Chapter IV: Theology and Its Battles (4)

§ 96.6. =The Papacy under the Control of Hildebrand,
A.D. 1057-1078.=--After Victor’s death the cardinals without
paying any regard to the imperial right, immediately elected
Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine, at that time abbot of Monte
Cassino, and Hildebrand travelled to Germany in order to
obtain the _post factum_ approval of the empress. =Stephen IX.=,
A.D. 1057-1058, for so Frederick styled himself, died before
Hildebrand’s return. The Tusculan party took advantage of
his absence to put forward as pope a partisan of their own,
Benedict X., A.D. 1058. But an embassy of Hildebrand’s to the
empress secured the succession to bishop Gerhard of Florence.
Benedict was obliged to withdraw, and Gerhard ascended the papal
throne as Nicholas II., A.D. 1058-1061. With him begins the
full development of Hildebrand’s greatness, and from this time,
A.D. 1059, when he became archdeacon of Rome, till he himself
mounted the papal chair, he was the moving spirit of the Romish
hierarchy. By his powerful genius in spite of all hindrances he
raised the papacy and the church to a height of power and glory
never attained unto before. He thus wrought on, systematically,
firmly, and irresistibly advancing toward a complete reformation
in ecclesiastical polity. Absolute freedom of the church from
the power and influence of the state, and in order to attain
this and make it sure, the dominion of the church over the
state, papal elections independent of any sort of temporal
influence, the complete uprooting of all simoniacal practices,
unrelenting strictness in dealing with the immorality of the
clergy, invariable enforcement of the law of celibacy, as the
most powerful means of emancipating the clergy from the world
and the state, filling the sacred offices with the most virtuous
and capable men, were some of the noble aims and achievements
of this reformation. Hildebrand sought the necessary secular
protection and aid for the carrying out of his plans among
the Normans. Nicholas II., on the basis of the donation of
Constantine, gave as a fief to their leader, Robert Guiscard
(§ 95, 1), the lordship of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, out of
which the Saracens had yet to be expelled, and exacted from him
the oath of a vassal, by which he bound himself to pay a yearly
tribute, to protect the papal chair against all encroachments
of its privileges, and above all to maintain the right of papal
elections by the “_meliores cardinales_.” Yet again, Nicholas,
when, at a later period, by the help of the Normans, he had
broken the power of the Tusculan nobles, issued a decree at
a Lateran synod at Rome, in A.D. 1059, by which papal elections
(§ 82, 4) were regulated anew. Of the two extant recensions
of this decree, which are distinguished as the papal and the
imperial, the former is now universally acknowledged to be
the more authentic form. According to it the election lies
exclusively with the Roman cardinal priests (§ 97, 1); to
the rest of the clergy as to the people there is left only
the right of acclamation, that brought no advantage, and to
the emperor, according to Boichorst, the right of concurrence
after the election and investiture, according to Granert, the
right of veto before the election. This decree, and not less
the league with the Normans, were open slights to the imperial
claims upon Italy and the papal chair. The empress therefore
convened about Easter, A.D. 1061, a council of German bishops, at
which Nicholas was deposed, and all his decisions were annulled.
Soon after the pope died. The Tusculan party, now joined with
the Germans under the Lombard chancellor Wibert, asked a new
pope from the empress. At the Council of Basel in A.D. 1061,
bishop Cadalus of Parma was appointed. He assumed the name
of Honorius II., A.D. 1061-1072. But Hildebrand had already
five weeks earlier in concert with the Margravine Beatrice
of Canossa, wholly on his own responsibility, chosen bishop
Anselm of Lucca, and had him consecrated as =Alexander II.=
A.D. 1061-1073. Honorius advanced to Rome, accompanied by
Wibert, and frequently in bloody conflicts conquered the
party of his opponent. Duke Godfrey the Bearded of Lorraine,
the husband of Beatrice, now appeared as mediator. He made
both popes retire to their dioceses and gave to the empress
the decision of the controversy. But meanwhile a catastrophe
occurred in Germany that led to the most important results.
Archbishop Anno of Cologne, standing at the head of a rising
of the princes, decoyed the young king of twelve years of age
on board a ship at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and took him
to Cologne. The regency and the conduct of government were
now transferred to the German bishops collectively, but lay
practically in the hands of Anno, who meanwhile, however,
since A.D. 1063, found himself obliged to share the power with
Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. At a council held at Augsburg
in A.D. 1062, Alexander was acknowledged as the true pope, but
Honorius by no means resigned his claims. With a small army
he advanced upon Rome in A.D. 1064, seized fort Leo, which
had been built and fortified by Leo IV. for defence against
the Saracens, entrenched himself in the castle of St. Angelo,
and repeatedly routed his opponent’s forces. But Hildebrand
reminded the Normans of their oath of fealty. At a council
held at Mantua in A.D. 1064 (or 1067?) Alexander was once
again acknowledged, and Honorius, whose party the council
sought in vain to break up by force of arms, was again deposed.
The proud, ambitious and self-seeking priest of Cologne had
meanwhile been obliged to transfer to his northern colleague,
Adalbert of Bremen, the further education and training of
the young king, who, though only fifteen years old was now
proclaimed of age in A.D. 1065, as =Henry IV.=, A.D. 1056-1106.
If the bishop of Cologne injured the disposition of the royal
youth by his excessive harshness and severity, the bishop of
Bremen did him irreparable damage by allowing him unrestrained
indulgence in his evil passions.

