believer has in Scriptures, in the Sacra-
ments, and in the Church a means of access to God. He pos-
sesses a body of irrefrangible truth, and it is the duty of reason
to align itself with this divine knowledge. The possession of
Aristotle's physical and other treatises hindered rather than
helped forward scientific study, in so far that the philosopher
believed that he possessed sufficient knowledge of the visible
world, and could press forward unimpeded to the contempla-
tion of invisible realities.
The next step, therefore, was to do for secular and divine
knowledge what had already been done for the Civil and
Canon Law, to codify, to arrange and to explain them so that
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 233
in future mankind, being in possession of all that was necessary
for the one important thing, eternal salvation, might set its
mind at rest. This was attempted and in a certain degree ac-
complished by the two famous Dominicans, Albert of Bollstadt,
surnamed "the Great," and Thomas Aquinas, the "Angelic
Doctor."
Albert, Count of Bollstadt in Suabia, is one of those in-
tellectual giants who are the glory of Germany. He was born
about 1 193 and died in 1280. He taught first at Cologne and
afterwards at Paris, till he was sent back to Cologne to estab-
lish a school there. For two years, 1260-62, he held the see of
Regensburg, but insisted on resigning to return to his studies.
His immense knowledge covered the entire field of human
science. He set out to place before the men of his age the sum
of the teaching of Aristotle and his Arabian commentators.
How far Albert was an original thinker, or the greatest of com-
pilers is open to dispute; but the extent of his knowledge is
undeniable. He explored the field of natural science; but,
though he is tainted with the credulity of the ancients on matters
which could have been tested by experiment, he must not be
hastily condemned. He has been claimed to be the first since
Theophrastus, the contemporary of Aristotle, who made a truly
scientific study of plants. Nor was he content to believe that
Aristotle had said the last word. Like Bacon, he admitted that
much remained to be discovered, and acknowledged that ex-
periments must be repeated to prove a demonstration. The last
volume of Albert's works is devoted to the glories of Mary.
Here boundless devotion is shown to the Virgin Mother of the
Lord, and her wonders are recorded and accepted with reverent
credulity. The deeply religious feeling of Albert and his age
here manifests itself. His undoubted piety towards the Virgin
secured his more secular studies from all reproach of a desire
for mere worldly knowledge.
The glory of Albert is eclipsed by that of Aquinas, who '
is still supposed by many to have said the last word on the
theology of the Church. His Summa Theologies has been well
described as "the supreme achievement of scholastic theology;
234 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
indeed as a reasoned exposition of the whole body of Catholic
doctrine it has never been equalled." In our own age this has
been declared by the highest ecclesiastical authority. And if
the Christian revelation is final and complete, if here, at least,
man has nothing to do but assimilate its teaching through the
Church, Thomas occupies an unassailable position. For his
system is the appeal of one of the acutest of human minds to
the intellect, though he admits that there is a knowledge of
God unattainable by man save by revelation. Every statement
is subjected to the test of reason, all possible objections are
raised and met. Medieval doctrine is set forth with perfect
clearness and order, and in this way those who refuse to hear
the Church are deliberate sinners against the light of reason.
Heresy therefore is not only the worst of sins, it is the height
of folly. All, and more than all, which St. Dominic can have
dreamed of St. Thomas accomplished. He is truly the Atlas
which supports the globe of Catholic dogma to this day.
The Franciscan Order produced a rival to the great Domin-
ican in Duns Scotus. Though his nationality is disputed, he
was certainly educated at Oxford and taught in Paris and Co-
logne. The Franciscans had a greater success in England than
the Dominicans, partly no doubt because their lives seemed
more practical, but also on account of the singular freedom of
the island from heresy. This made the Dominican message less
necessary to the country because there were no heretics to
convert. Scotus attributes far less importance to the intellect
and more to the will than Aquinas, nor does he favour the
idea that God's supremacy involves the acceptance of a
doctrine of predestination. His followers, "the Scotists," were
at constant war with those of Aquinas, "the Thomists," and
their disputes long agitated the schools. Duns Scotus is re-
markable for the crabbed character of his vocabulary and
style.
But there yet remains a Franciscan, an enigma in his own
time, and a wonder to all succeeding ages. The immense eru-
dition of Germany finds a typical representative in the Blessed
Albert the Great, as does the clear luminous Italian mind in
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 235
St. Thomas Aquinas. The practical character of the EngHsh
intellect is revealed in a man, less honoured by the Church,
but more in the modern world, Friar Roger Bacon. Orthodox in
opinion, sharing in the piety of his age, he was nevertheless in
the true sense a pioneer, and suffered during his long life in
consequence. He studied at Oxford under one of the most re-
markable of his countrymen, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of
Lincoln, for whom he had an unbounded admiration as the
one man who knew all the sciences. As a matter of course he
was also at Paris, where he obtained the degree of Doctor.
He must have joined the Franciscans late in life, as he says
that he spent immense sums of money on prosecuting his studies,
in purchasing books, making experiments and buying instru-
ments. In twenty years he expended no less than two thousand
pounds on his researches. The motives which led him to join
the order are unknown, — probably genuine devotion, for
Bacon was a deeply religious man — but in doing so he sacri-
ficed his fortune, which he might have spent on acquiring
knowledge, and his liberty. In all probability as a Dominican
he would have been the glory of his order, but the Franciscans
had little use for so restless and enquiring a mind. Bacon be-
lieved as firmly as his namesake three centuries later in the
infinite possibility of science; but this was not his chief offence
in his own age. Boldly he attacked the methods of his day and
exposed what seemed to him the fraudulent pretentiousness of
its knowledge, its reliance on the authority of secondary evi-
dence, its refusal to go to the sources, its neglect of foreign
languages, its skill in covering ignorance by verbiage, its
foolish questioning about subjects of which nothing can be
known, such as the nature and properties of angels.
As a result Bacon was constantly disciplined, and spent
much of his later days in prison. Pope Clement IV (1265-
1268) took a great interest in his discoveries and wrote to
him; but his reign was too short and too occupied to be of
much aid to the philosopher. But it must be borne in mind
that in the thirteenth century, though the spirit of intolerance
prevailed, Bacon's troubles were due to his being a Franciscan
236 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
friar, and not to his speculations, theories or even to his de-
nunciation of the scholars of the time. The very fact that
Aristotelian and Arabian learning was accepted by men like
Hales, Bonaventura, and Aquinas, shows that in the schools,
at least, much freedom was enjoyed; and as a rule provided
men did not try to disturb the existing order of society, they
were tolerated and even encouraged by those in authority
in the Church.
But theology and philosophy were not the only studies of
the Middle Ages. The highly placed clergy, and especially the
Popes, numbered in their ranks men who were trained lawyers
of great ability. The Normans especially took to the law as
naturally as did the ancient Romans. The thirteenth century
was an age of legists throughout Christendom. The necessities
of the time compelled rulers to consider their exact legal posi-
tion in regard to one another and especially as to their rights
in the face of the claims of the Papacy.
There were two great masses of Law: Civil Law of the
Roman Empire and the Canon Law of the Church. In the
great contest between the Emperors and the Popes, these
Laws also rivalled one another, as the rights of the Empire
were being opposed to those of the Church. Hence the lawyers
were busily engaged in glossing and explaining the Civil Law
or in reducing that of the Church to a formal code. In a sense
the work of the jurisconsults of this period was similar to that
of the Masters of the schools in theology and philosophy.
Both were trying to settle the whole question by a scholastic
Summa or a legal Digest.
Though the study of Roman Law had never completely
died out, and it had superseded the barbarian laws under
which the invaders of Italy had formerly lived, it revived in
Bologna early in the twelfth century with the lectures of Ir-
nerius. Henceforward Bologna became the centre of legal in-
struction, not only in Civil, but also in Canon Law. In the
middle of the century Gratian, a monk, produced his Decretuniy
a Code of the Laws of the Church, divided into three parts.
The first, the canons of Councils, decrees of Popes, and opin-
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 237
ions of the Fathers; the second, ecclesiastical judgments; the
third, rites and ceremonies. The work was completed in 1234
by Gregory IX, who entrusted it to Raymond of Pennaforte,
a Spaniard. This Pope may be regarded as the Justinian of
the Church, and it is significant that his Decretals appeared
whilst he was, during an interval of peace, preparing for his
death struggle with Frederic II.
The enthusiasm with which the clergy betook themselves
to the study, not only of the Canon but also of the Civil Law,
alarmed the ecclesiastical authorities. The practice of both
was so lucrative, that it attracted many young men of ability
to the detriment of purely theological study. Honorius III in
1219 interdicted the teaching of Civil Law in the growing
university of Paris. But no papal decree could stay the tide in
this direction. Not only in Italy and the Empire, where the
rivalry between State and Church was acute, but also in
England and France great lawyers, whether in Canon or Civil
procedure, or both, were arising. The Laws of England were
written upon by Bracton, and in the struggle early in the
fourteenth century between Philip the Fair and the Papacy,
the lawyers played a prominent part. Theology, and the phil-
osophy of Greece, Canon Law, and the legislation of Rome,
were the studies of medieval Europe.
The study of medicine revived before those of Theology or
Law, the earliest school being that of Salerno in southern
Italy, which appears in the eleventh century. The pursuit of
this science received a considerable impulse by contact with
Jewish and Arabian practitioners.
The new learning was rather prejudicial to literature than
otherwise. The twelfth century could boast of real scholars,
like the Englishman John of Salisbury; but the philosophy of
the next generation tended to depress the reviving classicism
of an earlier age. In fact in scholasticism we see science chok-
ing literature. In the name of precision, the philosophers, as
they have frequently done since, robbed language of its
beauty by the invention of a hideous jargon of technicalities;
and in their endeavour to say what they meant, employed a
238 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
phraseology which no reasonable person could understand.
The age was certainly one of intellectual revival; but in m
sense was it a classical one.
The activity of the Scholastics and of the Friars appears
in the growing universities which formed so marked a feature
in European life. The word University, however, was not used
in its modern sense. In writing to a community, the expres-
sion universitas vestra means "all of you"; universitas juris is
the equivalent for "all a person's legal responsibilities and
rights." The term is also applied to a guild or college of any
description, especially that of tradesmen, as Universitas pisto-
rum, "the guild of bakers." It was only late that it was ap-
plied to institutions of learning, and then not in the sense of
including all knowledge in its curriculum, but of allowing
men of all nations to study at a particular place. The old ex-
pression was Studium generale, a school open to the world.
There was nothing formal in the beginning of a univer-
sity. It was the creation of circumstances, not of any deliber-
ate plan. Rich men did not found universities, as they did
monasteries, with lavish endowments. As a rule their origin
was democratic. Sometimes the students formed the society,
and the teachers were their hired servants. At others the
university's nucleus was a guild of teachers. Their progress
towards official recognition was gradual.
The parents of the northern universities were the monas-
tic schools, at which men like William of Champeaux and his
rival Abelard had taught; and these appear in the time of
Charles the Great. In Italy, however, it was in the cities that
education revived and this was mainly directed towards the
legal study. Probably no invasion of barbarians succeeded in
entirely destroying the old municipal spirit of the towns of
Northern Italy, and its tradition was derived from the days
when the Roman Law prevailed. The old legend that the
Code of Justinian had been rescued in a single copy, when
Amalfi was captured in 1135, has long been rejected; and it is
tolerably certain that the knowledge of Roman Law had
never entirely disappeared in Italy, and that it was taught in
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 239
Schools in cities like Pavia, Ravenna, and Rome. Bologna,
however, early attained a peculiar preeminence as an educa-
tional centre, particularly in the Civil Law. But the Canon
Law was also studied, and the representatives of the two in
the twelfth century are the Civilian, Irnerius, and the Canon-
ist, Gratian. According to a tradition, which made the Count-
ess Matilda the foundress of the schools of Bologna, their
eighth centenary was observed in 1888. There is a charter in
1 1 58 of Frederic Barbarossa recognizing the student class in
Lombardy, and so, in a sense, in Bologna. As a matter of fact
however, the institution was more spontaneous in its origin
and growth. Students from different parts of the world assem-
bled there. For protection, which non-citizens were wholly or
partially denied, these organized themselves into national Uni-
versities or guilds, appointed their own officers styled "Rec-
tors," hired professors, probably natives, to instruct them, but
permitted them to have no control over their arrangements,
indeed it was the students who fined and punished the pro-
fessors, and not vice versa. A university of this description, so
strange to us, was not in any way clerical or theological; but
this must not mislead the reader of thinking in modern terms.
There was nothing anti-clerical in the sense implying jealousy
of church interference. The Universitas which the students
formed was just as much a guild as that of any trade or occu-
pation. Nor did the study of Law in Italy imply anything less
ecclesiastical than that of Theology in Paris. When the rights
of the Empire were in conflict with those of the Papacy, Law
was in fact just as likely to arouse controversy in the Church
as questions in Theology, and every dispute involved an ap-
peal to the Civil and to the Canon Law.
Very different was the origin of the great representative
school of Paris which overshadowed all other seats of learning
in northern Europe. It was to Paris in the days of Abelard
and William of Champeaux that scholars flocked to hear the
rival teachers under the shadow of the Cathedral of Notre
Dame. But in those days there was no system nor discipline,
and the proceedings were marked by a complete absence of
240 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
formality. Still the nucleus of a university in our sense of the
term was already in existence, and the system gradually un-
folded itself. The process was two-fold: on the one hand there
was the recognition of the teachers or masters; on the other
the organization of the students. It became evident that un-
authorised teachers could not be allowed to hold classes, hence
the necessity of recognising those who had passed through a
qualifying course of study. This took the form of a degree,
which not only gave a man a right to teach, but also laid on
him the obligation to do so. The Masters tended to form a
corporation of their own, and to admit others to their rights
and privileges. As to the scholars, they came from all coun-
tries and naturally grouped themselves according to their na-
tionalities. At Paris in the thirteenth century four nations
were recognised, the French, the Normans, the Picards, and
the English. Each nation had its representative or *' Proctor."
Over the four a *' Rector" ultimately presided. Paris differed
from Bologna in being a more distinctly clerical institution
under the Bishop, and the Chancellor of the Cathedral. It also
discouraged the study of Law and upheld that of Theology,
which in the eyes of the Popes was the more dangerous, as
likely to produce heresy.
Oxford, the second northern university of importance, was,
despite its claim to great antiquity, probably an offshoot of
Paris. The city of Oxford was not only neither a capital nor an
episcopal see; it had not even a great monastery to form the
nucleus of a school like that of St. Denys near Paris. The town
owed its importance to its position as a political and commer-
cial centre, and is seldom mentioned before the eleventh cen-
tury, when it became a frequent meeting place of councils, lay
and ecclesiastical. It seems also to have been a home of learn-
ing, as it is connected with the lectures on the Civil Law by
Vacarius in 1149, during the reign of Stephen, and with the
name of the learned Robert Pullen, the first English Cardinal.
It has been conjectured that the University was an offshoot
from Paris, due to the troubles of 1167 when Archbishop
Thomas Becket was in exile in France, and Henry II had re-
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 24I
called all English clerks, among whom would be included the
students in Paris.
About 1 1 84 Giraldus Cambrensis, the Welsh traveller and
historian, visited Oxford "where the clergy excel in clerkship"
and read his Topography of Ireland before the assembled Mas-
ters and Scholars, devoting three days to the lecture, and on
each day giving a meal to the university or town. The diocese
in which Oxford was situated was Lincoln, and, as the Bishop
lived far away, he appointed a Chancellor to look after the
University. Apparently there was no such official till 1214.
But though the Bishops of Lincoln always acted by deputy,
one of them was an early patron of Oxford. This was Robert
Grosseteste, one of the most renowned scholars of his day,
who played so important a part in the country during the
troubles of Henry Ill's reign, and was a most enthusiastic
supporter of the Franciscans. Like Paris, the University was
divided between nations, though here there were but two, the
Boreales (Northerners), including Scots, and the Australes
(Southerners), including the Welsh and Irish. Their represen-
tatives were the Proctors, of which at Oxford there were but
two.
One University gave birth to others by migrations. Owing
to various causes the students would leave the town from
time to time. Thus, it has been suggested, Paris gave birth to
Oxford, as Oxford probably did to Cambridge. The origin of
this last University is, however, so obscure that it is difficult to
do more than surmise. The position of the town was impor-
tant as a military stronghold commanding the famous bridge
which was the key of access to East Anglia. Surrounded by
gloomy fen and marsh on one side it was accessible on the
West from most parts of England, and was not far from some
of the greatest of the Benedictine Houses such as Ely and
Ramsey. It resembled Oxford in not having any large religious
houses within its precincts. The Schools there are implied in a
charter in the second year of Henry III (1218). If, at any
earlier time, Oxford scholars migrated thither, this was follow-
ing the precedents of other Universities where the students
242 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
and Masters, finding the townspeople too exacting, or the
authorities oppressive, departed and set up a place for their
studies elsewhere. Thus we have the two famous migrations,
in 1263 from Oxford to Northampton, and in 1334 to Stam-
ford. This is of itself sufficient to show how loose the connec-
tion between the towns and Universities was; for the same
happened at Bologna.
Permanence was given to the Universities, notably Paris,
Oxford, and Cambridge, by the establishment of institutions
for the accommodation of students. The collegiate system,
which still exists in the English universities, was not part of
the original conception but came into being during the thir-
teenth century.
When a city was invaded by hordes of students from all
parts of the world the natural problem was to find them lodg-
ings. The townsfolk were grasping, and the young men riotous
and impecunious. In Paris there were said in the thirteenth
century to be as many as thirty thousand students at a time.
Some combined to hire houses in common, and officials were
appointed to see that they received proper treatment as to the
price charged; gradually institutions were established for the
use of poor scholars, where they could be lodged and fed, and
these ultimately became colleges.
The thirteenth century also witnessed the establishment of
colleges in both English Universities. University and Balliol at
Oxford both belong to this age, as does Peterhouse at Cam-
bridge, founded by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely in 1284.
But the most interesting of these collegiate establishments, on
account of its plan and intention, was Merton College, Oxford,
the creation of Walter de Merton, afterwards Bishop of Roch-
ester. In about 1263 he made over his Manor House and estate
of Maiden in Surrey to a community of scholars. It was m-
tended mainly for the benefit of his family; but by 1270 his
ideas had expanded, land had been acquired in Oxford and a
regular college established. It was to be a secular as opposed to
the monastic establishments then rising in the place, and none
of its members were to be religious men, i.e., monks or friars.
THE FRIARS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITIES 243
In Walter's statutes there are all the features of a modern
college. A Warden, who is to be elected by the thirteen Senior
Fellows, a Society of Fellows, who are to continue till they
obtain a benefice of sufficient value, estates administered in
the name of the Warden, Fellows and Scholars, Scholars of an
inferior rank portionari (Postmasters). It is remarkable — per-
haps it is due to Walter de Merton's foresight — that, whereas
several colleges in the University of Paris disappeared earlier,
and all were swept away by the French Revolution, all
the English colleges have survived and still continue to
flourish.
The Friars established themselves in the Universities and
obtained enormous influence but not without much opposition.
Matthew Paris, the English historian, notices how rapidly the
orders degenerated, more in twenty-four years than the older
ones in four centuries. In Paris the struggle was very bitter
against the Mendicants. Headed by William St. Amour the
Masters did all in their power to exclude the Friars but in vain.
They were regarded as too useful to the papal cause and their
right to teach in Paris was confirmed by the Bull of Alexander
IV, Quasi lignum vitcE. They were especially unpopular because
of their zeal for proselytising among the young, as well as
for their invasion of the rights and duties of the parochial
clergy.
The most permanent contribution of the thirteenth cen-
tury was the Universities of Europe, institutions which had no
real counterpart in antiquity, and have become the recognised
centres of the higher education of today. Amid constant changes
the system that is common to these institutions has persisted.
Degrees, Examinations, Faculties, Lectures are to be found
throughout the world, and few and bold indeed are those who
question their utility. As yet, say in 1300, there were but few
Universities — three in France, Paris, Toulouse, Montpelier —
seven in Italy, some, like Padua, oflFshoots from Bologna, two
in England — but these were destined to have a growing in-
fluence on thought and to exercise more authority of the
Church itself. But here it is necessary to leave the University
244 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
in its infancy. The seed had been sown and was already bearing
fruit.
AUTHORITIES
The "Works" of St. Francis are in the Bibliotheca Patristica Medii Aevi,
Vol. VI. Father Paschal Robinson published in 1906 a new annotated
translation of The Writings of St. Francis. There are two very convenient
English editions of the Sacrum Commercium and the Legend of the three
companions published by J. M. Dent (London); also an English translation
of Celano's Lives of St. Francis, by G. Ferrars Howell, New York. A volume
in Everyman^ s Library contains translations of The Little Flowers, The Life
of St. Francis (by St. Bonaventura), and the Mirror of Perfection. The
works of Paul Sabatier I have consulted are the Life of St. Francis of Assisi
m English and French; the Opuscules Critiques et Historiques, I, II; his
edition of the Specubim and his Collections d'etudes et des documents, IV. I
have used G. G. Coulton's valuable lectures, Christ, St. Francis, and Today.
Also Father Cuthbert's The Romanticism of St. Francis. It is hardly necessary
to add that the literature on the subject is immense; see P. Robinson's Short
Introduction to Franciscan Literature (1907), also his article "Francis of
Assisi" in the Catholic Encyclopedia. A Guide to Franciscan Studies, by
A. G. Little, is valuable.
For the study of the Scholastics the reader is referred to such books as
the two volumes of St. Thomas of Aquinas, by R. B. Vaughan, The History
of Religions, Vol. II, by G. F. Moore, and to the exhaustive article on St.
Thomas in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Two standard books in English on the Universities of Europe are Hastings
Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, and the Introduction
to J. Bass Mullinger's History of the University of Cambridge to 153$-
I
CHAPTER X
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN
Italian and German antagonism — The Papacy anti-national — Matilda's bequest —
Guelfs and Ghibellines — The Sicilies — Papal claims — German arrogance —
Frederic Barbarossa — Hadrian IV — Rome under interdict — Character of
Hadrian — Alexander III — The Lombard League — Death of Frederic I —
Henry VI marries Constance — Innocent III — Frederic II the ward of the
Papacy — Philip and Otto — Frederic II — Honorius III — Gregory IX —
Frederic II's Crusade — Nine years' peace between Frederic and the Papacy —
Frederic's victories in Lombardy — Second excommunication — Innocent IV —
Frederic deposed at Lyons — Guelfs and Ghibelhnes in Lombardy — Manfred —
Interregnum in the Empire — The French popes — Charles of Anjou — Charles
in Rome — Defeat of Manfred at Benevento — Battle of Tagliacozzo — Sicilian
Vespers — Wanderings of the Popes — Tailure of the Hohenstaufens — France
and the Popes — • Former greatness of the Emperor — German resentment against
Italy — Teutonic Order — Collapse of Latin Christianity in the East — England
alienated — Not a war of religion between Popes and Hohenstaufens — Ruin of
Sicily.
As was shown in the account of the Crusades there are in
Europe impulses which manifest themselves in different forms
throughout successive ages, and yet are fundamentally the
same. One of these is the latent hostility between the inhabit- •
ants of Italy and the Teutonic races beyond the Alps. From the )
earliest days the Germanic peoples have been trying to gain
an access to the Mediterranean by occupying the peninsula,
and have failed because of their inability to understand the
genius of the Italians. In addition to this the Teutons have had
to cope with the inextinguishable memory of the Romans that
their city was, and ought still to be, the capital of the world.
Nor was it the Papacy alone in the Middle Ages which upheld
this idea. The people desired the preeminence of their city as
keenly as the clergy. Though Rome might be poor, turbulent,
uncivilized, at times almost forsaken, though her armies were
scattered like chaff by the iron troops of the north, the Roman
still clung to the idea that he was the natural master of the
world. A German might be the greatest potentate in Europe,
245
246 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
he might be called Caesar and Augustus, he might be in theory
regarded as the true God-given ruler of Christendom, but he
was never able to make Rome for any long period even a place
of residence. Almost every imperial coronation was the occasion
of a serious riot, and the new Augustus had to leave the city
with all speed. The climate also came to the rescue of the Ro-
mans; for however vast and victorious a German force might be,
it was sure to succumb before the fatal fevers of the neighbour-
hood of Rome.
The Papacy represented the national feelings of the Romans
in its antagonism to any Teutonic people established in Italy.
It had eagerly embraced the help of the Byzantines against
the Ostrogoths in the sixth century, and uniformly stood by
the Empire against the Lombards in the seventh. In the
eighth century the Popes had called in the Franks because the
Byzantines could not defend them against the Lombards and
had taken part in restoring the Empire of the West by crown-
ing Charles. In the tenth century the three Ottos had tried to
restore the dignity of the Empire, and in the eleventh, the
Franconian dynasty had purified the Papacy by putting in
good and devout German popes only to find themselves en-
gaged in the furious struggle with Henry IV and Henry V
about investitures. When this had been settled by a not un-
reasonable compromise, the Empire made a bold bid for su-
premacy not only in Germany and Italy but in the Western
world.
In the desperate struggle which ensued, despite the pious
admonitions of the successive pontiffs and the fact that so to
speak the air thundered and their arrows, in the form of ex-
communications, went abroad, the aim of both parties was
secular and the success of the papal policy was mainly due to
its being on the side of Italian independence.
Since the time of Charles the Great northern Italy had been
mainly divided into imperial and papal territories. By the do-
nation of Pippin the Popes claimed all south of a line drawn
from Luna to Monte Salice. But this claim was not admitted,
perhaps not even seriously made, the fact being that generally
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 247
neither the papal, nor even the imperial suzerainty over north-
ern Italy was effective. After their expeditions into Italy the
different Emperors left their territories entrusted to vassals
who governed them almost independently.
The greatest of the imperial feudatories in the eleventh
century were the counts of Tuscany, represented during the
long struggle over Investitures, by the famous Countess Ma-
tilda, the supporter of the Papacy against the Empire. At her
death in iiig she bequeathed her dominions to the Pope; and
these, known as the terra Mathildis, became a fertile cause of
dispute.
The twelfth century witnessed the rise of numbers of cities,
all anxious to throw off the yoke of the Emperor and his feudal
nobles, and prepared to put up a stubborn resistance in sup-
port of their liberties. Thus there arose two parties in Italy, the
papal and the imperial, known respectively as Guelf and Ghib-
elline. Each supported the divine authority exercised by its
leader, the Guelf maintaining that God had set Pope over
Emperor, and the Ghibelline the opposite. But under claims
supported by the Scripture and the tradition of the Church,
principles profoundly political were involved; and the contest
was actually one between native and Germanic influence in
Italy. The papal party was weak in material force; for the Italian
was no match for the German as a soldier. On the other hand
the Empire was disunited, many of its most powerful princes
were ecclesiastics, and no German army could long endure the
climate of Italy.
Southern Italy and Sicily presented a different problem.
It had long been the prey of some foreign power. In the eighth
century the Byzantines and Lombards held it, then the Sara-
cens occupied the land, finally the Normans overshadowed
both Saracens and Byzantines. The influence of the Normans
was decisive in the struggle about investitures, and the Popes
realised that their security depended greatly on who occupied
the lands south of Rome. From henceforward it became a
matter of vital interest what power ruled in the south. The
kingdom of the two Sicilies, as it was called, became the pivot
248 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
of papal policy and the motive which led the Popes to compass
the ruin of the house of Frederic II in the thirteenth century
was identical with that which made Pius IX in the nineteenth
century regard Garibaldi as his most dreaded enemy. To have
Lombardy and the South in the same strong hand was to en-
danger the crushing of the States of the Church between the
upper and the nether millstone.
Another factor in the struggle was the almost incredible
claim for supremacy put forth by the Popes during the period.
They regarded themselves as set over the nations "to pull
down and to plant. " Kings were their subjects, their vassals.
Their interdicts could paralyse a country. A threat of excom-
munication could bring the most powerful rulers of Europe
to their knees. Intoxicated with power, they made constantly
increasing demands and tried the patience, not merely of sov-
ereigns, but of the people and the very clergy of lands which
they seemed to regard almost as the private property of the
Papacy. They were endangering their spiritual influence with
a monarch like Louis IX, who became a canonized saint, and
prelates like the English Bishop, Robert Grosseteste of Lin-
coln, whose learning and piety were the admiration of Chris-
tendom.
The German Caesars were at least equals of the Popes in
arrogance, and in their desire to magnify their office. They
too strove for world domination, and asserted themselves in
a way peculiarly calculated to irritate the Romans, proud of
their ancient glories, and the north Italians, conscious of their
rapidly developing civilization. A single example will illustrate
this. When Frederic Barbarossa entered Rome to be crowned
Emperor the envoys of the City addressed him in a pompous
speech of welcome extolling the glories of Rome as the mistress
of the world. His reply was brutal and insolent in the extreme.
"Wilt thou know," he said, "where the ancient glory of thy
Rome, the dignified severity of the Senate, the tactics of the
camp and invincible military courage have gone.'' All are found
among us Germans: all have been transmitted to us with the
Empire . . . thou thyself art still my subject, I am the
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 249
rightful owner. Who dares to snatch the dub from Hercules?
Perhaps the Sicilian on whom thou placest thine hopes. Let
the past teach him for the arm of the German is not yet dis-
abled. . . . Wherefore should I not defend the seat of my
empire, whose boundaries I am determined to restore. That is
shown by Denmark, which has just been subjugated. . . ."
These words are put into Frederic's mouth by the German his-
torian Otto of Freising. They reveal the German spirit which
made the presence of the nation in Italy insupportable even
when they came as deliverers; but there is in them that note
of confidence in worldly power, which the old Greeks con-
sidered to be the sure precursor of calamity. The struggle be-
tween the house of Barbarossa and the Papacy was to result,
first in the complete ruin of that powerful dynasty, and then
in the shame and degradation of Boniface VIII, the proudest
of the medieval Popes.
Frederic Barbarossa succeeded his uncle Conrad III in
1152,^ when St. Bernard's friend Eugenius III was Pope. The
two pontiffs with whom he was brought into contact were
Hadrian IV (11 54-1 159) and Alexander III (11 59-1 181). It
is noteworthy that both of them in their contests with the
most powerful of the medieval Emperors met with little or no
support from the Roman people, and were compelled to spend
most of their time away from the City. The dream of a Roman '
Republic with the Pope confined to the spiritual duties of his >
office kept the people in a ferment; and, despite their hatred >
of the Germans, prevented any cooperation between the civil
and ecclesiastical powers. As a rule the combatants were a
Pope in exile and a German national hero supported by his
people, of whose cause he was regarded as the champion.
The first pontiff with whom Frederic came into contact was
Hadrian IV, the only Englishman who was ever Pope, a man
of remarkable force of character. The popular story is that
as Nicolas Breakspear, he had sought in vain for admission or
alms at the gate of the aristocratic Abbey of St. Albans.
* Conrad HI was the first of the Swabian dynasty, but he was never crowned
Emperor.
250 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
William of Newbury says he was the son of a priest. Anyhow
he left his home and went as a poor student to France and at
last became prior of St. Rufus near Aries. Eugenius III made
him cardinal-bishop of Albano, and sent him on a diplomatic
mission to Norway and on his return he was unanimously
elected Pope December 5, 11 54. Handsome, cultured, and
eloquent, this humble Englishman was a match both for the
turbulent Romans and the haughty German.^
lladxiiaiL.IX found the city leagued against him, under the
influence of Arnold of Brescia, the Senate unwilling to recog-
nise his title, himself confined to St. Peter's and the Leonine
City, and his only earthly hope the thought that Frederic I,
who was in Italy, might come to his rescue. With character-
istic courage he struck the first blow by demanding the ex-
pulsion of Arnold of Brescia. At the first sign of contumacy on
the part of the Romans, he laid the City under an interdict,
^ an unprecedented act of severity. To stop all religious services
i at Rome threatened the citizens not only with the loss of happi-
ness in heaven but with money on earth; for the flood of pil-
grims would soon be dried up. On the fourth day of Holy
Week the people rose in an uproar against the Senators and
forced them humbly to sue for peace. They promised to banish
Arnold, and the Pope was conducted in triumph to the Lateran
in time for the Easter celebrations. Frederic now advanced on
Rome to receive coronation as Emperor. Hadrian came to
meet him, demanding the surrender of Arnold of Brescia whom
Frederic readily gave up to papal vengeance. He was less com-
pliant as to the ceremony which required the Emperor elect to
hold the Pope's stirrup and walk beside his horse. On this
point Hadrian was inflexible and Frederic was obliged to yield.
According to the German historians he did so with very bad
grace and as has been shown, he certainly offended the civil
authorities of Rome by his insolent reply to their address.
The coronation of Frederic I at Rome, June 18, 1155, was
typical of the fate of his house. The Romans shut the gates and
^ It is possible that Hadrian IV's connection with St. Albans in England was sur-
mised by those who knew him as Cardinal of Albano.
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 25 1
he could only occupy the Leonine City and be crowned in St.
Peter's, and could not even visit the Lateran basilica. The
coronation banquet was interrupted by an attack of the Romans
on the German army. After a day's fierce fighting the imperial
forces indulged in a savage massacre in which a thousand
perished. The newly made Emperor and his army hastily re-
treated, taking with him the Pope and the cardinals. In July
Frederic took leave of Hadrian IV at Tivoli and returned to
Germany showing his fury to Italy by laying Spoleto in
ashes.
Hadrian IV died at Anagni on September i, 11 59. He had
never been able to return to Rome after Frederic's coronation.
The one English Pope is a good example of the democratic_spixit
of the medieval Church, which recognised ability, wherever
found7 an^'opened its highest offices to merit. Of humble
origin and a foreigner, he had risen by his own efforts to the
highest position in the Western world. With no powerful
relatives to support him, with the Roman people leagued
against him, he held his position against the most powerful
Emperor since Charles the Great. When Frederic in a letter
placed his name before that of Hadrian, the Pope plainly told
him, "In doing so you have incurred a character for insolence,
not to say of arrogance." No man, however, was under less
delusion about the Papacy than Hadrian. As he told his friend
and fellow countryman John of Salisbury, it was the most
miserable position on earth. "Servant of servants" is the true
title for a Pope, if he were as rich as Croesus when elected, is
sure soon to be poor and in debt, the slave of the boundless
avarice of the Romans.
Roland Bandinelli, a Siennese, succeeded Hadrian IV, and
took the title of Alexander HI. This great man held the See
for twenty-two years, till 1181, and during his troubled pon-
tificate supported the independence of the Italian cities against
the Emperor. Frederic, having the support of a German party
among the cardinals, resorted to the imperial practice of set-
ting up anti-popes. On March 2, 1160, Alexander HI excom-
municated the Emperor; and in 1161 the Pope was compelled
252 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
to take refuge in France. The despotic rule of the Emperor
and his representative ahenated the ItaHans, and it is significant
that two of the imperial vicars were German Archbishops,
Rainald von Darsal of Cologne, the Imperial Chancellor of
Italy, and Christian of Mainz, the last named a gallant li-
centious prince, who, clad in shining armour, mace in hand,
smote down his enemies, and solaced himself in peace with the
society of fair ladies. The Popes of the twelfth century had
neither time nor inclination for such princely pleasures, and
maintained a high standard of clerical propriety.
Alexander III remained in France from 1162 to 1165.
There the fugitive Pope was received with the highest respect.
^ Louis VII and Henry II of England, rivals in everything, vied
to do him honour. In 1163 the Pope held a great council at
Tours, at which 17 cardinals, 124 bishops and 440 abbots were
present, and his title was unanimously asserted by the ex-
communication of the Anti-pope and all his adherents. But
when across the Alps Alexander III found more tangible
support. The Archbishop of Reims raised immense sums of
money for his necessities, and the Pope could offer the re-
bellious Romans the only argument which could appeal to
/ them. With the help of William I, King of Sicily, he was able
to return to Rome, disgusted by the brutality of the Germans,
under the Archbishop of Mainz; and on St. Cecilia's day
I (November 23), 1165, the Pope was received with enthusiasm
by Senate and people.
But Frederic I's descent into Italy in 11 66-1 167 again
[ rendered the position of Alexander III untenable. The Roman
army was utterly defeated by the Germans in May, 1167; and
in July the Leonine City was taken and St. Peter's entered by
the brutal soldiery of the Emperor. The Pope escaped in the
disguise of a pilgrim; Frederic entered into a treaty with the
Romans, and installed the Anti-pope. It seemed as though the
German cause in Italy had triumphed. But as so often happened
pestilence came to save the city and Frederic with the rem-
nants of his fever-stricken army retired to Germany, leaving
the city in August, 1167.
