§ 3. Sources and Literature on Chapters I. and II.

See the general literature on the papacy in vol. IV. 202 sqq.; and the list of mediaeval popes, 205 sqq.

I. Sources For The Whole Period from 1049 to 1085:—

Migne: Patrol. Lat., vols. 140–148.—Damiani Epistolae, in Migne, vol. 144.—Bonizo or Bonitho (Bishop of Sutri, 1091; prisoner of Henry IV., 1082; a great admirer of Gregory VII.): Liber ad amicum, sive de persecutione ecclesiae (in Jaffé’s Monum. Gregor., p. 628 sqq., where he is charged with falsehood; but see Giesebrecht and Hefele, IV. 707). Phil. Jaffé (d. 1870): Regesta Pontif. Rom., pp. 366–443, 2d ed. I. 629–649.—Jaffé: Monumenta Gregoriana (see below).—K. Francke: Libelli de lite imperatorum et Pontificum Saeculi XI. et XII. conscripti, 3 vols. Hannov. 1891–1897, contains the tractarian lit. of the Hildebrandian age. On other sources, see Wattenbach: Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, II. 220 sqq. and Mirbt: Publizistik, 6–95.

II. Works on the Whole Period from 1049 to 1085: —

Höfler: Deutsche Päpste, Regensb., 1839 sqq., 3 vols.—C. Will: Anfänge der Restauration der Kirche im 11ten, Jahrh., Marburg, 1859–1862, 2 parts.—Ths. Greenwood: Cathedra Petri, books X. and XI. London, 1861.—Giesebrecht: Gesch. der deutschen Kaizerzeit, vols. II. and III. (Braunschweig, 5th ed. 1881).—Rud. Baxmann: Die Politik der Päpste von Gregor I. bis auf Gregor VII., Elberfeld, 1868, 1869. 2 vols. vol. II. 186–434.—Wattenbach: Geschichte des röm. Papstthums, Berlin, 1876 (pp. 97–136).—Gregorovius: Hist. of the City Of Rome.—Hefele: Conciliengeschichte, IV. 716–900, and V. 1–185.—L. v. Ranke: Weltgeschichte, vol. VII.—Bryce: Holy Roman Empire.—Freeman: Hist. of Norman Conq. of England, vol. IV. Oxford, 1871, and Hist. of Sicily.—F. Neukirch: Das Leben des Petrus Damiani bis 1059, Gött., 1875.—J. Langen: Geschichte der röm. Kirche von Gregor VII. bis Innocent III., Bonn, 1893.—Hauck: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vols. III. IV.—W. F. Barry: The Papal Monarchy from 590–1303, N. Y. 1902.

III. Special Sources and Works on Hildebrand:—

His letters (359), the so-called Registrum, in Migne, vol. 148, Mansi, XX. 60–391, and best in Jaffé, Monumenta Gregoriana, Berol., 1865, 712 pp. (in "Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum," vol. II.). The first critical edition. Jaffé gives the Registrum in eight books, with fifty-one additional letters collected from MSS., and Bonithonis episcopi Sutrini ad amicum. Gregory’s biographies by Cardinal Petrus of Pisa, Bernried, Amalric, Lambert, etc., in Muratori: Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. III.; and Watterich: Pontif. Boni. Vitae, Lips., 1862, I. 293 sqq.; Acta Sanct. Maii, die 25, VI. 102–159.

Modern works: Joh. Voigt (Prof. of Hist. in Königsberg, d. 1863): Hildebrand als Papst Gregorius VII. und sein Zeitalter, 1815, 2d ed. Weimar, 1846, pp. 625. The first attempt at an impartial estimate of Gregory from the Protestant historical standpoint. The first edition was translated into French and Italian, and gave rise to a remarkable Latin correspondence with Clemens Villecourt, bishop of La Rochelle, which is printed in the preface to the second edition. The bishop tried to convert Voigt to the Catholic Church, but in vain.—Sir Roger Greisly: The Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII., London, 1832, pp. 372. Impartial, but unimportant.—J. W. Bowden: The Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII. London, 1840, 2 Vols. pp. 374 and 411. —- Ard. Newman: Hist. Essays, II. 249–336.—Sir James Stephen: Hildebrand, in "Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography," 1849, 4th ed. London, 1860, pp. 1–58. He calls "Hildebrand the very impersonation of papal arrogance and of spiritual despotism."—Söltl: Gregor VII., Leipzig, 1847.—Floto: Kaiser Heinrich IV. und sein Zeitalter. Stuttg., 1865, 1856, 2 vols. Sides with Henry IV.—Helfenstein: Gregor VII. Bestrebungen nach den Streitschriften seiner Zeit., Frankfurt, 1856.—A. F. Gfrörer (first a rationalist, then a convert to ’Rome, 1853; d. 1861): Papst Greg. VII. und sein Zeitalter. 7 vols. Schaffhausen, 1859–1861.—Giesebrecht: l.c., vol. III.—A. F. Villemain: Hist. de Grégoire VII. 2 vols. Paris, 1873. Engl. trans. by J. B. Brockley, 2 vols. London, 1874.—S. Baring-Gould, in "The Lives of the Saints" for May 25, London, 1873.—W. Martens: Die Besetzung des päpstlichen Stuhls unter den Kaisern Heinrich III und Heinrich IV. 1887; *Gregor VII., sein Leben und Wirken, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1894.—W. R. W. Stephens: Hildebrand and his Times, London, 1888.—O. Delarc: S. Gregoire VII. et la réforme de l’église au XI. siècle, 3 vols. Paris, 1889.—C. Mirbt (Prof. in Marburg): Die Stellung Augustins in der Publizistik des Gregorianischen Kirchenstreits, Leipzig, 1888. Shows the influence of St. Augustine on both parties in the Gregorian controversy over the relation of Church and State; Die Wahl Gregors VII., Marburg, 1892; *Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII., Leipzig, 1894, pp. 629. An exhaustive treatment of the copious tractarian Lit. of the Hildebrandian age and its attitude on the various objects of Gregory’s policy; art. Gregor VII., in Herzog, VII. 96–113.—Marvin R. Vincent: The Age of Hildebrand, N. Y. 1896.—Also J. Greving: Paul von Bernried’s Vita Gregorii VII., Berlin, 1893, pp. 172.

§ 4. Hildebrand and his Training.

The history of the period begins with a survey of the papacy as the controlling power of Western Christendom. It embraces six stages: 1. The Hildebrandian popes, 1049–1073. 2. Gregory VII., 1073–1085, or the assertion of the supreme authority of the papacy in human affairs. 3. From Gregory’s death to the Concordat of Worms, 1122, or the settlement of the controversy over investiture. 4. From the Concordat of Worms to Innocent III., 1198. 5. The Pontificate of Innocent III., 1198–1216, or the papacy at its height. 6. From Innocent III. to Boniface VIII., 1216–1294, or the struggle of the papacy with Frederick II. and the restoration of peace between the papacy and the empire.

The papacy had reached its lowest stage of weakness and degeneracy when at Sutri in 1046, under the influence of Henry III., two popes were deposed and a third was forced to abdicate.

Vol. IV. § 66, pp. 299 sqq.

At last the providential man for effecting this necessary reformation appeared in the person of Hildebrand, who controlled five successive papal administrations for twenty-four years, 1049–1073, then occupied the papal chair himself for twelve years, 1073–1085, and was followed by like-minded successors. He is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of popes, and one of the most remarkable men in history. He excited in his age the highest admiration and the bitterest hatred. Opinions about his principles and policy are still divided; but it is impossible to deny his ability, energy, earnestness, and achievements.

Hildebrand was of humble and obscure origin, but foreordained to be a prince of the Church. He was of small stature, and hence called "Hildebrandellus" by his enemies, but a giant in intellect and character. His figure was ungainly and his voice feeble; but his eyes were bright and piercing, bespeaking penetration, a fiery spirit, and restless activity. His early life is involved in obscurity. He only incidentally alludes to it in his later Epistles, and loved to connect it with the supernatural protection of St. Peter and the Holy Virgin. With a monkish disregard of earthly relations, he never mentions his family. The year of his birth is unknown. The veneration of friends and the malice of enemies surrounded his youth with legends and lies. He was the son of a peasant or goatherd, Bonizo, living near Soana, a village in the marshes of Tuscany, a few miles from Orbitello. The oft-repeated tradition that he was the son of a carpenter seems to have originated in the desire to draw a parallel between him and Jesus of Nazareth. Of his mother we know nothing. His name points to Lombard or German origin, and was explained by his contemporaries as hell-brand or fire-brand.

The contemporary spellings are: Yldibrandus, Heldebrandus, Ildebrandus, Oldeprandus. William of Malmesbury calls him homuncio exilis staturae.

He entered the Benedictine order in the convent of St. Mary on the Aventine at Rome, of which his maternal uncle was abbot. Here he had a magnificent view of the eternal city.

Giesebrecht (III. 12 sq.): "Das Marienkloster auf dem Aventin, jetzt unter dem Namen des Priorats von Malta bekannt, bietet eine entzückende Aussicht ... ein hochbegabter Knabe, der hier erwuchs, musste die verschiedensten und mächtigsten Eindrücke erhalten, die sich kaum in einem anderen Gedanken zusammenschliessen konnten, als in dem der unvergleichlichen Hoheit des ewigen Roms."

His sympathies were with his teacher and friend, Gregory VI. This pope had himself bought the papal dignity from, the wretched Benedict IX., but he did it for the benefit of the Church, and voluntarily abdicated on the arrival of Henry III. at the Synod of Sutri, 1046. It is strange that Hildebrand, who abhorred simony, should begin his public career in the service of a simonist; but he regarded Gregory as the only legitimate pope among the three rivals, and followed him, as his chaplain, to Germany into exile.

He visited Worms, Spires, Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, the old seats of the empire, and spent much time at the court of Henry III., where he was very kindly treated. After the death of Gregory at Cologne, 1048, Hildebrand went to Cluny, the nursery of a moral reformation of monasticism. According to some reports, he had been there before. He zealously gave himself to ascetic exercises and ecclesiastical studies under the excellent abbot Hugo, and became prior of the convent. He often said afterwards that he wished to spend his life in prayer and contemplation within the walls of this sacred retreat.

But the election of Bishop Bruno of Toul, the cousin of Emperor Henry III., to the papal chair, at the Diet of Worms, brought him on the stage of public action. "Reluctantly," he said, "I crossed the Alps; more reluctantly I returned to Rome." He advised Bruno (either at Cluny or at Besancon) not to accept the triple crown from the hands of the emperor, but to await canonical election by the clergy and people of Rome. He thus clearly asserted, for the first time, his principle of the supremacy of the Church over the State.

Bruno, accompanied by Hildebrand, travelled to Rome as a pilgrim, entered the city barefoot, was received with acclamations, canonically elected, and ascended the papal chair on Feb. 12, 1049, as Leo IX.

From this time on, Hildebrand was the reigning spirit of the papacy. He understood the art of ruling through others, and making them feel that they ruled themselves. He used as his aide-de-camp Peter Damiani, the severe monk and fearless censor of the immoralities of the age, who had conquered the world within and helped him to conquer it without, in the crusade against simony and concubinage, but died, 1072, a year before Hildebrand became pope.

See vol. IV. 787 sqq.

§ 5. Hildebrand and Leo IX. 1049–1054.

The moral reformation of the papacy began with Hildebrand as leader.

See E. Martin, St. Leon IX., Paris, 1904, pp. 216; Mirbt art. in Herzog,

XI. 379-386.

Leo, accompanied by Hildebrand, held several synods in Italy, France, and Germany. He was almost omnipresent in the Church, and knew how to combine monastic simplicity with papal dignity and splendor. He was believed to work miracles wherever he went, and to possess magic powers over birds and beasts.

In his first synod, held in Rome at Easter, 1049, simony was prohibited on pain of excommunication, including the guilty bishops and the priests ordained by them. But it was found that a strict prosecution would well-nigh deprive the churches, especially those of Rome, of their shepherds. A penance of forty days was, therefore, substituted for the deposition of priests. The same synod renewed the old prohibitions of sexual intercourse of the clergy, and made the concubines of the Roman priests servants of the Lateran palace. The almost forgotten duty of the tithe was enjoined upon all Christians.

The reformatory synods of Pavia, Rheims, and Mainz, held in the same year, legislated against the same vices, as also against usury, marriage in forbidden degrees, the bearing of arms by the clergy. They likewise revealed a frightful amount of simony and clerical immorality. Several bishops were deposed.

In deposing at the Synod of Rheims the abp. of St. Iago, who had assumed the title apostolicus, Leo asserted in the strongest terms the primacy of the Roman see, quod solus Romanae sedis pontifex universalis, ecclesiae primas esset et apostolicus, Mansi, XIX. 738.

Leo surrounded himself with a council of cardinals who supported him in his reform. Towards the close of his pontificate, he acted inconsistently by taking up arms against the Normans in defense of Church property. He was defeated and taken prisoner at Benevento, but released again by granting them in the name of St. Peter their conquests in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. The Normans kissed his toe, and asked his absolution and blessing. He incurred the censure of the strict reform party. Damiani maintained that a clergyman dare not bear arms even in defense of the property of the Church, but must oppose invincible patience to the fury of the world, according to the example of Christ.

Leo spent his remaining days in grief over his defeat. He died at Rome, April 19, 1054, in his fifty-third year, after commending his soul to God in a German prayer of humble resignation, and was buried near the tomb of Gregory I. As he had begun the reformation of the Church, and miracles were reported, he was enrolled in the Calendar of Saints. Desiderius, afterwards Victor III., wrote, "All ecclesiastical interests were reformed by Leo and in him a new light arose in the world."

§ 6. Victor II. and Stephen IX. (X.). 1055–1058.

Hildebrand was absent in France when Leo died, and hurried to Rome. He could find no worthy successor in Italy, and was unwilling to assume the burden of the papacy himself. He cast his eye upon Gebhard, bishop of Eichstädt, the ablest, richest, and most influential prelate of Germany, who was warmly devoted to the emperor. He proceeded at the head of a deputation, appointed by the clergy and people, to the German court, and begged the emperor to raise Gebhard to the papal chair. After long delay, Gebhard was elected at a council in Regensburg, March, 1055, and consecrated in St. Peter’s at Rome, April 13, as Victor II. He continued the synodical war against simony, but died as early as July 28, 1057, at Arezzo, of a fever. He was the last of the German popes.

The cardinal-abbot of Monte Cassino was elected and consecrated as Stephen IX. (X.), Aug. 3, 1057, by the clergy and people of Rome, without their consulting the German court; but he died in the following year, March 29, 1058.

In the meantime a great change had taken place in Germany. Henry III. died in the prime of manhood, Oct. 5, 1056, and left a widow as regent and a son of six years, the ill-fated Henry IV. The long minority reign afforded a favorable opportunity for the reform party to make the papacy independent of the imperial power, which Henry III. had wisely exerted for the benefit of the Church, yet at the expense of her freedom.

The Roman nobility, under the lead of the counts of Tusculum, took advantage of Hildebrand’s absence in Germany to reassert its former control of the papacy by electing Benedict X. (1058–1060). But this was a brief intermezzo. On his return, Hildebrand, with the help of Duke Godfrey, expelled the usurping pope, and secured, with the consent of the empress, the election of Gerhard, bishop of Florence, a strong reformer, of ample learning and irreproachable character, who assumed the name of Nicolas II. at his consecration, Jan. 25, 1059. Benedict was deposed, submitted, and obtained absolution. He was assigned a lodging in the church of St. Agnes, where he lived for about twenty years.

§ 7. Nicolas II. and the Cardinals. 1059–1061.

The pontificate of Nicolas II. was thoroughly under the control of Hildebrand, who became archdeacon and chancellor of the Roman Church in August or September, 1059. His enemies said that he kept Nicolas like an ass in the stable, feeding him to do his work. Peter Damiani calls him the lord of the pope, and said that he would rather obey the lord of the pope than the lord-pope himself.

His epigrams on Hildebrand (Opera, II. 961, 967):—

"Vivere vis Romae, clara depromito voce:

Plus domino Papae, quam domino parea Papae"

"Papam rite colo, sed te prostratus adoro:

Tu facis hunc Dominum; te facit iste Deum."

Two important steps were made in the progress of the hierarchy,—a change in the election of the pope, and an alliance with the Normans for the temporal protection of the pope.

Nicolas convened a Lateran Council in April, 1059, the largest held in Rome down to that time. It consisted of a hundred and thirteen bishops and a multitude of clergymen; but more than two-thirds of the prelates were Italians, the rest Burgundians and Frenchmen. Germany was not represented at all. Berengar was forced at this synod to submit to a formula of recantation (which he revoked on his return to France). He calls the bishops "wild beasts," who would not listen to his idea of a spiritual communion, and insisted on a Capernaitic manducation of the body of Christ.

See vol. IV. 557 sq.

A far-reaching act of this council was the transfer of the election of a pope to the "cardinal-bishops" and "cardinal-clergy."

The canons are given in Mirbt, Quellen, 97 sqq. The two classes of cardinals are called cardinales episcopi and cardinales clerici. Langen makes the attempt to identify the latter with "the clergy of Rome," but without sufficient reason. The clergy, clerus, as a special body, are distinctly mentioned in the canons.

The alliance which Nicolas entered into, 1059, with the Normans of Southern Italy, was the second act in the long and notable part which they played in the history of the papacy. Early in the eleventh century four brothers of the house of Hauteville, starting from Normandy, began their adventurous career in Italy and Sicily. They were welcomed as crusaders liberating the Christian population from the rule of the Saracens and its threatened extension. The kingdom their arms established was confirmed by the apostolic see, and under the original dynasty, and later under the house of Anjou, had a larger influence on the destinies of the papacy for three centuries than did Norman England and the successors of William the Conqueror. Robert Guiscard, who had defeated the army of Leo IX., and held him a prisoner for nine months, was confirmed by Nicolas as duke of Apulia and Calabria. The duchy became a fief of Rome by an obligation to pay yearly twelve dinars for every yoke of oxen and to defend the Holy See against attacks upon its authority. Robert’s brother, Roger, d. 1101, began the conquest of Sicily in earnest in 1060 by the seizure of Messina, and followed it up by the capture of Palermo, 1071, and Syracuse, 1085. He was called Prince of Sicily and perpetual legate of the Holy See. One of his successors, Roger II., 1105–1154, was crowned king of Sicily at Palermo by the authority of the anti-pope Anacletus II. A half century later the blood of this house became mingled with the blood of the house of Hohenstaufen in the person of the great Frederick II. In the prominent part they took we shall find these Norman princes now supporting the plans of the papacy, now resisting them.

About the same time the Hautevilles and other freebooting Normans were getting a foothold in Southern Italy, the Normans under William the Conqueror, in 1066, were conquering England. To them England owes her introduction into the family of European nations, and her national isolation ceases.

Stubbs, ed. of Rich. de Hoveden, II. pp. lxxiii. sqq.

§ 8. The War against Clerical Marriage.

The same Lateran Council of 1059 passed severe laws against the two heresies of simony and Nicolaitism. It threatened all priests who were unwilling to give up their wives or concubines with the loss of their benefices and the right of reading mass, and warned the laity against attending their services. "No one," says the third of the thirteen canons, "shall hear mass from a priest who to his certain knowledge keeps a concubine or a subintroducta mulier."

These severe measures led to serious disturbances in Northern Italy, especially in the diocese of Milan, where every ecclesiastical office from the lowest to the highest was for sale, and where marriage or concubinage was common among priests of all grades, not excluding the archbishop.

Bonizo, a friend of Hildebrand, calls Wido, who was elected bishop of Milan in 1045, a "vir illiteratus et concubinarius et absque ulla verecundia Simoniacus." Migne, Tom. CL. 825; Jaffé, Mon. Greg., 639. But Hefele, IV. 793, doubts the charge of concubinage, and also Mirbt, Publizistik, 249.

But the Roman Church and the Hildebrandian party reversed the case, and denounced sacerdotal marriage as unlawful concubinage. The leader of this party in Lombardy was Anselm of Baggio (west of Milan), a zealous and eloquent young priest, who afterwards became bishop of Lucca and then pope (as Alexander II.). He attacked the immorality of the clergy, and was supported by the lowest populace, contemptuously called "Pataria" or "Patarines," i.e. "Ragbags."

Muratori and Du Cange (sub Pataria and Paterinus) derive pataria from pate, which in the Milanese dialect means a huckster or pedler. So also Hefele, IV. 796. Giesebrecht(III. 31) renders PatarinaLumpengesindel. The contemporary, Bonizo, interprets the term to mean "ragged,"patarinos id est pannosos vocabant. See Mirbt, art. Patara, in Herzog, XIV. 761 sqq.

This victory had great influence throughout Lombardy. But the strife was renewed under the following pope and under Gregory VII., and it was not till 1093 that Urban II. achieved a permanent triumph over Nicolaitism at a great council at Piacenza.

§ 9. Alexander II. and the Schism of Cadalus. 1061–1073.

Pope Nicolas II. died July 27, 1061. The cardinals elected, in some unknown place outside of Rome, Anselm, bishop of Lucca, Sept. 30, 1061. He was conducted to Rome in the following night by Norman soldiers, and consecrated, Oct. 1, as Alexander II. His first act was to administer the oath of fealty to Richard, the Norman leader.

The anti-Hildebrandian party of the Roman nobles, headed by Count Girard of Galeria (an excommunicated robber), with the aid of the disaffected Lombard clergy, and the young emperor Henry IV., elected Cadalus (or Cadalous), bishop of Parma, anti-pope. He was consecrated Oct. 28, 1061, as Honorius II., and maintained a schism of ten years. He had been repeatedly charged with simony, and had the sympathy and support of the married or concubinary clergy and the simoniacal laity, who hoped that his success would lead to a modification of discipline and legalization of clerical marriage. The opposition thus became an organized party, and liable to the charge of heresy, which was considered worse than carnal sin. Damiani and Humbert defended the principle that a priest who is guilty of simony or concubinage, and believes himself innocent, is more criminal than he who knows himself to be guilty. Damiani hurled the fiercest denunciation of a Hebrew prophet against the anti-pope. Cadalus entered Rome with an armed force, and maintained himself in the castle of St. Angelo for two years; but at length he sought safety in flight without a single follower, and moved to Parma. He died in 1072. His party was broken up.

Alexander held a council at Mantua, May 31, 1064, and was universally recognized as the legitimate pope; while Cadalus was anathematized and disappeared from history.

During the pontificate of Alexander, the war against simony and Nicolaitism went on under the lead of Hildebrand and Damiani with varying success. The troubles in Lombardy were renewed. Archbishop Wido of Milan sided with Cadalus and was excommunicated; he apologized, did penance, and resumed office. After his death in 1071 the strife broke out again with disgraceful scenes of violence. The Patarine party, supported with gold by the pope, gained the ascendancy after the death of Cadalus. The Normans repelled the Mohammedan aggression and won Southern Italy and Sicily for the Church of Rome.

This good service had some weight on the determination of Hildebrand to support the claim of William of Normandy to the crown of England, which was a master-stroke of his policy; for it brought that island into closer contact with Rome, and strengthened the papal pretension to dispose of temporal thrones. William fought under a banner blessed by the pope, and founded the Norman dynasty in England, 1066. The conquest was concluded at Winchester by a solemn coronation through three papal delegates, Easter, 1070.

But in Germany there arose a powerful opposition, not indeed to the papacy, which was the common ground of all parties, but to the Hildebrandian policy. This led to the conflict between Gregory VII. and Henry IV. Alexander threatened Henry with excommunication in case he persisted in his purpose to divorce his queen Bertha.

§ 10. Hildebrand elected Pope. His Views on the Situation.

Alexander II. died April 21, 1073, and was buried in the basilica of St. John in Lateran on the following day. The city, usually so turbulent after the death of a pope, was tranquil. Hildebrand ordered a three days’ fast with litanies and prayers for the dead, after which the cardinals were to proceed to an election. Before the funeral service was closed, the people shouted, "Hildebrand shall be pope!" He attempted to ascend the pulpit and to quiet the crowd, but Cardinal Hugo Candidus anticipated him, and declared:, "Men and brethren, ye know how since the days of Leo IX. Hildebrand has exalted the holy Roman Church, and defended the freedom of our city. And as we cannot find for the papacy a better man, or even one that is his equal, let us elect him, a clergyman of our Church, well known and thoroughly approved amongst us." The cardinals and clergy exclaimed in the usual formula, "St. Peter elects Gregory (Hildebrand) pope."

The earliest account is given by Gregory himself in two letters written April 24, 1073, and a third written April 26 to Wibert of Ravenna (Reg., I. 1-3). It is confirmed by Bonizo. Gregory frequently referred to his election as having been against his will. (See Mirbt, Wahl, etc., pp. 2, 42.) The anti-Gregorian party made the slanderous accusation that he secured his office by force and bribery, but not till the struggle between him and Henry IV. had begun. The subject is thoroughly discussed by Mirbt in his Wahl Gregors VII. p. 56. In his later work, Die Publizistik, p. 582, he again pronounces Gregory’s own account as "the most credible."

This tumultuary election was at once legalized by the cardinals. He was carried by the people as in triumph to the church of S. Petrus ad Vincula, clothed with the purple robe and tiara, and declared elected, as "a man eminent in piety and learning, a lover of equity and justice, firm in adversity, temperate in prosperity, according to the apostolic precept (1 Tim. 3:2), ’without reproach ... temperate, soberminded, chaste, given to hospitality, ruling his house well’ ... already well brought up and educated in the bosom of this mother Church, for his merits advanced to the office of archdeacon, whom now and henceforth we will to be called Gregory, Pope, and Apostolic Primate."

The clauses, "the husband of one wife," as well as "having his children in subjection," are omitted in the quotation from Paul’s letter to Timothy. They would be fatal to the papal theory of clerical celibacy. See the Latin text in the Acta Sanctorum for May 25, Tom. VI. 117, from the "Acta Romae 10 Kalend. Maji." The cardinals concluded the declaration with the questions: "Placet vobis? Placet. Vultis eum? Volumus. Laudatis eum? Laudamus."

It was eminently proper that the man who for nearly a quarter of a century had been the power behind the throne, should at last be pope in name as well as in fact. He might have attained the dignity long before, if he had desired it. He was then about sixty years old, when busy men begin to long for rest. He chose the name Gregory in memory of his departed friend whom he had accompanied as chaplain into exile, and as a protest against the interference of the empire in the affairs of the Church.

From Bonizo’s account it would seem that the cardinals gave him that name; but they probably ascertained his wishes beforehand, or anticipated them. Wattenbach (p. 130) regards the assumption of the name Gregory as an open insult to the empire and the Synod of Sutri, where Henry III. had deposed three popes, including Gregory VI.

Hildebrand was ordained priest, May 22, and consecrated pope, June 29, without any opposition. Bishop Gregory of Vercelli, the German chancellor of Italy, attended the consecration. The pope informed his friends, distinguished abbots, bishops, and princes of his election; gave expression to his feelings and views on his responsible position, and begged for their sympathy and prayers.

Jaffé, Mon. Greg. (1885), pp. 9 sqq.

He was overwhelmed, as he wrote to Duke Godfrey of Lorraine (May 6, 1073), by the prospect of the task before him; he would rather have died than live in the midst of such perils; nothing but trust in God and the prayers of good men could save him from despair; for the whole world was lying in wickedness; even the high officers of the Church, in their thirst for gain and glory, were the enemies rather than the friends of religion and justice. In the second year of his pontificate, he assured his friend Hugo of Cluny (Jan. 22, 1075) that he often prayed God either to release him from the present life, or to use him for the good of mother Church, and thus describes the lamentable condition of the times: —

"The Eastern Church fallen from the faith, and attacked by the infidels from without. In the West, South, or North, scarcely any bishops who have obtained their office regularly, or whose life and conduct correspond to their calling, and who are actuated by the love of Christ instead of worldly ambition. Nowhere princes who prefer God’s honor to their own, and justice to gain. The Romans, Longobards, and Normans among whom I live, as I often told them, are worse than Jews and heathens. And when I look to myself, I feel oppressed by such a burden of sin that no other hope of salvation is left me but in the mercy of Christ alone."

Abridged from Ep., II. 49; Jaffé, p. 163; Migne, 148, 400

This picture is true, and we need not wonder that he often longed to retire to the quiet retreat of a convent. He adds in the same letter that, if it were not for his desire to serve the holy Church, he would not remain in Rome, where he had spent twenty years against his wish. He was thus suspended between sorrow and hope, seized by a thousand storms, living as a dying man. He compared himself to a sailor on the high seas surrounded by darkness. And he wrote to William the Conqueror, that unwillingly he had ascended into the ship which was tossed on a billowy sea, with the violence of the winds and the fury of storms with hidden rocks beneath and other dangers rising high in air in the distance.

Reg., I. 70.

The two features which distinguished Gregory’s administration were the advocacy of papal absolutism and the promotion of moral reforms. In both these respects Gregory left an abiding impression upon the thought and practice of Latin Christendom. Even where we do not share his views we cannot help but admire his moral force and invincible courage.

§ 11. The Gregorian Theocracy.

The Hildebrandian or Gregorian Church ideal is a theocracy based upon the Mosaic model and the canon law. It is the absolute sovereignty of the Church in this world, commanding respect and obedience by her moral purity and ascetic piety. By the Church is meant the Roman Catholic organization headed by the pope as the vicar of Christ; and this hierarchical organization is identified with the Kingdom of God, in which men are saved from sin and death, and outside of which there is no ordinary salvation. No distinction is made between the Church and the Kingdom, nor between the visible and invisible Church. The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church has been to popes as visible and tangible as the German Empire, or the Kingdom of France, or the Republic of Venice. Besides this Church no other is recognized, not even the Greek, except as a schismatic branch of the Roman.

This ideal is the growth of ages. It was prepared for by pseudo-Isidor in the ninth, and by St. Augustine in the fifth century.

St. Augustine, the greatest theological authority of the Middle Ages, first identified the visible Catholic Church with the City or Kingdom of God. In his great apologetic work, De Civitate Dei, he traced the relation of this Kingdom to the changing and passing kingdoms of this world, and furnished, we may say, the programme of the mediaeval theocracy which, in theory, is adhered to by the Roman Church to this day.

Pope Leo XIII., in his encyclical concerning the Christian constitution of States (Immortale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885), defends the mediaeval theory of Church and State, and refers to the authority of St. Augustine, as having in his De Civitate Dei clearly set forth the true principles on this subject for all time to come. See Schaff’s edition of St. Augustine’s Works, pref. to vol. II. (New York, 1887). Comp. also Reuter, Augustinische Studien (Gotha, 1887), pp. 106-152, and Mirbt., l.c., who has industriously collected the quotations from Augustine by the friends and opponents of Gregory VII.

The pseudo-Isidorian Decretals went further: they identified the Catholic Church with the dominion of the papal hierarchy, and by a series of literary fictions carried this system back to the second century; notwithstanding the fact that the Oriental Church never recognized the claims of the bishops of Rome beyond that of a mere primacy of honor among equal patriarchs.

Gregory VII. actualized this politico-ecclesiastical system more fully than any previous pope, and as far as human energy and prudence would admit. The glory of the Church was the all-controlling passion of his life. He held fast to it in the darkest hours, and he was greatest in adversity. Of earlier popes, Nicolas I. and Leo I. came nearest to him in lofty pretensions. But in him papal absolutism assumed flesh and blood. He was every inch a pope. He anticipated the Vatican system of 1870; in one point he fell short of it, in another point he went beyond it. He did not claim infallibility in theory, though he assumed it in fact; but he did claim and exercise, as far as he could, an absolute authority over the temporal powers of Christendom, which the popes have long since lost, and can never regain.

Hildebrand was convinced that, however unworthy personally, he was, in his official character, the successor of Peter, and as such the vicar of Christ in the militant Church.

Gregory again and again expressed his feeling of personal unworthiness in such expressions as cui licet indigni et nolentes praesidemus, Reg., I. 18, 70, etc.; Migne, 300, 344, etc.

These and similar claims are formulated in a document of twenty-seven brief propositions preserved among Gregory’s letters, which are of doubtful genuineness, but correctly express his views,

Dictatus Papae, Migne, 148, 407 sq.; Mirbt, Quellen, p. 113. Comp: the note of Gieseler, II. B. 7 (Germ. ed.). I quote a few: 12. Quod illi liceat imperatores deponere. 22. Quod Romana Ecclesia numquam erravit, nec in perpetuum, Scriptura testante, errabit. 26. Quod catholicus non habeatur, qui non concordat Ecclesiae Romanae. 27. Quod a fidelitate iniquorum subjectos potest absolvere

Among his favorite Scripture quotations, besides the prophecy about Peter (Matt. 16:18, 19), are two passages from the Old Testament: the words of the prophet Samuel to Saul, which suited his attitude to rebellious kings (1 Sam. 15:23): "Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim; because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected thee from being king;" and the words of the prophet Jeremiah (48:10): "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." He meant the spiritual sword chiefly, but also the temporal, if necessary. He would have liked to lead an army of soldiers of St. Peter for the conquest of the Holy Land, and the subjection of all rebellious monarchs. He projected the first crusade, which his second successor carried out.

We must consider more particularly his views on the relation of Church and State. Public opinion in the Middle Ages believed neither in co-ordination nor separation of the two powers, but in the subordination of one to the other on the basis of union. Church and State were inseparably interwoven from the days of Charlemagne and even of Constantine, and both together constituted the Christian commonwealth, respublica Christiana. There was also a general agreement that the Church was the spiritual, the State, the temporal power.

But the parties divided on the question of the precise boundary line.

See Mirbt, Publizistik, 572-579.

Gregory compares the Church to the sun, the State to the moon, which borrows her light from the sun.

Letter of May 8, 1080, to William of England. Jaffé, 419 sq.; Migne, 148, 569. Gregory also compared the priesthood to gold and royalty to lead, Reg., IV. 2.

His theory of the papal power could not have been more explicitly stated than when, writing to Sancho, king of Aragon, he said that Jesus, the king of glory, had made Peter lord over the kingdoms of the world. This principle he consistently acted upon.

Petrum dominus Jesus Christus, rex gloriae, principem super regna mundi constituit, Reg., I. 63; Migne, 148, 339.

"And now, O ye princes and fathers, most holy Apostles Peter and Paul, deal ye with us in such wise that all the world may know and understand that, having the power to bind and to loose in heaven, you have the like power to take away empires, kingdoms, principalities, duchies, marquisates, earldoms, and all manner of human rights and properties .... Having such mighty power in spiritual things, what is there on earth that may transcend your authority in temporal things? And if ye judge the angels, who are high above the proudest of princes, what may ye not do unto those beneath them? Let the kings and princes of the earth know and feel how great ye are—how exalted your power! Let them tremble to despise the commands of your Church!

"But upon the said Henry do judgment quickly, that all men may know that it is not by fortune or chance, but by your power, that he has fallen! May he thus be confounded unto repentance, that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord!"

This is the extreme of hierarchical arrogance and severity. Gregory always assumed the air of supreme authority over kings and nobles as well as bishops and abbots, and expects from them absolute obedience.

Sardinia and Corsica he treated as fiefs.

Reg., I. 29, VII. 10; Migne, 148, 312, 584.

For William the Conqueror, Gregory expressed great affection, addressing him as "best beloved," carissime, but solemnly reminded him that he owed his promotion to the throne of England to the favor of the Roman see and bidding him be prompt in the payment of Peter’s Pence.

Reg., I. 70, VII. 23; Migne, 345, 565 sqq., etc.

Unbiblical and intolerable as is Hildebrand’s scheme of papal absolutism as a theory of abiding validity, for the Middle Ages it was better that the papacy should rule. It was, indeed, a spiritual despotism; but it checked a military despotism which was the only alternative, and would have been far worse. The Church, after all, represented the moral and intellectual interests over against rude force and passions. She could not discharge her full duty unless she was free and independent. The princes of the Middle Ages were mostly ignorant and licentious despots; while the popes, in their official character, advocated the cause of learning, the sanctity of marriage, and the rights of the people. It was a conflict of moral with physical power, of intelligence with ignorance, of religion with vice.

The theocratic system made religion the ruling factor in mediaeval Europe, and gave the Catholic Church an opportunity to do her best. Her influence was, upon the whole, beneficial. The enthusiasm for religion inspired the crusades, carried Christianity to heathen savages, built the cathedrals and innumerable churches, founded the universities and scholastic theology, multiplied monastic orders and charitable institutions, checked wild passions, softened manners, stimulated discoveries and inventions, preserved ancient classical and Christian literature, and promoted civilization. The papacy struck its roots deep in the past, even as far back as the second century. But it was based in part on pious frauds, as the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals and the false Donation of Constantine.

The mediaeval theocracy was at best a carnal anticipation of the millennial reign, when all the kingdoms of this world shall obey the peaceful sceptre of Christ. The papacy degenerated more and more into a worldly institution and an intolerable tyranny over the hearts and minds of men. Human nature is too noble to be ruled by despotism, and too weak to resist its temptations. The State has divine authority as well as the Church, and the laity have rights as well as the clergy. These rights came to the front as civilization advanced and as the hierarchy abused its power. It was the abuse of priestly authority for the enslavement of men, the worldliness of the Church, and the degradation and profanation of religion in the traffic of indulgences, which provoked the judgment of the Reformation.

§ 12. Gregory VII. as a Moral Reformer. Simony and Clerical Marriage.

Gregory VII. must be viewed not only as a papal absolutist, but also as a moral reformer. It is the close connection of these two characters that gives him such pre-eminence in history, and it is his zeal for moral reform that entitles him to real respect; while his pretension to absolute power he shares with the most worthless popes.

His Church ideal formed a striking contrast to the actual condition of the Church, and he could not actualize it without raising the clergy from the deep slough of demoralization to a purer and higher plane.

His reforms were directed against simony and Nicolaitism. What he had done as Hildebrand, by way of advice, he now carried out by official authority.

In the war on simony he was altogether right from the standpoint of Protestant as well as Roman Catholic ethics. The traffic in ecclesiastical dignities was an unmitigated nuisance and scandal, and doubly criminal if exercised by bishops and popes.

In his war on Nicolaitism, Gregory was sustained by ancient laws of the Roman Church, but not by the genuine spirit of Christianity. Enforced clerical celibacy has no foundation in the Bible, and is apt to defeat the sacerdotal ideal which it was intended to promote. The real power and usefulness of the clergy depend upon its moral purity, which is protected and promoted by lawful matrimony, the oldest institution of God, dating from the paradise of innocence.

The motives of Gregory in his zeal for sacerdotal celibacy were partly monkish and partly hierarchical. Celibacy was an essential part of his ascetic ideal of a priest of God, who must be superior to carnal passions and frailties, wholly devoted to the interests of the Church, distracted by no earthly cares, separated from his fellow-men, and commanding their reverence by angelic purity. Celibacy, moreover, was an indispensable condition of the freedom of the hierarchy. He declared that he could not free the Church from the rule of the laity unless the priests were freed from their wives. A married clergy is connected with the world by social ties, and concerned for the support of the family; an unmarried clergy is independent, has no home and aim but the Church, and protects the pope like a standing army.

Another motive for opposing clerical marriage was to prevent the danger of a hereditary caste which might appropriate ecclesiastical property to private uses and impoverish the Church. The ranks of the hierarchy, even the chair of St. Peter, were to be kept open to self-made men of the humblest classes, but closed against hereditary claimants. This was a practical recognition of the democratic principle in contrast with the aristocratic feudalism of the Middle Ages. Hildebrand himself, who rose from the lowest rank without patronage to the papal throne, was the best illustration of this clerical democracy.

The power of the confessional, which is one of the pillars of the priesthood, came to the aid of celibacy. Women are reluctant to intrust their secrets to a priest who is a husband and father of a family.

The married priests brought forward the example of the priests of the Old Testament. This argument Damiani answered by saying that the Hebrew priest was forbidden to eat before offering sacrifices at the altar. How much more unseemly it would be for a priest of the new order to soil himself carnally before offering the sacraments to God! The new order owed its whole time to the office and had none left for marriage and the family life (1 Cor. 7:32). Only an unmarried man who refuses to gratify carnal lusts can fulfil the injunction to be a temple of God and avoid quenching the Spirit (Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 5:19).

See Mirbt, p. 278.

These motives controlled also the followers of Gregory and the whole hierarchy, and secured the ultimate triumph of sacerdotal celibacy. The question of abolishing it has from time to time been agitated, and in the exceptional cases of the Maronites and United Greeks the popes have allowed single marriage in deference to old custom and for prudential reasons. Pope Pius II., before he ascended the papal chair (1458–1464), said that good reasons required the prohibition of clerical marriage, but better reasons required its restoration. The hierarchical interest, however, has always overruled these better reasons. Whatever may have been the advantages of clerical celibacy, its evils were much greater. The sexual immorality of the clergy, more than anything else, undermined the respect of the people for their spiritual guides, and was one of the chief causes of the Reformation, which restored honorable clerical marriage, created a pastoral home with its blessings, and established the supremacy of conscience over hierarchical ambition.

From the standpoint of a zealous reformer like Gregory, the morals of the clergy were certainly in a low condition. No practice did he condemn with such burning words as the open marriage of priests or their secret cohabitation with women who were to all intents and purposes their wives. Contemporary writers like Damiani, d. 1072, in his Gomorrhianus, give dark pictures of the lives of the priests. While descriptions of rigid ascetics are to be accepted with caution, the evidence abounds that in all parts of Latin Christendom the law of priestly celibacy was ignored.

Mirbt, Publizistik, 259, says that there was no such thing as a general observance of celibacy in Western Europe.

§ 13. The Enforcement of Sacerdotal Celibacy.

Literature, special works: Henry C. Lea: A Hist. Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, Phil. 1867, 2d ed. Boston, 1884.—A. Dresdner: Kultur und Sittengeschichte der italienischen Geistlichkeit im 10 und 11 Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1890.—Mirbt: Publizistik, pp. 239–342; Hefele, V. 20 sqq. The chief contemporary sources are Damiani de coelibatu sacerdotum, addressed to Nicolas II. and Gomorrhianus, commended by Leo IX., and other writings,—Gregory VII.’s Letters. Mirbt gives a survey of this literature, pp. 274–342.

Gregory completed, with increased energy and the weight of official authority, the moral reform of the clergy as a means for securing the freedom and power of the Church. He held synod after synod, which passed summary laws against simony and Nicolaitism, and denounced all carnal connection of priests with women, however legitimate, as sinful and shameful concubinage. Not contented with synodical legislation, he sent letters and legates into all countries with instructions to enforce the decrees. A synod in Rome, March, 1074, opened the war. It deposed the priests who had bought their dignity or benefices, prohibited all future sacerdotal marriage, required married priests to dismiss their wives or cease to read mass, and commanded the laity not to attend their services. The same decrees had been passed under Nicolas II. and Alexander II., but were not enforced. The forbidding of the laity to attend mass said by a married priest, was a most dangerous, despotic measure, which had no precedent in antiquity. In an encyclical of 1079 addressed to the whole realm of Italy and Germany, Gregory used these violent words, "If there are presbyters, deacons, or sub-deacons who are guilty of the crime of fornication (that is, living with women as their wives), we forbid them, in the name of God Almighty and by the authority of St. Peter, entrance into the churches, introitum ecclesiae, until they repent and rectify their conduct."