§ 96.7. =Gregory VII., A.D. 1073-1085.=--Hildebrand had at last
brought the papacy to such a height of power that he was able
now to put the finishing stroke to his own work in his own name,
and so now he mounted the chair of the chief of the apostles,
as Gregory VII., elected and enthroned by a disorderly mob. The
Lombard and German bishops appealed to the emperor to have the
election declared invalid. But he being on all sides threatened
with wars and revolution, thought it advisable to forego the
assertion of his rights and to win the favour of the pope by a
letter full of devotion and humility. At the Roman Fast Synod of
A.D. 1074, Gregory renewed the old law of celibacy and rendered
it more strict, deposed all married priests or those who got
office through simony, and pronounced their priestly acts
invalid. The lower clergy, who were generally married, violently
opposed the measure, but Gregory’s stronger will prevailed. Papal
legates visited all lands, and, supported by the people, insisted
upon the strict observance of the papal decree. At the next
fast synod in A.D. 1075, the pope began the contest against the
usual investiture of the higher clergy by the temporal princes,
with ring and staff as symbols of episcopal office. Whoever
should accept ecclesiastical office from the hand of a layman
was to be deposed, and any potentate who should give investiture
should be put under the ban of the church. Here too he thundered
his anathema against the counsellors of Henry who should meanwhile
prove guilty of the sale of ecclesiastical offices. Henry, whose
hands were fully occupied with the rebellious Saxons, at first
dismissed his counsellors, but after the close of the wars he
reinstated them, and quite ignored the papal prohibition of
investiture. Gregory had for a while quite enough to do in Italy.
Cencius, the head of the nobles opposed to reform, fell upon
him on Christmas, A.D. 1075, during Divine service, and made
him prisoner, but the Romans rescued him, and Cencius had to
take to flight. On New Year’s Day, A.D. 1076, there appeared at
the royal residence at Goslar a papal embassy which threatened
the king with excommunication and deposition should he not
immediately break off all relations with the counsellors under
the ban, and reform his own infamous life. The king burst out
in furious rage. He heaped insults upon the legates, and at
the Synod of Worms, on 24th January, had the pope formally
deposed as a perjured usurper of the papal chair, a tyrant,
an adulterer and a sorcerer. The Lombard bishops, too, gave
their consent to this decree (§ 97, 5). At the next Roman Fast
Synod on 22nd February, the pope placed all bishops who had
taken part in these proceedings under ban, and at the same time
solemnly excommunicated and deposed the king, and released all
his subjects from the obligation of their oaths of allegiance.
Moreover he had the king’s ambassadors, whose life he had
preserved from the fury of those present at the meeting of
synod by his personal interference, cast into prison, and
then in the most contemptuous manner led through the streets.
The papal ban made a deep impression upon the German people
and princes. One bishop after another gave in, the Saxons
raised a new revolt, and at the princes’ conference at Tribur,
in October, A.D. 1076, the pope was invited to come personally
to Augsburg on 2nd February, to meet and confer with the princes
about the affairs of the king. It was resolved that if Henry
did not succeed by 22nd February, the first anniversary of the
ban, to get it removed, he should for ever forfeit the crown,
but that meanwhile he should reside at Spires and continue in
the exercise of all royal prerogatives.

§ 96.8. It was for the pope’s advantage to have the business
settled upon German soil with the greatest possible publicity.
Therefore he scornfully refused the humble petition of the king
to send him absolution from Rome, and hastened his preparations
for travelling to Augsburg. But Henry went forth to meet him on
the way. Shortly before Christmas he escaped from Spires with
his wife and child, and in spite of a severe winter crossed Mount
Cenis. The Lombards protected him in defying the pretensions
of the pope. But Henry’s whole attention was now directed to
overturning the machinations of the hostile German princes.
So he suddenly appeared at Canossa, where Gregory was staying
with the Margravine Matilda, daughter of Beatrice, a princess
enthusiastically attached to him and his ideal. This meeting
was unexpected and undesired by the pope. There during the cold
winter days, from 25th to 27th January, A.D. 1077, stood the son
of Henry III. barefoot in the courtyard of the castle of Canossa,
wearing a sackcloth shirt, fasting all day and supplicating
access to the proud monk. With inflexible severity the pope
refused, until at last the tears, entreaties, and reproaches
of the margravine overcame his obduracy. Henry promised to
submit himself to the future judgment of the pope in regard
to his reconciliation with the German princes, and was absolved.
Nevertheless the princes at the Assembly at Forcheim in March,
with the concurrence of the papal legate, elected a new king in
the person of Rudolph of Swabia, Henry’s brother-in-law. Roused
to fury, Henry now hastened back to Germany, where soon he
gathered round him a great army. Notwithstanding all pressure
brought to bear upon him, Gregory maintained for three years a
position of neutrality, but at last, in A.D. 1080, at the Roman
Fast Synod, where the envoys of the contending kings presented
their complaints, he renewed the excommunication and deposition
of Henry. Then the bishops of Henry’s party immediately met
at Brixen, and hurled the anathema and pronounced sentence of
deposition against Gregory, and elected as anti-pope Wibert,
formerly chancellor, then archbishop of Ravenna, who assumed
the title of Clement III., A.D. 1080-1100. After the death of
Rudolph in battle, at Merseburg, in A.D. 1080, Henry marched
across the Alps and appeared at Pentecost before the gates
of Rome, which were opened to him after a three years’ siege.
Clement III. then at Easter, A.D. 1084, set upon him and his
queen the imperial crown. Gregory had withdrawn to the Castle
of St. Angelo. Henry, however, was compelled by the appearance
of a new rival for the crown, Henry, Count of Luxemburg, to
return to Germany, and Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke, hastened
from the south to deliver the pope, which he accomplished only
after Rome had been fearfully devastated. Gregory died in the
following year, A.D. 1085, at Salerno. Gregory VII. also took
the field against the dissolute and prodigal king of France,
Philip I., and threatened him, because of simony, with interdict
and deposition. His success here, however, was comparatively
small. Philip avowedly submitted to the papal decree, but did
not in the least alter his conduct, and Gregory felt that it was
not prudent to push matters to an extremity. He showed himself
more indulgent toward the powerful William the Conqueror of
England, although this prince ruled the church of his dominions
with an iron hand, pronounced all church property to be freehold,
and was scarcely less guilty of simony than the kings of Germany
and France. Yet the pope himself, who hoped to secure the aid
of his arms against Henry IV., and sought therefore to dazzle
him with the prospect of the imperial throne, winked at his
delinquencies, and loaded him with expressions of his good-will.
