Chapter II: The Hierarchy, the Clergy and the Monks (1)

§ 82. THE PAPACY AND THE CAROLINGIANS.

The Christianizing of the German world was in great part accomplished without the help of Rome. Hence the German churches, even those that were Catholic, troubled themselves little at first about the papal chair. The Visigoth church in Spain was most completely estranged from it. The Saracen invasion of A.D. 711 cut off all possibility of intercourse with Rome. Even the free Christian states in Spain down to the 11th century had no connection with Rome. The Frankish churches, too, in Gaul as well as in Austrasia, throve and ran wild in their independence during the Merovingian age. On the other hand, the relation of the English Church to Rome was and continued to be very intimate. Numerous pilgrimages of Anglo-Saxons of higher and lower ranks were undertaken to the grave of the chief of the Apostles, and increased the dependence of the nation on the chair of St. Peter. For the support of these pilgrims and as a training school for English clergy, the _Schola Saxonica_ was founded in the 8th century, and for its maintenance and that of the holy places in the city, on Peter’s day the 29th June was collected the so-called Peter’s pence, a penny for every house. Out of this sprang a standing impost on all the English people for the papal chair, which in the 13th century became a money tax upon the kings of England which Henry VIII. was the first to repudiate in A.D. 1532. The credit belongs to the Anglo-Saxons and especially to Boniface of not only delivering the rich sheaves of their missionary harvest into the granaries of Rome, but also of organizing the previously existing churches of the Frankish territories after the Romish method and rendering them obedient to the Roman see. Since then there has been such a regular intercourse between the pope and the Carolingian rulers that it absorbed almost completely the whole diplomatic activity of the Romish curia.

§ 82.1. =The Period of the Founding of the States of the
Church.=--From bequests and presents of ancient times the
Roman chair succeeded to an immense landed property, _Patrimonium
S. Petri_, which afforded it the means of greatly assuaging the
distress of the inhabitants of Italy during the disturbances
of the migrations of the peoples. There was naturally then no
word of the exercise of sovereign rights. From the time of the
restoration of the Byzantine exarchate in A.D. 567 (§ 76, 7) the
political importance of the pope grew immensely; its continued
existence was often dependent on the good will of the pope for
whom generally indeed the idea of becoming the court patriarch
of a Longobard-Roman emperor was not an enticing one. But the
pope could not prevent the Longobard power (§ 76, 8) from gaining
ground in the north as well as in the south of the peninsula. An
important increase of influence, power and prestige was brought
to the papal chair under =Gregory II.=, A.D. 715-731, through
the rebellions in northern and central Italy occasioned by the
Byzantine iconoclastic disputes. Rome was in this way raised
to a kind of political suzerainty not only over the Roman duchy
but also over the rest of the exarchate in the north--Ravenna
and the neighbouring cities together with Venice (§ 66, 1).
=Gregory III.=, A.D. 731-741, hard pressed by Luitprand the
Longobard, thrice (A.D. 739, 740) applied for help to the Frank
=Charles Martel=, who, closely bound in friendship with Luitprand,
his ally against the Saracens, sent some clerics to Italy to
secure a peaceful arrangement. Gregory’s successor =Zacharias=,
A.D. 741-752, sanctioned by his apostolic judgment the setting
aside of the Merovingian sham king Childeric III., whereupon
=Pepin the Short=, in A.D. 752, assumed the royal title with
the royal power which he had long possessed. The next elected
pope called Stephen died before consecration, consequently his
successor of the same name is usually designated =Stephen II.=,
A.D. 752-757. The Longobard Aistulf had in A.D. 751 conquered
Ravenna and the cities connected with it. Pope Stephen II. sought
help anew of the Frankish king and supported his petition by
forwarding an autograph letter of the Apostle Peter, in which
he exhorted the king of the Franks as his adopted son under
peril of all the pains of hell to save Rome and the Roman church.
He himself at Pepin’s invitation went to France. At Ponthion,
where, in A.D. 754, the king greeted him, Pepin promised the
pope to restore to Rome her former possessions and to give
protection against further inroads of the Longobards; while the
pope imparted to the king and his two sons Charles and Carloman
the kingly anointing in the church of St. Dionysius or Denis
in Paris. At Quiersy then Pepin took counsel with his sons and
the nobles of his kingdom about the fulfilling of his promise,
bound the Longobard king by oath in the year following after
a successful campaign to surrender the cities, properties and
privileges claimed by the pope, and assigned these in A.D. 755
as a present to St. Peter as their possessor from that time forth.
But scarcely had he retired with his army when Aistulf not only
refused all and any surrender, but broke in anew upon Roman
territory, robbing and laying waste on every side. By a second
campaign, however, in A.D. 756, Pepin compelled him actually
to deliver over the required cities in the provinces of Rome
and Ravenna the key of which he deposited with a deed of gift,
no longer extant, on the grave of St. Peter; while the pope,
transferring to Pepin the honorary title of Exarch of Ravenna,
decorated him with the insignia of a Roman patrician. When the
Byzantine envoys claimed Ravenna as their own property, Pepin
answered that the Franks had not shed their blood for the Greeks
but for St. Peter.--Aistulf’s death followed soon after this
and amid the struggles for the succession to the throne one of
the candidates, duke Desiderius of Tuscany, sought the powerful
support of the pope and promised him in return the surrender
of those cities of the eastern province of Ravenna which still
remained in the hands of the Longobards. The pope obtained
Pepin’s consent to this transaction, and Desiderius was
made king. But neither Stephen nor his successor Paul I.,
A.D. 757-767, could get him completely to fulfil his promise,
and new encroachments of the Longobards as well as new claims
of the pope intensified the bad feeling between them, which the
conciliation of Pepin, who died in A.D. 768 had not by any means
overcome.[227]