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 253
A new factor now made itself felt. Lombardy bore the
heavy yoke of Germany with impatience. Its cities were in-
creasing in wealth and prosperity. Their fierce independence, \
and, above all, their democratic ideals, were antagonistic to
the aristocratic prejudices of the German nation. Alexander
III threw in his lot with the Lombard League and his name is
still perpetuated in a city built at this time as a fortress against
Frederic. On May 29, 1176, the Emperor was utterly defeated /
at Legnano, where the independence of Lombardy was won. •
Alexander III died in 1181. Despite the fact that he had
spent most of his pontificate of twenty-two years as an exile j
from Rome, he ranks among the greatest of the Popes. Opposed
throughout by the Roman Republic and the Emperor, he held
his own and maintained the dignity of his office. In one respect
he encountered even greater difficulties than Gregory VII
and his successors. They could at least rely on the support of
some of the great ecclesiastical feudatories of the Empire,
whereas Frederic I and his house had all Germany behind them.
On the other hand, in Alexander Ill's time a new Italian I
feehng had been aroused by the rise of the city states and these \
supported the Pope as standing for Italy. The one exception
was Rome, which despite its high sounding pretensions dis-
played few virtues worthy of its ancient fame.
The Popes from Alexander III (d. 1181) and the accession
of Innocent III (1198) had but short reigns, and the period is
marked by the growth of the power of the house of Hohen-
staufen. Frederic Barbarossa led an immense army to Pales-
tine through Asia Minor. Had he succeeded in this crusade,
he would have perhaps dominated the Western world; but he '
lost his life drowned in a river on June 10, 1190, and is still
regarded as one of the heroes of the German nation.
The marriage of his son Henry VI increased the power of
the dynasty. The Kingdom of Sicily, which included southern
Italy, had been for a century the most civilized and best
governed in the world. The line of Norman sovereigns who had
ruled a very mixed population with singular wisdom, ceased
with William II, leaving his aunt Constance as his sole heiress.
254 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
\ Her kingdom was a fief of the Holy See, and it was all important
to the Pope that it should not fall into the hands of a German
Emperor. Nevertheless William H and Frederic Barbarossa
were agreed that Henry, the son of the Emperor, should marry
Constance and receive her splendid inheritance. The marriage
took place in 1186; and by it Henry VI became Emperor and
King of Sicily.
Henry VI's marriage with Constance was the cause of his
house rising to an unprecedented pitch of glory, and of its ul-
r timate ruin. The acquisition of Sicily made the Empire all
powerful in Europe and gave it a prospect of gaining the mas-
tery of the East and its commerce. Its supremacy meant that
the Papacy would be reduced to the political insignificance of
a German archbishopric, and that the most the Pope could hope
to be was the principal feudal prince in the Empire. It was
therefore a matter of life and death to the Popes to prevent
such a catastrophe, as they were determined never to go back
to the position from which Hildebrand and his friends had
freed them. In Henry VI was soon revealed an able and an>
bitious ruler, and a ruthless tyrant, nor was there a pope of
commanding influence to resist him. It seemed as though the
triumph of the Empire was assured and that Italy would soon
become a German province. The Sicilians set up Tancred, an
illegitimate scion of the Norman house, but he died in 1194.
Henry then crushed the Sicilians with merciless severity,
almost exterminated the royal house and devastated the land.
He died, however, at the age of thirty-two, in September, 1197,
leaving a young child, destined to become the Emperor
Frederic II, as his heir under the guardianship of his mother
Constance. The Pope, Celestine HI, died in the following
January. The year 1198 was notable for the election of a car-
dinal of noble birth, and in the full vigour of manhood. Lothar,
who took the title of Innocent III, was a member of the House
of Conti and was only thirty-seven when he was unanimously
selected for the Papal throne. Young, rich, learned in the law,
with a high reputation for sanctity, he entered upon a reign
of eighteen years with the fairest prospects and was destined
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 255
to prove himself in character and ability one of the greatest
Pontiffs in history.
Henry VI had committed the care of his son Frederic to
the protection of Celestine III, to whom he owed feudal f
homage for his kingdom of Sicily and its Italian possessions. ^
But the Empire was not hereditary, and the German princes
elected Philip of Swabia, the brother of the late Emperor. In
the same year Constance died, leaving Frederic to the care of
Innocent III. Thus the Pope became the support of the direct )
line of the Hohenstaufens against any possible usurpation on
the part of the boy's uncle, the newly elected Emperor Philip.
Already, however, Philip was an enemy to the Papacy owing
to his determination to uphold his brother's rights in Northern /
Italy against the Tuscan league formed with the support of
the Pope in 1197, against Henry VI. Innocent III from the day }
of his accession had been labouring to restore the territory of i
the Roman See and to claim the lands which Matilda of *
Tuscany had bequeathed to it.
Philip and the Hohenstaufens had other enemies besides
the Pope and the Guelf cities of Italy. England and France
were alarmed at the growing strength of the House and sup- ,
ported a rival candidate for the Empire in Otto, the son of
Henry "the Lion," whose mother was Matilda, daughter of '
King Henry II of England. A party in Germany supported
Otto against Philip, and proclaimed him King of the Romans. *
Innocent HI at once espoused the cause of Otto IV, whose I
family were hereditary foes of the Hohenstaufens, and con-
spicuous for their devotion to the Papacy.
Germany thus became the scene of a long civil war be- '
tween the two claimants and Philip proved decidedly the
stronger. At last Innocent III was forced to abandon Otto, ;
and recognise Philip, who, however, was assassinated at Bam-
berg on June 21, 1208, by Otto of Wittelsbach. The Pope
immediately acknowledged Otto IV; and in 1209 he was
crowned at Rome as Emperor.
It soon became manifest that no emperor could be in
Italy and remain on friendly terms with the Roman See.
256' INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Otto IV was deposed and excommunicated, and Frederic II
I was summoned from Sicily to Germany; and with the consent
of Innocent III, was elected King of the Romans in December,
I2I2. In 1214 Otto IV, in alliance with King John of England,
was utterly defeated by the French King Philip Augustus at
Bovines; and on July 25, 1215, Frederic II was crowned King
' at Aachen. Innocent III died in June, 1216.
The youth who had now recovered the inheritance of his
.father is one of the most interesting figures in history. A
I statesman and a soldier, brilliant in all he undertook, a linguist,
I a scholar and a poet, he is a fit representative of German royalty
in a century of great men. But his favourite home was his
native Sicily, from whence he legislated, founded schools of
learning, and surrounded himself with the most polished court
of his age. As one who had been a ward of the Holy See, Fred-
( eric II professed unbounded loyalty to the Church, and his
I laws, wise and humane and far in advance of his age in all other
' respects, were ruthless against heresy. Yet he was destined to
engage in a long struggle with the Papacy which was to end,
not only in the utter ruin of his house, but of the influence of
the Germanic Roman Empire and ultimately in that of the
Papacy which had brought low the family of Hohenstaufen.
In a sense the struggle was inevitable. The immense
claims of the Popes to world domination necessitated absolute
freedom from secular control and they were being hemmed in
I as the German power in Lombardy and Sicily increased under
'I the able rule of Frederic II. Thus the Popes, though unable
to hold their own in their own city, undertook to break the
power of the Emperor. In one respect, however, the success
of the Roman See was not like that attained in the days of
Gregory VII; and the war was less one of excommunications
and interdicts than of skilful political combinations.
Honorius III, the successor of Innocent III, was an aged
man who pursued a conciliatory and cautious policy towards
Frederic, but a plausible excuse was found for compassing the
ruin of the Emperor, or, at least, for so far weakening his
position at home as to make him no longer a danger to the
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 257
Papal authority. There was an imperative need for a crusade |
in Egypt or Palestine, if the Christians were to keep any foot- ^
ing in the Holy Land. But the days of Peter the Hermit were
long gone by, and the princes of Europe preferred to talk
about a Crusade than to risk their dominions in undertaking
the enterprise. Frederic, however, had been made to feel that
he was under a deep obligation to the Roman Church for
allowing him to ascend the imperial throne, and in token of
his gratitude he had taken the cross and pledged himself to
go to Palestine. But when it came to fulfilling his obligation
he found it impossible to go. In his German and Sicilian do- ■
minions he had all he could do to maintain his position. Ho- I
norius HI remonstrated at the delay, but though he threatened
Frederic he did nothing, and perhaps in his heart realised that
the Emperor was doing his best to arrange for the expedition,
but was hindered by his troubles in Italy. Still before this
Pope's death the breach was manifestly widening. There were
disputes about episcopal investiture in Sicily; and Frederic II,
through his wife lolanthe, had laid claim to the title of King of
Jerusalem, and her father, John de Brienne, had complained to
the Pope and had been received with favour. All was ready for
the explosion when Honorius III died on March 18, 1227, and
was succeeded on the following day by the Cardinal-bishop of
Ostia, Ugolino, as Gregory IX.
Great disappointment was felt in some quarters that so
aged a man had been chosen at this crisis. Gregory IX must
have been over eighty when elected. But throughout his pon- }
tificate of fourteen years he showed no signs of senility, but
proved a most active,, able and vindictive enemy of the Emperor.
Gregory IX at once summoned the princes of Europe to a
Crusade and Frederic II actually started in September, 1226;
but in the course of a few days he put back and landed at
Otranto. Transported with fury the Pope excommunicated
the Emperor. Nearly a year of manifestos from both sides ]
followed; Frederic succeeded in winning over the Romans who
drove Gregory out of Rome. At last, on June 28, 1228, the
Emperor started amid the curses of the Church to the Holy
258 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Land. His success was very remarkable. Though the church-
men regarded him as an excommunicated person, and the
military orders refused to act under his command, Frederic
II's unrivalled knowledge of the Mohammedans enabled him
to turn the situation to his advantage and secure Jerusalem
to the Christians by treaty with the Sultan Kameel of Egypt.
This only increased the rage of the papal party, and Gregory
IX busily stirred up revolts against Frederic in Germany,
Apulia and throughout his dominions. Frederic returned to
Italy in 1229, and sent an embassy to the Pope, of whom
I Herman of Salza, Master of the Teutonic order, was one.
The only result was a second excommunication in which the
name of the Emperor was coupled with the Arnoldists, Cathari,
and the Poor Men of Lyons, the most detested heretics of the
age.
, The value of the Friars to the Papacy during its struggle
with Frederic II was conspicuous. They became a veritable
army of preachers denouncing him both in the Holy Land and
in every country of Europe. Their unbounded popularity,
then at its height, made them truly formidable foes. But even
these could not completely win public opinion to the side of
the Pope. The Germans were on the whole loyal to their King:
it was felt that there was something unchristian in the intense
animosity of the Pope; and his attempt to levy a tenth on
I the clergy to continue the struggle, made many earnestly
I question whether it was really one for the Gospel or for the
personal ambition of the Roman See. Gregory IX was forced
to listen to proposals of peace and a treaty was made with the
Emperor at St. Germano on June 14, 1230.
I Thus ended the first act of the tragic dispute and a peace
of nearly nine years, from September, 1230, to Palm Sunday,
1239, Frederic II was free from the ban of the Church.
The position of Frederic II in Italy during this period may
be compared with that of the great Lombard King Liutprand
in the eighth century. Do what he might for the Church, the
Papacy still in its heart regarded him as nefandissimuSy to be
thrust out on the first possible occasion.
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 259
The nine years of peace passed amid tokens of outward
amity and inv/ard distrust on the part of Emperor and Pope.
Each was necessary to the other, as Frederic II could not afford
to fall under the ban of the Church and Gregory IX needed
support against the Romans. There was a growing desire to
establish a republic, and to make Rome the centre of a city
state like Milan and Florence. The Senate repeatedly claimed
the Papal States as the property of the City, not the Pope.
Frederic II supported the Pope; and, as a usual result, the Roman
army suffered a severe defeat. There were the customary rec-
onciliations and recalls of the Papal Court, followed by the
banishment of Pope and Cardinals from Rome. But in addition
to these domestic troubles Gregory IX was dismayed by the
alarming progress of heresy. Here he and the Emperor were in
complete accord, and the laws of Frederic II must have been
severe enough to satisfy the most exacting critic of his zeal {
against false doctrine. But the real cause of dispute was the
growth of the imperial power in Lombardy, an unpardonable
offence in the eyes of the pontiff. Frederic II was fully de-
termined to assert his power within the frontiers of the Em-
pire and advanced against the cities of the Lombard League.
On November 23, 1237, he utterly defeated the Milanese at
Corte Nuova. Their carrocio, or war wagon, the palladium of
an Italian City, was captured and sent to Rome. The Lombard
cities fought desperately, and the imperial army had to retire
before Brescia. Nevertheless Frederic II fully avenged the '
defeat of his grandfather, and became master of Lombardy. i
This Gregory IX could not endure, and once more the Emperor
was excommunicated.
Frederic II entered the contest without misgivings. He
appealed to the Kings of Europe, among them to his brother-
in-law, Henry III of England. He put down all symptoms of
rebellion among his clergy in Sicily, and he confiscated the ;
property of monasteries and churches opposed to him. In 1240
he advanced into the Papal States and resided at Viterbo,
prepared to march against Rome. The Pope summoned a coun-
cil and a large number of prelates, some from England, as-
26o INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
sembled at Genoa, where they were embarked to be conveyed
to Rome. Frederic II's powerful fleet, aided by the Pisans,
defeated the Genoese, and the prelates were captured and
taken to Naples. The Romans, however, for a wonder stood
by their Pope; for Gregory had received large sums of money
. from England, then the fief of the Holy See, and thus could
I pacify the citizens and support the Lombard League. How-
ever, the defection of Cardinal John Colonna with the papal
forces was a severe blow to Gregory, who found support in
the person of the Senator Matthew Rubeus, representative of
the rival house of Orsine.
In the summer of 1241 Frederic H and his army were at
the gates of Rome. Suddenly, in August, 1241, the news
reached him that Gregory IX, now almost a hundred years old,
was dead. The invading army withdrew; and the Cardinals
chose Celestine IV, who reigned only seventeen days. For two
j years the chair of St. Peter was vacant till the imprisoned
i prelates were released, and Sinibald Fieschi of Lavagna, a
Genoese, was elected Pope on June 25, 1243. He took the title
of Innocent IV. With this pontiff the strife between Pope and
Emperor was renewed with fiercer intensity. Before his election
the new Pope, a member of a house of Counts of the Empire,
had been a friend of Frederic II, who if he had hopes of a rec-
onciliation, had insight to remark that the elevation of a
Fieschi had turned a friend into an enemy, as no Pope could
possibly be a Ghibelline. At first, however, Frederic did all he
could to conciliate the Pope; and negotiations were proceeding
when Innocent mounted his horse and rode away to Genoa,
where he was received by his own city with the highest honours.
Leaving his old home he made his way across the Alps to
Lyons.
Lyons, it must be remembered, was not at this time in
the kingdom of France, but was a city of the Empire, owning
no authority but that of its Archbishop. Innocent IV on ar-
riving found less enthusiasm than had greeted fugitive Popes
who in earlier days had crossed the Alps. The Kings of
the western world felt that the cause of Frederic II was in
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 261
part their own, and had their suspicions that Innocent, in
arousing Lombardy against the Emperor, was acting from
more worldly motives than his predecessors. Indeed the papal
policy, entailing as it did the withdrawals of vast sums of money
from France and, especially, from England, to pay for the war
with Frederic, was alienating the sympathy of the people
once most devoted to its interests. Accordingly when Louis IX
of France reached Lyons he treated Innocent with the deference,
due from a Saint to a persecuted pontiff, and with the wisdom!
becoming a king of France. The King promised to take counsel
with his nobles, and declined the great but costly privilege
of having the Pope take up his abode at Reims in his do-
minions. Nor were Aragon or England desirous to welcome
Innocent IV.
On July 17, 1245, the Pope solemnly deposed Frederic
from the Empire and ordered the Germans to choose a suc-
cessor. In vain did the famous lawyer, Thaddeus of Suessa,
plead for delay. Innocent accused Frederic of every crime.
His luxurious court, his familiarity with Saracen women, his
alleged apostasy from the Christian religion were all asserted
by the furious Pope. At the end of the ceremony the clergy
present extinguished their torches, and left the deposed Em-
peror to outer darkness.
The war in Lombardy was prosecuted with equally un-
christian ferocity on both sides. Guelf and Ghibelline vied with
one another in atrocious reprisals. At first Frederic was com-
pletely successful, but his victories were stained by the ap-
palling cruelty of such leaders as Ezzelino de Romano. The
great reverse of the Emperor was the siege of Parma, where he
was thwarted by the Ghibellines in the City and his fortress
and camp at Victoria destroyed. This was in 1248; the next
year Frederic's beloved son Enzio, King of Sardinia, was taken
by the people of Bologna, and languished in prison for twenty-
two years. Frederic then retired to Apulia, and in December
1250, he was taken suddenly ill and died. With him ended the
line of the great emperors.
The last act of the tragedy is the determined effort of the
262 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Popes, or rather the Guelfs in Italy, to destroy the house of
Frederic root and branch. The quarrel had degenerated into a
blood feud. There was hardly any pretence as to the motive.
The Pope claimed Sicily and Naples as his property, and re-
peatedly offered the crown to any prince who would pay for it.
Frederic II's son Conrad had to fight for his father's crown.
The kingdom was practically during Conrad's absence in
Germany in the hands of Manfred, the illegitimate son of the
late Emperor. Conrad crossed the Alps after the death of his
father with a small force, and finding his position in Lombardy
difficult, he sailed from Venice to the south of Italy. Innocent
IV in the meantime had offered the Sicilian crown to Richard
of Cornwall, brother to Henry III of England, and, on his refusal,
to the king's younger son Edmund. But the title was a mere
shadow, in return for which Henry III paid large sums to the
Pope. Conrad held the kingdom till his death on May 21, 1254,
when he left an infant heir Conradin, a child three years
old. Innocent IV died in December in the same year. His
character showed a great decline from the earlier papal ideal.
He displayed few of the great qualities of his famous prede-
cessors, who, at least, fought with a high sense of ecclesiastical
liberty. Innocent displayed rather the spirit of a Genoese
partisan of the Guelfic interests, and the animosity of the leader
of an Italian faction. His extreme rapacity and his disregard
of all interest in the church at large, in comparison with his
selfish conception of the advantage of the Papacy, roused
general disgust. Respect for the supreme see of Christendom
was waning, as its complete triumph over its enemy, the house
of Hohenstaufen, was being hastened on by death.
The struggle was no longer between Pope and Emperor;
for since Frederic II's death Germany was in hopeless con-
fusion, and the barren title of Emperor had been offered to
foreigners like Richard of Cornwall and Alfonso of Castile.
From the death of William of Holland in 1256 there was an
interregnum till 1273. The whole struggle turned on whether
the Hohenstaufen should continue to reign at Naples, and
whether the Pope had a right to appoint whom he chose to a
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 263
kingdom over which he claimed to be the feudal overlord. It
had not only been offered by the Papacy to Edmund of Eng-
land, but also to Louis IX for one of his sons; but the saintly
king's sense of justice made him refuse the suggestion. The
people supported Manfred, and he was worthy of their con-
fidence. He had played a most difficult part with consummate
skill. As a bastard son of Frederic II, he could not legally
inherit his dominions and was bound by ties of honour, first to
Conrad, and then to the infant Conradin. He had succeeded in
partly allaying the suspicions of Innocent IV, and in recon-
ciling the country to his rule, for what the Sicilies wanted was a
native prince, who would defend them alike against the Pope
and the Germans, whom they hated far more bitterly than they
did the Saracens. On August 11, 1258, Manfred felt that the
crisis demanded that he should assume the crown. He professed
that he regarded Conradin, who was also Duke of Swabia, as
his heir; but he could not allow things to drift as they would
inevitably do if a minor were on the throne. For some years
with Manfred at its head the Ghibelline party was triumphant
and it was necessary that if the papal cause was to succeed
that help should be found beyond the Alps. In 1261 a French-
man, James Pantaleon of Troyes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, was
elevated to the papal throne as Urban IV, a proof that even
when feudalism was at its height, merit had its op.portumty in
the-ehtrrch: for the new pope was the son of a cobbler.
It was the old story so often repeated since the days of
Theodoric the Ostrogoth. The Popes could tolerate no master
in Italy; they could not stand without one, so they had to seek
for outside aid whether from Constantinople, across the Rhine
or in France. They now brought upon themselves harder task-
masters than either the Byzantine or the German Caesars.
Their need, however, was indeed great; for the City of Rome
was as impatient of the priestly government as ever and Man-
fred's power and popularity were daily increasing.
The scruples of St. Louis were not shared by his brother
Charles of Anjou, who by his marriage with Beatrix, daughter
of the last Count of Provence, had obtained that lordship.
264 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Charles was ambitious of being a, king, and was urged on by
Beatrix, whose two sisters were married to the Kings of France
and England, whilst a third was the wife of Richard of Corn-
wall, who had been elected Emperor. The hopes of the Guelfs
were fixed on Charles and they determined to lure him into
Italy. In 1262 Urban IV sent an embassy to offer Charles the
Kingdom of Sicily, and to overcome the scruples of Louis the
French king. It was also necessary to persuade Henry III of
England to resign the crown which had been previously be-
stowed, for a large sum of money, on his son Edmund. When
these difficulties had been adjusted, Charles immediately ac-
(quiesced, but in the meantime secured his election as Senator
lof Rome; without informing the Pope, who never during his
entire pontificate was in Rome, what he had done. In this way
Charles revealed his policy to become King of Sicily and master
of Rome itself.
In 1265 another Frenchman became Pope in the person of
Clement IV, and the expedition against Manfred was pre-
pared. Every effort was made to raise the necessary funds.
Charles's wife sold her jewels, the Pope taxed the churches
throughout Christendom to the utmost limit — even Scotland
had to contribute to his Sicilian enterprise. The war against
Manfred was declared to be a crusade. In this, even the Albi-
gensian war was outdone, which was at least against heretics,
whereas the present attack was on orthodox Christians whose
ruler had opposed the worldly schemes of the Pope.
Charles reached Rome on the Thursday before Whitsun-
tide (May 21, 1265). He is described as a man of forty-six,
powerful in frame, and royal in demeanour. His complexion
was olive, his face severe and hard; his glance awe-inspiring.
Such an appearance suited the most sinister figure in the
gloomy tragedy of the struggle between Guelf and Ghibelline.
He was magnificently received as Senator, but gave the Pope
much offence by presuming to take up his lodgings in the
sacred palace of the Lateran. Charles waited at Rome for the
rest of the year, desperately in need of funds, and anxiously
expecting the arrival of the French army. The coronation took
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 265
place in St. Peter's on Epiphany, 1266, an honour which no
king had hitherto received: on June 20 the King left Rome.
Manfred felt his power slipping from him with the ad-
vance of the French. His barons, even the Ghibellines, began
to desert, and the only troops he could depend on were Germans
and Saracens. On February 26th the decisive battle was fought
at Benevento. The event seemed likely to be in Manfred's
favour; only at the last did Charles' generalship retrieve the day.
When all was lost Manfred rushed on his death and was slain,
fighting to the last. He was only thirty-four years of age and
was regarded even by the Guelfs as a model of knightly virtue.
Charles gave him an honourable burial, but without the rites
of the Church. The Bishop of Cosenza with the consent of the
ungenerous Pope had his body cast forth as that of an excom-
municated person. Manfred's wife and children endured a
lifelong imprisonment.
Charles soon caused his new subjects to regret their aban-
donment of Manfred and the cause of the Guelfs once more
asserted itself. The legitimate heir of Frederic H was his
grandson Conradin, now growing up to manhood in Germany.
He was summoned to Italy to fight for his inheritance in 1267.
Supported by Don Arrigo of Castile, Conradin encountered
Charles' army at Tagliacozzo on August 23, 1268. He was
defeated and escaped from the field of battle, but was taken
later and sent to Charles.
What followed was one of the most disgraceful episodes
in the horrible war between the Pope and his supporters and
the Ghibellines in Italy. Charles of Anjou seems to have been
a man destitute of mercy and incapable of a generous sentiment.
Clement IV acted as a weak and vindictive French priest.
Conradin had been taken within the territory of the Church
and might justly have been claimed by the Pope as a prisoner;
but he was a Hohenstaufen and Clement left him to his fate.
Charles had the last scion of the great Emperors beheaded at
Naples on October 29, 1268. The gallant boy met his death
with dignity. A month later Clement IV was summoned to his
account. Thus perished the House of Swabia, and it is instruc-
266 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
tive to notice how completely the sympathy of the reader must
change from one side to the other in the interval between
Hadrian IV and Alexander III and the two French Popes,
Urban IV and Clement IV. The first two fought for the dignity
of the Apostolic See, and for the freedom of Italy against one
of the greatest of the Emperors. The later Popes, as heads of
a faction, successfully crushed the remnants of the house which
their predecessors had defied.
The sequel remains to be told. Charles' cruel rule made the
French odious in Sicily and slowly prepared for an awful day
of vengeance. On March 31, 1282, Easter Tuesday, the people
of Palermo were celebrating the festival. A Frenchman in-
sulted a Sicilian girl. The cry was raised," Death to the French."
At the signal a general massacre began throughout the island,
and the invaders were exterminated. This is known as the
Sicihan Vespers. The island offered its crown to Peter of Ara-
gon, husband of Manfred's daughter Constance. Despite the
curses of the Pope and the threats of Charles, Sicily was lost
to the house of Anjou, who only retained its Italian possessions.
Charles died in 1285.
In this manner ended a struggle which had lasted for
more than a century. A dynasty of men of the most forceful
character and ability had made a bid for supremacy in Europe
and, after almost attaining their object, had failed disastrously.
It must never be forgotten that the Popes who brought low
the mighty Hohenstaufens were not magnificent and haughty
/ prelates, enthroned in majesty in Rome and calmly issuing
laws for the world, or, indignant at the perversity of humanity,
launching the thunders of excommunications and interdicts
from the proud security of St. Peter's or the Lateran. Still less
must they and their entourage be regarded as men living in
luxury out of the enormous taxes they wrung from the rest of
the Church. Hadrian IV's words to his friend John of Salisbury
might have been uttered by any pope from Gregory VII to
Boniface VIII. When his obligations are compared with his
resources there were few poorer potentates than the Popes
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They were to be found
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 267
everywhere but in Rome; and if they did get a foothold in
their own City they were almost certain to be driven out
within a few months. Very rare indeed was a Pope able to
occupy his own palace in the Lateran or to officiate in his own
Cathedral. Yet these wandering pontiffs brought the pride of
the Empire to the dust.
When enquiry is made as to how this was accomplished
it cannot be argued that the victory of the Papacy was a moral
one, as the triumph of Gregory VII over Henry IV had been.
Innocent III, despite the fact that circumstances compelled
him to sanction two great crimes, the Latin Conquest of
Constantinople and the Albigensian war, was morally better
than his age, as was possibly Gregory IX; but some Popes,
though personally severe to themselves like Innocent IV, dis- \
gusted even the politicians of the thirteenth century by their
unscrupulous hostility to the Emperor. Nor was it a triumph
of mind over brute force. Hadrian IV, Alexander III, Innocent
III and Gregory IX were intellectual giants, and were con-
spicuous as politicians and lawyers, but Frederic Barbarossa
was honoured as the most efficient and just of German rulers.
Frederic II is one of the greatest legislators in history, and his
intellectual capacity places him in the first rank.
The failure- of-the-Hohenstaufens must be otherwise ac-
counted for, and the cause seems to have been the deep re-
sentment their nation aroused in Italy. They seemed incapable
of reaHsing that a people as a rule their inferiors in military
prowess, often vain and inconstant, lacking the high serious
qualities of the German race, could prove such formidable
foes and be so insensible to the terrors of their arms and the
ruthlessness of their methods. It seemed incredible to them
that ruined towns could arise from their ashes and crush great
armies. The Popes, more farsighted, took the side of Italian
patriotism, and used it as a lever against the power of the
Empire.
In addition to this France was enlisted on the side of the
Papacy. Already the two nations, the Germans and the
French, once almost identical, now drawing wide apart in
268 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
character and ideals; and the eastern and western Franks
were rivals for world domination. France and the Empire
could never cooperate in a crusade because both people wanted
to be dominant in the East. Consequently when the Pope
gained the support of Charles of Anjou by recognising him as
King of the Sicilies, he secured French ambition to dominate
the Mediterranean as a powerful ally. That the unfortunate
country was handed over to a ruler far more cruel than any
German had yet shown himself is a proof that papal diplomacy
was as unscrupulous as that of any other power.
But whatever may have been the morality of these trans-
actions, the Popes had gained the object they sought. Italy
was to remain for centuries disunited; and no great power was
to be permitted to fetter the Roman Church. The work begun
by Charles the Great was completely undone: the Empire
was never again to dominate the papal policy, or really to rule
in Italy. The results of this yet remain to be considered.
From Charles the Great to Frederic II (800-1250) the
Emperor was, whenever he asserted himself, the greatest man
in the Western World. He owed this less to the imperial crown
than to his position as King of Germany. It is sufficient to
mention King Henry the Fowler and the Emperors Otto I,
II, III in the tenth century, Henry II, III and IV in the
eleventh, Henry V and Frederic Barbarossa in the twelfth,
and Frederic II in the thirteenth. From this time forward
there was never an Emperor who was not completely over-
shadowed by some other potentate in Europe with the single
exception of Charles V, and this was due not to his position
in Germany but to the fact that he was King of Spain, and had
inherited the Netherlands. The Germans were never able to
combine under a single head from the fourteenth till the
nineteenth century, nor take the position in the world to which
they believed their virtues entitled them. The country could
not recover from the fatal eflPects of their attempts to annex
Italy and become, in truth as well as in name, the "Romans"
of the West.
And in fact the Popes owed their victory more to their
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 269
weakness of Italy than to anything else. In the fifteenth cen-
tury they really ruled in Rome, and enjoyed princely wealth
and splendor. The price they paid for this was that they en-
joyed the rank of the greatest of Italian princes, but no more.
Insensibly, whilst paying them the highest honours as their
spiritual rulers, the monarchs of Europe ceased to regard them
as of much greater importance than other petty potentates, il
Jn the days when driven from Rome, they sought an asylum
in foreign lands, and wandered almost as suppliants from one
Italian city to the other, they commanded the obedience of I
the world. Roman in the truest sense it might be said of the
Papacy as it was of the Republic:
Merses profundo, pulchrior evenit.
But as a prosperous Italian institution the Roman Church lost [
the respect, even of the most ardent Catholics.
Whatever judgment may be passed on their policy and ac-
tions, it is impossible to deny that the Popes of the eleventh, f
twelfth and thirteenth centuries numbered the greatest men f
in the world. St. Leo IX, St. Gregory VII, Urban II, Hadrian j
IV, Alexander III, Innocent III, Gregory IX, Innocent IV, \
and Bfljii£ac©-VIII were the dominating forces in Europe. But
no pope in after days can compare with any of these. And a
man may be fairly acquainted with history and yet find it
difficult to connect much that is definite with the names of
any pontiff in the fourteenth, the seventeenth or the eighteenth
centuries. Even during the period of the Reformation and
counter Reformation Catholics looked, not to the Popes, but
to the Kings of Spain as their chief support. Modern Popes
owe more than they suspect to the misfortune that they, like
their predecessors in heroic days, are not allowed to rule as
princes in a badly policed city over an ill-governed Italian
principality.
The deep resentment felt in Germany for the Papal part
in these long contests with the Empire was long dormant, but _0
finally burst forth in the Reformation, which might have been """^^^tw;^
even more formidable had the Emperor been a German in-
^
270 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
stead of a Spaniard. It is perhaps fanciful to notice that in
1227 Gregory IX pronounced the sentence of excommunica-
tion on Frederic II and in 1527, three centuries later, the army
of Charles V sacked Rome before the eyes of Pope Clement VII.
The defeat of the Hohenstaufen and the ruin of the Chris-
tian cause in the Holy Land in the thirteenth century turned
the effort of Germany in another direction. Frederic II's
faithful friend, Herman of Salza, the Master of the Teutonic
Order, sought another field for the energy of the military
Christianity of his nation, and beyond the borders of the
Empire on the inhospitable shores of the Baltic his Order
made their memorable settlement.
Throughout the thirteenth century the Order which did
not finally abandon the Holy Land till 1291, was drifting to
the East of Europe first at the invitation of Andrew of Hungary,
and acquiring their settlement as armed missionaries among
the Wends of Prussia. Then, till their crushing defeat by the
Poles at Tannenbourg in 1410, they were steadily extending
German influence eastward and laying the foundations of the
principality of the family of Hohenzollern, in whom their
grand-mastership eventually became hereditary. Thus from
)iA the failure of the Crusades the way was paved for the Kingdom
of Prussia, -and the late imperial dynasty of Germany.
The fall of the Hohenstaufen before the ambition of
Charles of Anjou also brought about the complete collapse of
Christian ascendancy in Eastern Europe. The Latin Empire
in Constantinople came to an end in 1261 and the last strip
of the Holy Land was lost in 1291, but in Greece and the Morea
French principalities existed, which were lost or abandoned,
because their chiefs were called to fight in Italy. Thus a way
was paved for the establishment of Turkey in Europe in the
fifteenth century.
England, which had been the nation most faithful to the
Popes and had never forgotten that it owed its Christianity to
Gregory the Great, began to be alienated from the Roman See
by the enormous exactions of Innocent IV. Since John's sur-
render of his crown to Innocent III the papal policy had been
THE PAPACY AND THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN 27 1
fostering a deep and sullen feeling of resentment. It was a
pope who condemned Magna Charta, and censured Arch-
bishop Stephen Langton, a pope who opposed Simon de
Montfort, a pope who drove the Bishop of Lincoln to remon-
strate at the shameless way he tried to intrude Italians, even
as children, into important benefices in the Church. People
absolutely free from any suspicion of heresy were led to con-
trast the conduct of the Papacy and the precepts of the
Gospels. The long reign of the weak and pious Henry III did ^— ^
as much to alienate England from Rome as anything up to ^dT^^L- /f
the Reformation by kindling sparks of suspicion and distrust ■''<::;h_.^--
of the court of the Popes.
It cannot be pretended that the strife between the Papacy .
and the House of Hohenstaufen, between Guelf and Ghibelline, '
was a war of religion. There was no question of doctrine or
practice which divided the combatants. On these points they
were in full agreement. The Guelfs did not stand for priestly
piety, nor the Ghibelline for secular independence. There was
no moral question at issue. Gregory IX might denounce Fred-
eric II's excesses, his half pagan court, his sensual indulgence;
but as is often the case in ecclesiastical disputes, when the
parties are friends, sins are not rebuked; it is only after the
quarrel has broken out. Neither side favoured heretics: both
held them in equal abhorrence. Nor was there any difference
in the spirit in which Guelf and Ghibelline waged war. Charles
was just as merciless a tyrant as Ezzelino da Romano, of whom
it was said that if Francis had come in the guise of Christ, he
had come in that of Satan on earth.
The destruction of Frederic II and his house's rule in
Sicily was like the Albigensian war, without its excuse, the
overthrowing of a premature civilization. In the eleventh -'cifl<
century Languedoc had been a centre of culture, an oasis in
the midst of brutal violence. Music and song had flourished
there with all the amenities of life. Simon de Montfort and his
fanatic crusaders came and swept it away. Frederic's kingdom
with its long tradition of good government under the Normans
had made Sicily the hope of civilization in the centre of the
272 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Mediterranean. Frederic had attracted to it the wisdom of the
age from East to West. Charles, backed by the Popes, washed
out this hopeful civihzation in blood, not because of their
horror of the sins of the people, but because their ruin was
necessary to the policy of the Church party.
AUTHORITIES
The authority for the life of the Emperor Frederic I is by his uncle Otto,
Bishop of Freising, who died in 1158. His Gesta Friderici was continued by
others down to 1170. It is in the Monumenta Germ. Script., XX.
The story of Nicolas Breakespear, who became Hadrian IV, is told in the
Liber Pontificalis by the Englishman Boso. See William of Newbury (1136-
1208), Historia Anglicana, II, 6, and John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, VIII
(Migne, P. L., 199-200). Two English biographers are A. H. Tarleton, Nicolas
Breakespear, and F. M. Steele, Story of an English Pope. Dr. Mann, Lives of
the Popes, etc.. Vol. IX, has a full account.