The primate of England, too, the powerful Conqueror’s right-hand
supporter, Lanfranc of Canterbury, who bore a grudge against
Gregory because of his patronage of the heretic Berengarius
[Berengar] (§ 101, 2), showed no special zeal for the reforms
advocated by the pope. At a synod held at Winchester in A.D. 1076,
the law of celibacy was enforced, with this limitation, however,
that those of the secular clergy who were already married should
not be required to put away their wives, but no further marriages
among them were to be permitted.[275]

§ 96.9. =The Central Idea in Gregory’s Policy= was the
establishment of a universal theocracy, with the pope as
its one visible head, the representative of Christ upon earth,
who as such stands over the powers of the world. Alongside of
it, indeed, the royal authority was to stand independently as
one ordained of God, but it was to confine itself strictly to
temporal affairs, and to be directed by the pope in regard to
whatever might be partly within and partly without these lines.
All states bearing the Christian name were to be bound together
as members of one body in the great papal theocracy which had
superior to it only God and His law. The princes must receive
consecration and Divine sanction from the spiritual power;
they are “by the grace of God,” not immediately, however, but
only mediately, the church as the middle term stands between
them and God. The pope is their arbiter and highest liege lord,
whose decisions they are under obligation unconditionally to
obey. Royalty stands related to the papacy as the moon to the
sun, from which she receives her light and warmth. The church,
which lends to the power of the world her Divine authority, can
also withdraw it again when it is being misused. When this is
done, the obligation of subjects to obey also ceases. Gregory
began this gigantic work, not so much to raise himself personally
to the utmost pinnacle of power, but rather to save the church
from destruction. He certainly was not free from ambition
and the lust of ruling, but with him higher than all personal
interests was the idea of the high vocation of the church,
and to the realizing of it he enthusiastically devoted all
the energies of his life. On the other hand, he cannot escape
the reproach of having striven with carnal weapons for what he
called a spiritual victory, of having meted out unequal measures,
where his interests demanded it, in the exercise of his assumed
function as judge of kings and princes, and of having occupied
himself more with political schemes and intrigues than with the
ministry of the church of Christ. His whole career shows him to
have been a man of great self reliance, yet, on the other hand,
he was able to preserve the consciousness of the poor sinner who
seeks and finds salvation only in the mercy of Christ. The strict
morality of his life has been admitted even by his bitterest
foes. Not infrequently too did he show himself in advance of
his time in humanity and liberality of sentiment, as _e.g._
in the Berengarian controversy (§ 101, 2), and in his decided
disapproval of the prosecution of witches and sorcerers.[276]

§ 96.10. =Victor III. and Urban II., A.D. 1086-1099.=--Gregory VII.
was succeeded by the talented abbot of Monte Cassino, Desiderius,
under the title of =Victor III.=, A.D. 1086-1087. Only after
great pressure was brought to bear upon him did he consent to
leave the cloister, which under his rule had flourished in a
remarkable manner; but now aged and sickly, he only enjoyed
the pontificate for sixteen months. His successor was bishop
Odo, of Ostia, a Frenchman by birth, and a member of the Clugny
brotherhood, who took the name of =Urban II.=, A.D. 1088-1099.
For a long time he was obliged to give up Rome to the party of
the imperial anti-pope. But the enthusiasm with which the idea
of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre was taken up, which he proposed
to Western Christendom at the Council of Clermont, in A.D. 1095
(§ 94), secured for him the highest position in his time, and
made him strong enough to withstand the opposition of Philip I.,
king of France, whom he had put under ban at Clermont, on
account of his adulterous connection with Bertrada. Returning
to Italy from his victorious campaign through France, he was
able to celebrate Christmas once again in the Lateran at Rome
in A.D. 1096. His main supporters in the conflict against the
emperor were the powerful Margravine Matilda, and the emperor’s
most dangerous opponent in Germany, duke Welf of Bavaria, whose
son of the same name, then in his seventeenth year, was married
by the pope to the widowed Matilda, who was now forty years of
age, whence arose the first of the anti-imperial and strongly
papistical Welf or Guelph party in Germany and Italy. On the
other side the margravine succeeded in stirring up Conrad,
the son of Henry IV., to rebel against his father, and had him
crowned king in A.D. 1087. At Cremona this prince held the pope’s
stirrup, and took the oath of obedience to him. The emperor had
him deposed in A.D. 1098, and had his second son elected and
crowned as Henry V. Urban, who received on his death-bed the
news of the destruction of Jerusalem, died in A.D. 1099, and
his anti-pope Clement III., who had withdrawn to Ravenna, died
in the following year.

§ 96.11. =Paschalis II., Gelasius II., and Calixtus II.,
A.D. 1099-1124.=--Urban’s successor, =Paschalis II.=,
A.D. 1099-1118, also a member of the Clugny brotherhood, at
once stirred up the fire of rebellion against the excommunicated
emperor, and favoured a conspiracy of the princes. The young
king, at the head of the insurgents, took his father prisoner,
and obliged him to abdicate in A.D. 1106. Six months afterwards
the emperor died. The church’s curse pursued even his corpse.