§ 82.2. After the death of Paul I. the nobles forced one of
their own order upon the Romans as pope under the name of
Constantine II. Another party with Longobard help appointed
a presbyter, Philip. The former maintained his ground for
thirteen months, but was then overthrown by a clerical party
and, with his eyes put out, was cast into the street. They now
united in the choice of =Stephen III.=, A.D. 768-772.--Desiderius
wished greatly to form a marriage connection with the Frankish
court, and found a zealous friend in Bertrada, the widow of Pepin.
When Stephen heard of it his wrath was unbounded, and he gave
unbridled expression to it in a letter which he sent to her sons
Charlemagne and Carloman. Referring to the fact that the devil
had already in Paradise by the persuasion of a woman overthrown
the first man and with him the whole race, he characterized this
plan as _propria diabolica immissio_, declared that any idea
of a connection by marriage of the illustrious reigning family
of the Franks with the _fœtentissima Longobardorum gens_, from
which all vile infections proceed, was nothing short of madness,
etc. Not peace and friendship, but only war and enmity with this
robber of the patrimony of Peter would be becoming in the pious
kings of the Franks. He laid down this his exhortation at the
grave of Peter and performed over it a Mass. Whoever sets himself
to act contrary to it, on him will fall the anathema and with the
devil and all godless men he shall burn in everlasting flames;
but whosoever is obedient to it, shall be partaker of eternal
salvation and glory. Nevertheless Charles married Desiderata the
daughter of Desiderius, and Gisela, Charles’ sister, married the
son of Desiderius. But before a year had passed, in A.D. 771,
he wearied of the Longobard wife and sent her home. Soon after
this Carloman died. Charles seized upon the inheritance of his
youthful nephews, who together with their mother found shelter
with Desiderius. When =Hadrian I.=, A.D. 772-795, refused to give
the royal anointing to Carloman’s sons, Desiderius took from him
a great part of the States of the Church and threatened Rome. But
Charles hastened at the pope’s call to give him help, conquered
Pavia, shut up king Desiderius in the monastery of Corbei, and
joined Lombardy to the Frankish empire. Further information
as to what passed between him and Hadrian at Rome in A.D. 774
is only to be got from the _Vita Hadriani_ (§ 90, 6) written
during the reign of Louis of France. It relates as follows: At
the grave of Peter the pope earnestly exhorted him to fulfil
at last completely the promise which his father Pepin I. with
his own consent and that of the Frankish nobles gave to pope
Stephen II. at Quiersy in A.D. 754. Charles after reading over
the document referred to agreed to everything promised therein,
and produced a new deed of gift after the style (_ad instar_)
of the old, undertaking to transfer to the Roman church
a territorial possession which, together with the assumed
_Promissio_ of Pepin described with geographical precision,
embraced almost all Italy, excepting Lombardy but including
Corsica, Venice and Istria. It is now quite inconceivable that
Charles, let alone Pepin, should have given the pope such an
immense territory which Pepin for a simple footing in A.D. 754,
and Charles for at least three-fourths of it, must have first
themselves conquered. Moreover this account of the matter is
directly contradicted by the statement of all the witnesses of
Pepin’s own times. On the part of the Franks the continuator of
the Chronicler Fredégar, on the part of the Romans the biographer
of Stephen II. in the _Liber pontificalis_ and that pope himself
in his letters to Pepin, all speak of the negociations between
the king and the pope as having reference simply to Rome and
Ravenna. And since all attempts to reconcile these contradictions
by exegetical devices have failed, we can only regard this
as a fiction designed to palm off upon Louis of France Rome’s
own ambitious territorial scheme. All that Charlemagne did was
to confirm and renew his father’s gifts, as Hadrian himself
distinctly states: _Amplius_ (=further, _i.e._ for time to
come) _confirmavit_.--Moreover Pepin, and still more Charlemagne,
would hardly have granted to the holy father by his gift
absolute sovereignty over the States of the Church thus founded.
By conferring the patriciate upon the two Frankish princes,
the pope, indeed, himself acknowledged that the suzerainty
now belonged to them which formerly the Byzantine emperor
had exercised by his viceroy, the exarch of Ravenna. A more
exact definition of these rights, however, may have been first
given when Charles was crowned emperor, his imperial authority
undoubtedly extending over the Papal States. The pope as a
temporal prince was his vassal and must himself, like all
citizens of Rome, take the oath of allegiance to the emperor.
Judicial authority and the appointment of government officials
belonged to him; but they were supervised and controlled by
the Frankish ambassadors, _Missi dominici_, who heard appeals
and complaints of all kinds and were authorized to give a final
judgment.