These decrees caused a storm of opposition. Many clergymen in Germany, as Lambert of Hersfeld reports, denounced Gregory as a madman and heretic: he had forgotten the words of Christ, Matt. 19:11, and of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 7:9; he wanted to compel men to live like angels, and, by doing violence to the law of nature, he opened the door to indiscriminate licentiousness. They would rather give up their calling than their wives, and tauntingly asked him to look out for angels who might take their place. The bishops were placed in a most embarrassing position. Some, like Otto of Constance, sympathized with the married clergy; and he went so far as to bid his clergy marry.

In a letter to Sicardus, abp. of Aquileja, Jan. 24, 1074, Gregory complained of princes who treated the Church as a servant-maid, quasi vilem ancillam, etc. Reg., I. 42; Migne, 148, 322.

But the princes who were opposed to Henry IV. and deposed him at Tribur (1076), professed great zeal for the Roman Church and moral reform. They were stigmatized with the Milanese name of Patarini. Even Henry IV., though he tacitly protected the simoniacal and concubinary clergy and received their aid, never ventured openly to defend them; and the anti-pope Clement III., whom he elected 1080, expressed with almost Hildebrandian severity his detestation of clerical concubinage, although he threatened with excommunication the presumptuous laymen who refused to take the sacrament from immoral priests. Bishop Benzo, the most bitter of imperialists, did not wish to be identified with the Nicolaitan heretics.

A contemporary writer, probably a priest of Treves, gives a frightful picture of the immediate results of this reform, with which he sympathized in principle. Slaves betrayed masters and masters betrayed slaves, friends informed against friends, faith and truth were violated, the offices of religion were neglected, society was almost dissolved. The peccant priests were exposed to the scorn and contempt of the laity, reduced to extreme poverty, or even mutilated by the populace, tortured and driven into exile. Their wives, who had been legally married with ring and religious rites, were insulted as harlots, and their children branded as bastards. Many of these unfortunate women died from hunger or grief, or committed suicide in despair, and were buried in unconsecrated earth. Peasants burned the tithes on the field lest they should fall into the hands of disobedient priests, trampled the host under foot, and baptized their own children.

Hauck, III. 780 sq.; Mirbt, Publizistik, 269 sqq.; Hefele, V. 30 sqq.

In England, St. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, d. 988, had anticipated the reforms of Hildebrand, but only with temporary success. William the Conqueror made no effort to enforce sacerdotal celibacy, except that the charge of concubinage was freely used as a pretext for removing Anglo-Saxon prelates to make room for Norman rivals. Lanfranc of Canterbury was a Hildebrandian, but could not prevent a reformatory council at Winchester in 1076 from allowing married priests to retain their wives, and it contented itself with the prohibition of future marriages. This prohibition was repeated at a council held in London, 1102, when Anselm occupied the see of Canterbury. Married priests were required to dismiss their wives, and their children were forbidden to inherit their fathers’ churches. A profession of chastity was to be exacted at ordination to the subdiaconate and the higher orders. But no punishment was prescribed for the violation of these canons. Anselm maintained them vigorously before and after his exile. A new council, called by King Henry at London, 1108, a year before Anselm’s death, passed severe laws against sacerdotal marriage under penalties of deposition, expulsion from the Church, loss of property, and infamy. The temporal power was pledged to enforce this legislation. But Eadmer, the biographer of Anselm, sorrowfully intimates that the result was an increase of shocking crimes of priests with their relatives, and that few preserved that purity with which Anselm had labored to adorn his clergy.

In Spain, which was as much isolated from the Continent by the Pyrenees as England by the sea, clerical celibacy was never enforced before this period. The Saracenic invasion and subsequent struggles of the Christians were unfavorable to discipline. A canon of Compostella, afterwards bishop of Mondonego, describes the contemporary ecclesiastics at the close of the eleventh century as reckless and violent men, ready for any crime, prompt to quarrel, and occasionally indulging in mutual slaughter. The lower priests were generally married; but bishops and monks were forbidden by a council of Compostella, in 1056, all intercourse with women, except with mothers, aunts, and sisters wearing the monastic habit. Gregory VII. sent a legate, a certain Bishop Amandus, to Spain to introduce his reforms, 1077. A council at Girona, 1078, forbade the ordination of sons of priests and the hereditary transmission of ecclesiastical benefices. A council at Burgos, 1080, commanded married priests to put away their wives. But this order seems to have been a dead letter until the thirteenth century, when the code of laws drawn up by Alfonso the Wise, known as "Las Siete Partidas," punished sacerdotal marriage with deprivation of function and benefice, and authorized the prelates to command the assistance of the secular power in enforcing this punishment. "After this we hear little of regular marriage, which was replaced by promiscuous concubinage or by permanent irregular unions."

Lea, p. 309.

In France the efforts of reform made by the predecessors of Gregory had little effect. A Paris synod of 1074 declared Gregory’s decrees unbearable and unreasonable.

importabilia ideoque irrationabilia.

At last, the Gregorian enforcement of sacerdotal celibacy triumphed in the whole Roman Church, but at the fearful sacrifice of sacerdotal chastity. The hierarchical aim was attained, but not the angelic purity of the priesthood. The private morals of the priest were sacrificed to hierarchical ambition. Concubinage and licentiousness took the place of holy matrimony. The acts of councils abound in complaints of clerical immorality and the vices of unchastity and drunkenness. "The records of the Middle Ages are full of the evidences that indiscriminate license of the worst kind prevailed throughout every rank of the hierarchy."

g Lea, p. 341.

§ 14. The War over Investiture.

The other great reform-scheme of Gregory aimed at the complete emancipation of the Church from the bondage of the secular power. His conception of the freedom of the Church meant the slavery of the State. The State exercised control over the Church by selling ecclesiastical dignities, or the practice of simony, and by the investiture of bishops and abbots; that is, by the bestowal of the staff and ring.

investitura per baculum et annulum.

The feudal system of the Middle Ages, as it developed itself among the new races of Europe from the time of Charlemagne, rested on land tenure and the mutual obligations of lord and vassal, whereby the lord, from the king down to the lowest landed proprietor, was bound to protect his vassal, and the vassal was bound to serve his lord. The Church in many countries owned nearly or fully one-half of the landed estate, with the right of customs, tolls, coinage of money, etc., and was in justice bound to bear part of the burden attached to land tenure. The secular lords regarded themselves as the patrons of the Church, and claimed the right of appointing and investing its officers, and of bestowing upon them, not only their temporalia, but also the insignia of their spiritual power. This was extremely offensive to churchmen. The bishop, invested by the lord, became his vassal, and had to swear an oath of obedience, which implied the duty of serving at court and furnishing troops for the defense of the country. Sometimes a bishop had hardly left the altar when his liege-lord commanded him to gird on the sword. After the death of the bishop, the king or prince used the income of the see till the election of a successor, and often unduly postponed the election for his pecuniary benefit, to the injury of the Church and the poor. In the appointments, the king was influenced by political, social, or pecuniary considerations, and often sold the dignity to the highest bidder, without any regard to intellectual or moral qualifications. The right of investiture was thus closely connected with the crying abuse of simony, and its chief source.

No wonder that Gregory opposed this investiture by laymen with all his might. Cardinal Humbert had attacked it in a special book under Victor II. (1057), and declared it an infamous scandal that lay-hands, above all, female hands, should bestow the ring and crosier. He insisted that investiture was a purely spiritual function, and that secular princes have nothing to do with the performance of functions that have something sacramental about them. They even commit sacrilege by touching the garments of the priest. By the exercise of the right of investiture, princes, who are properly the defenders of the Church, had become its lords and rulers. Great evils had arisen out of this practice, especially in Italy, where ambitious priests lingered about the antechambers of courts and practised the vice of adulation, vitium adulationis.

Humbert’s work, adversus simoniacos, is giveninlibelli de lite and Migne, vol. 153. Wido of Arezzo and Damiani expressed the same views. See Mirbt, Publizistik, 463-471. Of those who received lay investiture it began to be said "that they entered not in by the door,"non per ostium intraverant.

The legislation against lay appointments was opened at the Synod of Rheims, 1049, under the influence of Leo IX. It declared that no priest should be promoted to office without the election of clergy and people. Ten years later, 1059, the Synod of Rome pronounced any appointment of cleric or presbyter to benefice invalid, which was made by a layman.

ut per laicos nullo modo quilibet clericus aut presbyter obtineat ecclesiam nec gratis nec pretio, Mansi, XIX. 898.

By abolishing this custom, Gregory hoped to emancipate the clergy from the vassalage of the State, and the property of the Church from the feudal supervision of the prince, as well as to make the bishops the obedient servants of the pope.

The contest continued under the following popes, and was at last settled by the compromise of Worms (1122). The emperor yielded only in part; for to surrender the whole property of the Church to the absolute power of the pope, would have reduced civil government to a mere shadow. On the other hand, the partial triumph of the papacy contributed very much to the secularization of the Church.

§ 15. Gregory VII. and Henry IV.

The conflict over investiture began at a Roman synod in Lent (Feb. 24–28), 1075, and brought on the famous collision with Henry IV., in which priestcraft and kingcraft strove for mastery. The pope had the combined advantages of superior age, wisdom, and moral character over this unfortunate prince, who, when a mere boy of six years (1056), had lost his worthy father, Henry III., had been removed from the care of his pious but weak mother, Agnes, and was spoilt in his education. Henry had a lively mind and noble impulses, but was despotic and licentious. Prosperity made him proud and overbearing, while adversity cast him down. His life presents striking changes of fortune. He ascended and descended twice the scale of exaltation and humiliation. He first insulted the pope, then craved his pardon; he rebelled again against him, triumphed for a while, was twice excommunicated and deposed; at last, forsaken and persecuted by his own son, he died a miserable death, and was buried in unconsecrated earth. The better class of his own subjects sided against him in his controversy with the pope. The Saxons rose in open revolt against his tyranny on the very day that Hildebrand was consecrated (June 29, 1073).

This synod of 1075 forbade the king and all laymen having anything to do with the appointment of bishops or assuming the right of investiture.

This statement is based upon the authority of Arnulf of Milan. The decree itself is lost. See Mirbt, Publizistik, 492. Arnulf says, papa ... palam interdicit regi jus deinde habere aliquod in dandis episcopatibus omnesque laicas personas ab investituris ecclesiarum summovet.

The king, hard pressed by the rebellious Saxons, at first yielded, and dismissed the five counsellors; but, as soon as he had subdued the rebellion (June 5, 1075), he recalled them, and continued to practice shameful simony. He paid his soldiers from the proceeds of Church property, and adorned his mistresses with the diamonds of sacred vessels. The pope exhorted him by letter and deputation to repent, and threatened him with excommunication. The king received his legates most ungraciously, and assumed the tone of open defiance. Probably with his knowledge, Cencius, a cousin of the imperial prefect in Rome, shamefully maltreated the pope, seized him at the altar the night before Christmas, 1075, and shut him up in a tower; but the people released him and put Cencius to flight.

Henry called the bishops and abbots of the empire to a council at Worms, under the lead of Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz, Jan. 24, 1076. This council deposed Gregory without giving him even a hearing, on the ground of slanderous charges of treason, witchcraft, covenant with the devil, and impurity, which were brought against him by Hugo Blancus (Hugh Leblanc), a deposed cardinal. It was even asserted that he ruled the Church by a senate of women, Beatrix, Matilda of Tuscany, and Agnes, the emperor’s mother. Only two bishops dared to protest against the illegal proceeding. The Ottos and Henry III. had deposed popes, but not in such a manner.

Henry secured the signatures of the disaffected bishops of Upper Italy at a council in Piacenza. He informed Gregory of the decree of Worms in an insulting letter: —

"Henry, king, not by usurpation, but by God’s holy ordinance, to Hildebrand, not pope, but a false monk. How darest thou, who hast won thy power through craft, flattery, bribery, and force, stretch forth thy hand against the Lord’s anointed, despising the precept of the true pope, St. Peter: ’Fear God, honor the king?’ Thou who dost not fear God, dishonorest me whom He has appointed. Condemned by the voice of all our bishops, quit the apostolic chair, and let another take it, who will preach the sound doctrine of St. Peter, and not do violence under the cloak of religion. I, Henry, by the grace of God, king, with all my bishops, say unto thee, Come down, come down!"

"Descende, descende." Bruno, De bello Saxonico, in Pertz, VII. 352 sq. There are several variations of the letter of Henry, but the tone of imperious defiance and violence is the same.

At the same time Henry wrote to the cardinals and the Roman people to aid him in the election of a new pope. Roland, a priest of Parma, brought the letter to Rome at the end of February, as Gregory was just holding a synod of a hundred and ten bishops, and concluded his message with the words. "I tell you, brethren, that you must appear at Pentecost before the king to receive from his hands a pope and father; for this man here is not pope, but a ravening wolf." This produced a storm of indignation. The prelates drew swords and were ready to kill him on the spot; but Gregory remained calm, and protected him against violence.

On the next day (February 22) the pope excommunicated and deposed Henry in the name of St. Peter, and absolved his subjects from their oath of obedience. He published the ban in a letter to all Christians. The sentence of deposition is as follows: —

"Blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, incline thine ear unto me, and hear me, thy servant, whom from childhood thou didst nurse and protect against the wicked to this day. Thou and my lady, the mother of God, and thy brother, St. Paul, are my witnesses that the holy Roman Church has drawn me to the helm against my will, and that I have not risen up like a robber to thy seat. Rather would I have been a pilgrim my whole life long than have snatched to myself thy chair on account of temporal glory and in a worldly spirit .... By thy intercession God has intrusted me with the power to bind and to loose on earth and in heaven.

"Therefore, relying on this trust, for the honor and security of the Church, in the name of the Almighty Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I do prohibit Henry, king, son of Henry the emperor, from ruling the kingdom of the Teutons and of Italy, because with unheard-of pride he has lifted himself up against thy Church; and I release all Christians from the oath of allegiance to him which they have taken, or shall take, and I forbid that any shall serve him as king. For it is fitting that he who will touch the dignity of the Church should lose his own. And inasmuch as he has despised obedience by associating with the excommunicate, by many deeds of iniquity, and by spurning the warnings which I have given him for his good, I bind him in the bands of anathema; that all nations of the earth may know that thou art Peter, and that upon thy rock the Son of the living God hath built His Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Bernried, Vita Greg., c. 68 sq. (in Migne, 148, p. 74); Jaffé, 223;Mirbt, Quellen, 100; Hefele, V. 70 sqq.

The empress-widow was present when the anathema was pronounced on her son. At the same time the pope excommunicated all the German and Italian bishops who had deposed him at Worms and Piacenza.

This was a most critical moment, and the signal for a deadly struggle between the two greatest potentates in Christendom. Never before had such a tremendous sentence been pronounced upon a crowned head. The deposition of Childeric by Pope Zacharias was only the sanction of the actual rule of Pepin. Gregory threatened also King Philip of France with deposition, but did not execute it. Now the heir of the crown of Charlemagne was declared an outlaw by the successor of the Galilean fisherman, and Europe accepted the decision. There were not wanting, indeed, voices of discontent and misgivings about the validity of a sentence which justified the breaking of a solemn oath. All conceded the papal right of excommunication, but not the right of deposition. If Henry had commanded the respect and love of his subjects, he might have defied Gregory. But the religious sentiment of the age sustained the pope, and was far less shocked by the papal excommunication and deposition of the king than by the royal deposition of the pope. It was never forgotten that the pope had crowned Charlemagne, and it seemed natural that his power to bestow implied his power to withhold or to take away.

The papal sentence against Henry made a profound impression upon Western Europe. Bonizo says, universus noster romanus orbis contemruit, postquam de banno regis ad aures personuit vulgi. See Mirbt, 139.

Gregory had not a moment’s doubt as to the justice of his act. He invited the faithful to pray, and did not neglect the dictates of worldly prudence. He strengthened his military force in Rome, and reopened negotiations with Robert Guiscard and Roger. In Northern Italy he had a powerful ally in Countess Matilda, who, by the recent death of her husband and her mother, had come into full possession of vast dominions, and furnished a bulwark against the discontented clergy and nobility of Lombardy and an invading army from Germany.

The excommunication of Henry in 1076 and again in 1080 called forth a controversial literature of some proportions, Mirbt, Publizistik, 134-239, as did Gregory’s attitude towards simony and clerical celibacy. The anti-Gregorians took the ground that the excommunication was unjust and even called in question the pope’s right to excommunicate a king. Gregory’s letters make reference to these objections. Writing to Hermann of Metz, Reg., IV. 2, Gregory said that there were some who openly declared that a king should not be excommunicated, regem non oportet excommunicari. Gregory justified his act on the ground of the king’s companionship with excommunicated persons, his refusal to offer repentance for crimes, and the rupture of the unity of the Church which resulted from the king’s course, Reg., IV. 1, etc. The Council of Tribur, Oct. 16, 1076, discussed the questions whether a pope might excommunicate a king and whether Gregory had acted justly in excommunicating Henry. It answered both questions in the affirmative. A hundred years after the event, Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici, I., speaks of the sentence as unheard of before, quo numquam ante haec tempora hujusmodi sententiam in principem romanum promulgatam cognoverat.

When Henry received the tidings of the sentence of excommunication and deposition, he burst into a furious rage, abused Gregory as a hypocrite, heretic, murderer, perjurer, adulterer, and threatened to fling back the anathema upon his head. William, bishop of Utrecht, had no scruples in complying with the king’s wishes, and from the pulpit of his cathedral anathematized Gregory as "a perjured monk who had dared to lift up his head against the Lord’s anointed." Henry summoned a national council to Worms on Whitsunday (May 15) to protest against the attempt of Gregory to unite in one hand the two swords which God had separated.

Reg IV. 2; Migne, 148, 455.

The council at Worms was attended by few bishops, and proved a failure. A council in Mainz, June 29, turned out no better, and Henry found it necessary to negotiate. Saxony was lost; prelates and nobles deserted him. A diet at Tribur, an imperial castle near Mainz, held Oct. 16, 1076, demanded that he should submit to the pope, seek absolution from him within twelve months from the date of excommunication, at the risk of forfeiting his crown. He should then appear at a diet to be held at Augsburg on Feb. 2, 1077, under the presidency of the pope. Meanwhile he was to abide at Spires in strict privacy, in the sole company of his wife, the bishop of Verdun, and a few servants chosen by the nobles. The legates of Gregory were treated with marked respect, and gave absolution to the excommunicated bishops, including Siegfried of Mainz, who submitted to the pope.

Henry spent two dreary months in seclusion at Spires, shut out from the services of the Church and the affairs of the State. At last he made up his mind to seek absolution, as the only means of saving his crown. There was no time to be lost; only a few weeks remained till the Diet of Augsburg, which would decide his fate.

§ 16. Canossa. 1077.

The winter of 1076–1077 was one of the coldest and longest within the memory of men—the Rhine being frozen to a solid mass from November till April—and one of the most memorable in history—being marked by an event of typical significance. The humiliation of the head of the German Empire at the feet of the bishop of Rome at Canossa means the subjection of the State to the Church and the triumph of the Hildebrandian policy.

A few days before Christmas, Henry IV. left Spires on a journey across the Alps as a penitent, seeking absolution from the pope. He was accompanied by his wife with her infant son Conrad (born August, 1071) and one faithful servant. Bertha, daughter of the margrave Odo of Turin and Adelheid of Susa, was betrothed to Henry in 1055 at Zürich, and married to him, July 13, 1066. She was young, beautiful, virtuous, and amiable; but he preferred to live with mistresses; and three years after the marriage he sought a divorce, with the aid of the unprincipled archbishop Siegfried of Mainz. The pope very properly refused his consent. The king gave up his wicked intention, and became attached to Bertha. She was born to love and to suffer, and accompanied him as a comforting angel through the bitter calamities of his life.

The royal couple passed through Burgundy and Susa under the protection of Count William and the mother of Bertha, and crossed Mont Cenis. The queen and her child were carried up and lowered down the icy slopes in rough sledges of oxhide; some horses were killed, but no human lives lost. When Henry reached the plains of Lombardy, he was received with joy by the anti-Hildebrandian party; but he hurried on to meet the successor of Peter, who alone could give him absolution.

He left his wife and child at Reggio, and, accompanied by his mother-in-law and a few friends, he climbed up the steep hill to Canossa, where Gregory was then stopping on his journey to the Diet at Augsburg, waiting for a safe-conduct across the Alps.

Canossa, now in ruins, was an impregnable fortress of the Countess Matilda, south of Reggio, on the northern slope of the Apennines, surrounded by three, walls, and including a castle, a chapel, and a convent.

The castle was destroyed by the inhabitants of Reggio in 1255. The site affords a magnificent view of the Apennines towards the south, and of the plain of the Po towards the north, and the cities of Parma, Reggio, and Modena. An excursion from Reggio to Canossa and back can be made in eight hours. For Gregory’s own account of the meeting, see Reg., IV. 2, in Migne, 148, 465, and Mirbt, Quellen, 101. See also Hauck, III. 792 sqq.

The pope had already received a number of excommunicated bishops and noblemen, and given or promised them absolution after the case of the chief sinner against the majesty of St. Peter should be decided.

Henry arrived at the foot of the castle-steep, Jan. 21, 1077, when the cold was severe and the ground covered with snow. He had an interview with Matilda and Hugo, abbot of Cluny, his godfather, and declared his willingness to submit to the pope if he was released from the interdict. But Gregory would only absolve him on condition that he would surrender to him his crown and forever resign the royal dignity. The king made the last step to secure the mercy of the pope: he assumed the severest penances which the Church requires from a sinner, as a sure way to absolution. For three days, from the 25th to the 28th of January, he stood in the court between the inner walls, as a penitent suppliant, with bare head and feet, in a coarse woolen shirt, shivering in the cold, and knocked in vain for entrance at the gateway, which still perpetuates in its name. "Porta di penitenza," the memory of this event.

"Illic," says Berthold (Monum. Germ. SS., V. 289)."laneis indutus, nudis pedibus, frigorosus, usque in diem tertium foris extra castellum cum suis hospitabatur." During the night the king was under shelter. See Hefele, V. 94 sq.

The stern old pope, as hard as a rock and as cold as the snow, refused admittance, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties of Matilda and Hugo, till he was satisfied that the cup of humiliation was drained to the dregs, or that further resistance would be impolitic. He first exacted from Henry, as a condition of absolution, the promise to submit to his decision at the approaching meeting of the German nobles under the presidency of the pope as arbiter, and to grant him and his deputies protection on their journey to the north. In the meantime he was to abstain from exercising the functions of royalty.

The last point is omitted by Berthold, but expressly mentioned by Lambert of Hersfeld, and confirmed by Gregory, who says in his account of the Canossa event to the German prelates and princes, that he received Henry only into the communion of the Church, without reinstating him in his reign (losum ei communionem redidi, non tamen in regno ... instauravi), and without binding the faithful to their oath of allegiance, reserving this to future decision. Jaffé, p. 402; Hefele, V. 96. The same view he expresses in the sentence of the second excommunication. In view of these facts it is strange that Giesebrecht (III. 403) should discredit the report of Lambert, and hold that Henry regained with the absolution also the royal prerogatives.

The king made the promise, and two bishops and several nobles, in his behalf, swore upon sacred relics that he would keep it. Hugo, being a monk, could not swear, but pledged his word before the all-seeing God. Hugo, the bishops, nobles, and the Countess Matilda and Adelheid signed the written agreement, which still exists.

After these preliminaries, the inner gate was opened. The king, in the prime of life, the heir of many crowned monarchs, and a man of tall and noble presence, threw himself at the feet of the gray-haired pope, a man of low origin and of small and unimpressive stature, who by his word had disarmed an empire. He burst into tears, and cried "Spare me, holy father, spare me!" The company were moved to tears; even the iron pope showed signs of tender compassion. He heard the confession of Henry, raised him up, gave him absolution and his apostolic blessing, conducted him to the chapel, and sealed the reconciliation by the celebration of the sacrifice of the mass.

Some chroniclers add the following incident, which has often been repeated, but is very improbable. Gregory, before partaking of the sacrament, called upon God to strike him dead if he were guilty of the crimes charged on him, and, after eating one-half of the consecrated wafer unharmed, he offered the other half to Henry, requesting him to submit to the same awful ordeal; but the king declined it, and referred the whole question to the decision of a general council.

This story, first told by Lambert of Hersfeld, who in the main sided with Gregory against Henry, is discredited by Giesebrecht, III. 401; Ranke, VII. 284; Mirbt, 194-199; and the Catholic historians, Döllinger and Hefele(V. 98), reject it as a fable. The pope had no need to protest his innocence, and had referred the charges against the king to a German tribunal; the king had previously promised him to appear before this tribunal; his present purpose was simply to get rid of the interdict, so as to be free to act. By declining the ordeal he would have confessed his guilt and justified the pope, and superseded the action of the German tribunal. On the historical value of Lambert’s Annales, see Giesebrecht, III. 1030-1032, and Wattenbach, Deutschlands, Geschichtsquellen, II. 87 sqq. Gregorovius repeats the story as authentic.

After mass, the pope entertained the king courteously at dinner and dismissed him with some fatherly warnings and counsels, and with his renewed apostolic blessing.

Henry gained his object, but at the sacrifice of his royal dignity. He confessed by his act of humiliation that the pope had a right to depose a king and heir of the imperial crown, and to absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance. The head of the State acknowledged the temporal supremacy of the Church. Canossa marks the deepest humiliation of the State and the highest exaltation of the Church,—we mean the political papal Church of Rome, not the spiritual Church of Christ, who wore a crown of thorns in this world and who prayed on the cross for his murderers.

Gregory acted on the occasion in the sole interest of the hierarchy. His own friends, as we learn from his official account to the Germans, deemed his conduct to be "tyrannical cruelty, rather than apostolic severity." He saw in Henry the embodiment of the secular power in opposition to the ecclesiastical power, and he achieved a signal triumph, but only for a short time. He overshot his mark, and was at last expelled from Rome by the very man against whom he had closed the gate.

His relation to Matilda was political and ecclesiastical. The charge of his enemies that he entertained carnal intimacy with her is monstrous and incredible, considering his advanced age and unrelenting war against priestly concubinage.

Lambert refutes this slander (M. G., V. 257), and the best modern historians. Protestant as well as Catholic, reject it. See Neander, Ranke. (VII. 280), and Hefele (V. 67 sq.). Ranke says: "Solche Verhältnisse giebt es ja zwischen Individuen beiderlei Geschlechtes, die sich nur auf geistigem Boden entwickeln, in welchen ohne sinnliche Annäherung die tiefste innere Vereinigung der Gesinnungen und Ueberzeugungen besteht. Die Markgräfin glaubte an die Wahrhaftigkeit und den geistigen Beruf des Papstes, und der Papst andererseits bedurfte ihrer Hülfe."

Canossa has become a proverbial name for the triumph of priestcraft over kingcraft.

Mirbt,Publizistik, 181-200, seeks to make out that Henry’s act at Canossa was regarded by his age as an act of humility and not of humiliation. The contemporary writers speak of it as an act of unheard of and wonderful humility, "mira inaudita humilitas, officium humilitatis." In view of the profound reverence for the Church which prevailed it may be taken as certain that the people looked upon it as an act of humble piety. But for Henry it was a different thing. As Mirbt agrees, the king was not moved by deep religious concern but by a desire to hold on to his crown. For him Canossa was a humiliation and before the bar of historic judgment the act wherein the State prostrated itself at the feet of the pope must be regarded as a humiliation. For other instances of princely submission to the pope, see Mirbt, p. 198, note.

§ 17. Renewal of the Conflict. Two Kings and Two Popes.

The result of Canossa was civil war in Germany and Italy king against king, pope against pope, nobles against nobles, bishops against bishops, father against son, and son against father. It lasted several years. Gregory and Henry died in exile. Gregory was defeated by Henry, Henry by his own rebellious son. The long wars of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines originated in that period. The Duke Guelph IV. of Bavaria was present at Forchheim when Henry was deposed, and took up arms against him. The popes sided with the Guelphs against the Hohenstaufen emperors and the Ghibellines.

The friends and supporters of Henry in Lombardy and Germany were dissatisfied, and regarded his humiliation as an act of cowardice, and the pope’s conduct as an insult to the German nation and the royal crown. His enemies, a small number of Saxon and Swabian nobles and bishops, assembled at Forchheim, March 13, 1077, and, in the presence of two legates of the pope, but without his express authority, offered the crown of Germany to Rudolf, Duke of Swabia, Henry’s brother-in-law, but on two important conditions (which may be traced to the influence of the pope’s legates), namely, that he should denounce a hereditary claim to the throne, and guarantee the freedom of ecclesiastical appointments. He was crowned March 26, at Mainz, by Archbishop Siegfried, but under bad omens: the consecrated oil rail short, the Gospel was read by a simoniacal deacon, the citizens raised a tumult, and Rudolf had to make his escape by night with Siegfried, who never returned. He found little support in Southern Germany, and went to Henry’s enemies in Saxony.

Henry demanded from the pope the ban over the robber of his crown, but in vain. He refused him the promised safe-conduct to Germany, acted as king, crossed the Alps, and defeated Rudolf in a battle at Melrichstadt in Franconia, Aug. 7, 1078, but was defeated by him near Mühlheim in Thuringia, Jan. 27, 1080, in a decisive battle, which Rudolf regarded as a divine decision, and which inclined the pope in his favor.

After long hesitation, Gregory, in a Synod of Rome, March 7, 1080, ventured upon the most extraordinary act even for a man in the highest position. Invoking the aid of St. Peter and St. Paul, he fulminated a second and severer ban against Henry and all his adherents, deprived him again of his kingdoms of Germany and Italy, forbade all the faithful to obey him, and bestowed the crown of Germany (not of Italy) on Rudolf. The address was at once a prayer, a narrative, and a judgment, and combined cool reflection with religious fervor. It rests on the conviction that the pope, as the representative of Peter and Paul, was clothed with supreme authority over the world as well as the Church.

See the extract in §11, p. 32, and Latin text of the address in Mansi, Harduin, Jaffé, and Shailer Mathews, 51-54.

Gregory hazarded a prophecy, which was falsified by history, that before the day of St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29), Henry would either lose his life or his throne. After the close of the synod, he sent to Rudolf (instead of the iron crown of Charlemagne, which was in possession of Henry) a diadem with the characteristic inscription: —

A reconciliation was now impossible. Henry replied to the papal ban by the election of an anti-pope. A council of about thirty German and Italian bishops met at Brixen in the Tyrol, June 26, 1080, and deposed Gregory on the frivolous charges of ambition, avarice, simony, sorcery, and the Berengarian heresy. Cardinal Hugo Candidus and twenty-seven bishops (of Brixen, Bamberg, Coire, Freisingen, Lausanne, etc.) signed the document. At the same time they elected the excommunicated Archbishop Wibert of Ravenna pope, under the name of Clement III. He was a man of talent, dignity, and unblemished character, but fell into the hands of simonists and the enemies of reform. Henry acknowledged him by the usual genuflexion, and promised to visit Rome in the following spring, that he might receive from him the imperial crown. Wibert returned to Ravenna with the papal insignia and great pomp.

This was the beginning of a double civil war between rival popes and rival kings, with all its horrors. Gregory counted on the Saxons in Germany, Countess Matilda in Northern Italy, and the Normans in Southern Italy.

Henry was defeated Oct. 15, 1080, on the banks of the Elster, near Naumburg; but Rudolf was mortally wounded by Godfrey of Bouillon, the hero of Jerusalem,

This fact is reported by Albericus of Trois-Fontaines, but doubted by Sybel (Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, p. 218) and Hefele (V. 150, note).

Rudolf’s death turned his victory into a defeat. It was regarded in that age as a judgment of God against him and the anti-pope. His friends could not agree upon a successor till the following summer, when they elected Count Hermann of Luxemburg, who proved incompetent. In the spring of 1081 Henry crossed the Alps with a small army to depose Gregory, whose absolution he had sought a few years before as a penitent at Canossa. He was welcomed in Lombardy, defeated the troops of Matilda, and appeared at the gates of Rome before Pentecost, May 21. Gregory, surrounded by danger, stood firm as a rock and refused every compromise. At his last Lenten synod (end of February, 1081) he had renewed his anathemas, and suspended those bishops who disobeyed the summons. Nothing else is known of this synod but sentences of punishment. In his letter of March 15, 1081, to Hermann, bishop of Metz, he justified his conduct towards Henry, and on April 8 he warned the Venetians against any communication with him and his adherents. "I am not afraid," he said, "of the threats of the wicked, and would rather sacrifice my life than consent to evil."

Henry, not being permitted by the Romans to enter their city, as he had hoped, and not being prepared for a siege, spent the summer in Upper Italy, but returned to Rome in Lent, 1082, and again with a larger force at Easter, 1083, and conquered the city and the Church of St. Peter in June. Gregory was intrenched in the Castle of St. Angelo, and fulminated anew his anathema upon Henry and his followers (June 24). Henry answered by causing Wibert to be enthroned in St. Peter’s (June 28), but soon left Rome with Wibert (July 1), promising to return. He had probably come to a secret understanding with the Roman nobility to effect a peaceful compromise with Gregory; but the pope was inexorable. In the spring of 1084 Henry returned and called a synod, which deposed and excommunicated Gregory. Wibert was consecrated on Palm Sunday as Pope Clement III., in the Lateran, by two excommunicated bishops of Modena and Arezzo (instead of the bishops of Ostia, Albano, and Porto). Henry and his wife, Bertha, received from him the imperial crown in St. Peter’s at Easter, March 31, 1084. He left Rome with Wibert (May 21), leaving the defense of the city in the hands of the Romans. He never returned.

In the meantime Gregory called to his aid the Norman chief, Robert Guiscard, or Wiscard. This bold adventurer approached from the south with a motley force of Normans, Lombards, Apulians, and Saracens, amounting to thirty thousand foot and six thousand horse, arrived in Rome, May 27, 1084, liberated the pope, and entered with him the Lateran. He now began such a pillage and slaughter as even the barbarians had not committed. Half the city was reduced to ruins; many churches were demolished, others turned into forts; women and maidens, even nuns, were outraged, and several thousand citizens sold into slavery. The survivors cursed the pope and his deliverer. In the words of a contemporary, the cruelty of the Normans gained more hearts for the emperor than a hundred thousand pieces of gold. Rome was a ghost of her former self. When Hildebert of Tours visited her more than ten years later, he saw only ruins of her greatness.

Hildebert’s poem, lamenting the ruins of Rome, is found in Migne, 171, 1441 sq.

Many confused reports were circulated about the fate of Gregory VII. His faithful friend, the Countess of Tuscany, assembled troops, sent emissaries in all directions, and stirred up distrust and hatred against Henry in Germany. The following letter remains as evidence of her zeal for Gregory: —

"Matilda, such as she is by the grace of God, if she be anything, to all the faithful residing in the Teutonic kingdom, greeting.

"We would have you know that Henry, the false king, has stolen the seal of the Lord Pope Gregory. Wherefore, if ye are told anything contrary to the words of our envoys, hold it false, and believe not Henry’s lies. Further, he has carried away with him the Bishop of Porto, because that man was once familiar with the Lord Pope. If by his help he should attempt anything with you or against you, be sure this bishop is a false witness, and give no credit to those who shall tell you to the contrary. Know that the Lord Pope has already conquered Sutri and Nepi; Barabbas the robber, that is to say, Henry’s pope, has fled like himself. Farewell. Beware of the snares of Henry."

§ 18. Death of Gregory VII.

Gregory was again in possession of the Lateran, but he left the scene of melancholy desolation, accompanied by Guiscard and a few cardinals and Roman nobles. He went first to Monte Cassino and then to Salerno. The descent from Canossa to Salerno was truly a via dolorosa. But the old pope, broken in body, was unbroken in spirit.

He renewed the ban against Henry and the anti-pope at the close of 1084, and sent a letter to the faithful in Germany, stating that the words of the Psalmist, Quare fremuerunt gentes (Ps. 2:1, 2), were fulfilled, that the kings of the earth have rebelled against Christ and his apostle Peter to destroy the Christian religion, but could not seduce those who trusted in God. He called upon them to come to the rescue of the Church if they wished to gain the remission of sins and eternal salvation. This is his last written document.

His mind remained clear and firm to the end. He recommended Cardinal Desiderius of Monte Cassino (Victor III.) as his successor, and next to him Otto, bishop of Ostia (Urban II.). He absolved all his enemies, except Henry and Wibert. "the usurper of the apostolic see."

"Praeter Henricum regem dictum omnes absolvo et benedico, quicumque me hanc habere specialem potestatem in vocem apostolorum Petri et Pauli credunt indubitanter." Paulus Bernriedensis, Vita Greg., c. 12; Baronius, Ann. XVII. 566.

Robert Guiscard, his protector, died a few weeks afterwards (July 17, 1085).

The body of Gregory, clad in the pontifical vestments, was buried in the church of St. Matthew at Salerno, which he had consecrated shortly before. A plain stone marked his grave till John of Procida—although a zealous Ghibelline—erected a sumptuous chapel over it.

His monument, erected in 1578 in the cathedral of Salerno, bears the Inscription: "Gregorius VII. Soanensis, P.O. M., Ecclesiae libertatis vindex acerrimus, assertor constantissimus, qui dum Romani Pontificis auctoritatem adversus Henrici perfidiam strenue tueretur, Salernae sancte decubuit. Anno Domini 1085, oct. Cal. Jun." Hefele, V. 184; Gregorovius, Die Grabmäler der Päpste, p. 49; Giesebrecht, III. 578. Rome, which has so many papal monuments, has none for Gregory VII., except an inscription on a stone In S. Prudentiana, where he is called "Vir benedictus, moribus ecclesiam renovavit." See Gregorovius, IV. 246.

Gregory was, in his own time, and has been since, the subject both of the highest praise and of the severest censure. Modern historians agree in giving him credit for the honesty and courage of his convictions, and concede the purity and loftiness of his motives and aims. He is the typical representative of papal absolutism in the Middle Ages in conflict with imperial absolutism. He combined personal integrity, consummate statesmanship, and monastic contempt of the world. He lived and moved in the idea of the Old Testament theocracy, and had no conception of the free spirit of the gospel. He was a man of blood and iron, an austere monk, inaccessible to feelings of tenderness, when acting in his official capacity as the head of the Roman hierarchy; yet he showed singular liberality in his treatment of Berengar, and protested against the use of torture. His piety was absorbed in devotion to the hierarchy, to St. Peter, and to the Virgin Mary. He was unscrupulous in the choice of means for his end, and approved of civil war for the triumph of the Roman Church.

The lofty principles he espoused he was willing to stake his life upon. No pope has ever used the term "righteousness" more frequently than he used it. No pope has ever employed the figure of warfare to describe the conflict he was engaged in more frequently than he employed it.

Hauck, III. 754 sqq.

His spirit still moves in the curia, which adheres to the theocratic theory, without the ability of carrying it into practice. The papal Syllabus of 1864 denies that "the Roman pontiffs have exceeded the limits of their power" (§ V. 23), and asserts the superiority of the Church over the State "in litigated questions of jurisdiction" (§ VI. 54). The politico-ecclesiastical encyclicals of Leo XIII. (Immortale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885, and Libertas praestantissimum naturae donum, June 20, 1888) reasserted substantially, though moderately and cautiously, the Gregorian theory of Church and State.

Ranke, in his last years, wrote of Gregory:

Weltgesch. VII. 34 sqq.

Gregorovius, who carries on a sustained comparison between Gregory and Napoleon, praises Gregory’s genius and moral vigor. He says:

Hist. of City of Rome, IV. 256. Of Canossa this author had said, IV. 207: "The weaponless victory of the monk Gregory has more claim on the admiration of the world than all the victories of an Alexander, a Caesar, and a Napoleon." Like other Protestant German historians he has no sympathy with Gregory’s papal scheme of papal absolutism, but most of the German Church historians, as Mirbt and Hauck, are inclined to magnify the courage and manly vigor of Henry, as well as the justice of his cause, and to underestimate or question the moral quality of Gregory in his conflict with the emperor, and the immediate results of the event at Canossa. Hauck, III. 805, omits a detailed description of that remarkable scene with the remark that it was so well known to Germans as not to need retelling. He pronounces the estimate usually put upon Gregory’s intellectual gifts as too high, and declares that the title "Great" is properly associated with the name of the first Gregory and not with the seventh pope of that name. Hildebrand had convictions enough, but lacked in native force, p. 832 sq.

Let us hope that Gregory felt in his heart some of that Christian love and meekness whose commendation closes one of his letters to Hermann, archbishop of Metz,

Dated March 15, 1081, Reg., VIII. 21; Mirbt, Quellen, 105-112; Migne, 148, 594-604.

§ 19. Victor III. and Urban II. 1086–1099.

Compare the chapter on the Crusades.

At the death of Gregory, his imperial enemy was victorious in Germany, and had recovered part of Saxony; Lombardy remained loyal to the empire; Matilda was prostrated by grief and sickness; the anti-pope Wibert (Clement III., 1080–1100) continued to occupy a part of Rome (the Lateran palace and the castle of St. Angelo); Roger, the new duke of the Normans, spent his whole force in securing for himself the sole rule over Calabria and Apulia against his brother Bohemund. There was a papal interregnum of twelve months.

At last the excellent Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino, who had raised that convent to the height of its prosperity, was elected to succeed his friend Gregory, May 24, 1086. He accepted after long delay, but ruled only eighteen months as Victor III. He loved monastic solitude, and died Sept. 16, 1087.

He was followed by Otto (Odo), cardinal-bishop of Ostia, a Frenchman, formerly prior of Cluny, and one of the intimate counsellors of Hildebrand. He assumed the name Urban II., and ruled from March 12, 1088, to July 29, 1099. He followed in the steps of Gregory, but with more caution and adaptation to circumstances. He spent his pontificate mostly outside of Rome, but with increasing moral influence. He identified himself with the rising enthusiasm for the holy war of the Cross against the Crescent. This was an immense gain for the papacy, which reaped all the credit and benefit of that extraordinary movement.

He took a noble stand in favor of the sanctity of marriage against the licentious King Philip I. of France, who cast away his legitimate wife, Bertha, 1092, and held adulterous intercourse with Bertrada of Montfort, the runaway wife of the rude Count Fulco of Anjou. This public scandal led to several synods. The king was excommunicated by a synod at Autun in Burgundy, Oct. 16, 1094, and by the Synod of Clermont in 1095. He afterwards dismissed Bertrada, and was absolved by the pope.

