Chapter II: The Hierarchy, the Clergy and the Monks (2)

§ 84.3. =Compulsory Celibacy= was stoutly resisted by the German
clergy. The inferior clergy were mostly married. At ordination
they were ordered indeed to separate from their wives and to
abstain from marital intercourse, but the promise was rarely
fulfilled. Among the unmarried clergy, fornication, adultery
and unnatural lust were prevalent. A bishop, Ulrich of Augsburg,
addressed to Nicholas I. a philippic against the law of celibacy
with fearless exposures of its evil consequences. The =moral
condition= of the clergy was generally speaking shockingly low.
Legacy hunting, forging of documents, simony and chaffering for
benefices were carried on in a shameless way. The lordly habits
of the bishops consisted in hunting, going about with dogs and
falcons, and in wild drunken revels. In the 7th century it was
the peculiar pleasure of the Frankish bishops in wild scenes
of blood that induced them to take part in the wars, and led
to their being afterwards obliged to fit out contingents for
the field at the cost of their ecclesiastical revenues. Pepin,
Charlemagne and Louis the Pious passed stringent laws against
these warlike habits of churchmen; but the later Carolingians
not only tolerated but actually encouraged them.

§ 84.4. =Canonical life.=--Augustine’s institution of a
_monasterii Clericorum_ (§ 45, 1) was often imitated in later
times. But bishop =Chrodegang of Metz=, who died in A.D. 766,
gave it for the first time, about A.D. 760, a fixed and permanent
form. His rule or _Canon_ is closely connected with the monastic
rule of St. Benedict (§ 85), with the omission of the vow of
poverty. He built a commodious residence Domus, _monasterium_
(comp. Germ. words Dom and Münster), in which all the clergy of
his cathedral church were obliged to live, pray, work, eat and
sleep under the constant and strict supervision of the bishop
or his archdeacon. This was the _Vita canonica_. After morning
devotions all the members of the establishment gathered together
in the hall where the bishop or provost read to them a chapter
from the Bible, most frequently from Leviticus, from the rule or
from the fathers, and added thereto the necessary explanations
and exhortations. The hall was therefore called the Chapter House;
then the name =Chapter=[237] was given to the whole body gathered
together there. The =Colleges=[238] were a subsequent development
of the chapter in non-episcopal city churches, with a provost
or deacon at their head. Louis the Pious allowed Chrodegang’s
rule to be revived and generalized by the deacon Amalarius of
Metz, and at the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817 enforced
it for the whole kingdom. It is known as _Regula Aquisgranensis_.
But soon after the Canons endeavoured to emancipate themselves
more and more from the burdensome yoke of episcopal control.
Gunther of Cologne (§ 82, 7) who, though deposed by the pope,
retained his official position, was obliged to purchase the
support of his chapter by a bargain in accordance with which
a great part of the ecclesiastical revenues of the chapter were
placed at their own full disposal as Prebends or Benefices. And
what this one chapter gained for itself was afterwards contended
for by others.[239]--Continuation, § 97, 3.

§ 85. MONASTICISM.[240]

While from the 5th century one rush of migrating peoples was rapidly followed by another, the monkish orders fell into decay, barbarism and corruption. They would scarcely have survived this period of commotion, at least would not have proved the great blessing that they have been to the German west, had not the spirit of ancient Rome with its practical turn, its appreciation of law and order and its organizing talent, given them at the right time, what they hitherto wanted, a rule answering to the requirements and circumstances of the age, and by means of it firm footing, unity, order and legal form. This task was accomplished by =Benedict of Nursia= (d. A.D. 543), the patriarch of Western Monasticism. The rule, which he prescribed in A.D. 529 to the monks of the monastery of Monte Cassino in Campania founded by him, was not unduly ascetic, combined strict discipline with a certain degree of mildness and indulgence, estimated the needs of human nature as well as the circumstances of the times, and was, in short, adaptable and practical. From the rule of Cassiodorus (§ 47, 23) Benedict’s disciples borrowed that zeal for scholarly studies about which their master had given no directions, and Gregory the Great inspired the order with enthusiasm for missionary labours. Thus the Benedictine order obtained its full consecration to its calling of worldwide significance. Soon spreading over all the West, being introduced into France by Maurus in A.D. 543, it nobly fulfilled its vocation by cultivating the soil and the mind, by clearing the forests, bringing in waste lands, zealously preaching the gospel, rooting out superstition and paganism, educating the young, fostering and restoring literature, science and art. The barbarous age, however, which saw the overthrow of the Merovingians and the rise of the Carolingians, exerted a deteriorating influence also on the Benedictines. But Charlemagne restored strict discipline, and assigned to the monasteries the task of erecting schools and prosecuting scholarly studies. By authority of Louis the Pious and by order of the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817, =Benedict of Aniane= undertook a reformation and re-organization of all the monkish systems throughout the empire. At the head of a commission appointed for that purpose he visited all the Frankish monasteries, and compelled them to organize themselves after his improved Benedictine Rule.