§ 82.3. =Charlemagne and Leo III.=--Hadrian I. was succeeded by
=Leo III.=, A.D. 795-816. During a solemn procession in A.D. 799
he was murderously attacked by the nephews of his predecessor
and severely beaten. Some of the bystanders declared that they
had seen the bandits tear out his tongue and eyes. The legend
vouched for by the pope himself was added that Peter by a miracle
restored him both the next night. Leo meanwhile escaped from
his tormentors and fled to Charlemagne. His opponents accused
him before the king of perjury and adultery, and the hearing of
witnesses seems to have confirmed the serious charges, for Alcuin
hastened to burn the report which was given in to him on the
subject. But the pope was honourably discharged and assumed again
the chair of Peter under the protection of a Frankish guard.
Next year Charles crossed the Alps with his army for a campaign
against Benevento. He convened a Synod at Rome; but the bishops
maintained that the pope, the head of all, can be judged of none;
yet the pope with twelve sponsors swore an oath of purgation and
prayed for his accusers. At the Christmas festival Charles went
to the church of St. Peter. At the close of Mass the pope amid
the applause of the people placed a beautiful golden crown upon
his head (A.D. 800). The world is asked to believe that he did
it by the immediate impulse of a divine inspiration; but it was
the result of the negociations of years and the fulfilment of
a promise by which the pope had purchased the king’s protection
against his enemies. With the idea of the imperial power
Charlemagne connected the idea of a theocratic Christian
universal monarchy in the sense of Daniel’s prophecy. The
Greeks had proved themselves unworthy of this position and
so God had transferred it to the king of the Franks. As emperor,
Charles stands at the head of all Christendom, and has only
God and His law over him. He is the most obedient son, the most
devoted servant of the church, so far as it is the vehicle and
dispenser of salvation; but he is its supreme lord and ruler so
far as it needs to adopt earthly forms and an earthly government.
Church and state are two separate domains, which, however, on all
sides limit and condition one another. Their uniting head they
have in the person of the emperor. Hence on every hand Charles’
legislation enters the domain of the church, in respect of her
constitution, worship and doctrine. On these matters he consults
the bishops and synods, but he confirms, enlarges and modifies
their decisions according to his own way of thinking, because for
this he is personally answerable to God. In the pope he honours
the successor of Peter and the spiritual head of the church;
but, because the emperor stands over church and state, he is also
ruler of the pope. The pope who gave him imperial consecration
did it not by any power of his own immanent in the papacy, but
by special divine impulse and authority. Hence the crowning
of the emperor is only to be once received at the pope’s hand.
This rank is henceforth hereditary in the house of Charles, and
only the emperor can beget and nominate the new emperor. The
unity of the empire is to be maintained under all circumstances,
and hence, contrary to the Frankish custom of dividing the
inheritance, younger sons are to receive only the subordinate
rank of ruling princes.[228]

§ 82.4. =Louis the Pious and the Popes of his
Time.=--Charlemagne’s weaker son Louis the Pious, A.D. 814-840,
was not in a position to carry out the work his father had begun.
But pious as Louis was, he was yet as little inclined as his
immediate successor to give up the imperial suzerainty over
the city and chair of St. Peter. The popes were most expressly
required before receiving papal consecration to obtain imperial
confirmation of their election. Leo’s successor =Stephen IV.=,
A.D. 816-817, seems indeed to have evaded it, yet still he let
the Romans take the oath of fealty to the emperor, and unasked
submitted to make a journey over the Alps in order to get over
the anomaly of an emperor without the consecration of Peter’s
hand. An agreement come to on that occasion, A.D. 816, between
emperor and pope has not been preserved. A few days after
his return the pope died. The newly-elected =Paschalis I.=,
A.D. 817-824, also indeed mounted the papal chair without
imperial confirmation, but apologized by an embassy on the ground
that he had been unwillingly obliged to act so, and praying for a
continuation of the agreement made with his predecessor, to which
the emperor consented. Indeed, according to a diploma of A.D. 817,
extant only in a transcript, bearing the name of Louis, the
king was to bestow upon the papal chair, besides what Pepin and
Charlemagne had given, Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, and many
estates in Calabria and Naples. There was also an undertaking
that only after having been consecrated should any newly-elected
pope interchange friendly greetings with the emperor. All copies
of this document can be traced back to a collection of imperial
grants to the Romish church of the 11th century. At its basis
there lay probably a genuine document, but it has been variously
altered in the interests of the high church party.--Some years
later, after he had decoyed to France and blinded his illegitimate
nephew Bernard, who had as reigning prince in Italy rebelled
against the law of succession passed in A.D. 817, Louis sent his
son Lothair into Italy to quiet the tumults there, and the pope
availed himself of this opportunity to crown the prince already
crowned by his father as co-emperor. But scarcely had Lothair
got over the Alps again when two of the most distinguished and
zealous of the Frankish partisans were in A.D. 823 blinded and
beheaded in the papal palace. Before the imperial commission
the pope took an oath of purgation, to which 34 bishops and
5 presbyters joined with him in swearing, but bluntly refused
to deliver up the perpetrator of the deed. As the pope died soon
afterwards, Lothair was sent a second time to Rome, in order
to enforce once and for all upon his successor =Eugenius II.=,
A.D. 824-827, the observance of imperial rights. The result of
their conference was the so-called _Constitutio Romano_, by which
the election of the pope (§ 46, 11) was taken from the common
people and given to the clergy and nobles, but the consecration
was made dependent on the emperor’s confirmation and an oath
of homage from the newly-elected pope (A.D. 824). Nevertheless
his successor Valentine was elected and consecrated without any
reference to the constitution. He died, however, after six months,
and now the Frankish party came forward so energetically that
the new pope =Gregory IV.=, A.D. 827-844, was obliged to submit
in all particulars to the requirements of the law. But soon
after political troubles arose in the Frankish kingdom which
could not fail to contribute to the endeavours of the papacy
after emancipation. From his weak preference for his younger
son, Charles the Bald, born of a second marriage, Louis was
led in A.D. 829 to set aside the law of succession he himself
had issued in A.D. 817. The sons thus disinherited rebelled with
the assistance of the most distinguished Frankish prelates, at
whose head was Wala, abbot of Old Corbie, cousin of Charlemagne,
and the bishops Agobard of Lyons, Ebo of Rheims, etc., as
assertors of the unity of the empire. Also pope Gregory IV.,
whose predecessors had sanctioned the law of succession now set
aside, was won over and was taken across the Alps by Lothair to
strengthen his cause by the weight of his apostolic authority.
The pope threatened with the ban those bishops who remained true
to the old emperor and had obeyed his summons to attend the diet.
But they answered the pope that he had no authority in the empire
of the Franks, and that if he did not quietly take himself over
the Alps again they would excommunicate him. He was inclined to
yield, but Wala’s counsel restrained him. He answered the bishops
earnestly and moderately, and, as a last attempt at conciliation,
went himself personally to the camp of the emperor, but was
unable to effect anything. But next morning Louis had no army;
during the night most of his soldiers had passed over to the camp
of his enemy. The emperor now had to surrender himself prisoner
to his son Lothair, then at a diet at Compiègne in A.D. 833,
to do humble penance in church and to resign the government. His
penitent son, Louis the German, however, set him free in A.D. 834.
A severe judgment was now passed upon the confederate prelates at
the Diedenhosen in A.D. 835. But the brothers continued constantly
at war with one another, and Louis the Pious did not live to see
the end of it.