Urban continued the war with Henry IV. without scruple as to the means. He encouraged the rebellion of his eldest son, Conrad, a weak and amiable man, who fled for protection to the Countess Matilda, was crowned king of Italy at Monza, and paid the pope the homage of holding his stirrup (the officium stratoris) at Cremona (1095). Urban, who had been consecrated pope outside of Rome, was able, 1088, with the aid of the Normans, to enter the city and possess himself of all its parts except the castle of St. Angelo, which remained in the hands of the followers of Wibert. Wibert had been in possession of St. Peter’s, which he held as a fortress against Victor III. The streets of the papal city resounded with the war-cries of the two papal armies, while pope and anti-pope anathematized one another. Urban died at Florence in 1101.

The pope arranged an unnatural matrimonial alliance between the widowed countess and the young Guelph of Bavaria, whose father was the most powerful of the emperor’s enemies in Germany. It was a purely political match, which made neither party happy, and ended in a divorce (1095). But it gave the papal party a political organization, and opened the long-continued war between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which distracted every city in Italy, and is said to have caused seventy-two hundred revolutions and more than seven hundred atrocious murders in that country.

Guelfi, Welfen, from Welf, Wolf, a family name of the dukes of Bavaria. Ghibellini, Ghibellinen, from Waiblingen, the patrimonial castle of Conrad of Hohenstaufen in Swabia. Comp. Ferrari, Histoire des révolutions d’Italie, ou Guelfes et Ghibellins, Paris, 1858, 4 vols. From the Guelphs descended the house of Brunswick and Hanover, and the royal family of England since George I., 1714.

Urban was able to hold a synod at Piacenza in Lombardy, where Henry IV. had his chief support, during Lent, 1095. It was attended by four thousand priests and monks and over thirty thousand laymen, and the meeting had to be held in the open field. The pope permitted Praxedis (Adelheid), the second wife of Henry IV., to recite the filthy details of acts of impurity to which she had been subjected by her husband, endorsed her shameless story, absolved her from all uncleanness, and remitted every penitential observance, "because she had not blushed to make a public and voluntary confession of her involuntary transgression."

Praxedis or Eupraxia, or (as the Germans called her) Adelheid was a Russian princess, who married Henry in 1089, two years after Bertha’s death. She had preferred the same horrible charges before a synod at Constance in 1094. See Pertz, Tom. VII. 458, XVII. 14; Hefele-Knöpfler, V. 211 sq. and 216; Greenwood, IV. 561.

More important was the Synod of Clermont in France, Nov. 18–28, 1095, which inaugurated the first crusade. Here Urban preached the most effective sermon on record, and reached the height of his influence.

He passed in triumphal procession, surrounded by princes and prelates, through France and Italy. He exhorted the people everywhere to repent of their sins and to prove the sincerity of their conversion by killing as many enemies of the cross as they could reach with their swords. When he reached Rome the anti-pope had been driven away by the Crusaders. He was enabled to celebrate the Christmas festival of 1096 with unusual magnificence, and held two synods in the Lateran, January, 1097, and April, 1099. He died, July 29, 1099, a fortnight after the capture of Jerusalem (July 15) by the Crusaders.

§ 20. Pascal II. and Henry V. 1099–1118.

The letters of Paschalis II. in Migne, 163.—W. Schum: Die Politik Papst Paschalis II. gegen Kaiser Heinrich V. Erfurt, 1877. —- G. Peiser: Der deutsche Investiturstreit unter Heinrich V. bis 1111. Berlin, 1883.—Gregorovius Iv., Hauck Iii., Pflugk-Harttung: Die Bullen der Päpste. Gotha, 1901, pp. 234–263.—Mirbt, art. Paschalis II in Herzog, XIV. 717–725, and the literature there given.

Pascal II., a monk of Cluny and disciple of Hildebrand, but less firm and consistent, was elected in July, 1099, and reigned till 1118. Clement III., the anti-pope, died in September, 1100, weary of the world, and left a reputation of integrity, gentleness, and dignity. The imperialist clergy of Rome elected another anti-pope, Sylvester IV., who soon disappeared noiselessly from the stage.

Pascal gained a complete victory over Henry IV. by supporting the wicked rebellion of his second son, Henry V., the last of the Salic or Franconian line of emperors, 1104–1126.

The unfortunate father died under the anathema in misery at Liège (Lüttich), Aug. 7, 1106. The people of the city which had remained faithful to him, lamented his death; but the papal agents commanded the bishop of Liège to remove his body from consecrated ground to an island in the Maas. Henry V. had not lost all feeling for his father, and complied with his dying request for burial in the imperial sepulchre at Spires. The clergy and the citizens accompanied the funeral procession to the cathedral of St. Mary, which the departed sovereign had himself built and richly endowed. He was buried with all honors. But when Bishop Gebhard, one of his fiercest persecutors, who was absent at the time, heard of it, he caused the body to be forthwith exhumed and removed, and interdicted all services in the church till it should be purified of all pollution. The people, however, could not be deterred from frequent visits to the unconsecrated chapel where the dishonored remains of their monarch and patron were deposited. At last the pope dissolved the ban, on the assurance of Henry V. that his father had professed sincere repentance, and his body was again deposited in the cathedral, Aug. 7, 1111. By his moral defects and his humiliation at Canossa, Henry IV. had promoted the power of the papal hierarchy, and yet, by his continued opposition after that act, he had prevented its complete triumph. Soon after his death an anonymous writer gave eloquent and touching expression to his grief over the imperial lord whom he calls his hope and comfort, the pride of Rome, the ornament of the empire, the lamp of the world, a benefactor of widows and orphans, and a father of the poor.

The tract is more eloquent than accurate. It is ascribed by Goldast, Floto, and Gieseler to Bishop Otbert of Lüttich (Liège); by Dr. Jaffé, to an unknown writer in Mainz (see the preface to his German translation, Das Leben Kaiser Heinrich des Vierten, Berlin, 1858); by Druffel and Giesebrecht, to Bishop Erlung of Würzburg, who was chancellor of the emperor from 1103 to 1105. For a good characterization of Henry IV. see Giesebrecht, III. 764-768, and on this biography, pp. 1050 sq.

Pascal had to suffer for his unscrupulous policy. When Henry V. came into full possession of his power, he demanded the right of investiture over all the churches of the empire, and coronation at Rome. The pope was imprisoned and so hard pressed by Henry, that he resolved to buy the spiritual freedom of the Church by a sacrifice of its temporal possessions (except the patrimony of Peter). A compact to this effect between him and the emperor was signed provisionally, April, 1111. Henry was crowned emperor of the Romans in St. Peter’s. But after his return to Germany, a Lateran synod rejected the compact, March, 1112. The pope represented to the synod that, while in the custody of the emperor, with many bishops and cardinals, he had conceded to him the right of investiture to avoid greater evils, and had promised him immunity from excommunication. He confessed that the concession was wrong, and left it with the synod to improve the situation. He made in the sixth session (March 23) a solemn profession of the Catholic faith in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, the Canons of the Apostles, the four Oecumenical Synods of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, and the decrees of Gregory VII. and Urban II. against lay-investiture and all other crimes which they had condemned. Then the synod, while the pope kept silent, resolved to annul the treaty which he had been forced to make with King Henry. All exclaimed, "Amen, Amen, fiat, fiat." Twelve archbishops, a hundred and fourteen bishops, fifteen cardinal-priests, and eight cardinal-deacons signed the decree.

The zealous Gregorians wished to go further and to declare lay-investiture a heresy (which would imply that Pope Pascal was a heretic). A French Synod of Vienne, Sept. 16, 1112, passed three decrees: 1) Investiture by a layman is a heresy; 2) the enforced compact of Pascal with Henry is null and void; 3) King Henry, who came to Rome under the pretext of peace, and betrayed the pope with a Judas-kiss, is cut off from holy Church until he gives complete satisfaction. The decisions were submitted to the pope, who approved them, October 20 of the same year, to avert a schism. Other provincial synods of France, held by papal legates, launched anathemas against the "tyrant of Germany."

But Henry defied the pope, who had pledged himself never to excommunicate him on account of investiture. After the death of Countess Matilda, July 24, 1115, he hastened for a third time to Italy, and violently seized the rich possessions which she had bequeathed to the chair of St. Peter. Pascal fled to Benevento, and called the Normans to his aid, as Gregory VII. had done. Henry celebrated the Easter festival of 1117 in Rome with great pomp, caused the empress to be crowned, showed himself to the people in his imperial purple, and amused them with shows and processions; but in the summer he returned to Germany, after fruitless negotiations with the pope. He lived to conclude the Concordat of Worms. He was an energetic, but hard, despotic, and unpopular ruler.

Pascal died, Jan. 21, 1118, in the castle of St. Angelo, and was buried in the church of St. John in Lateran. He barely escaped the charge of heresy and schism. He privately condemned, and yet officially supported, lay-investiture, and strove to satisfy both his own conscience and his official duty to the papacy. The extreme party charged him with the sin of Peter, and exhorted him to repent; milder judges, like Ivo of Chartres and Hildebert of Le Mans, while defending the Hildebrandian principle of the freedom of the Church, excused him on the ground that he had yielded for a moment in the hope of better times and from the praiseworthy desire to save the imprisoned cardinals and to avoid bloodshed; and they referred to the example of Paul, who circumcised Timothy, and complied with the wish of James in Jerusalem to please the Jewish Christians.

§ 21. The Concordat of Worms. 1122.

Ekkehardus Uraugiensis: Chronica (best ed. by Waiz in Mon. Germ. Script., VI. 260).—Ul. Robert: Étude sur les actes du pape Calixte II. Paris, 1874.—E. Bernheim: Zur Geschichte des Wormser Concordats. Göttingen, 1878.—M. Maurer: Papst Calixt II. München, 1886.—Giesebrecht, III. 931–959.—Ranke, VIII. 111–126.—Hefele-Knöpfler, V. 311–384; Bullaire et histoire de Calixte II. Paris, 1891.—D. Schafer: Zur Beurtheilung des Wormser Konkordats. Berlin, 1905.

The Gregorian party elected Gelasius a cardinal-deacon, far advanced in age. His short reign of a year and four days was a series of pitiable misfortunes. He had scarcely been elected when he was grossly insulted by a mob led by Cencius Frangipani and cast into a dungeon. Freed by the fickle Romans, he was thrown into a panic by the sudden appearance of Henry V. at the gates, and fled the city, attempting to escape by sea. The Normans came to his rescue and he was led back to Rome, where he found St. Peter’s in the hands of the anti-pope. A wild riot again forced him to flee and when he was found he was sitting in a field near St. Paul’s, with no companions but some women as his comforters. He then escaped to Pisa and by way of Genoa to France, where he died at Cluny, 1119. The imperialist party had elected an anti-pope, Gregory VIII., who was consecrated at Rome in the presence of Henry V., and ruled till 1121, but was taken captive by the Normans, mounted on a camel, paraded before Calixtus amid the insults and mockeries of the Roman mob, covered with dust and filth, and consigned to a dungeon. He died in an obscure monastery, in 1125, "still persevering in his rebellion." Such was the state of society in Rome.

Calixtus II., the successor of Gelasius, 1119–1124, was elected at Cluny and consecrated at Vienne. He began his rule by renewing the sentence of excommunication against Henry; and in him the emperor found his match. After holding the Synod of Rheims, which ratified the prohibition of lay investiture, he reached Rome, 1120. Both parties, emperor and pope, were weary of the long struggle of fifty years, which had, like the Thirty Years’ War five centuries later, kept Central Europe in a state of turmoil and war. At the Diet of Würzburg, 1121, the men of peace were in the majority and demanded a cessation of the conflict and the calling of a council.

Calixtus found it best to comply, however reluctantly, with the resolution of the German Diet, and instructed his legates to convoke a general council of all the bishops of France and Germany at Mainz for the purpose of restoring concord between the holy see and the empire. The assembly adjourned from Mainz to Worms, the city which became afterwards so famous for the protest of Luther. An immense multitude crowded to the place to witness the restoration of peace. The sessions lasted more than a week, and closed with a solemn mass and the Te Deum by the cardinal-bishop of Ostia, who gave the kiss of peace to the emperor.

The Concordat of Worms was signed, Sept. 23, 1122. It was a compromise between the contending parties. It is the first of the many concordats which the popes have since that time concluded with various sovereigns and governments, and in which they usually make some concession to the civil power. If they cannot carry out their principle, they agree to a modus vivendi.

The pope gained the chief point, namely, the right of investiture by delivery of the ring and crosier (the symbols of the spiritual power) in all the churches of the empire, and also the restoration of the properties and temporalities of the blessed Peter which had passed out of the possession of the holy see during the late civil wars.

On the other hand, the pope granted to the emperor that the elections to all bishoprics and abbeys of the empire should be made in the emperor’s presence, without simony or any kind of corruption; that in cases of dispute the emperor should be at liberty to decide in favor of the person who, in his judgment, had the best claim; and that the candidate thus elected should receive from the emperor the temporalities of his see or abbey by the delivery of a rod or sceptre (the symbol of the temporal power), but without bargain or valuable consideration of any kind, and ever after render unto the sovereign all such duties and services as by law he was bound to render. But the temporalities belonging to the Roman see were exempt from these stipulations.

There are some ambiguities and uncertainties in this treaty which opened the way for future contention. The emperor surrenders the right of investiture (with ring and crosier), and yet takes it back again in a milder form (with the sceptre). The question whether consecration is to precede or to follow investiture was left undecided, except outside of Germany, i.e. in Italy and Burgundy, where investiture with the regalia by the sceptre was to take place within six months after the consecration. Nothing is said about heirs and successors. Hence the concordat might be understood simply as a treaty between Calixtus and Henry, a temporary expedient, an armistice after half a century of discord between Church and State. After their deaths both the papal tiara and the imperial crown became again apples of discord.

The Concordat of Worms was confirmed by the Ninth Oecumenical Synod (according to the Roman counting), or First Oecumenical Council of the West, held in the Lateran from March 18 to April 6, 1123. It is also called the First Lateran Council. Over three hundred bishops and abbots were present, or, according to other reports, five hundred or even nine hundred and ninety-seven. The documents of Worms were read, approved by all, and deposited in the archives of the Roman Church.

NOTES.

The text of the Concordatum Wormatiense or Pactum Calixtinum is preserved in the Vatican, and in the Chronicle of Ekkehard (abbot of Aura, near Kissingen, from 1108 to 1125). It has been repeatedly published by Baronius, Annales; Goldast, Constitutiones Imperiales; Leibnitz, Corpus juris diplomaticum; in Gieseler’s Church History; in German translation, by Hefele-Knöpfler, Conciliengesch. V. 373; and also by Pertz, in the Monumenta Germaniae Legum, II. 75 sq. (who gives the various readings from seven MSS. of Ekkehard’s Chronica), and Mirbt, Quellen, 115, 116. It is as follows:—

"In nomine sanctae et individuae Trinitatis.

"Ego Heinricus Dei gratia Romanorum Imperator Augustus pro amore Dei et s. Romanae Ecclesiae et domini P. Calixti, et pro remedio animae meae, dimitto Deo et ss. ejus Apostolis Petro et Paulo, sanctaeque catholicae Ecclesiae omnem investituram per annulum et baculum, et concedo, in omnibus Ecclesiis canonicam fieri electionem et liberam consecrationem. Possessiones et regalia b. Petri, quae a principio hujus discordiae usque ad hodiernam diem, sive patris mei tempore, sive etiam meo, ablata sunt, quae habeo, s. Romanae Ecclesiae restituo, quae autem non habeo, ut, restituantur, fideliter juvabo. Possessiones etiam omnium Ecclesiarum aliarum, et Principum, et aliorum tam clericorum quam laicorum, quae in guerra ista amissae sunt, consilio Principum, vel justitia, quas habeo, reddam, quas non habeo, ut reddantur, fideliter juvabo. Et do veram pacem domino Papae Calixto, sanctaeque Romanae Ecclesiae, et omnibus, qui in parte ipsius sunt vel fuerunt. Et in quibus s. Romana Ecclesia mihi auxilium postulaverit, fideliter juvabo; et de quibus mihi fecerit querimoniam, debitam sibi faciam justitiam.

"Ego Calixtus Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, tibi dilecto filio Heinrico, Dei gratia Romanorum Imperatori Augusto, concedo, electiones Episcoporum et Abbatum Teutonici regni, qui ad regnum pertinent, in praesentia tua fieri absque simonia et aliqua violentia; ut si qua inter partes discordia emerserit, Metropolitani et Comprovincialum consilio vel judicio, saniori parti assensum et auxilium praebeas. Electus autem regalia per sceptrum a te recipiat, et quae ex his jure tibi debet, faciat. Ex aliis vero partibus Imperii consecratus infra sex menses regalia per sceptrum a te recipiat, et quae ex his jure tibi debet, faciat, exceptis omnibus, quae ad Romanam Ecclesiam pertinere noscuntur. De quibus vero querimoniam mihi feceris, secundum officii mei debitum auxilium tibi praestabo. Do tibi veram pacem et omnibus, qui in parte tua sunt, aut fuerunt tempore hujus discordiae. Data anno dominicae Incarnationis MCXXII. IX Kal. Octobr."

Then follow the signatures.

§ 22. The Conflict of the Hierarchy in England. William the Conqueror and Lanfranc.

The Domesday or Doomesday Book (Liber judicii; Book of judgment; Liber de Wintonia, because deposited in the cathedral at Winchester, now in the Charter House at Westminster, published in facsimile, 1783 and 1861).

It was prepared between 1080 and 1086 by the "justiciaries" of William the Conqueror for the purpose of ascertaining the taxable wealth and military strength of the conquered country and securing a full and fair assessment. It contains, among other things, a list of the bishops, churches, religious houses, great men, etc. See Freeman’s Norman Conquest, V. 1–52 and 733–740. He says (Preface, viii.): "The stores of knowledge in Domesday are boundless" (for secular history, rather than church history).—The Gesta Wilhelmi by William of Poitiers, a chaplain and violent partisan of the Conqueror. Also the chronicles of William of Jumièges, Ordericus Vitalis, in Migne, 188, Eng. Trans. 4 vols. Bohn’s Libr.

Lanfranc (thirty-fourth archbishop of Canterbury, 1005–1089): Vita and (55) Epistolae, in his Opera, edited by D’Achery (Paris, 1648), Giles (Oxford, 1844, in 2 vols.), and Migne, 150.—H. Böhmer , Die Fälschungen Lanfranks von Cant. Leipzig, 1902.

*Eadmer (monk of Canterbury, pupil and biographer of Anselm): Vita Sancti Anselmi, and Historia Novorum, both in Anselm’s Opera (ed. Migne, 158, 159, and in Rolls Series, 1884).—The biographies of Anselm by Frank (Tübingen, 1842), Hasse (Leipzig, 1843, vol. I. 235–455), Remusat (Paris, 1853; German translation by Wurzbach, 1854), Dean Church (London, 1875), Rule (London, 1883), Hook (in 2d vol. of Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, London, 1861–1874), Rigg, 1896, Welch, 1901.

*William of Malmesbury (b.a. 1096, d. 1143, son of a Norman father and Saxon mother, monk and librarian in the abbey of Malmesbury): De Gestis Regum Anglorum (a history of England from the Anglo-Saxon Conquest to the end of the reign of Henry I., 1129); Historiae Novellae (a continuation till 1151); De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum (history of the English Church till 1123). Edited by Savile, in Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, London, 1596; best ed. in Rolls Series, English translation by John Sharpe, edited by Giles, in Bohn’s "Antiquarian Library," London, 1847.

The Works of Henry of Huntingdon, William of Newburgh, Gervaise of Canterbury, Ralph of Coggeshall, Richard of Hoveden, Matthew Paris, etc., as ed. in the Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, called the Rolls Series, London, 1858 sqq. These works ed. by Stubbs, Luard, and other competent Eng. scholars are indispensable.

J. N. Aug. Thierry (1795–1856): Histoire de la conquête de l’Angleterre par les Normands, de ses causes et de ses suites en Angleterre, en Écosse, et en Irlande et sur le continent. 5e éd. entièrement revue et augmentée. Paris, 1839, 4 vols. The first edition was published, 1825, in 3 vols., a 6th ed. in 1843, etc. English translation by Hazlitt, 1847.

Edw. A. Freeman (Professor of History in Oxford): History of the Norman Conquest. Oxford, 1867–1876 (vols. II., III., IV., and V. See Index, vol. VI.). And his Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First. Oxford, 1882, 2 vols. (see Index, sub Anselm). An exhaustive treatment of that period by a master in historic research and erudition, with model indexes.

Bishop Stubbs furnishes authentic information in his Constitutional History of England, 6th ed. 3 vols. 1897; Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History to the Reign of Edward I. (1870); Memorials of St. Dunstan (1874).

H. Gee and W. J. Hardy: Documents illustrative of Eng. Ch. Hist., London, 1896.

W. R. W. Stephens: The Eng. Ch. 1066–1272. London, 1891.

Milman (bk. VIII. ch. VIII.) briefly touches upon this important chapter of the Church history of England. Hardwick (Church History of the Middle Ages) ignores it. Robertson notices the principal facts. Dean Hook gives the Lives of Lanfranc and Anselm (II. 73–168 and 169–276).

The conflict between the pope and the emperor for supremacy was repeated, on a smaller scale, in England, between the archbishop of Canterbury and the king, and was settled for a season in favor of the hierarchy, several years before the Concordat of Worms. The struggle for the freedom of the Church was indirectly also a struggle for the freedom of the State and the people from the tyranny of the crown. Priestcraft prevailed over kingcraft, then aristocracy over absolute monarchy in the Magna Charta, and at last the people over both.

The Anglo-Saxon kings and nobles enriched the Church of England, their alma mater, by liberal grants of real estate amounting to about one-third of the land, and thus conferred upon it great political influence. The bishops ranked with the nobles, and the archbishops with princes, next to the king. The archbishop of Canterbury was usually intrusted with the regency during the absence of the sovereign on the Continent.

But for this very reason the British sovereigns of the different dynasties tried to keep the Church in a state of dependence and subserviency, by the election of bishops and the exercise of the right of investiture. They filled the vacant bishoprics with their chaplains, so that the court became a nursery of prelates, and they occasionally arrogated to themselves such titles as "Shepherd of Shepherds," and even "Vicar of Christ." In one word, they aspired to be popes of England long before Henry VIII. blasphemously called himself, "Supreme Head of the Church of England."

Under the later kings of the Saxon line the Church had degenerated, and was as much in need of reform as the churches on the Continent. The ascetic reforms of Dunstan took no deep root and soon passed away. Edward the Confessor (1042–1066) was a monastic saint, but a stranger and shadow in England, with his heart in Normandy, the home of his youth. The old Saxon literature was forgotten, and the clergy was sunk in ignorance.

It is said of the later Anglo-Saxon clergy that they were scarcely able to stammer out the forms of divine service, and that any one who knew "grammar" was regarded as a prodigy.

The Norman Conquest aroused England to new life and activity. It marks the greatest change in English history since the Anglo-Saxon conquest. It left its impress upon the language, literature, architecture, laws and institutions of the country, without, however, breaking the continuity. The Normans, though a foreign, were yet a kindred race, of Teutonic stock, Romanized and Gallicanized in France. From savage pirates they had been changed into semi-civillized Christians, without losing their bravery and love of adventure, which they showed in the crusades and the conquest of England. They engrafted the French language and manners upon the Anglo-Saxon trunk, and superinduced an aristocratic element on the democratic base. It took a long time for the two nationalities and languages to melt into one.

The amalgamation was an enrichment. The happy combination of Saxon strength and endurance with Norman enterprise and vivacity, in connection with the insular position and the capacity for self-government fostered thereby, prepared the English race for the dominion of the seas and the founding of successful colonies in all continents.

On the effects of the Norman Conquest, see the fifth volume of Freeman’s great work. Comp. also Schaff’s essay on the cosmopolitan character and mission of the English language, in his Literature and Poetry, New York, 1890, pp. 1-62.

The Norman kings were as jealous of their rights and as much opposed to papal superiority as the German emperors. Their instincts and interests were caesaropapistic or Erastian. But the Church kept them in check. The Hildebrandian ideas of reform were advocated and carried out in part by two of the most eminent scholars and monks of the age, Lanfranc (1005–1089) and Anselm (1033–1109), who followed each other in the see of Canterbury. They were both of Italian birth,—one from the Lombard city of Pavia, the other from Aosta,—and successively abbots and teachers of the famous convent of Bee in the diocese of Rouen.

William I. of Normandy, surnamed "the Conqueror," the natural son of, "Robert the Devil" and the daughter of a tanner, and the first king of the Norman dynasty (1066–1087), enforced his pretension to the English throne under the consecrated banner of Pope Alexander II. by the defeat of Harold in the battle on the hill of Senlac, near Hastings, Oct. 14, 1066. Five years afterwards he made Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury. He had formerly banished him from Normandy for opposing his marriage with Matilda of Flanders, as being within the forbidden degrees. He overtook the abbot as he was leaving the convent on a lame horse, and hurried him on. The abbot said, "Give me a better horse, and I shall go faster." This cool request turned the duke’s wrath into laughter and good-will. He was reconciled, and employed him to obtain the pope’s sanction of the marriage, and the removal of the interdict from his territories.

Lanfranc was a moderate Hildebrandian. He had been the chief promoter of the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Berengarian controversy; while Hildebrand protected Berengar as long as he could.

On Lanfranc’s connection with the Berengar controversy, see Schaff, vol. IV. 556 and 567 sq.

William was a despot in Church and State, and rather grew harder and more reckless of human suffering in his later years. His will was the law of the land. Freeman places him both "among the greatest of men" and "among the worst of men."

Norman Conquest, II. 165.

He made full use of the right of a victor. He subjected the estates of the Church to the same feudal obligations as other lands. He plundered religious houses. He deposed Archbishop Stigand and other Saxon bishops to make room for Norman favorites, who did not even understand the language of the people. These changes were not begun till 1070, when Stigand was tried before the papal legates who had placed the crown on William’s head. The main charges were simony and that he had received the pall from the usurping pope, Benedict X. William left only one Englishman, the simple-minded Wulfstan of Worcester, in possession of his see. He gradually extended the same system to abbacies and lower dignities. He allowed no synod to convene and legislate without his previous permission and subsequent confirmation of its decrees, no pope to be acknowledged in England without his will, no papal letters to be received and published without his consent. No ecclesiastic was to leave the kingdom without his permission, and bishops were forbidden to excommunicate a noble for adultery or any capital crime without the previous assent of the king. In these ways the power of the clergy was limited, and a check put upon the supremacy of Rome over the English Church. Lanfranc seems to have fully sympathized with these measures. For after the death of Alexander II., who had been his pupil at Bec, he seems to have treated the popes, especially Gregory VII., coolly. Gregory wrote him several letters threatening him with suspension and for his absence from the synods which were convening in Rome.

Reg. Greg., VI. 30, IX. 20; Migne, 148, 621, 643.

On the other hand, the law was passed in William’s reign remanding ecclesiastical suits to separate tribunals,

Gee and Hardy, 57 sq.

§ 23. William Rufus and Anselm.

William II., commonly called William Rufus or the Red (for his red hair), the third son and first successor of the Conqueror, ruled from 1087 to 1100. He bought Normandy from his brother Robert to enable him to make a crusade. This is the only good thing he did, besides appointing Anselm primate of England. He inherited all the vices and none of the virtues of his father. He despised and hated the clergy. It was said of him that, "he feared God but little, and man not at all." He was not a sceptic or infidel, as some represent him, but profane and blasphemous. He believed in God, like the demons, but did not tremble. He defied the Almighty. When he recovered from a severe sickness, he said: "God shall never see me a good man; I have suffered too much at his hands." He doubted his justice, and mocked at the ordeals. He declared publicly that neither St. Peter nor any other saint had any influence with God, and that he would not ask them for aid. He used to swear "by the holy face of Lucca."

Per sanctum vultum de Luca. A figure of the crucified Saviour in wood which was said to have been carved by Nicodemus, and was preserved in the cathedral at Lucca.

He had promised Lanfranc at his coronation to exercise justice and mercy and to protect the freedom of the Church, but soon forgot his vow, and began systematically to plunder the Church and to oppress the clergy. He robbed the bishoprics and abbeys of their income by leaving them vacant or selling them to the highest bidders. Within four years he changed thirty cemeteries into royal parks to satisfy his passion for bunting, which at last cost him his life. He used to say: "The bread of Christ is rich; the kings have given to the Church one-half of its income: why should I not try to win it back?"

He kept the see of Canterbury vacant for nearly four years (1089–1093). At last he yielded, under the influence of a severe sickness, to the pressure of the better class of bishops and noblemen, and elected Anselm, who was then in England, and well known as a profound theologian and saintly character. A greater contrast can scarcely be imagined. While William Rufus delighted in witnessing the tortures of innocent men and animals, Anselm was singularly tenderhearted: he saved the life of a hare which was chased by the hunters and had sought protection under his horse; he saw a worthy object for prayer in the sufferings of a bird tortured by a thoughtless child.

These rare traits of character are mentioned by Eadmer in his Vita Anselmi. Freeman, V. 25.

The primacy was forced upon Anselm in spite of his remonstrance. He foresaw a hard struggle. He compared himself to an old and feeble sheep, and the king to a young, wild bull. Thus yoked, he was to draw the plough of the Church of England, with the prospect of being torn to pieces by the ferocity of the bull.

Eadmer (Hist. Nov., in Migne’s edition of Anselm, II. 368): "Indomitum taurum et vetulam ac debilem ovem in aratro conjungere sub uno jugo," etc. Ranke, Weltgesch., VIII. 115, makes here a curious mistake by putting into Anselm’s mouth the saying that England’s plough must be drawn by "two noble and powerful bulls" (von zwei edlen und kräftigen Stieren, dem König und dem Primas).

A short time elapsed before the relations between the king and the prelate became strained. Anselm supported Urban II.; William leaned to the anti-pope Clement III. The question of investiture with the pallium at once became a matter of dispute. The king at first insisted upon Anselm’s receiving it from Clement and then claimed the right to confer it himself. Anselm refused to yield and received it, 1095, from Urban’s legate, who brought the sacred vestment to England in a silver casket. The archbishop gave further offence to the king by the mean way, as was said, in which he performed his feudal obligations.

Soon after he was made archbishop, Anselm sent the king £500, a sum far below what the king expected. On another occasion when the king was starting on a campaign against Wales, Anselm sent what the king regarded as a beggarly contingent of ill-trained knights.

Anselm was most honorably received by the pope, who threatened the king with excommunication, and pronounced an anathema on all laymen who exercised the right of investiture and on all clergymen who submitted to lay-investiture.

According to Eadmer, Hist. Nov., Migne’s ed. 159, 414, it was due to Anselm’s intercession that Urban withheld from William Rufus the anathema.

The Red King was shot dead by an arrow,—nobody knows whether by a hunter or by an assassin, Aug. 2, 1100, while hunting in the New Forest. "Cut off without shrift, without repentance, he found a tomb in the Old Minster of Winchester; but the voice of clergy and people, like the voice of one man, pronounced, by a common impulse, the sentence which Rome had feared to pronounce. He received the more unique brand of popular excommunication. No bell was tolled, no prayer was said, no alms were given for the soul of the one baptized and anointed ruler, whose eternal damnation was taken for granted by all men as a thing about which there could be no doubt."

Freeman, Norm. Conq., V. 147.

§ 24. Anselm and Henry I.

At the death of the Red King, one archbishopric, four bishoprics, and eleven abbeys were without pastors. Henry I., his younger brother, surnamed Beauclerc, ascended the throne (1100–1135). He connected the Norman blood with the imperial house of Germany by the marriage of his daughter Matilda to Henry V. After the emperor’s death, Matilda was privately married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou (1128), and became the mother of Henry II., the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty.

King Henry I. is favorably known by his strict administration of justice. He reconciled the clergy by recalling Anselm from exile, but soon renewed the investiture controversy. He instituted bishops and abbots, and summoned Anselm to consecrate them, which he steadfastly refused to do. He sent him into a second exile (1103–1106).

While in England, Anselm had celebrated the marriage of Henry to Matilda, or Eadgyth (as her English name was), daughter of the Scotch king Malcolm. Her aunt, a nun at Romsey, had placed the veil upon Eadgyth when she was a child as a protection against violence. There was a difference of opinion as to whether this was to be construed as a vow. Anselm pronounced her free. Ladies at the time of the Norman Conquest had temporarily put on the veil as a protection to their virtue. Lanfranc afterwards declared them free to marry.

Pascal II. excommunicated the bishops who had accepted investiture from Henry. But the king was not inclined to maintain a hostile attitude to Anselm. They had an interview in Normandy and appealed to the pope, who confirmed the previous investitures of the king on condition of his surrendering the right of investiture in future to the Church. This decision was ratified at Bec, Aug. 26, 1106. The king promised to restore to Anselm the profits of the see during his absence, to abstain from the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and to remit all fines to the clergy. He retained the right of sending to vacant sees a congé d’élire, or notice to elect, which carried with it the right of nomination. Anselm now proceeded to consecrate bishops, among them Roger of Salisbury, who was first preferred to Henry’s notice because he "began prayers quickly and closed them speedily."

See Fuller,Ch. Hist. of Britain, I. 340.

Anselm returned to England in triumph, and was received by the queen at the head of the monks and the clergy. At a council held at Westminster in 1107,

A previous council had been held at Westminster in 1102. See Freeman, V. 221, 226, and Gee and Hardy, pp. 63 sq.

During the remaining years of his life, Anselm enjoyed the friendship and respect of the king, and during the latter’s absence on the Continent in 1108, he was intrusted with the regency and the care of the royal family. He was canonized by the voice of the English people long before the formal canonization by the pope.

The canonization by Alexander III. came to nothing, but was renewed by Alexander VI. Dean Church says that Anselm "suffered the indignity of a canonization at the hands of Borgia."

After his death, in April, 1109, the primacy remained vacant till 1114, when it was conferred upon Ralph of Escures, bishop of Rochester, who had administered its affairs during the interval. He is described as a learned, cheerful, affable, good-humored, facetious prelate. He was called "nugax," but his jests and repartees have not been recorded. He and his two Norman successors, William of Corbeuil, 1123–1136. and Theobald, 1139–1161, lived on good terms with the king and his successor, Stephen. Thomas Becket, an English man, resumed, in 1162, the controversy between the mitre and the crown with greater energy, but less wisdom, than Anselm.

§ 25. Innocent II., 1130–1143, and Eugene III., 1145–1153.

Innocent II.: Epistolae et Privilegia, in Migne, Patrol., Tom. 179, fol. 54636; his biographies in Muratori (Rer. Ital., Tom. II. and III.) and Watterich (Pontif. Rom. Vitae, II. 174 sq.).—Anacletus (antipapa): Epistolae et Privil., in Migne, Tom. 179, fol. 687–732.—Eugenius III.: Epistolae, etc., in Migne, 180, 1013–1614.—The Works of St. Bernard, edited by Mabillon, and reprinted in Migne’s Patrol. (Tom. 182–185, Paris, 1855); Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. Hist., XII. 11, etc.; Bohn’s Trans. IV.

Jaffé: Geschichte des deutschen Reichs unter Lothar von Sachsen. Berlin, 1843.—Mirbt, art. Innocent II. in Herzog, IX. 108 sqq.—E. Mühlbacher: Die streitige Papstwahl d. J. 1130. Innsbruck, 1876.—W. Bernhardi: Konrad III. Leipzig, 1883, 2 vols.—Hefele-Knöpfler, Bd. V. 385–532.—Giesebrecht, Bd. IV. 54 sqq.—Gregorovius, IV. 403 sqq. Hauck, IV. 130 sqq.—The Biographies of St. Bernard.

Calixtus II. was followed by Honorius II., whose rule of six years, 1124–1130, was an uneventful one. After his death a dangerous schism broke out between Innocent II., 1130–1143, and Anacletus II., 1130–1138, who represented two powerful Roman families, the Frangipani, or Breadmakers,

The name was derived by legend from the distribution of bread in time of famine by one of the ancestors of the family. Its coat of arms represented two lions rampant, holding a loaf of bread between them. Gregorovius. IV. 404.

Innocent, formerly cardinal-legate of Urban II. and mediator of the Concordat of Worms, enjoyed the reputation of superior learning and piety, which even his opponents could not dispute. He had also the advantage of a prior election, but of doubtful legal validity, since it was effected only by a minority of cardinals, who met in great hurry in an unknown place to anticipate the rival candidate.

The thorough investigation of Mühlbacher is unfavorable to the validity of the election of Gregory (Innocent II.), and Deutsch (note in his edition of Neander’s St. Bernhard, I. 110 sq.) agrees with him, and bases his claim on purely moral grounds.

Anacletus was a son of Pierleone, Petrus Leonis, and a grandson of Leo, a baptized Jewish banker, who had acquired great financial, social, and political influence under the Hildebrandian popes. A Jewish community with a few hundred members were tolerated in Trastevere and around the island of the Tiber as a monumental proof of the truth of Christianity, and furnished some of the best physicians and richest bankers, who helped the nobility and the popes in their financial troubles. Anacletus betrayed his Semitic origin in his physiognomy, and was inferior to Innocent in moral character; but he secured an election by a majority of cardinals and the support of the principal noble families and the Roman community. With the help of the Normans, he took possession of Rome, banished his opponent, deposed the hostile cardinals, and filled the college with his friends.

Innocent was obliged to flee to France, and received there the powerful support of Peter of Cluny and Bernard of Clairvaux, the greatest monks and oracles of their age. He was acknowledged as the legitimate pope by all the monastic orders and by the kings of France and England.

Lothaire II. (III.) of Saxony, 1125–1137, to whom both parties appealed, decided for Innocent, led him and St. Bernard to Rome by armed force, and received in turn from the pope the imperial crown, June 4, 1133.

But after Lothaire’s departure, Anacletus regained possession of Rome, with the help of the Norman duke, Roger, and the party of the rival emperor, Conrad III. He made Roger II. king of Sicily, and thus helped to found a kingdom which lasted seven hundred and thirty years, till it was absorbed in the kingdom of Italy, 1860. Innocent retired to Pisa (1135). Lothaire made a second expedition to Italy and defeated Roger II. Bernard again appeared at Rome and succeeded in strengthening Innocent’s position. At this juncture Anacletus died, 1138. The healing of the schism was solemnly announced at the Second Lateran Council, 1139. War soon after broke out between Innocent and Roger, and Innocent was taken prisoner. On his release he confirmed Roger as king of Sicily. Lothaire had returned to Germany to die, 1137. Innocent had granted to him the territories of Matilda for an annual payment. On this transaction later popes based the claim that the emperor was a papal vassal.

After the short pontificates of Coelestin II., 1143–1144, and Lucius II., 1144–1145, Eugene III., a pupil and friend of St. Bernard, was elected, Feb. 15, 1145, and ruled till July 8, 1153. He wore the rough shirt of the monks of Citeaux under the purple. He had to flee from Rome, owing to the disturbances of Arnold of Brescia, and spent most of his time in exile. During his pontificate, Edessa was lost and the second crusade undertaken. Eugene has his chief interest from his connection with St. Bernard, his wise and loyal counsellor, who addressed to him his famous treatise on the papacy, the de consideratione.

See the chapters on the Second Crusade and St. Bernard.

§ 26. Arnold of Brescia.

Otto (Bishop of Freising, or Freisingen, d. 1158): De Gestis Friderici I. (lib. II. 20).—Gunther (Ligurinus): De Gestis Friderici I., an epos written 1187 (lib. III. vers. 262 sqq.).—Gerhoh (provost of Reichersberg, d. 1169): De investigatione Antichristi, edited by Scheibelberger. Lincii, 1875.—John of Salisbury: Historia Pontificalis (written c. 1162, recently discovered), in Mon. Germ. Script., XX. c. 31, p. 537.—St. Bernard: Epist., Migne, 195, 196, 198.—Walter Map (archdeacon of Oxford, 1196): De Nugis Curialium, ed. Wright, pp. 41 and 43. The sources are all hostile to Arnold and the Arnoldists.

J. D. Köler: De Arnoldo Brixiensi dissert. Göttingen, 1742.—Guadagnini: Apologia di Arnaldo da Brescia. Pavia, 1790, 2 vols.—K. Beck: A. v. Brescia. Basel, 1824.—H. Francke: Arnold von Brescia und seine Zeit. Zürich, 1825 (eulogistic).—Bent: Essay sur a.d. Brescia. Genève, 1856.—Federico Odorici: Arnaldo da Brescia. 1861. Georges Guibal: Arnauld de Brescia et les Hohenstaufen ou la question du pouvoir temporel de la papauté du moyen age. Paris, 1868.—*Giesebrecht: Arnold von Brescia. München, 1873 (in the Reports of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences). Comp. his Gesch. der d. Kaiserzeit, IV. 314 sqq.—A. Di Giovanni De Castro: Arnaldo da Brescia e la revoluzione romana dell XII. secolo. Livorno, 1875.—A. Hausrath: Arnold von Brescia. Leipzig, 1891.—Deutsch, A. von Brescia, in Herzog, II. 117–122;—Gregorovius, IV. 479 sqq. The Lives of St. Bernard, especially Vacandard and Neander-Deutsch.

During the pontificates of Innocent II., Eugene III., and Adrian IV. occurred the interesting episode of Arnold of Brescia, an unsuccessful ecclesiastical and political agitator, who protested against the secularization of the Church, and tried to restore it to apostolic poverty and apostolic purity. These two ideas were closely connected in his mind. He proclaimed the principle that the Church and the clergy, as well as the monks, should be without any temporal possessions, like Christ and the Apostles, and live from the tithes and the voluntary offerings of the people. Their calling is purely spiritual. All the things of this earth belong to the laity and the civil government.

He practised what he taught, and begged his daily bread from house to house. He was a monk of severe ascetic piety, enthusiastic temper, popular eloquence, well versed in the Scriptures, restless, radical, and fearless.

Otto von Freising calls him "singularitatis amator, novitatis cupidus, " and ranks him with those characters who are apt to produce heresies and to make schismatic disturbances. St. Bernard denounces him as the author of a schisma pessimum, but bears testimony to his ascetic piety, yet with the cruel charge of satanic thirst for the blood of souls: "Homo est neque manducans neque bibens, solo cum diabolo esuriens et sitiens sanguinem animarum."

With this ecclesiastical scheme he combined a political one. He identified himself with the movement of the Romans to emancipate themselves from the papal authority, and to restore the ancient republic. By giving all earthly power to the laity, he secured the favor of the laity, but lost the influence of the clergy. It was the political complication which caused his ruin.

Arnold was a native of Brescia in Lombardy, and an ordained reader in the Church. He was a pupil of Abaelard, and called armor-bearer to this Goliath.

Freising: "Arnaldus iste et Italia, civitate Brixia oriundus, ejusdemque ecclesiae clericus ac tantum lector ordinatus, Petrum Abailardum olim praeceptorem habuerat." St. Bernard seems to place the acquaintance at a later period: "Execratus a Petro apostolo, adhaeserat Petro Abailardo."

