Chapter XXXII: Part I (2)

Our period is emphatically one of historical studies, as we have had occasion to remark in a former article on the _Life and Works of M. Ozanam_. Among other illusions swept away by the light of truth which these laborious researches have let in upon the obscurity of the past, there is one great illusion about golden and iron ages. In respect to the Christian period, specifically, it is manifest that it is vain to look, in the apostolic, ante-Nicene, mediæval, or modern ages, for that ideal perfection in real, concrete existence which may have been in our imagination as a pleasing picture. There has never been an age of gold unmixed with baser metal for the church any more than for humanity in general. The analogy of the past, which is the only sure criterion we can apply to the future, forbids us to expect that there ever will be such a purely golden age on the earth. Moreover, those iron ages or dark ages, of Christian or pre-Christian, historic or pre-historic times, which have been imagined to precede or to interrupt the epochs of splendor and light, are seen on inspection not to have been all iron or all darkness. The progress of mankind towards its destination has been continuous from the beginning, although, in larger or smaller local extensions or numerical portions of humanity, there has been in various periods a stoppage or retrogradation of the movement, in appearance, and in respect to individual progress. The earth keeps its regular course, though men walk on its surface in an opposite direction, and they are carried with it unconsciously. The ship goes on and carries with it the passenger, while he is walking from the bow to the stern. Clouds, night, and eclipses are not a destruction or suspension of the irradiation of light from the sun on the earth, but its partial and temporary impediments. The ship which makes a long, dangerous, but successful voyage is making headway while plunging into the trough of the sea as well as while riding the crest of the waves; often is less delayed by beating against adverse winds than by calm weather and light breezes. The bark of Peter, freighted with the treasures of human hope and destiny, is steadily proceeding, under the guidance of her heavenly Pilot, over the waves of time, through calm and stormy seas, toward the port of eternity. Seldom does she seem to be in safety, and show the speed of her motion, to the uninstructed eyes of those who do not possess the sublime science of the stars and charts by which her celestial course is directed. “Never,” says Lacordaire, “is the triumph of the church visible at a given moment. If you look at any one point in the expanse of the ages, the bark of Peter appears to be about to be engulfed, and the faithful are always prompt to cry out: _Lord, save us, we perish!_ But if you look at the whole series of times, the church manifests her strength, and you understand what Jesus Christ said in the tempest: _Man of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?_”[75]

Footnote 75:

_Conf. de Notre Dame_, tome i. conf. iv. at the end.

There is nevertheless a difference in the character of epochs. The epochs of Constantine, Charlemagne, Gregory VII., of the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, are seen in the retrospect to have a special light of glory about them. The seventh, tenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth centuries present a dark aspect. The tenth century particularly, which we are at present bringing under review, is generally called “the iron age” even by our modern Catholic historians, and not without considerable reason, more especially in respect to the state and condition of the Roman Church and the sovereign pontificate. Nevertheless, the common notion, derived from compendious histories and the generalized statements which form the commonplaces of popular literature, respecting the tenth age of Christendom is not correct and is extremely confused. It was not an age of complete barbarism and universal ignorance. Ozanam says: “Indeed, letters did not, at any time, perish. The truth is that the period of complete barbarism, supposed at first to extend over a space of a thousand years, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the capture of Constantinople, then gradually reduced to narrower limits, until it remained finally restricted to the seventh and tenth centuries, vanishes away under a more severe scrutiny.”[76] Cantù remarks: “This epoch is justly called the iron age, because of the cruel sufferings endured by individuals and nations; but humanity made a sensible progress in the face of these trials. We cannot, therefore, concur in the judgment of those who consider it the most unhappy period of the human race.”[77] We cannot make logical divisions of history into epochs exactly corresponding with the numerical notation of years and centuries. It would be absurd to suppose that at 12 A.M. of January 1, A.D. 900, to borrow Carlyle’s expression, “the clock of Time struck and an era passed away”; and that the same venerable old timepiece, from its corner in the parlor of the universe, struck again in just a hundred years, announcing the end of the iron age and the beginning of another of some different metal. The boundaries of epochs are not quite so determinate, and centuries, periods, epochs, run into one another, mix, blend, elude precise delineation. Cantù’s tenth epoch is not the tenth century, but the period beginning A.D. 800 and ending A.D. 1096. This period, between Charlemagne and the Crusades, far from presenting the aspect of a desolate waste to the eye, is crowded and variegated with events and persons of the most important and interesting character, and their history is one great act in the European drama, advancing it sensibly toward the consummation which we are still, in our own age, hastening forward and awaiting in the near or distant future. Within this great period are other and lesser cycles, embracing epochs, phases, temporary states of ecclesiastical and civil prosperity or adversity, alternations of various kinds, in Christendom, in Europe, or in portions of the Christian commonwealth, each having its distinctive notes. That part of it which is in the centre presents the characteristics of an iron age more distinctly marked than the preceding or following periods. The latter half of the ninth and the earlier half of the tenth century, taken together, really constitute the period which can with strict propriety be called the iron age. And within this century a period of about forty years, including the end of the ninth and the first years of the tenth century, was a sort of crisis in which Christian Europe seemed to have reached the dead-point in her progress, and, having passed it, went on again under the attraction of a new force.