§ 82.5. =The Sons of Louis the Pious and the Popes of their
Days.=--The Treaty of Verdun, A.D. 843, put an end to the bitter
war between the sons of Louis the Pious, and made of the western
empire three independent groups of states under Lothair, Louis
the German and Charles the Bald. Lothair I., who got the title
of Emperor with Italy and a strip of land between Neustria and
Austrasia, died in A.D. 855. Of his sons, Louis II. inherited
Italy with title of Emperor, Lothair II. the province called
after him Lotharingia, _Lotharii regnum_, and Charles Burgundy
and Provence. Lothair and Charles died in A.D. 869 soon after one
another without heirs, and before the emperor Louis II. could lay
his hands upon their territories they were seized by the uncle.
By the treaty of Mersen, A.D. 870, Charles took the Romanic, and
Louis the German took the German portions. Thus was completed
the partition of the Carolingian empire into three parts
distinguished as homogeneous groups of states by language
and nationality: Germany, France and Italy.--Gregory IV. had
survived the overthrow of the universal monarchy of Charlemagne.
His successor, =Sergius II.=, A.D. 844-847, did not observe
the obligations devolving on him by the _Constitutio Romana_.
But Lothair I. was not inclined to let pass this slight to
his imperial authority. His son Louis was sent into Italy with
a powerful army, and obliged the pope and the Romans to take
the oaths of fealty to his father with the promise not again to
consecrate a pope before they had the emperor’s consent. But the
next pope =Leo IV.=, A.D. 847-855, was also consecrated without
it, but excused himself from the circumstances of the age,
the pressure of the Saracens, while making humble professions
of most dutiful obedience. His successor =Benedict III.=,
A.D. 855-858, did not regard the imperial consent as necessary,
and the anti-pope set up by the French party could not maintain
his position.

§ 82.6. =The Legend of the Female Pope Joanna.=--Between Leo IV.
and Benedict III. is inserted an old legend of the pontificate
of a woman, the so-called female pope Joanna: A maiden from Mainz
went in man’s clothes with her lover to Athens, obtained there
great learning, then appeared at Rome as Joannes Anglicus,
was elected pope, but having become pregnant by one of her
chamberlains, was seized with labour pains in the midst of a
solemn procession and died soon after, having been pope under
the name of John VIII. for two years, five months and four days.
This story was widely credited from the 13th to the 17th century,
but its want of historical foundation is proved by the following
facts:

1. The immediate succession of Benedict III. to Leo. IV. has
contemporary testimony from the _Annales Bertiniani_ of
A.D. 855, also from a letter of Hincmar to Nicholas I.,
Benedict’s successor, as well as the inscription “Benedict”
and “Lothair,” on a Roman denarius of the same year.

2. Neither Photius nor Michael Cærularius, who certainly would
not have failed to make a handle of such a papal scandal
(§ 67), know anything of the matter.

3. The first certain trace of the existence of such a legend
is found about A.D. 1230 in Stephen of Bourbon, yet there
indeed the words are added: _Ut dicitur in chronicis_; but
he makes the female pope mount St. Peter’s chair only about
A.D. 1100, knows neither her name nor her native country,
and describes the catastrophe of her overthrow differently
from the legend current in later times.

4. On the other hand, the existence of her biography in the
_Liber pontificalis_ between that of Leo IV. and that of
Benedict III., was regarded down to the 17th century as
the oldest and indeed almost contemporary witness to the
historicity of the female pope. It is wanting, however, in
the oldest and best MSS. and must therefore be considered
a later interpolation. This also applies to the reference
made thereto by Marianus Sectus (d. A.D. 1086), Sigbert of
Semblours (d. A.D. 1113), Otto of Friesingen (d. A.D. 1158),
and Godfrey of Viterbo (about A.D. 1190). Even in the oldest
MSS. of the Chronicle of the Roman penitentiary Martinus
Polonus (d. A.D. 1278) we read nothing of the female pope;
yet the story must soon have been inserted there, for
Tolomeo of Lucca about A.D. 1312 affirms in his Church
History, that all writers whom he had read, with the single
exception of Martin, made Benedict III. follow immediately
after Leo IV. Perhaps Martin himself in a second enlarged
edition of his chronicle had inserted a biography of the
female pope, which he might do with the less hesitation
if it was true that the pope of his own time John XX.,
A.D. 1276-1277, thought it wrong not to count the female
pope and so styled himself John XXI. From that time all
chroniclers of the Middle Ages without the slightest
expression of doubt repeated the legend in essentially the
same way as Martin’s chronicle and the _Liber pontificalis_
report it. The Reformed theologian, David Blondel, in
A.D. 1649, performed a service to the Catholic church
by his elaborate critical treatment of the legend which
destroyed all belief in its historicity. After this, however,
it was again vindicated by Spanheim (_Opp._ ii. 577) and
Kist; and even Hase regards it as still conceivable that
the church which has affirmed the existence of things that
never were, may have denied the existence of things that
were, if the knowledge of it might prove hazardous to the
interests of the papacy.

The origin and gradual development of the legend, about the
middle of the 12th century and certainly in Rome, may be most
simply explained with Döllinger from a combination of the
following data.