§ 85.1. The one source of information regarding the life
of =Benedict of Nursia= is the miracle-laden record of the
miracle-loving pope Gregory the Great in the second book of
his Dialogues. Benedict’s =Rule= comprises 73 chapters. The
first principle of the monastic life is obedience to the Abbot,
as representative of Christ. The choice of abbot lies with the
brothers. Of serving brothers the rule knows nothing. The chief
occupation is agriculture. Idleness is strictly forbidden. Charge
of the kitchen and reading at table are duties performed by all
the monks in turn week about. Divine service begins at 3 a.m. and
is rendered regularly through all the seven hours (§ 56, 2). Two
meals a day are partaken of and each monk has daily half a bottle
of wine. Flesh meat is given only to the sick and weak. At table
and after the _Completorium_ or last hour of prayer, no word
was allowed to be spoken. All the brothers slept in a common
dormitory, each in a separate bed, but completely dressed and
girded, so as to be ready at call for matins. The discipline was
strict and reasonable; first private, then public rebuke, then
penal fasting, corporal punishment, and finally excommunication.
Hospitality and attention to the poor were enjoined on all
monasteries. Reception was preceded by a year’s novitiate.
The vow included _Stabilitas loci_, _Conversio morum_ (poverty
and chastity) and _Obedientia_. The _Oblati_ were a special kind
of novices, _i.e._ children who in their early youth were placed
in the monastery by their parents. They were educated in the
monastic schools and were not allowed to go back to the world.

§ 85.2. =Benedict of Aniane= (A.D. 821) was originally called
Witiza and was the son of a Visigoth count. He had served as
a soldier under Charlemagne. In attempting to save his brother
he was himself almost drowned. His ambition was now directed
to an ascetic life, in which his personal performances were
most remarkable. On the river Anianus in Languedoc he founded
in A.D. 779 the monastery of Aniane. He was the indispensable
and all-powerful counsellor of Louis the Pious. In order to have
him always near him, Louis founded for him the monastery of Inda
or the Cornelius-Münster near Aachen. In the interests of his
cloister reform he published in A.D. 817 a _Codex regulorum_ in
which he collected all the monastic rules previously known.

§ 85.3. The rule of the elder Benedict made no reference to
=Nunneries=; but his sister Scholastica is regarded as the
founder of the order of female Benedictines. Another form of
female asceticism was developed after the model of the canonical
life of the secular clergy in the institution of canonesses. The
rule, which Louis the Pious at Aachen in A.D. 816 allowed them
to draw up for themselves, is distinctly milder than that of
the nuns. The ladies’ orders gradually became places of resort
for the unmarried daughters of the nobles. The canonical age for
taking the nun’s vows was twenty-five. The novitiate lasted three
years. Besides the _propria professio_ the _paterna devotio_ was
also regarded as binding. In regard to dress the adoption of the
veil was the main thing; but in addition they wore the wreath as
a symbol of virginity and the ring as token of spiritual marriage.
At this time the cutting of the hair was only a punishment for
unchaste nuns. The honourable position of the wife among the
Germans secured special respect for the abbess, and obtained
for the most famous nunneries exemption, civil prerogatives and
proprietary, even princely rights. The frequent appearance of
=Double-Cloisters= where monks and nuns, naturally in separate
dwellings, under a common rule either of an abbess as often in
England, or of an abbot, was also peculiarly German.