Footnote 76:

Dante, _Disc. Prelim._, sec. v.

Footnote 77:

_Hist. Univ._, ep. x. epilogue, tome ix. p. 478.

This statement must not be taken as rigorously and uniformly applicable to all Europe and Christendom. The Greek Empire and the degenerate Eastern Church were in a state of hopeless decadence, verging toward a permanent downfall. England and Spain, on the other hand, passed through their worst times earlier, and were going upward and onward, led by great men and heroes—Alfred and the forerunners of Ferdinand and the Cid—just at the time when the rest of Europe was in the most disordered and disastrous condition. The crisis of the iron age affected chiefly the countries which had constituted the great domain of Charlemagne—France, Germany, and Italy. Its phases were various, in respect to time and other conditions, in these very countries. The whole panorama, as presented to our view in the pages of historical narrative, is as shifting, varied, apparently capricious, as mountain scenery in the changing aspects of light and shade, produced by sunshine, clouds, and moonlight, by transforming mists and sombre night. It is only when we rise to the logical order and sequence of events, trace effects to their causes, enlarge our scope of vision, ascend into the upper regions of a true philosophy of history whose atmosphere is the Christian idea and whose light is celestial faith, that a real order, harmony, and progression toward an intelligible and grand result are clearly discernible.

Some few general statements borrowed from this higher branch of historical science must be premised before we can come at a satisfactory view of our particular and immediate topic and set its details in systematic order.

The actual evils and miseries which afflicted the Christian people of Europe during the iron age were invasions of Saracens, Scandinavians, and Hungarians, incessant wars among greater and lesser princes, terrible famines and pestilences, and, in general, a state of turbulence, insecurity, social and moral confusion. This whole state of things was a relapse into the condition brought about by the fall of the Roman Empire and the barbarian irruption in the seventh century. The great reason why it occurred is found in the fact that Charlemagne’s great empire and power passed away and that no unifying, organic power succeeded it until Europe had passed through a period of transition. The Roman Empire had to pass away to make room for Christendom, and for a time its _débris_ and the new material lying on the ground for a reconstruction made a state of confusion. Charlemagne’s fundamental work was solid and lasting, but he had to make some temporary structures which were showy but not substantial, and therefore fell down or were torn down; causing more disorder for a time, until they were cleared away to make room for the permanent and splendid walls to be built up according to the idea of the divine Architect. The European, Christian Idea is not that of one, uniform political western empire, ruled by an autocracy which continues or succeeds to the old, imperial Roman power. It is that of a community of nations, bound together by a common faith, common principles, international law, mutual alliance and amity, and preserving full scope for distinct and beautifully various forms of free, spontaneous growth and culture. Its regenerating, vivifying, and controlling spirit is Christianity in the Catholic organization. Its centre of unity and force is Rome and the spiritual supremacy of the pope. The political supremacy of an emperor—understanding by an emperor a universal monarch ruling subordinate kings set over dependent kingdoms—is incompatible with this true idea of a Christendom. Even, supposing this universal political sovereignty united with the sovereign pontificate of the Pope, it is incompatible with that true idea, partly for the same reasons, partly for different reasons from those which militate against it, supposing the two distinct powers to exist separately. It was necessary that the pope should possess his own separate sovereignty in a kingdom of moderate size. It was also necessary that some one powerful king should be endowed by the pope with a special, sacred pre-eminence among other sovereigns, as the protector of his civil princedom and of his spiritual supremacy. This was the meaning of Charles the Great’s imperial coronation. He was, in fact, really the king of almost all Europe. But this was temporary. His kingdom was divided. The imperial dignity was conferred on different sovereigns of France, Italy, and Germany from time to time, and for above thirty years remained in abeyance for want of a proper subject to receive it, until it rested at last on the head of the first of the Saxon line, passing thence to the Franconian house, and afterwards to the Hohenstaufen. The German emperors were, however, by election kings of Germany, and as such governed their states; whereas they were made emperors by papal consecration, and in that capacity were protectors of the Holy See and the church. The authority which they lawfully exercised as emperors in the city and principality of Rome was the authority of a civil magistrate who was not the head but the right arm of the pope, the real political sovereign in his own state.

The European crisis of the tenth century was a period in which the Carlovingian dynasty was going into decadence, and the new dynasties of France and Germany had not yet arisen. There was a great want of able sovereigns, and especially of men who were strong enough to fulfil the functions of the imperial office. To turn now especially towards Italy and Rome, it was the lack of a strong hand to preserve peace and order among the petty princes and states of Italy, and to protect the pope and the Holy See from the rebellions and intrigues of powerful nobles and contending factions within and around the Roman principality, which was the chief cause of the long obnubilation of the sun of Christendom—the Roman Church—during the tenth epoch. We propose to enter now more minutely into the exposition of the historical truth respecting this period, so far as it relates to the popes and the Roman Church directly and immediately.