1. From the time of Paschalis II. in A.D. 1099 it was customary
for the new pope in the solemn Lateran procession when
having his entrance on office attested to sit upon two
old chairs standing in the Lateran with pierced seats,
which probably came from an old Roman bath. But the popular
wit of the Romans suggested another reason for the pierced
seats. The chairs were thus pierced in order that before the
consecration a deacon might satisfy himself of the manhood
of the new pope; for, it would be added by and by, a woman
in disguise was once made pope, etc.

2. In a street of Rome was found a statue in white robes with
a child and an enigmatical inscription, the letter P six
times repeated which some read: _Parce pater patrum papissæ
prodere partum_, others: _Papa pater patrum peperit papissa
papellum_; so that this statue was supposed to represent the
female pope with her child.

3. Further the papal processions between the Lateran and the
Vatican at a point where the direct way was too narrow were
wont to diverge into another wider street; this was done, it
was now said, because at this place the catastrophe referred
to had befallen the female pope.

4. That the name Joannes was given to the female pope is easily
explained from the frequency of this name among the popes.
In A.D. 1024 it had been already held by nineteen. And that
she who had brought such a disgrace upon the papacy should
have been described as a native of the German city of Mainz,
is explained from national antipathy entertained by the
Italians for everything German.

5. Finally, the most difficult part of the problem, why this
episode should have been inserted just between Leo IV. and
Benedict III., may perhaps find satisfactory solution in the
supposition that the legend may have been first introduced
as an appendix to a codex of the _Liber ponficalis_ which
closed with the biography of Leo IV.[229]

§ 82.7. =Nicholas I. and Hadrian II.=--The successor of
Benedict III., =Nicholas I.=, A.D. 858-867, was chosen with
the personal concurrence of the emperor Louis II. then in
Rome. This pope was undoubtedly the greatest of all the popes
between Gregory I. and Gregory VII. He was a man of inflexible
determination, clear insight and subtle intellect, who, favoured
by the political movement of the age, supported by public opinion
which regarded him as a second Elijah, and finally backed up in
his endeavours after papal supremacy by the Isidorian collection
of decretals just now brought forward (§ 87, 2), could give
prestige and glory to the struggle for law, truth and discipline.
Among the many battles of his life none brought him more credit
and renown than that with Lothair II. of Lothringia. That
he might marry his mistress Waldrade, Lothair accused his
wife Thielberga of committing incest before her marriage with
her brother, abbot Hucbert, and of having obtained abortion
to conceal her wickedness. Before a civil tribunal she was in
A.D. 858 acquitted by submitting to a divine ordeal, the boiling
caldron ordeal which a servant undertook for her. But Lothair
treated her so badly that at last, in order simply to be rid of
her tormentors, she confessed herself guilty of the crime charged
against her before a Synod at Aachen in A.D. 859 attended by the
two Lothringian metropolitans Günther of Cologne and Thietgaut
of Treves, and expressed the wish that she should atone for
her sins in a cloister. But soon she regretted this step and
fled to Charles the Bald in Neustria. A second Synod at Aachen
in A.D. 860 now declared the marriage with Thielberga null,
and Lothair formally married Waldrade. Meanwhile the Neustria
metropolitan Hincmar of Rheims had published an opinion in
respect of civil and ecclesiastical law (_De divortio Lotharii_)
wholly favourable to the ill-used queen, and she herself had
referred the matter to the pope. Nicholas sent two Italian
bishops, one of whom was Rhodoald of Porto (§ 67, 1), to
Lothringia to investigate the affair. These took bribes and
decided at the Synod of Metz in A.D. 863 in favour of the
king. But Nicholas annulled the decisions of the Council,
excommunicated his legates and deposed the two Lothringian
metropolitans who had vainly trusted to the omnipotence of
Lothringian gold in Rome. Thirsting for revenge they incited
the emperor Louis II., Lothair’s brother, against the pope.
He besieged Rome, but came to an understanding with the pope
through his wife’s mediation. Lothair, detested by his subjects,
threatened with war by his uncles Louis of Germany and Charles
the Bald as champions of the childless Thielberga, repented and
besought the pope for grace and protection from the ambitious
designs of his uncles. Nicholas now sent a legate, Arsenius,
across the Alps, who acting as plenipotentiary in all three
kingdoms, obliged Lothair to take back Thielberga and put away
Waldrade. But she flung herself upon him and in her arms Lothair
soon forgot the promise to which he had sworn. At the same time
he reconciled himself to his uncles whose zeal had somewhat
cooled in presence of the lordly conduct of the papal legate.
Thielberga now herself sought divorce from the pope. But Nicholas
continued firmly to insist upon his demands. His successor
=Hadrian II.=, A.D. 867-872, an old man of seventy-five years,
could only gradually emancipate himself from the imperial party
which had elected him and taken him under its protection. He
received back again the two excommunicated metropolitans, without,
however, restoring them to their offices, released Waldrade
from church discipline, and always put off granting Thielberga’s
reiterated request for divorce. Lothair now went himself to
Rome, took a solemn oath that he had no carnal intercourse with
Waldrade since the restoration of his wife, and received the
sacrament from the pope’s hand. Full of hope that he would get
success in his object he started for home, but died at Piacenza
of a violent fever in A.D. 869. When dead the uncles pounced
upon the kingdom. Hadrian used all his influence in favour of
the emperor, the legitimate heir, and threatened his opponents
with excommunication. But Hincmar of Rheims composed a state
paper by order of his king, in which he told the pope that the
opinion of France was that he should not interfere with things
about which he knew nothing. The pope was obliged to let this
insult pass unrevenged. In a dispute of his own Hincmar succeeded
in giving the pope a second rebuff (§ 83, 2).[230]