Twice interred in holy ground, first in the cathedral of Liège,
then in the cathedral of Spires, his bones were exhumed and
thrown into unconsecrated ground, until at last, in A.D. 1111,
his son obtained the withdrawal of the ban. At the Council
of Guastalla in A.D. 1106, Paschalis renewed the prohibition
of =Investiture=. But =Henry V.=, A.D. 1106-1125, concerned
himself as little about this prohibition as his father had done.
No sooner had he seated himself upon the throne in Germany than
he crossed the Alps to compel the pope to crown him emperor
and concede to him the right of investiture. The pope, who was
willing that the church should be poor if only she retained
her freedom, being now without counsel or help (for Matilda
was old and her warlike spirit was broken, and from the Normans
no assistance could be looked for), was driven in A.D. 1111, in
his perplexity to offer a compromise, whereby the emperor should
surrender investiture to the church, but on the other hand the
clergy should return to him all landed property and privileges
given them by the state since the times of Charlemagne, while
the Patrimony of Peter should continue the property of the
pope himself. On the basis of this agreement the coronation of
the emperor was to be celebrated in St. Peter’s on 12th Feb.,
A.D. 1111. But when after the celebration had begun the document
which set forth the compact was read, the prelates present in
the cathedral raised loud cries of dissent and demanded that it
should immediately be cancelled. The coronation was not proceeded
with, the pope and his cardinals were thrown into prison, and a
revolt of the Romans was suppressed. The pope was then compelled
to rescind the synodal decrees and formally to grant to the king
the right of investiture; he had also, after solemnly promising
never again to put the emperor under ban, to proceed with the
coronation. But Hildebrand’s party called the pope to account
for this betrayal of the church. A synod at Rome in A.D. 1112
declared the concessions wrung from him invalid, and pronounced
the ban against the emperor. The pope, however, remembering his
oaths, refused to confirm it, but it was nevertheless proclaimed
by his legate in the French and German synods. Matilda’s death
in A.D. 1115 called the emperor again to Italy. She had even in
the time of Gregory VII. made over all her goods and possessions
to the Roman Church; but she had the right of free disposal
only in regard to allodial property, not in regard to her feudal
territories. Henry, however, now laid claim to all her belongings.
At the Fast Synod of A.D. 1116 Paschalis asked pardon of God and
man for his sin of weakness, renewed and made more strict the
prohibition of investiture, but still stoutly refused to confirm
the ban of the emperor. In consequence of a rebellion of the
Romans he was obliged to take to flight, and he died in exile
in A.D. 1118. The high church party now chose =Gelasius II.=,
A.D. 1118-1119, but immediately after the election he was seized
by a second Cencius (see § 96, 7) on account of a private grudge,
fearfully maltreated and confined in chains within his castle.
The Romans indeed rescued him, but the emperor’s sudden arrival
in Rome led him, in order to avoid making inconvenient terms of
peace, to seek his own and the church’s safety in flight. The
people and nobles in concert with the emperor set up Gregory VIII.
as anti-pope. So soon as the emperor left Rome, Gelasius returned.
But Cencius fell upon him during Divine service, and only
with difficulty he escaped further maltreatment by flight
into France, where he died in the monastery of Clugny after a
pontificate of scarcely twelve months. The few cardinals present
at Clugny elected archbishop Guido of Vienne. He assumed the
title of =Calixtus II.=, A.D. 1119-1124. Pope and emperor met
together expressing desires for peace. But the auspiciously
begun negotiations never got beyond the statement of the terms
of contract, and ended in the pope renewing at the Council
of Rheims, in A.D. 1119, the anathema against the emperor and
anti-pope. Next year Calixtus crossed the Alps. He received
a hearty greeting in Rome. He laid siege to the anti-pope
in Sutri, took him prisoner, and after the most contumelious
treatment before the Roman mob, cast him into a monastic prison.
The investiture question, now better understood through learned
discussions on civil and ecclesiastical law, was at last
definitely settled in the =Worms Concordat=, as the result
of mutual concessions made at the National Assembly at Worms,
A.D. 1122. The arrangement come to was this: canonical election
of bishops and abbots of the empire by the diocesan clergy
and the secular nobles should be restored, and under imperial
inspection made free from all coercion, but in disputed elections
decisions should be given in accordance with the judgment of
the metropolitan and the rest of the bishops, the investing of
the elected with the sceptre in Germany before, in other parts
of the empire after, consecration, should belong to the emperor,
and investiture with ring and staff at the consecration should
belong to the pope. This agreement was solemnly ratified at the
=First Œcumenical Lateran Synod= in A.D. 1123.

§ 96.12. The contemporary =English Investiture Controversy=
was brought earlier to a conclusion. William the Conqueror had
unopposed put Norman prelates in the place of the English bishops,
and had homage rendered him by them, while they received from
him investiture with the ring and the staff. William Rufus, the
Conqueror’s son and successor, A.D. 1087-1100, a domineering and
greedy prince, after Lanfranc’s death in A.D. 1089 (§ 101, 1)
allowed the archbishopric of Canterbury to remain vacant for
four years, in order that he might himself enjoy the undisturbed
possession of the revenues. It was not till A.D. 1093, during
a severe illness and under fear of death, that he agreed to
bestow it upon Anselm, the celebrated Abbot of Bec (§ 101, 1, 3),
with the promise to abstain ever afterwards from simony. No
sooner had he recovered than he repented him of his promise.
He resumed his old practices, and even demanded of Anselm a
large sum for his appointment. For peace sake Anselm gave him
a voluntary present of money, but it did not satisfy the king.