The ordinary accounts of this epoch in Roman and Italian history produce a singular impression on the mind of the reader. It seems as if the gas had been suddenly turned off and all had become dark, or as if an express-train filled with passengers had all at once been stopped by an impediment in the middle of the night at an obscure way-station, to the surprise and chagrin of all on board when they awoke in the morning. One is puzzled and disgusted by a confused, disconnected story which reads like the record of crimes and disasters in a modern newspaper. The persons mentioned seem to have no reality or distinct character—to be like the spectres of dreams or the personified abstractions in parables. The very names of the popes, such as Formosus, Marinus, Lando, Romanus, have a strange, unpapal sound. They appear and vanish with marvellous rapidity, leaving no trace behind. When we read that the world was generally expected to explode in the year 1000, we are not surprised, but rather wonder why it did not, and are quite relieved to find ourselves safe and sound in the eleventh century, and hear those “whom the Lord hath sent to walk through the earth answer the angel of the Lord, and say: We have walked through the earth; and behold, all the earth is inhabited, and is at rest.”[78]

Footnote 78:

Zacharias i. 10, 11.

One great difficulty in picking the thread of history out of this snarl is the paucity of contemporary documents. Another cause of misunderstanding and misrepresentation has been the flippant and mendacious character of the most extensive and minute of the chronicles of the period, that of Luitprand. The same kind of gossiping, scandal-mongering centres which exist among us may not have existed in the tenth century. There were no newspapers filled with libels and calumnies, falsifications of news, reports of the army of detectives of the press. But there were the same violent factions, party animosities, intrigues, mutual denunciations, raising a cloud of smoke and dust like that which overhangs a battle-field, in even more virulent activity then than we now behold them in our modern political _mêlées_. All the condensed scandal, partisan vituperation, indecent gossip, and malicious calumny of the time in which he lived are collected in the memoirs of Luitprand, and from these have been infiltrated through succeeding times, leaving great stains which only the acid of criticism has been able to efface. Even Fleury says of him that he is extremely passionate, excessive both in his abuse and his flattery, and given to buffoonery to a degree which transgresses the bounds of decency. He was originally a subdeacon of the church of Toledo in Spain, afterwards a deacon of the church of Pavia, during which time he was sent by Berenger, King of Italy, on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople. Later he became Bishop of Cremona, but was a disgrace to the episcopate. He was a courtier of Otho the German emperor, who sent him on another mission to Constantinople, a violent adherent of the German party, bitterly hostile to the Italian party and all the popes who favored it, and a participator in the schismatical proceedings of Otho’s anti-pope. His credit is now entirely lost. But at the time of the revolt of Luther all the incriminations of the popes and the Roman clergy, whether true, false, or doubtful, were gathered up and made the most of to sustain the bill of indictment against the Holy See. The same stories, repeated by numbers of writers, produced the effect of concurrent testimony on the general mind of the readers of history. Baronius and other Catholic historians, not having sufficient materials for testing and correcting all these accusations, let a number of them pass uncontradicted or admitted their truth. Fleury and some others of the lowest Gallican school, who always write like advocates who have taken out a brief against the Holy See, have in their historical works neglected and perverted facts in a manner which is equally shallow and perfidious, and as contrary to sound criticism as it is to orthodox doctrine. It is only since the discovery of Flodoard’s _Lives of the Popes_, the critical and learned researches of Muratori, and the great modern advance of genuine historical science, that the tissue of lies depending solely on the worthless testimony of Luitprand has been swept away. A better appreciation of the great course of events and the essential facts of history is now possible, and even easy. Men of genius, learning, and conscientious devotion to truth have lighted up these dark, buried crypts of the substructure of Christendom, as the zealous archæologists of York have done in the old minster, whose foundations were laid in the very period we are describing.[79]

Footnote 79:

See Mr. Ticknor’s _Life_, vol. i. p. 436.

In regard to many particular events and certain individuals whose names figure in connection with the transactions of an obscure epoch we cannot expect to acquire a perfect certainty. Nor is there anything of moment depending on the discovery of the truth in such cases. We have to be content with a probability or with a doubt in thousands of matters of detail. There are a considerable number of popes of whom we know next to nothing. In certain instances it is not easy to determine whether an election of a given individual was valid or invalid. Of the truth or falsehood of the accusations made against several popes and other persons of high ecclesiastical or civil rank, and of the reports of assassinations and other great crimes, which are so frequent in this period of disorder, we cannot always form a certain judgment. There is enough, however, of that which is certain or fairly probable to show the connection, the continuity, and the identity of principles both with the foregoing and the following epochs, and to furnish ample material for the vindication of the cause of the Holy See and the Papacy. There is a sequence in the progress through the struggles of transition; there are great and good men, noble and heroic achievements, interesting and curious episodes—in fine, there is a human and a Christian character showing its lineaments in place of the cloudy spectre with distorted features which has heretofore scared the imagination.[80]

Footnote 80:

We make here our acknowledgment of indebtedness to the series of
articles in the _Civiltà Cattolica_ entitled “I Destini di Roma,”
which was begun Aug. 19, 1871, for a great part of what is to follow
in this article.