In his ascetic zeal for the moral reform of the clergy, Arnold was in sympathy with the Hildebrandian party, but in his views of the temporal power of the pope, he went to the opposite extreme. Hildebrand aimed at the theocratic supremacy of the Church over the State; Arnold sought the welfare of the Church in her complete separation from the State and of the clerical office from secular entanglements. Pascal II., we may say, had prepared the way for this theory when he was willing to sacrifice the investiture to the emperor. The Hildebrandian reform had nearly passed away, and the old corruptions reappeared. The temporal power of the Church promoted the worldliness of the clergy. The author of the Historia Pontificalis says that Arnold’s doctrine agreed with the Gospel, but stood in crying contrast with the actual condition of things. St. Bernard, his opponent, was as much opposed as he to the splendor and luxury of bishops, the secular cares of the popes, and expressed a wish that he might see the day when "the Church, as in olden times, should cast her net for souls, and not for money."

Epist., 238 ad Eugen. III.

Arnold’s sermons gained great popular applause in Lombardy, and caused bitter disputes between the people and the bishop of Brescia. He was charged before the Lateran Synod of 1139 with inciting the laity against the clergy, was deposed as a schismatic (not as a heretic), commanded to be silent, and was expelled from Italy.

He went again to France and was entangled in the controversy of Abaelard with Bernard. Pope Innocent condemned both Abaelard and Arnold to silence and seclusion in a convent, 1140. Abaelard, weary of strife and life, submitted and retired to the convent of Cluny, where two years later he died in peace.

Tosti, in his Storia di Abelardo, Naples, 1851, says of Abaelard that he had the courage of thought, but not the courage of action (il coraggio del pensiero non quello dell’azione).

Arnold fled to Zürich and was kindly received and protected by the papal legate, Cardinal Guido, his former fellow-student in Paris.

This Guido was formerly identified with Guido of Castello who became Pope Coelestin II., Sept. 26, 1143, and ruled five months. But Giesebrecht and Gregorovius (IV. 455) distinguish the two. Francke exaggerates Arnold’s influence upon Swiss liberty while at Zürich. Milman makes him a forerunner of Zwingli, who opposed the hierarchy; but Zwingli knew little or nothing of Arnold, and had no idea of pauperizing the Church, or of a separation of Church and State.

After a few years of unknown exile, Arnold appeared in Rome as the leader of a political movement. Innocent II. had allowed him to return to Italy; Eugene III. had pardoned him on condition of his doing penance in the holy places of Rome. But after the flight of this pope to France, Arnold preached again the doctrine of apostolic poverty, called the popes and cardinals Pharisees and scribes, and their church a house of merchandise and den of robbers. He was protected by the Roman senate, and idolized by the people. The Romans had renounced the papal authority, expelled the pope, substituted a purely secular government after the ancient model, and invited Conrad III. to assume the rôle of Constantine I. or Justinian. They lost themselves in dreams of government. The tradition of the old Roman rule controlled the Middle Ages in various forms: it lived as a universal monarchy in the German Empire, as a universal theocracy in the papacy; as a short-lived republic in the Roman people. The modern Italians who oppose the temporal power of the pope are more sensible: they simply claim the natural right of the Italian people to govern themselves, and they confine the dominion of Rome to Italy.

Arnold stepped out of the ecclesiastical into the political sphere, and surrounded the new republic with the halo of religion. He preached in his monastic gown, on the ruins of the Capitol, to the patres conscripti, and advised them to rebuild the Capitol, and to restore the old order of senators and knights. His emaciated face gave him a ghost-like appearance and deepened the effect of his eloquence.

But the republican experiment failed. The people were at last forced into submission by the interdict of Pope Adrian IV. Arnold was banished from Rome, 1154, and soon afterwards hanged by order of Emperor Frederick I., who hated democracy and republicanism. His body was burnt and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber, 1155, lest his admirers should worship his bones.

According to a Brescian poem, Arnold refused to recant and made only the single request for time for prayer before dying. Gregorovius, IV. 545.

Arnold’s was a voice of protest against the secular aims of the papacy and the worldliness of the clergy which still has its hearers. "So obstinate is the ban of the Middle Ages under which Rome is still held," says Gregorovius, "that the soul of a heretic of the twelfth century has not yet found rest, but must still haunt Rome." The Catholic Bishop Hefele refused to class him among "real heretics."

Unter die eigentlichen Heretiker. Hefele denies the errors ascribed to Arnold by Otto of Freising. Kirchengesch. 407.

The Arnoldists continued for some time to defend the doctrines of their master, and were declared heretics by a council of Verona, 1184, after which they disappeared.

But the idea of apostolic poverty and the opposition to the temporal power of the papacy reappeared among the Spirituals of the Franciscan order. Arnold’s political scheme of restoring the Roman republic was revived two hundred years later by Cola di Rienzi (1347), but with no better success; for Rienzi was murdered, his body burnt, and the ashes were scattered to the winds (1354).

§ 27. The Popes and the Hohenstaufen.

I. Principal Sources:

(1) The Regesta of the popes from Anastasius IV. to Innocent III. (1153–1198) by Jaffé-Wattenbach (ed. 1886).—The Opera of these popes in Migne’s Patrol. Lat.—The Vitae of the popes by Platina, Watterich, etc.

(2) Otto (half-brother of King Conrad III. and uncle of Frederick Barbarossa, and partial to him, bishop of Freising, or Freisingen, in Upper Bavaria, d. 1158): De Gestis Friderici I., finished by his pupil Rahewin or Reguin. Best ed. by Waitz, 1884. Also his Chronicle (De duabus Civitatibus, after the model of Augustin’s De Civitate Dei), continued by Otto of St. Blasien (in the Black Forest) till 1209. First critical ed. by R. Wilmans in Mon. Ger. Scr., XX. 83–493.—Gunther Ligurinus wrote in 1187 a Latin epic of 6576 verses on the deeds of the Emperor Frederick I. till 1160. See Wattenbach’s Geschichtsquellen, II. 241 sqq

II. Works on the Hohenstaufen Period:

Jaffé: Geschichte des deutschen Reichs unter Konrad III., Hanover, 1845.—Fr. von Raumer: Geschichte der Hohenstaufen. Leipzig, 1823. 4th ed. 1871. —W. Zimmermann: Die Hohenstaufen oder der Kampf der Monarchie gegen den Papst und die republ. Freiheit. Stuttgart, 1838. 2d ed. 1865, 2 vols.—G. De Cherrier: Histoire de la lutte des papes et des empereurs de la maison de Souabe. Paris, 1841, 4 vols.—*Hermann Reuter (Professor of Church History in Göttingen, d. 1888): Alexander III. und die Kirche seiner Zeit. 1845. 2d ed. thoroughly rewritten, Leipzig, 1860–1864; 3 vols. (A work of fifteen years’ study.)—Schirrmacher Kaiser Friedrich II. Göttingen, 1859–1864, 4 vols.; Die letzten Hohenstaufen. Göttingen, 1871.—P. Scheffer-Boichorst: K. Friedrichs I. letzter Streit mit der Kurie. Berlin, 1866.—H. Prutz: K. Friedrich I. Danzig, 1871–1874, 3 vols.—Del Guidice: Il guidizio e la condanna di Corradino. Naples, 1876.—Ribbeck: Friedr. I. und die römische Kurie. Leipzig, 1881.—Ugo Balzani: The Popes and the Hohenstaufen. London and New York, 1888 (pp. 261).—Giesebrecht, Bryce, 167 sqq.; Gregorovius, IV. 424 sqq.; Hauck, IV.;— Hefele-Knöpfler, V. 533 sqq.

With Conrad III. the powerful family of the Hohenstaufen ascended the imperial throne and occupied it from 1138 till 1254. They derive the name from the family castle Hohenstaufen, on a hill in the Rough Alp near Göppingen in Swabia.

The castle was destroyed in the Peasants’War in 1525. At the foot of the hill is a village and an old church with a fresco picture of Barbarossa, bearing the inscription: "Hic transibat Caesar, amor bonorum, terror malorum.""Here Caesar passed away, beloved by the good, dreaded by the bad." Close by is the ancient seat of the Hohenzollern family. On the site of the old castle a splendid castle was erected by William I., the Emperor of Germany.

The Hohenstaufen or Swabian emperors maintained the principle of imperialism, that is, the dignity and independence of the monarchy, as a divine institution, against papal sacerdotalism on the one hand, and against popular liberty on the other.

They made common cause with the popes, and served their purposes in the crusades: three of them, Conrad III., Frederick I., and Frederick II., undertook crusades against the Saracens; Conrad III. engaged in the second, which was a failure; Frederick I. perished in Syria; Frederick II. captured Jerusalem. The Hohenstaufen made also common cause with the popes against political and doctrinal dissent: Barbarossa sacrificed and punished by death Arnold of Brescia as a dangerous demagogue; and Frederick II., though probably himself an unbeliever, persecuted heretics.

But on the question of supremacy of power, the Hohenstaufen were always in secret or open war with the popes, and in the end were defeated. The conflict broke out under Frederick Barbarossa, who after long years of contention died at peace with the Church. It was continued by his grandson Frederick II. who died excommunicated and deposed from his throne by the papacy. The dynasty went out in tragic weakness in Conradin, the last male representative, who was beheaded on the charge of high treason, 1268. This conflict of the imperial house of the Hohenstaufen was more imposing than the conflict waged by Henry IV. with Gregory and his successors because of the higher plane on which it was fought and the greater ability of the secular antagonists engaged. Lasting more than one hundred years, it forms one of the most august spectacles of the Middle Ages, and furnishes some of the most dramatic scenes in which kings have ever figured. The historian Gregorovius has felt justified in saying that "this Titanic war of the Middle Ages filled and connected the centuries and formed the greatest spectacle of all ages."

After the fall of the Hohenstaufen, the German Empire maintained, till its death in 1806, a nominal connection with the papacy, but ceased to be the central political power of Europe, except in the period of the Reformation under Charles V., 1519–1558, when it was connected with the crowns of Austria, the Low Countries, and Spain, and the newly discovered lands of America, and when that mighty monarch, true to his Austrian and Spanish descent, retarded the Protestant movement for national independence and religious freedom. The new German Empire, founded on the ruins of the old and the defeat of France (1870), is ruled by a hereditary Protestant emperor.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

A.D.

POPES

THE HOHENSTAUFEN

A.D.

1130–1143

Innocent II.

Conrad III.

1138–1152

1143–1144

Coelestine II.

Crowned emperor at Aix la Chapelle by the papal legates.

1144–1145

Lucius II.

1145–1153

Eugene III.

Frederick I. (Barbarossa).

1152–1190

1153–1154

Anastasius IV.

(Nephew of Conrad.)

1154–1159

Adrian IV.

Crowned emperor by Adrian IV.

1155

1159–1181

Alexander III.

1181–1185

Lucius III.

1185–1187

Urban III.

1187

Gregory VIII.

1187–1191

Clement III.

Henry VI.

1190–1197

1191–1198

Coelestine III.

(Son of Barbarossa.)

Crowned emperor by Coelestine III

1191

King of Sicily.

1194

1198–1216

Innocent III.

Otto IV

1209–1215

Crowned by Innocent III

1209

Deposed by the Lateran Council

1215

1216–1227

Honorius III.

Frederick II

1227–1241

Gregory IX.

(Son of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily)

1241

Coelestine IV.

Crowned emperor by Honorius III

1220

1241–1254

Innocent IV.

Conrad IV

1250–1254

(Second son of Frederick II)

Crowned king of the Romans

1237

Excommunicated, 1252, and again 1254

1254–1261

Alexander IV.

Interregnum

1254–1273

1261–1264

Urban IV.

Conradin

1265–1268

Clement IV.

(Son of Conrad, the last of the Hohenstaufen, b. 1252)

Beheaded.

1268

§ 28. Adrian IV. and Frederick Barbarossa.

Lives of Hadrian in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. I. III.—Migne, vol. 188.—Otto of Freising.—William of Newburgh, 2 vols. London, 1856.—R. Raby: Pope Hadrian IV. London, 1849.—Tarleton: Nicolas Breakspear, Englishman And Pope, 1896.—L. Ginnell: The Doubtful Grant of Ireland of Pope Adrian IV. to Henry II., 1899.—O. J. Thatcher: Studies conc. Adrian IV. Chicago, 1903. pp. 88.—Reuter: Alex. III., vol. I. 1–48, 479–487.

Eugene III. was followed by Anastasius IV., whose rule lasted only sixteen months.

His successor was Nicolas Breakspear, the first and the only Englishman that has (thus far) worn the tiara. He was the son of a poor priest of St. Albans. He went to France in pursuit of bread and learning, became a monk, prior, and abbot of the convent of St. Rufus, between Arles and Avignon. He studied theology and canon law. Eugene III. made him cardinal-bishop of Albano, and sent him as legate to Norway and Sweden, where he organized the Church and brought it into closer contact with Rome.

He occupied the papal chair as Adrian IV., from 1154 to 1159, with great ability and energy. A beggar raised to the highest dignity in Christendom! The extremes of fortune met in this Englishman. Yet he felt happier in his poverty than in his power. He declared soon after his consecration that "the papal chair was full of thorns and the papal mantle full of holes and so heavy as to load down the strongest man." And after some experience in that high office, he said: "Is there a man in the world so miserable as a pope? I have found so much trouble in St. Peter’s chair that all the bitterness of my former life appears sweet in comparison."

John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, VIII. 23; Migne, 199, 814.

The Romans, under the lead of Arnold, requested him to resign all claim to temporal rule; but he refused, and after a bloody attack made by an Arnoldist upon one of the cardinals in the open street, he laid—for the first time in history—the interdict on the city. By this unbloody, yet awful and most effective, weapon, he enforced the submission of the people. He abolished the republican government, expelled Arnold and his adherents, and took possession of the Lateran.

At this time, Frederick I., called Barbarossa (Redbeard) by the Italians from the color of his beard, one of the bravest, strongest, and most despotic of German emperors,—the sleeper in Kyffhäuser,

See vol. IV. 258, and Rückert’s poem there quoted. Em. Geibel also wrote a beautiful poem on the German dream of sleep and revival of Barbarossa:—

"Tief im Schoosse des Kyffhäusers

Bei der Ampel rothem Schein

Sitzt der alte Kaiser Friedrich

An dem Tisch von Marmorstein,"etc.

The pope demanded, as the first condition of his coronation, the surrender of Arnold. With this Barbarossa willingly complied and ordered the execution of the popular agitator. In his first interview with Adrian, he kissed the pope’s toe, but neglected the ceremony of holding the stirrup on descending from his palfrey. Adrian felt indignant and refused to give him the kiss of peace. When informed that this was an old custom, Barbarossa on the following day complied with it, but in an ambiguous way by holding the left stirrup instead of the right. He took forcible possession of Trastevere, and was solemnly invested, anointed, and crowned, according to the prescribed ritual, in St. Peter’s, amid the acclamations of the curia, the clergy, and the army (June 13, 1155). An insurrection of the Roman people was speedily suppressed, the emperor leading the charge into the rebel ranks. But on the next morning he retired with the pope to the Tiburtine hills. He was reluctantly compelled by the want of supplies and by rumors of rebellion in Lombardy to return with his army. The pope, shut out from Rome, without foreign or domestic ally, retired to Benevento, was besieged there by King William of Sicily (son and successor of Roger II.) and forced by desertion and famine to submit to the terms of the conqueror by investing him with the kingdom of Sicily, the duchy of Apulia, and the principality of Capua. This involved him in a controversy with the emperor, who regarded Apulia and Capua as parts of the empire. He protested against the divorce from his first, and the marriage to his second, wife, 1156.

To these occasions of offence Adrian added another which Frederick would not bear. It was evoked by the ill-treatment done by robbers to the archbishop of Lund on his way from Rome through Germany to his Scandinavian diocese.

Eskill of Lund seems to have had the loftiest ideas of prelatical prerogative, and boasted that he was accustomed to command kings, not obey them. It is quite possible the emperor took inward satisfaction at his custody. Hauck, IV. 210. Adrian’s letter, Mirbt, Quellen, 119 sq., speaks of the treatment of the archbishop as "that fearful and execrable deed and sacrilegious crime,"illud horrendum et execrabile facinus et piaculare flagitium.

The pope was too much of a hierarch and Frederick too much of an emperor to live in peace. In 1158 Frederick led his army across the Alps to reduce Milan and other refractory Lombard cities to submission. Having accomplished this, he assembled a diet on the plain of Roncaglia, near Piacenza, which is memorable for the decision rendered by Bologna jurists, that the emperor held his empire by independent divine right and not by the will of the pope. This was the most decisive triumph the empire had won since the opening of the conflict with Henry IV. But the decision of professors of law did not change the policy of the papacy.

Adrian again gave offence by denying the emperor’s right to levy a tax for military purposes, fodrum, on estates claimed by the papacy and demanded that he should recognize the papal claim of feudal rights over the Matilda grant, Sardinia, Corsica, Ferrara, and the duchy of Spoleto. Frederick proudly retorted that instead of owing fealty to the pope, the popes owed fealty to the emperor, inasmuch as it was by the gift of the emperor Constantine that Pope Sylvester secured possession of Rome. A war of letters followed. Adrian was intending to punish his imperial foe with excommunication when he was struck down by death at Anagni. He was buried in St. Peter’s in an antique sarcophagus of red granite which is still shown. So ended the career of a man who by his moral character and personal attractions had lifted himself up from the condition of a child of a poor cleric to the supreme dignity of Christendom, and ventured to face the proudest monarch as his superior and to call the imperial crown a papal beneficium.

Gregorovius, IV. 560, after praising his merits, says of Adrian. "He was shrewd, practical, and unyielding as Anglo-Saxons are wont to be." His "nature was as firm and strong as the granite of his tomb."

This English pope, who laid the city of Rome under the interdict, which no Italian or German pope had dared to do, presented Ireland to the crown of England, on the ground that all the islands of the Christian world belong to the pope by virtue of Constantine’s donation. The curious bull Laudabiliter, encouraging Henry II. to invade and subjugate the land and giving it to him and to his heirs for a possession, may not be genuine, but the authorization was certainly made by Adrian as John of Salisbury, writing about 1159, attests, and it was renewed by Alexander III. and carried out, 1171.

The subject has been thoroughly discussed by Professors Thatcher and Scheffer-Boichorst before him. John of Salisbury, Polycr. VI. 24; Migne, 199, 623, distinctly says that Adrian, "listening to his petitions, conceded and gave" Ireland to Henry and his heirs on the ground that all islands "by ancient law and Constantine’s donation, are said to belong to the Church." The pope sent to the king through John a ring of gold set with a precious stone to be a seal of investiture. There is no good reason to doubt this statement. And we know from Roger de Wendover, Rolls Series, I. 11, that an English embassy was sent to Adrian to secure this permission. The bull Laudabiliter (Mansi, XXI. 788), which formally confers the island upon the English crown and demands from it the payment of Peter’s Pence, is found also in Roger de Wendover (Giles, Trans., I. 529) and Giraldus. Upon internal grounds its genuineness is considered doubtful or flatly denied, as by Thatcher. This author gives, p. 4, a list of review articles on the subject. Scholarship and patriotism have made it possible for Irish writers to use much argument to show that the bull is a forgery and the alleged fact a fancy, whether of a prophetic enemy of Ireland or by a historical bungler is not known. The Protestant has an easier way out of the difficulty in affirming that the pope may make mistakes.

§ 29. Alexander III. in Conflict with Barbarossa.

See the literature in § 27, especially Reuter’s Alex. III.—Vita Alexandri auctore Bosone Card., in Watterich, II. 377 sqq.—Migne, Tom. 200.—The Regesta of Alexander III. in Jaffé-Wattenbach’s Reg. Pont. Rom., pp. 145–418; and of the anti-popes, Victor IV., Pascal III., Calixtus III., and Innocent III., ibid., pp. 418–430.—Milman, bk. VIII. chs. VIII. and IX.—Greenwood, bk. XII. chs. III.–VII.—Gregorovius, IV. 525 sqq.; Hefele-Knöpfler, V. 570–720.—Moritz Meyer: Die Wahl Alex. III. und Victors IV. Göttingen, 1871.—Edw. A. Freeman: Frederick the First, King of Italy, in his "Historical Essays," London, 1871, pp. 252–282.—P. Scheffer-Boichorst; Friedrich I. letzte Streit mit der Kurie, 1866.—Wattenbach, 167 sqq.; Hauck, IV. 227–311.—Gietl: Die Sentenzen Rolands, nachmals Alexander III. Freib., 1891.

With Alexander III. (1159–1181) the conflict between Caesarism and sacerdotalism, which had begun under Adrian, assumed a more serious character. It was not a war for destruction, but for supremacy on the one hand and submission on the other. "Who shall be the greater?" that was the question. It was the old contention between Church and State under a new phase. Caesar and pope were alike Catholic Christians as far as they had any religion at all. They were indispensable to each other. The emperor or king needed a pope, as a kind of chief chaplain and father confessor for the control of the consciences of his subjects; the pope needed the secular arm of an emperor for the protection of the property and rights of the Church and the prosecution of heretics. The emperors elected anti-popes, and the popes supported rival emperors. It was the ambition of the Hohenstaufen to keep Germany and Italy united; it was the interest of the popes to keep them separated, and to foment division in Germany and in Italy, according to the maxim. "Divide et impera."

On the 7th of September, 1159, Cardinal Roland, the chancellor of the Roman curia and a distinguished canonist, ascended the papal chair as Alexander III. He had previously been professor at Bologna, and written the first work on the Decretum Gratiani. He had been created cardinal by Eugene III. He had once offended Barbarossa by the question: "From whom does the emperor receive his dignity if not from the pope?" He had also advised Adrian to excommunicate the emperor. He was a scholar, a statesman, and a vigorous champion of the Hildebrandian theocracy. He had an unusually long pontificate of twenty-one years, and is the most conspicuous pope between Gregory VII. and Innocent III. He had a checkered career of fortune and misfortune in a conflict with the emperor and four anti-popes; but he consistently adhered to his principles, and at last triumphed over his enemies by moral force and the material aid of the Normans in the south and the Lombards in the north.

The election of Roland by fourteen cardinals was immediately followed by the election of Cardinal Octavian of St. Cecilia, the imperial anti-pope, who called himself Victor IV., and at once took possession of the Vatican. Roland was consecrated at Ninfa, Octavian in the convent of Farfa. They were quartered in the Campagna, a few miles distant from each other, and published contradictory reports with charges of disgraceful violence at the election.

Octavian, according to the report of his enemies, plucked the papal cope from the shoulders of Roland, and invested himself with such indecent haste that the cope was reversed, and the back of it appeared on his breast. The mistake created derisive laughter, and was construed as a divine judgment.

The emperor, who was then besieging the city of Cremona, being appealed to by both parties (though with different feelings), and using a right exercised by Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, Charlemagne, and Otto, summoned a council at Pavia to investigate and decide the case, 1160.

The document is given in Rahewin, Gesta Frid. IV. 64, and Mirbt, Quellen, 121.

The partisan council, which consisted chiefly of bishops from Germany and North Italy, after a grave debate, unanimously decided in favor of Octavian, and excommunicated Roland, Feb. 11, 1160. The emperor paid the customary honors to Victor IV., held his stirrup and kissed his toe. Alexander issued from Anagni a counter-excommunication against the anti-pope and the emperor, March 24, 1160. He thereby encouraged revolt in Lombardy and division in Germany. Another schism rent the Church.

The rival popes dispatched legates to all the courts of Europe. France, Spain, and England sided with Alexander. He took refuge in France for three years (1162–1165), and was received with enthusiasm. The kings of France and England, Louis VII. and Henry II., walked on either side of his horse, holding the bridle, and conducting him into the town of Courcy on the Loire. Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Norway, and Sweden supported Victor. Italy was divided: Rome and Tuscany were under the power of the emperor; Sicily favored the Gregorian pope; the flourishing commercial and manufacturing cities of Lombardy were discontented with the despotic rule of Barbarossa, who was called the destroyer of cities. He put down the revolt with an iron hand; he razed Milan to the ground after a long and atrocious siege, scattered the population, and sent the venerated relics of the Magi to the cathedral of Cologne, March, 1162.

Victor IV. died in April, 1164. Pascal III. was elected his successor without regard to the canonical rules. At the request of the emperor, he canonized Charles the Great (1165).

Alexander III. put himself at the head of the Lombard league against the emperor; city after city declared itself for him. In September, 1165, he returned to Italy with the help of Sicily, and French and English gold, and took possession of Rome.

In November, 1166, Frederick crossed the Alps a fourth time, with a strong army, marched to Rome, captured the Leonine city, put Pascal III. in possession of St. Peter’s, and was crowned again, with Beatrice, Aug. 1, 1167. Alexander defended the city on the other side of the Tiber, but soon withdrew to Benevento. The emperor, victorious over armies, found a more formidable enemy in the Roman fever, which made fearful ravages among his bishops, noblemen, and soldiers. He lost in a few weeks his bravest knights and two thousand men by the plague. He broke up his camp in great haste, and marched to Pavia (September, 1167).

Thomas à Becket, in a letter congratulating Alexander, compared Frederick’s discomfiture by pestilence to Sennacherib’s defeat at Jerusalem. 2 Chron. xxxii:21.

The second anti-pope died, Sept. 20, 1168, and with him the power of the schism collapsed. Calixtus III. was elected his successor, but he was a mere shadow, 1168–1178.

His few acts are recorded in Jaffé-Wattenbach, Regesta, pp. 429-430. He submitted to Alexander, and was made archbishop of Benevento. Of the fourth anti-pope, Lando Sitino, who called himself Innocent III (1179-1180), nothing is recorded but his election and imprisonment, ibid., p. 431.

Barbarossa undertook a fifth campaign to Italy in 1174. He destroyed Susa, and, descending through Piedmont, besieged the new city of Alessandria, which was named in honor of Alexander III., and strongly fortified. Here he found determined resistance. His forces were weakened by a severe winter. He was forsaken by his strongest ally, the Saxon duke, Henry the Lion. He fought a pitched battle against the Lombards, near Legnano, May 29, 1176. He rushed, as usual, into the thickest of the fight, but was defeated after terrible slaughter, and lost his shield, banner, cross, lance, and coffers of silver and gold. He retired with the remnant of his army to Pavia. He was left without a single ally, and threatened in Germany by the dangerous rivalry of Henry the Lion. He now took serious steps towards a reconciliation with Alexander, the spiritual head of his enemies.

The emperor sent Archbishop Christian of Mainz (his chancellor, ablest general, and diplomat), Archbishop Wichmann of Magdeburg, Bishop Conrad of Worms, and Protonotary Wortwin to Anagni, with full powers to treat with the pope (October, 1176). Alexander received the commissioners with marked respect, and in private conferences, lasting over a fortnight, he arranged with them the preliminary terms of peace, which were to be ratified at Venice during a personal interview between him and the emperor.

The pope, provided with a safe-conduct by the emperor, left Anagni on Christmas, 1176, in company with his cardinals and the two commissioners of the kingdom of Sicily, Archbishop Romuald of Salerno and Count Roger of Andria, and arrived at Venice, March 24, 1177. The emperor tarried at Chioggia, near Venice, till July 23. The peace negotiations between the pope and the imperial commissioners began in May and lasted till July. They were conducted on the basis of the previous negotiations in Anagni.

§ 30. The Peace of Venice. 1177.

The negotiations resulted in the Peace of Venice, which was embodied in twenty-eight articles.

For the text see Mirbt, Quellen, 121-124. The chief authorities for the Peace of Venice are Alexander’s Letters to Roger, archbishop of York, in Migne, 200, 1160 sqq.; and Mansi, XXII. 180 sqq.; the Chronicon of Romuald., archbishop of Salerno and commissioner from Sicily, in Muratori, Scrip. Rer. Ital. VII. Mathews, pp. 99-105, also gives the text.

The peace was ratified by one of the most solemn congresses of the Middle Ages. Absolved from the ban, and after eighteen years of conflict, the emperor met the pope in front of St. Mark’s, July 24, 1177. A vast multitude filled the public square. The pope in his pontifical dress sitting upon a throne in front of the portal of the cathedral must have had mingled with his feelings of satisfaction reminiscences of his painful fortunes since the time he was elected to the tiara. Cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and other dignitaries occupied lower seats according to their rank.

The emperor, on arriving in the magnificent gondola of the doge, with a train of prelates and nobles, was received by a procession of priests with banners and crosses, and the shouts of the people. He slowly proceeded to the cathedral. Overcome with feelings of reverence for the venerable pope, he cast off his mantle, bowed, and fell at his feet.

Vita Alex.: "prostravit se in terram."Chron. Romualdi (Muratori,VII. 231): "totum se extenso corpore prostravit."

Then the emperor, taking the hand of the pope, walked with him and the doge into the church, made rich offerings at the altar, bent his knees, and received again the apostolic benediction.

On the next day (the 25th), being the feast of St. James, the pope, at the emperor’s request, celebrated high mass, and preached a sermon which he ordered the patriarch of Aquileia to translate at once into German. The emperor accompanied him from the altar to the door, and paid him the customary homage of holding the stirrup.

Alexander ad Rogerum (Migne, 200, 1 1131): "Cum ascenderemus palafredum nostrum ibi paratum, stapham tenuit, et omnem honorem et reverentiam nobis exhibuit, quam praedecessores ejus nostris consueverunt antecessoribus." It is stated by Godfrey of Viterbo, an attendant of the emperor, that the old pope, through the pressure of the crowd, was thrown from his horse, and that the emperor assisted him to remount. Pertz, Archiv, IV. 363, quoted by Milman, bk. VIII. ch. IX.

This is the authentic account of contemporary writers and eye-witnesses. They make no mention of the story that the emperor said to the pope, "I do this homage to Peter, not to thee," and that the pope quickly replied, "To Peter and to me."

The hierarchical imagination has represented this interview as a second Canossa. In Venetian pictures the pope is seen seated on a throne, and planting his foot on the neck of the prostrate emperor, with the words of Ps. 91:13: —

"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder:

The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet."

"Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis," etc. This and other stories of the fourteenth century are irreconcilable with contemporary records and are given up by nearly all modern historians. They may have partly originated in the fresco paintings of Spinello described by Lord Lindsay, History of Christian Art, II. 315. Milman, IV. 435 (Am. ed.), says."As poetry has so often become, here painting for once became history." Comp. Reuter, III. 758.

There is as much difference between the scenes of Venice and Canossa as there is between the characters of Barbarossa and Henry IV. Barbarossa was far superior, morally as well as intellectually, to his Salian predecessor, and commanded the respect of his enemies, even in his defeat. He maintained his dignity and honorably kept his word.

Delegates and letters were sent to all parts of Christendom with the glad tidings of peace. The emperor left Venice toward the end of September for Germany by a roundabout way, and the pope for Anagni on the 15th of October. After an exile of ten years, Alexander made a triumphal entry into Rome, March 12, 1178.

He convened, according to previous agreement with the emperor, a synod to ratify the pacification of Christendom, and to remove certain evils which had multiplied during the schism. The Third Lateran or the Eleventh Oecumenical Council was held in the Constantinian Basilica at Rome during Lent, 1179. It numbered about three hundred bishops, besides many abbots and other dignitaries,

The lists are defective, and the contemporary records vary between 287, 300, 396 bishops, and 1000 members in all. See Mansi, XXII. 213 sqq.; Hefele, V. 711; Reuter, III. 418 sqq.

The council, in order to prevent rival elections, placed the election of popes exclusively in the hands of cardinals, to be decided by a majority of two-thirds, and threatened with excommunication and deposition any one who should dare to accept an election by a smaller number of votes.

"Ille Romanus Pontifex habeatur, qui a duabus partibus fuerit electus et receptus. Si quis autem de tertiae partis nominatione confisus ... sibi nomen Episcopi usurpaverit: tam ipse, quam qui eum recepuerint, excommunicationi subjaceant et totius sacri ordinis privatione mulctentur," etc. Mansi, XXII. 217.

Soon after the synod, Alexander was again driven into exile by the Roman republic. He died at Cività Castellana, Aug. 30, 1181, having reigned longer than any pope before or after him, except Sylvester I., 314–385, Adrian I., 772–795, Pius VII., 1800–1823, Pius IX., 1846–1878, and Leo XIII., 1878–1903. When Alexander’s remains were being carried to Rome for burial, the populace insulted his memory by pelting the coffin with stones and mud.

Reuter, III. 495-499. A similar insult was offered by the Roman populace to Pius IX. when his coffin was transported in the night from the Vatican to its last resting-place in the basilica of S. Lorenzo. He, too, spent some time in exile after the proclamation of the Roman republic in 1849.

His aged and feeble successor, Lucius III., was elected, Sept. 1, 1181, by the cardinals alone. The Romans, deprived of their former share in the election, treated him with barbarous cruelty; they captured twenty or twenty-six of his partisans at Tusculum, blinded them, except one, crowned them with paper mitres inscribed with the names of cardinals, mounted them on asses, and forced the priest whom they had spared to lead them in this condition to "Lucius, the wicked simoniac." He died in exile at Verona where he held an important synod.

It is a remarkable fact that some of the greatest popes—as Gregory VII., Urban II., Innocent II., Eugene III., Adrian IV., Alexander III., and three of his successors—could not secure the loyalty of their own subjects, and were besieged in Rome or compelled to flee. Adrian IV. said to his countryman and friend, John of Salisbury, "Rome is not the mother, but the stepmother of the Churches." The Romans were always fluctuating between memories of the old republic and memories of the empire; now setting up a consul, a senator, a tribune; now welcoming the German emperor as the true Augustus Caesar; now loyal to the pope, now driving him into exile, and ever selling themselves to the highest bidder. The papal court was very consistent in its principles and aims, but as to the choice of means for its end it was subject to the same charge of avarice and venality, whether at Rome or in exile. Even Thomas Becket, the staunchest adherent of Alexander III., indignantly rebuked the cardinals for their love of gold.

Emperor Frederick survived his great rival nearly ten years, and died by drowning in a little river of Asia Minor, 1190, while marching on the third crusade.

Barbarossa was a man of middle size, bright countenance, fair complexion, yellow hair and reddish beard, a kind friend and placable enemy, strictly just, though often too severe, liberal in almsgiving, attentive to his religious duties, happy in his second marriage, of the noblest type of mediaeval chivalry, the greatest sovereign of the twelfth century, a hero in fact and a hero in romance.

Rahewin, in his Gesta Friderici, IV. 86, gives an animated description of Frederick’s appearance, habits, dress, achievements, etc. He calls him the best of emperors.

§ 31. Thomas Becket and Henry II of England.

For the extensive Becket literature, see Robertson, in "The Contemporary Review," 1866, I. (Jan.) 270–278, and Ulysse Chevalier, in his Répertoire des sources historiques du Moyen Age (Paris, 1886), s. v. "Thomas," fol. 2207–2209.

I. Sources: —

*Materials for the History of Thomas `a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Edited by James Craigie Robertson (Canon of Canterbury, d. 1882) and J. Brigstocke Sheppard, LL. D. London, 1875–1885, 7 vols. This magnificent work is part of a series of Rerum Britannic. Medii Aevi Scriptores, or "Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," published under direction of the Master of the Rolls and popularly known as the "Rolls Series." It embraces all the important contemporary materials for the history of Thomas. Vols. I.-IV. contain the contemporary Vitae (by William of Canterbury, Benedict of Peterborough, Edward Grim, Roger of Pontigny, William Fitz-Stephen, John of Salisbury, Alan of Tewkesbury, and Herbert of Bosham, etc.); vols. V.-VII., the Epistolae, i.e. the whole correspondence relating to Thomas.

This collection is much more accurate, complete, and better arranged (especially in the Epistles) than the older collection of Dr. Giles (Sanctus Thomas Cantuariensis, London, 1845–1846, 8 vols., reprinted in Migne’s Patrologia, Tom. 190), and the Quadrilogus or Historia Quadripartita (Lives by four contemporary writers, composed by order of Pope Gregory XI., first published, 1495, then by L. Christian Lupus or Wolf, Brussels, 1682, and Venice, 1728).

Thómas Saga Erkibyskups. A Life of Archb. Th. Becket in Icelandic, with Engl. transl., notes, and glossary, ed. by Eiríkr Magnússon. London, 1875, and 1883, 2 vols. Part of the "Chronicles and Memorials," above quoted.

Garnier of Pont Sainte-Maxence: La Vie de St. Thomas le martir. A metrical life, in old French, written between 1172 and 1174, published by Hippeau, and more recently by Professor Bekker, Berlin, 1844, and Paris, 1859.

The Life And Martyrdom Of Thomas Becket by Robert of Gloucester. Ed. By W. H. Black. London, 1845 (p. 141). A Biography In Alexandrine verse, written in the thirteenth century.

II. Modern Works: —

Richard Hurrell Froude (one of the originators of the Oxford Anglo-Catholic movement, d. 1836): Remains. London, 1838, 4 vols. The second vol., part II., contains a history of the contest between Thomas à Becket and Henry II., in vindication of the former. He was assisted by J. H. (late Cardinal) Newman.

A. F. Ozanam: Deux Chanceliers d’Angleterre, Bacon de Verulam et Saint Thomas de Cantorbéry. Paris, 1836.

J. A. Giles: The Life And Letters Of Thomas à Becket. London, 1846, 2 vols.

F. J. Buss (Rom. Cath.): Der heil. Thomas und sein Kampf für die Freiheit der Kirche. Mainz, 1856.

John Morris (Rom. Cath. Canon of Northampton): The Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket. London, 1859.

*James Craigie Robertson: Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. London, 1859. Accurate, but unfavorable to Becket.

*Edw. A. Freeman: St. Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers. A masterly article in the "National Review" for April, 1860, reprinted in his "Historical Essays," London, 1871, pp. 99–114. Comp. the summary in his History of the Norman Conquest, V. 660 sqq., and his articles against Froude, noticed below.

*James Anthony Froude: Life and Times of Thomas Becket. First published in "The Nineteenth Century" for 1877, then in book form, London and New York, 1878 (pp. 160). Against the Roman and Anglo-Catholic overestimate of St. Thomas. This book is written in brilliant style, but takes a very unfavorable view of Becket (opposite to that of his elder brother, R. H. Froude), and led to a somewhat personal controversy with Professor Freeman, who charged Froude with habitual inaccuracy, unfairness, and hostility to the English Church, in, "The Contemporary Review" for 1878 (March, April, June, and September). Froude defended himself in "The Nineteenth Century" for April, 1879, pp. 618–637, to which Freeman replied in Last Words on Mr. Froude, in "The Contemporary Review" for May, 1879, pp. 214–236.

*R. A. Thompson: Thomas Becket, Martyr, London, 1889.—A. S. Huillier: St. Thomas de Cantorbèry, 2 vols., Paris, 1892.

*Edwin A. Abbott: St. Thomas of Canterbury. His Death and Miracles, 2 vols., London, 1888. This work grew out of studies in preparation of a critical commentary of the Four Gospels. It takes the early narratives of Thomas à Becket, sets them side by side, and seeks to show which are to be accepted upon the basis of disagreements in regard to event or verbal expression. It also presents the details in which Dean Stanley and Tennyson are alleged to have been misled. The criticism is able, stimulating, and marked by self-confidence in determining what events really did occur, and how much is to be discarded as unhistoric. The discussion has all the merits and demerits of the strict critical method.

III. Becket is more or less fully treated by Milman: Latin Christianity, bk. VIII. ch. VIII.—Dean Stanley: Historical Memorials of Canterbury, Am. ed., 1889.—Reuter: Alexander III., I. 237 sqq., 530 sqq. Dean Hook: Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, II. 354–508. Greenwood: Cathedra Petri, bk. XII. ch. VII.—William Stubbs: The Constitutional Hist. of England, 6th ed., 3 vols., Oxford, 1897, and Select Charters and Other Illustrations of the English Constit. Hist., 8th ed., Oxford, 1900.—Gee and Hardy: Documents Illustrative of Engl. Ch. Hist., London, 1896.—F. W. Maitland: Rom. Canon Late in the Ch. of England, London, 1898, 134–147.—W. R. W. Stephens: The English Church (1066–1272), London, 1901, 157–190. The Histories of Lingard, Green, etc.

Lord Tennyson has made Becket the subject of a historical drama, 1884.

During the pontificate of Alexander III., the papal hierarchy achieved an earlier and greater triumph over the king of England than over the emperor of Germany.

Thomas Becket, or Thomas à Becket, or St. Thomas of Canterbury, is, next to Alexander and Barbarossa, the most prominent historical figure in the twelfth century, and fills a chapter of thrilling interest in the history of England. He resumed the conflict of Anselm with the crown, and by his martyrdom became the most popular saint of the later Middle Ages.

The materials for his history, from his birth in London to his murder in his own cathedral by four knights of the royal household, are abundant. We have six or seven contemporary biographies, besides fragments, legends, and "Passions," state papers, private letters, and a correspondence extending over the whole Latin Church. But his life is surrounded by a mist of romantic legends and theological controversies. He had extravagant admirers, like Herbert of Bosham, and fierce opponents, like Gilbert Foliot, in his own day; and modern biographers still differ in the estimate of his character, according to their creed and their views on the question of Church and State, some regarding him as a hero and a saint, others as a hypocrite and a traitor. We must judge him from the standpoint of the twelfth century.

Becket was born in London, Dec. 21, 1118, during the reign of Henry I. He was the son of Gilbert Becket, a merchant in Cheapside, originally from Rouen, and of Matilda or Rose, a native of Caen in Normandy.

The Norman descent of Becket rests on contemporary testimony, and is accepted by Giles, Lingard, Robertson, Milman, Hook, Freeman, Reuter, Hefele. The commercial advantages of London attracted emigrants from Normandy. Lord Lyttleton, Thierry, Campbell, and J. A. Froude make Becket a Saxon, but without authority. Becket is a surname, and may be Norman as well as Saxon. The prefix à seems to be of later date, and to have its origin (according to Robertson and Hook) in vulgar colloquial usage.

In the later legend his father appears as a gallant crusader and his mother as a Saracen princess, who met in the East and fell in love with each other. Matilda helped Gilbert to escape from captivity, and then followed him alone to England. Knowing only two English words, "London" and "Gilbert," she wandered through the streets of the city, till at last she found her beloved in Cheapside as by a miracle, was baptized and married to him in St. Paul’s with great splendor. She had dreams of the future greatness and elevation of her infant son to the see of Canterbury.

Becket was educated at Merton Abbey in Surrey and in the schools of London. At a later period he attended the universities of Paris, Bologna, and Auxerre, and studied there chiefly civil and canon law, without attaining to special eminence in learning. He was not a scholar, but a statesman and an ecclesiastic.

He made his mark in the world and the Church by the magnetism of his personality. He was very handsome, of tall, commanding presence, accomplished, brilliant, affable, cheerful in discourse, ready and eloquent in debate, fond of hunting and hawking, and a proficient in all the sports of a mediaeval cavalier. He could storm the strongest castle and unhorse the stoutest knight.

Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, 1139–1161, took him into his service, 1142; sent him to Bologna, where Gratian then taught canon law; employed him in delicate missions with the papal court; made him archdeacon (1154), and bestowed upon him other profitable benefices, as the provostship of Beverly, a number of churches, and several prebends. When charged, as archbishop, with ingratitude to the king, who had raised him from "poverty," he proudly referred to this accumulation of preferments, and made no attempt to abolish the crying evil of plurality, which continued till the Reformation. Many a prosperous ecclesiastic regarded his parishes simply as sources of income, and discharged the duties by proxy through ignorant and ill-paid priests.

King Henry II., 1154–1189, in the second year of his reign, raised Becket, then only thirty-seven years of age, at Theobald’s instance, to the chancellorship of England. The chancellor was the highest civil dignitary, and held the custody of nearly all the royal grants and favors, including vacant bishoprics, abbacies, chaplaincies, and other ecclesiastical benefices.

Henry, the first of the proud Plantagenets, was an able, stirring, and energetic monarch. He kept on his feet from morning till evening, and rarely sat down. He introduced a reign of law and severe justice after the lawless violence and anarchy which had disturbed the reign of the unfortunate Stephen.

Tennyson describes Stephen’s reign as—

"A reign which was no reign, when none could sit

By his own hearth in peace; when murder common

As nature’death, like Egypt’s plague, had filled

All things with blood."

Becket occupied the chancellorship for seven years (1155–1162). He aided the king in the restoration of order and peace. He improved the administration of justice. He was vigorous and impartial, and preferred the interests of the crown to those of the clergy, yet without being hostile to the Church. He was thoroughly loyal to the king, and served him as faithfully as he had served Theobald, and as he afterwards served the pope. Thorough devotion to official duty characterized him in all the stations of his career.

He gave to his high office a prominence and splendor which it never had before. He was as magnificent and omnipotent as Wolsey under Henry VIII. He was king in fact, though not in name, and acted as regent during Henry’s frequent absences on the Continent. He dressed after the best fashion, surrounded himself with a brilliant retinue of a hundred and forty knights, exercised a prodigal hospitality, and spent enormous sums upon his household and public festivities, using in part the income of his various ecclesiastical benefices, which he retained without a scruple. He presided at royal banquets in Westminster Hall. His tables were adorned with vessels of gold, with the most delicate and sumptuous food, and with wine of the choicest vintage. He superintended the training of English and foreign nobles, and of the young Prince Henry. He was the favorite of the king, the army, the nobility, the clergy, and the people.

The chancellor negotiated in person a matrimonial alliance (three years before it was consummated) between the heir of the crown (then a boy of seven years) and a daughter of the king of France (a little lady of three). He took with him on that mission two hundred knights, priests, standard-bearers, all festively arrayed in new attire, twenty-four changes of raiment, all kinds of dogs and birds for field sports, eight wagons, each drawn by five horses, each horse in charge of a stout young man dressed in a new tunic. Coffers and chests contained the chancellor’s money and presents. One horse, which preceded all the rest, carried the holy vessels of his chapel, the holy books, and the ornaments of the altar. The Frenchmen, seeing this train, exclaimed, "How wonderful must be the king of England, whose chancellor travels in such state!" In Paris he freely distributed his gold and silver plate and changes of raiment,—to one a robe, to another a furred cloak, to a third a pelisse, to a fourth a war-horse. He gained his object and universal popularity.

When, notwithstanding his efforts to maintain peace, war broke out between France and England, the chancellor was the bravest warrior at the head of seven hundred knights, whom he had enlisted at his own expense, and he offered to lead the storming party at the siege of Toulouse, where King Louis was shut up; but the scruples of Henry prevented him from offering violence to the king of France. He afterwards took three castles which were deemed impregnable, and returned triumphant to England. One of his eulogists, Edward Grim, reports to his credit: "Who can recount the carnage, the desolation, which he made at the head of a strong body of soldiers? He attacked castles, razed towns and cities to the ground, burned down houses and farms without a touch of pity, and never showed the slightest mercy to any one who rose in insurrection against his master’s authority." Such cruelty was quite compatible with mediaeval conceptions of piety and charity, as the history of the crusades shows.

Becket was made for the court and the camp. Yet, though his life was purely secular, it was not immoral. He joined the king in his diversions, but not in his debaucheries. Being in deacon’s orders, he was debarred from marriage, but preserved his chastity at a profligate court. This point is especially mentioned to his credit; for chastity was a rare virtue in the Middle Ages.

All together, his public life as chancellor was honorable and brilliant, and secures him a place among the distinguished statesmen of England. But a still more important career awaited him.

Freeman, who exalts him as chancellor, thinks that he failed as archbishop; but his martyrdom was his greatest triumph.

§ 32. The Archbishop and the King.

Compare §§ 22–24 (pp. 80 sqq.).

A year after the death of Theobald, April 18, 1161, Becket was appointed by the king archbishop of Canterbury. He accepted reluctantly, and warned the king, with a smile, that he would lose a servant and a friend.

Tennyson ingeniously introduces his drama with a game of chess between Henry and Becket, during which the king informs the chancellor of the fatal illness of Theobald, and speaks of the need of a mightier successor, who would punish guilty clerks; while the chancellor quietly moves his bishop and checkmates the king; whereupon Henry kicks over the board, saying—

"Why, there then—down go bishop and king together."

Becket was ordained priest on the Saturday after Pentecost, and consecrated archbishop on the following day with great magnificence in Westminster Abbey, June 3, 1162. His first act was to appoint the Sunday after Whitsunday as a festival of the Holy Trinity in the Church of England. He acknowledged Alexander III. as the rightful pope, and received from him the pallium through his friend, John of Salisbury.

He was the first native Englishman who occupied the seat of the primate since the Norman Conquest; for Lanfranc and Anselm were Italians; Ralph of Escures, William Of Corbeuil, and Theobald of Bec were Normans or Frenchmen. There is, however, no ground for the misleading theory of Thierry that Becket asserted the cause of the Saxon against the Norman. His contest with the king was not a contest between two nationalities, but between Church and State. He took the same position on this question as his Norman predecessors, only with more zeal and energy. He was a thorough Englishman. The two nations had at that time, by intermarriage, social and commercial intercourse, pretty well coalesced, at least among the middle classes, to which he belonged.

"Though of Norman blood, his whole feeling, his whole character is English, and it is clear that no man looked on him as a stranger." Freeman (l.c., pp. 101 sq.).

With the change of office, Becket underwent a radical and almost sudden transformation. The foremost champion of kingcraft became the foremost champion of priestcraft; the most devoted friend of the king, his most dangerous rival and enemy; the brilliant chancellor, an austere and squalid monk. He exchanged the showy court dress for haircloth infested with vermin, fed on roots, and drank nauseous water. He daily washed, with proud humility and ostentatious charity, the feet of thirteen dirty beggars, and gave each of them four pieces of silver. He doubled the charities of Theobald, as Theobald had doubled the charities of his predecessor. He wandered alone in his cloister, shedding tears of repentance for past sins, frequently inflicted stripes on his naked back, and spent much time in prayer and reading of the Scriptures. He successfully strove to realize the ideal of a mediaeval bishop, which combines the loftiest ecclesiastical pretensions with personal humility, profuse charity, and ascetic self-mortification. He was no hypocrite, but his sanctity, viewed from the biblical and Protestant standpoint, was artificial and unnatural.

His relation to the king was that of the pope to the emperor. Yea, we may say, as he had outkinged the king as chancellor, so he outpoped the pope as archbishop. He censured the pope for his temporizing policy. He wielded the spiritual sword against Henry with the same gallantry with which he had wielded the temporal sword for him. He took up the cause of Anselm against William Rufus, and of Gregory VII. against Henry IV., but with this great difference, that he was not zealous for a moral reformation of the Church and the clergy, like Hildebrand and Anselm, but only for the temporal power of the Church and the rights and immunities of the clergy. He made no attempt to remove the scandal of pluralities of which he had himself been guilty as archdeacon and chancellor, and did not rebuke Henry for his many sins against God, but only for his sins against the supremacy of the hierarchy.

The new archbishop was summoned by Pope Alexander III. to a council at Tours in France, and was received with unusual distinction (May, 1163). The council consisted of seventeen cardinals, a hundred and twenty-four bishops, four hundred and fourteen abbots; the pope presided in person; Becket sat at his right, Roger of York at his left. Arnolf of Lisieux in Normandy preached the opening sermon on the unity and freedom of the Church, which were the burning questions of the day. The council unanimously acknowledged the claims of Alexander, asserted the rights and privileges of the clergy, and severely condemned all encroachments on the property of the Church.

This was the point which kindled the controversy between the sceptre and the crozier in England. The dignity of the crown was the sole aim of the king; the dignity of the Church was the sole aim of the archbishop. The first rupture occurred over the question of secular taxation.

Henry determined to transfer the customary payment of two shillings on every hide of land to his own exchequer. Becket opposed the enrolment of the decree on the ground that the tax was voluntary, not of right. Henry protested, in a fit of passion, "By the eyes of God, it shall be enrolled!" Becket replied, "By the eyes of God, by which you swear, it shall never be levied on my lands while I live!"

Another cause of dispute was the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. The king demanded that all clerics accused of gross misdemeanors be tried by the civil court. A certain clerk, Philip of Broi, had been acquitted of murder in the bishop’s court. The king was indignant, but Philip refused to plead in the civil court. The matter was taken up by the archbishop, but a light sentence imposed.

The king summoned a Parliament at Westminster, and demanded in the name of equal justice, and in accordance with "ancient customs" (of the Norman kings), that all clerks accused of heinous crimes should be immediately degraded, and be dealt with according to law, instead of being shielded by their office. This was contrary to the right of the priest to be tried only in the court of his bishop, where flagellation, imprisonment, and degradation might be awarded, but not capital punishment.

Becket and the bishops agreed that the king’s demand was an infringement of the canon law and argued the case from Scripture. Joab, and Abiathar the priest, were guilty of putting Adonijah to death. Joab was punished, but the priest suffered no other punishment than deposition from office. Nahum 1:9 was quoted as against a double tribunal for clerks. According to the Septuagint version, this passage declares that God does not give two judgments in the same case.

The king hastily broke up the Parliament, deprived Becket of the custody of the royal castles, and of the education of his son. The bishops advised the archbishop to yield; at first he refused, though an angel from heaven should counsel such weakness; but at last he made a concession to the king at Woodstock, and promised to obey in good faith the customs of the realm. He yielded at the persuasion of the pope’s almoner, Philip de Eleeomosyna, who was bribed by English gold.

Tennyson makes Becket say:—

"This Almoner hath tasted Henry’s gold.

The cardinals have fingered Henry’s gold.

And Rome is venal even to rottenness."

The king summoned a great council of the realm to Clarendon, a royal palace a few miles from Salisbury, for the ratification of the concession (Jan. 25, 1164). The two archbishops, twelve bishops, and thirty-nine lay-barons were present. Sixteen famous statutes were enacted, under the name of The Clarendon Constitutions, as laws of England. They are as follows:

They are found in Matthew Paris, ad ann. 1164; Mansi, XXI. 1187; Wilkins, Concilia M. Britanniae, vol. I. Gieseler, II. 89 sqq. (Am. ed. II. 289 sq.); Reuter, I. 371-375, 573-577; Hefele-Knöpfler, V. 623-628 (in German); Stubbs, 135-140 (in Latin); Gee and Hardy, 68-73.

THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.

I. Of the advowson and presentation (de advocatione et presentatione) to churches: if any dispute shall arise between laics, or between clerks and laics, or between clerks, let it be tried and decided in the court of our lord the king.

II. Churches in the king’s fee (de feudo domini Regis) shall not be given in perpetuity without his consent and license.

III. Clerks accused of any crime shall be summoned by the king’s justiciaries into the king’s court to answer there for whatever the king’s court shall determine they ought to answer there; and in the ecclesiastical court, for whatever it shall be determined that they ought to answer there; yet so that the king’s justiciaries shall send into the court of holy Church to see in what way the matter shall there be handled; and if the clerk shall confess or be convicted, the Church for the future shall not protect him.

Maitland, p. 135 sqq., has thrown light upon this article, and interprets it to mean that a clerk is first to be accused and plead in the temporal court, then to be taken to the ecclesiastical court, and if found guilty and degraded he is to be returned to the temporal court and receive sentence to the layman’s punishment. This procedure was for civil crimes, such as robbery, rape, murder.

IV. No archbishop, bishop, or other exalted person shall leave the kingdom without the king’s license; and if they wish to leave it, the king shall be empowered, if he pleases, to take security from them, that they will do no harm to the king or kingdom, either in going or remaining, or in returning.

V. Persons excommunicated are not to give bail, ad remanentiam, nor to make oath, but only to give bail and pledge that they will stand by the judgment of the Church where they are absolved.

VI. Laics shall not be accused, save by certain and legal accusers and witnesses in presence of the bishop, so that the archdeacon may not lose his rights, or anything which accrues to him therefrom. And if those who are arraigned are such that no one is willing or dares to accuse them, the sheriff, on demand from the bishop, shall cause twelve loyal men of the village to swear before the bishop that they will declare the truth in that matter according to their conscience.

VII. No one who holds of the king in chief, nor any of his domestic servants, shall be excommunicated, nor his lands be put under an interdict, until the king shall be consulted, if he is in the kingdom; or, if he is abroad, his justiciary, that he may do what is right in that matter, and so that whatever belongs to the king’s court may therein be settled, and the same on the other hand of the ecclesiastical court.

VIII. Appeals, if they arise, must be made from the archdeacon to the bishop, and from the bishop to the archbishop; and if the archbishop shall fail in administering justice, the parties shall come before our lord the king, that by his precept the controversy may be terminated in the archbishop’s court, so that it may not proceed further without the consent of our lord the king.

IX. If a dispute shall arise between a clerk and a laic, or between a laic and a clerk, about a tenement, which the clerk wishes to claim as eleemosynary, but the laic claims as lay fee, it shall be settled by the declaration of twelve qualified men, through the agency of the king’s capital judiciary, whether the tenement is eleemosynary or lay fee, in presence of the king’s judiciaries. And if it shall be declared that it is eleemosynary, it shall be pleaded in the ecclesiastical court; but, if a lay fee, unless both shall claim the tenement of the same bishop or baron, it shall be pleaded in the king’s court; but if both shall claim of that fee from the same bishop or baron, it shall be pleaded in his court, yet so that the same declaration above-named shall not deprive of seizing him who before was seized, until he shall be divested by the pleadings.

X. If any man belonging to a city, castle, borough, or king’s royal manor shall be summoned by the archdeacon or bishop to answer for a crime, and shall not comply with the summons, it shall be lawful to place him under an interdict, but not to excommunicate him, until the king’s principal officer of that place be informed thereof, that he may justify his appearing to the summons; and if the king’s officer shall fail in that matter, he shall be at the king’s mercy, and the bishop shall forthwith coerce the party accused with ecclesiastical discipline.

XI. The archbishops, bishops, and all other persons of the kingdom, who hold of the king in chief, shall hold their possessions of the king as barony, and answer for the same to the king’s justiciaries and officers, and follow and observe all the king’s customs and rectitudes; and be bound to be present, in the judgment of the king’s court with the barons, like other barons, until the judgment proceeds to mutilation or death.

XII. When an archbishopric, bishopric, abbacy, or priory on the king’s domain shall be vacant, it shall be in his hand, and he shall receive from it all the revenues and proceeds, as of his domains. And when the time shall come for providing for that church, our lord the king shall recommend the best persons to that church, and the election shall be made in the king’s chapel, with the king’s consent, and the advice of the persons of the kingdom whom he shall have summoned for that purpose. And the person elected shall there do homage and fealty to our lord the king, as to his liege lord, of life and limb, and of his earthly honors saving his orders, before he is consecrated.

XIII. If any of the king’s nobles shall have refused to render justice to an archbishop or bishop or archdeacon, for himself or any of his men, our lord the king shall justice them. And if by chance any one shall have deforced our lord the king of his rights, the archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons shall justice him that he may render satisfaction to the king.

XIV. The chattels of those who are in forfeiture to the king shall not be detained by the Church or the cemetery, in opposition to the king’s justice, for they belong to the king, whether they are found in the Church or without.

XV. Pleas for debts which are due, whether with the interposition of a pledge of faith or not, belong to the king’s court.

XVI. The sons of rustics shall not be ordained without the consent of the lord, in whose land they are known to have been born.

These Constitutions were drawn up in the spirit and language of feudalism, under the inspiration of the king, by Archbishop Roger of York, Bishop Foliot of London (the chief enemies of Becket), Bishop Joceline of Salisbury, Richard de Luci (the king’s chief judiciary), and Joceline of Baliol. They are restrictions on the immunities of the clergy; the last is an invasion of the rights of the people, but is based on the canonical exclusion of slaves from the clerical order without the consent of their masters. They subject the clergy equally with the laity to the crown and the laws of the land. They reduce the Church to an imperium in imperio, instead of recognizing her as a distinct and independent imperium. They formulate in the shape of legal enactments certain "ancient customs" (consuetudines) which date from the time of William the Conqueror, and were conceded by Lanfranc; but they infringe at many points on the ancient privileges of the Church, and are inconsistent with the hierarchical principle of the exemption of the clergy from temporal jurisdiction. And this was the chief point of the quarrel between the king and the archbishop.

In the present state of civilization there can be no doubt that the clergy should obey the same laws and be subject to the same penalties as the laity. But we must not overlook the fact that in the Middle Ages the clerical exemption had a humanitarian as well as a hierarchical feature, and involved a protest against barbarous punishments by mutilation of the human body, man being made in the image of God. It prepared the way for a mitigation of the criminal code for the benefit of the whole people, the laity as well as the clergy. This explains the large amount of popular sympathy with the cause of Becket.

Becket gave a qualified assent. On his return to Canterbury he changed his mind and imposed upon himself severe penances, and sought and obtained the pope’s absolution from his oath. But Alexander, hard pressed by Barbarossa and the anti-pope, and anxious to keep the good will of Henry, tried to please both parties. He granted, at the request of Henry, legatine commission over all England to Archbishop Roger of York, the rival of the primate of Canterbury. He also afterwards authorized the coronation of Henry’s eldest son by the archbishop of York in the Abbey of Westminster (June 18, 1170), although such coronation was the exclusive privilege of the archbishop of Canterbury. This aggravated the difficulty with the king, and brought on the final crisis.

In the meantime the Clarendon Constitutions were carried out. Clergymen convicted of crime in the king’s court were condemned and punished like laymen.

Becket attempted to flee to the pope, and sailed for the Continent, but was brought back by the sailors on account of adverse winds. This was a violation of the law which forbade bishops to leave the country without royal permission.

He was summoned before a great council of bishops and nobles at the royal castle of Northampton in the autumn of 1164, and charged with misconduct in secular affairs while chancellor and archbishop. But his courage rose with the danger. He refused to answer, and appealed to the pope. The council ordered him cited to Rome on the charges of perjury at Clarendon and of commanding his suffragans to disregard the Constitutions. The bishops he met with a haughty refusal when they advised him to resign. He was to be arrested, but he threatened the peers with excommunication if they pronounced the sentence. He took the bold course of making his escape to the Continent in the disguise of a monk, at midnight, accompanied by two monks and a servant, and provided with his episcopal pall and seal.

The king seized the revenues of the archbishop, forbade public prayers for him, and banished him from the kingdom, ordered the banishment of all his kinsmen and friends, including four hundred persons of both sexes, and suspended the payment of Peter’s pence to the pope.

Becket spent fully six years in exile, from October, 1164, to December, 1170. King Louis of France, an enemy of Henry and admirer of Becket, received him with distinction and recommended him to the pope, who, himself in exile, resided at Sens. Becket met Alexander, laid before him the Constitutions of Clarendon, and tendered his resignation. The pope condemned ten as a violation of ecclesiastical privileges, and tolerated six as less evil than the rest. He tenderly rebuked Becket for his weakness in swearing to them, but consoled him with the assurance that he had atoned for it by his sufferings. He restored to him the archiepiscopal ring, thus ratifying his primacy, promised him his protection, and committed him to the hospitable care of the abbot of Pontigny, a Cistercian monastery about twelve leagues distant from Sens. Here Becket lived till 1166, like a stern monk, on pulse and gruel, slept on a bed of straw, and submitted at midnight to the flagellation of his chaplain, but occasionally indulged in better diet, and retained some of his former magnificence in his surroundings. His sober friend, John of Salisbury, remonstrated against the profuse expenditure.

Becket proceeded to the last extremity of pronouncing, in the church of Vezelay, on Whitsuntide, 1166, the sentence of excommunication on all the authors and defenders of the Constitutions of Clarendon. He spared the king, who then was dangerously ill, but in a lower tone, half choked with tears, he threatened him with the vengeance of God, and his realm with the interdict. He announced the sentence to the pope and all the clergy of England, saying to the latter, "Who presumes to doubt that the priests of God are the fathers and masters of kings, princes, and all the faithful?"

The wrath of Henry knew no bounds. He closed the ports of England against the bearers of the instrument of excommunication, threatening them with shameful mutilation, hanging, and burning. He procured the expulsion of Becket from Pontigny, who withdrew to a monastery near the archiepiscopal city of Sens. He secured through his ambassadors several concessions from Alexander, who was then in exile at Benevento. The pope was anxious to retain the support of the king, and yet he wrote soothing letters to Becket, assuring him that the concessions were to be only temporary. Becket answered with indignation, and denounced the papal court for its venality and rapacity. "Your gold and silver," he wrote to the cardinals, "will not deliver you in the day of the wrath of the Lord."

The king now determined to use the permission received from the pope several years before, but afterwards revoked,

See the pope’s letter to the archbishop of York in the "Materials," vol. VI. 206 sq., and Robertson’s note; also Reuter, II. 683 sq. The letter is not in the Vatican, but in other MSS., and is admitted as genuine by Jaffé. It was probably written in the beginning of 1170, when Alexander was hard pressed by Barbarossa in the siege of Rome. See the other letters on the subject in "Materials," VII. 257, 305 sqq., 399.

These extreme measures were not without effect. Several bishops began to waver and change from the king’s cause to that of the archbishop. The king himself was alarmed at the menace of the interdict. The pope pursued his temporizing policy, and counselled concessions by both parties.

The king and the archbishop suddenly made peace in a respectful personal interview at Fretteville (Freteval), a castle between Tours and Chartres, July 22, 1170. Henry said nothing about the Clarendon Constitutions, but made the offer that Becket should crown his daughter-in-law (the daughter of the king of France), and should on that occasion repeat the coronation of his son. Becket laid the blame on the shoulders of Henry’s counsellors, and showed moderation and prudence. The king did not offer the kiss of peace, nor did the archbishop demand it.

But while Becket was willing to pardon the king, he meant to exercise his spiritual authority over his evil counsellors, and especially over the archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Salisbury. These prelates had recently officiated at the coronation of Henry’s son. And it was this coronation, even more than the original and more important dispute about the immunity of the clergy, that led to the catastrophe.

After prolonged negotiations with the papal court and the king, Becket returned to his long-neglected flock, Dec. 1, 1170. On landing at Sandwich (instead of Dover, where he was expected), he was surprised by enemies, who searched his baggage, and demanded that he should withdraw his excommunication of the bishops who were then at Dover. He refused. On his way to Canterbury the country clergy and people met him, cast down their garments, chanting, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." He rode to the cathedral with a vast procession, amid the ringing of the bells, and preached on the text, "Here we have no abiding city."

The excommunicated prelates of York, London, and Salisbury sought the protection of the king, who was then at a castle near Bayeux in Normandy. He said: "If all are to be excommunicated who officiated at my son’s coronation, by the eyes of God, I am equally guilty." One of the prelates (perhaps Roger of York) remarked, "As long as Thomas lives, you will never be at peace." Henry broke out into one of his constitutional fits of passion, and dropped the fatal words: "A fellow that has eaten my bread, has lifted up his heel against me; a fellow that I loaded with benefits, dares insult the king; a fellow that came to court on a lame horse, with a cloak for a saddle, sits without hindrance on the throne itself. By the eyes of God, is there none of my thankless and cowardly courtiers who will deliver me from the insults of this low-born and turbulent priest?" With these words he rushed out of the room.

§ 33. The Martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Dec. 29, 1170.

On the murder of Becket we have the reports of five eye-witnesses, Edward Grim (a Saxon monk of Cambridge), William Fitz-Stephen (Becket’s chaplain), John of Salisbury (his faithful friend), William of Canterbury, and the anonymous author of a Lambeth MS. Two other biographers, Herbert of Bosham and Roger of Pontigny, though absent from England at that time, were on intimate terms with Becket, and took great pains to ascertain the facts to the minutest details.

Four warlike knights of high birth and large estate, chamberlains to the king,

Cubicularii, gentlemen of the bed-chamber.

On the morning of that fatal day, Becket had forebodings of his death, and advised the clergy to escape to Sandwich before daylight. He attended mass in the cathedral, confessed to two monks, and received three scourgings, as was his custom. At the banquet he drank more freely than usual, and said to the cupbearer, "He who has much blood to shed, must drink much." After dinner he retired to his private room and sat on his bed, talking to his friends, John of Salisbury, William Fitz-Stephen, and Edward Grim. He was then still in full vigor, being in the fifty-third year of his age, retaining his dignified aspect and the lustre of his large eyes.

At about four that afternoon, the knights went to the archbishop’s palace, leaving their weapons behind, and concealing their coats of mail by the ordinary cloak and gown. They demanded from him, in the name of the king, the absolution of the excommunicated bishops and courtiers. He refused, and referred them to the pope, who alone could absolve them. He declared: "I will never spare a man who violates the canons of Rome or the rights of the Church. My spirituals I hold from God and the pope; my temporals, from the king. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s." The knights said, "You speak in peril of your life." Becket replied: "Come ye to murder me in my own house? You cannot be more ready to kill me than I am to die. You threaten me in vain; were all the swords in England hanging over my head, you could not terrify me from my obedience to God and my lord the pope. I defy you, and will meet you foot to foot in the battle of the Lord." During the altercation, Becket lost command over his fiery temper. His friend, John of Salisbury, gently censured him for his exasperating tone. The knights quitted the room and called their men to arms.

A few minutes before five the bell tolled for vespers. Urged by his friends, the archbishop, with his cross carried before him, went through the cloisters to the cathedral. The service had begun, the monks were chanting the psalms in the choir, the church was filled with people, when two boys rushed up the nave and created a panic by announcing that armed men were breaking into the cloister. The attendants of Becket, who had entered the church, shut the door and urged him to move into the choir for safety. "Away, you cowards!" he said, "by virtue of your obedience, I command you not to shut the door; the church must not be turned into a fortress." He was evidently prepared and eager for martyrdom. He himself reopened the door, and dragged the excluded monks into the building, exclaiming, "Come in, come in—faster, faster!" The monks and priests were terror-stricken and fled in every direction, to the recesses and side-chapels, to the roof above, and the crypt below. Three only remained faithful,—Canon Robert of Merton, Chaplain William Fitz-Stephen, and the clerk Edward Grim.

Modern writers are in the habit of calling him a monk, and so he may have been. In the contemporary narratives he is called simply "clerk." Abbott, I. 42 sq.

Becket proceeded to the high altar and archiepiscopal chair, in which he and all his predecessors from time immemorial had been enthroned. There, no doubt, he wished to gain the crown of martyrdom. It was now about five in the winter evening; the shades of night were gathering, and the lamps on the altars shed only a dim light in the dark cathedral. The tragedy which followed was finished in a few minutes.

In the meantime the knights, clad in mail which covered their faces up to their eyes, and with drawn swords, followed by a motley group of ruffians, provided with hatchets, rushed into the cathedral and shouted: "Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?"

See Abbott, I. 89 sqq., on the words used, and Becket’s reply.

These were his last words. The next blow felled him to his knees, the last laid him on the floor at the foot of the altar of St. Benedict. His hands were still joined as if in prayer. Richard the Breton cut off the upper part of his skull, which had received the sacred oil. Hugh of Horsea, the subdeacon, trampled upon his neck, thrust his sword into the ghastly wound, and scattered the blood and the brains over the pavement.

All the authorities relate this brutal sacrilege.

The murderers rushed from the church through the cloisters into the palace for plunder; while a violent thunder-storm broke over the cathedral. They stole about two thousand marks in gold and silver, and rode off on Becket’s fine horses in the thick darkness of the night.

The body of Thomas was buried in the crypt. The remains of his blood and brains were sacredly kept. His monkish admirers discovered, to their amazement and delight, that the martyr, who had once been arrayed in purple and fine linen, wore on his skin under his many garments the coarsest haircloth abounding with vermin. This seemed to betray the perfection of ascetic sanctity according to mediaeval notions.

Grim, with whom the other original authorities agree, says that those who saw this haircloth suit, covering the upper and lower parts of Becket’s body, put aside all their doubts and acknowledged him as a martyr.

§ 34. The Effects of Becket’s Murder.

The atrocious murder sent a thrill of horror throughout the Christian world. The moment of Becket’s death was his triumph. His exalted station, his personal virtues, the sacrilege,—all contributed to deepen the impression. At first opinion was divided, as he had strong enemies, even at Canterbury. A monk declared that Becket paid a just penalty for his obstinacy others said, "He wished to be king and more than king; the archbishop of York dared to preach that Becket "perished, like Pharaoh, in his pride."

But the torrent of public admiration soon silenced all opposition. Miracles took place at his tomb, and sealed his claim to the worship of a saint and martyr. "The blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the devils are cast out, even the dead are raised to life." Thus wrote John of Salisbury, his friend.

See his Vita S.Th. in the "Materials," etc., II. 322: In loco passionis eius ...paralytici curantur, caeci vident, surdi audiunt, loquuntur muti, claudi ambulant, leprosi mundantur ...et quod a diebus patrum nostrorum non est auditum, mortui resurgunt.

Two years after his death, Feb. 21, 1173, Becket was solemnly canonized by Alexander III., who had given him only a lukewarm support in his contest with the king. There is scarcely another example of such an early recognition of saintship; but public sentiment had anticipated it. At a council in Westminster the papal letters of canonization were read. All the bishops who had opposed Becket were present, begged pardon for their offence, and acquiesced in the pope’s decision. The 29th of December was set apart as the feast of "St. Thomas of Canterbury."

King Henry II., as the supposed author of the monstrous crime, was branded with a popular excommunication. On the first news, he shut himself up for three days in his chamber, rolled himself in sackcloth and ashes, and obstinately refused food and comfort. He lived secluded for five weeks, exclaiming again and again, "Alas, alas that it ever happened!" He issued orders for the apprehension of the murderers, and despatched envoys to the pope to exculpate, himself and to avert the calamity of excommunication and, an interdict. After long delay a reconciliation took place in the cathedral of Avranches in Normandy, before the papal legates, the archbishop of Rouen, and many bishops and noblemen, May 22, 1172.

A granite pillar in the Norman cathedral at Avranches bears an inscription in memory of the event. It is given by Stanley, p. 136.

Two years later, July 12, 1174, the king, depressed by disasters and the rebellion of his wife and his sons, even made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket. He dismounted from his horse as he came in sight of the towers of Canterbury, walked as a penitent pilgrim in a woollen shirt, with bare and bleeding feet, through the streets, knelt in the porch of the cathedral, kissed the sacred stone on which the archbishop had fallen, threw himself prostrate before the tomb in the crypt, and confessed to the bishops with groans and tears his deep remorse for the hasty words which had led to the murder. Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, once Becket’s rival and enemy, announced to the monks and bystanders the king’s penitence and intention to restore the rights and property of the Church, and to bestow forty marks yearly on the monastery to keep lamps burning at the martyr’s tomb. The king, placing his head and shoulders on the tomb, submitted to the degrading punishment of scourging, and received five stripes from each bishop and abbot, and three stripes from each of the eighty monks. Fully absolved, he spent the whole night on the bare ground of the crypt in tears and prayers, imploring the forgiveness of the canonized saint in heaven whom he had persecuted on earth.

No deeper humiliation of king before priest is recorded in history. It throws into the shade the submission of Theodosius to Ambrose, of Edgar to Dunstan, of Barbarossa to Alexander, and even the scene at Canossa.

Fifty years after the martyrdom, Becket’s relics were translated with extraordinary solemnity from the tomb in the crypt to the costly shrine of Becket, which blazed with gold and jewels, in the reconstructed Canterbury cathedral (1220). And now began on the largest scale that long succession of pilgrimages, which for more than three hundred years made Canterbury the greatest sacred resort of Western Christendom, next to Jerusalem and Rome. It was more frequented than Loreto in Italy and Einsiedeln in Switzerland. No less than a hundred thousand pilgrims were registered at Canterbury in 1420. From all parts of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, from France and the far north, men and women flocked to the shrine: priests, monks, princes, knights, scholars, lawyers, merchants, mechanics, peasants. There was scarcely an English king, from Henry II. to Henry VIII., who did not from motives of piety or policy pay homage to the memory of the saint. Among the last distinguished visitors were John Colet, dean of St. Paul’s, and Erasmus, who visited the shrine together between the years 1511 and 1513, and King Henry VIII. and Emperor Charles V., who attended the last jubilee in 1520. Plenary indulgences were granted to the pilgrims. Some went in December, the month of his martyrdom; a larger number in July, the month of the translation of his relics. Every fiftieth year a jubilee lasting fifteen days was celebrated in his honor. Six such jubilees were celebrated,—1270, 1320, 1370, 1420, 1470, 1520. The offerings to St. Thomas exceeded those given to any other saint, even to the holy Virgin.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, who lived two centuries after Becket’ martyrdom, has immortalized these pilgrimages in his Canterbury Tales, and given us the best description of English society at that time.

The pilgrimages promoted piety, social intercourse, superstition, idleness, levity, and immorality, and aroused moral indignation among many serious and spiritually minded men.

The superstitious idolatry of St. Thomas was continued down to the time of the Reformation, when it was rudely but forever crushed out. Henry VIII. cited Becket to appear in court to answer to the charges of treason and rebellion. The case was formally argued at Westminster. His guilt was proved, and on the 10th of June, 1538, St. Thomas was condemned as a "rebel and a traitor to his prince." The rich shrine at Canterbury was pillaged; the gold and jewels were carried off in two strong coffers, and the rest of the treasure in twenty-six carts. The jewels went into the hands of Henry VIII., who wore the most precious of them, a diamond, the "Regale of France," in the ring on his thumb; afterwards it glittered in the golden, "collar" of his daughter, the bigoted Queen Mary. A royal proclamation explained the cause and mode of Becket’s death, and the reasons for his degradation. All festivals, offices, and prayers in his name were forbidden. The site of his shrine has remained vacant to this day.

The Reformation prepared the way for a more spiritual worship of God and a more just appreciation of the virtues and faults of Thomas Becket than was possible in the age in which he lived and died,—a hero and a martyr of the papal hierarchy, but not of pure Christianity, as recorded in the New Testament. To the most of his countrymen, as to the English-speaking people at large, his name has remained the synonym for priestly pride and pretension, for an arrogant invasion of the rights of the civil estate. To a certain class of English High Churchmen he remains, like Laud of a later age, the martyr of sacerdotal privilege, the unselfish champion of the dowered rights of the Church. The atrocity of his taking-off no one will choose to deny. But the haughty assumption of the high prelate had afforded pretext enough for vehement indignation and severe treatment. Priestly robes may for a time conceal and even protect pride from violence, but sooner or later it meets its just reward. The prelate’s superiority involved in Becket’s favorite expression, "saving the honor of my order," was more than a king of free blood could be expected to bear.

This dramatic chapter of English history may be fitly closed with a scene from Lord Tennyson’s tragedy which presents the personal quality that brought about Thomas à Becket’s fall.

Sir Henry Irving, the distinguished English actor, died Oct. 20, 1905, seven days after a performance of this drama, the last time he appeared on the stage.

John of Salisbury.

Becket.

John of Salisbury.

Becket.

John of Salisbury.

§ 35. Literature.

Sources: Innocentii III. Opp. omnia, in Migne, 4 vols. 214–217; three vols. contain Innocent’s official letters; a 4th, his sermons, the de contemptu mundi, and other works.—S. Baluzius: Epistolarum Inn. III. libri undecim, 2 vols. Paris, 1682.—Böhmer: Regesta imperii 1198–1254, new ed. by J. Ficker, Innsbruck, 1881.—Potthast: Regesta, pp. 1–467, 2041–2056—Gesta Innoc. III. auctore anonymo sed coaevo (a contemporary Life, about 1220), in Migne, 214, pp. xvii-ccxxviii, and Baluzius.—Mansi, XXII.—Mirbt: Quellen, 125–136, gives some of the characteristic passages. For the older edd. of Inn.’s letters and other works, see Potthast, Bibliotheca med. aevi, I. 520, 650.

Modern Works: Friedrich von Hurter (1787–1886): Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten und seiner Zeitgenossen, 2 vols. Hamburg, 1833–1835; 3d ed. 4 vols. 1841–1844 (trans. into French and Italian). The last two volumes are devoted to the monastic orders and the Eccles. and social conditions of the thirteenth century. An exhaustive work full of enthusiastic admiration for Innocent and his age. Hurter wrote it while antistes or pastor of the Reformed Church in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and was led by his studies to enter, with his family, the Roman Catholic communion in 1844 and became imperial counsellor and historiographer of Austria. Gfrörer, likewise a Protestant, dazzled by the splendor of the Gregorian papacy in the preparation of his Life of Gregory VII., was also led to join the Roman communion.—Jorry: Hist. du pape Inn. III.; Paris, 1853.—F. F. Reinlein: Papst Inn. III. und seine Schrift de contemptu mundi, Erlangen, 1871; also Inn. III nach s. Beziehung zur Unfehlbarkeitsfrage, Erlangen, 1872.—H. Elkan: Die Gesta Inn. III. im Verhältniss zu d. Regesten desselben Papstes, Heidelberg, 1876.—Fr. Deutsch: Papst Inn. III. und s. Einfluss auf d. Kirche, Bresl., 1876.—Leop. Delisle: Mémoire sur les actes d’Inn. III, suivi de l’itinéraire de ce pontife, Paris, 1877.—J. N. Brischar, Roman Catholic: Papst Inn. III. und s. Zeit, Freib. im Br. 1883.—J. Langen: Gesch. d. röm. Kirche von Gregor. VII. bis Inn. III., Bonn, 1893; also Hefele-Knöpfler, vol. V.—the Works on the Hohenstaufen and the Crusades.—Ranke: Weltgesch., VIII. 274 sqq.—the Histories of Rome by Reumont, Bryce, and Gregorovius,—Hauck: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, IV. 658–745.—T. F. Tout: The Empire and the Papacy, 918–1272, N. Y. 1898.—H. Fisher: The Med. Empire, 2 vols. London, 1898.—For fuller lit., see Chevalier; Répertoire, pp. 1114 sq. and Suppl. 2659, and art. Inn. III., by Zöpffel-Mirbt, in Herzog, IX. 112–122.

§ 36. Innocent’s Training and Election.

The brilliant pontificate of Innocent III., 1198–1216, lasted as long as the combined and uneventful reigns of his five predecessors: Lucius III., 1181–1185; Urban III., 1185–1187; Gregory VIII. less than two months, 1187; Clement III., 1187–1191; Coelestin III., 1191–1198. It marks the golden age of the mediaeval papacy and one of the most important eras in the history of the Catholic Church. No other mortal has before or since wielded such extensive power. As the spiritual sovereign of Latin Christendom, he had no rival. At the same time he was the acknowledged arbiter of the political destinies of Europe from Constantinople to Scotland. He successfully carried into execution the highest theory of the papal theocracy and anticipated the Vatican dogmas of papal absolutism and infallibility. To the papal title "vicar of Christ," Innocent added for the first time the title "vicar of God." He set aside the decisions of bishops and provincial councils, and lifted up and cast down kings. He summoned and guided one of the most important of the councils of the Western Church, the Fourth Lateran, 1215, whose acts established the Inquisition and fixed transubstantiation as a dogma. He set on foot the Fourth Crusade, and died making preparation for another. On the other hand he set Christian against Christian, and by undertaking to extirpate religious dissent by force drenched parts of Europe in Christian blood.

Lothario, Innocent’s baptismal name, was born about 1160 at Anagni, a favorite summer resort of the popes. He was the son of Count Trasmondo of the house of the Conti de Segni, one of the ruling families of the Latium.

Like Hildebrand, Innocent may have combined Germanic with Italian blood. Upon the basis of such family names among the Conti as Lothaire and Richard, Gregorovius finds evidence of Lombard origin.

During the pontificate of Coelestin III., a member of the house of the Orsini which was unfriendly to the Conti, Lothario withdrew into retirement and devoted himself to literature. The chief fruit of this seclusion is the work entitled The Contempt of the World or the Misery of the Mortal Estate.

The de contemptu mundi sive de miseria conditionis humanae was first printed at Ulm, 1448, then at Lyons, 1473, Nürnberg, 1477, etc. See Migne’s ed. 217, 701-746.

The Contempt of the World is an ascetic plaint over the sinfulness and woes of this present life. It proceeds upon the basis of Augustine’s theory of total depravity. The misery of man is described from the helplessness of infancy to the decrepitude of age and the sufferings of the future estate. Pessimistic passages are quoted from Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, and Job, and also from Horace, Ovid, and Juvenal. Three master passions are constantly tormenting man,—avarice, lust, and ambition,—to which are added the innumerable ailments of the body and troubles of the soul. The author deplores the fate of masters and servants, of the married and the unmarried, of the good and the bad, the rich and the poor. "It is just and natural that the wicked should suffer; but are the righteous one whit better off? Here below is their prison, not their home or their final destiny. As soon as a man rises to a station of dignity, cares and trouble increase, fasting is abridged, night watches are prolonged, nature’s constitution is undermined, sleep and appetite flee, the vigor of the body gives way to weakness, and a sorrowful end is the close of a sorrowful life."

II. 29.

Called forth from retirement to the chief office in Christendom, Innocent had an opportunity to show his contempt of the world by ruling it with a strong and iron hand. The careers of the best of the popes of the Middle Ages, as well as of ecclesiastics like Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas of Canterbury, reveal the intimate connection between the hierarchical and ascetic tendencies. Innocent likewise displayed these two tendencies. In his treatise on the mass he anticipated the haughty assumption of the papacy, based on the rock-foundation of Peter’s primacy, which as pope he afterwards displayed.

On the very day of Coelestin’s burial, the college of cardinals unanimously chose Lothario pope. Like Gregory I., Gregory VII., Alexander III., and other popes, he made a show of yielding reluctantly to the election. He was ordained priest, and the next day, February 22, was consecrated bishop and formally ascended the throne in St. Peter’s.

The coronation ceremonies were on a splendid scale. But the size of Rome, whose population at this time may not have exceeded thirty-five thousand, must be taken into account when we compare them with the pageants of the ancient city.