For Frederic Barbarossa and the Lombard League, Villari, Medieval
Italy from Charlemagne to Henry VIL Freeman, Historical Essays, "Frederic
I, King of Italy." Refer also to Milman, Gregorovius and others.
There is unfortunately no modern biography known to me of Alexander
III except Mann, op. cit.. Vol. X, who devotes with the bibliography 238
pages to him. His life by Boso to 1178 is the last in the Liber Pontificalis.
Two whole volumes of Mann's Lives of the Popes are devoted to Innocent
III. A. Luchaire has six small and interesting volumes on this Pope. The
Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, has a short bibliography and a most useful
map of Europe at this time. The best English account of Frederic II which I
know is in Milman's Latin Christianity, Bk. X, of which Freeman in his
Essay on Frederic II, Historical Essays, p. 295, says, "There is no part of his
great work which is more palpably a labour of love." There is an English life
by T. L. Kington-Oliphant, History of Frederic the Second, Emperor of the
Romans (1862). See also Villari, Medieval Italy, Bk. Ill, Chs. II-IV; "Fred-
eric II," "Manfred," and "Conradin."
I
CHAPTER XI
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY
Importance of France — The great feudatories — Louis VI — Louis VII — Philip
Augustus — Philip Augustus and England — French and English kings and their
subjects — The "Appanages" — St. Louis IX -r Intellectual revival in France —
(a) the monasteries; (b) in the schools; (c) Popes and councils — Innocent II and
his rival Anacletus II — Popes in exile in France — English primates in France —
Paris as the capital — Early French literature — French intervention in papal
affairs and in Italy — Charles of Anjou — Charles, Senator of Rome — Vacancy in
the Papacy — Gregory X Pope — Election of Rudolph of Hapsburg — Council
of Lyons — Reconciliation of the Greek Church — The Conclave — Character of
Gregory X — Charles of Anjou as Senator of Rome — The Vespers —7 The Colon-
nas — Election of Peter Murrone the Hermit as Celestine V — Boniface VIII —
Destruction of the Colonnas' power — The Jubilee — Philip the Fair — Fall of
Boniface VIII — The Babylonish captivity at Avignon — The Knights Templar —
The order suppressed — Death of Philip the Fair and Clement V.
The rise of a great French monarchy, originating with
nominal Kings of France, masters of an insignificant duchy,
who eventually consolidated many powerful independent
feudal dominions into an united nation, is one of the leading
facts in medieval history, and the importance of its influence
upon the Western Catholic Church can hardly be overesti-
mated; for, by the commencement of the fourteenth century, j
the Papacy, having ceased to fear the Empire as a rival, j
found a master in the King of France.
Before, however, describing the progress of medieval
France towards unity, it is necessary to take a survey of the
country in order to understand the heterogeneous elements
out of which the nation was ultimately evolved. By the close
of the tenth century Gaul, west of the Rhone, was divided
into seven great lordships, including the cities of Ghent,
Bruges, and Lille. On the northern coast were Normandy,
Brittany, Champagne, Aquitaine, Gascony, and Toulouse;
on the frontier along the Rhone was Burgundy. The northern
central district was called France. This included Anjou,
273
274 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Maine, Blois, the cities of Paris and Orleans and extended to
the city of Reims. The later Carolingians had virtually no
territory; and, with the disappearance of their dynasty, the
kingdom of France devolved on the Capets, the first members
of which, despite the royal title, were not in wealth, in-
fluence, or extent of territory, the equals of some of the great
feudatories.
When Louis VI ascended the throne in 1108 his power
could not compare with that of the Duke of Normandy, now
King of England, nor with the Counts of Flanders, Blois,
Champagne and Anjou. In the South, the royal title was
purely nominal; indeed it was not without a strong force to
protect him against the petty barons in his dominions that the
King of France could make a journey between his two chief
cities, Orleans and Paris. But Louis, called by his subjects,
first "The Wakeful," and in later life "the Fat" (le Gros),
had three powerful allies, the Church, the citizens of the
towns, and his own untiring energy. With his petty resources
it is marvellous how he managed to hold his own; but the
Church steadily supported the monarchy as did the rising
commercial towns. Louis' adviser in his latter days was Suger,
the politic abbot of St. Denis, near Paris, who continued to
watch over the affairs of the growing Kingdom with unre-
mitting care during the first years of the long reign of Louis
VII (the Young).
The small field, on which Louis VI displayed his ability
and energy as a ruler, does not detract from the greatness of
his work. The very fact that he did not interfere with his most
powerful feudatories shows him to be possessed of statesman-
like capacity; for he preferred to consolidate rather than to m
extend his authority. With the support of Flanders he was
able to hold his own against the Count of Blois, and his for-
f midable neighbour, Henry I of England, who since the battle
of Tinchebray (1108) was also Duke of Normandy. Without
relaxing his authority over the Church within his dominions
Louis proved himself the champion of the oppressed monks
and clergy; and though he was not naturally disposed to
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 275
favour the growing independence of the towns, he had the
wisdom to grant many charters confirming their privileges.
The quarrel between the Papacy and the Empire contrib- //
uted greatly to enhance the prestige of the French monarchy, '
and Louis VI became in a sense a new Clovis, the defender
of the Papacy against its foes. As such he obtained for himself
and his successors the title of Eldest Son of the Church.
Just before his death Louis VI made a valuable addition
to his dominions by marrying his son to Eleanor, heiress of
William X of Aquitaine, thus uniting to the petty duchy of
the Isle of France, for it was little more, a large territory in
the southwest extending to the Pyrenees.
Louis VII (11 37-1 1 80) was inferior to his father in energy
and ability. His piety so wearied Eleanor that she obtained
from the Church a dissolution of the marriage on the ground
of relationship, and flung herself into the arms of her husband's
great rival, Henry II of England. Her vast inheritance made
Henry the most powerful ruler in the West, the head of a
great feudal empire, consisting of the Kingdom of England,
which claimed homage from the King of the Scots, Normandy,
Brittany, and nearly half of modern France. Louis VII's un-
warlike reign was fortunately long; and his friendship with
the Church stood him in good stead. He made use of his op-
portunities, such as Henry II's dispute with Becket and the
constant quarrels in the Plantagenet household. But despite
his misfortunes Henry was an able man and a dangerous
rival; and the Kings of England were in the twelfth century 1
far more important as sovereigns than their nominal over- ^
lords of France.
The Plantagenet empire was more splendid in appearance
than in reality. Its head was as much a foreigner in Normandy
as he was in England, and there was no cohesion between his
widespread lordships. Given a bad king of England and an
able statesman on the throne of France, there could be little
doubt as to the result. This came when Philip Augustus
reigned over France and John over England.
Philip Augustus (i 180-1223) is the real founder of the
276 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
French monarchy, and few princes have played the game of
statescraft more skilfully. His general policy may be described
as espousing the cause of the commonalty against the nobles,
and biding his time. Though he v/ent on a crusade, he shunned
several hazardous enterprises, and allowed others to engage in
them whilst he reaped the benefit. Although he incurred the
wrath of Innocent III by his repudiation of Ingeburge, the
daughter of the King of Denmark, and drew down the terrors
of an interdict upon his people, he was generally favoured by
the clergy, and rose to power by their assistance. His two
great successes were that, without taking part personally in
the Albigensian war, and allowing Simon de Montfort the
credit, and for a while the profit, he ultimately obtained all
the benefits of the conquest of Toulouse for his family, and also
that he availed himself so well of the crimes and blunders of
John that he made himself virtually master of much of the
continental inheritance of the Plantagenets.
Philip Augustus had been constantly at war with Henry II,
and his great rival was Richard I; but his opportunity came
when John captured Arthur, the son of his elder brother
Geoffry Plantagenet, who had obtained Anjou, Brittany,
Maine and Touraine, and had hereditary claims on the crown
of England. Arthur had taken Mirabeau where Eleanor, his
grandmother, was residing. She refused to surrender, and sum-
moned John to her aid. Arthur was imprisoned and confined
in the strong castle of Falaise. As he refused to abandon his
claim on England, John removed him to Rouen and no more is
known as to his fate. As Arthur's feudal superior, Philip Au-
gustus felt bound to enquire into the manner of his death.
Whether John was formally condemned or not is uncertain;
but Philip invaded his dominions. Normandy was rapidly
overrun. Anjou and Poitou surrendered to the French King,
who speedily possessed himself of John's towns on the Loire.
Thus, owing to John's misconduct, the most flourishing of the
northern provinces of France came under the crown (1202-
1206).
Then followed the aflPair of the election of Stephen Langton
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 277
to Canterbury, the interdict, and the summons from Innocent
III to Phihp Augustus to possess himself of the Enghsh throne,
defeated by John's complete surrender of his crown to the
Pope and his transformation from a King of England, under
sentence of the Church, into a favoured vassal of the Papacy.
Thus enabled to defy his rival of France, John prepared a
most formidable combination against him with Otto, the
Emperor, and the Count of Flanders. Philip's northern do-
minions were invaded, and the armies met at Bouvines, a
small village between Lille and Tournay. The Confederacy
was defeated and the cause of Otto ruined; and the victory
at Bouvines (1214) made the King of France the greatest
sovereign in Europe. Philip Augustus even felt strong enough
to send his son Louis at the invitation of the English barons to
claim the crown of their country. This ambitious project was
defeated by the death of John and the accession of the youthful
Henry III.
It is impossible to avoid contrasting the attitude of the
Kings of France towards the Church and their people with
that of the English sovereigns. The Plantagenets, especially
Richard I and John, regarded their kingdom chiefly as a place
from which money could be collected to further their projects
elsewhere, and the churchmen they prized most were efficient
business men who could be paid for serving them out of the
revenues of the Church. Their barons, at first foreigners who
despised the English, were thrust by oppression into alliance
with the people, whom the Church could never afford or de-
sire entirely to neglect. Patriotism in consequence became the
watchword of the three estates of the realm, among whom a
national sentiment was fostered. It was otherwise with Philip
Augustus and his two predecessors, Louis VI and VII, who
found their supporters among the clergy and the burgesses,
whilst the nobles were disposed to stand aloof in selfish isola-
tion. Thus, whereas in England, clergy, nobles, and people
combined against the anti-national policy of the Crown, in
France King, clergy, and people united to crush the separatist
policy of the great feudatories. By the time of the death of
278 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Philip Augustus France was on the high road to become a
strong centraHsed government; but his son and successor,
Louis VIII (i 223-1 226), though a brave, warhke, and poHtic
prince, undid the work of a century by leaving separate feudal
dominions to his younger children, giving to his second son
the countship of Artois, to his third those of Anjou and Maine,
and to his fourth Poitou and Auvergne. This policy had ruined
the older dynasties of the Franks,— and the "appanages,"
as they were called, created a new feudal system in place of
the older. To this many of the later troubles of France were
due, as were the subsequent triumphs of the English at a later
date. But for the present the progress of the country was
steady.
Royal saints are seldom a blessing to their country; but
St. Louis IX (i 226-1 270) is an exception to the rule. He suc-
ceeded to the throne at the age of twelve; and the country was
in danger of a period of feudal anarchy which generally ac-
companied a minority. Fortunately his mother, Blanche of
Castile, proved herself more than capable of dealing with a
recalcitrant nobility. For ten years she administered affairs,
disregarding the plots of her adversaries, and the slanders
raised against her character; and, even when her son had as-
sumed the government, she continued to exercise her influence.
Haughty and arbitrary as was her nature, France owes her a
deep debt for preserving the integrity of the monarchy at a
critical period.
By the time St. Louis took upon himself the royal authority,
the King of France was by far the greatest of the feudal
owners of land. Only five great princes now remained. The
Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, the Counts of Flanders and
Champagne, together with the King of England, who still
occupied Aquitaine and Gascony. Except the last named, none
of these was capable of resisting the power of the crown; and
throughout France great royal officers were appointed to look
after the King's interests in the Baillages and Senechaussees,
into which the country was now divided. Even the King of
England was hardly able to hold his own; for the competent
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 279
piety of Louis IX was more serviceable to his country than the
feeble virtue of Henry III. Despite the fact of his disastrous
participation in the Crusades (i 249-1 254), his capture at
Damietta and the enormous ransom which the King scrupu-
lously paid, France prospered under Louis and his mother
Blanche. This was greatly due to the moderation and strict
sense of justice displayed by the King, who refused to take
advantage of the weakness of Henry III, and would be no
party to the schemes of such worldly pontiffs as Innocent IV
and his successors in their quarrel with the Empire. His allow-
ing his brother Charles of Anjou to accept the crown of Sicily
was one of the few errors in his wise and straightforward
policy. In his severity to heretics he did but act in accordance
with the spirit of his age; and even if, like Frederic II, he had
accepted Christianity with the calmness of a philosopher
rather than the fervour of a saint, he would not have been less
vigorous against them.
Having surveyed the wide field of French history and
shown how under five monarchs a realm divided and subdi-
vided into feudal principalities, had begun to be welded to-
gether so as to be in a position to speak with authority to the
world, it is desirable to notice some of the reasons for the
growing importance of the French monarchy. First among
these stands the great part the country took in the intellectual
revival in its monasteries, and their schools which culminated
in the University of Paris.
It was in France that the great revivals of monasticism
occurred in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Cluny, under its
early abbots, reformed the ancient rule of St. Benedict, by
which each abbey was allowed to work out its own system.
The reformed monasteries were federated in feudal dependence
on the great abbey which formed the centre of administration
of a logically devised rule. Fleury was the exemplar of the
English Benedictine monasteries, revived by St. Dunstan,
who sought his inspiration from France. Bee in Normandy
became not only a model of monastic discipline, but attracted
the two most learned men of the age in the Italians, Lanfranc
28o INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
and Anselm, who found the atmosphere of Normandy more
congenial for learning than that of their own country. Tours
had long been a famous school, and in the middle of the eleventh
century pupils from all parts of the world were flocking to
hear Berengar, the learned deacon. Citeaux and the Cistercians,
the Puritans of Monasticism, partly owed their origin to the
Englishman, St. Stephen Harding; but the Abbot would never
have been known as "the Abbot of Abbots" but for the wonder-
ful impulse the genius of St. Bernard gave to the whole move-
ment. Contemporary with Bernard was St. Norbert, the founder
of the Canons of Premontre. Like St. Bruno, the founder of the
Carthusians, he was a German, but it was in France that his
influence was felt; for France has always been receptive of
foreign talent.
Before the appearance of universities the monastic schools
of France proved an extraordinary stimulus to learning. The
most famous were Chartres, Laon and the great Abbeys in or
near Paris. The fame of Chartres dates from Fulbert (d.
1020), who continued to teach after he had become its bishop.
Laon was celebrated for the brothers Anselm (not the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury) and Ralph; and Paris in the eleventh
century was full of famous teachers. A most interesting ac-
count of the career of a scholar is to be found in the autobio-
graphical notes of an Englishman, John of Salisbury, who
spent twelve years in going from teacher to teacher in France,
principally at Chartres, of which he became bishop, and Paris.
John is described as one of the most correct Latin writers of
the Middle Ages, and was a characteristic product of an early
French education.^
Bernard and Abelard, the two great rivals, representing the
spirit of monastic mysticism on the one hand, and of restless
enquiry on the other, are both typical of the France which
arose with the revival of civilization. In them we have a fore-
shadowing of the history of religion in France, fervent piety
combined with practical ability — for Bernard was the virtual
*The chapter by R. L. Poole, Illustrations oj the History of Medicsval Thought
(Ch. VII), should be consulted.
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 28 1
ruler of the Christian world of the West — and the keen spirit
of logic which shrinks before no difficulty.
But France during this period of growth was not merely
the home of ideas, whether expressed in Monasticism — for
that was the one thing which occupied the best minds in the
earlier Middle Ages — or in the thirst for knowledge, which was
so keenly felt after the appearance of Abelard. It was also the
home of the oppressed, especially Popes and English Archbishops.
Indeed some of the most important councils of the
twelfth and thirteenth century were held by exiled pontiffs
in or on the border of France. It was a French Pope (Ur-
ban II), who proclaimed the First Crusade in 1096 at the
Council of Clermont, so that to France belongs this great
enterprise symbolical of the awakening of Western Eu-
rope after the long night of the Dark Ages. The remark-
able papal schism when Innocent II and the anti-pope An-
acletus II, elected on the same day in Rome by two factions
of cardinals, was decided in France. The story is unique in the
history of papal elections. When Honorius II was dying in
1 1 30, it was known that a member of the powerful and wealthy
family of the Pierleone would have a majority of the cardinals.
This the minority, like all minorities professing to represent
the more sensible men {saniores), resolved to prevent. Ac-
cordingly they almost rushed from the bedside of the dead
Pope and proclaimed Innocent II, who was enthroned the very
same day, but later, the majority of the Cardinals chose and
placed Pierleone in the Papal Chair in St. Peter's as Anacletus
II. Innocent II, finding he had not even the support of the
Frangipanis, the rivals of the Pierleones, fled the City and took
refuge in France. There he found an ally more powerful than
his Roman enemies. His cause was enthusiastically espoused by \
the great French monk and mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux,
the glory of the Cistercian Order. A more difficult case to de-
cide it would be hard to discover. Anacletus had the majority
on his side. Innocent, though he could claim priority of elec-
tion by a few hours, was chosen in a clandestine and irregular
manner. But a cause opposed by St. Bernard was almost
282 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
necessarily lost. The Jewish birth of Anacletus was remembered,
his family were declared to have acquired their wealth by usury,
their fidelity to Gregory VII and the papal interests was for-
gotten and Innocent II has gone down to posterity as lawful
Pope and Anacletus II as a usurper.
As exiles fighting a desperate battle with the Empire,
France welcomed the Popes with open arms. There they held
their councils, inspired crusades, issued commands for the
Christian world, dictated terms of alliance to the Greeks. In
their direst poverty the French episcopate supplied them with
the necessary means. But the French Kings, since Louis VI,
never allowed encroachments on their prerogatives; and even
when under just papal displeasure, they never escaped ex-
communication by a journey to Canossa, or by doing homage
for their crown. Louis IX, with all his devotion, never forgot
what was due to his position as King of France, and kept the
control of the clergy firmly in his hands.
Three of the most eminent English primates, St. Thomas
Becket, Stephen Langton and St. Edmund Rich, found a hos-
pitable reception in France when their own country would not
keep them. All three were welcomed at Pontigny near Sens,
whither Becket betook himself to lay his case before Alexander
III, and in somewhat theatrical fashion to offer his resignation
of the See of Canterbury to the Pontiff. Pontigny was a par-
ticularly appropriate place for persecuted English primates to
[ take refuge in, as it was the eldest daughter of Citeaux, the
monastery for which their countrymen St. Stephen Harding
had done so much. Here Becket tried at intervals to change the
magnificence and luxury to which as Chancellor and as Arch-
bishop he had been accustomed, for the severity of the Cister-
cian discipline, often relapsing, however, into his old pursuits
and habits. The exiled Pope Alexander HI found in the fugitive
Archbishop a most embarrassing neighbour, and Louis VII a
guest whose presence was as welcome to him as it was dis-
pleasing to his rival Henry II of England.
At Pontigny Stephen Langton remained when John re-
l fused to receive him at Canterbury, and England lay under the
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 283
interdict of Innocent III. Here the great Archbishop and pa-
triot calmly pursued his biblical studies, till the time should
come for him to play his part in the politics of his native^
country, where he was destined to do more benefit by his brave /
and independent life, than Becket by his spectacular but)
heroic death.
Very different from either of the above was the gentle and
saintly Edmund Rich, who left England shortly before his
death in despair at the condition of the country. He was of-
fered the house which Becket had occupied, but preferred the
simple cell of a Cistercian monk. He died in 1240, one of the
most scholarly and high-minded men who ever sat in the Chair
of St. Augustine, and received the supreme honour of canoni-
zation.
The intellectual centre which drew foreigners to France
from every part of the world was Paris. Originally it was not
a city of the first rank, as is shown from the fact that it was not
the seat of an archbishop, its bishop being a suffragan in the
province of Sens. But under the kings we have been enumer-
ating it developed rapidly and its prosperity kept pace with
the royal power of France. It owed much to the great abbeys in
and around it. Of these the most famous and sumptuous was
that of St. Denys (believed to be Dionysius the Areopagite),
the burial place of the kings of France, the royal abbey par
excellence, where the oriflamme was kept. There Louis VI
and Louis VII were educated. It was about four miles north of
Paris on a bend of the Seine. Nearer the city were the two
monasteries of St. Germanus, and, overlooking it on the
mount south of the Seine, that of St. Genevieve, the patron
saint of Paris, who had saved the town in the days of Attila.
The original medieval city was on the island of the Seine
where Notre Dame (the present building dates from the end
of the twelfth century) stands. On either side of the river
houses began to be built, on the north for the growing com-
merce, and on the south, for the influx of students first to the
Cathedral School and St. Genevieve, and later to the Uni-
versity. Thus arose the famous Latin quarter of Paris. The
284 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
three divisions of the City from north to south were the
Villey the Cite and the University.
Each successive monarch contributed to the enrichment of
Paris, but the two who did most were PhiHp Augustus and his
grandson St. Louis IX. Its pecuHar influence on France has
been due to the fact that it was not merely as a residence of
the kings or as a commercial mart that Paris became im-
portant, but because it had become through its schools the in-
tellectual heart of France.
The development of France is further seen in its literature.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the language was
assuming its present form. Beginning with poetry there was
an output, considerable at any rate in volume, from the close
of the eleventh century. According to the twelfth century
Norman poet Wace, the Conqueror's minstrel sang, as he rode
before the Duke to fight at Hastings, of Charlemagne, Roland
and Oliver, the heroes of the "Song of Roland/' the greatest
of the RomanSy earlier known as Chansons de Geste (Songs
of Deeds). In the south there were the Troubadours with
their elaborated lyrics, and their fantastic laws of love,
yet to these we owe Dante's romantic adoration of Bea-
trice. The story of the "Holy Grail," the "Golden Legend,"
the "Romance of the Rose," show the variety of the subjects
touched on by the early French poets. But poetry and song are
the beginnings of a literature; and already the French language
was being used for the more difficult art of historic prose. The
capture of Constantinople in 1204 called forth the narrative
of Godfrey of Villehardoin, and the virtues of Louis IX in-
duced another French noble, the Sieur de Joinville, to write
his reminiscences of the Good King in a work "which may be
fairly counted among the memorable biographies of European
literature." * By the close of the fourteenth century French
was a literary language, and being that of the nobility of
England, had an influence on the formation of English litera-
ture. Italy owes its national renaissance greatly to the impulse
first given by France.
* Wendell, The Tradition of European Literature, p. 546.
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 285
It is now time to consider in more detail the influence of
the French upon the Papacy from the time of the annihilation
of the Hohenstaufens down to the tragic humiliation and death
of Boniface VIII in 1303. It will be remembered that Urban
IV, a Frenchman, was the Pope who gave the crown of Sicily
to Charles of Anjou. He ascended the papal throne in 1261,
and from this time to the election of Boniface VIII in 1294,
there were eleven popes and the see was vacant for two long
periods aggregating five years and eight months. With short-
lived popes and anarchy in the city, the control of the Holy
See was at the mercy of any ambitious prince who was on the
spot.
The policy of Charles of Anjou, the youngest brother of
St. Louis, was to make French influence supreme in Italy; and,
from thence, to found a great empire in the Mediterranean,
using the Papacy as an instrument to carve out for himself
the dominion of the civilized world. Far abler than his brother,
Charles not only entertained great projects, but showed con-
summate skill in carrying them out. A better diplomat than
Frederic II, he constantly posed, whilst keeping an iron hand
on the Papacy, as the faithful friend of the Church. The
battles of Benevento and Tagliacozzo proved him to be one
of the greatest captains of his age, and, when one considers
the disadvantages under which he started on his enterprise,
it is impossible not to admire his ability. The sole weakness he
displayed was due to his cold calculating selfishness, and entire
lack of generosity or idealism of any kind. Unlike his brother,
St. Louis, who made France a great power by the sheer force
of his goodness and transparent honesty of purpose, Charles
played a bold and unscrupulous game. He avoided all the
mistakes of Frederic II by maintaining his position as the
ally and friend of every Pope, and gave no cause for suspicion
of his orthodoxy by favouring any of his subjects, treating
the Latins, Greeks and Saracens in his Sicilian kingdom with
impartial cruelty. Nor, having got the popes into his hand
did he ever let them have the power to injure him. He was
also fortunate in having, with one exception, no strong pope,
286 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
owing to the shortness of the reigns of the eight who held the
See, from the time of his being summoned to Rome till his
death (1261-1285).
Charles did not come to Italy till 1265, but he had made it
a condition that he should be appointed Senator of Rome, an
office which the Romans, when struggling to become an in-
dependent republic, had formerly bestowed on a citizen, but
was now being given to powerful foreign patrons. After many
negotiations as to whether he was to be Senator for life, or
only till he became King of Sicily, it was arranged that it
should be a temporary appointment, though Charles was
evidently resolved to use his authority in Rome as a lever, if
necessary, against the Pope. For a time, however, the Senator-
ship passed to Don Arrigo of Castile, but Charles, after his
victories, resumed the position and became Master of the
City. His conquest of Sicily, which has already been related,
left the French influence supreme in all papal affairs.
After the battle of Tagliacozzo the Roman See was vacant
for more than three years (November 29, 1268-March 27, 1272),
during which period the Christian world in the West was with-
out Emperor or Pope. The Latin Empire in Constantinople
had also collapsed; and in 1270 St. Louis had gone on his last
crusade which by the influence of his brother had been diverted
1 to Tunis, in order to assure the tribute due to Charles as King
of Sicily. In 1271 Charles with the new King of France, Philip
III — St. Louis having died of the plague in Tunis — was in
Rome. With them was an English prince, Henry, son of Richard,
the Duke of Cornwall, and King of the Romans. Charles's
Vicar in Tuscany was the son of Simon de Montfort; and de-
termined to avenge the death of his father upon the family of
his enemy, he stabbed Henry before the altar and dragged his
body out of the church in the presence of the two Kings
and the Cardinals. This foul and disgraceful murder was al-
most unpunished. Guido de Montfort was tried, but he was
one of the best of Charles's captains, and nothing serious
happened to him. He was, it is true, deprived of his office,
but was soon restored to favour. Even his character did not
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 287
suffer, for he held the reputation of being a man of great
integrity. This throws a light on the tone of the period; and it
is even possible that the slaying of an innocent prince at the
altar for a wrong done to the father of the murderer by the
kindred of his victim, redounded rather to Guido's credit in
the estimation of his contemporaries.
But the crime may have reacted upon Guido's master. At
any rate, when St. Bonaventure exhorted the Cardinals to put
an end to the scandal of the vacancy of the Roman See, they
elected, not a nominee of Charles, but an Italian of the house
of Visconti, who was Archdeacon of Liege and was at this time
in the Holy Land with Edward I of England. He was conse-
crated in St. Peter's in the spring of 1272 and took the title of
Gregory X. Richard of Cornwall, the titular King of the
Romans, died a few days after the accession of the new Pope.
For nearly four years (i 272-1 276) there was peace under
Gregory X, who, though not by any means a brilliant man,
was eminently wise and pacific. Without a quarrel he was able
to curb the ambition of Charles to become Emperor, by sanc-
tioning the choice of Rudolph of Hapsburg as King of the
Romans by the German princes, who were determined not to
elect a foreigner. Thus the Papacy was once more reconciled
to the Empire, and the new Sovereign, more anxious for peace
at home than for supremacy in Italy, wisely submitted to the
spiritual authority of Rome. Gregory X was most anxious to
crown so dutiful a son of the Church as Emperor. This, how-
ever, he was not destined to do, and Rudolph was never
crowned.
Like his predecessors, Gregory X went to Lyons, on the
borders of the French kingdom, to hold the memorable Council
of 1274. Here were assembled representatives of all parts of
Christendom. The bishops alone numbered over five hundred.
The King of Aragon was present in person, and the ambassa-
dors of Germany, France, England, and Sicily. The East sent
the Latin patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, and the
Orthodox Greek Church despatched delegates to negotiate a
union with the Roman See. More striking, however, was the
288 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
appearance of sixteen Tartars with a letter from their Khan,
requesting an alHance against the Moslems. No council had
been so largely attended as this, which is known as the Second
General Council of Lyons and is reckoned by the Roman
Church as the Fourteenth General Council.
In 1 261 Michael VIII (Paleologus), having seized the Em-
pire of the Lascarids at Nicaea, drove Baldwin and the Latins
out of Constantinople. The restored Greek Empire was in a
difficult position. Its capital was almost in ruins, owing to the
brutal rapacity of the invaders, who had occupied it for fifty-
seven years. There was the hostility of the Despot of Epirus,
a rival for the imperial dignity, and also of the Latin princes
of Achaia, and in addition Charles of Anjou was ready to head
a crusade against Michael VIII in the interest of Baldwin, or
more probably of himself. The Greek Emperor, to avert these
dangers, threw himself upon the protection of the Pope,
promised to recognise him as Head of the Church and to ac-
cept the Creed with the Latin addition of the double procession
of the Holy Spirit. At the Council, therefore, the union of the
Latin and Greek Church was openly decreed by the surrender
of all the pretensions of Constantinople to Rome. The Creed
was sung at the Mass both in Latin and Greek with the Filioque
clause, and a peace was arranged which proved, as might have
been expected, only temporary. The majority of the Orthodox
indignantly rejected the accommodation between Michael and
the heretical West, and the schism continued unhealed to the
serious detriment of the cause of Christianity.
More enduring was the arrangement of the papal elections
made by the Council of Lyons.
Wherever the Pope may happen to die, the Cardinals on
the spot are to wait for eight days for the arrival of absentees.
At the expiration of that time, whether they come or not,
those present are to assemble in the palace of the pontiff with
only one, or at most two attendants, whether clergymen or
laymen. They are to live together and no one is to be admitted,
nor may the cardinals be spoken to or receive any messages.
There is to be only one entrance to the Conclave through
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 289
which the meals are to be deHvered. If at the end of three days
the Cardinals are not agreed as to the election of a Pope, their
meals are to be reduced to one a day. At the end of five days
nothing but bread, water, and wine is to be supplied.
This is the celebrated law of the Conclave intended to put
an end to the scandal of long vacancies of the papal Chair,
such as had preceded the election of Gregory X. The Canon
proved easier to enact than to enforce; for about sixteen years
after the death of Gregory X, there was no pope for one period
of two years. It, however, laid down the principle on which
papal elections have subsequently been conducted.
The Council deserves attention at this juncture, now that
we are considering the subject of French influence on the
Papacy. In two centuries, from 1074 to 1274, popes had pre-
sided over about twenty-one councils, no less than ten of
which were held in or close to France, two of these being
General Councils. Only five times within that period had it
been possible to assemble the bishops at Rome. The great
success of the Second Council of Lyons must have been a
conclusive proof that the papal authority could be exercised
in more security on the Rhone than on the Tiber, and have
caused the popes to wonder whether it would not be advisable
to make their home outside a city so tumultuous and ungov-
ernable as Rome.
Gregory X died in January, 1276, after a short but success-
ful pontificate. A wise and conciliatory man he had achieved
much. Not only had he taken a part in restoring the Empire,
and made it submissive to the Church; but he had thwarted
the unscrupulous ambitions of Charles of Anjou so skilfully
that it was impossible for him openly to resent the diplomacy
of the Pope. Gregory had accepted the inevitable by recog-
nising that the Latin Empire in Constantinople was imprac-
ticable, and had made Michael Palaeologus accept the papal
supremacy over Greek Christendom. The Second General
Council of Lyons in 1274 had been remarkable for an unpre-
cedented attendance of prelates representative of the Christian
world, and had effected important reforms. The law of the
290 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Conclave alone is sufficient to make this pontificate forever
memorable; but it seems even more worthy of record for the
spirit in which the Pope acted during a very critical period.
Within a year of Gregory X's death there were no less
than three popes elected. As Senator of Rome Charles did all
in his power to force a countryman of his own upon the Church.
He enforced the new law of the Conclave with all its rigour
upon the Cardinals, who opposed him and endeavoured to
starve them into submission, whilst his own friends were
mysteriously supplied with food. But Italian finesse proved
superior to the rough methods of the French prince, and on
December 26, 1277, an uncompromising enemy was placed on
' the papal throne in Nicholas III, of the noble house of the
Orsini, the son of Matthew Rubeus, who had been renowned
as Senator of Rome. Nicholas skilfully played off Rudolph of
Hapsburg on Charles, and succeeded in making one of his
own family Senator of Rome. He is one of the famous early
papal nepotists, and though he strove for the rights of his See,
he was at least as anxious to advance the family of the Orsini.
He has been condemned as guilty of Simony, for which reason
Dante places him in hell, awaiting the arrival of that more
flagrant offender, Pope Boniface VIII.
Martin IV, the next pope, was a Frenchman and a mere
tool in the hands of Charles, whose power in Italy was now
almost unlimited. But in 1282 the Sicilian Vespers deprived
the house of Anjou of half its dominions, and the Crown of
Sicily was offered to Peter of Aragon, whose wife Constance
was the daughter of Manfred. Charles and Martin died in the
year 1285.
It is hardly necessary here to enter into a detailed account
of the next few years, which, however, were notable for the rise
' to great power of the Colonnas, the most enduring of all
medieval nobility of Rome. This family had embraced the
side of the Ghibelline anticlerical party, and were about to ex-
perience the fatal consequences of provoking a vindictive
pope, and the satisfaction of making their enemy drink the
cup of humiliation to its dregs.
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 29 1
For two years, after the death of Nicholas IV, namely,
from April, 1292, to August, 1294, there was no pope. The
cardinals then came to an extraordinary decision to place a
saint in the Chair of St. Peter. They chose Peter Murrone, a
hermit, noted for his austerity, and forced him against his '
will to be consecrated Pope as Celestine V. The bewildered
anchoret struggled in vain to discharge his duties, but, con-
scious of his own utter helplessness, he issued a decree making
it lawful for a pope to resign the triple crown, and retired I
among his hermits. But it was as dangerous to allow an ex-
pope who might become a centre of disaffection to remain at
large, as it had been to permit a Roman emperor to retire;
and Peter Murrone was kept in strict confinement by his
successor Boniface VIII.
Benedict Gaetano was famous for learning and ability, and
was fully resolved to restore the unlimited power of the
Papacy. He was well on to eighty when he was elected and yet
showed a vigour comparable to that displayed by Gregory IX.
In his actions Boniface VIII was resolved to show that he was
no follower of the deposed and persecuted Celestine V. He en-
tered Rome amid the acclamation of the nobles and people.
Two Kings, Charles II of Naples and his nephew Charles
Martel of Hungary, walked beside his white palfrey and waited
on him at the coronation banquet.
Boniface had a consistent policy in regard to his own
family; and in this he followed Nicholas III. It seems that in
this century the most necessary support to a successful ponti-
ficate was the powerful influence of kinsmen. The Gaetani
were able and daring; and the Pope greatly strengthened his
position by giving them lordships in the States of the Church.
The rise of a new and powerful house alarmed the Colonnas;
and, infuriated at the deposition of two Cardinals of their
family, they allied themselves with the mystic Jacopone da
Todi and the Celestines, as those who declared that Peter
Murrone was still Pope, were called. Boniface VIII at once ex-
communicated the family and proclaimed a crusade against
the dominions of the Colonnas. Their fortresses were taken;
292 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
finally in September, 1298, their stronghold, the city of Pales-
trina, was utterly laid waste as by an army of barbarians. The
Colonnas were forced to wander homeless in the world. Stephen
Colonna, the head of the family, which had been preeminent
among the Roman nobility, fled to France and even as far as
England. Jacopone da Todi was doomed to a close prison.
Sciarra Colonna, the fiercest of the family, escaped, after
taking refuge in woods and marshes, and was destined to exact
a terrible penalty from the enemy of his house.
The behaviour of Boniface VIII caused as much indigna-
tion as had that of Innocent IV. Dante condemns the crime of
the destruction of Palestrina and the perfidy of the Pope to-
wards the Colonnas. The terrible vindictiveness of the stern
old man towards Christians, whose crime was that they dis-
puted the ascendancy of his family, shocked the best minds
of the age and Dante foretells for Boniface VIII a place in hell
among the followers of Simon Magus. But the year 1300 was
destined to make men forget the rapacity and violence of the
papal policy, and to exalt the pope above all mortals.