We begin our historical sketch with Pope Formosus, who was elected A.D. 891. This is one of the popes of whom we have said above that they seem in our common histories like a mere shadow of a great name without a personal reality. Besides, there is a certain cloud on his memory, arising from the fact that he was deprived of his see of Porto by John VIII., and that he was the subject of a great outrage from his successor, Stephen VI. A careful examination of his history shows, however, that he was no common man and was both a good and an able pope. As Bishop of Porto he was one of the most conspicuous among the Italian prelates. He left his see to become a missionary among the Bulgarians, where he labored zealously and successfully in the work of their conversion. There is nothing to show that his censure by Pope John VIII., which seems to have been chiefly occasioned by his taking an active part in a political opposition to the Emperor Charles the Bald, involved in it any moral dishonor. He was restored by Pope Marinus, and the indignities inflicted on his memory by his successor were a wanton and causeless outrage, which was condemned and repaired by a subsequent pope with the approbation of the Roman people.

Europe was just then in the depths of the disorders and miseries caused by the decay of the imperial authority and the degeneracy of Charlemagne’s successors. Berenger was king in Northern Italy, but Guido, Duke of Spoleto, and his son Lambert had been crowned emperors in opposition to him and to all the French and German claimants. Toward the end of the short reign of Formosus, which lasted less than five years, and after the death of Guido, the dissatisfaction of the pope with the conduct of Lambert and his mother, Ermengarda, induced him to summon Arnulph, King of Germany, to come to the relief of the Holy See and of Italy. He obeyed the summons, made a forcible entry into Rome, where the Lambertine faction had gained the upper hand and thrown Formosus into prison, and was by him crowned emperor. This was the beginning of the appeals of the popes to Germany for intervention in Italian affairs, and of the never-ending conflicts between the Italian and German parties in Italy, whose _finale_ we have but just witnessed in our own day in the exclusion of Austria from her dominion in Venetia. We have no doubt that it was necessary, and on the whole productive of good results, that the imperial crown should be transferred to the German sovereigns. But, without delaying to consider this point, we simply take note of the fact that this was one of the great questions of violent dispute and contention which disturbed the Roman Church and the papal elections so long as there were Italian princes who disputed the imperial dignity with the Germans. Arnulph returned almost immediately to Germany. Formosus died and was followed to the tomb a few weeks after by his immediate successor, Boniface VI. The party of Lambert succeeded in obtaining the election of Stephen VI., the first of the popes who grievously dishonored the tiara. His violent and shameful conduct caused a temporary reaction in favor of the opposite party, by whom he was imprisoned and strangled. Lambert was, nevertheless, acknowledged by the three succeeding popes, Romanus, Theodore II., and John IX., and by two successive councils, and the pact between the church and the empire was solemnly renewed. These three pontificates filled only a space of three years and closed the century. The year 901 saw a new competitor for the imperial crown, which death had taken from Lambert’s head, in the person of Louis of Provence, who was actually crowned by Benedict IV., but very soon driven away by Berenger, who was still reigning in the north of Italy. Berenger was an able and warlike sovereign, in many respects worthy of admiration, and capable of filling the imperial office with honor to himself and advantage to Italy. Circumstances were, however, extremely adverse. He maintained himself in possession of a certain pre-eminence among the petty sovereigns of Italy, and carried on vigorously wars against the Saracen and Hungarian invaders. He was even crowned emperor in 915, but was never able to establish his authority on a solid and permanent basis, and at last, in 924, he was assassinated by a conspiracy of Italian nobles. With him the imperial office became extinct, and remained so until it was resuscitated, thirty-eight years afterward, in the person of Otho the Great.

The failure of the imperial power which had been instituted in the person of Charlemagne left the Holy See and all Italy a prey to contending, petty sovereigns, to powerful and mutually hostile nobles and factions, and to fierce heathen invaders. The Roman pontiffs maintained with difficulty a restricted, often merely nominal, civil sovereignty in the city and principality of Rome. Between the years 900 and 914 six popes succeeded each other: Benedict IV., Leo V., Christopher, Sergius III., Anastasius III., and Lando. Of the nine popes who came between Stephen VI. and John X., it is certain that nearly all were worthy of their exalted position, and the grave accusations made against two of the number, Christopher and Sergius, rest on uncertain testimony. The average length of their reigns being less than two years, and that of the longest among them only seven, most of the number had no time to make a conspicuous figure in history, and their annals are so scanty that very little is known of the acts of their administration.