§ 85.4. =The Greater Monasteries=, formed as they were of a vast
number of separate buildings for agriculture, cattle rearing,
handicraft and arts of all kinds, for elementary teaching, for
higher education, for hospitable entertainment, caring for the
sick, etc., came by and by to attain the proportions of little
towns. Frequently they were the centre around which cities were
raised. The monastery of Vivarium in Calabria, Cassiodorus’
foundation, inspired Western monasticism with an enthusiasm
for scholarly studies. The regulations of Monte Cassino were
extended to all monasteries of the West. Columbanus’ monastery
of Bobbio rooted out paganism and Arianism in northern Italy. The
monasteries of Iona in Scotland and Bangor in Ireland gained high
repute in the struggle of the Celtic church against the Roman.
The English monastery of Wearmouth was a famous school of science.
In France St. Denys near Paris and Old Corbei in Picardy gained
a high reputation. In South Germany St. Gall, Reichenau, Lorsch
and Hirschau, in Central Germany Fulda, Hersfeld and Fritzlar,
and in North Germany New Corbei, a branch from Old Corbei, were
main centres of Christian culture.

§ 85.5. In its new Western form also monasticism was still
without the clerical character. But there was an ever-increasing
tendency to draw the monastic and the clerical institutions
more and more closely together. By means of celibacy and
the introduction of the canonical life (§ 84, 4) the clergy
came to have the monkish character, and on the other hand,
most of the monks, in the first instance for monastic and
mission services, took clerical orders. By and by monks sought
appointments as curates (§ 84, 2), and thus rivalries arose
between them and the clergy. The monasteries were wholly under
the jurisdiction of the bishops in whose diocese they lay. The
exemptions of this period were limited to security for the free
election of the abbot, independent administration of property
and gratuitous performance of consecrations by the bishop. In
the Frankish empire, however, abbots were ordinarily appointed
to vacancies by the court, and rich abbeys were also often
bestowed upon distinguished noblemen _in commendam_, _i.e._,
for temporary administration with the enjoyment of their revenues,
or even to court and military officers as a reward for special
services. Such lay abbots or _abbacomites_ often stayed in the
monasteries for months with their families, their huntsmen and
their soldiers, and made them the scene of their drinking bouts,
their field sports and their military exercises. The kings
retained the richest abbacies to themselves or gave them to
their sons and daughters, wives and concubines.

§ 85.6. =The Stylites= (§ 44, 6) on account of the climate,
could gain no footing, though attempts were indeed made, _e.g._
by Wulflaich (§ 78, 3). In place of them we find male and female
recluses, =Reclusi= (_Inclusi_) and _Reclusæ_, who shut themselves
up in cells which they never quitted. =Hermits of the Woods=,
unfettered by any rules, found great favour among the Germans.
Their national melancholic temperament inclining them to solitude,
their strong love of nature, their passionate delight in roaming
unchecked through woods and mountains, contributed to make such a
mode of life attractive. It was during the 6th century that this
craze for hermit life reached its height in Germany, and its main
seat was in Auvergne with its wild mountains, glens and gorges.
But as the cell of the saint was often in later times developed
into a monastery on account of the crowds of disciples that
gathered round, the hermit life gradually passed over into a
regulated cœnobite life. In Switzerland Meinard, son of a count
of Zollern, was a hermit of this sort. In A.D. 861 he had been
murdered by two robbers, and this was afterwards discovered, the
legend says, by means of two ravens feeding upon the body of the
murdered man. His cell in later times grew into the beautiful
Benedictine abbey of Maria-Einsiedeln with its miracle-working
image of the mother of God, which at this day is visited by more
than a hundred thousand pilgrims yearly.

§ 86: THE PROPERTY OF CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES.