Ancient Rome had celebrated Ludi saculares; and the
thousandth year of the foundation had been commemorated
with great splendour by Philip the Arabian. The thousandth
year of the Christian Era had been ushered in by expectations
of the end of the world, and it was now decided to make the
thirteen hundredth anniversary of the birth of Christ the occa-
sion of a Jubilee. The Pope proclaimed remission of sins to all
who should visit the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, ex-
cepting from the indulgence Frederic of Aragon, who held
Sicily in despite of the Church, the Colonnas, and all who traded
with the Saracens. It was a magnificent success. The stream
of pilgrims was unceasing, the City was well policed, food was
plentiful and cheap, lodgings naturally expensive. The Romans
were never so happy as in this year. Money flowed on every
side. Smiling priests stood by the altars, rakes {rastelli) in
hand, and raked in the coins as the pious made their offerings.
The Pope's enemies declared that he had invented the jubilee
solely in order to make the money he so sorely needed to re-
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 293
cover his lordship over Sicily. It was, however, noticed that no
princes and few rich men came to Rome on this occasion, and
that the pilgrims were as a rule poor. The day had passed when
such an appeal would have drawn Kings from the ends of the
earth. Yet a greater man than any monarch of the time was
present at Rome in Dante; and Villani, the Italian historian
of his native Florence, was also among the pilgrim throng.
Boniface VIII in this supreme hour of triumph, when he seemed
to the people and to himself as more than human, could hardly
have suspected that among the adoring crowd was a man who
would truly bestow upon him the gift of immortality, an im-
mortality of infamy.
The Pope was now at the height of his power and his ar-
rogance knew no bounds. He claimed to be the ruler of the
world, Emperor and Pope. He declared all kings his subjects,
he ordered the clergy to pay no tax without his consent, he
pronounced it necessary to salvation that every human
creature should be subject to the Pope.
In Philip IV of France (1285-1314), surnamed "the Fair,"
the new age"seeme"d incarnate. In many respects he was sin-
gularly like his rival and contemporary Edward I of England.
He is the first French anti-clericalist. His policy was to nation-
alize the Church by placing it under the crown. But Philip's
weapon was, not the sword, but the law. His most powerful
assistants were the great feudal lawyers of France. Every step
he took he justified as legal, and, even if he strained the law,
he honoured it. Boniface VIII endeavoured to counter Philip's
clerical policy by his famous Bull Clericis Laicos forbidding
the clergy to pay taxes without the consent of the Pope (1296);
and throughout his pontificate the dispute as to the rights of
the Papacy in France continued. The lawyers Pierre Flotte,
Plasian and Nogaret advised the King at every step. Boniface
issued bulls like the Ausculta Fili in which, under the dignified
tone of a pastor and a father, the claims of Rome were pushed
to the utmost. The King's lawyers retorted with charges against
the Pope, accusing him of heresy, and of crimes, which, con-
sidering his age, were absurd on the face of them. In 1303 the
294 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
crisis came. Philip the Fair did not, like the German Emperors,
march into Italy at the head of an army; he sent William of
Nogaret with plenty of money to corrupt the adherents of the
pontiff. Accompanied by Sciarra Colonna and a few troops,
the French King's agent entered Boniface's native Anagni,
where the Pope then was. The people deserted him; his palace
was stormed; the cardinals fled. Dressed in his papal robes
Boniface VIII sat on his throne, prepared to die. Sciarra
Colonna would have slain him: it is said that he even struck
the Pope. Nogaret interfered and Boniface was arrested, and
then released. He went to Rome only to find himself in the
hands of the Orsini. Maddened with rage he shut himself up
in his room, and is said to have beaten his head on the wall
till he died. He seems to have passed away without the rites
of the Church, October ii, 1303.
This dreadful outrage excited no outburst in Christendom.
The days of enthusiastic reverence for the Papacy were ended,
and the disgrace of Boniface VIII affected but little the princes
of Europe, who were already fully occupied with their own
affairs. France was in truth a new phenomenon in the world of
politics. Since the days of Philip Augustus she had become a
first-class power, not as an inheretrix of the Roman Erripire,
but as a nation. Created by the crusades, to which she gave the
strongest impulse, the severely logical spirit of her people gave
her a coherence hitherto unknown. Her kings renounced the
fantastic ideals of German imperialism and set to work to unite
their dominions by breaking the power of the great feudatories,
creating a middle class, subordinating the Church to their
authority, placing power in the hands of lawyers, and fostering
universities. In a word the Middle Ages were being ended by
France, and a new world was coming into being with the
opening of the fourteenth century.
It now remains to be told how Philip the Fair completed
what he had begun by the humiliation of Boniface VIII. The
popes found that by ruining the German Empire they had de-
prived themselves of a power which, if it had sometimes
threatened, at least had often protected them. They were now
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 295
completely under the control of Philip the Fair. The successor
of the terrible Boniface was Benedict IX, who only reigned a
few months. He was followed by a Frenchman, Bertrand de
Got, who owed his election entirely to Philip, and became his
tool. His first act was to summon the cardinals to Lyons,
where he was crowned as Clement V. The so-called Babylonish
Captivity had begun; and Rome languished, deprived of the
presence of a Pope for seventy years. The triumph of France
over the Church was complete.
Avignon, whither Clement V repaired in 1308 and was
destined long to be the home of the Papacy, was not in French
territory. It was in Provence and belonged to Charles of
Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair. In 1348 it was pur-
chased by the Pope for 80,000 florins from Queen Joanna of
Naples and remained the property of his successors till the
French Revolution. Its situation made it a good place from
whence to administer the affairs of the Church, but its prox-
imity to French territory made the Curia the organ of the
King. Philip the Fair, under threat of bringing Boniface VIII
to trial, and having his pontificate censured by a Council,
forced Clement V to execute his will, and gave proof of his
power and the impotence of the Papacy in his hands by se-
curing the condemnation of the Knights Templar.
This famous Order, founded in 11 18, had surpassed all the
military fraternities which originated in the Crusades. Now
that Palestine was lost to the Christian world, their occupation
was gone; but not their wealth, nor to all appearance, their
power. They certainly deserved well of the Papacy for their
steady support during the dispute with Frederic II. Had it
not been for the discomfiture of Boniface VIII, the Papacy,
with the Preachers appealing to the educated, the Friars
Minor, popular with the poor, and the military support of the
Templars in Europe, might have been irresistible. As it was,
with the feeble Clement V in power, Philip the Fair felt strong
enough to attempt the destruction of the whole organization.
He proceeded with consummate cunning. DuMolay, the Grand
Master of the Temple, returned to France as a- great prince,
296 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
and was treated with cordiality and even deference, and given
no hint of the King's intentions. The Pope was kept on tenter
hooks; for whenever Clement V appeared recalcitrant, he was
threatened with the formal trial of Boniface VIII, whose con-
demnation on charges of heresy, fraud, immorality, and count-
less other crimes, would prove almost a death blow to papal
authority. In the meantime Philip's lawyers were preparing a
dossier of accusations against the Knights, which in truth were
not dissimilar to those levelled against the late Pope. The
Order was unpopular for its greed, haughtiness and arrogance,
and rumour told of secret crimes and nameless abominations,
which were confirmed by the devilish ingenuity of the feudal
lawyers of the crown, such as de Plasian and Nogaret. Suddenly
and without warning the houses were seized, and the Knights
arrested. Hearsay evidence was accumulated, torture was
freely employed and the machinery of the Inquisition set in
motion. The Templars were said to have been guilty of the
most fearful apostacy. They cursed Christ and at their initia-
tion they were compelled to spit on the Cross. They worshipped
a hideous idol with the face of a cat called Baphomet. Their
ceremonies of admission were blasphemous in the extreme,
and grossly indecent, the foulest vices were encouraged and
taught to the neophytes. Every kind of hostile evidence was
accepted and the Knights, men of noble birth, but unlettered
soldiers, confined in dungeons, weighted down by fetters, and
subjected to torture, were induced in some instances to admit
the charges brought against them. But in fact very little
acknowledgment of guilt could be extorted from any of them;
and even those who confessed often retracted when the in-
tolerable tortures were removed. Clement remonstrated at
Philip's interference with the prerogatives of the Church; for,
not only were the Knights reckoned among the clergy, but
their alleged crimes were subject to ecclesiastical discipline,
and a layman was not the person to take cognisance of them.
But Clement V was doubly under Philip's power, on account
of Boniface VIII, and also because the Pope was playing a
crafty game in the imperial election, pretending to support
THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE PAPACY 297
Philip's brother Charles of Valois, and intriguing against him
with the German princes. A new tool was discovered in the
Archbishop of Sens, the Metropolitan of the Bishop of Paris.
He declared that Knights who had confessed and retracted
their confession were relapsed heretics. Fifty-three were burned
at one time.
Philip then forced Clement to suppress the Order entirely.
He ordered the arraignment of the memory of Boniface VHI.
When the charges had been made he withdrew from the trial,
and allowed proceedings to end. The grateful Pope rewarded
the King by holding a great council at Vienne in 13 11 at which
the Order of the Temple was suppressed. DuMolay, the Grand
Master, still languished in prison; but in 13 13 he and another
were burned alive as relapsed heretics.
In no other country were the Templars adjudged guilty of
enormous crimes; and upon the whole their treatment was not
severe. The horrors of the suppression were confined to France.
This was the real close of the Middle Ages. The Crusades
were dead, the Papacy had received a fatal blow, the Empire
was but a shadow, the hope of recovering Palestine went when
its best champions were burned alive in Paris. The outstanding
feature of this age is France. It has been shown how the very
name in the eleventh century was confined to a single duchy,
how its King was the holder of an almost empty title hardly a
primus inter pares among the great nobles. It has been indi-
cated how Suger aided Louis VI to make the royal power a
reality, how Paris became a capital and the heart of the new
Kingdom. France showed its intellectual preeminence in the
reformation of monasticism, in the schools of Berengar,
Roscelin, William of Champeaux, Anselm of Laon, Abelard —
finally in the University of Paris. To France also belongs the
chief glory of the Crusades, the rise of the Normans to civiliza-
tion, and their infusion of new life into England. Fortunate in a
succession of really able kings, she fostered civic life, put down
the anarchy of feudalism and restrained the ambition of the
powerful ecclesiastics. By Charles of Anjou's victories over
Sicily, Frenchmen became all powerful in Italy, and the Popes
298 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
who never quailed before a German Kaiser, became humble
clients of Philip the Fair. That King destroyed the old eccle-
siastical civilization, which in future was but a shadow of its
former self.
Philip the Fair died in 1311^ and Clement V in the same
year. Thus neither survived tneir victim du Molay for more
than a few months. Philip the Fair was a bad man, but a great
king. Clement V was no better as a man, and was the meanest
of the Popes. His predecessors had many faults, but the worst
of the popes since the middle of the tenth century were men
generally of stainless moral character, who endured hardship
with fortitude. Bertrand de Got seems to have been of the
despicable type of a licentious ecclesiastic, insatiable in his
greed, and, unlike the great popes, he died full of riches but
void of honour.
AUTHORITIES
The sketch of the rise of France being a general one, it is not necessary
to do more than indicate a few books easily accessible to the student.
G. B. Adams, Growth oj the French Nation and Civilization during the
Middle Ages. Kitchin, History oj France, etc. A. Luchaire has published
Louis VI, Annales de sa Vie. See also J. W. Thompson, The Development oj
the French Monarchy under Louis VI le Gros (Chicago, 1895). There is a book
on Philip Augustus, by W. H. Hutton (Foreign Statesmen), and in the
"Heroes of the Nation Series," St. Louis {Louis IX oj France), by F. Perry.
Joinville has been translated by F. Marzials in the Memoirs oj the Crusades
(Everyman's Library); extracts may be read in J. H. Robinson, Readings, I,
198-221.
For an account of early Paris see Ch. I of J. McCabe's Abelard and T.
Okey, The Story oj Paris, Medieval Towns. Philip IV the Fair's reign is not the
subject of any English monograph I have come across. See C. N. Langlois in
E. Lavisse's Histoire de France, Vol. III. Milman in his Latin Christianity
devotes 328 pages of Vol. VIII to the relations of Philip the Fair and the
Popes Boniface VIII and Clement V. The most accessible account of the
suppression of the Templars is in Lea's History oj the Inquisition.
CHAPTER XII
ENGLAND
English Church loyal to Rome — Few excesses — Continental ambition of kings —
Early promise of Anglo-Saxon church — Paralysis followed Danish invasion —
Early English kings take an imperial title — The Norman Conquest — Enlight-
ened policy of William I — Lanfranc — Refusal of homage to the Pope — The
conqueror's ecclesiastical policy — William Rufus — Election of Anselm —
Anselm driven out of England — Cause of Anselm's dispute with William —
Rapid nationalisation of the English Church — Clergy, nobles, and people unite
— Thomas Becket — Becket Archbishop — Character of Henry — Ecclesiastical
immunities — Assize of Clarendon — Merits of the controversy — Effect of
Becket's murder — Election of the Archbishops of Canterbury — Stephen Langton
— The interdict — John's surrender of his crown to Innocent III — England
reacts against the Pope — Edward I — The beginnings of Parliament — Taxation
of the clergy — The Convocation — The Bull Clericis Laicos — Edward I resists
Boniface VIII — Changes in England from 1066 to 1300 — The Cathedrals —
Durham — Norwich — Lincoln — Gundulf of Rochester — Intellectual activity —
Men of humble birth primates — Change in Papal relation — Edward I an English
king — England and Scotland — Vacancy of the Scottish throne — Claim and
counter claim of England and Scotland from antiquity — Ireland — State of the
Church in Ireland.
The Church of the English, the Teutonic peoples as dis-
tinguished from the Celtic inhabitants of Britain, was due to
the missionary zeal of the Roman See. "Gregory, our father,"
says Bede, "sent us Baptism"; and the English never forgot
their debt; but repaid it by enthusiastic loyalty to the Papacy.
No nation looked up to Rome more, or was less troubled by
heresy till the close of the thirteenth century. This was not due
to the backward state of civilization in the country; for the
clergy at least were quite abreast with their age in intelligence.
Nor can this freedom be attributed to the natural docility of a
peculiarly stubborn people. It was due partly to the re-
moteness of the island from such foci of heretical teaching as
Lombardy and Languedoc, and partly to the native good sense
of a race which had little sympathy with the exercises of the
Paterines, or the political vagaries of the Arnoldists. At any
rate, the history of the English Church had fewer wild out-
299
300 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
bursts of misguided zeal, and practically no atrocities com-
pared with those which happened on the Continent. Nothing
approaching an Inquisition was permitted by its government.
Yet for some time after the Conquest England had scarcely
a history of its own. Its king was ordinarily a great European
potentate, owing his regal title to the country, yet not always
regarding it as his most important possession. As long as his
ambitions were continental, he was hardly a national sov-
ereign, but rather one who looked upon his English monarchy
as a convenient starting point from which he might hope to
gain an imperial position in Europe. It was in fact the shrinkage
of the Continental dominions and ambitions of the King of
England that made the country into a great power.
The Anglo-Saxon Church had fluctuated with the fortunes
of the nation. Beginning with extraordinary promise, it had
from time to time revived, only to sink back under the calami-
ties of the various piratical invasions of the Danes. No church
gave birth to such a series of men eminent in more fields than
that of the English in the eighth and ninth centuries. It is
little short of a miracle that long before the century after the
preaching of Augustine, and hardly a generation following the
apostolic labours of Aidan, men like Wilfred should have been
in the heyday of their powers, and Caedmon, Bede and Aldhelm
of Malmesbury have commenced their labours. Within the
next century native Englishmen, like Boniface of Crediton,
the Apostle of Germany, and Alcuin, the favourite scholar,
adviser of Charles the Great, exercised abiding influence on
the Continent. John Scotus Eriugena also, whatever his nation-
ality, is believed to have had an English education; and if so,
the schools of the country produced one of the most daring
thinkers of the West.
But this fair promise was ruined by the depredation of the
Danes; and the revival under Alfred the Great, and even the
introduction of the Benedictine rule by Dunstan and his
friends, resulted in nothing comparable to the abundant har-
vest of merit which followed the planting of Christianity in
Teutonic England. No literary remains of marked excellence
ENGLAND 30I
belong to the century preceding the Conquest nor did any
churchman of real eminence appear after Dunstan.
Prior to the Danish troubles at the close of the tenth
century, the kings of Wessex had become powerful and hon-
oured monarchs, and had claimed to be Emperors, rather than
Kings. They styled themselves by the Greek title of Basileus,
thus implying that they were not dependent on any Emperor,
but enjoyed the rights of imperial sovereignty. This fact was
remembered by the successors when they found it necessary
to assert their authority before the world.
The Norman Conquest was a subjugation of the English
Church as well as of the nation, and for generations it was to
be ruled by men of alien blood. But though in some instances
there were undoubted hardships inflicted on the native clergy,
they suffered nothing approaching the tyranny under which
the conquered laity groaned. For whilst the Norman baron re-
garded the English as a race which he was by his victory en-
titled to oppress, the Bishop or Abbot, though despising the
national clergy as ignorant boors, could not forget that they
were priests, nor that the people were committed to his charge.
A certain esprit de corps, due to the consciousness that, after
all, they belonged to the same order, drew the clergy together,
and the people had a natural reverence for the office of their
bishops, which they could not feel for that of their lay op-
pressors. In addition to this the clergy had in Latin a common
language, which the Norman and Saxon laity had not.
That the Church in England gained on the whole immensely
by being brought into more intimate connection with the
higher civilization of the continent is indubitable, and the
Conqueror, though terribly severe, was an enlightened ruler
in matters ecclesiastical. Not only had he gone to conquer
England, under the special blessing of Alexander II, and was
therefore bound by gratitude to the Hildebrandine party in
Rome, but he realised the importance of an able and devoted
clergy. In addition to this Bishops were more to be trusted
than lay nobles with strategical positions which might prove
centres of opposition to the King. Already the policy had been
302 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
inaugurated of moving the Sees from weaker centres, like
Chester le Street to Durham, or from places unimportant from
their situation, like Crediton to others which were likely to
command the navigation and trade of a district like Exeter.
On these principles Dorchester was transferred to Lincoln, and
Thetford to Norwich. It was thus of the highest importance
to William to appoint as his bishops good and faithful men on
whose judgment and ability he could rely. In the English, with
the sole exception of Wulfstan of Worcester, he could not
trust, and the foreigners whom he caused to be elected were
at least better than their predecessors.
For Archbishop of Canterbury William selected the best
and ablest ecclesiastic in his Norman dominions in Lanfranc,
Abbot of Caen, a man notable for his monastic virtues, his
scholastic learning, his stainless orthodoxy, and his knowledge
of the law. It is noteworthy that William chose Lanfranc to
be virtually the prime minister of his new dominion, not a
Norman, but an Italian. As King of England, he needed a
lawyer because of his feudal relations. As Duke of Normandy
he had to recognise the King of France as his overlord, and he
might well be asked to consider himself in a similar state of
dependence as to England. This explains the care William took
to assume the throne of Edward the Confessor not by right of
conquest, but as heir to Edward, by free election of the people,
and also the scrupulous show of legality with which he in-
vested all his proceedings. It accounts for his attitude to the
Papacy. He had obtained the consent of Alexander II to make
an attack on England for the purpose of punishing the perjury
of Harold and of restoring the country to Catholic unity, of
which the irregularities of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury,
had deprived it. But though the King showed himself en-
tirely submissive to the Pope as regards the payment of Peter's
pence, he was inexorable in refusing the homage for England
which his fellow countrymen had paid for their conquests in
Southern Italy and Sicily. On the ground that the kings who had
preceded him had never done homage, William through Lanfranc
plainly refused to accede to the demand of Gregory VII.
ENGLAND 303
William's ecclesiastical policy was that of an arbitrary man
who at the same time was resolved to rule justly and to keep
within the limits of the law. He dealt in no petty peculation of
church property by keeping bishoprics and abbacies vacant in
order to seize their revenues; but he made it plain that he
would brook no questioning of his authority. Every bishop
had to do homage for his estates and to discharge all his
feudal obligations. As King, he practically appointed to all
the higher posts in the church by his ability to refuse to
"invest" any person of whom he disapproved. He seems to
have deferred much to Lanfranc, for whose opinion he had a
great respect, but to have exercised full authority in ecclesi-
astical matters.
Under Norman influence the Church in England was
brought into closer relations with Europe and lost some of its
distinctive features. It was no longer allowed to continue its
undefined relation to the State. The Bishop for example no
longer sat in judgment with the Earl, nor held his see without
conditions. He had a court of his own separate from the lay
tribunals; for the Church was recognised as an imperium in
imperio, a self-governing institution. At the same time no
ecclesiastic was allowed to forget his feudal obligations. Like
every other landowner, the Bishop or Abbot had to become the
" King's man " and do homage for his territories. He was equally
bound to equip troops for the King's service. Before the
eleventh century closed, it was apparent that the Church had
gained by being no longer isolated. Great cathedrals began to
arise, abbeys were being endowed. A famous man in Lanfranc
sat on the throne of Canterbury, to be succeeded by one even
more celebrated in the person of St. Anselm; and, though they
were Italians, their presence in England was in itself sufficient
to act as an inspiration to the clergy as well as to increase the
reputation of the Church.
There was, however, another side to the picture, which
became manifest when the strong hand of the Conqueror was
removed. His successor, William Rufus, possessed much of his
ability, but little of his strength of character or sense of rec-
304 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
titude. If William I had ruled the Church, it was in the in-
terest of his authority, rather than of his cupidity. William II
saw profit in keeping the church under his control and ex-
hausted every legal device to extract money from its estates.
The way he kept the bishoprics vacant, till he could find some
one to make it worth his while to appoint, was a scandal to
Christendom. This is the key to the whole story of Anselm's
election to the See of Canterbury and of his appeal to Rome
against the King of England.
On the death of Lanfranc at a great age in 1089, William
Rufus, who had respected and followed the advice of the
Archbishop, kept the See vacant for several years and used the
revenues for his own purposes. This was due to a definite
policy inaugurated by the king's adviser, Ralph Flambard,
who strained feudal law to the utmost limit in order to find
funds for his master. During the vacancy of a "benefice" the
King administered its revenues in his own interests and thus
Flambard is described as desiring to make the king "every-
man's heir." Till 1095 Canterbury had been without an
Archbishop, but in that year William fell ill and there seemed
little hope of his recovery. The prospect of death induced him
to consent to the appointment of a primate; and as it was prob-
able that he would soon be where he could neither profit by
the revenues of the vacant see, nor be inconvenienced by the
chair being filled by a man of high principle, the King ac-
cepted Anselm, who was then in England as the guest of Hugh
Lupus, Earl of Chester. The unexpected recovery of William
led to a serious dispute between the monarch and the See of
Canterbury. In the early days of his reign William, who was
devoted to the memory of his father, had revered Lanfranc as
his friend and adviser; and Lanfranc, a shrewd man of the
world, had understood that the new king could be managed,
but not driven. Anselm, on the other hand, was before all
things a student and a monk with a singularly sensitive con-
science. With his refined nature he was incapable of under-
standing how to deal with a master, coarse-fibred, and immoral,
but not entirely destitute of good impulses. The result was that
ENGLAND 305
after a stormy interview at Rockingham Castle, Anselm was
driven from England and took refuge with Pope Urban II.
Anselm has often been unjustly criticised for his behaviour
towards William II and Henry I. It is true that he spent most
of his primacy (1095-1109) out of England, that he appealed
against the laws of the country to the Pope, and that his gen-
eral attitude throughout was what would now be called
ultramontane. But to judge men by the light of events which
happened centuries later is not the part of an historian, whose
duty it is as far as possible to put himself in the place of the
person he is describing and to realise the circumstances of his
age. Anselm, it must be remembered, was not only a foreigner
to the conquered English, but also to the conquering Normans.
He was an Italian, who had found a home in Normandy; he
was honoured by those who had made their home in England,
and by their influence was made Archbishop of Canterbury.
As a stranger called to rule over an alien Christian community,
as a philosopher and a Christian ascetic, compelled against his
will to undertake responsibilities distasteful to him, Anselm
looked upon the province assigned to him as part of the Cath-
olic Church of Christ of which the Pope was the universally
acknowledged head. This attitude made him sympathetic with
Norman and Saxon alike as Christian men, but to demand that
he should show himself patriotic, or even Anglican, is to re-
quire that he should have lived some centuries later. His only
conception of duty in his day must have been to guard the
Church from the oppression of William II and what he re-
garded as the illegalities of Henry I, and to take his orders
from the Roman See.
Anselm's dispute with William Rufus turned on the King's
claim in the event of a disputed election to the Papacy to recog-
nise whichever pope it suited him to acknowledge, and to
allow no ecclesiastic to submit to either candidate till he
should have made up his mind. By his hesitation he was able
to keep Anselm for a time from obtaining the -pallium, which
was necessary before he could exercise his metropolitan juris-
diction. When this matter had been adjusted, the King re-
3o6 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
fused the Archbishop permission to hold a council to reform
the disorders of the time. It was therefore as an oppressed
bishop, hindered in the discharge of his plain duties, that
Anselm appealed to Urban II. With Henry I the insistence
of the King to demand the ceremonies of investiture, when
these had been condemned by the Church, was a natural cause
of trouble to Anselm, who as Archbishop felt compelled to
refuse assent to a custom which had now become ecclesias-
tically illegal. In this affair Henry I showed himself the better
negotiator; and peace was made between England and the
Papacy before the question of investitures had been settled
with the Empire at great cost of blood and treasure.
Before, however, going into the question of the relations
of England with the Roman See it is interesting to see how
rapidly the Church in one respect became nationalised. It was
the policy of the Conqueror to fill the highest offices of the
Church with clergy imported from the Continent. The first
four Archbishops of Canterbury were foreigners, and the first
native of England was Thomas Becket, who was born in London,
and made Primate in 1162. His successor was a Norman; and
after him Canterbury was only once held by a foreigner in
Boniface of Savoy, the most hated man in England. Of the
seven archbishops appointed in the thirteenth century five of
the seven were of obscure origin, and consequently it may be in-
ferred were of Saxon blood. So completely does the racial
distinction between the conquering Normans and the van-
quished English appear to have been obliterated, at any rate
in the Church.
This had important results. As has been already indicated,
the kings of England from the Conqueror to Henry III were
generally European potentates, fully as much interested in
their continental dominions as in their island kingdom. This
prevented the monarch from being regarded by his Norman
baronage as their natural leader, under whom the subject
Saxons were to be held in thraldom; since, as the Plantagenets
were not even Norman, the English nobility realised that it
was their interest to maintain their independence by having
ENGLAND 307
the people on their side, which made the fusion of races more
complete. At the same time the Church acted as a powerful
agency in uniting the two peoples into one nation, the clergy
being drawn from both; and the native element, as is indi-
cated in the origin of so many of the Primates, becoming
more than ever in the ascendant. There was nothing anti-
Roman in all this, but it shows that a national sentiment
was tending to form one people, singularly jealous of their
legal rights.
The famous quarrel of Henry II and Thomas Becket is
significant of the rise of this national spirit, and the enormous
popularity of the saint was due not merely to the miracles
which followed his tragic death, but to the fact that he resisted
the arbitrary will of a non-English monarch.
Becket's career is a good example of what the life of a
churchman of his age might be. Trained as a lawyer, he re-
ceived the tonsure; but did not proceed to priest's orders. As
Archdeacon of Canterbury he conducted the business of
Archbishop Theobald and received a number of minor clerical
emoluments which made him a rich man. His enemies charged
him with utter worldliness in his youth, but his moral char-
acter was, as is apparent from their silence, beyond reproach.
The Archbishop recommended him to Henry II; and as chan-
cellor, not then a judicial office, he was practically the chief
minister of the King. He distinguished himself as a soldier in
France, and was regarded as virtually a layman enriched by
the benefices of the Church.
As a minister of the crown Becket had steadily supported
the royal authority which had been directed to the restoration
of order in England after the horrible anarchy of the reign of
Stephen. He was by many regarded as the enemy of the Church.
His nomination and election to the Primacy was generally
considered as a scandalous exercise of the King's influence
in favour of a man, who though richly endowed by Church
preferments could, only by courtesy, be considered as a
clergyman at all. Becket, however, took his position with the
utmost seriousness, and from the day of his consecration was
3o8 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
determined to prove the champion of the church over which
he had been called to preside.
The quarrel of Becket and Henry II involved many inter-
ests, and the merits of the case can be judged as far as possible
by an impartial consideration of the circumstances of the age.
Henry II was a singularly able and sagacious prince, who held
and increased his vast dominions with consummate political
skill rather than by military ability. He was subject to gusts
of passion, expressed in furious gestures, and at times depriv-
ing him of the power of self-control. When these were over he
resumed his task with his wonted prudence — a prudence which
frequently took the form of profound dissimulation. In Becket
he met his match in courage and tenacity of purpose which
in the Archbishop was combined with a strong sense of duty.
In a sense Henry II was a reformer. His ideal was, doubt-
less, to have in his kingdom of England a government under his
control, a unified government doing equal justice to all. The
great obstacle to this was the Church, then a body including a
much larger proportion of the population than at present, each
member of which was a privileged person, amenable only to
its jurisdiction. As all reforms are apt to strain the laws and
customs of a country, Becket was inflexible in maintaining
the legal rights of the clergy, not merely of the prelates of the
realm, but of the humblest doorkeeper of a church, all of whom
were subject to the Courts Christian. According to the prin-
ciples of ecclesiastical law the penalty of death could not be
inflicted by the Church, and consequently the worst ofi^ender
could only be subjected to a mild sentence, however atrocious
his crime.
The grievance between the civil and ecclesiastical juris-
diction came to a head in the affair of Philip de Brois, a canon
of Bedford, who had been condemned by his bishop to pay the
family of the man he had murdered a compensation for the
crime. Later the King's Justiciary openly charged him with
being a murderer, and was insulted in open court. The King
ordered de Brois to be indicted in the spiritual court for his
contempt, and the judge sentenced him to be whipped, and
ENGLAND 309
his benefice sequestrated. This mild sentence gave great
offence to the King, who demanded of the clergy that every
delinquent clerk should first be degraded and then handed
over to the royal judges for punishment. The reply of the
bishops was that this would place the clergy of England in a
far worse position than they were in every other country.
The next question to the clergy was whether they would ob-
serve "the custom of the realm." To this Becket as their head
said yes, "saving his order." This provoked the King's wrath,
and was the prelude to the struggle which ensued.
The King declared what these "customs" were in the
Constitutions promulgated at Clarendon, whither the great
Council of the nation assembled after Christmas 1163. In many
of these there were innovations intended to extend the royal
authority as well as to remedy abuses. They were sixteen in
number; the most important show the relations between the
Church and Crown of England. Among them are the fol-
lowing:
Disputes between the clergy and the laity about pres- \y^
entations are to be brought before the King's courts.
A clerk accused of a crime is to be summoned to the King's
court to answer there for whatever is determined, and to the
Church court for whatever is determined he should answer
there. The King's justice is to be represented in the Church
court when the case is tried. If the clerk shall confess or be
convicted, the Church shall not protect him.
Archbishops, bishops and other exalted persons may not
leave the realm without the King's leave.
The laity are only to be accused in the presence of the
bishop by certain and legal accusers. If they are so powerful
that no one is willing to appear, the sheriff, on demand from
the bishop, is to summon twelve loyal men from the district.
No servant in chief or servant of the King's household may
be excommunicated, or his land laid under an interdict, till the
King, or in his absence, his Justiciary, has been consulted.
No appeal may go further than the Archbishop's court
without the King's consent.
3IO INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Vacant benefices, like bishoprics and abbeys, are to be held
by the King. When the time comes for election the King shall
recommend the best person and the election shall be made in
the King's Chapel with his consent and the advice of the
persons he shall summon. The elected person shall do homage
and fealty.
It would require much time to relate how Becket first
accepted the Constitutions, and then refused to affix his seal
to them, how he bitterly repented his weakness, how he defied
the King at Northampton and fled to France. There Louis VII
received him with honour, and Pope Alexander III played a
double game in attempting the difficult task of supporting
Becket and not offending Henry II. Nor is it here necessary
to enter into the complicated story of Becket's negotiations
with Henry, his return to England, the monarch's rash words,
and the archbishop's tragic death at the altar of his cathedral
church. It is well known that miracles proved that death to
have been a martyrdom; indeed the cultus of St. Thomas
became most popular north of the Alps. After his death Henry
II performed a humiHating penance at the grave of the martyr,
and that the King was pardoned was attested by the news,
brought during his recovery from his severe "discipline,"
that the King of Scotland was defeated and a prisoner. But
the most important matter is the significance of the whole
incident.
Party feeling has so entered into this ancient controversy
between Henry and Becket that it is generally thought that
the King was a champion of law and order against clerical
arrogance. It is often forgotten that the majority of the
bishops were opposed to Becket and that one of the reasons
for his murder was that he had issued bulls excommunicating
his suffragans for crowning Henry II's son King of England,
when he, the Primate, was absent. The rulers of the Church,
who were assuredly not backward in asserting their privileges,
did not regard Becket as their champion; and his bitterest
enemy, John of Oxford, was after the martyrdom rewarded
with a bishopric. Becket stood for what he beHeved to be the
ENGLAND 3 1 1
law of the Church and was ready to die in its defence. Now
whatever we may think of clerical legislators, it cannot be
denied that the criminal law of the Church was in theory
greatly in advance of that of the customs, often unwritten, of
which the King's law mainly consisted. Its object was, that
which is now commonly declared to be the end of all punitive
legislation, not to exact vengeance for the crime but to improve
the criminal. If it seems monstrous in these days that the
clergy should be under one law and the laity under another, the
anomaly of class legislation was not perceived in the Middle
Ages. Moreover, the Church represented an unarmed popu-
lation, and might at any time be despoiled by a licentious
baronage unless the persons of the clergy and their possessions
were not specially safeguarded by laws which gave them pro-
tection by excommunication and interdict. Further tb'^ clergy
were the sworn protectors of the poor, the miserable, and the
oppressed, and their immunities sheltered those under their
protection. Such things as benefit of clergy, sanctuary and the
like became in later days pernicious anomalies or intolerable
nuisances, but they were not so intended: in a barbarous age
they imposed a certain restraint to the benefit of the wretched.
Becket was fighting no selfish quarrel when he espoused the
cause of the clergy, although he was in the wrong in not recog-
nising the necessity of proceeding against the clerical criminal
class which had wrought such disorder in the previous reign.
Possibly, however, so able and vigorous a man would as Pri-
mate have made his hand felt in deahng with their crimes.
When it is remembered that the story of Becket's death
thrilled the whole Christian world, that it was told and retold
in every form, including that of the Icelandic Saga, that
miracles almost daily asserted his sanctity, and that the shrine
made Canterbury a most famous place of pilgrimage, it is
wonderful how little real effect resulted from it. Those who
read English history, and neglect the story of the Papacy, find
it difficult to understand the attitude of Pope Alexander III.
They are ignorant of the dangerous position of the pontiff, and
the necessity of retaining an ally so powerful as Henry II in
312 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
his struggle with Frederic Barbarossa. The Pope's zeal for
Becket's cause varied with his prospects but he could not
afford to risk the very existence of the Papacy for a domestic
quarrel in so distant a country as England, especially when
the Church itself was profoundly divided on the question at
issue. On the whole in the disputes between the English
clergy and their kings the popes tried to prove themselves
judicious and conciliatory. In the next century their attitude
was more interested.
Though Becket was solemnly canonized as a martyr by
Alexander III, the Constitutions of Clarendon were not con-
demned by the Pope nor repealed by the King. The power and
influence of the Church was not increased, and the penance of
Henry was accepted as an adequate atonement for the crime,
which, if he did not commit, he was partly responsible.
The next dispute on ecclesiastical matters in England was
due to the difficulties incident on the election of an Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. For two centuries after the Conquest
there is hardly a single instance of the choice of a Primate
being made without dispute. It is very difficult to say exactly
by whom a bishop was chosen in primitive times. On the
whole perhaps Clement of Rome's phrase, "With the consent
of the whole church," "expresses the fact that originally the
officials of a church were elected by the faithful. Canterbury,
however, was not merely a cathedral church, for Augustine
was not only the archbishop, but the abbot of the community
of monks which he had brought with him. These claimed the
privilege of electing their own abbot and therefore of choosing
the primate of the greater part of Britain. But almost invari-
ably the King had a voice in the matter and the Conqueror,
as has been indicated, insisted on his right to veto any election.