The reign of John X., which lasted fourteen years, from 914 to 928, was of a different character. He was one of the great popes, and proved himself fully equal to the emergencies of the time and the difficulties of his position. For nine years previously to his election to the Roman See he had been Archbishop of Ravenna, and the extraordinary ability which he had exhibited in his government of that important church had pointed him out as one capable of making head, in conjunction with Berenger, against the perils with which Rome and Italy were beset at this most dangerous crisis in their destinies. In fact, he was obliged to do the work alone; for Berenger was unable to help him, having his hands full in fighting Saracens and Hungarians in Northern Italy. There was no hope to be placed either in Germany or France. The only resource for the pope was to place himself at the head of his own barons and in alliance with the neighboring princes, and to lead the war against the Saracens in person. For this purpose he formed a league among the princes of Southern Italy, and, obtaining also auxiliaries from the Greek emperor, conducted a short and brilliantly successful campaign against the Saracens, by which they were completely discomfited and finally expelled from that part of Italy. The entire reign of John X. was in conformity with its glorious beginning; but soon after the violent and tragical overthrow of the noble Emperor Berenger by the turbulent Italian nobles, a similar catastrophe ended the career of the great pope, his friend and compeer. Alberic, Count of Tusculum, and Theophylact, senator of Rome, had been the two most powerful supporters, and the former had been the chief subordinate leader, of the great military operations of John X. The almost exclusive glory and credit which the popular voice ascribed to John for the liberation of the country from the Saracens, and the great increase and concentration of the sovereign authority under his vigorous administration, stirred up the jealousy and discontent of these great nobles. The wife of Theophylact was the famous Theodora, the younger Theodora was their daughter, and another daughter, Mariuccia, commonly called Marozia, was the wife of Alberic. These women, but especially the last mentioned, were remarkable for their beauty, talents, and ambition. The stream of filthy tradition which has come down through the sewer of Luitprand and the popular romances of the period has transmitted to posterity the names of these women, stained with every kind of foulness and cruelty. How much of calumny and exaggeration there may be in these scandalous stories we cannot determine. It is certain that the family exercised a great sway in Rome for many years both before and after the great _coup d’état_ in which the intrigues of Marozia culminated and collapsed, as we are about to relate. One year after the murder of Berenger, Alberic was killed in an unsuccessful assault on Rome, and Marozia married Guido, Marquis of Tuscany. The sister of Guido, Ermengarda, Marchioness of Ivrea, was another of the group of Italian princesses of that period, remarkable in all respects, except in the special virtues of Christian women. In 926 Marozia set on foot, with these two accomplices, a revolution in Italy, by which Rodolph of Burgundy, the successful rival and successor of Berenger in the kingdom of Italy, was chased out to make room for Hugo of Provence, the half-brother of Guido. After the coronation of Hugo at Pavia, Guido and Marozia took possession of Rome by force of arms and imprisoned Pope John X., who died a few months afterward, it is suspected by violence. Guido also died within a year from his usurpation, and Marozia governed the city alone with the titles of senator and patrician. After the two short, and perhaps abbreviated, pontificates of Leo VI. and Stephen VIII., she caused the younger of her two sons by Alberic to be elected pope under the name of John XI. Still unsatisfied, she aspired to become queen of Italy, and empress, and for this purpose contracted a marriage—which by the ecclesiastical law was null and void[81]—with her brother-in-law, Hugo, the King of Italy. The marriage was celebrated in 932, and the imperial coronation was expected to follow in due time. But the violent and imperious temper of the Burgundian Hugo ruined all these plans. Alberic, eldest son of Marozia by her first husband, Alberic of Tusculum, was a youth who inherited all the brilliant qualities of both his parents, and whose character was certainly not derived from his mother or due to her influence. One day at dinner the princely youth was acting as page to the king, and by accident or design poured too much water on his hands, for which he received a buffet on the cheek from his rude step-father. He immediately left the room in a towering passion, and, running out upon the piazza, summoned the people, with words of burning eloquence, to vengeance and rescue. The Castle of St. Angelo was very speedily taken by assault, Hugo was forced to save his life by flight, and Marozia, banished from Rome, repudiated by her husband, thwarted in her wicked schemes, disappeared from view, and, it is to be hoped, passed the rest of her days until her death, which did not occur later than 945, in doing penance for her sins.

Footnote 81:

A dispensation may have been granted, but Hugo afterwards disavowed
the marriage on the plea of the ecclesiastical impediment.

Now followed one of the most curious and interesting of episodes in the history of Christian Rome. Alberic reigned during his whole life-time—a period of twenty-two years—as absolute sovereign of Rome, with ability, justice, and popularity. He was in harmony with the popes, a protector of his kingdom and of the Holy See, a munificent patron of religious orders, a benefactor to the church and religion. The period of his reign is like an oasis in the desert of the tenth century. It is true that he kept his brother, John XI., in an honorable yet strict imprisonment during his life-time. Yet, although there is nothing recorded to the discredit of this pope, Alberic’s conduct toward the succeeding pontiffs shows that he must have had strong reasons for his treatment of his brother. The elections of popes during his reign were free and peaceful, and the best men among the Roman clergy were chosen. By degrees the legal form of the administration was so regulated that the sovereign rights and titles of the pope were preserved; and although the actual civil government was entirely in the hands of Prince Alberic, it was administered by him as the pope’s temporal vicar, without discord between the two powers. As a provisional arrangement it worked well, but Alberic was too wise and far-seeing to think its permanent continuance possible or desirable. By a singular stroke of policy he prepared for the restoration of the real sovereignty to the one who had not ceased to retain the title and the right. His son Octavian was educated as an ecclesiastic, and the chiefs of the clergy and nobility were induced to make a solemn engagement before Alberic’s death to elect Octavian pope on the first vacancy of the Holy See. He was accordingly elected pope soon after the death of his father, although he was but eighteen years of age, and assumed the name of John XII.