When, in A.D. 1097, the archbishop asked permission to make a
journey to Rome in order to have the conflict settled there,
the king banished him. In Rome Anselm was honourably received
and his conduct was highly approved; but neither Urban II. nor
Paschalis II. could venture upon a complete breach with the
king. William the Conqueror’s third son, Henry I. Beauclerk,
A.D. 1100-1135, who, having also snatched Normandy from his
eldest brother Robert, needed the support of the clergy to
secure his position, agreed to the return of the exiled primate,
and promised to put a stop to every kind of simony; but he
demanded the maintenance of investiture and the oath of fealty
which Anselm now, in consequence of the decrees of a Roman
synod which he had himself agreed to, felt obliged to refuse.
Thus again the conflict was renewed. The king now confiscated
the goods and revenues of the see, and the archbishop was on the
point of issuing an excommunication against him, when at last an
understanding was come to in A.D. 1106, through the mediation of
the pope, according to which the crown gave up the investiture
with ring and staff, and the archbishop agreed to take the oath
of fealty.--In France, too, from the end of the 11th century,
owing to the pressure used by the high church reforming party,
the secular power was satisfied with securing the oath of
fealty from the higher clergy, without making further claim
to investiture.[277]

§ 96.13. =The Times of Lothair III. and Conrad III.,
A.D. 1125-1152.=--After the death of Henry V. without issue,
the Saxon =Lothair=, A.D. 1125-1137, was elected, and the
Hohenstaufen grandson of Henry IV. descended in the female
line was passed over. =Honorius II.=, A.D. 1124-1130, successor
of Calixtus II., hastened to confer the papal sanction upon
the newly elected emperor, who already upon his election had,
by accepting spiritual investiture before temporal investiture,
and a minimising of the oath of fealty by ecclesiastical
reservations, showed himself ready to support the claims
of the clergy. But neither ban nor the preaching of a crusade
against Count Roger II. of Sicily (§ 95, 1) could prevent him
from building up a powerful kingdom comprehending all Southern
Italy. The next election of the cardinals gives us two popes:
=Innocent II.=, A.D. 1130-1143, and Anacletus II., A.D. 1130-1138.
The latter, although not the pope of the majority, secured a
powerful support in the friendship of Roger II., whom he had
crowned king by his legate at Palermo. Innocent, on the other
hand, fled to France. There the two oracles of the age, the
abbot Peter of Clugny and Bernard of Clairvaux, took his side
and won for him the favour of all Cisalpine Europe. Both popes
fished for Lothair’s favour with the bait of the promise of
imperial coronation. A second edition of the Synod of Sutri
would probably have enabled a more powerful king to attain the
elevation of Henry III. But Lothair was not the man to seize the
opportunity. He decided in favour of the _protégé_ of Bernard,
led him back in A.D. 1133 to the eternal city, had himself
crowned emperor by him in the Lateran and invested with Matilda’s
inheritance, which was declared by the curialists a fief of
the empire. But Lothair’s repeated demands, that what had been
acquired by the Concordat of Worms should be renounced, were
set aside, through the opposition not so much of the pope as
of St. Bernard and St. Norbert (§ 98, 2). At the prayer of the
pope, who immediately after Lothair’s departure had been driven
out by Roger, and moved by the prophetic exhortations of Bernard,
the emperor prepared for a second Roman campaign in A.D. 1136.
Leaving the conquest of Rome to the eloquence of the prophet
of Clairvaux, he advanced from one victory to another until he
brought all Southern Italy under the imperial sway, and died on
his return homeward in an Alpine hut in the Tyrol. Fuming with
rage Roger now crossed over from Sicily and in a short time he
reconquered his southern provinces of Italy. The appointment,
however, of a new pope after the death of Anacletus miscarried,
and Innocent was able at the =Second Œcumenical Lateran Synod=
in A.D. 1139 to declare the schism at an end. The pope then
renewed the excommunication of Roger and pronounced an anathema
against the teachings of Arnold of Brescia (§ 108, 7), a young
enthusiastic priest of the school of Abælard, who traced all
ecclesiastical corruption back to the wealth of the church and
the secular power of the clergy. He next prepared himself for
war with Roger. That prince, however, waylaid him and had him
brought into his tent, where he and his sons cast themselves at
the holy father’s feet and begged for mercy and peace. The pope
could do nothing else than play the _rôle_ of the magnanimous
given him in this comedy. He had therefore to confirm the
hated Norman in the possession of the conquered provinces
as a hereditary monarchy with the ecclesiastical privilege
of a native legate, and, as some set off to comfort himself
with, the prince was to regard the territory as a fief of the
papal see. But still greater calamities befell this pope. The
republican freedom, which the cities of Tuscany and Lombardy
won during the 12th century, awakened also among the Romans
a love of liberty. They refused to render obedience in temporal
matters to the pope and established in the Capitol a popular
senate, which undertook the civil government in the name of
the Roman Commune. Innocent died during the revolution. His
successor =Cœlestine II.= held the pontificate for only five
months, and =Lucius II.=, after vainly opposing the Commune
for seven months, was killed by a stone thrown in a tumult.
=Eugenius III.=, A.D. 1145-1153, a scholar and friend of
St. Bernard, was obliged immediately after his election to
seek safety in flight. An agreement, however, was come to in
that same year: the pope acknowledged the government of the
Commune as legitimate, while it recognised his superiority and
granted to him the investiture of the senators. Yet, though
taken back three times to Rome, he could never remain there for
more than a few months. He visited France and Germany (Treves)
in A.D. 1147. In France he heard of the fall of Edessa. Supported
by the fiery zeal of Bernard, the summons to a second crusade
(§ 94, 2) aroused a burning enthusiasm throughout all the West.
But in Rome he was unable to offer any effectual resistance
to the demagogical preaching by which Arnold of Brescia from
A.D. 1146 had inflamed the people and the inferior clergy with
an ardent enthusiasm for his ideal constitution of an apostolic
church and a democratic state. Since this change of feeling
had taken place in Rome, both parties, that of the Capitol
as well as that of the Lateran, had repeatedly endeavoured
to win to their side the first Hohenstaufen on the German
throne, =Conrad III.=, A.D. 1138-1152, by promise of bestowing
the imperial crown. But Conrad, meanwhile otherwise occupied,
refrained from all intermeddling, and when at last he actually
started upon a journey to Rome death overtook him on the way.