The inalienableness of church property being regarded as the first principle of its administration, it grew by enormous strides from year to year through donations and legacies, At the end of the 7th century there was in Gaul fully a third of the whole territory in the possession of the churches and monasteries, while the national exchequer was quite exhausted. In this emergency Charles Martel founded the benefice system, for which he also converted into money the abundant possessions of the church. His sons, however, Carloman and Pepin the Short, in consideration of the reorganization of the Frankish church effected by Boniface (§ 78, 5), sought to avert the impoverishment of many churches and cloisters by a partial restitution so far as the neediness of the times would allow. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious did still more in this direction, so that partly by these means, partly by the continued donations of rich people, church property soon acquired its earlier proportions. Thus, _e.g._, the monastery of Luxeuil had in the 9th century an estate with 15,000 farm-houses upon it.--The administration of the property of churches and monasteries lay in the hands of the bishops and abbots. For defending and maintaining secular and legal rights there were ecclesiastical and monastic advocates, _Advocati ecclesiæ_. This institution, however, often degenerated into an agency for oppressing the peasants and plundering the property of their clients; for many advocates assumed arbitrary powers and dealt with the property of the church and its proceeds just as they chose.

§ 86.1. =The Revenues of Churches and Monasteries.=--The main
sources of their growing wealth were donations and legacies.
Princes often made bequests of enormous magnitude and rich people
in private life vied with them. Occasions were never wanting;
restoration from sickness, escape from danger, the birth of
a child, etc., regularly won for the church whose patron saint
had been helpful, some valuable present. The clergy also used
all means in their power to encourage this prevailing readiness
to bestow presents; and to this must in great measure be traced
the beginnings of the forging of deeds. A peculiar form for
bequeathing a gift was that of the _Precaria_, according to
which the giver retained to himself for his lifetime the use
of the goods which he gifted. Church property was farther greatly
increased by the personal possessions of the clergy and the
monks, which at the death of the former and at the _conversio_
of the latter usually became part of the revenue of the church
or cloister to which their owners belonged. Besides the proceeds
of its own estates the church drew the tithes of all property
and incomes of parishioners, the claim being enforced as a _jus
divinum_ by a reference to the Mosaic legislation and made a
law of the empire by the injunction of Charlemagne. On the other
hand the clergy were forbidden to exact payment for discharge
of official duties, so called stole-dues, because they were
performed by the priest dressed in the _stola_. The cathedral
church was entitled to an annual tax, _Honor cathedræ_, levied
upon all the churches of the diocese. The inferior clergy, on the
other hand, often arrogated to themselves the right in accordance
with a bad custom of grasping by violent plunder the possessions
of their deceased bishop, _Spolium_.[241]

§ 86.2. =The Benefice System.=--In consequence of the vast
gifts of the Merovingians to the churches and their ministrants,
when Charles Martel assumed the government, the sources of crown
revenue that hitherto seemed inexhaustible were almost completely
dried up, while this prince, in order to deliver the country from
the Saracens and in order to maintain his rule over against the
innumerable petty tyrants who threatened to dismember the empire,
required a yet fuller treasury than any of his predecessors. Out
of these circumstances grew the =Benefice System=. The soldiers
who had served the nation and princes had been as before rewarded
by grants of lands. These, however, were no longer given as
hereditary possessions but only for the lifetime of the receiver
(_Beneficium_), and for this he was under obligation to supply
a proportionate contingent for military service. When the crown
lands had been well nigh exhausted, Charles Martel did not
hesitate to lay claim to the church property. His son Carloman
at the first Austrasian national Synod in A.D. 742 (§ 78, 5)
promised to restore the church property that had thus been
alienated, but had soon to confess his inability to perform his
promise. At the second Austrasian Synod at Lestines in A.D. 743
he therefore limited the immediate restitution to the most
pressing cases of notoriously poor and needy churches and
monasteries. He was driven to this by the absolutely needful
claims of the civil and military departments. But the claim
of the church to get back the property was secured by the
beneficiary giving a _Precarial_ letter and by the payment of
an annual tax of a solidus for every farm house on the estate.
The king also promised the full restoration on the death of
the beneficiary, with express retention, however, of the right,
if the needs of the times required it, to lease out again the
vacant _precariæ_. Even Pepin at the Neustrian national Synod
at Soissons in A.D. 744 granted similar concessions, but yet
in the execution of them did not go so far as his brother. In
A.D. 751 he caused a _descriptio et divisio_, _i.e._ an inventory
of church property with an exact fixing of the limits of its
various titles to be made.[242]--The annual tax referred to was
transformed by Charlemagne into a second tithe, the so-called
_Nonæ_. But even after the partial restitution effected by the
descendants of Pepin there still remained upon the restored
property the beneficial burdens that had been laid upon it,
especially the obligation to supply and equip a certain number
of soldiers, and this was thence transferred to the whole
property of the church.--The benefice system, originating
in the pressure of circumstances, continued to spread more
and more, and formed the foundation of the entire social and
civil organization of the Middle Ages.[243]

§ 87. ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION.