See Gregorovius, V. 7.

When he ascended the fisherman’s throne, Innocent was only thirty-seven years old, the youngest in the line of popes up to that time. Walter von der Vogelweide gave expression to the fear which his youth awakened when he wrote, O wê der bâbest ist ze june, hilf hêrre diner kristenheit. "Alas! the pope is so young. Help, Lord, thy Christian world." The new pontiff was well formed, medium in stature,

Statura mediocris, etc. See Gesta, Migne, 214, XVII. The portrait prefixed in Hurter has no historic value. For Innocent’s personal habits and methods of conducting business, see Hurter, II 743 sqq.

§ 37. Innocent’s Theory of the Papacy.

The pope with whom Innocent is naturally brought into comparison is Hildebrand. They were equally distinguished for moral force, intellectual energy, and proud assertion of prelatic prerogative. Innocent was Hildebrand’s superior in learning, diplomatic tact, and success of administration, but in creative genius and heroic character he was below his predecessor. He stands related to his great predecessor as Augustus to Julius. He was heir to the astounding programme of Hildebrand’s scheme and enjoyed the fruits of his struggles. Their personal fortunes were widely different. Gregory was driven from Rome and died in exile. To Innocent’s good fortune there seemed to be no end, and he closed his pontificate in undisputed possession of authority.

Innocent no sooner ascended the papal chair than he began to give expression to his conception of the papal dignity. Throughout his pontificate he forcibly and clearly expounded it in a tone of mingled official pride and personal humility. At his coronation he preached on the faithful and wise servant. "Ye see," he said, "what manner of servant it is whom the Lord hath set over his people, no other than the viceregent of Christ, the successor of Peter. He stands in the midst between God and man; below God, above man; less than God, more than man. He judges all and is judged by none. But he, whom the pre-eminence of dignity exalts, is humbled by his vocation as a servant, that so humility may be exalted and pride be cast down; for God is against the high-minded, and to the lowly He shows mercy; and whoso exalteth himself shall be abased."

Indeed, the papal theocracy was Innocent’s all-absorbing idea. He was fully convinced that it was established of God for the good of the Church and the salvation of the world. As God gave to Christ all power in heaven and on earth, so Christ delegated to Peter and his successors the same authority. Not man but God founded the Apostolic see.

Apostolicae sedis primatus quem non homo sed Deus, imo verius Deus homo constituit.

Gregory VII.’s illustration, likening the priestly estate (sacerdotium) to the sun, and the civil estate (regnum or imperium) to the moon, Innocent amplified and emphasized. Two great lights, Innocent said, were placed by God in the firmament of heaven, and to these correspond the "pontifical authority and the regal authority," the one to rule over souls as the sun rules over the day, the other to rule over the bodies of men as the moon rules over the night. And as the moon gets its light from the sun, and as it is also less than the sun both in quality and in size, and in the effect produced, so the regal power gets its dignity and splendor from the pontifical authority which has in it more inherent virtue.

Sicut luna lumen suum a sole sortitur, quae re vera minor est isto quantitate simul et qualitate, situ pariter et effectu, sic regalis potestas ab auctoritate pontificali suae sortitur dignitatis splendorem, etc. See Mirbt, Quellen, 130.

Under Innocent’s rule, the subjection of the entire Christian world to the Roman pontiff seemed to be near realization. But the measures of force which were employed in the Latin conquest of Constantinople, 1204, had the opposite effect from what was intended. The overthrow of the Byzantine empire and the establishment of a Latin empire in its stead and the creation of a new hierarchy of Constantinople only completed the final alienation of the Greek and Latin churches. To Innocent III. may not be denied deep concern in the extension of Christendom. But the rigorous system of the Inquisition which he set on foot begat bitterness and war of churchman against Christian dissenter and of Christian against Mohammedan. More blood was shed at the hand of the Church during the pontificate of Innocent, and under his immediate successors carrying out his policy, than in any other age except during the papal counter-Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The audacious papal claim to imperialism corrected itself by the policy employed by Innocent and his successors to establish the claim over the souls and bodies of men and the governments of the earth.

Hauck, IV. 743, acknowledging the genius of Innocent, expresses the somewhat disparaging judgment that "he was more of a rhetorician than a theologian, and more of a jurist and administrator than a statesman." Many Protestant writers of Germany show their national feeling by a disposition to disparage Gregory VII. and Innocent III.

§ 38. Innocent and the German Empire.

Additional Literature.—Ed. Winkelmann: Philip von Schwaben und Otto IV. von Braunschweig, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1873–1878.—R. Schwemer: Innocent III. und d. deutsche Kirche während des Thronstreites von 1198–1208, Strassburg, 1882.

The political condition of Europe was favorable to Innocent’s assertion of power. With the sudden death of Henry VI., Sept. 28, 1197, at the early age of thirty-two, the German empire was left without a ruler. Frederick, the Emperor’s only son, was a helpless child. Throughout Italy a reaction set in against Henry’s hard and oppressive rule. The spirit of national freedom was showing itself, and a general effort was begun to expel the German princes and counts from Italian soil.

Innocent III. has been called by Ranke Henry’s real successor.

Weltgeschichte, VIII. 274. Matthews, 105 sq. gives Henry VI.’s Testament.

The pope quickly pushed his authority beyond the walls of Rome. Spoleto, which for six centuries had been ruled by a line of German dukes, Assisi, Perugia, and other cities, submitted. Mark of Anweiler, the fierce soldier of Henry VI., could not withstand the fortunate diplomacy and arms of Innocent, and the Romagna, with Ravenna as its centre, yielded. A Tuscan league was formed which was favorably disposed to the papal authority. Florence, Siena, Pisa, and other cities, while refusing to renounce their civic freedom, granted privileges to the pope. Everywhere Innocent had his legates. Such full exercise of papal power over the State of the Church had not before been known.

To confirm her son Frederick’s title to the crown of Sicily, his mother delivered the kingdom over to the pope as a papal fief. She survived her imperial consort only a year, and left a will appointing Innocent the guardian of her child. The intellectual training and political destinies of the heir of the Hohenstaufen were thus intrusted to the hereditary foe of that august house. Innocent was left a free hand to prosecute his trust as he chose.

One of Frederick’s first acts was to release a portion of his patrimony to the pope’s brother, Count Richard. At a later period, under Honorius, Frederick recalled his gift.

In Germany, Innocent became the umpire of the imperial election. The electors were divided between two aspirants to the throne, Philip of Swabia, the brother of Henry VI., who was crowned at Mainz, and Otto, the son of Henry the Lion, who was crowned at Aachen by Adolf, archbishop of Cologne. Otto was the nephew of Richard Coeur de Lion and John of England, who supported his claims with their gold and diplomacy. Both parties made their appeal to Rome, and it is not a matter of surprise that Innocent’s sympathies were with the Guelf, Otto, rather than with the Hohenstaufen. Moreover, Philip had given offence by occupying, as duke of Tuscany, the estates of Matilda.

Innocent made the high claim that the German throne depended for its occupant "from the beginning and ultimately" upon the decision of the papal see. Had not the Church transferred the empire from the East to the West? And had not the Church itself conferred the imperial crown,

Imperium principaliter et finaliter dignoscitur pertinere, principaliter quia ipsa transtulit imperium ab Oriente ad Occidentem; finaliter quia ipsa concedit coronam imperii. Migne, 216, 1182; Potthast, 98; also Migne, 216, 1048; Potthast, 119.

Civil war broke out, and when the tide of success turned in Philip’s favor, the pope released him from the sentence of excommunication and was about to acknowledge him as emperor

The very archbishop of Cologne who had crowned Otto now put the crown on Philip’s head.

All that Innocent had gained seemed in danger of being lost. Prompt measures showed him equal to the emergency. He wrote that the stone he had erected to be the head of the corner had become a rock of offence. Like Rachel he mourned over his son whom he lamented to have made king. Otto was excommunicated and a meeting of magnates at Nürnberg, 1211, declared him deposed, and, pronouncing in favor of Frederick, sent envoys to Palermo to convey to him the intelligence. Otto crossed the Alps to reclaim his power, but it was too late. Frederick started north, stopping at Rome, where Innocent saw him for the first and last time, April, 1212. He was elected and crowned king at Frankfurt, December, 1212, and was recognized by nearly all the princes at Eger the year following. Before setting out from Italy he had again recognized Sicily as a fief of Rome. At Eger he disavowed all imperial right to the State of the Church.

This was the so-called Golden Bull of Eger, July 12, 1213. Frederick calls himself in it, "King of the Romans and of Sicily." He promised to defend Sicily for the Roman Church as a "devoted son and Catholic prince,"devotus filius et Catholicus princeps. Mirbt, Quellen, 131 sqq.; Matthews, 115 sqq.

Otto joined in league with John of England and the Flemish princes against Philip Augustus of France; but his hopes were dashed to the ground on the battlefield of Bouvines, Belgium, 1415. His authority was thenceforth confined to his ancestral estate. He died 1218. Innocent had gained the day. His successors were to be defied by the young king, Frederick, for nearly half a century.

With equal spirit and decision, Innocent mingled in the affairs of the other states of Europe. In France, the controversy was over the sanctity of the marriage vow. Philip Augustus put away his second wife,

Migne, 215, 1493, etc.

The Christian states of the Spanish peninsula felt the pontiff’s strong hand. The kingdom of Leon was kept under the interdict five years till Alfonso IX. consented to dismiss his wife on account of blood relationship. Pedro, king of Aragon, a model of Spanish chivalry, received his crown at Rome in 1204 and made his realm a fief of the Apostolic see. Sancho, king of the newly risen kingdom of Portugal, was defeated in his effort to break away from the pope’s suzerainty.

In the North, Sweden accepted Innocent’s decision in favor of the house of Schwerker, and the Danish king, who was attempting to reduce the tribes along the Baltic to Christianity, was protected by the pope’s threat of interdict upon all molesting his realm. The king of England was humbled to the dust by Innocent’s word. To the king of Scotland a legate was sent and a valuable sword. Even Iceland is said to have been the subject of Innocent’s thought and action.

In the Southeast, Johannitius of Bulgaria received from Innocent his crown after bowing before his rebuke for having ventured to accept it from Philip of Swabia. Ottoker, prince of Bohemia, was anointed by the papal legate, and Emmeric of Hungary made a vow to lead a crusade, which his brother Andrew executed. Thus all the states of Europe west of Russia were made to feel the supremacy of the papal power. The conquest of Constantinople and the Holy Land, as we shall see, occupied an equal share of attention from this tireless and masterful ruler, and the establishment of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, 1205, was regarded as a signal triumph for the papal policy.

§ 39. Innocent and King John of England.

Additional Literature.—The Chronicle of Roger of Wendover (the first of the St. Alban annalists) and the revision and continuation of the same by Matthew Paris (a monk of St. Alban’s, the last and greatest of the monastic historians of England), ed. by H. R. Luard in Rolls Series, 7 vols. London, 1872–1883, vol. II. Engl. vol. II. trans. of Wendover by J. A. Giles, Bohn’s Lib. 2 vols. London, 1849; of M. Paris by Giles, 3 vols. London, 1852–1854.—Memorials of Walter of Coventry, ed. by Stubbs, 2 vols. 1872 sq.—Radulph of Coggeshall: Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. by J. Stevenson, 1875. The Annals of Waverley, Dunstable, and Burton, all in the Rolls Series.—W. Stubbs: The Constitutional Hist. of England, 6th ed. 3 vols. Oxford, 1897, and Select Charters, etc., 8th ed. Oxford, 1900, pp. 270–306.—Gee and Hardy: Documents, London, 1896.—R. Gneist: Hist. of the Engl. Court, Engl. trans. 2 vols. London, 1886, vol. I. 294–332.—E. Gütschow: Innocent III. und England, Munich, 1904, pp. 198.—The Histories of Lingard (R. C.), Green, Milman, Freeman (Norman Conquest, vol. V.).—For Stephen Langton, Dean Hook: Lives of the Abp. of Canterbury, and art. Langton, in Dict. of Natl. Biog.—Also W. Hunt, art. John, in Dict. of Natl. Biog. XXIX. 402–417.—Sir James H. Ramsey: The Angevin Empire, 1154–1216, London, 1903. He calls John a brutal tyrant, hopelessly depraved, without ability in war or politics.

Under Innocent, England comes, if possible, into greater prominence in the history of the papacy than during the controversy in the reign of Alexander III., a generation before. Then the English actors were Henry II. and Thomas à Becket. Now they are Henry’s son John and Becket’s successor Stephen Langton. The pope was victorious, inflicting the deepest humiliation upon the English king; but he afterwards lost the advantage he had gained by supporting John against his barons and denouncing the Magna Charta of English popular rights. The controversy forms one of the most interesting episodes of English history.

John, surnamed Sansterre or Lackland, 1167–1216, succeeded his brother Richard I. on the throne, 1199. A man of decided ability and rapid in action but of ignoble spirit, low morals, and despotic temper, he brought upon his realm such disgrace as England before or since has not suffered. His reign was a succession of wrongs and insults to the English people and the English church.

John had joined Richard in a revolt against their father, sought to displace his brother on the throne during his captivity after the Third Crusade, and was generally believed by contemporaries to have put to death his brother Geoffrey’s son, Arthur of Brittany, who would have been Richard’s successor if the law of primogeniture had been followed. He lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Aquitaine to the English. Perjury was no barrier to the accomplishment of his plans. He set aside one wife and was faithless to another. No woman was too well born to be safe against his advances. He plundered churches and convents to pay his debts and satisfy his avarice, and yet he never undertook a journey without hanging charms around his neck.

The contemporary annalists know no words too black to describe John’s character. Lingard says, "John stands before us polluted with meanness, cruelty, perjury, murder, and unbridled licentiousness." Green, after quoting the words "foul as hell is, hell itself is defiled with the foul presence of John," says, "In his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Angevins ... . But with the wickedness of his race he inherited its profound abilities." III. chap. I. Hunt, in Dict. of Nat’l. Biog., XXIX. 406, uses these words, "He was mean, false, vindictive, abominably cruel, and scandalously immoral."

Innocent came into collision with John over the selection of a successor to Archbishop Hubert of Canterbury, who died 1205.

He had before come into collision with John over the harsh treatment of the archbishop of Dublin. Works of Innocent III., Reg., VI. 63; Migne, 215, 61; Potthast, 167.

An appeal was made by both parties to Rome, Reginald appearing there in person. After a delay of a year, Innocent set aside both elections and ordered the Canterbury monks, present in Rome, to proceed to the choice of another candidate. The choice fell upon Stephen Langton, cardinal of Chrysogonus. Born on English soil, Stephen was a man of indisputable learning and moral worth. He had studied in Paris and won by his merits prebends in the cathedral churches of Paris and York. The metropolitan dignity could have been intrusted to no shoulders more worthy of wearing it.

His scholarly tastes are attested by his sermons, poems, and comments on books of the Bible which still exist in manuscript in the libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, Lambeth, and of France. He is falsely credited by some with having been the first to divide the entire Bible into chapters. See Hook, Archbishops of Canterbury, II. 678.

The new archbishop received consecration at the pope’s own hand, June 17, 1207, and held his office till his death, 1228.

Innocent, in his letter to John of May 26, 1207, declared he would turn neither to the right nor to the left in confirming the election. Potthast, 264.

The interdict at once took effect, casting a deep gloom over the nation. The church bells remained unrung. The church buildings were closed. The usual ministrations of the priesthood remained unperformed. The great doors of the monasteries were left unopened, and worshippers were only admitted by secret passages. Penance was inflicted upon the innocent as well as the erring. Women, after childbirth, presented themselves for purification outside the church walls. The dead were refused burial in consecrated ground, and the service of the priest was withheld.

John, although he had seen Philip Augustus bend under a similar censure, affected unconcern, and retaliated by confiscating the property of the higher clergy and convents and turning the inmates out of doors with little more than the clothes on their backs. The concubines of the priests were forcibly removed and purchased their ransom at heavy expense. A Welshman accused of murdering a priest was ordered by the king dismissed with the words, "Let him go, he has killed my enemy." The relatives of the fugitive bishops were thrown into prison.

In 1209 Innocent added to the interdict the solemn sentence of the personal anathema against the king.

Potthast, 316.

One more weapon lay in the pope’s power. In 1212 John was declared unworthy of his throne, and deposed. His subjects were absolved from the obligation of allegiance, and Christian princes were summoned to execute the sentence and take the crown. Gregory VII. had resorted to the same precarious measure with Henry IV. and been defeated. The bull was published at Soissons by Langton and the exiled bishops. Philip of France was quick to respond to the summons and collected an army. But the success of the English fleet checked the fear of an immediate invasion of the realm.

The nation’s suspense, however, was taxed almost beyond the point of endurance. The king’s arbitrary taxes and his amours with the wives and daughters of the barons aroused their determined hatred. Pressed from different sides, John suddenly had a meeting at Dover with the pope’s special envoy, the subdeacon Pandulf.

Shakespeare is responsible for the popular mistake which makes Pandulf a cardinal. King John, Act III. Sc. 1. He served as legate in England, 1217-1221. The official documents call him "subdeacon and familiar to our lord the pope Innocent."

"We do freely offer and grant to God and the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and the holy Roman Church, our mother, and to our Lord the pope Innocent and his Catholic successors, the whole realm of England and the whole realm of Ireland with all their rights and appurtenances for the remission of our sins and those of all our race, as well quick as dead; and from now receiving back and holding these, as a feudal dependent, from God and the Roman Church, do and swear fealty for them to our Lord the pope Innocent and his Catholic successors and the Roman Church."

Potthast, 416. The Latin in Matthew Paris, Luard’s ed. II. 541-546; a translation is given by Gee and Hardy, 75-79.

John bound himself and England for all time to pay, in addition to the usual Peter’s pence, 1000 marks annually to the Apostolic see, 700 for England and 300 for Ireland. The king’s signature was witnessed by the archbishop of Dublin, the bishop of Norwich, and eleven noblemen. John also promised to reimburse the outlawed bishops, the amount finally settled upon being 40,000 marks.

Rightly does Matthew Paris call this the "detestable and lamentable charter."

IV. 479, carta detestabilis quam lacrimabilis memoriae Johannes infeliciter confecit

The victory of Innocent was complete. But in after years the remembrance of the dishonorable transaction encouraged steadfast resistance to the papal rule in England. The voice of Robert Grosseteste was lifted up against it, and Wyclif became champion of the king who refused to be bound by John’s pledge. Writing to one of John’s successors, the emperor Frederick II. called upon him to remember the humiliation of his predecessor John and with other Christian princes resist the intolerable encroachments of the Apostolic see.

§ 40. Innocent and Magna Charta.

An original manuscript of the Magna Charta, shrivelled with age and fire, but still showing the royal seal, is preserved in the British Museum. A facsimile is given in the official edition of the Statutes of the Realm. Stubbs gives the Latin text in Select Charters, etc., 296–306.

In his treatment of the Great Charter, the venerable instrument of English popular rights, Innocent, with monarchical instinct, turned to the side of John and against the cause of popular liberty. Stephen Langton, who had released John from the ban of excommunication, espoused the popular cause, thereby incurring the condemnation of the pope. The agreement into which the barons entered to resist the king’s despotism was treated by him with delay and subterfuge. Rebellion and civil war followed. As he had before been unscrupulous in his treatment of the Church, so now to win support he made fulsome religious promises he probably had no intention of keeping. To the clergy he granted freedom of election in the case of all prelates, greater and less. He also made a vow to lead a crusade. After the battle of Bouvines, John found himself forced to return to England, and was compelled by the organized strength of the barons to meet them at Runnymede, an island in the Thames near Windsor, where he signed and swore to keep the Magna Charta, June 15, 1215.

This document, with the Declaration of Independence, the most important contract in the civil history of the English-speaking peoples, meant defined law as against uncertain tradition and the arbitrary will of the monarch. It was the first act of the people, nobles, and Church in combination, a compact of Englishmen with the king. By it the sovereign agreed that justice should be denied or delayed to no one, and that trial should be by the peers of the accused. No taxes were to be levied without the vote of the common council of the realm, whose meetings were fixed by rule. The single clause bearing directly upon the Church confirmed the freedom of ecclesiastical elections.

After his first paroxysms of rage, when he gnawed sticks and straw like a madman,

M. Paris, Luard’s ed. II. 611.

The sentence of excommunication which Innocent fulminated against the refractory barons, Langton refused to publish. For his disobedience the pope suspended him from his office, Nov. 4, 1215, and he was not allowed to resume it till 1219, when Innocent had been in his grave three years. London, which supported the popular cause, was placed under the interdict, and the prelates of England who took the popular side Innocent denounced, as worse than Saracens, worse than those open enemies of the cross."

Potthast, 437; M. Paris, in Luard, II. 627. About the same time at John’s request, Innocent annulled the election of Simon Langton, Stephen’s brother, to the see of York.

The barons, in self-defence, called upon the Dauphin of France to accept the crown. He landed in England, but was met by the papal ban.

Thomas Fuller remarks that "the commonness of these curses caused them to be contemned, so that they were a fright to few, a mock to many, and a hurt to none."

§ 41. The Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.

Literature.—Works of Innocent, Migne, 217.—Mansi, xxii.—Labbaeus, xi.—Potthast, Regesta, I. 437 sqq., gives a summary of the canons of the council.—Hefele-Knöpfler, V. 872 sqq.—Hurter, II. 538 sqq.—Lea: Hist. of the Inquisition, passim.

The Fourth Lateran, otherwise known as the Twelfth Oecumenical Council, was the closing act of Innocent’s pontificate, and marks the zenith of the papal theocracy. In his letter of convocation,

April 19, 1213.

The sessions were opened with a sermon by the pope on Luke 22:15, "With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." It was a fanciful interpretation of the word "Passover," to which a threefold sense was given: a physical sense referring to the passage of Jerusalem from a state of captivity to a state of liberty, a spiritual sense referring to the passage of the Church from one state to a better one, and a heavenly sense referring to the transition from the present life to the eternal glory. The deliverances are grouped under seventy beads, and a special decree bearing upon the recovery of Jerusalem. The headings concern matters of doctrine and ecclesiastical and moral practice. The council’s two most notable acts were the definition of the dogma of transubstantiation and the establishment of the institution of the Inquisition against heretics.

The doctrinal decisions, contained in the first two chapters, give a comprehensive statement of the orthodox faith as it concerns the nature of God, the Incarnation, the unity of the Church, and the two greater sacraments. Here transubstantiation is defined as the doctrine of the eucharist in the universal Church, "outside of which there is no possibility of salvation."

In qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacrificium Jesus Christus, cujus corpus et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continentur, transubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem, etc. Mansi, XXII. 982; Mirbt, Quellen. 133.

The council expressly condemned the doctrine of Joachim of Flore, that the substance of the Father, Son, and Spirit is not a real entity, but a collective entity in the sense that a collection of men is called one people, and a collection of believers one Church. It approved the view of Peter the Lombard whom Joachim had opposed on the ground that his definition would substitute a quaternity for the trinity in the Godhead.

The Lombard had defined the substance of the three persons as a real entity, quaedam summa res.

Amaury of Bena, a teacher in Paris accused of pantheistic teachings, was also condemned by name. He had been accused and appeared before the pope at Rome in 1204, and recalled his alleged heresy.

See Hauck, art. Amalrich, in Herzog, I. 432 sq.

The treatment of heretics received elaborate consideration in the important third decree.

See chapters on the Inquisition and the Cathari.

The clergy are warned against intemperance and incontinence and forbidden the chase, hunting dogs and falcons, attendance upon theatrical entertainments, and executions, duelling, and frequenting inns. Prescriptions are given for their dress. Confession is made compulsory at least once a year, and imprisonment fixed as the punishment of priests revealing the secrets of the confessional. The tenure of more than one benefice is forbidden except by the pope’s dispensation. New relics are forbidden as objects of worship, except as they might receive the approbation of the pope. Physicians are bidden, upon threat of excommunication, to urge their patients first of all to summon a priest, as the well-being of the soul is of more value than the health of the body. Jews and Saracens are enjoined to wear a different dress from the Christians, lest unawares carnal intercourse be had between them. The Jews are bidden to keep within doors during passion week and excluded from holding civil office.

A repetition of the decrees of the synod of Toledo, 681.

The appointment of a new crusade was the council’s last act, and it was set to start in 1217. Christians were commanded to refrain from all commercial dealings with the Saracens for four years. To all contributing to the crusade, as well as to those participating in it, full indulgence was promised, and added eternal bliss.

Plenam suorum peccaminum de quibus fuerint corde contriti et ore confessi veniam indulgemus et in retributione justorum salutis eternae pollicemur augmentum.

The doctrinal statements and ecclesiastical rules bear witness to the new conditions upon which the Church had entered, the Latin patriarchs being in possession in the East, and heresy threatening its unity in Southern France and other parts of the West.

Innocent III. survived the great council only a few months and died scarcely fifty-six years old, without having outlived his authority or his fame. He had been fortunate in all his undertakings. The acts of statecraft, which brought Europe to his feet, were crowned in the last scene at the Lateran Council by the pious concern of the priest. To his successors he bequeathed a continent united in allegiance to the Holy See and a Church strengthened in its doctrinal unity. Notwithstanding his great achievements combining mental force and moral purpose, the Church has found no place for Innocent among its canonized saints.

The following are a few testimonies to his greatness:—

Gregorovius declares

V: 102 sq. Gibbon, ch. LIX, after acknowledging Innocent’s talents and virtues, has this criticism of two of the most far-reaching acts of his reign: "Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin of the Inquisition."

"Not a creative genius like Gregory I. and Gregory VII., he was one of the most important figures of the Middle Ages, a man of earnest, sterling, austere intellect, a consummate ruler, a statesman of penetrating judgment, a high-minded priest filled with religious fervor, and at the same time with an unbounded ambition and appalling force of will, a true idealist on the papal throne, yet an entirely practical monarch and a cool-headed lawyer .... No pope has ever had so lofty and yet so real consciousness of his power as Innocent III., the creator and destroyer of emperors and kings."

Ranke says:

Weltgeschichte, viii: 334.

"A superstitious reverence such as Friedrich Hurter renders to him in his remarkable book I am not at all able to accord. Thus much, however, is certain. He stands in the foremost rank of popes, having world-wide significance. The task which he placed before himself he was thoroughly equal to. Leaving out a few dialectic subtleties, one will not find in him anything that is really small. In him was fulfilled the transition of the times."

Baur gives this opinion:

Geschichte des Mittelalters, p. 220.

"With Innocent III. the papacy reached its height and in no other period of its long history did it enjoy such an undisturbed peace and such a glorious development of its power and splendor. He was distinguished as no other in this high place not only by all the qualities of the ruler but by personal virtues, by high birth and also by mind, culture, and learning."

For judgments of mediaeval authors, see Potthast, Regesta, 461. The contemporaneous author of the Gesta Innocentii, Migne, 214, p. xviii., thus describes Innocent: "Fuit vir perspicacis ingenii et tenacis memoriae, in divinis et humanis litteris eruditus, sermone tam vulgari quam litterali disertus, exercitatus in cantilena et psalmodia, statura mediocris et decorus aspectu, medius inter prodigalitatem et avaritiam, sed in eleemosynis et victualibus magis largus, et in aliis magis parcus, nisi cum necessitatis articulus exigebat severus contra rebelles et contumaces, sed benignus erga humiles et devotos; fortis et stabilis, magnanimus et astutus; fidei defensor, et haeresis expugnator; in justitia rigidus, sed in misericordia pius; humilis in prosperis, et patiens in adversis; naturae tamen aliquantulum indignantis, sed facile ignoscentis."

Hagenbach:

Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, ch. XIX.

"Measured by the standard of the papacy, Innocent is beyond controversy the greatest of all the popes. Measured by the eternal law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that which here seems great and mighty in the eyes of the world, seems little in the kingdom of heaven, and amongst those things which call forth wonder and admiration, only that will stand which the Spirit of God, who never wholly withdraws from the Church, wrought in his soul. How far such operation went on, and with what result, who but God can know? He alone is judge."

§ 42. The Papal Conflict with Frederick II Begun.

Between the death of Innocent III. and the election of Boniface VIII., a period of eighty years, sixteen popes sat on the throne, several of whom were worthy successors of the greatest of the pontiffs. The earlier half of the period, 1216–1250, was filled with the gigantic struggle between the papacy and Frederick II., emperor of Germany and king of Sicily. The latter half, 1250–1294, was marked by the establishment of peace between the papacy and empire, and the dominance of the French, or Norman, influence over the papacy.

Scarcely was Innocent in his grave when Frederick II. began to play his distinguished rôle, and to engage the papacy in its last great struggle with the empire—a desperate struggle, as it proved to be, in which the empire was at last completely humbled. The struggle kept Europe in turmoil for nearly forty years, and was waged with three popes,—Honorius III., Gregory IX., and Innocent IV., the last two, men of notable ability. During all this time Frederick was the most conspicuous figure in Christendom. The struggle was carried on not only in the usual ways of diplomacy and arms, but by written appeals to the court of European opinion.

Frederick II., the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, was born near Ancona, 1194. His father, Henry VI., had joined Sicily to the empire by his marriage with the Norman princess Constance, through whom Frederick inherited the warm blood of the south. By preference and training, as well as birth, he was a thorough Italian. He tarried on German soil only long enough to insure his crown and to put down the rebellion of his son.

Ranke, VIII. 337, calls him a foreigner on German soil.

Honorius III., 1216–1227, was without the ambition or genius of his predecessor Innocent III. He confirmed the rules and witnessed the extraordinary growth of the two great mendicant orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic. He crowned Peter of Courtenay, emperor of Byzantium, the only Byzantine emperor to receive his crown in Rome.

The coronation took place outside the walls of the city. Peter died in prison on his way to Constantinople.

The fall of Damietta,

Damietta, an important harbor in Egypt, had been chosen by the crusaders as their base of operations against Jerusalem and the point from which Jerusalem was to be reached.

The last year of Honorius’s reign, Frederick entered openly upon the policy which involved him in repeated wars with the papacy and the towns of Northern Italy. He renewed the imperial claims to the Lombard cities. Upon these claims the Apostolic see could not look with complacency, for, if realized, they would have made Frederick the sovereign of Italy and cramped the temporal power of the papacy within a limited and at best an uncertain area.

§ 43. Gregory IX. and Frederick II. 1227–1241.

An antagonist of different metal was Gregory IX., 1227–1241. Innocent III., whose nephew he was, seemed to have risen again from the grave in him. Although in years he was more than twice as old as the emperor,

His exact age is not known. M. Paris, Luard’s ed., IV. 162; Giles’s trans., I. 383, says that at the time of his death he was almost a centenarian (fere centenarius).

Setting aside Frederick’s spurious pretexts for delaying the crusade, Gregory in the first days of his pontificate insisted upon his fulfilling his double pledge made at his coronation in 1215 and his coronation as emperor in Rome, 1220.

Frederick had received the cross at his coronation in Rome from the hand of Gregory, then Cardinal Ugolino.

The pope’s disappointment knew no bounds. He pronounced against Frederick the excommunication threatened by Honorius.

"The English chronicler," speaking of the pope’s act, uses his favorite expression, "that he might not be like a dog unable to bark" (ne canis videretur non valens latrare). Luard’s ed., M. Paris, III. 145; Giles’s trans. of Roger of Wendover, II. 499.

In a vigorous counter appeal to Christendom, Frederick made a bold protest against the unbearable assumption of the papacy, and pointed to the case of John of England as a warning to princes of what they might expect. "She who calls herself my mother," he wrote, "treats me like a stepmother." He denounced the secularization of the Church, and called upon the bishops and clergy to cultivate the self-denial of the Apostles.

In 1228 the excommunication was repeated and places put under the interdict where the emperor might be. Gregory was not without his own troubles at Rome, from which he was compelled to flee and seek refuse at Perugia.

The same year, as if to show his independence of papal dictation and at the same time the sincerity of his crusading purpose, the emperor actually started upon a crusade, usually called the Fifth Crusade. On being informed of the expedition, the pope excommunicated, him for the third time and inhibited the patriarch of Jerusalem and the Military Orders from giving him aid. The expedition was successful in spite of the papal malediction, and entering Jerusalem Frederick crowned himself king in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Thus we have the singular spectacle of the chief monarch of Christendom conducting a crusade in fulfillment of a vow to two popes while resting under the solemn ban of a third. Yea, the second crusader who entered the Holy City as a conqueror, and the last one to do so, was at the time not only resting under a triple ban, but was excommunicated a fourth time on his return from his expedition to Europe. He was excommunicated for not going, he was excommunicated for going, and he was excommunicated on coming back, though it was not in disgrace but in triumph.

The emperor’s troops bearing the cross were met on their return to Europe by the papal army whose banners were inscribed with the keys. Frederick’s army was victorious. Diplomacy, however, prevailed, and emperor and pope dined together at Anagni (Sept. 1, 1230) and arranged a treaty.

The truce lasted four years, Gregory in the meantime composing, with the emperor’s help, his difficulties with the municipality of Rome. Again he addressed Frederick as "his beloved son in Christ." But formal terms of endearment did not prevent the renewal of the conflict, this time over Frederick’s resolution to force his authority upon the Lombard cities. This struggle engaged him in war with the papacy from this time forward to his death, 1235–1250. After crushing the rebellion of his son Henry in the North, and seeing his second son Conrad crowned, the emperor hastened south to subdue Lombardy.

Henry died in an Italian prison. Conrad, whose mother was Iolanthe, was nine years old at the time of his coronation. In 1235 Frederick married for the third time Isabella, sister of Henry III. of England. This marriage explains Frederick’s repeated appeals to the clergy and people of England.

A conflict with the pen followed which has a unique place in the history of the papacy. Both parties made appeal to public opinion, a thing which was novel up to that time. The pope compared

Bréholles, V. 327-340; Paris, III. 590-608.

This extensive document is, no doubt, one of the most vehement personal fulminations which has ever proceeded from Rome. Epithets could go no further. It is a proof of the great influence of Frederick’s personality and the growing spirit of democracy in the Italian cities that the emperor was not wholly shunned by all men and crushed under the dead weight of such fearful condemnations.

In his retort,

Bréholles, V. 348 sqq.

Gregory went further than words and offered to the count of Artois the imperial crown, which at the instance of his brother, Louis IX. of France, the count declined. The German bishops espoused Frederick’s cause. On the other hand, the mendicant friars proved true allies of the pope. The emperor drove the papal army behind the walls of Rome. In spite of enemies within the city, the aged pontiff went forth from the Lateran in solemn procession, supplicating deliverance and accompanied by all the clergy, carrying the heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Bréholles, V. 777 sqq.

Only one source of possible relief was left to Gregory, a council of the whole Church, and this he summoned to meet in Rome in 1241. Frederick was equal to the emergency, and with the aid of his son Enzio checkmated the pope by a manoeuvre which, serious as it was for Gregory, cannot fail to appeal to the sense of the ludicrous. The Genoese fleet conveying the prelates to Rome, most of them from France, Northern Italy, and Spain, was captured by Enzio, and the would-be councillors, numbering nearly one hundred and including Cardinal Otto, a papal legate, were taken to Naples and held in prison.

M. Paris with his usual vivacity says, "They were heaped together like pigs."

Gregory died in the summer of 1241, at an age greater than the age of Leo XIII. at that pope’s death. But he died, as it were, with his armor on and with his face turned towards his imperial antagonist, whose army at the time lay within a few hours of the city. He had fought one of the most strenuous conflicts of the Middle Ages. To the last moment his intrepid courage remained unabated. A few weeks before his death he wrote, in sublime confidence in the papal prerogative: "Ye faithful, have trust in God and hear his dispensations with patience. The ship of Peter will for a while be driven through storms and between rocks, but soon, and at a time unexpected, it will rise again above the foaming billows and sail on unharmed, over the placid surface."

The Roman communion owes to Gregory IX. the collection of decretals which became a part of its statute book.

See section on The Canon Law.

§ 44. The First Council of Lyons and the Close of Frederick’s Career. 1241–1250.

Additional Literature.—Mansi, XXIII. 605 sqq.; Hefele, V. 105 sqq.— C. Rodenberg: Inn. IV. und das Königreich Sicilien, Halle, 1892.—H. Weber: Der Kampf zwischen Inn. IV. und Fried. II. Berlin, 1900.—P. Aldinger: Die Neubesetzung der deutschen Bisthümer unter Papst Inn. IV., Leipzig, 1900.—J. Maulbach: Die Kardinäle und ihre Politikum die Mitte des XIII. Jahrhunderts, 1243–1268, Bonn, 1902.

Gregory’s successor, Coelestin IV., survived his election less than three weeks. A papal vacancy followed, lasting the unprecedented period of twenty months. The next pope, Innocent IV., a Genoese, was an expert in the canon law and proved himself to be more than the equal of Frederick in shrewdness and quickness of action. At his election the emperor is reported to have exclaimed that among the cardinals he had lost a friend and in the pope gained an enemy. Frederick refused to enter into negotiations looking to an agreement of peace until he should be released from the ban. Innocent was prepared to take up Gregory’s conflict with great energy. All the weapons at the command of the papacy were brought into requisition: excommunication, the decree of a general council, deposition, the election of a rival emperor, and the active fomenting of rebellion in Frederick’s dominions. Under this accumulation of burdens Frederick, like a giant, attempted to bear up, but in vain.

M. Paris says he had never heard of such bitter hatred as the hatred between Innocent IV. and Frederick. Luard’s ed., V. 193

The pope’s policy proved to be a master stroke. A deep impression in his favor was made upon the Christian world by the sight of the supreme pontiff in exile.

M. Paris, heretofore inclining to the side of Frederick, at this point distinctly changes his tone. See, for example, Luard’s ed., IV. 478.

Innocent was now free to convoke again the council which Frederick’s forcible measures had prevented from assembling in Rome. It is known as the First Council of Lyons, or the Thirteenth Oecumenical Council, and met in Lyons, 1245. The measures the papal letter mentioned as calling for action were the provision of relief for the Holy Land and of resistance to the Mongols whose ravages had extended to Hungary, and the settlement of matters in dispute between the Apostolic see and the emperor. One hundred and forty prelates were present. With the exception of a few representatives from England and one or two bishops from Germany, the attendance was confined to ecclesiastics from Southern Europe.

Two German bishops seem to have been present. Hefele, V. 982 sq. Catholic historians have been concerned to increase the number of attending prelates from the north.

Thaddeus promised for his master to restore Greece to the Roman communion and proceed to the Holy Land in person. Innocent rejected the promises as intended to deceive and to break up the council. The axe, he said, was laid at the root, and the stroke was not to be delayed. When Thaddeus offered the kings of England and France as sureties that the emperor would keep his promise, the pope sagaciously replied that in that case he would be in danger of having three princes to antagonize. Innocent was plainly master of the situation. The council was in sympathy with him. Many of its members had a grudge against Frederick for having been subjected to the outrage of capture and imprisonment by him.

At one of the first sessions the pope delivered a sermon from the text, "See, ye who pass this way, was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" He dwelt upon five sorrows of the Church corresponding to the five wounds of Christ: the savage cruelty of the Mongols or Tartars, the schism of the Greeks, the growth of heresy, the desolation of Jerusalem, and the active persecution of the Church by the emperor. The charges against Frederick were sacrilege and heresy. As for the charge of heresy, Thaddeus maintained that it could be answered only by Frederick in person, and a delay of two weeks was granted that he might have time to appear. When he failed to appear, Innocent pronounced upon him the ban and declared him deposed from his throne. The deliverance set forth four grave offences; namely, the violation of his oath to keep peace with the Church, sacrilege in seizing the prelates on their way to the council, heresy, and withholding the tribute due from Sicily, a papal fief. Among the grounds for the charge of heresy were Frederick’s contempt of the pope’s prerogative of the keys, his treaty with the Sultan on his crusade, allowing the name of Mohammed to be publicly proclaimed day and night in the temple, having intercourse with Saracens, keeping eunuchs over his women, and giving his daughter in marriage to Battacius, an excommunicated prince. The words of the fell sentence ran as follows: —

"Seeing that we, unworthy as we are, hold on earth the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said to us in the person of St. Peter, ’whatsoever ye shall bind on earth,’ etc., do hereby declare Frederick, who has rendered himself unworthy of the honors of sovereignty and for his crimes has been deposed from his throne by God, to be bound by his sins and cast off by the Lord and we do hereby sentence and depose him; and all who are in any way bound to him by an oath of allegiance we forever release and absolve from that oath; and by our apostolic authority, we strictly forbid any one obeying him. We decree that any who gives aid to him as emperor or king shall be excommunicated; and those in the empire on whom the selection of an emperor devolves, have full liberty to elect a successor in his place."

Mansi, XXIII. 612 sqq., 638; Luard’s ed. of M. Paris, IV. 445-456. Gregorovius calls this decree "one of the most ominous events in universal history," V. 244.

Thaddeus appealed from the decision to another council.

Bréholles, VI. 318.

The council’s discussions of measures looking to a new crusade did not have any immediate result. The clergy, besides being called upon to give a twentieth for three years, were instructed to see to it that wills contained bequests for the holy enterprise.

One of the interesting figures at the council was Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, who protected against ecclesiastical abuses in England, such as the appointment of unworthy foreigners to benefices, and the exorbitant exactions for the papal exchequer. The pope gave no relief, and the English bishops were commanded to affix their seals confirming King John’s charter of tribute.

M. Paris, Luard’s ed., IV. 478.

In Italy civil war broke out. Here the mendicant orders were also against him. He met the elements of revolt in the South and subdued them. Turning to the North, success was at first on his side but soon left him. One fatality followed another. Thaddeus of Suessa fell, 1248. Peter de Vinea, another shrewd counsellor, had abandoned his master. Enzio, the emperor’s favorite son, was in prison.

The tragic career of this gifted man and consummate flower of chivalry is deeply engraven in the romance and architecture of Bologna.

Stupor mundi, the Wonder of the World—this is the title which Matthew Paris applies to Frederick II.

Principum mundi maximus, stupor quoque mundi et immutator mirabilis, "greatest of the princes of the earth, the wonder of the world and the marvellous regulating genius [innovator] in its affairs." Luard’s M. Paris, V. 190, 196. In his letters Frederick styled himself Fredericus Dei gratia Romanorum imperator et semper augustus, Jerusalem et Siciliae rex.

In his conflict with the pope, he was governed, not by animosity to the spiritual power, but by the determination to keep it within its own realm. In genuine ideal opposition to the hierarchy he went farther than any of his predecessors.

Ranke, VIII. 369 sqq.

It has been surmised that Frederick was not a Christian. Gregory charged him specifically with blasphemy. But Frederick as specifically disavowed the charge of making Christ an impostor, and swore fealty to the orthodox faith.

For the charge, that he denied the incarnation by the Virgin Mary and other charges, see above and Bréholles, V. 459 sq.; M. Paris, Luard’s ed., III. 521.