§ 96.14. =The Times of Frederick I. and Henry VI.,
A.D. 1152-1190.=--The nephew and successor of Conrad III.,
=Frederick I. Barbarossa=, A.D. 1152-1190, began his reign with
the firm determination to realize fully the ideas of Charlemagne
(§ 82, 3) by his pope Paschalis III., whom at a later period,
in A.D. 1165, he had canonized. With profound contempt at heart
for the Roman democracy of his time, he concluded a compact
in A.D. 1153 with the papal see, which confirmed him in the
possession of the imperial crown and gave to the pope the
_Dominium temporale_ in the Church States. After the death
of Eugenius which soon followed, the aged =Anastasius IV.=
occupied the papal chair for a year and a half, a time of peace
and progress. He was succeeded by the powerful =Hadrian IV.=,
A.D. 1154-1159. He was an Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear, son
of a poor English priest, the first and, down to the present
time, the only one of that nation who attained the papal dignity.
He pronounced an interdict upon the Romans who had refused him
entrance into the inner part of the city and had treacherously
slain a cardinal. Rome endured this spiritual famine only for
a few weeks, and then purchased deliverance by the expulsion of
Arnold of Brescia, who soon thereafter fell into the hands of a
cardinal. He was indeed again rescued by force, but Frederick I.,
who had meanwhile in A.D. 1154 begun his first journey to
Rome, and on his way thither had humbled the proud Lombard
cities struggling for freedom, urged by the pope, insisted
that he should be surrendered up again, and subsequently gave
him over to the Roman city prefect, who, in A.D. 1155, without
trial or show of justice condemned him to be burnt and had
his ashes strewn upon the Tiber. In the camp at Sutri the pope
personally greeted the king who, after refusing for several days,
at length agreed to show him the customary honour of holding
his stirrup, doing it however with a very bad grace. Soon too
the senatorial ambassadors of the Roman people, who indulged in
bombastic, turgid declamation, presented themselves professing
their readiness on consideration of a solemn undertaking to
protect the Roman republic, and on payment of five thousand
pounds, to proclaim the German king from the Capitol Roman
emperor and ruler of the world. With a furious burst of anger
Frederick silenced them, and with scathing words showed them
how the witness of history pointed the contrast between their
miserable condition and the glory and dignity of the German name.
Yet on the day of the coronation, which they were not able to
prevent, the Romans took revenge for the insults he had heaped
upon them by an attack upon the papal residence in the castle
of Leo, and upon the imperial camp in front of the city, but
were repelled with sore loss. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 1155, the
emperor made preparations for returning home, leaving everything
else to the pope. The relations between the two became more
and more strained from day to day. The Lombards, too, once
again rebelled. Frederick therefore in A.D. 1158 made his second
expedition to Rome. On the Roncalian plains he held a great
assembly which laid down to the Lombards as well as to the pope
the imperial prerogatives. Hadrian would have given utterance to
his wrath by thundering an anathema, but he was restrained by the
hand of death.

§ 96.15. The cardinals of the hierarchical party elected
=Alexander III.=, A.D. 1159-1181, those of the imperial party,
Victor IV. A synod convened by the emperor at Pavia in A.D. 1160
decided in favour of Victor, who was now formally recognised.
Meanwhile Milan threw off the yoke that had been laid upon her.
After an almost two years’ siege the emperor took the city in
A.D. 1162 and razed it to the ground. From France whither he had
fled, Alexander, in A.D. 1163, launched his anathema against the
emperor and his pope. The latter died in A.D. 1164, and Frederick
had Paschalis III. († A.D. 1168) chosen his successor; but in
A.D. 1165, Alexander returning from France, pressed on in advance
of him and was acknowledged by the Roman senate. Now for the
third time in A.D. 1166, Frederick crossed the Alps. A small
detachment of troops that had been sent in advance to accompany
the imperial pope to Rome under the leadership of the archbishops
of Cologne and Mainz, in a bloody battle at Monte Porzio in
A.D. 1167 utterly destroyed a Roman army of twenty times its
size. Frederick then himself hasted forward. After an eight
days’ furious assault the fortress of Leo surrendered, and
Paschalis was able to perform the _Te Deum_ in St. Peter’s.
The Transtiberines, too, after Alexander had sought safety
in flight, soon took the oath of fealty to the emperor upon
a guarantee of imperial protection of their republic. But at
the very climax of his success “the fate of Sennacherib” befell
him. The Roman malaria during the hot August became a deadly
fever plague, thinned the lines of his army and forced him to
withdraw. So weakened was he that he could not even assert his
authority in Lombardy, but had to return to Germany in A.D. 1168.
The emperor’s disaster told also unfavourably upon the fortunes
of his pope, whose successor Calixtus III. was quite disregarded.
In A.D. 1174 Frederick again went down into Italy and engaged
upon a decisive battle with the confederate cities of Lombardy,
but in A.D. 1176 at Legnano he suffered a complete defeat,
in consequence of which he agreed at the Congress of Venice,
in A.D. 1177, to acknowledge the freedom of the Lombard
cities, abandoned the imperial claims upon Rome, and recognised
Alexander III., who was also present there, as the rightful
pope, kissing his feet and holding his stirrup according to
custom. Rome, which he had not seen for nearly eleven years,
would no longer shut her gates against the pope. Welcomed
by senate and people, he made his public entrance into the
Lateran in March A.D. 1178, where in the following year he
gathered together 300 bishops in the =Third Lateran Council=
(the 11th œcumenical), in order by their advice to heal the
wounds which the schism of the church had made. Here also,
in order to prevent double elections in time to come, it was
resolved that for a valid papal election two-thirds of the whole
college of cardinals must be agreed. The right of concurrence
assigned by the decree of Nicholas II. in A.D. 1059 to the people
and emperor was treated as antiquated and forgotten, and was not
even alluded to.