§ 82.8. =John VIII. and his Successors.=--His successor
=John VIII.=, A.D. 872-882, was more successful than Hadrian
in bringing the Carolingian king to kneel at his footstool.
In the art of intrigue and in the perfidy, hypocrisy and
unconscionableness required therefor, he was, however, greatly
superior. He succeeded almost completely in freeing the papal
chair from the imperial authority. But he did so only to make it
a playball of the wildest party interests around his own hearth.
To his account mainly must be laid the unfathomable degradation
and debasement of the papacy during the 10th century. When the
emperor Louis II. died in A.D. 875, Louis the German, as elder
and full brother of his father, ought to have been his heir.
But the pope wished to show the world that the papal favour
could make a gift of the imperial crown to whomsoever it chose.
Accepting his invitation, Charles the Bald appeared in Rome and
was crowned by the pope on Christmas Day, A.D. 875. But he had
to pay dearly for the papal favour, by formally renouncing all
claims to the rights of superior over the States of the Church,
allow for the future absolute freedom in the election of popes,
and accept a papal representative and clerical primate for all
France and Germany. But not altogether satisfied with this,
the pope made the new emperor submit himself to a formal act
of election by the Lombards of Pavia, and in order to secure
the approval of his own nobles to his proceedings he even agreed
to give them the right of election. The Neustrian clergy, however,
with Hincmar at their head, offered a vigorous resistance and
at the first Synod at Pontion in A.D. 876 there were violent
altercations. The shameful compromise satisfied neither pope
nor emperor. In Rome a wild party faction gained ground against
the pope, and the Saracens pressed further and further into Italy.
From the emperor, who knew not how to keep back the advances of
the Normans in his own country, no help could be expected. Yet
he made hasty preparations, purchased a dishonourable peace
from the Normans, and crossed the Alps. But new troubles at
home imperiously called him back, and at the foot of Mount Cenis
in A.D. 877, he died in a miserable hut of poison administered
by his physician, a Jew. The pope got into yet greater straits
and made his position worse by further intrigues. Also his
negotiations with Byzantium in A.D. 879 involved him in yet
more serious troubles (§ 67, 1). He died in A.D. 882, apparently
by the hand of an assassin. A year before his death Charles
the Fat, the youngest son of Louis the German, had been crowned
emperor, and he, the least capable of all the Carolingian line,
by the choice of the Neustrian nobles, united once more all the
Frankish empire under his weak sceptre. Marinus, the successor
of John VIII., died after a single year’s pontificate. So
was it, too, with Hadrian III. And now the Romans, without
paying any heed to the impotent wrath of the emperor, elected
and consecrated =Stephen V.=, A.D. 885-891, as their pope. In
A.D. 857 the German nobles at last put an end to the despicable
rule of the fat Charles by passing an act of formal deposition.
They chose in his place Arnulf of Carinthia, a natural son of
Charles’ brother Carloman. Pope =Formosus=, A.D. 891-896, called
him to his assistance in A.D. 894, and crowned him emperor. But
he could not hold his ground in Italy and the opposition emperor
Lambert, a Longobard, had possession of the field. Formosus died
soon after Arnulf’s withdrawal. Boniface VI., who died after
fifteen days, was succeeded by =Stephen VI.= in A.D. 896. This
man, infected by Italian fanaticism, had the body of Formosus,
who had favoured the Germans, lifted from the grave, shamefully
abused and then thrown into the Tiber. The three following popes
reigned only a few weeks or months, and were either murdered
or driven away. John IX., A.D. 898-900, in order to pacify the
German party, honoured again the memory of Formosus.--Arnulf’s
tenure of the empire, however, had only been a short vain dream;
but in Germany during a trying period he wielded the sceptre
with power and dignity. When he died in A.D. 899, the German
nobles elected his seven-year-old son, Louis the Child. He
died in A.D. 911, and with him the dynasty of the Carolingians
in Germany became extinct. In France this line continued to
exist in pitiable impotence down to the death of Louis V. in
A.D. 987.--Continuation, § 96.

§ 82.9. =The Papacy and the Nationalities.=[231]--From the
time of Charlemagne the policy of the French kings was to
establish bishoprics on the frontiers of their territories
for Christianizing the neighbouring heathen countries, and
thereby securing their conquest, or, if this had been already
won, confirming it. The first part of this purpose the popes
could only approve and further, but just as decidedly they
opposed the second. There must be a reference to the chair
of Peter, that the pope may maintain and preserve as head of
the universal church the rights of nationalities. Each country
won to Christianity should be received into the organism of the
church with its national position unimpaired, and so under the
spiritual fatherhood of the pope there would be established
a Christian family of states, of which each member occupies
a position of perfect equality with the others. In this way
the interests of humanity, and at the same time, the selfish
interests of papal policy, were secured. This policy was
therefore directed to the emancipating as soon as possible
the newly founded national churches from the supremacy of the
German clergy and giving them an independent national church
organization under bishops and archbishops of their own.

§ 83. THE RANK OF METROPOLITAN.[232]

The position of metropolitan was not regarded with equal favour in the German church and in the German state. Amid the variety of races the metropolitans represented the unity of the national church, as the pope did that of the universal church, while at the same time as an estate of the empire they exercised great influence on civil administration and foreign policy. The reigning princes recognised in the unity of the ecclesiastical administration of the country a support and security for the political unity and therefore opposed the partition of the national church into several metropolitanates, or, where the larger extension of the empire required several archbishoprics, wished rather to give the ablest of these the rank and authority of a primate. The popes on the other hand endeavoured to give each of the larger countries at least two or three metropolitans, and to prevent as far as possible the appointment of a national church primate; for in the unity of the national church they perceived the danger of such a prelate sooner or later giving way to the desire to emancipate himself from Rome and secure for himself the position of an independent patriarch.