Of the personal and private character of this youthful pontiff, who died at the age of twenty-six after a reign of eight years, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to form an exact and certain estimate. The accusations made against him during his life-time are atrocious, and they are still repeated by modern writers, although the most judicious and moderate historians soften them down considerably. The learned writer in the _Civiltà_ gives his judgment that as a pontiff all his acts were laudable, and, as a king, worthy of one who was the son of Alberic. In respect to his private morals, he considers that the accusations of his political enemies and of writers attached to the German, imperial party—the almost sole remaining source of information respecting that period—are to be distrusted; but that it is difficult to exculpate him altogether from the reproach of having lived more as secular princes are wont to do than as became the holy state of a bishop. The salient point of his administration was the calling in of the King of Germany, Otho the Great, and the subsequent imbroglio between the pope and the emperor. Otho, who well deserves the name of Great, notwithstanding grievous errors and wrongs in his conduct toward the Holy See, had been reigning twenty years when he was summoned to Rome and crowned emperor. The return of the old disorders in Italy made his intervention necessary, but he carried it too far, and John XII., probably with good reason, and certainly acting in a way which was natural in a high-spirited and youthful sovereign trained in the maxims and sentiments of an Italian prince, joined with the other princes of Italy in opposition to the German domination. A struggle between John and Otho was the consequence. The emperor, misled by the bad advice of Luitprand and other bishops, attempted to depose the pope and substitute an anti-pope, who called himself Leo VIII., in his place. John XII. died suddenly before this conflict had any decisive issue, and Benedict V. was elected in his place, but was soon after carried away into Germany by Otho and kept in captivity at Hamburg. On the death of the anti-pope, which occurred in March, 965, a few months after the death of John, the Romans requested the restoration of Benedict V., which was granted by Otho. The pope, however, died on his journey to Rome, venerated and regretted even by the emperor and by all with whom he had come into personal contact, as well as by the Romans.

The emperor and all the various parties by which Rome was divided agreed together and concurred in the election of John XIII., who favored the German party in politics, and had, on the whole, a peaceful and prosperous reign of six years, sustained by the imperial power, although it was interrupted by one violent sedition, which was repressed and punished in the severest manner.

The close of the reigns of the Pope John XIII. and the Emperor Otho the Great was marked by one extraordinary and most interesting event—the marriage of the young Emperor Otho II. with Theophania, a Greek princess of distinguished beauty, intellectual accomplishments, and personal virtues. She brought with her as dowry all the Greek possessions in Italy, and was regarded as an angel of peace between the two empires.

The death of Otho I. in 973 was the signal for new outbreaks and disturbances in Italy. In Rome a struggle began between two powerful families: the Crescenzi, who were the great lords of the Sabine territory, and the Conti—that is, the Tusculan counts—who were the principal barons of Latium. The latter favored, while the former opposed, the imperial power in Italy. Crescenzio, or Cencio, the first leader of the Italian faction, is supposed by many writers to have been a grand-nephew of Marozia. He attempted an imitation of Alberic, though not by the same honorable means, and endeavored to gain possession for himself of the Roman principality. The pope, Benedict VI., who had succeeded John XIII. a few months before the death of Otho I., was assaulted and dethroned by armed force, imprisoned in the Castle of St. Angelo, and at last strangled. An infamous ecclesiastic, a partisan and accomplice with Crescenzio in his crimes, was intruded into the chair of St. Peter while he was still, in the language of Pope Sylvester II., dripping with the blood of his predecessor. This so-called Pope Boniface VII., who is commonly regarded as an anti-pope, was dispossessed, after one month, together with his patron, Crescenzio, by a counter-revolution under the counts of Tusculum, and fled to Constantinople. At a later period he returned and succeeded in seizing on the government for a brief period, but came at length to a most tragical and ignominious end. Crescenzio ended his days in a monastery. It is uncertain whether there was or was not a pope named Donus II. who reigned for a few months after the death of Benedict VI. Benedict VII., a nephew of Alberic, Count of Tusculum, and Bishop of Sutri, was enthroned, according to Mansi, on the 28th of December, 974, and governed the Roman Church during his pontificate of nine years in such a manner as to leave no stain upon his reputation. One of his first acts was to excommunicate, in a council of bishops, Cardinal Franco, the anti-pope. In 980 he was obliged to call upon the young emperor, Otho II., to come to his assistance in Rome. He came, in fact, during the following year, but, after an unsuccessful campaign against the allied Greeks and Saracens, died in his imperial palace at Rome, Dec. 9, 983, in the twenty-eighth year of his age—a prince whose character made him worthy of his father, but who was less fortunate in his destiny. His premature death and the infancy of Otho III. seemed to threaten both Germany and Italy with great disasters. Germany was preserved from these menacing evils by the sanctity and ability of two noble and heroic women—St. Adelaide, the widow of Otho the Great, and Theophania, widow of Otho II., and imperial regent in the name of her son, who was but three years old, yet universally recognized as King of Germany and emperor-elect. Rome, however, had still to suffer, and remained for another half-century to come the foot-ball of rival factions. The son of Crescenzio, called Crescenzio Nomentano, obtained the upper hand in Rome, recalled the anti-pope, Boniface VII., imprisoned and put to death John XIV., the successor of Benedict VI., and made himself patrician and governor of Rome. The sudden death of Boniface, however, and the universal hatred in which his memory was held, enabled the clergy and people of Rome to elect a worthy pope in the person of John XV. (April, 986), who held the see ten years, governing with great prudence and success, notwithstanding the great difficulties of his position. In 989 the empress-mother, Theophania, came to Rome and held an imperial court. It was expected that she would put an end to the tyranny of Crescenzio Nomentano, but she was deceived by his extreme cunning and hypocritical promises so far that she confirmed him in his office as patrician. After her departure he became so much worse that the pope was obliged to leave Rome and take refuge with Hugo, Marquis of Tuscany, through whose intervention a pressing request was sent to the emperor-elect, Otho III., now seventeen years of age, to come in person to Italy. So great was now the fear of the imperial power that Crescenzio hastened to reconcile himself to the pope, who returned and was reconducted with great manifestations of honor to the Lateran palace.