§ 96.16. Even before his victory over the powerful Hohenstaufen,
Alexander III. during his exile won a yet more brilliant success
in England. King Henry II., A.D. 1154-1189, wished to establish
again the supremacy of the state over church and clergy, and
thought that he would have a pliant tool in carrying out his
plans in =Thomas à Becket=, whom he made archbishop of Canterbury,
in A.D. 1162. But as primate of the English church, Thomas
proved a vigorous upholder of hierarchical principles. Instead
of the accommodating courtier, the king found the archbishop
immediately upon his consecration the bold asserter of the claims
of the church. The jovial man of the world became at once the
saintly ascetic. At a council at Tours in A.D. 1163, he returned
into the pope’s own hand the pallium with which an English
prince had invested him in name of the king, resigning also his
archiepiscopal dignity, that he might receive these directly as
a papal gift. Straightway began the conflict between the king
and his former favourite. Henry summoned a diet at Clarendon,
where he obtained the approval of the superior clergy for his
anti-hierarchical propositions; Thomas also for a time withstood,
promising at last, when urged on all sides, to assent to the
constitutions, but refusing to sign the document when it was
placed before him. The king now ordered a process of deposition
to be executed against him, and Thomas then fled to France,
where the pope was at that time residing. The pope released him
from his promise, condemned the Constitutions of Clarendon, and
threatened the king with anathema and interdict. At last, after
protracted negotiations, in A.D. 1170 by means of a personal
interview on the frontiers of Normandy, a reconciliation was
effected; by which, however, neither the king nor the archbishop
renounced their claims. Thomas now returned to England and
threatened with excommunication all bishops who should agree
to the Constitutions of Clarendon. Four knights seized upon an
unguarded word of the king which he had uttered in passion, and
murdered the archbishop at the altar in A.D. 1170. Alexander
canonized the martyr to Hildebrandism, and the king was so
sorely pressed by the pope, his own people and his rebellious
sons, that he consented to do penance humbly at the tomb of
his deadly sainted foe, and submitted to be scourged by the
monks. Becket’s bones, for which a special chapel was reared at
Canterbury, were visited by crowds of pilgrims until Henry VIII.,
when he had broken with Rome (§ 139, 4), formally arraigned
the saint as a traitor, had his name struck out of the calendar
and his ashes scattered to the winds.[278]--Thus by A.D. 1178
Alexander III. had risen to the summit of ecclesiastical power;
but in Rome itself as well as in the Church States, he remained
as powerless politically as before. Soon, therefore, after the
great council he again quitted the city for a voluntary exile,
and never saw it more. His three immediate successors, too,
=Lucius III.= († A.D. 1185), =Urban III.= († A.D. 1187), and
=Gregory VIII.= († A.D. 1187), were elected, consecrated and
buried outside of Rome. =Clement III.= († A.D. 1191) was the
first to enter the Lateran again in A.D. 1188, on the basis of
a compromise which acknowledged the republican constitution under
the papal superiority. Meanwhile Frederick I., without regarding
the protest of the pope as liege lord of the Sicilian crown, had
in A.D. 1186 consummated the fateful marriage of his son Henry
with Constance, the posthumous daughter of king Roger, and aunt
of his childless grandson William II. († A.D. 1194), and thus the
heiress of the great Norman kingdom of Italy. From the crusade
which he then undertook in A.D. 1189 Frederick never returned
(§ 94, 3). His successor, =Henry VI.=, A.D. 1190-1197, compelled
the new pope =Cœlestine III.=, A.D. 1191-1198, to crown him
emperor in A.D. 1191, conquered the inheritance of his wife,
pushed back the boundaries of the Church States to the very
gates of Rome, and asserted his imperial rights even over the
city of Rome itself. He pressed on to the realizing of the scheme
for making the German crown together with the imperial dignity
for ever hereditary in his house. The princes of the empire in
A.D. 1196 elected his son Frederick II., when scarcely two years
old, as king of the Romans. He then thought under the pretext
of a crusade to conquer Greece, to which he had laid groundless
claims of succession, but while upon the way his plans were
overthrown by his sudden death at Messina.

§ 96.17. =Innocent III., A.D. 1198-1216.=--After the death
of Alexander III. the power and reputation of the Holy See had
fallen into the lowest degradation. Then the cardinal deacon,
Lothair Count of Segni in Anagni, succeeded in A.D. 1198 in his
37th year, under the name of Innocent III., and raised the papacy
again to a height of power and glory never reached before. In
point of intellect and power of will he was not a whit behind
Gregory VII., while in culture (§ 102, 9), scholarship, subtlety
and adroitness he far excelled him. His piety, too, his moral
earnestness, his enthusiasm and devotion to the church and the
theocratical interest of the chair of St. Peter, were at least
as powerful and decidedly purer, deeper and more spiritual
than Gregory’s. And in addition to all these great endowments
he enjoyed an invariable good fortune which never forsook him.
His first task was the restoration of the Church States and
his political prestige in Rome. In both these directions he
was favoured by the sudden death of Henry VI. and the internal
disorders of the Capitoline government of that time. On the very
day of his enthronement the imperial prefect tendered him the
oath of fealty and the Capitol did homage to him as the superior.
And also before the second year had passed the Church States
in their fullest extent were restored by the expulsion of the
greater and smaller feudal lords who had been settled there
by Henry VI. Rome was indeed once more the scene of wild party
conflicts which forced the pope in A.D. 1203 to fly to Anagni.