Frederick was highly educated, a friend of art and learning. He was familiar with Greek, Latin, German, French, and Arabic, as well as Italian. He founded the University of Naples. He was a precursor of the Renaissance and was himself given to rhyming. He wrote a book on falconry.

Ranke calls it one of the best treatments of the Middle Ages on the subject. For Frederick’s influence on culture and literature, see Bréholles, I. ch. 9. Also Fisher’s Med. Emp., II. ch. 14, "The Empire and Culture."

Freeman’s judgment must be regarded as extravagant when he says that "in mere genius, in mere accomplishments, Frederick was surely the greatest prince that ever wore a crown."

Hist. Essays, I. 286. He says again, p. 283, "It is probable there never lived a human being endowed with greater natural gifts." We may agree with Freeman’s statement that in Frederick’s career "are found some of the most wonderful chapters in European history," p. 313.

§ 45. The Last of the Hohenstaufen.

Additional Literature.—Letters of Urban IV. in Mansi, vol. XXIII. Potthast: Regesta, 1161–1650.—Les Registres of Alexander IV., Recueil des bulles de ce pape d’après les MSS. originaux des archives du Vatican, Paris, 1886, of Urban IV., Paris, 1892, of Clement IV., Paris, 1893–1904.—*Döllinger: Der Uebergang des Papstthums an die Franzosen, in Akademische Vorträge, III. pp. 212–222, Munich, 1891. Lives of the popes in Muratori and Platina.

The death of Frederick did not satisfy the papacy. It had decreed the ruin of the house of the Hohenstaufen. The popes denounced its surviving representatives as "the viperous brood" and, "the poisonous brood of a dragon of poisonous race."

In his will, Frederick bade his son Conrad accord to the Church her just rights and to restore any he himself might have unjustly seized but on condition that she, as a merciful and pious mother, acknowledge the rights of the empire. His illegitimate son, the brilliant and princely Manfred, he appointed his representative in Italy during Conrad’s absence.

Innocent broke up from Lyons in 1251, little dreaming that, a half century later, the papacy would remove there to pass an exile of seventy years.

M. Paris reports that a cardinal, after delivering a farewell sermon in Innocent’s name, said, "Since our arrival in the city, we have done much good and bestowed alms. On our arrival we found three or four brothels, but now, at our departure, we leave only one behind, but that extends from the eastern to the western gate of the city." Luard’s ed., V. 237.

Conrad was soon followed by Innocent to the grave, 1254. Innocent lies buried in Naples. He was the last of the great popes of an era that was hastening to its end. During the reign, perhaps, of no other pope had the exactions of Rome upon England been so exorbitant and brazen. Matthew Paris charged him with making the Church a slave and turning the papal court into a money changer’s table. To his relatives, weeping around his death-bed, he is reported to have exclaimed. "Why do you weep, wretched creatures? Do I not leave you all rich?"

Under the mild reign of Alexander IV., 1254–1261, Manfred made himself master of Sicily and was crowned king at Palermo, 1258.

Urban IV., 1261–1264, was consecrated at Viterbo and did not enter Rome during his pontificate. He was a shoemaker’s son and the first Frenchman for one hundred and sixty years to occupy the papal throne. With him the papacy came under French control, where it remained, with brief intervals, for more than a century. Urban displayed his strong national partisanship by his appointment of seven French cardinals in a conclave of seventeen. The French influence was greatly strengthened by his invitation to Charles of Anjou, youngest brother of Louis IX. of France, to occupy the Sicilian throne, claiming the right to do so on the basis of the inherent authority of the papacy and on the ground that Sicily was a papal fief. For centuries the house of Anjou, with Naples as its capital, was destined to be a disturbing element in the affairs, not only of Italy, but of all Europe.

See the pages on the last popes of this period and of the last period of the Middle Ages, especially under Alexander VI. and Julius II.

Clement IV., 1265–1268, one of the French cardinals appointed by Urban, had a family before he entered a Carthusian convent and upon a clerical career. He preached a crusade against Manfred, who had dared to usurp the Sicilian throne, and crowned Charles of Anjou in Rome, 1266. Charles promised to pay yearly tribute to the Apostolic see. A month later, Feb. 26, 1266, the possession of the crown of Sicily was decided by the arbitrament of arms on the battlefield of Benevento, where Manfred fell.

On the youthful Conradin, grandson of Frederick II., the hopes of the proud German house now hung. His title to the imperial throne was contested from the first. William of Holland had been succeeded, by the rival emperors, the rich Duke Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III., elected in 1257 by four of the electors, and Alfonso of Castile, elected by the remaining three.

Alfonso never visited Germany. Richard spent part of his time there, but was destitute of political power. The threat of excommunication deterred the electors from electing Conradin. For the imperial electoral college, see Fisher, Med. Emp., I. 225 sq., and for Richard, see Richard v. Cornwall seit sr. Wahl z. deutschen König., 1905.

With Conradin the male line of the Hohenstaufen became extinct. Its tragic end was enacted on the soil which had always been so fatal to the German rulers. Barbarossa again and again met defeat there; and in Southern Italy Henry VI., Frederick II., Conrad, Manfred, and Conradin were all laid in premature graves.

At Conradin’s burial Charles accorded military honors, but not religious rites. The Roman crozier had triumphed over the German eagle. The Swabian hill, on which the proud castle of the Hohenstaufen once stood, looks down in solemn silence upon the peaceful fields of Württemberg and preaches the eloquent sermon that "all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass." The colossal claims of the papacy survived the blows struck again and again by this imperial family, through a century. Italy had been exposed for three generations and more to the sword, rapine, and urban strife. Europe was weary of the conflict. The German minnesingers and the chroniclers of England and the Continent were giving expression to the deep unrest. Partly as a result of the distraction bordering on anarchy, the Mongols were threatening to burst through the gates of Eastern Germany. It was an eventful time. Antioch, one of the last relics of the Crusaders in Asia Minor, fell back to the Mohammedans in 1268. Seven years earlier the Latin empire of Constantinople finally reverted to its rightful owners, the Greeks.

In the mighty duel which has been called by the last great Roman historian

Gregorovius.

§ 46. The Empire and Papacy at Peace. 1271–1294.

Popes.—Gregory X., 1271–1276; Innocent V., Jan. 21-June 22, 1276; Adrian V., July 12-Aug. 16, 1276; John XXI., 1276–1277; Nicolas III., 1277–1280; Martin IV., 1281–1285; Honorius IV., 1285–1287; Nicolas IV., 1288–1292; Coelestin V., July 5-Dec. 13, 1294.

Literature.—Potthast: Regest., pp. 1651–1922. Les Registres de Grégoire X. et Jean XXI., 3 vols., Paris, 1892–1898, de Nicolas III., Paris, 1904, d’Honorius IV., Paris, 1886, de Nicolas IV., Paris, 1880. Lives of the above popes in Muratori: Rer. Ital. scr., vol. III.—Mansi: Councils, XXIV.—Hefele, VI. 125 sqq.—Turinaaz, La patrie et la famille de Pierre de Tarantaise, pape sous le nom d’Innocent V., Nancy, 1882.—H. Otto: Die Beziehungen Rudolfs von Hapsburg zu Papst Gregor X., Innsbruck, 1895.—A. Demski: Papst Nicolas III., Münster, 1903, pp. 364.—R. Sternfeld: Der Kardinal Johann Gaëtan Orsini, Papst Nic. III., 1244–1277, Berlin, 1905, pp. 376. Reviewed at length by Haller in "Theol. Literaturzeitung," 1906, pp. 173–178.—H. Finke: Concilienstudien zur Gesch. des 13ten Jahrhunderts, Münster, 1891.—For Coelestin V., Finke: Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII., Münster, 1902; H. Schulz, Peter von Murrhone, 1894; and Celidonio, Vita di S. Pietro del Morrone, 1896.—The articles on the above popes in Wetzer-Welte and Herzog (Gregory X, by Mirbt, Coelestin V., Innocent V., Honorius IV., etc., by Hans Schulz).—The Histories of Gregorovius, Ranke, etc.

The death of Clement IV. was followed by the longest interregnum the papacy has known, lasting thirty-three months, Nov. 29, 1268, to Sept. 1, 1271. It was due largely to the conflict between the French and Italian parties in the conclave and was prolonged in spite of the stern measures taken by the municipality of Viterbo, where the election occurred. Cardinals were even imprisoned. The new pope, Gregory X., archdeacon of Liège, was not an ordained priest. The news reached him at Acre while he was engaged in a pilgrimage. A man of peaceful and conciliatory spirit, he is one of the two popes of the thirteenth century who have received canonization. Pursuing the policy of keeping the empire and the kingdom of Southern Italy apart, and setting aside the pretensions of Alfonso of Castile,

Richard, duke of Cornwall, had died April 2, 1272.

The elevation of Rudolf inaugurated a period of peace in the relations of the papacy and the empire. Gregory X. had gained a brilliant victory. The emperor was crowned at Aachen, Oct. 24, 1273. The place of the Hohenstaufen was thus taken by the Austrian house of Hapsburg, which has continued to this day to be a reigning dynasty and loyal to the Catholic hierarchy. In the present century its power has been eclipsed by the Hohenzollern, whose original birth seat in Württemberg is a short distance from that of the Hohenstaufen.

The ancient seat of the Hapsburgs was in Aarpu, Switzerland, scarcely one hundred miles away from Zollern.

Rudolf was a man of decided religious temper, was not ambitious to extend his power, and became a just and safe ruler. He satisfied the claims of the papacy by granting freedom to the chapters in the choice of bishops, by promising to protect the Church in her rights, and by renouncing all claim to Sicily and the State of the Church. In a tone of moderation Gregory wrote: "It is incumbent on princes to protect the liberties and rights of the Church and not to deprive her of her temporal property. It is also the duty of the spiritual ruler to maintain kings in the full integrity of their authority."

The emperor remained on good terms with Gregory’s successors, Innocent V., a Frenchman, Adrian V., a Genoese, who did not live to be consecrated, and John XXI., the only priest from Portugal who has worn the tiara. Their combined reigns lasted only eighteen months. John died from the falling of a ceiling in his palace in Viterbo.

The second Council of Lyons, known also as the Fourteenth Oecumenical Council, was called by Gregory and opened by him with a sermon. It is famous for the attempt made to unite the Greek and Western Churches and the presence of Greek delegates, among them Germanus, formerly patriarch of Constantinople. His successor had temporarily been placed in confinement for expressing himself as opposed to ecclesiastical union. A termination of the schism seemed to be at hand. The delegates announced the Greek emperor’s full acceptance of the Latin creed, including the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son and the primacy of the bishop of Rome. The Apostles’ Creed was sung in Greek and Latin. Papal delegates were sent to Constantinople to consummate the union; but the agreement was rejected by the Greek clergy. It is more than surmised that the Greek emperor, Michael Palaeologus, was more concerned for the permanency of the Greek occupation of Constantinople than for the ecclesiastical union of the East and the West upon which the hearts of popes had been set so long.

Other important matters before the council were the rule for electing a pope, and the reception of a delegation of Mongols who sought to effect a union against the Mohammedans. Several members of the delegation received baptism. The decree of the Fourth Lateran, prohibiting new religious orders, was reaffirmed.

The firm and statesmanlike administration of Nicolas III. checked the ambition of Charles of Anjou, who was plotting for the Greek crown. He was obliged to abjure the senatorship of Rome, which he had held for ten years, and to renounce the vicariate of Tuscany. Bologna for the first time acknowledged the papal supremacy. Nicolas has been called the father of papal nepotism,

See the elaborate art. Nepotismus in Wetzer-Welte, IX. 109 sqq.; and Haller in Literaturzeitung, see above.

Again, in 1281, the tiara passed to a Frenchman, a man of humble birth, Martin IV. Charles was present at Viterbo when the election took place and was active in securing it.

See the art. Martin by Knöpfler in Wetzer-Welte, VIII. 919 sq.

In resentment at the hated French régime, the Sicilians rose up, during Easter week, 1282, and enacted the bloody massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers. All the Normans on the island, together with the Sicilian wives of Normans, were victims of the merciless vengeance. The number that fell is estimated at from eight to twenty thousand. The tragedy gets its name from the tradition that the Sicilians fell to their work at the ringing of the vesper bell.

See Ranke, VIII. 531 sqq.

Not to be untrue to Charles, Martin hurled the anathema at the rebels, placed Aragon and Sicily under the interdict, and laid Christendom under a tribute of one-tenth for a crusade against Peter. The measures were in vain, and Charles’s galleys met with defeat off the coast of Calabria. Charles and Martin died the same year, 1285, the latter, like Gregory X., at Perugia.

After an interregnum of ten months, Nicolas IV. ascended the papal throne, the first Franciscan to be elevated to the office. His reign witnessed the evacuation of Ptolemais or Acre, the last possession of the Crusaders in Syria. Nicolas died in the midst of futile plans to recover the Holy Places.

Another interregnum of twenty-seven months followed, April 4, 1292 to July 5, 1294, when the hermit Peter de Murrhone, Coelestin V., was raised to the papal throne, largely at the dictation of Charles II. of Naples. His short reign forms a curious episode in the annals of the papacy. His career shows the extremes of station from the solitude of the mountain cell to the chief dignity of Europe. He enjoyed the fame of sanctity and founded the order of St. Damian, which subsequently honored him by taking the name of Coelestines. The story ran that he had accomplished the unprecedented feat of hanging his cowl on a sunbeam. At the time of his elevation to the papal throne Coelestin was seventy-nine.

An eye-witness, Stefaneschi, has described the journey to the hermit’s retreat by three bishops who were appointed to notify him of his election. They found him in a rude hut in the mountains, furnished with a single barred window, his hair unkempt, his face pale, and his body infirm. After announcing their errand they bent low and kissed his sandals. Had Peter been able to go forth from his anchoret solitude, like Anthony of old, on his visits to Alexandria, and preach repentance and humility, he would have presented an exhilarating spectacle to after generations. As it is, his career arouses pity for his frail and unsophisticated incompetency to meet the demands which his high office involved.

Clad in his monkish habit and riding on an ass, the bridle held by Charles II. and his son, Peter proceeded to Aquila, where he was crowned, only three cardinals being present. Completely under the dominance of the king, Coelestin took up his residence in Naples. Little was he able to battle with the world, to cope with the intrigues of factions, and to resist the greedy scramble for office which besets the path of those high in position. In simple confidence Coelestin gave his ear to this counsellor and to that, and yielded easily to all applicants for favors. His complaisancy to Charles is seen in his appointment of cardinals. Out of twelve whom he created, seven were Frenchmen, and three Neapolitans. It would seem as if he fell into despair at the self-seeking and worldliness of the papal court, and he exclaimed, "O God, while I rule over other men’s souls, I am losing the salvation of my own." He was clearly not equal to the duties of the tiara. In vain did the Neapolitans seek by processions to dissuade him from resigning. Clement I. had abjured his office, as had also Gregory VI. though at the mandate of an, emperor. Peter issued a bull declaring it to be the pope’s right to abdicate. His own abdication he placed on the ground "of his humbleness, the quest of a better life and an easy conscience, on account of his frailty of body and want of knowledge, the badness of men, and a desire to return to the quietness of his former state." The real reason for his resigning is obscure. The story went that the ambitious Cardinal Gaëtani, soon to become Coelestin’s successor, was responsible for it. He played upon the hermit’s credulity by speaking through a reed, inserted through the wall of the hermit’s chamber, and declared it to be heaven’s will that his reign should come to an end.

The author of the suggestion that Coelestin should abdicate has given rise to a good deal of controversy in recent years. Was Benedict Gaëtani (Boniface VIII.) the author, or did the suggestion come from the senile old pope himself. Hans Schulz, a Protestant, has recently called in question the old view that laid the blame on Benedict, and regards it as probable that Coelestin was the first to propose abdication, and that Benedict being called in gave the plan his sanction. He says, however, that in the whole matter "Benedict’s eye was directed to the papal crown as his own prize." See Herzog’s Enc., IV. 203. Hergenröther-Kirsch, Kirchengesch., II. 312, and Finke, Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII., p. 39 sqq., both Roman Catholic historians, have adopted the same position, as does also Scholz, Publizistik zur Zeit Philipp IV. und Bonifaz VIII., p. 3. The contemporary historians differ about the matter, but upon the whole are against the cardinal. The charge that he was at the bottom of the abdication and the main promoter of it was one of the chief charges brought against him by his enemy, Philip the Fair of France. One of the measures for humiliating Boniface proposed by the king was the canonization of Coelestin as one whom Boniface had abused. See Document of the year 1305, printed for the first time by Finke, p, xcviii. A tract issued by one of Boniface’s party attempted to parry this suggestion by declaring that Boniface, who was then dead, had merits which entitled him to canonization above Coelestin. The author said, "si canonizatio Celestini petitur, multo magis canonizacio sanctissimi patris domini Bonifacii, postulari debet et approbari." He continues, "Coelestin’s canonization is asked because he profited himself and died in sua simplicitate; Boniface’s ought to be asked for because he profited others and died for the freedom of the Church." See the document printed for the first time in Finke, p. lxxxv, and which Finke puts in 1308. Coelestin was canonized 1313 by Clement V.

In abandoning the papacy the departing pontiff forfeited all freedom of movement. He attempted to flee across the Adriatic, but in vain. He was kept in confinement by Boniface VIII. in the castle of Fumone, near Anagni, until his death, May 19, 1296. What a world-wide contrast the simplicity of the hermit’s reign presents to the violent assertion and ambitious designs of Boniface, the first pope of a new period!

Coelestin’s sixth centenary was observed by pious admirers in Italy.

A memorial volume was published under the title Celestin V ed il vi Centenario della sua incoronazione, Aquila, 1894.

A new era for the papacy was at hand.

§ 47. Literature on the Crusades as a Whole.

Sources.—First printed collection of writers on the Crusades by Jac. Bongars: Gesta Dei (and it might be added, et diaboli) per Francos, sive orientalium expeditionum, etc., 2 vols. Hanover, 1611. Mostly reports of the First Crusade and superseded.—The most complete collection, edited at great expense and in magnificent style, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades publié par l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, viz. Historiens Occidentaux, 5 vols. Paris, 1841–1895; Histt. Orientaux, 4 vols. 1872–1898; Histt. Grecs, 2 vols. 1875–1881; Documents Arméniens, 1869. The first series contains, in vols. I., II., the Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum of William of Tyre and the free reproduction in French entitled L’Estoire de Eracles Empéreur et la Conqueste de la terre d’ Outremer. Vol. III. contains the Gesta Francorum; the Historia de Hierolosymitano itinere of Peter Tudebodus, Hist. Francorum qui ceperunt Jherusalem of Raymund of Aguilers or Argiles; Hist. Jherusolymitana or Gesta Francorum Jherusalem perigrinantium 1095–1127, of Fulcher of Chartres; Hist. Jherusol. of Robert the Monk, etc. Vol. IV. contains Hist. Jherusolem. of Baldric of Dol (Ranke, VIII 82, speaks highly of Baldric as an authority); Gesta Del per Francos of Guibert of Nogent; Hist. Hier. of Albert of Aachen, etc. Vol. V. contains Ekkehardi Hierosolymita and a number of other documents. Migne’s Latin Patrology gives a number of these authors, e.g., Fulcher and Petrus Tudebodus, vol. 155; Guibert, vol. 156; Albert of Aachen and Baldric, vol. 166; William of Tyre, vol. 201.—Contemporary Chronicles of Ordericus Vitalis, Roger of Hoveden, Roger of Wendover, M. Paris, etc.—Reports of Pilgrimages, e.g., Count Riant: Expéditions et pèlerinages des Scandinaves en Terre Sainte au temps des Croisades, Paris, 1865, 1867; R. Röhricht: Die Pilgerfahrten nach d. heil. Lande vor den Kreuzzügen, 1875; Deutsche Pilgerreisen nach dem heil. Lande, new ed. Innsbruck, 1900; H. Schrader: D. Pilgerfahrten nach. d. heil. Lande im Zeitalter vor den Kreuzzügen, Merzig, 1897. Jaffé: Regesta.—Mansi: Concilia.—For criticism of the contemporary writers see Sybel, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, 2d ed. 1881, pp. 1–143.—H. Prutz (Prof. in Nancy, France): Quellenbeiträge zur Gesch. der Kreuzzüge, Danzig, 1876.—R. Röhricht: Regesta regni Hierosolymitani 1097–1291, Innsbruck, 1904, an analysis of 900 documents.

Modern Works.—*Friedrich Wilken (Libr. and Prof. in Berlin, d. 1840): Gesch. der Kreuzzüge, 7 vols. Leipzig, 1807–1832.—J. F. Michaud: Hist. des croisades, 3 vols. Paris, 1812, 7th ed. 4 vols. 1862. Engl. trans. by W. Robson, 3 vols., London, 1854, New York, 1880.—*Röhricht (teacher in one of the Gymnasia of Berlin, d. 1905; he published eight larger works on the Crusades): Beitäge zur Gesch. der Kreuzzüge, 2 vols. Berlin, 1874–1878; D. Deutschen im heil. lande, Innsbruck, 1894; Gesch. d. Kreuzzüge, Innsbruck, 1898.—B. Kugler (Prof. in Tübingen): Gesch. der Kreuzzüge, illustrated, Berlin, 1880, 2d ed. 1891.—A. De Laporte: Les croisades et le pays latin de Jérusalem, Paris, 1881.—*Prutz: Kulturgesch. der Kreuzzüge, Berlin, 1883.—Ed. Heyck: Die Kreuzzüge und das heilige Land, Leipzig, 1900.—Histories in English by Mills, London, 1822, 4th ed. 2 vols. 1828; Keightley, London. 1847; Proctor, London, 1858; Edgar, London, 1860; W. E. Dutton, London, 1877; G. W. Cox, London, 1878; J. I. Mombert, New York, 1891; *Archer and Kingsford: Story of the Crus., New York, 1895; J. M. Ludlow: Age of the Crusades, New York, 1896; Art. Kreuzzüge by Funk in Wetzer-Welte, VII. 1142–1177.—Ph. Schaff in "Ref. Quarterly Rev." 1893, pp. 438–459.—J. L. Hahn: Ursachen und Folgen der Kreuzzüge, Greifswald, 1859.—Chalandon: Essai sur le régne d’Alexis Comnène, Paris, 1900.—*A. Gottlob: D. päpstlichen Kreuzzugs-Steuren des 13. Jahrhunderts, Heiligenstadt, 1892, pp. 278; Kreuzablass und Almosenablass, Stuttgart, 1906, pp. 314.—Essays on the Crusades by Munro, Prutz, Diehl, Burlington, 1903.—H. C. Lea: Hist. of Auric. Confession and Indulgences, vol. III.—See also *Gibbon, LVIII-LIX; Milman; Giesebrecht: Gesch. d. deutschen Kaiserzeit; Ranke: Weltgesch., VIII. pp. 88–111, 150–161, 223–262, 280–307; IX. 93–98; Finlay: Hist. of the Byznt. and Gr. Empires, 1057–1453; Hopf: Gesch. Griechenlands vom Beginn des Mittelalters, etc., Leipzig, 1868; Besant And Palmer: Hist. of Jerusalem, London, 1890; Guy Le Strange: Palestine under the Moslems, London, 1890.

The Poetry of the Crusades is represented chiefly by Raoul De Caen in Gestes de Tancrède; Torquato Tasso, the Homer of the Crusades, in La Jerusalemme liberata; Walter Scott: Tales of the Crusades, Talisman, Quentin Durward, etc. The older literature is given in full by Michaud; Bibliographie des Croisades, 2 vols. Paris, 1822, which form vols. VI., VII, of his Histoire des Croisades.

The First Crusade.

Sources.—See Literature above. Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolymitorum by an anonymous writer who took part in the First Crusade, in Bongars and Recueil des Croisades. See above. Also Hagenmeyer’s critical edition, Anonymi Gesta Francorum, Heidelberg, 1890.—Robertus, a monk of Rheims: Hist. Hierosolymitana, in Bongars, Rec., and Migne, vol. 155.—Baldrich, abp. of Dol: Hist. Hierosol., in Bongars, and Rec.—Raymund de Aguilers, chaplain to the count of Toulouse: Hist. Francorum, 1095–1099, in Bongars, Rec., and Migne, vol. 155. See Clem. Klein: Raimund von Aguilers, Berlin, 1892.—Fulcher, chaplain to the count of Chartres and then to Baldwin, second king of Jerusalem: Gesta Francorum Jerusalem perigrinantium to 1125, in Bongars, Rec., and Migne, vol. 155.—Guibert, abbot of Nogent: Gesta Dei per Francos, to 1110, in Bongars, Rec., Migne, vol. 156.—Albertus of Aachen (Aquensis): Hist. Hierosol. expeditionis, to 1121, in Bongars, Rec., Migne, vol. 166. See B. Kugler: Albert von Aachen, Stuttgart, 1885.—William of Tyre, abp. of Tyre, d. after 1184: Hist. rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, Basel, 1549, under the title of belli sacri historia, in Bongars, Rec., Migne, vol. 201, Engl. trans. by Wm. Caxton, ed. by Mary N. Colvin, London, 1893.—Anna Comnena (1083–1148): Alexias, a biogr. of her father, the Greek emperor, Alexis I., in Rec., Migne, Pat. Graeca, vol. 131; also 2 vols. Leipzig, 1884, ed. by Reifferscheid; also in part in Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremite, pp. 303–314.—Ekkehard of Urach: Hierosolymita seu libellus de oppressione, liberatione ac restauratione sanctae Hierosol., 1095–1187, in Rec., and Migne, vol. 154, and Hagenmeyer: Ekkehard’s Hierosolymita, Tübingen, 1877, also Das Verhältniss der Gesta Francorum zu der Hiersol. Ekkehards in "Forschungen zur deutschen Gesch.," Göttingen, 1876, pp. 21–42.—Petrus Tudebodus, of the diocese of Poitiers: Hist. de Hierosolymitano itinere, 1095–1099, largely copied from the Gesta Francorum, in Migne, vol. 155, and Recueil.—Radulphus Cadomensis (Raoul of Caen): Gesta Tancredi, 1099–1108, Migne, vol. 155, and Recueil.—Riant: Inventaire critique des lettres Hist. des croisades, I., II., Paris, 1880.—H. Hagenmeyer: Epistulae et chartae ad historiam primi belli sacri spectantes quae supersunt, etc., 1088–1100, Innsbruck, 1901. See the translation of contemporary documents in Trans. and Reprints, etc., published by Department of History of Univ. of Penn., 1894.

The Poetry of the First Crusade: La Chanson d’Antioche, ed. by Paulin Paris, 2 vols. Paris, 1848. He dates the poem 1125–1138, and Nouvelle Étude sur la Chanson d’Antioche, Paris, 1878.—La Conquête de Jérusalem, ed. by C. Hippeau, Paris, 1868. — Roman du Chevalier au Cygne et Godefroi de Bouillon.

Modern Works.—*H. Von Sybel: Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, Düsseldorf, 1841, 3d ed. Leipzig, 1900. The Introduction contains a valuable critical estimate of the contemporary accounts. Engl. trans. of the Introd. and four lectures by Sybel in 1858, under the title, The Hist. and Lit. of Crusades, by Lady Duff Gordon, London, 1861.—J. F. A. Peyre: Hist. de la première croisade, Paris, 1859.—*Hagenmeyer: Peter der Eremite, Leipzig, 1879; Chron. de la premiére croisade, 1094–1100, Paris, 1901.—Röhricht: Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, Innsbruck, 1901.—F. Chalandon: Essai sur le règne d’Alexis I. Comnène, 1081–1118, Paris, 1900.—Paulot: Un pape Français, Urbain II., Paris, 1902.—D. C. Munro: The Speech of Urban at Clermont. "Am. Hist. Rev." 1906, pp. 231–242.—Art. in Wetzer-Welte, by Funk, Petrus von Amiens, Vol. IX.

§ 48. Character and Causes of the Crusades.

The Crusades were armed pilgrimages to Jerusalem under the banner of the cross. They form one of the most characteristic chapters of the Middle Ages and have a romantic and sentimental, as well as a religious and military, interest. They were a sublime product of the Christian imagination, and constitute a chapter of rare interest in the history of humanity. They exhibit the muscular Christianity of the new nations of the West which were just emerging from barbarism and heathenism. They made religion subservient to war and war subservient to religion. They were a succession of tournaments between two continents and two religions, struggling for supremacy,—Europe and Asia, Christianity and Mohammedanism. Such a spectacle the world has never seen before nor since, and may never see again.

Gibbon, who treats with scorn the Crusades as a useless exhibition of religious fanaticism, calls them the "world’s debate," Ch. LIX.

These expeditions occupied the attention of Europe for more than two centuries, beginning with 1095. Yea, they continued to be the concern of the popes until the beginning of the sixteenth century. Columbus signed an agreement April 17, 1492, to devote the proceeds of his undertaking beyond the Western seas to the recovery of the holy sepulchre. Before his fourth and last journey to America he wrote to Alexander VI., renewing his vow to furnish troops for the rescue of that sacred locality.

John Fiske, Discovery of America, I. 318, 419, 505.

The most famous men of their age were identified with these movements. Emperors and kings went at the head of the armies,—Konrad III., Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick II., Richard I. of England, Louis VII., Philip Augustus and Louis IX. of France, Andrew of Hungary. Fair women of high station accompanied their husbands or went alone to the seats of war, such as Alice of Antioch, Queen Eleanor of France, Ida of Austria, Berengaria, wife of Richard, and Margaret, queen of Louis IX. Kings’ sons shared the same risks, as Frederick of Swabia, Sigurd, and Edward, son of Henry III., accompanied by Eleanor, his wife. Priests, abbots, and higher ecclesiastics fought manfully in the ranks and at the head of troops.

The Itinerary of Richard I., giving an account of the Third Crusade, lays stress upon the good fighting qualities of the prelates and clergy. It speaks of one priest who was incessantly active against the enemy, hurling darts from a sling with indefatigable toil, I. 42. The archbishop of Besançon superintended the construction of a great machine for battering down the walls of Acre and met its expense, I. 60. Two hundred knights and three hundred followers served under archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, old man as he was, and "abbots and bishops led their own troops, fighting manfully for the faith," I. 62.

The crusading armies were designated by such titles as the army "of the cross," "of Christ," "of the Lord," "of the faith."

Roger of Wendover, Luard’s ed., M. Paris, III: 35.

Contemporaries had no doubt of the Crusades being a holy undertaking, and Guibert’s account of the First Crusade is called, "The Deeds of God, accomplished through the Franks," Gesta Dei per Francos.

Those who fell under Eastern skies or on their way to the East received the benefits of special indulgence for sins committed and were esteemed in the popular judgment as martyrs. John VIII., 872–882, pressed by the Saracens who were devastating Italy, had promised to soldiers fighting bravely against the pagans the rest of eternal life and, as far as it belonged to him to give it, absolution from sins.

Quoniam illi, qui cum pietate catholicae religionis in belli certamine cadunt, requies eos aeternae vitae suscipiet contra paganos atque infideles strenue dimicantes, etc., Gottlob, Kreuzablass, 25.

The rewards were not confined to spiritual privileges. Eugenius III., in his exhortations to the Second Crusade, placed the Crusaders in the same category with clerics before the courts in the case of most offences.

Lea, Hist. of Inquis., I. 44, says. "Crusaders were released from earthly as well as heavenly justice by being classed with clerks and subjected only to spiritual justice."

If it is hard for us to unite the idea of war and bloodshed with the achievement of a purely religious purpose, it must be remembered that no such feeling prevailed in the Middle Ages. The wars of the period of Joshua and the Judges still formed a stimulating example. Chrysostom, Augustine, and other Church Fathers of the fifth century lifted up their voices against the violent destruction of heathen temples which went on in Egypt and Gaul; but whatever compunction might have been felt for the wanton slaying of Saracens by Christian armies in an attitude of aggression, the compunction was not felt when the Saracens placed themselves in the position of holding the sacred sites of Palestine.

Bernard of Clairvaux said, pagans must not be slain if they may by other means be prevented from oppressing the faithful. However, it is better they should be put to death than that the rod of the wicked should rest on the lot of the righteous. The righteous fear no sin in killing the enemy of Christ. Christ’s soldier can securely kill and more safely die. When he dies, it profits him; when he slays, it profits Christ. The Christian exults in the death of the pagan because Christ is glorified thereby. But when he himself is killed, he has reached his goal.

De militibus templi, II., III., Migne, 182, 923 sq.

In answer to the question whether clerics might go to war, Thomas Aquinas replied in the affirmative when the prize was not worldly gain, but the defence of the Church or the poor and oppressed.

Summa, II. (2), 188, 3; Migne, III., 1366 sq.: militare propter aliquid mundanum est omni religioni contrarium, non autem militare propter obsequium Dei, etc: He adds that clerics going to war must act under the command of princes or of the Church, and not at their own suggestion.

To other testimonies to the esteem in which the Crusaders were held may be added the testimony of Matthew Paris. Summing up the events of the half-century ending with 1250, he says:

Luard’s ed., V. 196.

The Crusades began and ended in France. The French element was the ruling factor, from Urban II., who was a native of Châtillon, near Rheims, and Peter of Amiens, to St. Louis.

The name Franks became the current designation for Europeans in the East, and remains so to this day. The crusading enthusiasm did not fully take hold of Germany till the twelfth century. Hauck, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, IV. 80.

The aim of the Crusades was the conquest of the Holy Land and the defeat of Islam. Enthusiasm for Christ was the moving impulse, with which, however, were joined the lower motives of ambition, avarice, love of adventure, hope of earthly and heavenly reward. The whole chivalry of Europe, aroused by a pale-faced monk and encouraged by a Hildebrandian pope, threw itself steel-clad upon the Orient to execute the vengeance of heaven upon the insults and barbarities of Moslems heaped upon Christian pilgrims, and to rescue the grave of the Redeemer of mankind from the grasp of the followers of the False Prophet. The miraculous aid of heaven frequently intervened to help the Christians and confound the Saracens.

Here is one such miracle. At the battle of Ramleh, 1177, there was a miraculous extension of the cross borne by the bishop of Bethlehem. It reached to heaven and extended its arms across the whole horizon. The pagans saw it, were confused, and fled. Hoveden, II. 133 sq.

The Crusaders sought the living among the dead. They mistook the visible for the invisible, confused the terrestrial and the celestial Jerusalem, and returned disillusioned.

Hegel, Philosophie der Gesch., 3d ed. 1848, p. 476, brings out this idea most impressively.

The immediate causes of the Crusades were the ill treatment of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem and the appeal of the Greek emperor, who was hard pressed by the Turks. Nor may we forget the feeling of revenge for the Mohammedans begotten in the resistance offered to their invasions of Italy and Gaul.

Röhricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 6, says that in these struggles "the crusading enthusiasm was born."

From an early day Jerusalem was the goal of Christian pilgrimage. The mother of Constantine, Helena, according to the legend, found the cross and certainly built the church over the supposed site of the tomb in which the Lord lay. Jerome spent the last period of his life in Bethlehem, translating the Scriptures and preparing for eternity. The effect of such examples was equal to the station and fame of the pious empress and the Christian scholar. In vain did such Fathers as Gregory of Nyssa,

See the beautiful testimony of Gregory, who advised a Cappadocian abbot against going with his monks to Jerusalem, Schaff, Ch. Hist. III. 906.

The movement steadily grew. The Holy Land became to the imagination a land of wonders, filled with the divine presence of Christ. To have visited it, to have seen Jerusalem, to have bathed in the Jordan, was for a man to have about him a halo of sanctity. The accounts of returning pilgrims were listened to in convent and on the street with open-mouthed curiosity. To surmount the dangers of such a journey in a pious frame of mind was a means of expiation for sins.

Fulke the Black, count of Anjou (987-1040), made three journeys to Jerusalem in penance for sacrilege and other crimes. He had burned his young wife at the stake dressed in her gayest attire, and caused his son to crouch at his feet harnessed as an ass. At Jerusalem he showed his devotion by going about with a halter about his neck. He bit off a piece of the Lord’s tombstone with his teeth and carried back to Europe objects most sacred and priceless, such as the fingers of Apostles and the lamp in which the holy fire was lit. Odolric, bishop of Orleans, gave a pound of gold for the lamp and hung it up in the church at Orleans, where its virtue cured multitudes of sick people.

Other circumstances gave additional impulse to the movement, such as the hope of securing relics of which Palestine and Constantinople were the chief storehouses; and the opportunity of starting a profitable trade in silk, paper, spices, and other products of the East.

These pilgrimages were not seriously interrupted by the Mohammedans after their conquest of Jerusalem by Omar in 637, until Syria and Palestine passed into the hands of the sultans of Egypt three centuries later. Under Hakim, 1010, a fierce persecution broke out against the Christian residents of Palestine and the pilgrims. It was, however, of short duration and was followed by a larger stream of pilgrims than before. The favorite route was through Rome and by the sea, a dangerous avenue, as it was infested by Saracen pirates. The conversion of the Hungarians in the tenth century opened up the route along the Danube. Barons, princes, bishops, monks followed one after the other, some of them leading large bodies of pious tourists. In 1035 Robert of Normandy went at the head of a great company of nobles. He found many waiting at the gates of Jerusalem, unable to pay the gold bezant demanded for admission, and paid it for them. In 1054 Luitbert, bishop of Cambray, is said to have led three thousand pilgrims. In 1064 Siegfried, archbishop of Mainz, was accompanied by the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Regensburg and twelve thousand pilgrims.

Hauck, IV. 79.

The other appeal, coming from the Greek emperors, was of less weight.

Ekkehard, 5, Rec., V. 14, may exaggerate when he speaks of very frequent letters and embassies from the Greek emperors to the West, per legationes frequentissimas et epistolas etiam a nobis visas ... lugubriter inclamanter, etc. The letter of Alexius to Robert of Flanders, 1088, has been the subject of much inquiry. Hagenmeyer pronounces it genuine, after a most careful investigation, Epistulae, etc., 10-44.

This dual appeal met a response, not only in the religious spirit of Europe, but in the warlike instincts of chivalry; and when the time came for the chief figure in Christendom, Urban II., to lift up his voice, his words acted upon the sensitive emotions as sparks upon dry leaves.

Diehl, in Essays on the Crusades, 92, seems even to deny that an appeal was ever made by the Byzantine emperor Alexius for aid to the West, and speaks of it as an invention of a later time. Certainly no criticism could be more unwarranted unless all the testimonies of the contemporary writers are to be ruthlessly set aside.

Three routes were chosen by the Crusaders to reach the Holy Land. The first was the overland route by way of the Danube, Constantinople, and Asia Minor. The second, adopted by Philip and Richard in the Third Crusade, was by the Mediterranean to Acre. The route of the last two Crusades, under Louis IX., was across the Mediterranean to Egypt, which was to be made the base of operations from which to reach Jerusalem.

§ 49. The Call to the Crusades.

The call which resulted in the first expedition for the recovery of Jerusalem was made by Pope Urban II. at the Council of Clermont, 1095. Its chief popular advocate was Peter the Hermit.

The idea of such a movement was not born at the close of the eleventh century. Gregory VII., appealed to by Michael VII. of Constantinople, had, in two encyclicals, 1074,

Reg., I. 49; II. 37, Migne, 148, 329, 390.

There is some evidence that more than half a century earlier Sergius IV., d. 1012, suggested the idea of an armed expedition against the Mohammedans who had "defiled Jerusalem and destroyed the church of the Holy Sepulchre." Earlier still, Sylvester II., d. 1003, may have urged the same project.

See Jules Lair, Études crit. sur divers textes des Xeet XIesiècles. Bulle du pape Sergius IV., etc., Paris, 1899. Lair, in opposition to Riant, Pflugk-Harttung, etc., gives reasons for accepting as genuine Sergius’s letter, found 1857. For Sylvester’s letter see Havet, Lettres de Gerbert, Paris, 1889. Röhricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, 8, pronounces Sylvester’s letter a forgery, dating from 1095. Lair tries to prove it was written by Sergius IV.

Peter the Hermit, an otherwise unknown monk of Amiens, France, on returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, spread its tale of woes and horrors.

The date of the pilgrimage is not given, but may be accepted as having fallen between 1092-1094. Peter is called "the Hermit" by all the accounts, begining with the earliest, the Gesta Francorum. There is no good ground for doubting that he was from Amiens, as Albert of Aachen distinctly states. William of Tyre says from the "bishopric of Amiens." Hagenmeyer, p. 39, accepts the latter as within the truth.

Urban listened to Peter’s account as he had listened to the accounts of other returning pilgrims. He had seen citizens of Jerusalem itself with his own eyes, and exiles from Antioch, bewailing the plight of those places and begging for alms.

At the Council of Clermont Urban made reference to the "very many reports" which had come of the desolation of Jerusalem, Fulcher, Rec., III. 324. Robert the Monk, I. 1, Rec., III. 727, says relatio gravis saepissime jam ad aures nostras pervenit. According to Baldric he appealed to the many among his hearers who could vouch for the desolate condition of the holy places from their own experience, Rec., IV. 14. See Hagenmeyer, 74-77.

At the Council of Piacenza, in the spring of 1095, envoys were present from the emperor Alexius Comnenus and made addresses, invoking aid against the advancing Turks.

William of Tyre does not mention this embassy. It may be because of the low opinion he had of Alexius, whom (II. 5) he pronounces scheming and perfidious.

At Clermont, Urban was on his native soil and probably spoke in the Provençal tongue, though we have only Latin reports. When we recall the general character of the age and the listening throng, with its mingled feelings of love of adventure and credulous faith, we cannot wonder at the response made to the impassioned appeals of the head of Christendom. Urban reminded his hearers that they, as the elect of God, must carry to their brethren in the East the succor for which they had so often cried out. The Turks, a "Persian people, an accursed race,"

Robert the Monk, I. 1, Rec., III. 727. The contemporary writers, giving an account of Urban’s speech, are Baldric, Guibert, Fulcher, and Robert the Monk. All of them were present at Clermont. William of Tyre greatly elaborates the address, and Röhricht calls William’s account an invention which is a masterpiece of its kind,—eine Erdichtung die ein Meisterstück seiner Art, etc., Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 20. Röhricht, pp. 235-239, and Munro, "Am. Hist. Rev.," 1906, pp. 231-243, make interesting attempts to reconstruct Urban’s address. The different accounts are not to be regarded as contradictory, but as supplementary one of the other. Röhricht, p. 20, expresses the opinion that none of the accounts of the address is "accurate." No doubt the spirit and essential contents are preserved. Urban made prominent the appeals for aid from the East, the desolations of Jerusalem, and the sufferings of Christians in the East. See Munro.

A Frenchman himself, Urban appealed to his hearers as Frenchmen, distinguished above all other nations by remarkable glory in arms, courage, and bodily prowess. He appealed to the deeds of Charlemagne and his son Lewis, who had destroyed pagan kingdoms and extended the territory of the Church.

To this moving appeal the answer came back from the whole throng, "God will sit, God will sit."