It is noteworthy that after Anselm almost every election
was a subject of controversy, and often the vacancies were pro-
tracted for years. The monks of Christ Church were obliged
to hold the election in the King's court, and had therefore to
delegate certain of their number to represent them. The King
naturally claimed a voice in the matter; so did the bishops of
ENGLAND 313
the Province, as they were at least as interested in who should
preside over them as the monks. On the whole the choice of
the Abbey was seldom a happy one. Societies of this kind
seldom want the best man, but prefer someone whom they hope
they can manage, and perhaps like to create a vacancy in their
body which will entail a general move up of subordinate offi-
cials. As a rule the King desired to appoint a man of con-
spicuous merit, and wisely restrained the freedom of the
monks. The permission to elect was often limited, the King
suggesting on whom the choice of the monks should fall. When
there was a deadlock the Pope was generally consulted; and
seems to have tried honestly to select the best man for the
post. In no single instance was a complete stranger to the
country ever appointed, with the exception of Boniface of
Savoy. Lanfranc and Anselm were well known to the Normans,
and those not born in England had lived there for some time,
and taken part in its church aflPairs. One attempt had been
made to secure a really representative electoral body, when
Baldwin in the reign of Richard I tried to found a collegiate
church at Hackington; but the monks of Christ Church car-
ried an appeal to Rome and foiled the Archbishop. On the
whole, like other anomalies in England, the system was ob-
jectionable, but did not work badly, and secured the country
a series of capable, respectable and on the whole, usefully
average Primates.
On the death of Hubert Walter in 1205 there was the
usual trouble as to the election of a successor. The monks
elected the sub-prior Reginald and sent him to be consecrated.
This had been done by some of the younger monks, who de-
sired to steal a march on the King by a private election. They
hoped that Reginald would return consecrated by the Pope,
and invested with the pall to preside over the province of
Canterbury. Innocent III, suspecting that all was not regular,
told Reginald to remain in Rome, and soon another delegation
arrived to announce that King John had set aside Reginald,
and ordered the monks to elect the Bishop of Norwich. Inno-
cent III quashed both elections, and commanded the monks
314 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
to choose an Englishman at Rome, Stephen Langton, Cardinal
of St. Chrysogonus. John's refusal to accept Langton as arch-
bishop was the cause of the interdict.
Many acts of this illustrious pontiff, even when judged by
the standards of the thirteenth century, are indefensible, but
the laying of England under an interdict does not appear to be
one of them. Arbitrary as he often showed himself to be, it is
difficult to believe that Innocent III was actuated by un-
worthy motives, or that he did not labour sincerely to restore
order in the Church. Since the death of the Conqueror the
conduct of his successors in keeping sees vacant in order to
enjoy their revenues had been an open scandal, and, by making
the whole country feel the effects of the misdoings of the
monarch, the Pope may have thought that he was employing
the most efficacious means of bringing an intolerable state of
affairs to an end.
The interdict lasted for four years and was only partially
observed. John seized the goods of the clergy who obeyed, and
arrested the women who lived with some as their wives. His
government during this period was marked by a vigorous
policy towards both Ireland and Scotland, and by some suc-
cesses abroad. For the fact is often ignored that, though this
king lost Normandy, and acquired a character worse than that
of any other English monarch, he was a man of great ability,
as is shown in the dexterity with which he foiled the schemes
of Philip Augustus. Innocent III had excommunicated John,
absolved his vassals from their allegiance, and offered Philip
Augustus the same privilege as Alexander II had bestowed
on Duke William of Normandy, the right to conquer England,
if he could. John suddenly submitted to the Pope's ambassador,
a Roman sub-deacon named Pandulf, surrendered his crown
and became the liegeman of Innocent III. He took the Cross
and promised if opportunity should offer to go on a crusade
himself. He thus became, albeit the subject, the client of the
most powerful influence in the world, and the interdicts and
excommunications, with which he had been smitten, were now
ready to fall on the heads of his enemies.
ENGLAND 315
Dr. Lingard, the Roman Catholic historian of England,
whilst admitting the baseness of this transaction, points out
that it cannot in the light of the ideas of the age be regarded
as severely as it would have been in later days. Other princes
had become feudatories of the Pope, and John himself owed
allegiance to Philip Augustus for his French dominions. The
same historian suggests that John may have been forced to
take this step by his barons who preferred to have an impartial
tribunal to appeal to, in the event of their being oppressed by
their King.
Anyhow the league against John immediately dissolved,
and he in turn became the aggressor against Philip Augustus.
The defeat, however, of the allied army at Bouvines, 1213, put
an end to the hopes of John in Europe.
From this time there set in a steady and persistent reaction
in England against the Papal policy in Europe and ultimately
against the Papacy itself. Innocent III made a fatal mistake
of taking the side of John in opposition to the barons and
even to his own nominee, the Primate Stephen Langton. The
condemnation of Magna Charta, which had been wrung with
such difficulty from John, created a feeling in England that the
Pope was opposed to the liberties of the country and this was
intensified, when the anti-national policy of Henry III was up-
held by several pontiffs. This discontent finds expression in
the writing of Matthew Paris, the monk of St. Albans. Not that
England was in any way heretical, or disposed to question the
supremacy of the Pope or the doctrines of the Church. There
was nothing of the reformer in such a man as Robert Gros-
seteste, Bishop of Lincoln, the patron of the growing schools
of Oxford and of the Friars. The grievances were that the Popes
Italian, and their anti-German policy, with which England had
no concern, proved constant drain on the revenues of the Church,
that money was taken out of the realm to further useless and
impossible schemes for the aggrandisement of the royal family,
such as Richard of Cornwall's election to the Empire, and
Henry's acceptance of the crown of Sicily from the Pope for
his son Edmund. The taxes imposed by the Popes on England
3l6 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
were aggravated by the attempts to make its benefices a means
of paying salaries to non-resident Italians; and this and much
else tended to foster a national spirit, at first directed against
foreigners, and, finally, against the Roman See.
The policy of Edward I of England was in some respects
analogous to that of his rival Philip the Fair, inasmuch as he
made his first object the consolidation of his own kingdom.
His idea was to make himself absolute master of the whole
of Britain, for which purpose he undertook the subjugation of
Wales, and the reduction of Scotland to an acknowledged po-
sition of dependence. He also endeavoured to strengthen his
position by the aid of his lawyers, and to diminish the power
of the feudal nobility by his support of the burgesses. Under
him Parliament began to exist in a definite form, and he was
forced to recognise at least the principle that the people must
be taxed with thej?^ consent of their representatives.
The three estates of the realm are Clergy, Lords and
Commons; but the present arrangement of two Houses of
Parliament is in a measure fortuitous and there might well
have been three, the great barons in one, the lesser, or knights
of the shire in another, and the burgesses in the third. But the
clergy in the Middle Ages was the most important of all the
divisions of the realm, not only in intelligence, but also in
their superior wealth. It is, however, in the absence of statis-
tics almost impossible to speak definitely on the financial
condition of the clerical order. They were certainly rich and
their standard of life was higher than that of the laity, but as
a rule the statements as to the immense property owned by
them are exaggerated by jealousy. Even in the year 1400 the
House of Commons estimated that there were forty thousand
benefices in England when there were not more than a quarter
of that number. As a matter of fact the Church in England had
prelates and dignitaries with vast revenues, and also an in-
ferior clergy on the verge of poverty. But a great prelate or
abbot had to maintain an almost royal state, and needed all
he possessed to feed and clothe the retinue necessary to his
office. Assuredly the clergy were heavily taxed. Both Pope and
ENGLAND 317
King made heavy demands on them. Sometimes a tenth, a
fifth, even half of their revenues was rehnquished. Thus their
House, afterwards known as Convocation, had to consider the
question of taxation in the same manner as the lay ParHaments.
Originally there were four houses of Bishops, Abbots, Deans
and Arch-deacons, and Clergy.
As there were two ecclesiastical provinces of Canterbury
and York, there were two independent Convocations, each under
its own Primate, but the importance of York was insignificant
indeed compared with that of Canterbury. The north of
England was in many parts almost without inhabitants and
was only slowly recovering from the harrying of Northumbria
by the Conquerors. There were, since 1133, but two suffragans
of York, Durham and Carlisle, whereas few archbishops in
Europe had more than Canterbury with its seventeen dependent
Sees. In speaking, therefore, of Convocation, that of the South-
ern Province is often meant, whilst the fact that the Northern
also has one is forgotten. The property of the Church of
England down to the seventeenth century continued to be
taxed by the two Convocations, consisting later of the bishops
in one of the houses, and Deans, Archdeacons, and repre-
sentatives of the Cathedral chapters and clergy in the other.
The story of the thirteenth century is a record of constant
demands made by the King or the Pope on the revenues of
the Church.
The clergy were not eager to contribute to either. They
had as little sympathy with the Pope's schemes against the
Empire as they had with those of Edward I for the recovery
of Guienne, which provoked the remonstrances of the great
Earls of Norfolk and Hereford. This grievance on the part of
the clergy may have led to the promulgation of Boniface
VHI's bull CAericis laicos, which caused so much trouble
in England and brought vengeance on the Pope from France.
It must not be forgotten that every clerical corporation,
as well as every individual holding a benefice, was a trustee.
The church lands had been given to God and were inalienable.
It also might be pleaded that they were held for the benefit of
3l8 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the poor, who certainly profited by the benefactions of the
clergy and monks, and that the money ought not to be de-
voted to secular purposes. Boniface VIII sought to protect
the clergy against exaction by forbidding them to pay taxes
without the consent of the Pope. He did so in the most pro-
vocative manner, as the opening words of the bull testify.
"Antiquity has told us that the laity have been from of old
troublesome to the clergy."
The English clergy were well aware that their monarch
was not a man to be trifled with and that it was impossible to
obey the Pope's command. The Primate, Robert of Winchelsea,
however, was determined to resist Edward I, who forthwith
outlawed the clergy, declaring that if they would not contribute
to the maintenance of the realm they should not have the
benefit of the protection of his officers. The obnoxious bull
had therefore no effect.
Though Edward I had been a Crusader and had been
always a devoted son of the Church, his policy foreshadowed
that of his successors in limiting its power. As the royal rev-
enues depended partly on the vast estates of the Crown and
also on the many feudal dues occurring on the death of his
tenants and on wardships and marriages, any acquisition of
a corporate body, which never dies, was to the prejudice of
the King. Land held thus was said to be held by the dead hand
(in mortmain), and this was prevented for the future by the
statute de viris religiosis^ which forbids lands to be transferred
to monasteries or similar institutions to the detriment of the
Crown. This is the earliest statute of Mortmain.^ The whole
legislation and general attitude of Edward I towards the Church
* It is most instructive for the student to examine three maps in the Historical
Atlas of Modern Europe: (i) England and Wales in 1086, (2) in the reign of Edward I,
(3) under the House of Lancaster, (i) and (3) are by James Tait, M.A., and (2) by
Professor Tout. In these the great landowning families and their estates are indicated.
Very few of the names of those who held land under the Conqueror are repeated in
1290. By 1455 almost all the great families, Beauchamp (of Warwick), Bohun, Bigod,
Clare, Lacy, Mortimer and Warenne, have disappeared and a new aristocracy has
arisen. The fact that the old Norman houses were so short lived may account for the
rapid progress of the fusion of the two races.
ENGLAND 319
shows how rapidly the royal influence had been on the increase.
This was aided by the subsequent misfortunes of the Popes
and their exile to Avignon. The days of excommunication and
interdicts when sovereigns trembled were passing away.
Little is heard after Winchelsey of Primates defying the
sovereign.
This very brief survey of the ecclesiastical history of
England will have shown how marked the change had been
from the time of the Conquest to the death of Edward I. One
of the most visible effects of the coming of the Normans and
the revival of the Church under their influence remains to this
day in the cathedrals. Almost every important cathedral
church reveals its Norman origin. The rich architecture of
clerestory of lady-chapel of west front and presbytery may
belong to later periods, but the naves are often severely Nor-
man with their substantial pillars and their romanesque
arches. Outside the architecture may suggest the richer de-
signs of a later date, but the kernel of all is the work of the
builders who came with the conquerors in the eleventh
century.
The year after the Conquest the Saxon cathedral at Can-
terbury was burned down; and Lanfranc on his appointment
found it in ruins. He at once set to work to rebuild it and he
is said to have completed it in seven years. Even during An-
selm's days with all their troubles the work went on under the
Priors Ernulf and Conrad (1093-1130). The first duty of
every bishop seems to have been to erect a cathedral superior
to anything which had hitherto been known in the island.
York like Canterbury had its Saxon Church destroyed by
fire in 1069; and the whole diocese had been devastated by the
Conqueror, so that not a single religious house was left in it.
No sooner was a Norman Archbishop, Thomas of Bayeux,
appointed than he built the cathedral, but his work did not
endure; for Walter de Gray (1216-1255) rebuilt it in the then
prevailing Gothic style.
Far more permanent was the work of William of St. Carilef,
Bishop of Durham, where the body of St. Cuthbert had re-
320 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
posed since 999. The Conqueror, seeing the strategic importance
of the place, had built the castle, and the Bishop made his
cathedral one of the enduring glories of England. He began
but two years before his death in 1095. He is said to have de-
signed the choir, "one of the greatest things done even in an
age of giants." The next Bishop was Flambard, the infamous
minister of William Rufus, who had finished the nave and built
part of the western towers by his death in 11 28. Nothing can
better illustrate the character of the men who subjected
England than the strength and magnificence of Durham.
Norwich and Lincoln, two other cathedrals of Sees re-
moved from villages to places of commercial or strategic im-
portance, attest the skill of the new episcopate as builders.
The East Anglican bishopric, after having been situated at
Elmham and moved since the Conquest, was finally in 1095
transferred to Norwich. Here the Conqueror had built a castle
and established a market; and the place, commanding as it did
the internal navigation of Norfolk, grew to be one of the most
important cities in the Kingdom. Hither Herbert de Losinga
removed the See from Thetford and set to work to build a
magnificent cathedral with a monastery for sixty monks. To
this day the plan of Losinga's cathedral remains to illustrate
a Norman church in the eleventh century, with the bishops'
throne in its original place facing the people and overlooking
the high altar, and the nave one of the longest in England.
Lincoln was in the district which had suffered worse from the
ravages of the Danes, and the original see of Lindsay had
been moved to Dorchester in Oxfordshire, to the other end of
the diocese. It was transferred to Lincoln, a place of great
strategic importance, by Remigius in 1075; and by 1092, the
cathedral, now one of the most magnificent in the country,
was dedicated.
It would be impossible to omit the name of one of the most
famous builders of the early Norman age, Gundulf, Bishop of
Rochester, a friend of Lanfranc, who had been nominated to
his see which was in the gift of the Primate. He restored his
ruined Cathedral, and was employed by the Conqueror to
ENGLAND 321
build the White Tower in the Tower of London, and, in the
days of William Rufus, Rochester Castle.
The above does little more than suggest the change that
came over England in respect to Church building alone since
the coming of the Normans; and, it may be added, since the
security they had brought by making Danish invasions im-
possible. The monasteries and other religious houses almost
equalled, if some did not surpass, the cathedrals, and the fact
that these became numerous, not only in the south, but in the
devastated north, proves that there had been great progress
in national prosperity.
The impulse given by the Normans was continued through-
out the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but the ground plans
of such famous Norman churches which were either cathedrals
or subsequently became so, indicate that the main structures
were completed not very long after the Conquest. The ad-
juncts belong to later ages up to the Reformation; but the most
important parts were already there. To mention but a few, it
was so with Ely, Norwich, Durham, Peterborough (the west
front dates from the thirteenth century), and Salisbury (built
between 1220 and 1258). One cannot fail to be amazed at the
creative vigour of this period.
In addition to the energy with which cathedrals and
monasteries were designed and constructed is the intellectual
activity which has been elsewhere mentioned. The universities
had appeared; and Englishmen were making their mark both
as teachers and students in the world school of Paris. Educa-
tion was conducted on sound and truly democratic lines, being
neither forced on an unwilling proletariat, nor restricted to a
privileged class. Never were more boundless prospects of power
and influence open before any youth of promise. Men of
humble birth, but almost invariably of exceptional ability,
rose to be Popes. The Archbishopric of Canterbury, which had
precedence over all others in the world, and gave the holder
the place at a council at the right foot of the Pope, as well
as authority over all his sovereign's foreign churches, was often
attained by prelates whose parents were too obscure to be
322 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
mentioned in their biographies. Yet these humbly born men
raised to the highest positions seem to have comported them-
selves with dignity, and this may be attributed in a measure
to the careful discipline under which they had been trained,
and says much for the monasteries as places of education. It
was this power of throwing open a career to all that kept the
church in touch with the people in both France and England.
In Germany it was otherwise, owing to the way in which the
most important ecclesiastical positions gave the incumbent
sovereign rank, and therefore cut him completely out of pop-
ular sympathy as the member of an exclusive aristocracy.
In the difficulties which arose with the Roman See there
is a perceptible change. At first nearly every interference by
the Pope was beneficial. So far as his Italian policy was un-
affected by his action, he was a just and impartial arbitrator.
Able as were many of the Norman ecclesiastics, they were no
match for such princes as William Rufus, Henry II, or John,
nor were they capable of stemming the anarchy of the reign
of Stephen. It was no small advantage to them to be able to
refer their cause to an external tribunal, which knew how to
make itself respected. Down to the surrender of John to
Paudulf, the agent of Innocent III, the growing patriotism of
England found a friend in the Pope, whose intervention in the
matters of Becket and Stephen Langton was discreet, in that it
tried to reconcile parties mutually aggrieved and to bring about
a reasonable compromise. Innocent III made a fatal mistake
in condemning Magna Charta, and his successors aggravated
matters by making the weak Henry III a tool in their enter-
prises in Italy and Sicily. This fostered an independence of
spirit which found expression in the acts of Simon de Montfort,
and the writings of Matthew Paris.
In Edward I there appeared for the first time an English
King. That sagacious monarch saw the importance of his
kingdom, and had profited by the lessons of his father's reign
by learning to respect the feelings of its inhabitants. His ob-
ject to make himself the paramount authority in the entire
island brought him into conflict with the Scots, under conditions
ENGLAND 323
which interest the ecclesiastical as well as the secular
historian.
Just as the English kings owed feudal dependence for
Normandy and other continental possessions to the king of
France, so did the Scottish king acknowledge the overlordship
of the English crown, possibly for lands held by him in England.
But it was easy for a superior to claim that his vassal owed him
homage in respect for estates or kingdoms which he had ac-
quired elsewhere. Thus the King of France might assert that
the King of England, and not merely the Duke of Normandy,
was his vassal, and the King of England might make a similar
claim, not only on the Earl of Huntington, but on the same
person as King of Scotland. But however this may be, the
Scottish King seems to have recognised the English as his
liege lord, and Edward I acted in that capacity.
The death of the Maid of Norway in 1290 left the Scottish
throne open to a number of nobles, none of whom could claim
direct royal descent. Edward acted as arbitrator and finally
decided in favour of John Baliol, Lord of Galloway, the un-
doubted heir, as he was descended from the eldest daughter of
David, Earl of Huntington, brother of King William the Lion.
Baliol did homage for the crown; but his subjects, provoked
by the feudal demands of Edward, raised a rebellion which was
crushed by the English. Baliol was condemned to an easy im-
prisonment, from which he was liberated at the request of the
Pope, and died some years later almost unnoticed. Scotland
was completely subdued by Edward, till the patriotism of
WiUiam Wallace gave the country a brief period of independ-
ence under his regency. The Scots then appealed to Boniface
Vni, denying that their crown had ever been dependent on
that of England, because of right it was an allodium of the
Roman Church. Boniface wrote to Edward urging him to
abandon his unjust claims over a fief of the Holy See and
argued that any homage done by the Kings of Scotland to the
English monarch had been for other possessions which they hap-
pened to hold. The whole incident is a remarkable example of
the anxiety shown by both parties to prove that their claims
324 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
were legal. Edward ordered every document in his kingdom to
be collected, which could throw light on the point at issue.
Parliament answered the Pope that they would not permit the
king, even If he wished it, to abandon his rights over Scotland;
and Edward appealed to the voice of history to justify his claim.
In the days of Eli and Samuel, Brute the Trojan had cleared
Albion of giants and called it Britain after his own name. He
divided his kingdom between his three sons, Locrine, Albanac,
and Camber, giving preeminence to the elder Locrine, who es-
tablished his throne in London. The Scots advanced an his-
torical plea of equal weight. They are the offspring of Scota,
daughter of Pharaoh, whose descendants settled in Northern
Ireland, and wrested Scotland from the descendants of Brute.
Arguments more cogent to us were advanced, and the serious
care to put Edward in the right as to his claim shows that in
a violent and warlike age force was deemed inferior to a claim
justified by law. It was by other means, however, that the
complete independence of Scotland was secured.
The reign of Henry II was marked by England's entering
into direct relations with Ireland, the Norman conquest of
which is one of the most unfortunate episodes in history. With
all its cruel severity that of England had the merit of being
systematic, and was guided by a master mind. The most hor-
rible of William's acts, like the harrying of Northumbria, was
dictated by at least some sort of policy: for by leaving the
north a desert, the Conqueror aimed at securing the south from
invasion. Moreover, William was able in a measure to control
his barons, and to settle them in his new dominions in such a
way as to make it impossible for any of them to set up in-
dependent principalities. The conquered country had from of
old laws and institutions, suitable to a civilized people, which
were cherished with pride and affection by its inhabitants, and
were studiously respected by their conquerors. Circumstances
also made the fusion of the French and English into one
people take place rapidly; and this was aided by the fact that
the French speaking Norman was fundamentally of the same
blood as the Danes and Anglo-Saxons who made the English
ENGLAND 325
speaking race. But it was otherwise with Ireland; the main
part of the inhabitants were in a far lower state of civilization
than the invaders, and their institutions were based on a tribal
law of their own. The invasion was somewhat of the nature of
an adventurous enterprise, made without definite plan or
system, and brought with it few compensating advantages.
The Normans at least gave England the best civilization of the
time; they brought over their best clergy as well as their best
soldiers, and their coming was the signal for the revival of
religion, culture and learning. They held down the Saxon
population, and were guilty of acts of enormous tyranny, but
they imposed respect; and in the end adopted their language,
and the best of their institutions. Edward I at least conquered
the Welsh, who retained their language and many of their
national prejudices, but were little galled by the contempt
with which the Irish were regarded. With Scotland the coun-
try was for a time subdued by England; but the national
spirit produced heroic deliverers in men like Moray, Wallace
and the Bruces, who after all were of the same blood as their
oppressors. In Ireland it was otherwise. There was no great
national effort for freedom, and at the same time no real per-
manent subjugation. The Conqueror had the wisdom to see
that the Crown of England was his greatest possession; and
devoted his energies to securing the permanence of his rule.
But there was no such thoroughness displayed in the Conquest
of Ireland. The Norman barons did not attempt to raise the
people to a higher level; on the whole they tended to adopt
the lower civilization and to become more Irish than the Irish
Hiherniores Hibernis. They held districts, but not the whole
country. A real Anglo-Norman conquest would have been an
untold blessing to the land, whose fertile fields and unrivalled
harbours would have made it prosperous, whilst its people
under a firm and equitable rule would have learned to appre-
ciate the benefits of a higher civilization. But the Plantagenets
did not realise that it was as important to make Ireland one
realm with England, as it was the principality of Wales. Occu-
pied with continental and domestic affairs, they left the work
326 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
unfinished; and a conquest which would have been soon forgot-
ten, had it been thorough, has become a perennial grievance be-
cause in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was incomplete.
This is not the place to dwell on the immense services
rendered by the Irish Christians to religion, art and civilization
in the darkest age of the Church. But it must not be forgotten
that they were the most indefatigable missionares and schol-
ars of the age; and that the conversion of the English was due
largely to their efforts, nor must the monuments of their pro-
ficiency in art, especially in their crosses and illuminated manu-
scripts, be ignored. But in the twelfth century the anarchy of
the Church of Ireland had become a scandal. "Under native
and Christian chiefs," to quote the Catholic Encyclopedia,
"churches were destroyed, church lands appropriated by lay-
men, monastic schools deserted, lay abbots ruled at Armagh
and elsewhere. Bishops were consecrated without sees and con-
ferred orders for money, there was chaos in church government
and corruption everywhere." The one bright spot in this
dismal picture is the episcopate of St. Malachy, the friend of
Bernard, who, as Archbishop of Armagh, did his utmost to
reform matters. He died at Clairvaux in 1148, in the arms of
St. Bernard, having been previously appointed Papal legate for
Ireland. In 11 54 Henry II obtained a bull from Hadrian IV
allowing him to conquer Ireland in order to restore its ecclesi-
astical discipline and the due payment of Peter's pence; but
nothing was done till 1168. In that year Dermot, King of
Leinster, who had been driven out of the island, did homage to
Henry II for his dominions, and obtained permission to enlist
adventurers to assist him to recover them. Richard de Clare,
surnamed Strongbow, and two Welsh gentlemen, Robert Fitz
Stephen and Maurice Fitzgerald, men who were in distressed
circumstances and in disgrace with their king, undertook the
expedition. The Irish were no match for the mail clad Nor-
mans, who took Wexford and defeated Dermot's enemy,
Donald, prince of Ossory. A heap of two hundred heads was
laid at the feet of the victorious chieftain, who recognising the
head of his foe, who had blinded his son, seized it and tore
ENGLAND 327
off the nose with his teeth. Henry II himself visited Ireland; it
was not till he had had experience of the trouble of holding
what had been acquired that he bethought him of the bull of
Hadrian which was read to the clergy at Cashel.
Henry, with the permission of the Pope, made his son John
Lord of Ireland. In 1212 John, as King, visited Dublin to re-
ceive the homage of the native princes, established English law,
and divided the occupied portion into counties. But the story
of intestine feuds and abortive rebellions continued beyond the
close of our period, and nothing was done in the Middle Ages
to make the English government effective. Trade was carried
on in the principal seaports, but the country elsewhere was
seething with anarchy and barbarism. The people allied them-
selves with any power hostile to England, beginning with the
Scots under the Bruces, for their antipathy antedates any re-
ligious difference between the two countries, nor did their
common acknowledgment of the faith of the universal Church
create any bond of union between them. A deeper gulf parts
the two races than even that of religious opinion; and the age
long quarrel has been the result of a mutual disregard of the
fundamental principles of the Christian religion.
AUTHORITIES
For the early church history of England consult W. Bright, Early
English Church History, Freeman's Norman Conquest of England, R. W.
Church's Life of Si. Ansehn, and Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canter-
bury,Wo\s. II-III. For the Constitutional History of the Church see Makower.
Dr. Lingard's History of England, Vol. II, ought to be read as a presentation
of the period by a learned and generally fair-minded Roman Catholic. For
the question of the genuineness of Hadrian IV's bull concerning Ireland,
consult Mann, Lives of the Popes; this writer discusses its genuineness. The
four most interesting contemporary writers are Ordericus Vitalis, Roger of
Wendover, Matthew Paris, and Geraldus Cambrensis, all of which are trans-
lated into English in Bohn's Antiquarian library. For additional reference
see Charles Gross, Sources and Literature of English History, from the Earliest
Times to about 1485, second revised and enlarged edition, 1915.
CHAPTER XIII
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY
The past and the present — Progress — The people — Serfs — Free tenants —
Feudal justice — Anarchy — Precarious condition of peasantry — General con-
ditions of life — Castles — Outlaws — The Cities — Civic Institutions — Typical
medieval cities: (a) Rome; (b) Florence; (c) Milan; (d) Pisa, Genoa, and Venice —
(e) Paris and London — London — The trades in the cities — Apprentices, crafts-
men, and masters — Extension of commerce — Usury — The Jews — Evasions of
the law — Failure of legislation against usury — Extent of medieval commerce —
The Hansas — Medieval art — The Churc hand art — Popular religion — Re-
moteness of God — Local saints — Relics — The lower clergy — The Mass —
Low condition of morality — Clerical marriages — Irreverence — Difficulties of
reformers — Attempts to stem superstition.
In describing the condition of humanity in a bygone age it
is advisable to steer a middle course so as to avoid the Scylla
of antiquity and the Charybdis of modernity. The ancients
placed the golden age behind them and imagined that, when
ignorant and uncomfortable, mankind was in a state of bliss.
We on the contrary are disposed to believe that happiness is
reserved for future generations; and, because we profess our
faith in progress, imagine that men in a less advanced state
of civilization than ourselves were necessarily degraded and
miserable. But the historian, whose business is neither to restore
the past nor to anticipate the future, need not do more than
attempt to depict, as far as lies in his power, the conditions
under which men lived in circumstances entirely different
from his own.
Perhaps for the reason that nobody, with the rare exception
of such men as Friar Bacon, believed in the material progress
of the human race, the record from the opening of the eleventh
to the close of the. thirteenth century was one of considerable
advance. Although, therefore, no reasonable man would de-
sire to reproduce medieval conditions of life, and would be
compelled to acknowledge that many of them would be in-
328
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 329
tolerably repulsive to him, he is compelled to admit that there
was inaugurated a steady process of development to which
mankind still owes a debt of gratitude.
The condition of the common people was a blot on medieval,
as it is on modern, society. But their misery was due, less to
an unsound theory, than to circumstances. In one respect, it
was constantly improving by the gradual disappearance of
serfdom; but for generations the sufferings of the lower
orders did not find expression, as they did in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. In the period of the wandering of the
nations the plague of foreign invasion was most felt by the de-
fenceless peasantry; when this ceased, the chief trouble was
due to the general anarchy which ensued, and above all to the
almost universal prevalence of private war. But by the thir-
teenth century, if not earlier, life was in a measure reduced
to a system, under which each family had a certain fixity of
tenure on the land which they cultivated. The condition of
society was almost entirely agricultural, and its relationships
were those of the lord to his villein.
As coin was scarce, payments were usually made in kind,
or by military or laborious service. The villein held his land
on condition of a payment of part of the produce, of following
his lord in the wars, or of working on his estate. But he could
transmit his inheritance with its obligations to his children;
and legally, his position was assured. Land was regarded less as
investment than as a source of power entailing much responsi-
bility, and there was no raising of rents or capricious evictions.
In an orderly society with an efficient government the condi-
tion of the peasant would have been by no means intolerable.
The lowest class of this agricultural society were the serfs
(servi), who, however, were not slaves in the ancient or modern
sense, in so far as they were not liable to be sold, nor were
they regarded as chattels to be disposed of at the good pleasure
of their owners. They were glebes adscripti, bound to the land
and not free to depart from it without consent of the lord.
If they tried to escape from their settlement, the lord had the
right to pursue them and take them back. They had also to
330 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
pay a capitation tax and might not marry outside the lord's
lands without his consent. If a serf died without children, his
land passed at once to his lord; but it might be redeemed by
his kindred. If a free man occupied land held by a servile
tenure, he submitted to the conditions of a serf.
The free man was subject to his lord only in so far that he
held his land on certain payments in money, kind, or service.
The technical term for other exactions, when the lord gave
nothing in return, was exploitation. As a rule, however, the
charges were fixed and did not change, though in early days
the taxes and forced labour were at the discretion {a merci) of
the lord. There were also many seigniorial rights, by which
payments were demanded, as when a sale was made, or a fine
was paid before a man could succeed to a property, or tolls
were levied on roads, bridges, and ferries. There were in addi-
tion what were called banalities, i.e., things commanded by the
ban, or proclamation of the lord, such as bringing the grain to
his mill, the bread to his oven, or the grapes to his press, and
paying a price for their use. But more oppressive than these
was the corvee, or forced labour on the estate.
The lord, who might be any one, king, count, knight,
bishop, or a corporation like a monastery, exercised judicial
powers, in some instances distinguished as "high and inferior
justice" {haute et basse justice). As the lords acted both as
prosecutors and judge, their tenants were practically at their
mercy; and when they held the right of the scaffold, the life
of every dependant was in the hand of a master. These burthens,
however, were often not intolerable, and were the less felt be-
cause relief could generally be bought. The territorial magnates
usually needed ready money, and were prepared to sell their
rights at a price. This was a reason for the disappearance of
serfdom, as it was more advantageous to let the serfs buy their
freedom than to keep them in bondage. The labourer eventu-
ally took the place of the serf.
^ The sufferings of the people were chiefly due to the anarchy
of the age. The population was probably considerable, as where
the standard of living is low, and there is no opportunity to
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 33 1
migrate, births are sure to be numerous, though the death rate
is high. Still, according to feudal law, the tenant might enjoy
the prospect of being undisturbed; and he knew tolerably
certainly what he was expected to pay. But practically he was
never safe; for at any moment his lands might be ravaged by
a neighbouring baron at war with his master. His inability to
cope with the powers of nature made him the victim of bad
seasons, floods, droughts, and epidemics; he was dependent on
the caprice, not so much of his legitimate landlord, as of the
steward or the intendant of the manor, often one of his own
class.
The peasantry throughout Europe diff'ered as to their con-
dition, dependence, and mode of hfe. Some were freeholders,
others formed communities. The majority lived much as has-^
been described. Their agriculture was very primitive, and the
greater part of the countries of Europe were woods and forests,
the haunts of wild beasts, the wolf being specially dreaded,
owing to his number and his depredations. The cattle were
diminutive and puny compared with ours, and were rarely
eaten. The swine, pastured in the forests, supplied the staple
of meat food. Communication was so diflScult that, when one
place enjoyed abundance, the next village might be starving.
This may appear a somewhat exaggerated statement in view
of the description of manors, especially in England, taken, it
must be noted, from the estate rolls and similar documents.
But as none of these are earlier than near the close of our
period, or about 1265, they only show the extent of the progress
alluded to above. Besides conditions in England were unusually
favourable.
It can scarcely surprise anyone that a life so rude, so iso-
lated, with hardly a prospect of change in its monotony except
for the worse, fostered many strange beliefs and engendered
countless superstitions. To understand the difficulties of the
Church at this epoch it is necessary to bear in mind that the
majority of Christians was composed of a rural population,
clustered in small villages, or living precariously throughout
the country, practicing a husbandry of the rudest description
332 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
and scarcely emerging from absolute barbarism. Small wonder
therefore is it that there were outbreaks of religious fanati-
cism like the Children's Crusade, of the Flagellants, of strange
heresies, and religious impostures, and that the Christianity of
many was a thinly veneered paganism. Justice cannot be done
either to the virtues or to the errors of the Church, the one
civilizing influence which laboured among the common people,
unless this be taken into account. One can only realise the
terrors of an interdict by remembering that the cessation of
the Church bell was believed to expose the community to the
destructive effects of every thunderstorm.
The two chief causes of misery, especially in France, were the
barons' castles, and the organized bands of outlaws. The castles,
as has been truly remarked, in a sense saved Europe from the
barbarian invasions. When the country was exposed to the rav-
ages of Hun or Norseman, the stone fortification proved an irre-
sistible barrier to savages impatient to plunder and be gone,
but unable to remain and blockade a place strongly defended. '^
But in countries little exposed to these sudden raids, the
feudal castle often became a centre of unspeakable oppression.
Every history quotes the allusion to the castles, "filled with
devils and not men," during the anarchy of the reign of
Stephen; nor is this picture of England confined to one country
or to one period of history. To the suppression of these feudal
strongholds by the Plantagenets, the comparative happiness
of the country was mainly due.
The outlaw has been invested with such a halo of romance,
that we are apt to regard him as the enemy of the aristocracy
and the friend of the oppressed poor. Not infrequently, how-
ever, the baronage countenanced and even encouraged the
brigands. In one instance the people combined to suppress the
evil. At Puy, in France, a carpenter incited by a vision of the
Virgin, formed a society called the capuciati, or white-hoods,
and gathered a veritable army against the lawless spoliators
of their lands. For a time their success was great; but nobles
and Church agreed in seeing that such a force might become
* Oman, The Dark Ages, pp. 513-514.
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 333
formidable, and a charge of heresy led to the suppression of
the confraternity.
The Roman Empire had been in ancient days based on its
cities rather than on its rustic population; and the country had
suffered by the growth of towns. Here and there the old
municipal governments survived; but the invaders had no
liking for the restraint of walled cities. The progress towards
a more settled order of society is seen in the gradual appear-
ance of towns in countries where they had previously been al-
most unknown. One of the most convincing proofs of the'
salutary influence of the Crusades in promoting trade and the
development of civilization is the fact that many towns grew
up and obtained charters during the first part of the twelfth
century, especially in Flanders and Northern France. Their
growth was regarded with no little apprehension by the ruling
classes. The bishops found themselves threatened by the
turbulent citizens, who multiplied around their cathedrals.