The construction of ecclesiastical legislation for the German empire was at first wholly the work of the Synods. The popes exerted scarcely any influence upon it, but all the more powerfully was felt the influence of the kings. They summoned the Synods, laid down to them the subjects to be discussed, and confirmed according to their own judgment their decisions. From the time that the Frankish bishoprics were filled by native Franks the independent life of the Synods was quenched, and ecclesiastical affairs were arranged at the national assemblies in which the bishops also took part as territorial nobles. The great national Synods, too, at which Boniface’s reorganization of the church in accordance with Roman ecclesiastical law as carried (§ 78, 5) were _Concilia mixta_ of this kind; and even under Charlemagne and Louis of France these were still prevalent. Charles, however, made their proceedings more orderly by grouping the nobles into three ranks as bishops, abbots and counts. Under the Pepin dynasty alongside of the synodal we have the royal decrees, arranged in separate chapters, and hence the ordinances are called _Capitularia_. Purely ecclesiastical Synods in later times again gained a footing and were particularly numerous in the times of Hincmar.

§ 87.1. =Older Collections of Ecclesiastical Law.=--Gregory II.
furnished Boniface with a _Codex canonum_, undoubtedly the
_Dionysiaca_ (§ 43, 3), and Hadrian II. presented Charlemagne
with one which was solemnly received at the National Synod of
Aachen in A.D. 802. There was in Spain a new collection which
was erroneously attributed to bishop Isidore of Seville, who to
distinguish him from the Frankish Pseudo-Isidore is designated
the genuine Isidore, or more correctly as _Hispana_. This
collection in form attaches itself to _Dionysiaca_. In the
9th century it was introduced among the Franks, and here gave
contents and name to the Pseudo-Isidorian collection. In close
connection with this masterpiece of forgery stands the collection
of laws by Benedictus Levita of Mainz, which was indeed called
a collection of capitularies, but was gathered mainly from
documents of ecclesiastical legislation, genuine and spurious. A
collection of true and genuine capitularies was made in A.D. 827
by Ansegis, Abbot of Fontenelles. Benedict’s collection was
included in it as 5th, 6th, and 7th books. Besides these large
collections many bishops prepared epitomized collections for
the use of their own dioceses, of which several are extant under
the name of _Capitula Episcoporum_. Decidedly in the interest
of the Pseudo-Isidore are the _Capitula Angilramni_, composed
and subscribed by bishop Angilramnus of Metz (d. A.D. 791). The
dates and contents of the three first-named collections were
determined in the interest of the Pseudo-Isidorian, and are still
a matter of controversy. Benedict, according to his own credible
statement, undertook his work at the command of the archbishop
Otgar, of Mainz, for the archives of Mainz, but completed and
published it probably in France only after Otgar’s death, which
occurred in A.D. 847. But while in earlier times it was generally
believed that Benedict had used the Pseudo-Isidore, Hinschius
has become convinced that the author of the capitula is identical
with the Pseudo-Isidore, and from Benedict’s capitularies has
unravelled first the composition of the capitula and then that
of the decretals.[244]