On his arrival in Rome at the head of a large army, early in 996, Otho III., who, with precocious vigor of mind and character, had assumed the reins of government, found the Roman See vacant by the death of John XV., and his first care was the election of his successor. The one whom he proposed, and who was accepted by the electors, was a young ecclesiastic but twenty-four years of age, the son of the Duke of Franconia and his own cousin-german. His name was Bruno, and his accomplished education, joined with a mature virtue, made him worthy to fill the see of Peter. He assumed the name of Gregory V., and gave great promise of adorning the Holy See during a long pontificate, as Otho did of becoming an illustrious emperor of Germany. The hopes of the church and the empire were, however, frustrated by the early death of both. Crescenzio had been condemned to banishment, but, at the request of Gregory, his sentence was remitted. The generosity of the two youthful and confiding sovereigns was requited by Crescenzio, as soon as Otho’s back was turned, by an uprising against the German pope and the imperial officers, the expulsion of Gregory, and the creation of an anti-pope, who was John Philagathos, a Greek monk, Bishop of Piacenza, and lately ambassador of the emperor at the court of Constantinople. The bold plan of these two conspirators was nothing less than the restoration of the sovereignty of the West to the Greek emperor, under whose auspices each one hoped to be confirmed in his usurped authority at Rome. In 998 Gregory and Otho re-entered Rome together, and this time showed no clemency either to Crescenzio or Philagathos, both of whom were victims of a terrible vengeance.

Pope Gregory died in 999, in the twenty-seventh year of his age and the third of his pontificate. He was succeeded by the celebrated Gerbert, a French monk, formerly abbot of the famous monastery of Bobbio, and at this present time Archbishop of Ravenna, who took the name of Sylvester II. He had been the guide, the tutor, and the friend of Otho during his boyhood. In his earlier career he had been somewhat hot-headed, and had sustained a sharp and obstinate contest with Pope John XV. in respect to the see of Rouen. Now, however, he was an old man and a wise. No pope so truly great, in the sense of the word most appropriate to a bishop and an ecclesiastical ruler, had ascended the papal throne since the time of St. Nicholas the Great, in the middle of the ninth century. Otho remained always in Rome and Italy, for which he had a special predilection. Nothing can be more beautiful than the picture of this venerable and learned old man, with his gifted and loving pupil by his side, “_pulchri Cæsaris pulcherrima proles_,” filling together the throne of ancient, eternal Rome with their pontifical and imperial majesty. What a subject for a painter or a poet! Otho is one of the most winning characters to be found in all history. His mother, the Greek princess, had given him an exquisite mental culture, and his grandmother, St. Adelaide, a most pious education. There was something visionary and romantic in his nature which only adds to his personal attractiveness. He dreamed of great things for Rome and the empire, such as the Florentine seer who had the vision of the unseen world dreamed of, but which were not in accordance with the plans of divine Providence, and probably not with the views of Sylvester II. He died at a castle near Civita Castellana, in the twenty-third year of his age, in the arms of Sylvester, who followed him to the tomb in a little more than a year after, on the 12th of May, 1003.