The nobles feared for their feudal dues; and the kings sup-;
ported their nobility against the towns in which their authority
was questioned. Sometimes the town won its privilege by an in-
surrection, but as a rule it was a matter of money. The rapidly
increasing wealth of the communities enabled them to buy the
privileges they sought from lords and princes who were sadly
in need of funds. Naturally the great cities of Europe sprang
up in the Mediterranean countries where trade was most ac-
tive. Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Marseilles, Barcelona, and the
Sicilian cities were full of activity in the darkest days. Both
Provence and Languedoc became lands of towns, as well as
Lombardy, the patriotism of whose cities helped Italy to throw
off the German yoke. It has been noticed that the further a
province was from the centre of imperial or royal authority
the more its towns developed. This is certainly true of Provence
and Lombardy, as regards the Empire, and of Languedoc in
France. The citizens could, without interference, develop their
own institutions in their own way.
Like the feudal domains, each town tended to become
centred, with its own customs and institutions. It has been
y
334 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
maintained that these were as a rule survivals of the old mu-
nicipal government of the Roman Empire, or were derived
from the free institutions of the Germanic ancestors of the
townsfolk. More probably, if we reflect that an important city
like London was so utterly destroyed that not even the plan
of the ancient streets survived, the constitutions of the me-
dieval cities were the result of circumstances. Except in
Southern Europe there were few large towns. In the first
place the town had to be walled, and probably surrounded by
a moat. This prevented expansion, and in addition the citizens
were exceedingly jealous of sharing their hard won privileges
with strangers. Nor would it have been possible with the ab-
sence of means of transport to feed more than could live on
the produce of the land in and around the city. The inhabitants
of most towns were numbered by a very few thousands, and
even by hundreds. The data for estimating the population of any
part of medieval Europe are, however, almost purely conjectural.
Equally difficult is it in the absence of evidence to recon-
struct the picture of early medieval town life, especially as
one city diff^ered so greatly from another. Upon the whole,
however, it may be safely asserted that the constitution was
aristocratic, that is to say, the government was in the hands of
the richer burghers, and that the mass of the inhabitants
had small voice in its aff^airs, that it was administered under a
complicated system which endeavoured to limit the powers of
individuals, that it was divided by turbulent factions, animated
by feuds one against the other, and that the authorities ex-
ercised a strict surveillance over the conduct of the citizens.
As a rule the townsfolk were no match in the open field against
the feudal barons and their retainers, though often able to
defend their walls in time of siege. ^ Further, the citizens were
very jealous of their rights and trade monopolies, which, to
* Sir Walter Scott in his novels may distort his facts, but scarcely ever misrepresents
the spirit of the age he describes. The picture of a medieval city in the Fair Maid of
Perth is singularly living. Simon Glover's account of how he manned the walls to de-
fend them against the English, the attitude of Sir Patrick Charteris as Provost of the
Fair City, the meeting of the burgesses to investigate a murder, the ordeal by combat,
etc., give an excellent representation of civic life.
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 335
do them justice, had been usually secured by great efforts and
expense on their part; and as far as possible excluded strangers
from the community. Where towns grew up under the shadow
of a great Abbey, or where students crowded into them, and
formed a University, there was generally a standing feud be-
tween the monks or scholars and the inhabitants. The Bishop
was also frequently at variance with the citizens^ as the in-
habitants of a cathedral city were styled, those of other towns
being known as burgesses.
City life can, however, best be illustrated by taking con-
crete examples, of which Rome must necessarily have first
place. It is in no way typical, owing to the exceptional circum-
stances of its history; but it has occupied so much of our at-
tention that it is advisable to attempt to give some account
of it during the period covered in these pages. The immense
area enclosed within the walls of Aurelian was scantily peopled.
In her palmiest days, when Rome was mistress of the world,
the population has been estimated as far exceeding a million;
but it is possible that in the Middle Ages it rarely reached a
total of thirty thousand. Consequently we must picture to
ourselves a vast mass of ancient masonry, partly in ruins, and
much deliberately converted to other uses, scantily inhabited
by priests, barons at feud one with another, and an idle and
degraded proletariat. To such a condition had Rome been re-
duced by the constant revolutions and disturbances since the
days of Gregory VII. The history of the period has shown how
rarely a pope was to live for even a few consecutive years in
the City; and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for two
centuries he was, as a rule, to be found anywhere but in
Rome, which never recovered from the sack of Robert Guiscard
and his Normans in 1084. The insignificance of the power of the
Romans is seen in the rivalry between their city and Tusculum
in the twelfth century, which takes one back to memories of
the early days of the ancient Republic. In such a city there
was little intellectual or commercial activity, and we must
look elsewhere for indications of the progress of the civic life
of the age.
336 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Florence was a comparatively new city; and its history is
interesting as showing how an ItaHan commonwealth emerged
from feudal subjection to a position of independence. Its great-
ness dates from the days of Matilda of Tuscany (d. 1115),
under whom a Council of good men (boni homines) admin-
istered its affairs, and at her death did so in the name of the
people. For a long time there was war in the city between
the burgesses and the noble families {delle torre, because they
owned the houses with towers); but in the end the popular
party prevailed, and the government was vested in the mem-
bers of the trade guilds (arti). Of these there were seven
greater (carpenters, wool-weavers, skinners, tanners, shoe-
makers, and farriers), and fourteen lesser (doctors, judges,
notaries-public, money changers, etc.). To enjoy a public
office it was necessary to belong to a guild; and the nobles as
a rule joined that of the wool-workers.
But the great days of Florence were to come, though the
city had already produced Cimabue, Giotto, and Dante, the
last named of whom it had driven out and sentenced to be
burned. The interest for students of this period is that Dante
has described it in its ancient simplicity, and has denounced
its luxury in his own day, when it was already rising to
fame as one of the leading commercial cities of the world. This
was due to the admirable constitution of its seven great arti.
Milan had already a long and glorious history ecclesias-
tically, as well as politically. From the days of St. Ambrose
the people had been devoted to orthodoxy, which under the
Arian Lombards meant patriotism, and raUied to the support
of their archbishops, to whom they entrusted wide powers.
The Archbishop of Milan was the greatest prince of Lombardy,
and two in particular added much to the fame of their city.
These were Anspert (868-881), who restored Milan to some-
thing of its former splendour,^ — for it had never recovered from
the invasion of Attila in the fifth century, — and Heribert
(1018-1045). Heribert was a warrior as well as an ecclesiastic,
and first supported and afterwards opposed Conrad the Salian.
Not even the papal anathema could shake the loyalty of his
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 337
people; and by their help the Archbishop was able to repel the
imperial forces, and force them to raise the siege of the city.
The invention of the famous carroccio, or car-borne standard
of Milan, is due to Heribert; and this was adopted by other
Italian cities. Milan was in fact the rallying point of Lombard
patriotism, which reached its height when Frederic Barba-
rossa was defeated at Legnano in 1176. Trade prospered
among its liberty-loving population, and Milan was famous
throughout the world for its armour. Woollen manufacture was
introduced and fostered by the religious Guild of the Humiliati.
The three great trading centres of Italy, which like the old
Greek cities had their colonies in the Mediterranean, were
Pisa, Genoa and Venice. These owed their wealth to commerce
rather than to craftsmanship. Pisa laid the foundations of its
fortunes mainly by war with the Saracens; and it enthusias-
tically supported the earlier Crusades. The period of its great-
ness was in the twelfth century, as is attested by its three
famous buildings: the Cathedral, begun in 1063 and finished
1 1 18; the Campanile (the Leaning Tower), 1174; and the Bap-
tistery, 1 1 52. The Pisans were at war constantly, first with
Florence, and later with the Genoese to whom they ultimately
yielded their commercial supremacy. After Corsica and Sar-
dinia had been cleared of the Saracens, a great trade with the
East began and led to the settlement of numerous factories by
the Genoese and Venetians in the Mediterranean and the
Black Sea. Genoa was, by its position, naturally connected with
France; and Venice opened up an artery for trade between
the Adriatic and the Baltic leading to the prosperity of such
German cities as Nuremburg and Ausburg. The development
of trading centres was slowly changing the face of Europe and en-
abling it to emerge from medieval to modern conditions of life.
Two cities, though not so originally, were gradually be-
coming the very heart of two nations, capitals in the modern
sense. Of Paris mention has already been made; but something
remains to be said of London, less important in our period, but
destined for an even greater commercial, if not political or in-
tellectual supremacy.
338 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
It has been estimated that in the days of the Plantagenet
kings the city of London contained from forty to fifty thousand
inhabitants, and must therefore have been incomparably greater
than any other city in the British Isles. Fitz Stephen, a monk of
Canterbury, has given, in his life of his friend Thomas Becket,
an enthusiastic picture of the London of his time. He tells us
that it was walled from the Tower on the East to Mont-
fichet and Baynard's Castle on the West, that is almost as far
as Blackfriars Bridge. The seven gates were Aldgate, Bishops-
gate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate, Ludgate, and the
Bridge. About two miles to the west were the Abbey and
Palace of Westminster, connected with the City by the Strand.
Each trade had its quarter, the markets at Cheapside (the
Chepe), Eastcheap, Dowgate and Billingsgate were well sup-
plied. The young men amused themselves by hunting in the
forests, which reached almost to the city, and abounded in game,
by leaping, wrestling and playing ball; and in winter by skating
on bone skates over Moorfields. The noblemen had beautiful
gardens; and the city seemed the best governed, most hos-
pitable and cheerful in the world. Its only drawbacks were
that some fools drank too much, and fires were frequent, as
was natural since little stone was used in the city. There were a
hundred and twenty-six parish churches, and the religious
houses were very numerous, both within and without the
walls. The population was by no means entirely native,
Germans and Hansa Merchants being found everywhere.
The names still illustrate the medieval city. Bread, Milk,
Fish Streets recall the ancient trades. The "gates" are all
represented. "London Wall" recalls the old limit of the city
and the Jewry, the part set apart for the Chosen People.
Blackfriars, Grayfriars, Crutchedfriars, Whitefriars, all per-
petuate their former occupants: the Minories was the home
of the nuns of St. Clara.
The inhabitants of the towns were engaged in mechanical
trades, all of which were elaborately organized, as was most of
the life of the Middle Ages. No one could work on his own
account: he was subject to the laws of his craft. The system
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 339
of instruction resembled that of the schools of learning; and
no one was allowed to exercise his trade or to teach it unless
he had undergone systematic training. As we have seen, the
students formed corporations analogous to those of the crafts-
men.
The beginning of medieval industry was due to the neces-
sities of the feudal nobility, for whom their dependents plied
their trades. The technical name for this species of service
was ministerium, hence the French word metier. The freedom of
the operatives, like that of the serfs, was obtained by purchase,
and even then the overlord still frequently claimed his share
of the profits. Each metier, however, was self-governing, the
main object of all being as far as possible to prevent excessive
competition and an oversupply of labour, and to see that no
individual became rich at the expense of his fellows. The re-
sult was that progress towards personal liberty and initiative
were checked, and that all were expected to prefer the interest
of their common trade to their own.
Of course every craft was purely mechanical, and to master
it a man had to understand the entire process from the be-
ginning. It was therefore necessary to have a long training
before a man could exercise the full mystery of his trade; nor
could anyone change the profession which he had learned with
so much difficulty. To this is due much of the excellence of the
work in the Middle Ages; for it was that of experts.^
The trajning began with a long apprenticeship, extending
over sometimes as much as a dozen years. It was not easy to
obtain an entrance into a craft, as the masters were strictly
limited as to the number of those they initiated — seldom more
than three were allowed to a single master. The apprentice was
practically the household slave of his master, who was bound
to maintain him and to teach him his craft, and even to pay
him a wage if he married; at the same time he had the disposal
of his services, and the right to arrest him if he escaped from
• Every educated man in the Middle Ages passed through three stages. If he were
a scholar he was (i) a student, (2) bachelor, (3) master. If a noble (i) page, (2) squire,
(3) knight. If a mechanic (i) apprentice, (2) craftsman, (3) master.
340 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
his duties. If the business was sold, the apprentices might go
with it to the purchaser. On serving his time, the apprentice
became a journeyman or valet (varlet). He could then offer his
services, but under severe restrictions. For example, he might
not work for a private person, but only under a master
of his craft. At stated times he had to go with his fellows to
the crossways and be hired. His hours of work were long,
usually from sunrise to sunset — nearly sixteen hours in summer.
/ The severity of his labour was, however, relaxed by the church
holidays and Sundays, which left about a hundred days in the
year free. A successful craftsman might set up as a master;
but, even then, he was not free to do as he pleased. He had to
satisfy the rulers of his guild by his mechanical skill that he
was qualified for his position. He was bound to conform to all
the rules of his trade; and was rarely allowed the right of at-
tracting custom to himself to the detriment of other masters.
The industry of the medieval town was domestic, and plied on
the premises where the masters lived. Inspectors looked after
the work to see that it was fairly and properly performed.
There was no distinction between employer and employee, as
master and men worked together.
The trades were represented by guilds which were founded
on a religious basis. As in ancient Rome every craft had its
god, in the Middle Ages it had its patron saint. On his day the
guild assembled to hear Mass, and frequently dined together.
It was the duty of every member to attend the obsequies of a
colleague, and he was expected to help him or his widow and
children in time of need, charity and mutual assistance being
the essentials of guild fellowship.
Like so many in the Middle Ages, this picture of life is
attractive on the surface, but does not bear close investiga-
tion. The crowded town with its narrow streets, its unsanitary
conditions, was not an ideal dwelling place. Nor did laws, how-
ever fair on paper, make life agreeable. In the thirteenth
century, as at all times, people amassed money, often by thinly
disguised usury; and we hear of a man and wife, who having
come almost as beggars, in a few years managed to own most
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 341
of a town. The narrow life engendered endless jealousies, the
towns were rent by factions, and each city felt a passionate
rivalry, often resulting in bloodshed, towards its nearest
neighbour. The dread of change, moreover, fettered enterprise,
and freedom was practically non-existent in the communities
of workers. The perils of civic life alone seem to have relieved
an almost intolerable monotony.
The development of all industry depends on commerce, and
from the closing years of the eleventh century men were ceasing
to work for the needs of their locality, and sought markets
for their commodities. The wandering of the nations was suc-
ceeded by that of the merchants. The difficulties of travel
were enormous; bad roads, few bridges, heavy tolls, baronial
exactions, constant and organized brigandage, made the life
of the trader dangerous and well-nigh intolerable. For all this
trade was active and developed rapidly. In this development
the Church played an honourable part. Fraternities were
formed to protect merchants and pilgrims, to repair and keep
bridges in order, to provide hostels for travellers. The few
lighthouses were kept by the Church, which sought to lessen
the great dangers of navigation; and to this day in England
lighthouses are controlled by the Trinity House, whose name
attests its ecclesiastical origin. The fact that the Probate,
Divorce and Admiralty court is a division of the judicature,
is a reminder that at one time wills, marriages and navigation
were part of the jurisdiction of the Church.
But credit was even then essential to business; and the
question of usury, or interest for money borrowed for trade,
was a pressing one, and opinion as well as religion shrank from
the idea that money should make money. To profit by a neigh-
bour's poverty seemed repugnant to every right-minded man;
and the Church condemned the practice of getting gain by
loans which ought to be acts of charity.^ This might befit a sim-
» Money lending led to the enslavement of freemen. This is true of the Roman
republic when the poorer citizens became virtually the slaves of the rich. The Hebrew
bondman, who could not by the law be held as a slave for more than seven years, was
probably a debtor.
342 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
pie community, but once there came into being an extension of
commerce and manufacture, and governments wanted to an-
ticipate their revenues for any special reason, loans became no
longer charitable but commercial, and unless men could be
found who could profit by lending their money, none would be
forthcoming. But the Church had forbidden Christians to take
usury, and its decrees were irrevocable. It was, however, found
to be necessary that some sort of banking should exist; and the
Jew was the only one who could undertake the business with-
out incurring the ban of the Church. The Jews were therefore
tolerated as usurers and protected by the kings and princes,
lay and clerical, who profited largely by their exactions, as
without incurring the guilt of usury, they were able to derive
all the advantage of its practice. In England the Jew was
legally the King's "chattel," absolutely at his disposal. Never-
theless he was too useful to be seriously oppressed, though re-
garded by the people with the utmost abhorrence and dread.
On the whole it is open to doubt whether the Jews were much
worse off than other members of the feudal society. All were
equally liable to arbitrary treatment at the hands of their
superiors, and even the clergy were not as individuals free
from danger of oppression, or outbreaks of popular fury. The
Jew was allowed to exercise his religion, and to have his syna-
gogue, and his sufferings were often due to the fact that he was
more intelligent and civilized than the mass of the people,
and, therefore, more capable of feeling.
But money lending was too profitable to be monopolised
by the hated Jew, and the shrewd Italians found a means of
indulging in the practice without breaking the Canon Law.
True they might not take usury, but the Roman law allowed
them to exact a penalty if the loan was not repaid at the date
when the money was payable, as to withhold it was to wrong
the lender. A penalty clause was therefore added to the ac-
knowledgment of every loan, usually taking the form of a heavy
increase of the obligation, which virtually amounted to a
usurious interest. Shylock's agreement with Antonio in the
Merchant of Venice was of this character. The money was to
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 343
be paid on a certain day, and nothing was due for its use.
But, if not forthcoming, Antonio placed his person at the
mercy of his creditor. In this way the Lombards, Genoese,
and Venetians were enabled to become the bankers of Europe
in rivalry with the Jews; and their methods were at least as
rigorous as those of the Chosen People; nor could the Church
raise any technical objection. Nevertheless the morality of the
age was strongly opposed to anything savouring of using
money to make money, and the taking of usury was regarded
as not less heinous than heresy.
The Church was originally justified in condemning usury
or taking of interest — for usura means no more than interest,
being derived from usus, and signifying the payment for
the use of a loan. In primitive society the borrower was
generally a man in desperate need of money and it was con-
sidered a charity to lend to him. The Bible and the Roman law
were in full agreement that using a man's dire necessity as a
means of making a profit out of it was despicable, and Cato,
when asked what he thought of usury, would not answer
directly, but asked his interrogator his opinion of murder.
But to charge a price, proportionate to the security offered, to
a man that he may trade with the money, is only reasonable;
and this the wiser legislators and teachers of the Church were
ready to admit. Alexander III allowed money to be invested
in the hands of merchants, who traded with it for the benefit
of minors, and in the next century his action was endorsed by
Aquinas.
But the whole method of the ecclesiastical, and, for that
matter, almost all legislation with regard to usury has defeated
its object. That money lending, in the usual acceptation of
the term, is an evil is unquestionable, but in legislating against
it there is a danger that the name alone is suppressed, and
the thing flourishes under other designations. The laws of the
Church were frequently too ideal for the ethics of the age, and
resulted in the necessity for a casuistry, often demoralising to
the conscience, in order to provide that they might at the same
time be outwardly observed, and practically evaded.
344 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The world of the eleventh century and onwards was steadily
enlarging its borders, and for this trade was largely responsible.
The limits of the Roman Empire had long been passed, and
commerce had penetrated into regions unknown to the ancient
world. Scandinavia and Russia sent their products to the mar-
kets of Europe; and difference of religion, which caused inces-
sant war, could not hinder the volume of commodities passing
between East and West from increasing. The Mediterranean
was naturally the great trade route of the world, the Baltic
was becoming the scene of a busy commerce, as was also the
English Channel. Commercial cities were also rising along the
land route from the Adriatic to the shores of the Baltic. De-
fective roads, the dangers of navigation, robbers on land, and
piracy on the sea, were powerless to check the enterprise of
the merchant.
One characteristic of our period was the way in which the
trading cities combined together to secure monopolies. These
associations were known as hansas, or guilds. The best known
is the Hanseatic League of northern towns, which was destined
to play a great part, but there were other hansas like that of
"the seventeen cities" in Champagne, a confederation so
named from the original members, but which eventually
embraced some sixty places. The Flanders league was known
as the Hansa of London and traded with England and Scotland.
Its headquarters were Bruges and it had a chief or "count"
who was obliged to be a native of that city, and a deputy who
was styled a schildrag and was chosen from Ypres. The hansas
had their agents in every city, and were particularly active
as purchasers of goods in the great fairs which were held
throughout Europe, from Novgorod in Russia to Stourbridge
near Cambridge in England. The right to hold a fair even on
a small scale was a great privilege, and was sometimes granted
to a religious house. But the great fairs, which continued down
to later times, were virtually temporary cities, opened with
great pomp, regulated by strict laws, with streets of booths
assigned to the different commodities. The fairs served the
same purpose of drawing people together as the pilgrimages;
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 345
for commerce was as cosmopolitan as the Church itself. It was
also the cause of settlements of foreigners in different countries,
both merchants and craftsmen. Thus Flemings came over to
England; and in London Italian bankers and hansa merchants
had their establishments. Lombard Street, and the surname
Hansard, perpetuate the memory of this at the present day.
The art which reached its highest development during the>
period was architecture. Here, and in every other artistic pro-
duction, is shown the best side of medieval education in its
success in turning out trained professional men, all of whom had
gone through the drudgery of the business they had learned.
Whether a man was a knight leading his soldiers to battle, a
theologian disputing in the school, a lawyer or a tradesman with
his apprentices and valets, everyone had learned the rudi-
ments of his profession, and had begun at the bottom and
worked upwards. Whatever may have been their shortcomings,
the educated classes were necessarily experts, and not amateurs. '
This accounts for their excellence in craftsmanship and for the
astonishing results achieved in an age in which Europe was
only just emerging from barbarism.
The beauty of a great cathedral consists not only in the
magnitude of the conception and the daring arrangement of
arch and column, but in the minutest detail. The cutting of a
leaf in stone, some grotesque figure hidden below a fauldstool
may be a veritable work of art, proving that the man who did
it had learned his trade so thoroughly that it had become a
second nature to him to turn out perfect work, and what is
true of the mason or carpenter is equally so of the skilful
scribe or illuminator, the worker in metals, the goldsmith, or
the weaver. The concentration of life as we have described it
had the merit of making men proficient in their craft, and of
instilling in many the ambition to excel, each in his own re-
stricted department. The life was at least productive.
And productivity in art was encouraged by the Church,
which by its ceremonial added greatly to the picturesquene^s of
life. The meanest workman was taught to contemplate ob-
jects of beauty, at any rate in his religion, and his imagination
346 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
was stimulated by the legends and superstitions of the age.
Not only so, but he escaped the confinement of a factory,
and worked under a master who understood as a fellow labourer
what was being done, so that the human element was intro-
duced into the toil of the day, and fostered originality.
Now we come to the most difficult of all questions. What
was actually the religion of the people above described?
Certainly the questions eagerly debated in the schools were
of no interest to them. Few had any conception of the mystical
piety of a St. Bernard, still less of the philosophic theories of
an Abelard, or the logical methods of an Aquinas. The nobles,
the clergy, the scholars, the merchants and even the humblest
craftsmen formed a very small proportion of the population.
Till the revival in the eleventh century, the vast majority
were peasants, living on the verge of starvation, in a condition
of almost primitive savagery, ignorant of all but the simplest
arts of life. They were, however, at least nominally. Christians;
but we are often left with little more than conjecture as to
what the Faith meant to them.
They were taught to believe in One God, to them the
hardest of all doctrines to understand. In a feudal society, for
instance, what did "the Emperor" mean to a peasant if he had
ever heard of him? He was a great lord, living many days'
journey away, whom he was never likely to see. He was the
superior of the Count, or Duke, or Bishop, who governed the
country of the poor man, great personages, whom he might
have seen at a distance as they passed by with a train of attend-
ants. These in turn were lords of the baron on whose lands the
peasant lived, but whose face he seldom saw. The powers that
be were to that poor man those with whom he was in con-
stant contact, the bailiff, the miller, the seneschal, the officials
of the estate, who if they oppressed him at least could hear his
complaints. God the Father must have seemed much as the
Emperor, an inaccessible Being throned in majesty, doubtless
infinitely good, but at the same time infinitely remote. God the
Son was kind and gentle, for he had died on the Cross; but He
too was far away, and besides he was coming in tremendous
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 347
majesty to judge the world. Even the great saints could hardly ^
be expected to trouble about lowly people, though the Blessed
Virgin was known to be very tender-hearted to the poor. What
they needed was some familiar saint, who had lived among
them and knew about them, some good bishop or priest, or
pious virgin, in whose honour the well that healed their sick-
nesses had sprung forth. Thus everywhere there were shrines
of local saints who, theologically, were but men and women
worthy of reverence, and practically replaced the deities of
the ancestors of the village. Under the name of Christianity
was a very thinly veiled polytheism.
But even the saints were invisible, and what was needed
to reassure men terrified by the unseen powers of evil, was
something tangible. This was supplied by the innumerable
relics of every person in the Bible, and in the calendar of Saints.
These were in every church, and were displayed on all important
occasions. Their power was immense; they stilled the storm,
stayed the thunderbolt, sent the needed rain and expelled pes-
tilence. Those fortunate enough to possess them were safe on
their journeys, and had a powerful aid in the hour of death.
Even if stolen, a relic assisted the man who possessed it by its
inherent power. The Christianity of the ignorant was in many
places one of talismans.
The clergy who instructed the people must not be compared
with those of whom we have spoken in the learned schools of
Chartres or Paris. In the ninth century King Alfred had said
that in his dominions there was hardly a single priest who
could translate the services he recited; and four centuries
later Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, found many of his
priests equally ignorant. He examined candidates for benefices
in the simplest Latin; and we find one translating Ade vero non
inveniebatur adjutor similis eius, "But Adam could not find a
helper like him." Pateo, one of them said, meant **to open,"
or "to suffer." Another said that in the words Omnia autem
aperta, the last was a substantive. These mistakes may not
seem so serious to some people today; but when it is remem-
bered that Latin was the only language learned, and that
348 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
without it no learning was accessible, and further that the
priest used it every time he said Mass, the ignorance of some
of the clergy in a civilized part of France in the days of the
great scholastics must have been considerable.
The service of the Church meant but little to the intelli-
gence of the laity. It was a mystery which the priest conducted;
and their duty was to be present and say the few simple prayers
they had been taught to repeat without reference to what was
going on. The Mass was the service they attended; and, even
if it had been in their native languages, they would have un-
derstood but little. A perusal of a few specimens of the Apostles'
Creed in the vernaculars of Western Europe will show the
varieties of dialects of the same language. Primers and guides
to the Mass, etc., for the laity belong to a later age.
The superstitions of the age were at times harmless, but
often had a demoralising influence. It is related of King Robert
of France, as a proof of his goodness, that, to avoid leading his
nobles into the sin of perjury, he had a casket made in which,
instead of the relics they supposed to be there, were harmless
stones or other articles. It was the relic, not the mind of the
false swearer, which made the sin so heinous. Even though he
believed the relic was there, the perjurer escaped danger if it
was absent. And even if we make every allowance for the ut-
terances of impassioned preachers and fervent moralists,
morality in every class was at a low ebb. It has been seen how
little real courtesy lay below the veneer of chivalry, and what
base motives actuated many of the crusaders. But nowhere do
worse scandals appear than among the clergy; possibly be-
cause more record was kept of their doings. The sin of which
most is made is, naturally, incontinency. This is only to be
expected when clerical marriage is absolutely forbidden; but,
like so many other things, in the Middle Ages, the law was one
thing and practice another. This was especially true of all
marriage, which according to Canon Law was regulated by
innumerable restrictions. Divorce was in theory impossible:
Christian marriage being an indissoluble contract. But in the
upper classes an heiress represented a property rather than an
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 349
individual woman; and a lady constantly changed hands, and
passed from husband to husband on the most frivolous pre-
texts. It was the same with clerical marriage. It was notorious
that the great majority of the priests lived openly with some
woman known as "a niece," "a friend," or in Latin, a focariay
or keeper of his hearth. This has been represented as a sort
of honourable, if clandestine matrimony. It was, in many
places, nothing of the kind; as, not merely fervid preachers,
but the sober registers of episcopal visitations abundantly
testify, notably that of Archbishop Eudes of Rouen. The results
of his visitation are enough finally to dispel any idea that there
were many concubinary priests in the diocese living honestly
with the wives of their youth. The condition of things is in-
describable, and the whole subject is so unsavoury, that it had
best be passed over in silence. What, however, is so amazing is
that the most trifling penalties were inflicted by Eudes, a man
of stern justice, for oflFences which would now in anyone, let
alone a clergyman, merit the severest penalties, which law or
public opinion could inflict. Yet so bad was the moral tone of
the vast mass of the parochial clergy, that some heinous
offenders were not even deprived of their benefices. Bad as they
were, there was no one better to replace them.
One would naturally expect that the mystery of the sacri-
fice of the altar would have encouraged a dread of the con-
secrated elements, which we might condemn as superstitious,
though respecting the reverence with which they were regarded.
It might have been supposed that as the miracle of the change
of the bread and wine was believed to be the result of the
priest's pronouncing exactly the formula of consecration, the
most scrupulous care would be taken in using it correctly.
Further, as the doctrine of the Eucharist was accepted, not
scholastically or philosophically, but in the most material sense,
it might be expected that the Sacred Host, the Bread which
had become the Body of the Saviour, which at times was be-
lieved to have proved this by actually bleeding, and possessed
magical powers, as was evidenced by those who presumed to
receive it in attestation of a false oath, would be honoured.
350 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Moreover, those who adored it worshipped Christ the Saviour
of the world, in the most Hteral sense present in their midst.
Such behefs one might reasonably assume would guard the
Body and Blood of the Lord from profanation.
But one is compelled to acknowledge that whatever may
have been the popular superstition about the Eucharist, one
of the gravest charges against the clergy was the revolting
irreverence they displayed towards the mystery of the Altar,
and towards the Host itself. The truth is superstition can never
produce reverence; and the doctrine of the Church was too
spiritual to appeal to the gross materialism of a degraded
priesthood. They are charged with not attempting to under-
stand the meaning of the Canon of the Mass, the prayer by
which the Mystery was wrought, and of pronouncing the
solemn words incorrectly, owing to their careless irreverence.
The cloths used at the altar were often in a filthy state, the
Host was allowed to get mouldy and fly-blown, and was often
put in most unseemly places. The churches were frequently
unswept and dirty, and were used at times as barns or store-
houses. In a word Bishop Butler's famous charge to the
clergy of Durham, where he complained of the scandalous
neglect and disrepair of the churches of the diocese in 1751,
might have been used almost word for word by a bishop in
the thirteenth century, and applied to many of his parishes with
equal truth.
Drunkenness was very prevalent, the clergy are charged
with haunting taverns, and filling themselves with drink "up to
their throats," often with playing dice. The practice of Simony
was universal, and ecclesiastical legislation was powerless to
check it. Everything was bought and sold, even baptism and
extreme unction. Not infrequently the parish priest was the
one wealthy man in the village, and if so, he almost certainly
was the money-lender whose exactions ground the wretched
inhabitants without remorse. The abuse of the confessional
was one of the worst scandals of the time.
Such then are evidences of the fearful disorders, to
which the preachers, the moralists, canons of the Councils,
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY
351
and the bishops' registers bear abundant witness. It is often
maintained that these ought to be ignored, and passed over
in discreet silence; but in order to understand the mind of
the Middle Ages it is necessary to emphasize them. It does not
help the cause of Catholicism to pretend that they did not
exist, nor of Protestantism to gloat over these unsavoury de-
tails. On the contrary, they alone explain the attitude of the
rulers and even the saints of the Church to their age. Men like
St. Bernard and St. Norbert have been held up to scorn as
bigoted enthusiasts, as encouraging absurd asceticism, or
fantastic superstition. They are judged by their traducers as
though they had lived in the Victorian age in England, whereas
they lived amid nominal Christians, whose morality was often
worse than pagan. No wonder they opposed to the vices of their
age the example of the sternest self-discipline of the cloister.
Is the intemperate language of St. Peter Damiani to be harshly
condemned, when he knew what clerical incontinency actually
was in his day?
Moreover, in many instances it is but just to say that the
best clergy of the time, if they encouraged certain things now
rightly condemned, were also fighting hard against a baser
superstition. In the ninth century St. Agobard of Lyons had
condemned the unspirituahzing tendency to true piety of
trusting in all adventitious aids, images, relics, etc. And time
after time the bishops and the Inquisition are found repressing
excesses of false devotion, for example, the widespread cultus
of a woman who professed to be the incarnation of the Holy
Ghost, and of many new wonder-working bodies of persons,
who proved on enquiry to be anything but saints.
With this terrible condition of affairs in the Church it is
not surprising that heresy prevailed so extensively in the '
eleventh and twelfth centuries. As has been shown, it was at
its worst in the towns, the greater civilization of which made the
people more alive to the corruption of the time. The secret of
the success of the false teachers lay in their austerity of life,
which was in sharp contrast with the practice of many of the
clergy. Nor had the vast majority of either clergy or people
352 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the ability to judge what was heresy. They were ready to be-
Heve anything; and, given real piety, ostentatious goodness,
or even blatant assertion of miraculous power, there was
nothing that would not be readily accepted. Side by side with
this heresy and superstition, there was no little scepticism, and
positive unbelief. Men like the Emperor Frederic II were
believed to scofF openly at the Christian religion.
There was, however, much genuine piety; and in every age
throughout the period here treated of were men of exceptional
goodness and ability. But these were as exceptional then as in
all stages of human history; nor did they generally escape mis-
representation or even actual persecution. But by the end of
the thirteenth century the monopoly the clergy had enjoyed
of the learning and wealth of Europe had certainly not con-
tributed to the usefulness of their order, nor to the benefit of
society. This must be understood in view of the failure of the
medieval conception of a theocracy on earth, directed by the
Pope.
AUTHORITIES
Lavisse and Rambaud, in their Histoire Generate, Vol. II, have four in-
valuable chapters: I, on the Feudal system (C. Seignobos); VIII and IX, on
the Towns and Commerce (A. Giry and A. Reville); and X, on Western
Civilization (C. V. Langlois); all have good bibliographies. A. Luchaire,
Social France at the Time of Philip Augustus, E. T., is readable and especially
interesting from the illustrations from the popular poems and tales of the age.
See also three books by G. G. Coulton, Medieval Garner (1910); Medieval
Studies, First Series, second revised edition with three appendices (1915);
Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (1918). Coulton's
From St. Francis to Dante is a summary account of Fra Salimbene's diary,
which gives a most lifelike description of life as it actually was in Northern
Italy in the thirteenth century. H. Adams, in his Mt. St. Michel and Chartres,
presents some excellent illustrations of the popular worship of the period,
especially that of the Blessed Virgin. On the life in the villages of England,
Thorold Rogers made extensive research and the results are attainable in a
condensed form in his Work and Wages. W. Cunningham's Growth of English
Industry and Commerce, Vol. I, is most informing; and the same author has a
small treatise on Usury. F. W. Tickner, Social and Industrial History of
England, gives some picturesque details. On the local activities of the
Church, see F. A. Gasquet (Cardinal), Parish Life in Medieval England, and
E. L. Cutts, Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages in England
(illustrated edition, 1914).
A SURVEY OF SOCIETY 353
Really to understand the subject it is necessary to go to such documents
as the accounts of the manors, municipal archives, episcopal visitations, etc.
The reader will find great help in the bibliographies prefixed to the chapters
of Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire, and in J. Westfall Thompson's Reference
Studies in Medieval History, second edition, 1914, Chap. XXV. Lea's
History of Sacerdotal Celibacy and History of Confessiom. and Indulgences are
mines of unfriendly information for the condition of the clergy.
CHAPTER XIV
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM
Dante the representative of the best of MedievaHsm — Life of Dante "-The Fita
Nuova — Henry VII of Luxemburg Emperor — Henry VII in Italy — The Divine
Comedy — The Inferno — Celestine V — The noble heathen — - Minos the Judge
— Paolo and Francesca — Mythological monsters in The Inferno — The heretics —
The lower Hell — The Malebolge — The Simonists — Popes Nicholas and Boni-
face — No hope for the lost — Purgatory — Cato the Censor — Miserable con-
dition of Italy — Those not admitted to Purgatory — Dante enters Purgatory —
The proud — The envious and the wrathful — A Pope in Purgatory — Greed and
ambition of France — The poet Statins — Belief in Purgatory — The Paradise —
Heaven of the Moon Piccarda and the Empress Constance — Justinian — Charles
Martel — Cunizza — Folco — The Doctors of the Church — Thomas Aquinas
praises St. Francis — Bonaventure praises St. Dominic — Dante and his ancestor
— The righteous rulers — The rulers in Dante's day — The eye of the Eagle of
Justice — Can a heathen be saved .? — The contemplative saints — The Eternal
Rose — Dante, idealist, reformer and prophet — Hope in a restored empire —
The genius of Dante — Return to classical antiquity — End of medievalism —
Medieval civilization vpestern — Religion and law — Power of the priesthood —
Faults of the clergy — Learning devoted to the Church — Uncompromising
theory of life — Enthusiasm for monasticism fades — Gradual weakening of the
Papacy — Decay of feudalism; growth of nations.