§ 87.2. =The Collection of Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore.=--In
the fiftieth year of the 9th century there appeared in France
under the name of Isidorus Mercator a collection of canons and
decretals, which indeed completely embraced the older so-called
_Isidoriana_, but was enlarged by the addition of a multitude
of forged decretals. The surname Mercator, otherwise Peccator,
is probably derived from the well known Marius Mercator
(§ 47, 20), who had also occupied himself with the translation
of ecclesiastical documents, which the Pseudo-Isidore used
for his work. It begins with the fifty _Canones Apostt._, then
follow fifty-nine forged decretals which are assigned to the
thirty oldest popes from Clement to Melchiades (d. A.D. 314).
The second part embraces, besides the original document of
the Donation of Constantine, genuine synodal decrees falsified
apparently only in one passage. The third part, again, contains
decretals of Sylvester, the successor of Melchiades, down to
Gregory II. (d. A.D. 731), of which thirty-five are not genuine.
The non-genuine decretals are for the most part not altogether
forgeries, but are rather based upon the literature of theology
and canon law then existing, amplified or altered, and wrought
up to serve the purposes of the compiler. The system of the
Pseudo-Isidore is characterized by the following peculiarities:
Over the _Imperium_ is raised the _Sacerdotium_, ordained of
Christ to be governor and judge of the world. The unity and
head of the _Sacerdotium_ is represented by the pope. Bishops
are related to the pope as the other apostles were to Peter.
The metropolitan is only _primus inter pares_. Between the pope
and the bishops as an intermediate rank we have the primates or
patriarchs. This rank, however, belongs only to such metropolitan
sees as either were ordained to it by the apostles and their
successors, or to such sees in more recently converted lands
as were elevated to this position in consequence of the multitude
of bishops belonging to them. Provincial Synods should be held
only with the consent of the pope, their decrees become valid
only after receiving his confirmation, and all _causæ majores_,
especially all complaints against bishops, belong solely to
his own judicature. Priests are the _Familiares Dei_, the
_Spirituales_; the laity, on the other hand, are the _Carnales_.
No clergyman, least of all a bishop, may be taken before a
secular tribunal. A layman may not appear as an accuser against
a clergyman, and the Synods are enjoined to render charges
against a bishop as difficult as possible. An expelled bishop,
before the charges against him can be examined, must have been
fully restored (_Exceptio Spolii_). If the accused regards his
judges as _inimici_ or _suspecti_, he may appeal to be examined
before the pope. For the establishing of a charge at least
seventy-two witnesses are necessary, etc.