§ 83.1. =The Position of Metropolitans in General.=--As
representing the unity of the national churches the interests
of the metropolitans were bound up with those of the ruling
princes. They were the most vigorous supporters of their policy,
and generally got in return the prince’s hearty support. This
coalition of the metropolitans and the civil power, however,
threatened the subordinate clergy with abject servitude, and
drove them to champion the interests of the pope. Through
pressure of circumstances, a widespread conspiracy of bishops
and abbots was formed during the last years of Louis the Pious
to emancipate the clergy and especially the episcopate from
the dominion of the state and the metropolitans and to place
them immediately under the papal jurisdiction. They founded upon
the Isidorian decretals as showing their rights in the earliest
times (§ 87, 2). Their endeavour met indeed powerful opposition,
but the statements of the Pseudo-Isidore had now obtained the
validity of canon law.

§ 83.2. =Hincmar of Rheims.=--Among the =French= prelates
after the restoration of the order of metropolitans by Boniface
the first place was held by the occupant of the see of Rheims.
It reached the summit of its glory under Hincmar of Rheims,
A.D. 845-882, the ablest of all the ecclesiastical leaders of
France. His life consists of an uninterrupted series of battles
of the most varied kind. The first fight in which he engaged was
the predestination controversy of Gottschalk (§ 91, 5). But his
strength did not lie in dogmatics but in church government. And
here, every inch a metropolitan, he has fought the most glorious
battles of his life and affirmed, against the assumptions of
popes and emancipation efforts of bishops, the autonomy of
reigning princes, the freedom and independence of national
churches, and the jurisdiction of metropolitans. Of this sort
was his contest with bishop Rothad of Soissons. Hincmar had
deposed him in A.D. 861 for insubordination. Rothad appealed to
pope Nicholas I. on the ground of the Sardican Canon (§ 46, 3),
which, however, had never been accepted in the Frankish Empire.
He had at the same time referred the pope to the Isidorian
decretals. Thus supported, Nicholas after a hard struggle had
Rothad reinstated in A.D. 865. The insolent defiance of his
own nephew, Hincmar, bishop of Laon, led the archbishop into
another obstinate fight. Here too the Isidorian decretals played
a prominent part. Hadrian II. in A.D. 869 took the side of the
nephew, but the metropolitan gained the victory, and the nephew,
who defied the king as well as the metropolitan and moreover had
entered into treasonable communication with the German court,
ended his course by being deprived of his eyes by the king. Down
to A.D. 875 Hincmar was inflexibly true to the king as a pillar
of his policy and his throne. But when Charles the Bald in
that year paid down as purchase price for the imperial throne,
not only the autonomy of the empire but also the freedom of the
French church and the rights of the metropolitans, he was obliged
now to turn his weapons against him. Hincmar died in A.D. 882
in flight before the Normans. With him the glory of the French
archbishopric sank into its grave. The pseudo-Isidorian party
had triumphed, the bishops were emancipated from the government
of the princes of their country, but instead of this were often
surrendered to the rude caprice of secular nobles.

§ 83.3. =Metropolitans in other lands.=--The =English= princes
in the interests of the political unity of the Heptarchy for
a long time withstood the endeavours of the popes to place a
rival alongside of the archbishop of Canterbury. The action and
reaction of these opposing interests were particularly strong
in the time of Wilfrid (§ 78, 3), whom the Roman party had
appointed archbishop of York. Wilfrid was driven away and died
in A.D. 709 after an eventful life, without succeeding in taking
possession of the place to which he had been appointed. At last,
however, the pope reached his end. In A.D. 735 a Northumbrian
prince obtained a pallium, and after that the see of York got
an undisputed place alongside that of Canterbury.--In =Northern
Italy= there were metropolitan sees at Ravenna, Milan and
Aquileia which still made their old claims to self-government
(§ 46, 1). Sergius, the prelate of Ravenna, about A.D. 760,
thought it would be well out of the ruins of the exarchate to
found an ecclesiastical state after the model of that of Rome.
There was often opposition there to the Roman supremacy. On
this account the violent archbishop John of Ravenna, who was
also a defrauder of the church, suffered the most complete
humiliation from Nicholas I. in A.D. 861, in spite of the
emperor’s protection. The force of public opinion compelled
the emperor to abandon his protégé when excommunicated by the
pope. But during the pontificate of John VIII., Ausbert, prelate
of Milan (died A.D. 882), who kept true to the German party,
could defy papal anathema and deposition. His successor, however,
again acknowledged the papal supremacy.--In =Germany=, since
the time of Charlemagne, new metropolitan sees had been created
at Salzburg, Cologne, Treves and Hamburg-Bremen. Mainz, however,
still claimed the primacy and represented the unity of the German
church. The Isidorian forgery availed not here as in the land of
its birth to stop the contention of the archbishop. The German
metropolitanate to the advantage of the empire maintained its
rights untouched for centuries. Among the primates of Mainz
the most important by far was =Hatto I.=, A.D. 891-913. Even
under Arnulf (died A.D. 899), whose most trusted adviser he
was, he exercised a wide as well as wholesome influence on the
administration of the empire. It was still greater under Louis
the Child (died A.D. 911) whom he raised to the throne and for
whom he acted as regent. Conrad I. (§ 96, 1) also owed to him
his election as king of the Germans. In the internal affairs
of the German church, he directed and adjusted, organized and
ruled in this time of general upheaval with wonderful insight,
wisdom and energy, most conspicuously, and that too against
papal assumptions, at the great national synod of Tribur in
A.D. 895. The primate regarded it as a political axiom, that,
in order to conserve and advance the unity of the empire, the
particularism of the several races and the struggles of their
chiefs and princes for independence should be crushed. Owing to
the consistency and energy with which he carried out his idea,
he did indeed make many enemies. The stories of insidious perfidy
and bloody violence which have attached themselves to his memory
are to all appearance due to their calumnious hatred. His sudden
death probably gave rise to the legend that the devil fetched
him away and cast him into the mouth of Etna. To him, and not
to the much less important Hatto II., who died in A.D. 970, is
the other equally baseless legend of the Mäusethurm near Bingen
to be referred.--Continuation, § 97, 2.