Dante is the supreme example of the best thought of the
Middle Ages, and its highest aspirations are expressed in his
writings. With him medieval civilization culminates: after him
it begins to make way for something different. The Divine
Comedy is the expression of beliefs which, though they long
continued to be accepted as vitally true, yet ceased to exercise
the dominating influence on every act of human life they had
previously done.
Gregory's Dialogues are the first medieval revelation of
the world beyond the grave in all its crude simplicity; in Dante
we see it unfolded six centuries later in a supreme eff^ort of
the finest poetic imagination. His learning, moreover, includes
all the knowledge of his day, the result of the accumulated
experience of the Middle Ages. His great poem the Divine
Comedy is the flower of the long period that has here been sur-
3S4
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 355
veyed and contains the seed of a new age. Dante is the first
writer to produce a great work in a modern European language,
and also he is the first medieval layman to take a prominent
place in the learned world. Thoroughly orthodox, holding all
the Church teaches with undoubting faith, circumstances
forced Dante into uncompromising hostility towards Boniface
VIII, the last of the great popes of the Middle Ages. He is the
first to develop the theory that Caesar, not Peter, as repre-
sented by the Pope, is the divinely appointed ruler of the world.
The facts of his life are not numerous or particularly
eventful, as he played on the whole an inconspicuous part in
the politics of his age. He was born on May 14th, 1265, when
the constellation of the Gemini was in the ascendant. His
family was respectable rather than of the high nobility of
Florence, and had for generations been settled in Italy. His
poetic genius was fostered by the influence of Provence and
Southern France. His native Florence had long been famed for
its loyalty to the Guelf cause.
At the age of nine he first met Beatrice, who was a few
months older, and he cherished a romantic love for her till her
death in 1290, though, apparently, he saw her but rarely,
and she herself married. In thus adoring a lady at a distance
Dante was following the tradition of the troubadours; and
Beatrice became to him the ideal of female perfection, and
even the embodiment of heavenly wisdom. He married prob-
ably after her death, and had children; but he was early parted
from his wife by his long exile. His love for Beatrice, as de-
scribed in the Vita Nuova (the New or the Young Life), marks
a departure from the traditions both of antiquity and the
Middle Ages. From time immemorial it had been customary
to consider woman, with rare exceptions, either as a play-
thing, or a nuisance, and the heathen philosopher would have
cordially agreed with the Christian ascetic that she was the
greatest hindrance the gods or the devil had devised to the
searcher after wisdom or the heavenly mysteries. Dante, on
the contrary, makes Beatrice his inspiration and guide to
spiritual truth. He concludes his Vita Nuova thus:
356 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
"A wonderful vision appeared to me in which I saw things
which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed one,
until I could more worthily treat of her. And to attain to this
I study to the utmost of my power as she truly knows. So that
if it shall please Him, through whom all things live that my
life shall be prolonged for some years, I hope to say of her
what was never said of any woman.
"And then may it please Him who is the Lord of grace,
that my soul may go to behold the glory of this lady, namely,
of that blessed Beatrice, who in glory looks upon the face of
Him, who is blessed throughout all ages."
Thus in the closing passage of the Vita Nuova Dante fore- 1
tells his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy.
Dante entered political life in 1300, the year of the Jubilee
celebrated in Rome by Boniface VHI. He was a member of
the Signoria or Council of Florence, and a vote of his is re-
corded when he opposed the papal demand that the city should
furnish one hundred knights. The minute is thus worded:
Dante alagerius consuluit quod de servitio faciendo
Domino Papce nihil fieret.
In regard to the Lord Pope's demand for service
Dante Alighieri's advice was that nothing should be
done.
The city was then under the rule of the "White," or popular
party, and as each citizen had to enrol himself in a craft,
Dante's name appears among the medici, or physicians.
When Charles of Valois entered Florence, the aristocratic
or "Black" party triumphed and in January, 1302, Dante and
his adherents were banished. In March of the same year the
rulers of Florence condemned him to be burned alive. He retired
to Can Grande della Scala, to whom he subsequently dedicated
the Paradiso. The rest of his life till his death in Ravenna,
1321, was spent in exile. He died on the Feast of the Exalta-
tion of the Cross, and was buried in the Church of San Fran-
cisco. The Florentines in vain petitioned for the body of their
greatest citizen; and he still rests in Ravenna.
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 357
In 1308 Albert of Hapsburg was murdered and the Empire
was vacant. Both he and his predecessor Rudolph had been
occupied in Germany, and had eschewed adventures in Italy.
Philip the Fair desired the election of Charles of Valois, and
Pope Clement V had acted with his usual duplicity in secretly
intriguing to defeat the design of France, which he dared not
openly oppose. The electors, instead of choosing, as had been
customary, a powerful German prince, selected, at the insti-
gation of his brother Baldwin, Archbishop of Treves, Henry
Count of Luxemburg as King of the Romans. For a prince
with such small hereditary dominions within the Empire, it
was impossible to be a power in Germany; and Henry VII
undertook the desperate adventure of seeking imperial au-
thority south of the Alps. The hopes of all were raised by this
resolve; even Clement V saw a prospect of one who might be
an Emperor indeed in Italy delivering the Pope from the tyr-
anny of France. Dante, full of enthusiasm, saw the fulfilment
of his dream of an universal monarchy bringing peace on
earth. Accordingly, in 1309, he published his book De Mon-
archia, "the first political treatise of importance," as it has
been styled, "since Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero." ^ Here he
explains the supreme and inalienable rights of the Roman
Empire, which even Constantine had no authority to delegate
to Sylvester. Not that he defends arbitrary government: for,
he says, "Citizens do not exist for the consuls, nor subjects
(for the king) ; but exactly the opposite is true."
Henry VII's expedition to Italy is one of the tragedies of
the Middle Ages. With it the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire
really came to an end. Attended by a small retinue the King of
the Romans entered Lombardy, and was received with en-
thusiasm. He came as a high-minded pacificator and refused
to recognise either Ghibelline or Guelf. He wys welcomed on
all sides as the deliverer of Italy. At Milan, in the Church of
St. Ambrose, he was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lom-
bardy. Gradually the clouds thickened about him. A would-be
Emperor without money, unaccompanied by an army, could
* Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, Vol. VI, p. 19, E. T.
358 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
make few lasting friends in Italy. Still he persisted, and en-
tered Rome, though dismayed at the squalor and misery to
which the factions had reduced the City. He found secret
opposition on every side. Roger, King of Naples, was there to
thwart him at every turn. Clement V, with his usual perfidy,
intrigued against him, though he allowed him to be crowned
Emperor in the Lateran Basilica on St. Peter and St. Paul's
day, June 29, 13 12. Still there seemed more chance of success
for Henry than his lack of material resources seemed to
warrant; but, just as he was about to attack Roger and might
have established his credit in Italy, he was taken ill and died
at Siena in August, 13 13.
With the untimely removal of the Emperor the hopes of
Dante were shattered. But to these the world owes the Divine
Comedy, which, it must be remembered, was supposed to be the
subject of a vision seen in 1300, though it alludes to the deaths
of Clement V and Philip the Fair in 13 14. But the ideal of a
restored Empire pervades the whole of his great poem, and is
the key to almost all his contemporary historical and poetical
allusions.
The first book of the Inferno finds the poet, "midway in
the journey of life," that is at the age of thirty-five, in a dark
wood where he has lost his way. He is hindered by three wild
beasts, a Leopard (lonza), a Lion (leone) and a She-wolf (lupa).
Probably these signify Florence, the type of worldly lust,
ambition, which in Dante's day was so thoroughly represented
by the royal house of France, and avarice was papal Rome,
as insatiable as the wolf honoured by the pagan city. A guide
appears in Virgil, who foretells that the Wolf will be chased
back to Hell, from whence envy let her loose, by a Grey-
hound {il veltro). Such then was the Italy of Dante's day
threatened by French ambition and ground down by papal
avarice, looking for a deliverer, some new pope or some un-
known Ghibelline prince. Virgil offers to escort Dante through
Hell and Purgatory and promises a nobler guide for the realms
of Heaven.
The journey occupies a week, and to understand it it must
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 359
be borne in mind that to Dante the centre of the earth is
Jerusalem, exactly opposite to which is the mount of Purga-
tory by which Paradise is reached. From thence the ascent to
Heaven is made. To Hell there is a descent by ten stages.
Outside are those colourless persons distinguished for neither
virtue nor vice, not bad enough for Hell, not good enough for
Heaven. They have lived without infamy or credit {senza in-
famia e senza lodo) and have no punishment save the misery
of envying everybody. Among these is the man whose abject
spirit caused him to make the great refusal, generally supposed
to be Celestine V, whose abdication of the Papacy made way
for the hateful rule of Boniface VHI.^ In the Limbus, or fringe
of Hell are the Heathen, whose only sin was that they did not
worship the true God. This is the first circle, and here Dante
meets the heroes, sages and poets of antiquity who are only
punished by living without hope.
The virtuous heathen are found in verdant meadows in a
noble castle. They appeared to the poet "as people with eyes
slow and grave, of great authority in their appearance, speak-
ing seldom with mild voices." Among the sages are "the
Master of those who know" (Aristotle), Socrates, Plato, and
Democritus. Thales, Zeno, Dioscorides, Orpheus and Tully
(Cicero), Seneca, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna,
Galen, and Averrhoes, "who made the great comment" (on
Aristotle).^ Next follow the circles of punishment for the sins
arranged according to Aristotle under three heads: I, Incon-
tinence, which includes all wrong action due to the inadequate
control of natural appetite or desire; II, Brutishness, or vio-
lence, characteristic of morbid states, in which what is naturally
repulsive becomes attractive; III, Malice or Vice, which con-
sists of those evil actions which involve the abuse of the
specifically human attributes of reason.
Dante now enters the abode of pain, where Minos sits as
judge. The second circle is reserved for those who fell into
' Inferno, Canto III, 34-39.
* Inferno, IV. 58 ad fin. The poets are Homer, Horace 'the Satirist,' Ovid, and
Lucan.
360 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
incontinence and are driven to and fro by a terrific storm. Here
Dante meets Francesca and her lover Paolo and learns from
her the tale of their death. It is evident that the poet has great
sympathy for those who have given way to sin through weak-
ness; but is unplacable to those whose avarice, cruelty and
treachery have met with severe punishment. On hearing
Francesca's sad tale,^ he faints "and falls as a dead body
falls." {E cadai, come corpo morto cade.)
The Inferno in its setting is not so much Christian as
classical. The fiends are those of Virgil and not of the imagin-
ings of the Church, though the belief that the heathen gods
were demons was general. Minos presides over the Second
circle and Cerberus is in the Third.^
The topography throughout is Virgilian; and in the descent
to the lowest pit one meets with Plutus, the Furies, the head
of Medusa, Antaeus, proofs of the influence of the mythology
of antiquity upon the Christian imagination as to the condi-
tion of the lost. It is noticeable, moreover, that Dante passes
rapidly through the upper circles, the abode of carnal sinners
and even of the heretics, and devotes more than half his poem
to those criminals whose sins demand the severest reprobation.
In the third circle are the gluttons, sinking in mud and
tormented by loathsome rain, hail and snow. Here he finds an
old Florentine friend, who foretells to the poet what will hap-
pen to their native city. He then sinks in the mire to wake no
more ''till the last trumpet shall sound. "^ The fourth circle is
the place of the avaricious and the prodigal, rolling heavy
weights, smiting and reproaching one another. Priests and
Popes and Cardinals are here, and Dante asks whether any
of them are known to him. But Virgil says that their lives on
* Her words, Inferno, V. 121,
Nessun maggior dolore,
Che recordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria,
finds an echo in Tennyson's allusion to them
"Sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
* Inferno, V. 4, VI. 13.
3 Inferno, VI. 37 ff.
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 361
earth have been so sordid that they are all alike in Hell, and it
is impossible to recognise one from another.^
The poets descend to the fifth circle, the dreary marshes
of the Styx, and pass among the wrathful and sullen, sunk in
the black mire, saying, "Sullen we were in the sweet air, that is
gladdened by the Sun . . . and now lie we sullen in the
black mire. "2 After this they enter the city of Dis where live
the Fallen Angels. In the sixth circle they find the heretics.
It is frequently asserted that Dante delighted in consigning
his personal and political enemies to the infernal regions, but
this is not borne out by a perusal of his poem. Among the
heretics who are found in chests with the lids not yet closed is
Farinata degli Uberti, who, bitter Guelf though he was, had
at least saved his native Florence from destruction from her
enemies. Dignified, even in the midst of torment, "upright
with heart and countenance, as if he entertained great scorn
of Hell {come avessi lo inferno in grand dispitto)."^ He tells
Dante that, where he is, they remember the past and can fore-
tell the future, but of the present they know nothing. Here
also the poet finds his friend Guido Cavalcanti, to whom he
had dedicated the Fita Nuova^ son-in-law of Farinata, and also
a Guelf. Among the Ghibellines are Frederic II and Cardinal
Octavian. Dante beholds a monument declaring that here is
buried Anastasius, the pope, who had perverted the faith,
probably confused with the Emperor of that name.^
Eleven cantos have been devoted to the upper part of
Hell and now the poets descend to its lowest depths as they
enter the seventh circle. Here violence, fraud and treachery
are punished and here are the most terrible monsters of pagan
antiquity, the Minotaur, the Centaurs, the Harpies. No less
than twenty-two books are devoted to this most dreadful
portion of the nether world.
In the wood of the suicides is Peter de Vinea, the trusted
1 Inferno, VII. 52-54.
2 Inferno, VII. 121-124.
' Inferno, X. 34.
* Inferno, XI. 7-9. The Pope Anastasius and the Emperor of the same name
(491-518) were contemporaries.
362 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
and afterwards disgraced minister of Prederic II, who is
changed into a tree, which bleeds as Dante breaks a bough.
Peter declares that he was entirely innocent of the crimes laid
to his charge and had always served the Emperor faithfully.^
Among the "violent against Nature," the Poet finds the teach-
ers of youth, "many great clerks," and his old friend Brunetto
Latini, with whom he has a long and earnest conversation and
is warned of the plots which the two factions of Florence the
Black (aristocratic) and the White (popular) will agree in
making against him.^
From the eighteenth to the thirtieth canto the poem
describes a journey through the part of Hell called Malebolge.
Here pandars and seducers, flatterers, simonists, evil counsel-
lors, diviners, barrators, thieves and others undergo their
punishment.
A dreadful place of torment is reserved for clerics guilty
of Simony. They are confined in holes cut in the stone, which
remind Dante of those in the Baptistery of Florence, one of
which he broke to rescue a boy from drowning. But here the
victims are placed head downwards, and the poet can only see
their quivering limbs. As he approaches one of the damned
souls and addresses him, he is met by the question, "Art tliou
already standing. Art thou already standing, Boniface?"^
The voice is that of Nicholas III, the Orsini pope {figliuol dell'
orsa)y whose shameless nepotism disgusted his age. He foresees
that he will soon be joined by Boniface VIII, whose simony
has been even more flagrant. To him will succeed a still meaner
pope in Clement V, who, like Jason in the second book of the
Maccabees (II Mace. IV, 7-13), will prostitute his priestly
office to the will of the King of France. The poet here breaks
into a fierce invective against the corrupt Papacy of his age.
In it the vision in the book of Revelation is fulfilled; for it is
the whore which sitteth in the waters and committeth forni-
* Inferno, XIII, cf. Virgil, Aen., Ill, 22, the story of Polydorus, which suggested
the idea to Dante.
2 Inferno, XV. 28 fF.
» Inferno, XIX. 31 fF.
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 363
cation with the kings of the earth. The Simonaical Papacy is
worse than idolatry, and Constantine injured the Church by
the dower which the "first rich father" (Sylvester I) took
from him. The Donation of Constantine, accepted as literal
history, by Dante was the ruin of the Church.^ In a still lower
hell the poet finds Boniface's counsellor Guido of Montefeltro,
who after leading a secular life became a Franciscan, but was
summoned by the Pope, "the Prince of the new Pharisees,"
to assist him to ruin the family of the Colonnas.^
Virgil and Dante now descend lower and lower and witness
the punishments of the worst sinners, those who dealt in un-
lawful magic, the thieves, the sowers of discord, the treacherous,
the traitors who betrayed their country or their friends. At
last they reach the lowest hell, a place of icy cold, where Satan
reigns, and in his teeth champs the three guiltiest of mankind,
Judas, who betrayed Christ, the type of all enemies of the
Church, and Brutus and Cassius, who slew Caesar, the traitors
to the empire. From thence the poets ascend to earth again
and once more behold the stars.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the Inferno of Dante
was not the hell of popular imagination. The only thing which
recalls the place of punishment as depicted in art is the part
of the Malebolge where the demons torment the sinners, and
fight with one another. Otherwise it is the underworld of
Virgil, rendered more terrible by the vivid imagination of his
Christian disciple. To him if the scene is imaginary, the suf-
ferings are intensely real. They are eternal and there is ab-
solutely no hope for the lost. As the more perfect a creature
is, the more it is capable of suffering, the pains of the damned
will be more acute when they are perfected by the restoration
of their bodies at the Judgment. And to this hell all outside
the Church must inevitably go. Even those unjustly excom-
1 Inferno, XIX. 106 fF., 115-117.
2 Inferno, XXVII. 67 ad fin. I found a most curious blunder in Michelet's History
of France. He places Gerbert Sylvester II (999-1003) in hell as a magician and refers
to this canto in Dante. Guido says that Boniface summoned him to cure his fever of
vengeance as Constantine did Sylvester from Mount Serapte. The historian has con-
fused the two Sylvesters, owing to a careless glance at the passage.
364 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
municated can with difficulty escape. Here is a key to the mind
of the Middle Ages. Men lived in terror of everlasting fire and
fled to the Church in which alone lay any hope of deliverance.
As a Ghibelline, Dante is no friend to the papal hierarchy; but
he denounces their abuses, not their office, and he would have
agreed with the declaration extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
The Purgatory of Dante like both his Hell and Heaven
has ten main stages and nine books are devoted to the two
through which one must pass before entering Purgatory itself.
The mountain was formed when Satan was hurled into Hell;
and it was thrown up at the Antipodes. It became the means
of the salvation of men who ascend it by seven levels on each
of which they do penance for one of the seven deadly sins. On
reaching the summit they enter the Earthly Paradise which
Adam and his progeny forfeited at the Fall. Man is thus restored
to his original purity by suffering; and he is translated from
the earthly state of innocency to the heavenly realm by grace.
The souls embarking for Purgatory sing the Psalm In
exitu Israel, and among them is Dante's friend, the musician
Casella. As the poets tarry to listen to his singing "the old man
venerable" {il veglio onesto, Cato, i.e., the representative of
pagan virtue) rebukes the laggard spirits and urges them to
the work of purifying their souls. ^
Outside Purgatory, which they may not enter, though they
are not among the lost, are those unjustly excommunicated.
Dante recognises Manfred, who tells him how Charles of Anjou
and his soldiers buried him after his defeat at Benevento, but
the Bishop of Cosenza, urged on by Pope Clement, exhumed the
body. But by curse of such as these a man is not lost, only he
must roam around Purgatory for thirty times his years on
earth, but the period can be shortened by holy prayers.'
^ Purgatorio, II, ii8.
* Purgatorio, II, 118. Dante is evidently influenced by the story of Palinurus, the
pilot of JEneas, who could not rest till the rites of burial were performed, ^n., VI,
337 ff.
Centum errant annos volitantque haec litore circum,
turn demum admissi stagna exoptata revisunt. — ^n., VI, 329-330.
Even the curse of the worst Popes and Bishops had an efl^ect though it had been
unjustly pronounced,
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 365
The next halting place is the abode of the late repentant
and here Virgil finds his fellow countryman, the poet Sordello
of Mantua. Sordello is glad to meet a Mantuan, but when he
learns that it is Virgil, he falls at his feet in adoration.
At this point Dante utters a denunciation of Italy where
all is in confusion, because it is like a horse bridled by Justinian,
i.e., by Roman law, with no one to mount him. Montagues
and Capulets {Montecchi e Cappelletti) are dividing the country
by their factions and there is no controlling power. The poet
bitterly reproaches the house of Hapsburg and the Emperor
Albert for forsaking Italy, and says that this neglect deserves
the judgment of heaven. Here is the dominant ideal of Dante.
The Emperor is the ruler appointed by God for the civil
government of the world. The Papacy and the Italian cities
have brought misery by their rebellion against him; and till
some one shall arise who will exert the power the Roman law
gives him, there can be no peace. ^
Outside Purgatory, as the feeble Pope who made the grand
refusal is outside Hell, are the negligent rulers who deserve not
damnation, and yet are unworthy of purification. In his es-
timate of these the character of Dante becomes evident, as
that of a man who hates feeble virtue as cordially as he does
open vice. A representative of this kind of goodness is our
Henry III. The King of the simple life (2/ re della semplice
vita . . . Arrigo d'Inghilterra)y whose son Edward I with his
manly character is better than his father.^ That the Poet con-
demns men for their character and not for their politics, is
shown by his fierce denunciations of the then King of France,
Philip the Fair. Rudolph of Hapsburg, the Emperor who might
have healed the wounds of Italy, is here, so is his enemy Ottocar
of Bohemia with Peter IV of Aragon, and Charles I of Anjou.
At last Dante enters Purgatory. Seven P's are stamped
on his forehead, the seven deadly sins which one by one are to
be washed oflF as he passes through the seven circles of pro-
bation. It would be superfluous here to dwell on the punish-
* Purgatorio, VI, 76 ff.
* Purgatorio, VII, 130.
366 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
ments in each successive circle. In the first the proud are
crushed under heavy burthens. Among them are the artists,
represented by Oderisi, the miniature painter; here also is the
proud Sienese Provenzan Salvani, saved because he begged in
the market place of his native city to redeem a friend, who
had fallen into the cruel hands of Charles of Anjou. As
Dante ascends to the next circle one of the P's is wiped from
his forehead and he mounts as though a burthen had been
removed.
Those mentioned as present among the envious, who are
punished by having their eyes sewn up, and crowd together
as the blind beggars at a Pardon, are from the Romagna. In
the circle of the wrathful Dante meets Mark the Lombard of
Venice, who discourses of fate and free will. He explains how
true freedom is the service of God, and then denounces the
wealth and avarice of the Papacy. Rome that made the good
world had two aims, one to make plain the law of man, the
other the law of God. But now the sword is in the same hand
as the shepherd's crook {e giunta la spada col pastorale) and
all goes ill, as Lombardy, where worth and courtesy once
prevailed now testifies, since Frederic II and the pope were
in opposition.^ Now the Poet understands why Levi was to
have no inheritance, since he perceives that the Curse of the
Papacy is its wealth. The thick mists which oppress the
wrathful are now past: Dante and Virgil enter the circle where
the sin of sloth is expiated, and sees the sinners disciplined
by having to run ceaselessly.
The avaricious and the prodigal are both punished by
having to lie with their faces to the earth. In this circle Dante
finds Ottobuoni de' Fieschi who had been papal legate in
England in 1268, and became Pope as Hadrian V, reigning
only a few days more than a month (1276). In language which
reminds us of Hadrian IV's bitter complaint to his friend,
John of Salisbury, this Hadrian declares that the trials he
endured as Pastor of Rome converted him so that he escaped
Hell but had to endure the worst of all punishments on the
1 Purgatorio, XVI, 64 ff.
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 367
Mount. When Dante knelt in acknowledgment of the papal
office Hadrian sternly ordered him to rise, and commended to
him his niece Alagia, who was the wife of one of the Malaspini
friends of the Poet.^
The next shade with whom Dante conversed was Hugh
Capet, son, as he says, of a butcher of Paris and the founder
of the royal house of France, whose overweening greed and
ambition he bitterly deplores. He ends his discourse by a de-
scription of the humiliation of Boniface VHI. Enemy as he
was, Dante could not write of the degradation of a Pope un-
moved. Christ was made captive in the person of his vicar.
The vinegar and the gall were renewed; and Philip the Fair
denounced as the Second Pilate.^
Virgil and Dante are here joined by a third poet. Statins,
who, when he knows who Virgil is, tells him that he was con-
verted to Christianity by reading the Fourth Eclogue, and has
remained so many centuries in Purgatory because he lacked
the courage to declare himself.
After ascending to the places where gluttony and lust are
purified, Dante bids farewell to Virgil, who crowns him as
a poet on parting, and he enters the Earthly Paradise.
While it must be borne in mind that Dante must not be
taken literally, but that his purpose is allegorical, its object
being to show that divine justice is seen in the whole fate of
man, here and hereafter, his poem still throws much light on the
beliefs of his age. For the sufferers in Hell and Purgatory are
not abstractions, but real men, many of whom the poet had
known familiarly. This gives extraordinary interest to the
Divine Comedy, but it also makes the reader understand what
Purgatory meant in the Middle Ages. Its torments are as real
as those of the Inferno, only the sufferers rejoice in them be-
cause they know them to be remedial and by them they are
continually rising heavenward. Therefore they sing hymns of
gladness as they approach the place of punishment, and ascend
to new penalties with songs of gratitude. But when we realise
» Purgatorio, XIX, 97 ff.
» Purgatorio, XX, 70-78.
368 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
that Statius had been suffering for close on twelve centuries,
it is not difficult to understand the popular dread of Purga-
tory, or how those who had loved people on earth were ready
to make any sacrifice for their beloved dead in order to shorten
their sufferings. The numerous chantries attest that the pangs
of Purgatory were very real in the minds of succeeding gen-
erations.
The Paradiso is a more difficult poem than either of its
predecessors; and here we have the science of Dante's age set
forward to its fullest extent. It demands a consummate knowl-
edge of medieval science and philosophy to understand, and,
even when treating only on the historical side, it is no easy
task to describe it.
As in the Babylonian cosmology, the earth is the centre of
the system in the midst of the seven planetary spheres; round
these move the stellar heaven and the Primum Mobile, and
beyond these nine circles is the Empyrean Heaven, where God
is, and with Him all the angels and the souls of the redeemed
have their true abiding place.
On reaching the heaven of the Moon Dante shows how the
celestial topography differs from that of other regions. In this
the lowest heaven he finds Piccarda, the sister of his friend
Forese Donati, and the Empress Constance, heiress of the
Kingdom of Sicily and mother of Frederic II. These spirits
are in the lowest heaven, because they had been forced to
marry, though they had already taken vows as nuns. Dante
asks Piccarda whether she is not disappointed with her lowly
grade in heaven; but she replies that to be so would be to rebel
against the Divine will, and that in Heaven is perfect content-
ment, for there God's will "is our peace." The Poet then
understands that everywhere here is Paradise.^
In the second heaven of Mercury is Justinian, who ex-
pounds the theory of the Roman Empire. The great lawgiver,
* Chiaro mi fu allor com' ogni dove
in cielo e Paradiso, e si la grazia
del sommo ben d'un mode non vi piove.
Paradiso, III, 88-90.
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 369
who had been converted from the Monophysite heresy by
Pope Agapetus, gives a sketch of Roman history from the days
of the Kings of Alba Longa, reaching rapidly the victories of
Caesar and Augustus, the redemption of the human race in
the days of Tiberius, and the punishment of the Jews by
Titus for crucifying Christ. Passing over the intervening
period, Justinian tells of the deliverance of Rome by Charles
the Great, and of the present ills of Italy. Ghibelline as he is,
Dante makes Justinian declare that it is hard to say which
party is most in the wrong. The Guelfs support the French
against the Empire, and their rivals use the Empire in support
of their factions' aims.^ Dante is in fact wholehearted in his
advocacy, not of his party, but of the imperial idea. He hates
France as much as he does the worldly Papacy because both
hinder the restoration of the pax Romana under a virtuous
Emperor. The Ghibelline faction, which upheld the French
royalty in Sicily, is as much opposed to his hopes as every
other power hostile to Caesar.
As Dante moves upward he is instructed in the mysteries
of the Christian faith by his companion Beatrice, whom he
loved on earth. She explains the Creation, the Fall, the In-
carnation, the Redemption and the whole scheme of man's
salvation from sin, following in the main the argument of
Anselm's Cur Deus Homo.
In the third heaven, that of Venus, Dante meets his friend
Charles Martel, King of Hungary, son of Charles II of Anjou,
who spoke of all the lordships he might have inherited, and
alludes to the loss of Sicily to his house in the Vespers, when
the people of Palermo cried Die! Die!
In the same heaven is Cunizza, the sister of Ezzelino de
Romano, the cruel chief of the Ghibellines under Frederic II,
whose appalling tyrannies in northern Italy make his sister
speak of him as "the firebrand who made a dire assault on
* L'uno al pubblico segno i gigli gialli
oppone, e I'altro appropria quello a parte
si che forte a veder e chi piu falli.
Paradiso, VI, I0O-I02.
370 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
the country." ^ Cunizza had not by any means a spotless repu-
tation, but her abundant charities won her a place in heaven.
Equally fortunate was the amorous troubadour Folco, who
atoned for his sins as Bishop of Toulouse by his vigour against
heretics in the Albigensian War. Safe in heaven, his sin of in-
continency troubled him no longer, any more than does his
cruelty to heretics, which Dante must have ranked among his
merits. The Poet after this rebukes the Pope for his lack of
interest in the crusades and the clergy for neglecting the
Gospel and the great Doctors for the study of the Canon
Law.^
In the fourth heaven of the Sun are the Doctors and Sages.
Among these are Thomas Aquinas, who indicates to Dante his
master Albert the Great, and then points out Gratian the famous
canonist, Peter Lombard, and King Solomon. The poet also
sees Dionysius the Areopagite, probably the historian Orosius,
the little light {piccioletta luce) to whom Augustus suggested
his theme, Boethius, Isidore of Seville, Bede, and Richard of
St. Victor; lastly Thomas' opponent at Paris, Sigier of Brabant.
The list is interesting, as showing who were held in the highest
estimation as philosophers.^
Thomas continues his discourse by explaining how God
raised up two princes to be guides to the Church, the one
Seraphic (symbolical of love), the other Cherubic (of wisdom).
These were Francis and Dominic. Francis's glory was his es-
pousal of the Lady Poverty, who had been neglected for eleven
centuries and more. She it was who, when Mary stayed below,
mounted the Cross with Christ. After, receiving the stigmata,
Francis, the illustrious soul {Vanima preclara), bequeathed his
lady to his brethren.
As himself a Dominican, Thomas does not pass such a
^ una facella
Che fece alia contrada un grande assalto.
Paradiso, X, 32, 33.
^ e solo ai Decretali
si studia si che pare ai lor vivagni. — Paradiso, IX, 134-135.
(Alluding to the glosses on the Canon Law.)
' Paradiso, X, 95.
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 371
eulogy on his own founder, but expiates on the degeneracy of
the Order. The praise of Dominic is placed in the mouth of
Bonaventura, the glory of the Franciscans. He tells how at
Calahorra Dominic was born to be the sacred athlete, gentle to
the friends and cruel to the foes of the Christian faith. Bona-
ventura ends, as Aquinas had concluded, by a denunciation
this time of the corruption of modern Franciscans.^ It after-
wards became a general custom for a Franciscan to say mass
in a Dominican Convent on the feast of St. Dominic (October
4) and a Dominican to do so when Francis was commemo-
rated on August 4.
As .^neas meets his father Anchises among the shades, so,
in the heaven of Mars, does Dante learn his future from his
great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida, a Florentine who had
been one of the Knights of Conrad III, and was killed in the
crusade of 1147. The Poet is told by his ancestor of the happi-
ness of Florence in those early days when the greatest lived in
simplicity, andthe matron came from hermirror"with unpainted
face." The great families of the city are enumerated, and the
fall and degeneracy of many are made the subject of Caccia-
guida's lamentation. He regrets the influx of strangers, the
factions and the luxury of the Florentines, and declares that
in his days the city was indeed honourable. The whole passage
is of great interest as a key to the domestic history of the
place.
Lastly Dante is warned that there are plots against him,
hatched where Christ is every day put out to sale, i.e., at Rome.
He shall know the wretchedness of exile, and shall learn how
salt is another's bread and how hard is the path up and down a
stranger's staircase.^ But Cacciaguida bids the Poet not to be
dismayed, he must trust to the Emperor Henry VII in whom
his hopes are fixed; and he assures his descendant that he will
outlive his persecutors. He also commands Dante to reveal
* Paradiso, XI and XII, passim.
* Tu proverai si come sa di sale
II pani altrui, e com' e duro calle
Lo scendere e ii salir per I'altrui scale.
Paradiso, XVII, 58-60.
372 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
all his vision and not to be dismayed at the temporary pros-
perity of sinners.
It is a part of Dante's theory of the government of the
human race that a very lofty sphere is allotted to those who
have ruled wisely. In Jupiter, the white planet, the Poet sees
the spirits rising, as birds from a meadow, and forming the
thirty-five letters of Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram.
When they formed the last letter M, the centre of the Latin
alphabet, they halted so that Jupiter appeared like a silver
dish pricked out with golden ornaments {argento II d'oro
distinto). Then the bright spirits of the blessed for a while sepa-
rated, like the sparks when a firebrand is struck, and gradually
formed the head of the Eagle of Justice.^ As the bird rises he
sings in the one voice of all righteous rulers in praise of God
and answers the difficulty which has so oppressed the Poet's
mind, why the good heathen who know not Christ cannot be
saved. How is it that the man born on the banks of the Indus
who lives virtuously, and is ignorant of Christ, because no
man has told of Him, can be lost? Dante is warned, as Job was,
that he as a man cannot question God's decrees. But the Eagle
as it wheels around sings a nobler song. No one who knew not
Christ can ascend to this realm, but many who called not on
His name shall be far nearer to Him than those who knew
Him.2
This leads to a bitter denunciation of the rulers of Europe
in Dante's day. First Albert of Hapsburg (d. 1308) will be
condemned for the invasion of Bohemia. Then Philip the Fair
will be punished for debasing the coinage and will die by the
stroke of a wild boar.^ The Judgment will reveal the pride which
is inflaming the Englishman and his Scottish enemy to madness.
The Kings of Spain and Bohemia, Charles II the Lame, the
King of Jerusalem {Ciotto — Zoppo the Lame), Portugal, and
Norway will be revealed in all their baseness. A hope is ex-
pressed that Hungary, which Kingdom had fallen to the brother
1 Paradiso, XVIII, 70-108.
* Paradiso, XIX, 70 fF.
' Philip the Fair died 13 14 in this manner. Is his wickedness to the Templars con-
demned by Dante?
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 373
of Charles Martel, may see war no more, and Navarre is warned
of the danger of falling into the hands of France by the Queen
Joanna's marriage with Philip the Fair, and is told to remember
the fate of Cyprus under the French regime of the dynasty of
the Lusignans. Whether the Poet's strictures are just or not,
this comprehensive view of the Europe of his day is invaluable
to the historian.^
In the book following, the eye of the Eagle is explained.
It consists of five great rulers: the pupil is David; those who
make the Arch of the eyebrow are Trajan, Hezekiah, Constant-
ine, William of Sicily, and the Trojan Ripheus.^ Constantine
is saved, though he caused much evil by his donation to Pope
Sylvester, but a good deed even if it ruins the world is not
accounted as sin to him who does it. William of Sicily, called
"the Good," was the last of the house of Tancred and at his
death in 11 89, his kingdom passed to Constance and the
Hohenstaufens, Trajan and Ripheus are present among the
heathen who were saved. The story of Trajan's being rescued
from Hell by the prayers of Gregory the Great was a favourite
one in the Middle Ages. Dante explains that his soul was
restored to his body at the prayer of the Pope and issued from
thence Christian, trusting in the pierced feet of Christ. To
Ripheus the Passion was revealed before his death, and he was
saved. In neither was the law that in Christ alone is salvation
broken.'
The rest of the Paradiso, valuable as it is for its poetry, its
theology and its mysticism, is of less interest as an historical
guide. Dante passes from Jupiter to Saturn, the heaven of
the contemplative where are Benedict of Nursia, Peter Dami-
ani, Bernard, and thence to the starry Heaven, the abode of
the Angels. At last he reaches the Highest Heaven, the Em-
pyrean, and there the Beatific Vision is vouchsafed to him.