§ 87.3. The forgery originated in France, where it had been in
existence for some years before it was known in Rome, as appears
from the process against Rothad of Soissons (§ 83, 2). Rothad
first brought it to Rome in A.D. 864. Blondel and Kunst regard
Benedict Levita as its author. He first gave currency to the
forgery in his Collection of Capitularies. and so arouses
the suspicion that he is himself the forger. Philipps fathers
it upon Rothad of Soissons; Wasserschleben ascribes it to
archbishop Otgar of Mainz, who, as a prominent head of the
clerical conspiracy against Louis the Pious (§ 82, 4), would
have reason to defend himself against the judgment which would
befall conspirators. But this doom did not in any very special
manner threaten Otgar. On Louis’ restoration he was not sentenced
or deposed by any synod, but was without more ado received into
favour by the emperor. The Pseudo-Isidore’s hostile attitude
toward the chorepiscopi (§ 84), while gaining no footing in
Germany, certainly prevailed in France; and France, not Germany,
was the place where this collection first appeared between
A.D. 853 and 864. Since now, moreover, the prominence given
by the Pseudo-Isidore to the rank of primate may be regarded
as equally favourable to the see of Rheims as to that of Mainz,
Weizsäcker and v. Noorden have sought the original home of the
forgery in the diocese of Rheims, and point to Ebo, archbishop of
Rheims, Hincmar’s predecessor, as the forger. And Ebo certainly
stood in the front rank of the revolt referred to. Before him
Louis had specially to humble himself. He was therefore taken
prisoner immediately upon the emperor’s restoration, and deprived
of his office at the Synod of Didenhofen in A.D. 835 (§ 82, 4).
The emperor Lothair, indeed, restored him in A.D. 840, but
his position was still very insecure, as he had before a year
passed to save himself by flight on the approach of Charles
the Bald, and never again saw Rheims, which till Hincmar’s
elevation remained in the hands of chorepiscopi. The composition
of the collection, according to v. Noorden, belongs to the
period immediately preceding and lasting through his restitution.
Finally Hinschius regards Rheims as undoubtedly the scene
of the composition of these forgeries, but he cannot ascribe
them to Ebo because, according to his demonstration, Benedict’s
Pseudo-Isidore used as his authority only a collection completed
after A.D. 847, and by that time Ebo could not have the shadow
of a hope of restoration. But he also advances other weighty
considerations. Ebo himself had never attempted to make good
the claims which the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals would have
afforded him. If his own affairs had first led him to think
of forging decretals he must have foreseen that the extensive
studies necessary for such a work would have demanded many years
of laborious effort, and would be concluded much too late to
serve his purpose. It would, therefore, seem to him safer to
confine himself to what his immediately present circumstances
urgently required; whereas the actual Pseudo-Isidore, on the
contrary, puts in the mouths of the early popes, with no little
zeal and emphasis, a vast array of other exhortations and decrees
that seemed to him useful amid the troubles of that age for the
well being of the church and its ministers. Thus the whole work
assumes more of the character of a _pia fraus_ of a somewhat
high church cleric of that time than of a forgery devised in
the selfish interests of an individual. This much, however,
must be admitted, that the directions quoted about judicial
procedure against accused bishops exactly fit the case of Ebo.
As the first attempt to use the non-genuine decretals only found
in Pseudo-Isidore was made at the Synod of Soissons in A.D. 853,
by those clerics who had been ordained by Ebo after his deposition
but rejected by Hincmar, the final redaction and publication must
fall between A.D. 847 and 853. Langen fixes the date at A.D. 850,
and refers its authorship to Servatus Lupus (§ 90, 5). Nobody
then doubted their genuineness. Even Hincmar seems for a long
time to have had no doubts. But he decidedly repudiated their
legal authority in the Frankish church, and energetically opposed
them when they were sought to be enforced against the independence
of the church. Thus he could always refer to them where their
contentions agreed with his own, or, as in the case against his
nephew, where they supported his rights as primate, in order to
defeat his opponents with their own weapons. Subsequently however,
in A.D. 872, in a letter written in the name of his king to pope
Hadrian, he characterized them in contrast with the genuine and
valid decretals as _secus a quoquam compilata sive conficta_.
The Magdeburg Centuriators were the first conclusively to prove
them spurious. The Jesuit Turrianus, however, entered the lists
once more on their behalf. But the reformed theologian, David
Blondel, castigated so sharply and thoroughly this theological
unprincipledness, that even in the Roman Catholic church their
non-genuineness has been now since admitted.[245]