§ 84. THE CLERGY IN GENERAL.[233]

The bishops subject to the archbishop were called diocesan bishops, or, as voting members of the Provincial Synod, suffragan bishops. The canonical election of bishops by the people and clergy was completely done away with in the German national church. Kings without opposition filled vacant bishoprics according to their own choice. Louis the Pious at the Synod of Aachen, in A.D. 817, restored canonical election by people and clergy, subject to the emperor’s confirmation, but his successors paid no attention to the law. Deposition was usually carried out by the Provincial and National Synods. The investiture of bishops with pastoral staff and marriage ring by the reigning prince is occasionally met with even in the Merovingian age and became general after the development of the benefice system in the 9th century. Out of the institution of bishops without dioceses, _Episcopi regionarii_, originally intended for missionary service, arose in all probability the institution of _Chorepiscopi_ which flourished especially in France during the 8th and 9th centuries. With the old _Chorepiscopi_ (§ 34, 2; § 45) they have nothing in common beyond the name. They were subordinate assistants of the diocesan bishops, whose convenience, unspirituality and often absence on state affairs demanded such substitutes. But by their arbitrary conduct and refractoriness they often gave great trouble to those bishops who had any care for their flock. A Synod at Paris, therefore, in A.D. 849, withdrew all authority from them. From that time they gradually sank out of view. The inferior clergy, taken generally from the serfs, stood mostly in slavish dependence on the bishop and often had not the barest necessaries of culture. Their appointment lay with the bishop, yet the founder of a church and his successors frequently retained the right of patronage in choosing their own officiating clergymen.[234] Especially in the later Merovingian and earlier Carolingian periods, the Frankish clergy, superior and inferior, had become terribly corrupt. Boniface was the first to reintroduce some sort of discipline (§ 78, 5) and Charlemagne’s powerful government contributed in an extraordinary measure to the ennobling of the clergy. Yet the corruption was too general and too great to be altogether eradicated. Louis the Pious, therefore, in A.D. 816, extended to the whole kingdom a reformation which Chrodegang of Metz had introduced fifty years previously among his own clergy, by which means discipline and order were again improved for some decades. But in the troublous times of the last Carolingians everything went again into confusion and decay. Exemption from civil jurisdiction was accorded the clergy during this period only to this extent, that the secular courts could not proceed against a clergyman without the advice of the bishop, and the bishop himself was subject only to the jurisdiction of the king and the Provincial Synod.

§ 84.1. =The Superior Clergy.=--In the German states from
the earliest times the superior clergy constituted a spiritual
aristocracy which by means of their higher culture won a more
influential position in civil life than the secular nobles. In
all important affairs of state the bishops were the advisers of
the king; they were almost exclusively employed on embassies; on
all commissions there were clerical members and always one half
of the _Missi dominici_ were clerics. This nearness to the person
of the king and their importance in civil life made them rank as
one of the estates of the realm. The Frankish idea of immunity,
in consequence of which by royal gift along with the rights of
territorial lords there were handed over to the new proprietors
also the princely right of levying taxes and administering
justice, brought to them secular as well as spiritual jurisdiction
over a great part of the land. As the court of the Frankish
king was moved from place to place, he required a special court,
chapel, with a numerous court-clergy, at the head of which was
an Arch-chaplain, usually the most distinguished prelate in
the land. The names _Capella_ and _Capellani_ were originally
applied only to court chapels and court chaplains, and were
derived from the fact that in the chapel was kept the _Cappa_
or coat of Martin of Tours as a precious relic and the national
palladium of France. The court clergy formed the nursery for
future bishops of the realm. In addition to the ring and staff
as episcopal insignia we find in the Carolingian age the bishop’s
cap, consisting of two long sheets of tin or pasteboard running
up to a peak, covered with silk of the same colour as the dress
used in celebrating mass, generally richly ornamented with gold
and precious stones, called by the old pagan name _Infula_ or
_Mitra_.[235]

§ 84.2. =The Inferior Clergy.=--The enormous expansion of
episcopal dioceses rendered a new arrangement of the =inferior
clergy= indispensable. The extension churches in towns and the
country churches which previously had been served by the clergy
of the cathedral church, obtained a regular clergy of their
own. As these churches were always dedicated to a saint they
were called _Tituli_, and the clergy appointed to officiate in
them, _Intitulati_, _Incardinati_, _Cardinales_. Thus originated
the idea of _Parochia_, παροικία and of _Parochus_ or parish
priest,[236] who, because the _cura animarum_ was committed to
him was also called Curate, as in the French curé. Over about
ten parishes was placed an _Archipresbyter ruralis_ who was
called _Decanus_, Dean. As the right of administering baptism
belonged originally to him exclusively, his church was called
_Ecclesia baptisimalis_; his diocese, _Christianitas_ or _Plebs_;
he himself also, _Plebanus_. A further arrangement was first
introduced in the 8th century by Heddo of Strasburg [Strassburg],
who gave to each of the deans in his diocese seven archdeacons,
_præpositi_, provosts. Besides the parish churches there were
many chapels or oratories where divine service was conducted
only at certain times by the neighbouring parish clergy or
chaplains appointed for that purpose. To this class also belong
the domestic chapels in episcopal residences or on the estates
of noblemen which were served by special domestic or castle
chaplains. The latter indeed had in addition the duty of feeding
the dogs, waiting at table and taking charge of the lady’s pony.
Notwithstanding repeated reinforcement of the old law: _Ne quis
vage ordinetur_, there was still a great number of so-called
_Clericis vagis_, mostly vagabonds and idlers, who, ordained by
unprincipled bishops for a reward, roamed over the country like
clerical pedlars.