He was able, however, to return in A.D. 1204 and to conclude
a definite and decisive peace with the Commune in A.D. 1205,
according to the terms of which the many-headed senate resigned,
and a single senator or podestà nominated by the pope was
entrusted with the executive authority. Meanwhile Innocent
had been gaining brilliant successes beyond the limits of the
States of the Church. These were won first of all in Sicily.
The widow of Henry VI. had her son Frederick of four years old,
after his father’s death, crowned king in Palermo. Unadvised
and helpless, pressed upon all sides, she sought protection
from Innocent, which he granted upon her renouncing the
ecclesiastical privileges previously claimed by the king
and making acknowledgment of the papal suzerainty. Dying in
A.D. 1198, Constance transferred to him the guardianship of her
son, and the pope justified the confidence placed in him by the
excellent and liberal education which he secured for his ward,
as well as by the zeal and success with which he restored rest
and peace to the land. In Germany, Philip of Swabia, Frederick’s
uncle, was appointed to carry on the government in the name
of his Sicilian nephew during his minority. The condition of
Germany, however, demanded the direct control of a firm and
vigorous ruler. The princes, therefore, insisted upon a new
election, for which Philip also now appeared as candidate. The
votes were split between two rivals; the Ghibellines voting
for Philip, A.D. 1198-1208, and the Guelph party for =Otto IV.=
of Brunswick, A.D. 1198-1218. The party of the latter referred
the decision to the pope. For three years he delayed giving
judgment, then he decided in favour of the Guelph, who paid
for the preference by granting all the demands of the pope,
and calling himself king by the grace of God and the pope. The
States of the Church were thus represented as including the Duchy
of Spoleto, and in the election of bishops the church was freed
from the influence of the state. By A.D. 1204, however, Philip’s
power and repute had risen to such a pitch that even the pope
found himself obliged to take into account the altered position
of matters. A papal court of arbitration at Rome to which both
claimants had agreed to submit, was on the point of giving its
decision unequivocally in favour of the Hohenstaufen, when the
murder of Philip by Otto of Wittelsbach, in A.D. 1208, rendered
it void. Otto IV. was now acknowledged by all, and in A.D. 1209
he was crowned by the pope after new concessions had been made.
But as Roman emperor he either would not or could not perform
what he had promised before and at his coronation. He took to
himself the possessions of Matilda as well as other parts of
the States of the Church, and was not prevented from pursuing
his victorious campaign in Southern Italy by the anathema which
Innocent thundered against him in A.D. 1210. Then Innocent called
to mind the old rights of his former pupil to the German crown,
and insisted that they should be given effect to. In A.D. 1212,
Frederick II., now in his eighteenth year, accepted the call, was
received in Germany with open arms, and was crowned in A.D. 1215
at Aachen. Otto could not maintain his position against him, and
so withdrew to his hereditary possessions, and died in A.D. 1218.

§ 96.18. King Philip Augustus II. of France, had in A.D. 1193
married the Danish princess Ingeborg, but divorced her in
A.D. 1196, and married the beautiful Duchess Agnes of Meran.
Innocent compelled him in A.D. 1200 to put her away by issuing
against him an interdict, but it was only in A.D. 1213 that
he again took back Ingeborg as his legitimate wife.--From far
off Spain the young king Peter of Arragon went in A.D. 1204 to
Rome, laid down his crown as a sacred gift upon the tomb of the
chief of the apostles, and voluntarily undertook the payment of
a yearly tribute to the Holy See. In the same year a crusading
army, by founding a Latin empire in Constantinople, brought
the schismatical East to the feet of the pope (§ 94, 4). In
England, when the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant,
the chapter filled it by electing their own superior Reginald.
This choice they had soon cause to rue. They therefore annulled
their election, and at the wish of the usurping king John
Lackland made choice of John, bishop of Norwich. Innocent
refused to confirm their action, and persuaded certain members
of the chapter staying in Rome to choose the cardinal priest
Stephen Langton, whose election he immediately confirmed.[279]
When the king refused to recognise this appointment, and on an
interdict being threatened swore that he would drive all priests
who should obey it out of the country, the pope issued it in
A.D. 1208 against all England, excommunicated the king, and
finally, in A.D. 1212, released all his subjects from their
oath of allegiance and deposed the monarch, while he commissioned
Philip Augustus of France to carry the sentence into effect.
John, now as cringing and terrified as before he had been proud
and despotic, humbled himself in the dust, and at Dover, in
A.D. 1213, placed kingdom and crown at the feet of the papal
legate Pandulf, and received it from his hands as a papal fief,
undertaking to pay twice a year the tribute imposed. But in
A.D. 1214 the English nobles extorted from their cowardly tyrant
as a safeguard against lordly wilfulness and despotism the famous
_Magna Charta_, against which the pope protested, threatening
excommunication and promising legitimate redress of their
grievances, though in consequence of confusion caused by the
breaking out again of the civil wars he was unable to enforce
his protest. And now his days were drawing to an end. At the
famous =Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215=, more than 1,500
prelates from all the countries of Christendom, along with the
ambassadors of almost all Christian kings, princes and free
cities, gave him homage as the representative of God on earth,
as visible Head of the Church, and supreme lord and judge of all
princes and peoples. A few months later he died.--As in Italy and
Germany, in France and England, he had also in all other states
of the Christian world, in Spain and Portugal, in Poland, Livonia
and Sweden, in Constantinople and Bulgaria, shown himself capable
of controlling political as well as ecclesiastical movements,
arranging and smoothing down differences, organizing and putting
into shape what was tending to disorder. Some conception of his
activity may be formed from the 5,316 extant decretals of the
eighteen years of his pontificate.