§ 87.4. Among the many spurious documents which the
Pseudo-Isidore included in his collection of ecclesiastical
laws, we find an =Edictum Constantini Imperatoris=. In the
first part of it, the so-called _Confessio_, Constantine makes
a confession of his faith, and relates in detail in what a
wonderful way he was converted to Christianity by pope Sylvester,
and cured of leprosy (§ 42, 1). Then in the second part, the
so-called _Donatio_, he confers upon the chair of Peter, with
recognition of its absolute primacy over all patriarchates of
the empire, imperial power, rank, honour, and insignia, as all
privileges and claims of imperial senators upon its clergy. In
order that the possessor of this gift may be able to all time to
maintain the dignity of his position, he gives him the Lateran
palace, transfers to him independent dominion over “_Romanam
urbem et omnes Italiæ seu_ (in Frankish Latin of the 8th and
9th centuries this means ‘as well as’) _occidentalium regionum
provincias, loca et civitates_” (therefore not merely Italy
but the whole West Roman empire); he removes his own imperial
residence to Byzantium, “_quoniam ubi principates Sacerdotum et
Christ. religionis Caput ab Imperatore cœlesti constitutum est,
justum non est, ut illic Imperator terrerum habeat potestatem_.”
In a letter of Hadrian I. to Charlemagne in A.D. 788, in which he
salutes the emperor as a second Constantine who is called upon by
God not only to restore to the apostolic chair the “_potestas in
his Hesperiæ partibus_,” which had been already assigned it by
the first Constantine, but also all later legacies and donations
“of various patricians and other God-fearing men,” which the
godless race of the Longobards in course of time tore from it,
we have the first hint at the idea of a _Donatio Constantini_.
The same pope, too, according to the _Vita Hadriani_ in the
Romish Pontifical, on the occasion of Charles’ visit to Rome
in A.D. 774 is said to have reclaimed from him an enormous grant
of land (§ 82, 2). It seemed therefore an extremely probable
supposition that assigned Rome as the place where this document
originated, and the period of the overthrow of the Longobard
empire, whether actually accomplished or on the eve of taking
place, as the date of its fabrication (§ 82, 1, 2). Against
this view, almost universally prevalent, quite recently Grauert
has advanced a vast array of powerful arguments, _e.g._, the
limitation of the _Donatio_ of Constantine to Italy which
is here suggested contradicts its own express statement. The
words of the letter of Hadrian referred to speak not of a
dominion =over= Italy, and which they could have read, “_in
has H. partes_,” but of a dominion in Italy which was founded
upon Constantine’s munificence and enlarged by many subsequent
presents. They do not, therefore, refer like the words of
the _Donatio_ to sovereign territorial authority, but to the
exceedingly wide-spread and rich property included in the
_Patrimonium Petri_ (§ 46, 10). The “potestas,” said to have
been assigned by Constantine to the Roman see, does not exceed
the authority which even according to the _Vita Sylvestri_ of
the Pontifical had been given by Constantine to that pope.--Thus
the donation document is met with first in the Pseudo-Isidore.
It was often afterwards referred to by the Frankish government.
By Rome, on the other hand, although even Nicholas I. was made
acquainted with the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals by Rothad, and
referred to them in A.D. 865, they are never used, either against
the Franks or against the Byzantines until, in A.D. 1053, we meet
an allusion to them in a letter from Leo IX. to the patriarch
Michael Cærularius (§ 67, 3). Grauert accounts for this by saying
that there were two recensions of Pseudo-Isidore, a shorter,
which had only the first part of the document, the so-called
_Confessio_; and a longer, which had also the _Donatio_, and
that Rothad took probably only the shorter one to Rome. From
these and other data adduced by Grauert it seems more than
probable that the foundry in which the document was forged
was not in Rome, but rather in France among the high church
party there, from which also the full-fledged forgery
proceeded. It would also seem that a double purpose was
served by its composition. On the one hand, over against the
Greeks it represented the chair of Peter as raised above all
the patriarchates of the empire, and the Western empire as a
thoroughly legitimate one transferred by Constantine the Great
to the pope, and then by him to the kings of the Franks. And,
on the other hand, it also made it clear to the Frankish princes
that all temporal power in the West essentially, and from of old,
belonged to the pope, and is bestowed upon them by means of their
coronation by the pope’s hands.--That from the time when they met
with the document unto the 11th century the Byzantines did not
contest its genuineness, need not surprise us when we consider
the uncritical character of the age. They would also be the less
disposed to do so as they could only thereby hope to win that
perfect equality in spiritual authority as well as in secular
rank with the Roman bishop which the fourth œcumenical council
had assigned to their patriarchal see. But while the Byzantines
may be regarded as inconsiderately incorporating this donation
of Constantine into their historical and legal books, blotting
out indeed the passages which seemed to them to favour the
pretensions of the pope to universal sovereignty, it is a
more difficult task to secure for it acceptance among Western
diplomatists. Even in A.D. 999 a state paper of Otto III.
describes it as a pure fiction. High church tendencies, however,
raised their standard also in the West during the 11th century
(§ 96, 4, 5). Indeed, even in A.D. 1152, an Arnoldist (§ 108, 7),
named Wetzel, wrote to the Emperor Frederick I.: “Their lies
and heretical fables are now so completely exploded that even
day-labourers and cow-men could prove to scholars their emptiness,
and the pope with his cardinals ventures not for shame to show
himself in the city of Rome.” The victory, however, of the papacy
over the Hohenstaufen gained currency for it again, and it was
the treatise of Laurentius Valla, “De falso credita et ementita
Constantini donatione declamatio,” which Ulrich von Hutten issued
in multitude from the press, gave it the death blow (§ 120, 1).
When, thereafter, even Baronius admitted the spuriousness of the
document, though assigning its fabrication to the Greeks, who
wished by it to prove that the Roman primacy was not of Christ
but from Constantine, it found no longer a vindicator even in the
Roman Catholic church.