1 Paradiso, XIX, 115 ad fin.
2 Virgil, y£n., II, 426.
cadit et Ripheus, justissimus unus
qui fuit in Tencris et servantissimus aequi
(dis aliter visum).
• Paradiso, XX, 28-72.
374 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
But when the Church Triumphant is revealed to the Poet
and the saints are seated tier upon tier,forming the Eternal Rose,
there is a seat vacant with a crown above it, reserved for the
Emperor Henry VII, in whom all the hopes of those who loved
Italy were centred. These were to be thwarted by the baseness
of Pope Clement V, a worthy successor to Boniface VIII. Dante
is foretold that Henry VII will fill his throne in heaven and that
soon afterwards Clement V will be cast into the pit where he
will force his predecessor "him of Anagna," i.e., Boniface VIII,
to even lower depths. Henry VII died in August, 13 14, and
Clement in the following April. ^
Such, then, is a brief survey of Dante's great poem, which
has been here almost confined to a consideration of the history
of the period. He is equally an idealist, a reformer, and a poet.
In Heaven he paints the glories of the future, on earth he
longs for those of the past. He is clear-sighted enough to see
that the Church has failed to bring peace on earth. Since Con-
stantine made Sylvester rich, she has been blind to her true
destiny, and has sought worldly power and wealth. Instead of
the Bride of the Lamb she has, in Rome at least, become the
Harlot of the Apocalypse. Her ambition has been the cause
of the unnumbered woes of Italy.
Dante can see only one remedy. His hopes did not lie in
the spirit of independence of the growing Italian republics: he
had seen and suflFered too much in Florence. Nor could he
cherish a hope of a united Italy; for the day of national as-
piration had not yet come. If the Church had failed, something
as Catholic and universal must take her place. And there was
nothing conceivable but a restored Empire. His idea was that
the days of Charles the Great, or even of Augustus should re-
turn, and that the world should be at peace under a single
head. In a sense Dante was to his age what Gregory VII had
been to an earlier time; only the great Pope saw the Empire
had failed, and looked with hope to the Church, and the great
Poet that the Church had failed and turned to the Empire.
But the Empire was not the living power the Church had been
1 Paradiso, XXX, 133-148.
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 375
when Gregory VII rallied it to reform the world. Henry VII
was excellent as a man, but he lacked the opportunity to be-
come a great Emperor. Without a strong hereditary position
in Germany an Emperor was powerless, and Henry of Luxem-
burg was one of the poorest of princes. Nor were the secular
and ecclesiastical principalities of which Germany was com-
posed a match for the new France, which was being consolidated
by the unscrupulous power of an able monarch. Further
Dante could not recognise the undoubted fact that no German
Caesar could really rule Italy and that the days of Charles
the Great were as irrevocable as those of Augustus. Great as
he was, Dante was a dreamer in exile, rather than a leader of
men in a crisis of history.
Yet genius, whether practical or not, sees the truth where
other men cannot; and the vision of Dante was one of the
future. He paved the way for a new theory of government,
and was the pioneer of the Renaissance. In his day and for
long after men sought not liberty but authority. They desired
someone with the ability and the right to silence the rivalries
of the petty powers which distracted the world. It was this
feeling which led ultimately to the formation of the despotic
monarchies of France and Spain and to the regime of the
Tudors in England. And this need for order, even at the price
of liberty, turned the eyes of thinkers to the palmy days of
Roman imperialism; and people began to realise that in the
past the world had enjoyed a civilization superior to anything
of which they had any experience. Thus it came to pass that
instead of regarding antiquity with horror as an age of idolatry,
they looked back to it as an ideal time when the world had
peace under the majestic shadow of the Roman law; and as
they read the story of early Rome and Greece they found men
animated by a civic patriotism, unknown in their degenerate
days. It was instinctively felt that the secularized church of
Rome, now degraded by the fall of Boniface VIII and the
sordid vices of Clement V, was incapable of restoring the
virtues of the ancients, let alone of leading men forward to
higher things; and the eyes of thoughtful men turned to the
376 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Empire for guidance. When their hopes were disappointed by
the death of Henry VII they were driven back to the supposed
golden ages of Greece and Rome. Dante's dream of a restored
Empire and a purified Church free from secular duties was the
first of a series of speculations as to the principles of human
society and government.
The Divine Comedy has been called "The latest book of
the Middle Ages." In it they had reached their zenith, and
hereafter their true spirit was dead. It is therefore desirable
here to attempt to sum up the results of the structure of the
civilization erected in the period we have endeavoured to
describe.
It was built on firmly laid foundations, its conception was
logical, the views of life embodied in it not ignoble. It pro-
duced a piety of the highest type, an art in some branches
unsurpassed, and its influence upon mankind continues. Yet,
like all human institutions, it matured, only to decay, to make
way for something else. Why this stately fabric, the ruins of
which still inspire our respect, collapsed, it is now necessary
to enquire.
Medievalism is an essentially western product. In the East
there was not that death of civilization of the classical world,
out of which this conception of life arose. Greek civilization
was antique till the day of its death. It had undergone no
remodelling under the influence of feudalism and the Papacy,
the parents of western civilization, because it had retained so
much of the older world that it could assimilate little that was
new. It is not by chance that the Eastern Church is Orthodox
and the Western Catholic, for the prime object of orthodoxy
is to retain, and of Catholicity to acquire. The glory of the
Eastern Church is that its doctrine is unchangeable, that of
the West that it adapts itself to the needs of humanity.
Medieval conceptions were founded upon religion and law.
The theory of life at least was profoundly Christian. Society
was regarded as an homogeneous entity, every member of
which was a believer. For those outside the Church there was
I
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 377
no place. The Jew, for example, might be tolerated, but he could
not possibly become a member of the commonwealth. Even
the man who called himself a Christian, if he held heretical
views, placed himself outside the community. For Christendom
God had provided two rulers: the Pope He had set over the
Church as the Vicar of Christ, and the Emperor, as the suc-
cessor of Caesar, over the world. The Church was a masterpiece
of organization and discipline, and the Western World exhibited
the marvel of a united spiritual body, existing in the midst of
countless petty but independent principalities. Throughout
Europe, monastery and cathedral towered above the baronial
and even the royal castle. Around these triumphs of archi-
tecture lay the crowded hovels and narrow streets of the squalid
city, a visible token of the entire subordination of material
to religious interests, throughout Europe. Such, moreover,
was the cohesion of the Church that, whereas to the inhabit-
ants of most cities and villages some petty noble was of in-
finitely more importance than King or Emperor, the Pope was
universally acknowledged as the superior of the proudest
prince on earth.
The humblest priest exercised a power which might pro-
voke the envy of any modern ruler. His spiritual prerogatives
were unquestioned. He could call down Christ from Heaven, and
make Him to be present among the people. His curse could
aflPect the eternal future of those on whom it lighted, his bless-
ing could brighten their lives and rob death of its terrors.
Even if he were not a good man he was still invested with
tremendous power from on High.
The Church was also the repository of priceless treasures.
It was the custodian of the relics of the saints, wonder-working
images, sacred wells, whose miraculous waters healed the
infirmities of the believer. Religion was not simply a part of
man's life; it pervaded his every action. The Church was
necessary to him in all he undertook — he could neither live
nor die without its aid. The powers of evil swarmed around
him; and but for the Church, the saints, the angels, he might
be overwhelmed at any moment. Nor did the Church appeal
378 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
only to his superstitious imagination. Almost every church was
a veritable picture book; on wall and window were depicted
the most important scenes, whether from the Bible or from the
legends of the saints. Every child was taught simple prayers,
the confessional itself was an educative influence in bringing
people into direct contact with their spiritual advisers. Nor is
it right to lay too much stress on the bitter criticism of the
Church by the best men in the Middle Ages. Scandals there
were, and very serious ones, but even when these are fully
admitted, it should be borne in mind that no devout Christian
has ever admired the Church of his own day. For the Church
is always to her truest sons an ideal; and the devout exaggerate
rather than minimize the falling short of it, which they witness
around them. The faults of the rulers of the medieval Church
were those of the strong, not of the weak. They were unchristian,
in that they were arrogant, rapacious, and domineering; but
as men conscious of power and accustomed to authority
they were not obsequious, nor hypocritically humble. Their
position was unassailable because it was based on the rights
of the Church, which no one presumed to dispute.
In addition to this, the learning of the Middle Ages was
entirely devoted to the cause of the Church. Unlike the Chris-
tianity of the East, which prided itself in resting on the past
and in finding completion in the decrees of the Seven General
Councils, Western religion was adventurous and progressive.
In the eighth century John of Damascus was setting his seal
upon the doctrine of the East; but within a century the more
daring speculators of the West were seeking to fathom the
theories of Augustine about predestination, and to define the
meaning of the presence of Christ in the sacrament. Later
Anselm was daring to question the accepted explanation of
the Atonement, and Abelard was setting Europe aflame by
his speculations into the infinite. Thus arose medieval scholas-
ticism, with its combination of theology, logic, and philosophy,
which produced an education, arid and narrow indeed, but
excellently adapted to train the mind to the highest pitch of
acuteness. Towards the close of our period Thomas Aquinas
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 379
formulated the theory of the Church with answers to all
possible objections to the Faith.
The question now arises, how was it that a civilization so
logical, so consistent, and at the same time so idealistic and
essentially Christian collapsed? A few of the causes are here
suggested.
The great difference between modern and medieval
Christianity is that in theory at least the religion of the middle
ages was uncompromising in its demands. It was grounded
on the monastic idea of absolute surrender of all things for
God. The culmination of a holy life was the withdrawal into
absolute seclusion and divesting oneself of all worldly cares and
thoughts. The triumph of the hierarchy under Gregory VII
was that of the sternest monastic ideal which found expression
in St. Peter Damiani. In the twelfth century monasteries
sprang up on all sides, especially in England and France, but
every generation saw fewer founded. In place men built
Friaries and Colleges, and endowed chantries. By the days of
Dante the enthusiasm for monastic life had gone. As long as
it was ardent, new orders were founded to amend the defects
of the older ones. Nothing of the kind marks the close of the
Middle Ages. The abbots and monks of all orders beautified
their churches, but none went forth to seek a stricter life than
that of the old monastery. With the disappearance of the
passion for asceticism, there arose an enthusiasm for learning,
and a desire for the amenities of life. In the thirteenth century
the stern crusading fanatics of the Albigensian war had crushed
the gaiety of Languedoc with an iron hand. In the fourteenth,
the desire of life was blossoming in the papal court at Avignon.
In Thomas Aquinas and Dante the medieval ideals had been
seen in all their severe logic and beauty; in Occam and Petrarch
new theories of life were appearing under scholastic and poetic
forms.
With the monastic ideal the spirit of true medievalism
disappeared. The Friars proved that devout men might shew
a better piety in activity and usefulness than in seclusion and
self-absorption; the first humanists reminded men once more
380 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
that the Hfe could be beautiful and happy, and yet Christian.
But medievalism died when it ceased to produce saints of
the monastic type.
That such an institution as the Papacy should have at-
tained the immense influence it did in Western Europe cannot
be explained as due either to the fraudulence of successive
popes, or to the ignorance of mankind. To attain to a position
of such influence as it did in the Middle Ages, it must not only
have possessed great inherent vigour, but also have satisfied
an urgent demand. The early medieval popes after the great
reform in the eleventh century were for the most part men of
piety and ability, and governed on the whole for the benefit
of the Church. They seem to have reached the culminating
point of usefulness in Innocent III (1198-1216), after whom
a steady degeneracy in moral aims set in. The removal of the
seat of their government to Avignon weakened their influence,
and the long schism with its attendant scandals still further
impaired the respect in which the office had been held.
The Papacy defeated the Emperor, the acknowledged secular
head of the West, but was itself humbled by the kings of
Europe. The decay of feudalism is about contemporary with
that of monasticism, and, in both, the institutions survived
their vitality. Nations gradually realised their distinctness and
their unity. England, perhaps, took the lead; but in France
the unification of the nation under a king, who was constantly
becoming more absolute with every generation, the eff"ect on
the Church was even more evident. In Philip the Fair the
Pope found a master, and the superiority of the united kingdom
of France to the Empire, split up into countless principalities,
is demonstrated by the way in which the French Kings defied
the thunderbolts of papal excommunication, which had been
so fatal in Germany. With the growth of national unity there
sprang up the idea of national churches, and the notion of a
king with a divine right opposed to the divine right of the
Pope was slowly formed. The City of God embracing the Chris-
tian world was making way for a number of Israels, each ruled
by its own successor of David. Thus modern Europe with its
DANTE AND THE DECAY OF MEDIEVALISM 381
nationalism began to come into being in opposition to the old
unified world of Christendom which was the ideal of the
Middle Ages.
AUTHORITIES
The study of Dante is one which demands almost a lifetime, and here only
a preliminary course of reading can be indicated. As a preliminary I recom-
mend R. W. Church's Dante and other Essays; J. A. Symonds, The Study of
Datite; C. H. Grandgent, Dante (Master Spirits of Literature); Edmund G.
Gardner, Dante and the Mystics; Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, The Spiritual
Message of Dante; W. W. Vernon, Readings on the Infer^io; Readings on the
Purgatorio; Readings on the Paradiso; in all six volumes.
Translations of The Divine Comedy are numerous. To mention only a few,
there are Longfellow, Norton, Gary, J. A. Carlyle {Inferno only). All the
works of Dante in Italian are in a convenient volume edited by Dr. E. Moore.
The De Monarchia is translated by Aurelia Henry, the New Life by C. E.
Norton, and the Banquet by Katharine Hillard. The edition of the Divine
Comedy used by me is that of P. H. Wicksteed in the Italian, with an English
version on the opposite page. For the History of Florence the English trans-
lation by Wicksteed of Viilani's Chronicle should be consulted.
IMPORTANT POPES
59&-604. S. Gregory I. Famous for (i) his admin-
istration of the Papacy and its estates; (2) his
mission to England; (3) his dealings with the
Lombards; (4) his controversy with Constanti-
nople.
625-638. HoNORius I. (i) Sent Birinus to Wessex
in England; (2) took part in the Monothelite
controversy, and was accused of weakness.
649-655. S. Martin I. Exiled to the Crimea, where
he died a martyr.
657-672. S. ViTALiAN. (i) Visit of Constans II to
Rome; (2) sent Theodore of Tarsus as Archbishop
of Canterbury.
678-681. S. Agatho. (i) Appealed to by S. Wilfrid,
Archbishop of York; (2) Sixth General Council
condemned Monothelltes at Constantinople.
708-715. Constantine. (i) Visited Constantinople;
(2) Council in TruUo (Qulnisext) held during his
pontificate in Constantinople; (3) made peace
with East.
715-731. S. Gregory II. (i) Sent missionaries to
Bavaria and Germany; (2) consecrated St. Boni-
face (Wlnfred of Crediton in England) a bishop;
(3) supported Empire against Lombards; (4) op-
posed Iconoclasm.
731-741. S. Gregory III. (i) Opposed Iconoclasm;
(2) summoned Charles Martel to aid him against
Lombards.
741-752. S. Zacharias. (i) Obtains cities from the
Lombard king Lultprand; (2) Merovingian dy-
nasty ends: Pippin consecrated King of the
Franks.
752-755. S. Stephen III. (i) Crossed the Alps to seek
aid against the Lombards; (2) agreement with
Pippin at Kiersy; (3) crowned Pippin; (4) Dona-
tion of Pippin to the Papacy; (5) letter in name
of St. Peter written to Pippin.
382
Emperors or Kings
of the Romans
Maurice
and
Phocas
Heraclius
Constans II
Constans II
(d. 668)
Constantine IV
Constantine IV
Justinian II
(d.711)
Leo III
(the Isaurian)
Leo III
Constantine V
(Copronymus)
Constantine V
IMPORTANT POPES
383
772-795. Hadrian I. The great friend and supporter
of Charles the Great. End of the Lombard king-
dom of Italy.
795-816. S. Leo in. Crowned Charles the Great
St. Peter's on Christmas Day, 800, the Empire
being declared vacant by the usurpation of
Irene.
847-855. S. Leo IV. Saracens advanced on Rome and
sacked St. Peter's. Leo fortified city and sur-
rounded the Vatican (henceforward known as
the "Leonine City") with a wall.
858-867. S. Nicholas I. The great assertor of Papal
supremacy in (i) the Photian Controversy; (2)
the affair of Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims; (3)
upholding the rights of the injured wife of Lothar
II of Lorraine. False Decretals first heard of.
891-896. FoRMOSUS, Bishop of Porto. Sent to Bul-
garia. After his death solemnly deposed for hav-
ing as a bishop intruded himself into the See of
Rome. Subsequently restored and honourably
buried.
955-964. John XII. Of the family of the Counts of
Tusculum, notorious for his infamous character.
Emperors or Kings
of the Romans
Leo IV
constantine vi
(e) constantine vi
Irene
(W) Charles the
Great
Lothar I
Lewis II
(in Italy)
(E) Michael
(the Drunkard)
Guido
(in Italy)
Lambert
(in Italy)
Otho I
i^"
996-999. Gregory V. A German cousin of the
Emperor; usurpation of Crescentius in Rome put
down.
999-1003. Sylvester II. Gerbert, Archbishop of
Reims, and then of Ravenna; one of the most
famous scholars of his age.
1045-1046. Gregory VI. Friend of Hildebrand. Said
to have bought the Papacy to save it from his
predecessor. Exiled by the Emperor. At death,
owing to a miracle, was buried as a pope.
1046-1047. Clement II. Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg,
a German appointed by the Emperor to reform
the Church.
1049-1054. S. Leo IX. Bruno, Bishop of Toul, related
to the Emperor; (i) began to attack clerical mat-
rimony; (2) crossed the Alps to reform the
Church; (3) schism with the East; (4) defeated
by the Normans of Sicily.
Otho III
Otho III
Henry III
Henry III
(W) Henry III
(E) CONSTANTINE
VIII
384
IMPORTANT POPES
Emperors or Kings
of the Romans
♦Henry IV
(during his minority)
*Henry IV
(during his
minority)
*Henry IV
♦Henry IV
1057-1058. Stephen X. Frederic of Lorraine. Made
S. Peter Damiani a Cardinal.
1059-1061. Nicholas II. Held the second council of the
Lateran, at which the election to the Papacy was
restricted to the Cardinals of Rome.
1061-1073. Alexander II. Sanctioned the Norman
conquest of England.
1073-1085. S. Gregory VII. The great struggle about
'v Investiture; the Emperor goes to Canossa. Sack
of Rome by Guiscard and the Normans.
1088-1099. Urban II. A French Pope. The Crusades
preached. The expeditions to the Holy Land in-
augurated by the Councils of Piacenza and Cler-
mont.
1099-1118. Paschal II. (i) Excommunicated Henry
IV, who died unabsolved; (2) quarrelled with
Henry V; (3) came to agreement on Investitures
with Henry I of England.
1119-1124. Calixtus II. (i) Concordat of Worms
with Emperor, settling investiture dispute; (2)
First Council of the Lateran.
1130-1143. Innocent IL (i) Disputed election be-
tween him and Anacletus II (Pierleone). In
France Innocent II was strongly supported by
St. Bernard; (2) the Tenth General Council,
Second of the Lateran.
1145-1153. B. EuGENius III. A Cistercian monk and
a friend of St. Bernard. Dealt wisely with popular
seditions in Rome.
1154-1159. Hadrian IV. An Englishman; (i) crowned
Frederic I; (2) laid Rome under an interdict; (3)
Arnold of Brescia executed.
1159-1181. Alexander III. (i) Mediated between
Henry II of England and Becket; (2) supported
the Lombard League against Emperor.
1198-1216. Innocent III. One of the greatest of the
Popes; (i) capture of Constantinople by Latins;
(2) Albigensian crusade; (3) General Council of
the Lateran; confession made obligatory.
* Henry IV. was never Emperor, having been crowned by an Anti-pope.
*(W) Henry IV
(E) Alexius
Comnenus
Henry IV
(d. 1 106)
Henry V
Henry V
Lothar II
Conrad III
King of the Romans
Conrad III
King of the Romans
Frederic I
(Barbarossa)
Frederic I
Otho IV
IMPORTANT POPES
385
1216-1227. HoNORius III. Orders of Dominicans and
Franciscans.
1227-1241. Gregory IX. (i) Canon Law codified;
(2) Inquisition sanctioned; (3) Frederic II twice
excommunicated.
1243-1254. Innocent IV. (i) Bitter quarrel with Em-
peror Frederic II (d. 1250); (2) Papal exactions
in England; (3) first General Council of Lyons.
1 261-1264. Urban IV. A Frenchman. Gave crown of
Sicily to Charles of Valois.
1271-1276. B. Gregory X. (i) Recognised Rudolph
of Hapsburg in Germany; (2) second General
Council of Lyons; the Conclave established.
1 294-1 294. S. Celestine V. The Hermit, Peter Mur-
rone, decreed that a Pope might abdicate. Ac-
cording to Dante made "the great refusal."
1294-1303. Boniface VIII. (i) Jubilee at Rome; (2)
issued the Bull Clericis Laicos; (3) brutally
treated by the emissaries of Philip the Fair, of
France.
1305-13 14. Clement V. (i) Transferred Papal court
to Avignon; (2) sanctioned the suppression of the
Knights Templar.
Emperors or Kings
of the Romans
Frederic II
Frederic II
Frederic II
Conrad IV
Interregnum
Rudolph I
(of Hapsburg)
King of the Romans
Adolph
(of Nassau)
King of the Romans
Albert I
(of Hapsburg)
King of the Romans
Albert Henry VII
(of Luxemburg)
1308-13 13
INDEX
[ The Chapter headings and Authorities at the end of each chapter are not inserted in
this index.]
Abelard, 179, 231, 238, 280, 346, 378.
Adoptianism, 77, 184 f.
Albertus Magnus, 233, 370.
Albigenses, 207, 208, 213.
Alcuin, 52, 99, 174, 300.
Alexander of Hales, 231.
Alexandria, Patriarch of, 10.
Ambrose, 3, 38, 95, 129 f.
Anselm, 175, 313 ff., 378.
Antioch, Patriarch of, 10.
Anti-popes, 52, 81, 82, 128, 132, 140, 281.
Aquinas, 237 f , 346, 370, 378.
Aristotle, 2, 173, 176 f., 229 f , 233, 257.
Arnold of Brescia, 181, 191, 250.
Art, Christian, 2, 35 ff., 104, 336, 345 f., 378.
Asceticism, 5, 118 f., 187, 189, 207.
Athanasius, 6.
Augustine, of Canterbury, 20 f., 97.
Augustine, of Hippo, 3, 15, 129 f., 173, 191,
207, 378.
Bacon, Roger, 230, 235, 328.
Baptism, 23, 173, 189, 197.
Barbarians, 3, 9, 13, 14, 19, 63, 79.
Basil of Citsarea, 6, 77, 217.
Becket, 215 f , 240, 275, 282, 306 fF.
Benedict, of Nursia, 7 f., 16, 117, 373.
Berengar, 130, 136, 173, 174 f.
Bernard, 181 f., 188, 189 f , 280, 281, 326,
373-
Boethius, 4, 173, 177, 178, 370.
Bonaventure, 227 f., 231 f., 287, 371.
Boniface (Winifred), 38, 46, 93 f., 300.
Breviary, 7.
Bulgarians, 66, 79, 104 f., 125, 186.
Byzantium, see Constantinople.
Canon Law, 63, 76, 173, 204, 236, 239.
Canon of the Mass, 24 f., 76, 350.
Canossa, 134, 139.
Cardinals, no ff., 231, 260, 288.
Cassian, 6.
Cathedrals, 2, 93, 1 13, 172, 319 ff., 337, 345,
r. ■ 377-
Celibacy, 9, 14, 126, 131 f., 138, 34S.
Charles Martel, 35, 45, 47, 146, 369.
Charles of Anjou, 163, 263 ff., 270, 285,
290 f.
Charles the Great, see Emperors of the
West.
Civil Law, 76, 202 ff., 232, 239, 341 f.
Clovis, 44.
Colonna family.
Confession, 201, 202 f , 350, 378.
Constance, Empress, 253 ff , 368.
Constantine the Great, 3, 40 ff.
Constantine the Great, Donation of, 41 ff ,
363-.
Constantinople, 2, 11, 14, iq, 34, 35, 43,
44, 66, 124 ff., 148, 150, 154, 159, 161,
177, 179, 288.
Coronation of Emperors, 53, 59, 246, 250,
256, 358-
Council, fourth Lateran, 193, 202.
Council of Lyons, 288.
Courts, Christian, 203 ff., 308.
Crusades, 141, 257 f., Chapter VI passim.
Dante, Chapter XIV passim.
Decretals, false, 73 ff.
Dialogues of Gregory the Great, 16.
Dionysius the Areopagite, 173, 370.
Dominic, 161, 192, 208, 209, 228, 229, 234,
370.
Dominicans, 168, 208, 210, 216, 224, 226,
228 f , 230, 234, 371.
Donation of Charles, 50.
Donation of Constantine, 41 ff., 363.
Donation of Pippin, 48, 50, 246.
Duns Scotus, 234.
Edessa, capture of, 154.
Education, 65, 84, 172 ff., 229, 237, 321,
347-
Egypt, 6, II, 32, 145, 151, 155 I., 162, 165,
167, 221, 258.
Elias, Brother, 227 f.
Emperors in the East:
Alexius Comnenus, 150, 155.
Alexius III, 159.
Basil II, 124 f , 147.
Constans II, 33 f.
Constantine VIII, 148.
Constantine IX, 125, 127, 148.
Heraclius, 33.
John the Handsome, 155.
387
388
INDEX
Manuel, 155, 160.
Michael III, 68 ff., 105.
Michael VIII, 161, 288.
Zeno, 32.
Emperors in the West:
Albert, 372.
Charles the Great, 49 IF., 53, 59 f., 91, 99,
148, 246, 268.
Conrad II (the Salic), 119, 131, 136.
Frederic I (Barbarossa), 90, 156, 182,
239, 248 f., 250 f., 253, 357.
Frederic II, 161 f., 163, 210, 218, 254,
256, 257 ff., 285, 361, 366.
Henry II (St.), ii9-
Henry III, 119, 120 f., 123, 128.
Henry IV, 128, 132, 135, 137 f., 142,
149.
Henry V, 142.
Henry VI, 157 f, 253 ff.
Henry VII, 357 ff., 371, 374 f-
Louis the Pious, 58 f., 117.
Otto I, 80, 81, loi.
Otto II. 80.
Otto III, 80, 81, 82, 105.
Otto IV, 255.
Empire, Holy Roman, Chapters II, III,
IV, X, p. 357-
Empire of the Church, Chapters II, III,
IV.
England, Kings of:
Edward I, 166, 172, 287, 316 ff., 322 ff.,
Henry I, 274, 302 ff.
Henry II, 240, 253, 276, 282, 324, 326 f.
Henry III, 241, 262, 264, 271, 279, 315,
322, 365.
John, 218, 276 f., 282, 313, 315, 322.
William I, 133, 191, 301 ff.
William II, 303 ff.
Eriugena, 77, 130, 300.
Eucharist, 23, 76, ']'j, 126, 129 ff., 174,
19? f- 349 f-
Eutychians, 31, 37
Excommunication, 139, 162, 199 f., 217,
248, 251, 259, 270.
Feudalism, 61, 65, 303, 316, 329 ff.
Filioque, insertion of, 70, "]"], 126, 288.
France, Chapter XI.
France, Kings of:
Louis VI, 60, 274 f., 277, 297.
Louis VII, 154, 274 f., 277.
Louis IX (St.), 163, 168, 248, 263 f.,
286, 310.
Philip Augustus, 92, 138, 156, 192, 218,
256, 273 ff.,284, 314.
Philip the Fair, 293 ff.
Francis, St., 161, 168, 220 ff., 271, 370.
Franciscans, 168 f., 170, 221 ff., 230, 234,
371- '
Franks, 44 ff., 50, 52, 58 ff., 72, 78, 148,
IS3, 163, 246.
French and Germans contrasted, 60 f., 267.
Gerbert, see Sylvester II.
German influence, 79 ff., 104, 119, 135,
136, 158, 165, 246, 252, 269, Chapter
X.
German people, 3, 58 ff., 94, 106, 123, 137,
245, 248 f., 252, 268 f., Chapter X.
Gnosticism, 5, 187, 207.
Greek language, 15, 24, loi f., 173 f.
Guelfs and Ghibellines, 247, 271, 290, 369,
Chapter X.
Hakim, Sultan of Egypt, 147.
Heresy, 11, 31 ff., j-j, 91, 173, 191, 206 f,
212 f., 259,351
Heribert of Milan, 131,336 f.
Hildebrand, see Gregory VII.
Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, 72.
Hohenstaufen, House of, 157, Chapter X.
Holy Roman Empire, see Empire.
Iconoclasm, 36 ff., 47, 50.
Ignatius, Patriarch, 68 ff.
Inquisition, 207 ff., 210 f.
Inquisition, estimate of, 214 f., 300.
Interdict, 216 ff., 248, 314.
Investiture, 142, 305 ff., Chapter V ■passim.
Ireland, 74, 324 ff.
Islam, 29, 30, 34, 79, 14s ff., 155, 165, 168 f.,
185, 188.
Jerusalem, 30, 162, 218, see Patriarchates.
Jerusalem, Kingdom of, 150 ff.
Jews, 102, no, 146, 147, 150, 214, 342.
Joachim of Flore, 226 f.
John of Salisbury, 237, 251, 258, 280.
Knights, Hospitallers, 153.
Knights Templar, 153, 156, 157, 162, 166,
170, 295 ff.
Knights, Teutonic, 157, 162, 258, 270.
Lanfranc, 301 ff., 313.
Langton, Stephen, Archbishop.
Languedoc, 188, 190 f., 193, 271.
Latin Christianity in East, 107, 153 ff.
Latin language, 75 f., 84, 104, 178, 301,
347.
Learnmg, 63, 84, 229, 237, 347, 378 {.
Legates, 98, 114, 127, 191.
Leo the Isaurian, 34, 37, 39, 147.
Literature, Christian, 78, 84, 166, 174,
237, 284.
Lombards, 39, 44, 46, 48 ff., 95, 131, 246,
345-
London, 97, 100, 218, 334, 338.
I Lothar, King of Lorraine, Marriage of, 71 f.
INDEX
389
Marcion, i84fF.
Marriage of clergy, 121 f., 132, 137 f., 143,
248.
Martyrs, 5, 10, 11, 13, 108, 199.
Matilda of Tuscany, 134, 138, 140 f., 247,
336.
Michael Cerularius, 125 ff.
Milan, 95, 125, 131 f., 259, 336, 357.
Missions to heathen, 8, 21, 29 f., 87, 93 f.,
99 fF., 166, 168 f.
Mohammedanism, 29 f.. Chapter VI pas-
sim.
Monasticism, 4, 6 ff., 57, 64, 116 ff., 279 f.,
379 f.
Mongols, 162, 166 f., 169.
Monophysites, 29, 31 ff., 37, 153, 185, 369.
Monothelites, 29, 53, jj.
Nestorians, 8, 31, 37, 153, 166, 169.
Nominalism, 176 f.
Normans, 123 f., 125, 133 f , 147, 158, 247.
Orthodox and Catholic contrasted, 376.
Ostrogoths, 13 f., 263.
Pallium, 19, 93, 97, 98, 109 f., 113, 305 f.
Papacy, 47, 380, Chapters II, IV, V
-passim.
Papacy, Temporal Power of, 132, 143,
Chapters IV, X.
Papal States, 40, 43, 46, 50, 140, 247, 255,
259, Chapter IV.
Paris, 179, 227, 231, 237, 239ff., 279f., 283,
297.
Patarines, 132.
Patriarchates, 10, 42, 64, 107 f , 126 f., 287.
Alexandria, 10, 12, 20, 31, 32, 126.
Antioch, 10, 12, 20, 31, 126. I
Constantinople, 11, 19 f., 32, 38, 39, 53,
67 ff., loi, 127, 158 f.
Jerusalem, 10 f., 126, 153.
Rome, II ff., 33, 67 f., 70, 73, loi, 108 f.
Paulicians, 185 f.
Paul of Samosata, 184, 186.
Paul, St., 12, 90, 108, 183 f., 185, 197, 203.
Penance, 198 ff.
Persecution, 2, 11, 62, 108, 193, 207 ff.
Persia, 29, 30, 145, 166.
Peter Damiani, 116, 118 f., 120, 124, 128,
132, 141, 191, 351, 373, 379.
Peter, St., 12, 17, 18, 20, 108.
Peter the Deacon, 16, 29.
Photius, 69 ff., 124 f., 126.
Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 148.
Pippin, 17, 246.
Pippin, Donation of, 48, 50, 246.
Plato, 176, 357.
Popes:
Alexander II, 11, 132, 133, 135.
Alexander III, 301, 302.
Benedict III, 68.
Benedict IX, 82 f., 119, 120,
Boniface III, 29.
Boniface IV, 29.
Boniface VIII, 266, 269, 285, 290, 291 ff.,
317 f., 350 f., 359, 362, 367, 374.
Calixtus 11, 141.
Calixtus III, 142.
Celestine III, 254.
Celestine V, 359.
Clement II, 119.
Clement III, 156.
Clement IV, 235, 264 f.
Clement V, 295 ff., 357 f., 362, 374.
Damasus, 13.
Eugenius III, 190, 249.
Formosus, 79.
Gregory I (the Great), 4, 8, 13, 14 ff.,
22, 33, 89,97, 299, 373-
Gregory II, 11, 34, 38 ff.
Gregory III, 46, 47.
Gregory V, 84.
Gregory VII (Hildebrand), 83, 119 ff.,
128 ff., 132 f., 13s ff., 141, 143, 149,
254, 302, 374 f, 379.
Gregory IX, 162, 210, 224, 227, 257 ff.
Gregory X, 287 ff.
Hadrian I, 47, 51 f.
Hadrian II, 72, 103.
Hadrian IV, 99, 182, 249 ff., 326, 366.
Honorius I, 29 f.
Honorius III, 256 f.
Innocent II, 182, 281.
Innocent III, 158, 159, 161, 191, 193,
223, 253, 254 ff, 270, 276, 312 ff.,
322, 380.
Innocent IV, 168, 260 ff., 270.
John VIII, 104.
John XII, 80 f.
John XIII, 81.
Leo I (the Great), 21, 22, 32, 41, 201.
Leo III, 52, S3 f., 59.
Martin IV, 290.
Nicholas I (the Great), 67, 70.
Nicholas III, 362.
Stephen II, 48 f.
Stephen VI, 79.
Stephen IX, 138.
Sylvester II (Gerbert), 82, 105, 177.
Urban II, 141, 142, 150, 281, 305 f.
Zacharias, 47, 48, 80.
Ravenna, 19, 20 f., 28, 39, 48, 50, 95, 351.
Realism, 176 f.
Reformation, the, 269, 271.
Relics, 17 f., 36, 159, 185, 347, 377.
Robert Guiscard, 123, 141.
Roman people, their hatred of Germans,
81, 119, 24s f., 252, 267.
Romans, Kings of, 135, 256, 260, 286 f.
390
INDEX
Rome:
a sacred city, ii, 12, 14, 83, 108.
beautified, 30.
climate of, 246, 252.
deserted, 13.
dread of secular powers, 84 f., 246 fF.,
258, 263.
Patriarchate of, see Patriarchates,
pilgrimage to, 14, 83, 292.
regions of Rome, 23 f., 107, no f.
sacked, 141, 335.
taken by barbarians, 252, 371.
temporal power, 40 flF., 46, 51, 95 f.,
24s f.
Saladin, 155 f.
Schism between East and West, 70 f.,
124 f., 288.
Scholasticism, 229, 237.
Schoolmen, 231 f., 378 f.
Schools, no, 231, 238 f.
Scotland, 98, 316, 322 fF.
Sicilian Vespers, 266, 290, 369.
Simony, 83, 120 f , 136, 350, 363.
Spiritual Franciscans, 226.
Temporal power, see Papacy.
Tome of Leo, 32, 41.
Turks, 146, 150, 151;, 160, 162, 170.
Tusculum, Courts of, 79 f.
Universals, 176.
Universities, 238 fF., 283, 321.
Walter the Penniless, 150.
West Saxons, conversion of, 29.
William of Champeaux, 174, 179, 238,
297.
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