The dreaded year 1000 had been passed and the eleventh century was begun. It was really one of the most fortunate of all the centuries for Rome and the popes, yet it began under dark and menacing auspices. The Crescenzi regained the predominance in Rome and kept it for twelve years during three pontificates—viz., those of John XVII., which lasted only five months, of John XVIII. and Sergius IV., both of whom ruled the church in peace and with honor to themselves, yet were obliged to tolerate the usurpation of the patrician Giovanni Crescenzio, who seems to have governed with more mildness than his father, Nomentano, had done. In 1012, after his death, the dominion of this family came finally to an end, being supplanted by that of the Conti Tusculani, who retained it for thirty years. Count Gregory, a descendant of Alberic and Marozia, whose later years were rendered illustrious by piety and good works of a splendid munificence, left at his death three sons, Alberic, Theophylact, and Romanus. The second of these became pope under the name of Benedict VIII., and governed the church as well as the Roman principality during twelve years with consummate ability, aided in his civil administration by his two brothers, and in perfect amity with the emperor, St. Henry II., who had succeeded his cousin, Otho III., but had always been prevented by wars and other pressing employments elsewhere from interfering in Italian affairs. In 1014 St. Henry was able to come to Rome with his queen, St. Cunegunda, to receive the imperial coronation from the pope. A rival king of Italy, Arduin, the last of the Italian kings who aspired to the iron crown of Lombardy until Victor Emanuel appeared, had been conquered, and, retiring to a monastery, passed the rest of his days in penance. Henry and Benedict together made successful war upon the Greeks and Saracens, putting an end to the troubles of Italy from both these enemies. The pope and the emperor both died at about the same time in 1024, and with Henry II. was ended the Saxon line of emperors, which was succeeded by the Franconian, called also the Ghibelline from the family castle of Waiblingen, and the Salic, from the tribal name Salii—_i.e._, dwellers by the river Sala. Benedict’s brother Romanus succeeded him on the pontifical throne under the name of John XIX., and united more strictly in his own person the functions of ecclesiastical and civil sovereignty than had been the case during the reign of his predecessor. His pontificate of eight years was a laudable administration, without any event of note which has been recorded, except the coronation of the first Franconian emperor, Conrad II. This coronation was marked by the presence of an unusually numerous and splendid assemblage of princes and prelates from all parts of Europe, among whom were Rudolph, Duke of Burgundy, and Canute the Great, King of Denmark and England. This grand ceremony was performed in the spring of 1027, but, notwithstanding the new splendor which seemed at that time to environ the Holy See, the greatest disgrace and scandal with which it was ever afflicted was close at hand and came upon it in the next pontificate. On the death of John XIX., in 1032, there was no one of the family of the Conti upon whose head the tiara could be placed with any sort of fitness and propriety. So great and so strongly fixed was the power of that family that they succeeded in securing the election and coronation of a young boy, Theophylact, nephew of the two preceding popes, and the son of Count Alberic, their elder brother. He is said by some historians to have been twelve years old, by others to have been perhaps seventeen. Under the name of Benedict IX. he continued during the thirteen years of his reign, under the protection of the emperor and supported by the power of his family, to harass his subjects by his capricious tyranny, and to afflict and desolate the church by the unrestrained license of his moral conduct. His scandalous life and maladministration of the government brought on a schism headed by an anti-pope calling himself Sylvester III., caused frequent and violent popular tumults, and excited universal contempt and odium against his own person. At last the discontent reached such an extreme that of his own free-will Benedict abdicated his office, that he might have greater freedom to live without any restraint upon his conduct. The most distinguished and the most respected priest of the Roman Church at this time was John Gratian, arch-priest of the church of St. John at the Latin Gate, the preceptor of St. Hildebrand, who was afterwards Pope Gregory VII. Desiring to put an end to the calamities of every kind which were the consequence of a sacrilegious pontificate, Gratian took the extraordinary course of offering a large subsidy in money to Benedict IX. on condition of a complete renunciation of all his rights to the Roman See. He was then himself canonically elected Pope under the name of Gregory VI., and began with zeal the work of reformation in both church and state. Nevertheless, the circumstance that he had given a sum of money to induce Benedict to resign gave occasion to such a plausible outcry of simony and personal ambition against Gregory, and the resistance of the anti-pope Sylvester as well as that of Benedict, who reclaimed his former office, was so violent, that it was necessary to call in the aid of the new emperor Henry III., and to summon a numerous council, that the rival claims might be adjudicated and sufficient measures be adopted for restoring peace and order. The council, which met at Sutri, set aside entirely both Sylvester and Benedict. The decision of his own case was referred to Gregory with great respect, but with a manifest wish that he should resign. The pope disclaimed in the most solemn manner all mercenary and selfish motives for what he had done, yet nevertheless, on account of the scandal which had been occasioned, he judged himself to be unworthy of the papal dignity, and abdicated it with many tears and expressions of humility. The council confirmed his resignation, which St. Hildebrand and many others regretted, but which the greater number, with St. Peter Damian, highly approved, notwithstanding their esteem for Gregory, who retired into a monastery, where he lived a secluded and holy life. Even Benedict at last repented, and spent the few remaining years of his life in prayer and penance in the monastery of Grotta-Ferrata, which his grandfather, Count Gregory, had founded.

On Christmas eve, 1046, Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg, was proposed by the emperor to the Roman clergy and people, and by them elected pope, taking the name of Clement II. He was enthroned on Christmas day, and on the same day crowned the emperor and empress, and, as a safeguard against the abuse of the power of the Roman patrician by the Italian barons, it was transferred to the emperor, who was thus made the recognized head of the Roman aristocracy, with a special right of superintending the election of the sovereign pontiffs. From this moment commenced the dawn of better and brighter days for Rome. The great work of reformation was begun by Clement; and, although his reign lasted but one year, and his successor, another German prelate of high character—Poppo, Bishop of Brixen, who became Damasus II.—survived his enthronization but twenty-three days, a saint was waiting to inaugurate the glorious series of the Hildebrandine popes.

Bruno, Bishop of Toul, who was St. Leo IX., having after long resistance been persuaded by the emperor and the most eminent prelates to consent to assume the tiara, stopped at Cluny to see Hildebrand, a young monk, who became St. Gregory VII. With difficulty he induced him to accompany him to Rome, on the condition that he would make the journey in pilgrim’s garb, and submit the imperial nomination without reserve to the free election of the clergy and people of the Roman Church. He was enthroned on the 12th of February, which was the first Sunday of Lent, 1049. The eleventh century was at its zenith, and the bright sun of a new era shed its rays upon Christendom, as a new St. Leo sat upon the throne of St. Peter, St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory, and St. Nicholas, chasing away the darkness and the clouds of the tenth century, and putting an end to the period of the obnubilation of the Roman Church.