Deus vult, Deos lo volt, Diex el volt. These are the different forms in which the response is reported. For this response in its Latin form, Robert the Monk is our earliest authority, I. 2, Rec., III. 729. He says una vociferatio "Deus vult, Deus vult."

The example set at Clermont was followed by thousands throughout Europe. Fiery preachers carried Urban’s message. The foremost among them, Peter the Hermit, traversed Southern France to the confines of Spain and Lorraine and went along the Rhine. Judged by results, he was one of the most successful of evangelists. His appearance was well suited to strike the popular imagination. He rode on an ass, his face emaciated and haggard, his feet bare, a slouched cowl on his head,

Petrum more heremi vilissima cappa tegebat, Radulf of Caen. The above description is taken from strictly contemporary accounts.

In a few months large companies were ready to march against the enemies of the cross.

A new era in European history was begun.

Hegel, Philosophie der Gesch., p. 444, calls the Crusades "the culminating point of the Middle Ages." Contemporaries like Guibert of Nogent, 123, could think of no movement equal in glory with the Crusades. Ordericus Vitalis, III. 458, praised the union of peoples of different tongues in a project so praiseworthy.

§ 50. The First Crusade and the Capture of Jerusalem.

The 15th of August, 1096, the Feast of the Assumption, fixed by the Council of Clermont for the departure of the Crusaders, was slow in coming. The excitement was too intense for the people to wait. As early as March throngs of both sexes and all ages began to gather in Lorraine and at Treves, and to demand of Peter the Hermit and other leaders to lead them immediately to Jerusalem.

For the account of these early expeditions, we are chiefly dependent upon Albert of Aachen. Guibert makes no distinction of sections, and has only a cursory notice of the expeditions before the arrival of Peter in Constantinople.

The unwieldy bands, or swarms, were held together loosely under enthusiastic but incompetent leaders. The first swarm, comprising from twelve thousand to twenty thousand under Walter the Penniless,

Sine Pecunia, Sansavoir, Habenichts. These preliminary expeditions, Röhricht and other historians call Die Züge der Bauern, the campaigns of the peasants.

The second swarm, comprising more than forty thousand, was led by the Hermit himself. There were knights not a few, and among the ecclesiastics were the archbishop of Salzburg and the bishops of Chur and Strassburg. On their march through Hungary they were protected by the Hungarian king; but when they reached the Bulgarian frontier, they found one continuous track of blood and fire, robbery and massacre, marking the route of their predecessors. Only a remnant of seven thousand reached Constantinople, and they in the most pitiful condition, July, 1096. Here they were well treated by the Emperor Alexius, who transported them across the Bosphorus to Asia, where they were to await the arrival of the regular army. But they preferred to rove, marauding and plundering, through the rich provinces. Finally, a false rumor that the vanguard had captured Nicaea, the capital of the Turks in Asia Minor, allured the main body into the plain of Nicaea, where large numbers were surrounded and massacred by the Turkish cavalry. Their bones were piled into a ghastly pyramid, the first monument of the Crusade. Walter fell in the battle; Peter the Hermit had fled back to Constantinople before the battle began, unable to control his followers. The defeat of Nicaea no doubt largely destroyed Peter’s reputation.

See Hagenmeyer, 204 sq. Peter apologized to the emperor for the defeat on the ground of his inability to control his followers, who, he declared, were unworthy to see Jerusalem. Anna Comnena calls Peter the "inflated Latin."

A third swarm, comprising fifteen thousand, mostly Germans under the lead of the monk Gottschalk, was massacred by the Hungarians.

Another band, under count Emich of Leiningen, began its career, May, 1096, by massacring and robbing the Jews in Mainz and other cities along the Rhine. Albert of Aachan,

I. 26.

These preliminary expeditions of the first Crusade may have cost three hundred thousand lives.

The regular army consisted, according to the lowest statements, of more than three hundred thousand. It proceeded through Europe in sections which met at Constantinople and Nicaea. Godfrey, starting from lower Lorraine, had under him thirty thousand men on foot and ten thousand horse. He proceeded along the Danube and by way of Sofia and Philipoppolis, Hugh of Vermandois went by way of Rome, where he received the golden banner, and then, taking ship from Bari to Durazzo, made a junction with Godfrey in November, 1096, under the walls of Constantinople. Bohemund, with a splendid following of one hundred thousand horse and thirty thousand on foot,

Albert of Aachen, II. 18.

Godfrey of Bouillon

Bouillon, not to be confounded with Boulogne-sur-mer, on the English Channel, is a town in Belgian Luxemburg, and was formerly the capital of the lordship of Bouillon, which Godfrey mortgaged to the bishop of Liège in 1095. It has belonged to Belgium since 1831.

The moral hero of the First Crusade is Godfrey of Bouillon, a descendant of Charlemagne in the female line, but he had no definite command. He had fought in the war of emperor Henry IV. against the rebel king, Rudolf of Swabia, whom he slew in the battle of Mölsen, 1080. He had prodigious physical strength. With one blow of his sword he clove asunder a horseman from head to saddle. He was as pious as he was brave, and took the cross for the single purpose of rescuing Jerusalem from the hands of the infidel. He used his prowess and bent his ancestral pride to the general aim. Contemporary historians call him a holy monk in military armor and ducal ornament. His purity and disinterestedness were acknowledged by his rivals.

Tancred, his intimate friend, likewise engaged in the enterprise from pure motives. He is the poetic hero of the First Crusade, and nearly approached the standard of "the parfite gentil knyght" of Chaucer. He distinguished himself at Nicaea, Dorylaeum, Antioch, and was one of the first to climb the walls of Jerusalem. He died in Antioch, 1112. His deeds were celebrated by Raoul de Caen and Torquato Tasso.

Gibbon: "In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the virtues of a perfect knight, the true spirit of chivalry, which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of the time."

The emperor Alexius, who had so urgently solicited the aid of Western Europe, became alarmed when he saw the hosts arriving in his city. They threatened to bring famine into the land and to disturb the order of his realm. He had wished to reap the benefit of the Crusade, but now was alarmed lest he should be overwhelmed by it. His subtle policy and precautions were felt as an insult by the Western chieftains. In diplomacy he was more than their match. They expected fair dealing and they were met by duplicity. He held Hugh of Vermandois in easy custody till he promised him fealty. Even Godfrey and Tancred, the latter after delay, made the same pledge. Godfrey declined to receive the emperor’s presents for fear of receiving poison with his munificence.

The Crusaders had their successes. Nicaea was taken June 19, 1097, and the Turks were routed a few weeks later in a disastrous action at Dorylaeum in Phrygia, which turned into a more disastrous flight. But a long year elapsed till they could master Antioch, and still another year came to an end before Jerusalem yielded to their arms. The success of the enterprise was retarded and its glory diminished by the selfish jealousies and alienation of the leaders which culminated in disgraceful conflicts at Antioch. The hardships and privations of the way were terrible, almost beyond description. The Crusaders were forced to eat horse flesh, camels, dogs, and mice, and even worse.

Fulcher, I. 13, Rec., III. 336.

During the siege of Antioch, which had fallen to the Seljuks, 1084, the ranks were decimated by famine, pestilence, and desertion, among the deserters being Stephen of Chartres and his followers. Peter the Hermit and William of Carpentarius were among those who attempted flight, but were caught in the act of fleeing and severely reprimanded by Bohemund.

The contemporary authorities represent the reprimand as given to Carpentarius. As Hagenmeyer suggests, Peter was included and Carpentarius’name alone mentioned because he was of royal blood.

The culmination of the First Crusade was the fall of Jerusalem, July 15, 1099. It was not till the spring following the capture of Antioch, that the leaders were able to compose their quarrels and the main army was able again to begin the march. The route was along the coast to Caesarea and thence southeastward to Ramleh. Jerusalem was reached early in June. The army was then reduced to twenty thousand fighting men.

The figures are differently given. See Sybel, 412, and Röhricht, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, 183. William of Tyre gives the number as twenty-one thousand, and the army defending Jerusalem as forty thousand.

A desperate but futile assault was made on the fifth day. Boiling pitch and oil were used, with showers of stones and other missiles, to keep the Crusaders at bay. The siege then took the usual course in such cases. Ladders, scaling towers, and other engines of war were constructed, but the wood had to be procured at a distance, from Shechem. The trees around Jerusalem, cut down by Titus twelve centuries before, had never been replaced. The city was invested on three sides by Raymund of Toulouse, Godfrey, Tancred, Robert of Normandy, and other chiefs. The suffering due to the summer heat and the lack of water was intense. The valley and the hills were strewn with dead horses, whose putrefying carcasses made life in the camp almost unbearable. In vain did the Crusaders with bare feet, the priests at their head, march in procession around the walls, hoping to see them fall as the walls of Jericho had fallen before Joshua.

On this occasion Peter the Hermit and Arnulf, afterwards archbishop of Jerusalem, made addresses on the Mount of Olives to restore unity among the crusading leaders, especially Tancred and Raymund. Albert of Aachen, VI. 8, Rec., IV. 471, says, ad populos sermones ... plurimam discordiam quae inter Peregrinos de diversis causis excreverat exstinxerunt. Tancred had stirred up much jealousy by raising his banner over Bethlehem. Hagenmeyer, p. 259, accepts Albert’s account as genuine against Sybel.

Friday, the day of the crucifixion, was chosen for the final assault. A great tower surmounted by a golden cross was dragged alongside of the walls and the drawbridge let down. At a critical moment, as the later story went, a soldier of brilliant aspect

Miles splendidus et refulgens.

The scenes of carnage which followed belong to the many dark pages of Jerusalem’s history and showed how, in the quality of mercy, the crusading knight was far below the ideal of Christian perfection. The streets were choked with the bodies of the slain. The Jews were burnt with their synagogues. The greatest slaughter was in the temple enclosure. With an exaggeration which can hardly be credited, but without a twinge of regret or a syllable of excuse, it is related that the blood of the massacred in the temple area reached to the very knees and bridles of the horses.

So Raymund of Agiles, an eyewitness, usque ad genua et usque ad frenos equorum, XX., Rec, III. 300. This he calls "the righteous judgment of God."

Penitential devotions followed easily upon the gory butchery of the sword. Headed by Godfrey, clad in a suit of white lined, the Crusaders proceeded to the church of the Holy Sepulchre and offered up prayers and thanksgivings. William of Tyre relates that Adhemar and others, who had fallen by the way, were seen showing the path to the holy places. The devotions over, the work of massacre was renewed. Neither the tears of women, nor the cries of children, nor the protests of Tancred, who for the honor of chivalry was concerned to save three hundred, to whom he had promised protection—none of these availed to soften the ferocity of the conquerors.

As if to enhance the spectacle of pitiless barbarity, Saracen prisoners were forced to clear the streets of the dead bodies and blood to save the city from pestilence. "They wept and transported the dead bodies out of Jerusalem," is the heartless statement of Robert the Monk.

IX., Rec., III. 869. Robert gives an awful picture of the streets filled with dismembered bodies and running with gore.

Such was the piety of the Crusaders. The religion of the Middle Ages combined self-denying asceticism with heartless cruelty to infidels, Jews, and heretics. "They cut down with the sword," said William of Tyre, "every one whom they found in Jerusalem, and spared no one. The victors were covered with blood from head to foot." In the next breath, speaking of the devotion of the Crusaders, the archbishop adds, "It was a most affecting sight which filled the heart with holy joy to see the people tread the holy places in the fervor of an excellent devotion." The Crusaders had won the tomb of the Saviour and gazed upon a fragment of the true cross, which some of the inhabitants were fortunate enough to have kept concealed during the siege.

Before returning to Europe, Peter the Hermit received the homage of the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem, who remembered his visit as a pilgrim and his services in their behalf. This was the closing scene of his connection with the Crusades.

William of Tyre is the earliest witness to this scene. Leaving out embellishments, it does not seem to be at all unnatural. Hagenmeyer, pp. 265-269, calls it the "sheer invention of William’s fancy."

Urban II. died two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem and before the tidings of the event had time to reach his ears.

No more favorable moment could have been chosen for the Crusade. The Seljukian power, which was at its height in the eleventh century, was broken up into rival dynasties and factions by the death of Molik Shah, 1092. The Crusaders entered as a wedge before the new era of Moslem conquest and union opened.

Note on the Relation of Peter the Hermit to the First Crusade.

The view of Peter the Hermit, presented in this work, does not accord with the position taken by most of the modern writers on the Crusades. It is based on the testimony of Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre, historians of the First Crusade, and is, that Peter visited Jerusalem as a pilgrim, conversed with the patriarch Simeon over the desolations of the city, had a dream in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, returned to Europe with letters from Simeon which he presented to the pope, and then preached through Italy and beyond the Alps, and perhaps attended the Council of Clermont, where, however, he took no prominent part.

The new view is that there occurrences were fictions. It was first set forth by von Sybel in his work on the First Crusade, in 1841. Sybel’s work, which marks an epoch in the treatment of the Crusades, was suggested by the lectures of Ranke, 1837.

Sybel, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, p. ii.

These views, with some modification, have been advocated by Hagenmeyer in his careful and scholarly work on Peter the Hermit and in other writings on the First Crusade.

Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremite, p. 102, says, Dem Papste allein ist der Ruhm zu erhalten den ihm der Einsiedler von Amiens bis auf unsere Tage zur grösseren Hälfte streitig gemacht hat.Also Sybel, p. 243.

It is proper that the reasons should be given in brief which have led to the retention of the old view in this volume. The author’s view agrees with the judgment expressed by Archer, Story of the Crusades, p. 27, that the account of Albert of Aachen "is no doubt true in the main."

Albert of Aachen wrote his History of Jerusalem about 1120–1125,

He says he reports what he heard, ex auditu et relatione.

The new view, setting aside these two witnesses, bases its conclusion on the strictly contemporary accounts. These are silent about any part Peter took in the movement leading to the First Crusade prior to the Council of Clermont. They are: (1) the Gesta Francorum, written by an unknown writer, who reached Jerusalem with the Crusaders, wrote his account about 1099, and left the original, or a copy of it, in Jerusalem. (2) Robert the Monk, who was in Jerusalem, saw a copy of the Gesta, and copied from it. His work extends to 1099. He was present at the Council of Clermont. (3) Raymund, canon of Agiles, who accompanied the Crusaders to Jerusalem. (4) Fulcher of Chartres, who was present at Clermont, continued the history to 1125, accompanied the Crusaders to Jerusalem, and had much to do with the discovery of the holy lance. (5) The priest Tudebodus, who copied from the Gesta before 1111 and added very little of importance. (6) Ekkehard of Urach, who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 1101. (7) Radulph of Caen, who in 1107 joined Tancred and related what he heard from him. (8) Guibert of Nogent, who was present at Clermont and wrote about 1110. (9) Baldric of Dol, who was at Clermont and copied from the Gesta in Jerusalem.

Another contemporary, Anna Comnena, b. 1083, is an exception and reports the activity of Peter prior to the Council of Clermont, and says he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but was not permitted by the Turks to enter. He then hastened to Europe and preached about the woes of the city in order to provide a way to visit it again. Hagenmeyer is constrained by Anna’s testimony to concede that Peter actually set forth on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but did not reach the city.

The silence of nine contemporary writers is certainly very noticeable. They had the means of knowing the facts. Why, then, do we accept the later statements of Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre? These are the considerations.

1. The silence of contemporary writers is not a final argument against events. Eusebius, the chief historian of the ancient Church, utterly ignores the Catacombs. Silence, said Dr. Philip Schaff, referring to the Crusades, "is certainly not conclusive," "Reformed Ch. Rev." 1893, p. 449. There is nothing in the earlier accounts contradictory to Peter’s activity prior to the Clermont synod. One and another of the writers omit important events of the First Crusade, but that is not a sufficient reason for our setting those events aside as fictitious. The Gesta has no account of Urban’s speech at Clermont or reference to it. Guibert and Fulcher leave out in their reports of Urban’s speech all reference to the appeal from Constantinople. Why does the Gesta pass over with the slightest notice Peter’s breaking away from Germany on his march to Constantinople? This author’s example is followed by Baldric, Tudebod, Fulcher, and Raymund of Agiles. These writers have not a word to say about Gottschalk, Volkmar, and Emich. As Hagenmeyer says, pp. 129, 157, no reason can be assigned for these silences, and yet the fact of these expeditions and the calamities in Hungary are not doubted.

2. The accounts of Albert of Aachen and of William of Tyre are simply told and not at all unreasonable in their essential content. William definitely makes Peter the precursor of Urban. He was, he said, "of essential service to our lord the pope, who determined to follow him without delay across the mountains. He did him the service of a forerunner and prepared the minds of men in advance so that he might easily win them for himself." There is no indication in the archbishop’s words of any purpose to disparage Urban’s part in preparing for the Crusade. Urban followed after John the Baptist. William makes Urban the centre of the assemblage at Clermont and gives to his address great space, many times the space given to the experiences of Peter, and all honor is accorded to the pope for the way in which he did his part, bk. I. 16.

3. Serious difficulties are presented in the theory of the growth of the legend of Peter’s activity. They are these: (1) Albert of Aachen lived close to the events, and at the most twenty-five years elapsed between the capture of Jerusalem and his writing. (2) There is nothing in Peter’s conduct during the progress of the Crusade to justify the growth of an heroic legend around him. The very contrary was the case. Moreover, neither Albert nor William know anything about Peter before his pilgrimage. Hagenmeyer has put the case in the proper light when he says, "Not a single authority suggests that Peter enjoyed any extraordinary repute before his connection with the Crusade. On the contrary, every one that mentions his name connects it with the Crusade," p. 120. (3) It is difficult to understand how the disposition could arise on the part of any narrator to transfer the credit of being the author of the Crusade from a pope to a monk, especially such a monk as Peter turned out to be. In reference to this consideration, Archer, p. 26, has well said, "There is little in the legend of Peter the Hermit which may not very well be true, and the story, as it stands, is more plausible than if we had to assume that tradition had transferred the credit from a pope to a simple hermit." (4) We may very well account for Anna Comnena’s story of Peter’s being turned back by the Turks by her desire to parry the force of his conversation with the Greek patriarch Simeon. It was her purpose to disparage the Crusade. Had she admitted the message of Simeon through Peter to the pope, she would have conceded a strong argument for the divine approval upon the movement. As for Anna, she makes mistakes, confusing Peter once with Adhemar and once with Peter Barthelemy.

(5) All the accounts mention Peter. He is altogether the most prominent man in stirring up interest in the Crusade subsequent to the council. Hagenmeyer goes even so far as to account for his success by the assumption that Peter made telling use of his abortive pilgrimage, missglückte Pilgerfahrt. As already stated, Peter was listened to by "in immense throngs;" no one in the memory of the abbot of Nogent had enjoyed so much honor. "He was held in higher esteem than prelates and abbots," says Robert the Monk. As if to counteract the impression upon the reader, these writers emphasize that Peter’s influence was over the rude and lawless masses, and, as Guibert says, that the bands which followed him were the dregs of France. Now it is difficult to understand how a monk, before unknown, who had never been in Jerusalem, and was not at the Council of Clermont, could at once work into his imagination such vivid pictures of the woe and wails of the Christians of the East as to attain a foremost pre-eminence as a preacher of the Crusade.

(6) Good reasons can be given for the omission of Peter’s conduct prior to the Council of Clermont by the earliest writers. The Crusade was a holy and heroic movement. The writers were interested in magnifying the part taken by the chivalry of Europe. Some of them were with Peter in the camp, and they found him heady, fanatical, impracticable, and worse. He probably was spurned by the counts and princes. Many of the writers were chaplains of these chieftains, -Raymund, Baldwin, Tancred, Bohemund. The lawlessness of Peter’s bands has been referred to. The defeat at Nicaea robbed Peter of all glory and position he might otherwise have had with the main army when it reached Asia.

Nach einer solchen Katastrophe war ofenbar auch bei diesen alles Ansehen für ihn dabei, Hagenmeyer, p. 204.

Why should legend then come to be attached to his memory? Why should not Adhemar have been chosen for the honor which was put upon this unknown monk who made so many mistakes and occupied so subordinate a position in the main crusading army? Why stain the origin of so glorious a movement by making Peter with his infirmities and ignoble birth responsible for the inception of the Crusade? It would seem as if the theory were more probable that the things which led the great Crusaders to disparage, if not to ridicule, Peter induced the earlier writers to ignore his meritorious activity prior to the Council of Clermont. After the lapse of time, when the memory of his follies was not so fresh, the real services of Peter were again recognized. For these reasons the older portrait of Peter has been regarded as the true one in all its essential features.

§ 51. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1099–1187.

Literature.—G. T. De Thaumassière: Assises et bons usages du royaume de Jérusalem, etc., Paris, 1690, 1712; Assises de Jérusalem, in Recueil des Historiens des croisades, 2 vols., Paris, 1841–1843.—Hody: Godefroy de Bouillon et les rois Latins de Jérus., 2d ed., Paris, 1859.—Röhricht: Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani, Innsbruck, 1893; Gesch. des Königreichs Jerus. 1100–1291, Innsbruck, 1898.—Lane-Poole: Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerus., N. Y., 1898. The first biography of Saladin in English, written largely from the standpoint of the Arab historians.—C. R. Conder: The Latin Kingd. of Jerus., London, 1899.—F. Kühn: Gesch. der ersten Patriarchen von Jerus., Leipzig, 1886.—Funk: art. Jerusalem, Christl. Königreich, in "Wetzer-Welte," VI. p. 1335 sqq.

Eight days after the capture of the Holy City a permanent government was established, known as the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Godfrey was elected king, but declined the title of royalty, unwilling to wear a crown of gold where the Saviour had worn a crown of thorns.

The official title of the kings was rex Latinorum in Hierusalem. In rejecting the crown, says William of Tyre, "Godfrey did so as a believing prince. He was the best of kings, the light and mirror of all others,"lumen et speculum, IX. 9, Rec., I. 377. The clergy had dreamed of the complete subjection of the civil government of Jerusalem to the spiritual government under the patriarch. The first patriarch not only secured for his jurisdiction one-fourth of Jerusalem and Jaffa, but the promise from Godfrey of the whole of both cities, provided Godfrey was successful in taking Cairo or some other large hostile city, or should die without male heirs. See Röhricht, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 218.

Godfrey extended his realm, but survived the capture of Jerusalem only a year, dying July 18, 1100. He was honored and lamented as the most disinterested and devout among the chieftains of the First Crusade. His body was laid away in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, where his reputed sword and spurs are still shown. On his tomb was the inscription:, Here lies Godfrey of Bouillon, who conquered all this territory for the Christian religion. May his soul be at rest with Christ."

Hic jacet inclitus dux Godefridus de Bouillon qui totam sitam terram acquisivit cultui christiano, cujus anima regnet cum Christo.

With the Latin kingdom was established the Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem. The election of Arnulf, chaplain to Robert of Normandy, was declared irregular, and Dagobert, or Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, was elected in his place Christmas Day, 1099.

According to Raymund of Agiles, Arnulf was a man of loose life and his amours subjects of camp songs.

The constitution and judicial procedure of the new realm were fixed by the Assizes of Jerusalem. These were deposited under seal in the church of the Holy Sepulchre and are also called the Letters of the Holy Sepulchre.

Wilken devotes a long treatment to the subject, I. pp. 307-424.

These statutes reproduced the feudal system of Europe. The conquered territory was distributed among the barons, who held their possessions under the king of Jerusalem as overlord. The four chief fiefs were Jaffa and Ascalon, Kerat, east of the Jordan, Galilee, and Sidon. The counts of Tripoli and Edessa and the prince of Antioch were independent of the kingdom of Jerusalem. A system of courts was provided, the highest being presided over by the king. Trial by combat of arms was recognized. A second court provided for justice among the burgesses. A third gave it to the natives. Villeins or slaves were treated as property according to the discretion of the master, but are also mentioned as being subject to the courts of law. The slave and the falcon were estimated as equal in value. Two slaves were held at the price of a horse and three slaves at the price of twelve oxen. The man became of age at twenty-five, the woman at twelve. The feudal system in Europe was a natural product. In Palestine it was an exotic.

The Christian occupation of Palestine did not bring with it a reign of peace. The kingdom was torn by the bitter intrigues of barons and ecclesiastics, while it was being constantly threatened from without. The inner strife was the chief source of weakness. The monks settled down in swarms over the country, and the Franciscans became the guardians of the holy places. The illegitimate offspring of the Crusaders by Moslem women, called pullani, were a degenerate race, marked by avarice, faithlessness, and debauchery.

Fulani, "anybodies." The designation fulan ibn fulan, "so and so, the son of so and so," is a most opprobrious mode of address among the Arabs.

Godfrey was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, count of Edessa, who was crowned at Bethlehem. He was a man of intelligence and the most vigorous of the kings of Jerusalem. He died of a fever in Egypt, and his body was laid at the side of his brother’s in Jerusalem.

During Baldwin’s reign, 1100–1118, the limits of the kingdom were greatly extended.

The following mode of reducing a tribe of robbers is characteristic. The robbers took refuge in a cave. Baldwin resorted to smoking them out. Two emerged; Baldwin spoke kindly to them, dressed one up and sent him back with fair promises, while he put the other to death. Ten others emerged. One was sent back and the other nine put to death. The same method was employed till two hundred and thirty had been induced to come forth and were put to death. The fires were then started again till all came forth and met the same fate.

During Baldwin’s reign most of the leaders of the First Crusade died or returned to Europe. But the ranks were being continually recruited by fresh expeditions. Pascal II., the successor of Urban II., sent forth a call for recruits. The Italian cities furnished fleets, and did important service in conjunction with the land forces. The Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese established quarters of their own in Jerusalem, Acre, and other cities. Thousands took the cross in Lombardy, France, and Germany, and were led by Anselm, archbishop of Milan, Stephen, duke of Burgundy, William, duke of Aquitaine, Ida of Austria, and others. Hugh of Vermandois, who had gone to Europe, returned. Bohemund likewise returned with thirty-four thousand men, and opposed the Greek emperor. At least two Christian armies attempted to attack Islam in its stronghold at Bagdad.

Under Baldwin II., 1118–1131, the nephew of Baldwin I., Tyre was taken, 1124. This event marks the apogee of the Crusaders’ possessions and power.

In the reign of Fulke of Anjou, 1131–1143, the husband of Millicent, Baldwin II.’s daughter, Zengi, surnamed Imaded-din, the Pillar of the Faith, threatened the very existence of the Frankish kingdom.

Baldwin III., 1143–1162, came to the throne in his youth.

From this point William of Tyre writes as an eye-witness, XVI. sqq.

Amalric, or Amaury, 1162–1173, carried his arms and diplomacy into Egypt, and saw the fall of the Fatimite dynasty which had been in power for two centuries. The power in the South now became identified with the splendid and warlike abilities of Saladin, who, with Nureddin, healed the divisions of the Mohammedans, and compacted their power from Bagdad to Cairo. Henceforth the kingdom of Jerusalem stood on the defensive. The schism between the Abassidae and the Fatimites had made the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 possible.

Baldwin IV., 1173–1184, a boy of thirteen at his accession, was, like Uzziah, a leper. Among the regents who conducted the affairs of the kingdom during his reign was the duke of Montferrat, who married Sybilla, the king’s sister. In 1174 Saladin, by the death of Nureddin, became caliph of the whole realm from Damascus to the Nile, and started on the path of God, the conquest of Jerusalem.

Baldwin V., 1184–1186, a child of five, and son of Sybilla, was succeeded by Guy of Lusignan, Sybilla’s second husband. Saladin met Guy and the Crusaders at the village of Hattin, on the hill above Tiberius, where tradition has placed the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount. The Templars and Hospitallers were there in force, and the true cross was carried by the bishop of Acre, clad in armor. On July 5, 1187, the decisive battle was fought. The Crusaders were completely routed, and thirty thousand are said to have perished. Guy of Lusignan, the masters of the Temple

According to the letter of Terricius, Master of the Temple, two hundred and ninety Templars perished, and the Saracens covered the whole land from Tyre to Gaza like swarms of ants. Richard of Hoveden, an. 1187, says the Templars fought like lions.

On Oct. 2, 1187, Saladin entered Jerusalem after it had made a brave resistance. The conditions of surrender were most creditable to the chivalry of the great commander. There were no scenes of savage butchery such as followed the entry of the Crusaders ninety years before. The inhabitants were given their liberty for the payment of money, and for forty days the procession of the departing continued. The relics stored away in the church of the Holy Sepulchre were delivered up by the conqueror for the sum of fifty thousand bezants, paid by Richard I.

The bezant was worth three dollars.

Thus ended the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Since then the worship of Islam has continued on Mount Moriah without interruption. The Christian conquests were in constant danger through the interminable feuds of the Crusaders themselves, and, in spite of the constant flow of recruits and treasure from Europe, they fell easily before the unifying leadership of Saladin.

After 1187 a line of nominal kings of Jerusalem presented a romantic picture in European affairs. The last real king, Guy of Lusignan, was released, and resumed his kingly pretension without a capital city. Conrad of Montferrat, who had married Isabella, daughter of Amalric, was granted the right of succession. He was murdered before reaching the throne, and Henry of Champagne became king of Jerusalem on Guy’s accession to the crown of Cyprus. In 1197 the two crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem were united in Amalric II. At his death the crown passed to Mary, daughter of Conrad of Montferrat. Mary’s husband was John of Brienne. At the marriage of their daughter, Iolanthe, to the emperor Frederick II., that sovereign assumed the title, King of Jerusalem.

§ 52. The Fall of Edessa and the Second Crusade.

Literature.—Odo of Deuil (near Paris), chaplain of Louis VII.: De profectione Ludovici VII. in Orientem 1147–1149 in Migne, 185, translated by Guizot: Collection, XXIV. pp. 279–384.—Otto of Freising, d. 1158, half brother of Konrad III. and uncle of Fred. Barbarossa: Chronicon, bk. VII., translated in Pertz-Wattenbach, Geschichtschreiber der Deutschen Vorzeit, Leipzig, 1881. Otto accompanied the Crusade.—Kugler: Gesch. des 2ten Kreuzzuges, Stuttgart, 1866.—The De consideratione and De militibus Christi of Bernard and the Biographies of Bernard by Neander, ed. by Deutsch, II. 81–116; Morison, Pp. 366–400; Storrs, p. 416 sqq.; Vacandard, II. 270–318, 431 sqq. F. Marion Crawford has written a novel on this Crusade: Via Crucis, a Story of the Second Crusade, N. Y., 1899.

The Second Crusade was led by two sovereigns, the emperor Konrad III. and Louis VII. of France, and owed its origin to the profound impression made in Europe by the fall of Edessa and the zealous eloquence of St. Bernard. Edessa, the outer citadel of the Crusader’s conquests, fell, December, 1144. Jocelyn II., whose father, Jocelyn I., succeeded Baldwin as proprietor of Edessa, was a weak and pleasure-loving prince. The besiegers built a fire in a breach in the wall, a piece of which, a hundred yards long, cracked with the flames and fell. An appalling massacre followed the inrush of the Turks, under Zengi, whom the Christians called the Sanguinary.

See Otto of Freising, VII. 30.

Eugenius III. rightly regarded Zengi’s victory as a threat to the continuance of the Franks in Palestine, and called upon the king of France to march to their relief. The forgiveness of all sins and life eternal were promised to all embarking on the enterprise who should die confessing their sins.

Gottlob, Kreuzablass, 106 sqq. Eugenius quoted Urban II’s decree of indulgence at Clermont.

At Easter tide, 1146, Louis, who had before, in remorse for his burning the church at Vitry with thirteen hundred persons, promised to go on a crusade, assembled a great council at Vézelai. Bernard was present and made such an overpowering impression by his address that the bearers pressed forward to receive crosses. He himself was obliged to out his robe to pieces to meet the demand.

Odo, I. 1, caeperunt undique conclamando cruces expetere ... coactus est vestes suas in cruces scindere et seminare.

From France Bernard proceeded to Basel and Constance and the cities along the Rhine, as far as Cologne. As in the case of the First Crusade, a persecution was started against the Jews on the Rhine by a monk, Radulph. Bernard firmly set himself against the fanaticism and wrote that the Church should attempt to gain the Jews by discussion, and not destroy them by the sword.

Thousands flocked to hear the fervent preacher, who added miraculous healings to the impression of his eloquence. The emperor Konrad himself was deeply moved and won. During Christmas week at Spires, Bernard preached before him an impassionate discourse. "What is there, O man," he represented Christ as saying, seated in judgment upon the imperial hearer at the last day,—"What is there which I ought to have done for thee and have not done?" He contrasted the physical prowess,

As a proof of Konrad’s strength, William of Tyre, XVII. 4, relates that at the siege of Damascus he hewed a man clad in armor through head, neck, and shoulder to the armpit with one stroke of his blade.

Konrad at once prepared for the expedition. Seventy thousand armed men, seven thousand of whom were knights, assembled at Regensburg, and proceeded through Hungary to the Bosphorus, meeting with a poor reception along the route. The Greek emperor Manuel and Konrad were brothers-in-law, having married sisters, but this tie was no protection to the Germans. Guides, provided by Manuel, "children of Belial" as William of Tyre calls them, treacherously led them astray in the Cappadocian mountains.

Bk. XVI. 20. William suggests that Manuel’s jealousy was aroused because Konrad asserted the title, king of the Romans. Diehl, Essays on the Crusades, p. 107, doubts the statement that Manuel’s guides intentionally misled and betrayed the Germans. He, however, acknowledges that Greek inhabitants of Asia Minor "fleeced or starved the Latins."

Louis received the oriflamme from Eugenius’s own hands at St. Denis, Easter, 1147, and followed the same route taken by Konrad. His queen, Eleanor, famed for her beauty, and many ladies of the court accompanied the army. The two sovereigns met at Nicaea and proceeded together to Ephesus. Konrad returned to Constantinople by ship, and Louis, after reaching Attalia, left the body of his army to proceed by land, and sailed to Antioch.

At Antioch, Eleanor laid herself open to the serious charge of levity, if not to infidelity to her marriage vow. She and the king afterward publicly separated at Jerusalem, and later were divorced by the pope. Eleanor was then joined to Henry of Anjou, and later became the queen of Henry II. of England. Konrad, who reached Acre by ship from Constantinople, met Louis at Jerusalem, and in company with Baldwin III. the two sovereigns from the West offered their devotions in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. At a council of the three held under the walls of Acre,

William of Tyre, XVII., gives a list of the distinguished personages present, Bishop Otto of Freising, the emperor’s brother, being among them.

Edessa remained lost to the Crusaders, and Damascus never fell into their power.

§ 53. The Third Crusade. 1189–1192.

For Richard I.: Itinerarium perigrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi, ed. by Stubbs, London, 1864, Rolls Series, formerly ascribed to Geoffrey de Vinsauf, but, since Stubbs, to Richard de Templo or left anonymous. Trans. in Chronicles of the Crusades, Bohn’s Libr., 1870. The author accompanied the Crusade.—De Hoveden, ed. by Stubbs, 4 vols., London, 1868–1871; Engl. trans. by Riley, vol. II. pp. 63–270.—Giraldus Cambrensis: Itinerarium Cambriae, ed. by Brewer and Dimock, London, 7 vols. 1861–1877, vol. VI., trans. by R. C. Hoare, London, 1806.—Richard De Devizes: Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi, etc., London, 1838, trans. in Bohn’s Chron. of the Crusades.—Roger Wendover.—De Joinville: Crusade of St. Louis, trans. in Chron. of the Crus.

For full list of authorities on Richard see art. Richard by Archer in Dict. of Vat. Biog. — G. P. R. James: Hist. of the Life of B. Coeur de Lion, new ed. 2 vols. London, 1854. —T. A. Archer: The Crusade of Richard I., being a collation of Richard de Devizes, etc., London, 1868.—Gruhn: Der Kreuzzug Richard I., Berlin, 1892.

For Frederick Barbarossa: Ansbert, an eye-witness: Hist. de expeditione Frid., 1187–1196, ed. by Jos. Dobrowsky, Prague, 1827.—For other sources, see Wattenbach: Deutsche Geschichtsquellen, II. 303 sqq., and Potthast: Bibl. Hist., II. 1014, 1045, etc.—Karl Fischer: Gesch. des Kreuzzugs Fried. I., Leipzig, 1870.—H. Prutz: Kaiser Fried. I., 3 vols. Dantzig, 1871–1873.—Von Raumer: Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, vol. II. 5th ed. Leipzig, 1878.—Giesebrecht: Deutsche Kaiserzeit, vol. V.

For Saladin: Baha-ed-din, a member of Saladin’s court, 1145–1234, the best Arabic Life, in the Recueil, Histt. Orientaux, etc., III., 1884, and in Palestine, Pilgrim’s Text Soc., ed. by Sir C. W. Wilson, London, 1897.—Marin: Hist. de Saladin, sulthan d’Égypte et de Syrie, Paris, 1758.—Lane-Poole: Saladin and the Fall of Jerusalem, New York, 1898, a full list and an estimate of Arab authorities are given, pp. iii-xvi.

See also the general Histories of the Crusades and Ranke: Weltgesch., VIII.

The Third Crusade was undertaken to regain Jerusalem, which had been lost to Saladin, 1187. It enjoys the distinction of having had for its leaders the three most powerful princess of Western Europe, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, king of France, and the English king Richard I., surnamed Coeur de Lion, or the Lion-hearted.

The story of Richard’s seizing a lion and tearing out its throbbing heart was a subject of English romance in the fourteenth century and probably of French romance in the thirteenth century.

On the news of Saladin’s victories, Urban III. is alleged to have died of grief.

It required at least fifteen days for a ship to go from Acre to Marseilles, and about the same time for news to reach Rome from Jerusalem. The indulgences offered to Crusaders by Alexander III., on the news of Saladin’s conquests in Egypt and his defeat of the Christians at Banias, 1181, are quoted by Gottlob, 119 sq. Alexander appealed to the examples of Urban II, and Eugenius III.

Richard and Philip met at Vézelai. Among the great lords who joined them were Hugh, duke of Burgundy, Henry II., count of Champagne, and Philip of Flanders. As a badge for himself and his men, the French king chose a red cross, Richard a white cross, and the duke of Flanders a green cross.

In the meantime Frederick Barbarossa, who was on the verge of seventy, had reached the Bosphorus. Mindful of his experiences with Konrad III., whom he accompanied on the Second Crusade, he avoided the mixed character of Konrad’s army by admitting to the ranks only those who were physically strong and had at least three marks. The army numbered one hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand sat in the saddle. Frederick of Swabia accompanied his father, the emperor.

Setting forth from Ratisbon in May, 1189, the German army had proceeded by way of Hungary to Constantinople. The Greek emperor, Isaac Angelus, far from regarding the Crusaders’ approach with favor, threw Barbarossa’s commissioners into prison and made a treaty with Saladin.

Frederick announced his expedition in a letter to Saladin, in which he enumerated the tribes that were to take part in it, from the "tall Bavarian" to the sailors of Venice and Pisa. See Itin. reg. Ricardi de Hoveden, etc.

Philip and Richard reached the Holy Land by the Mediterranean. They sailed for Sicily, 1190, Philip from Genoa, Richard from Marseilles. Richard found employment on the island in asserting the rights of his sister Joan, widow of William II. of Sicily, who had been robbed of her dower by William’s illegitimate son, Tancred. "Quicker than priest can chant matins did King Richard take Messina."

Itinerary, III. 16.

Leaving Sicily,

Richard’s fleet, when he sailed from Messina, consisted of one hundred and fifty large ships and fifty-three galleys.

Acre, or Ptolemais, under Mount Carmel, had become the metropolis of the Crusaders, as it was the key to the Holy Land. Christendom had few capitals so gay in its fashions and thronged with such diverse types of nationality. Merchants were there from the great commercial marts of Europe. The houses, placed among gardens, were rich with painted glass. The Hospitallers and Templars had extensive establishments.

Against Acre, Guy of Lusignan had been laying siege for two years. Released by Saladin upon condition of renouncing all claim to his crown and going beyond the seas, he had secured easy absolution from the priest from this solemn oath. Baldwin of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury, and the justiciar Ranulf of Glanvill had arrived on the scene before Richard. "We found our army," wrote the archbishop’s chaplain,

The Itinerary, I., 66, says Baldwin was made sick unto death when he saw "the army altogether dissolute and given up to drinking, women, and dice."

Saladin was watching the besiegers and protecting the garrison. The horrors of the siege made it one of the memorable sieges of the Middle Ages.

The loss before Acre was very heavy. The Itinerary gives a list of 6 archbishops, 12 bishops, 40 counts, and 500 knights who lost their lives. IV. 6. De Hoveden also gives a formidable list, in which are included the names of the dukes of Swabia, Flanders, and Burgundy, the archbishops of Besançon, Arles, Montreal, etc. Baldwin died Nov. 19, 1190. The Itinerary compares the siege of Acre to the siege of Troy, and says. (I. 32) "it would certainly obtain eternal fame as a city for which the whole world contended."

The advance upon Jerusalem was delayed by rivalries between the armies and their leaders. Richard’s prowess, large means, and personal popularity threw Philip into the shade, and he was soon on his way back to France, leaving the duke of Burgundy as leader of the French. The French and Germans also quarrelled.

Itinerary, I. 44.

A dark blot rests upon Richard’s memory for the murder in cold blood of twenty-seven hundred prisoners in the full sight of Saladin’s troops and as a punishment for the non-payment of the ransom money. The massacre, a few days before, of Christian captives, if it really occurred, in part explains but cannot condone the crime.

This pretext is upon the sole authority of de Hoveden, an. 1191. He says, however, that Saladin did not execute the Christian captives until Richard had declined to withdraw his threat and to give more time for the payment of the ransom money and the delivery of the true cross. Archer, Hist. of the Crusades, p. 331, thinks that Baba-ed-din’s account implies Saladin’s massacre; but Lane-Poole, Life of Saladin, p. 307, is of the contrary opinion. The Itinerary, IV. 4, states that Richard’s followers, leapt forward to fulfil his commands, thankful to the divine grace for the permission to take such vengeance for the Christians whom the captives had slain with bolts and arrows."It has nothing to say of a massacre by Saladin. Lane-Poole, carried away by admiration for Saladin, takes occasion at this point to say that " in the struggle of the Crusades the virtues of civilization, magnanimity, toleration, real chivalry, and gentle culture were an on the side of the Saracens."The duke of Burgundy was party to the massacre of the Turkish captives.

Jaffa and Ascalon became the next points of the Crusaders’ attack, the operations being drawn out to a wearisome length. Richard’s feats of physical strength and martial skill are vouched for by eye-witnesses, who speak of him as cutting swathes through the enemy with his sword and mowing them down, "as the reapers mow down the corn with their sickles." So mighty was his strength that, when a Turkish admiral rode at him in full charge, Richard severed his neck and one shoulder by a single blow. But the king’s dauntless though coarse courage was not joined to the gifts of a leader fit for such a campaign.

Itinerary, VI. 23. Here is a description of one of Richard’s frequent frays as given in the Itinerary, VI. 4: "Richard was conspicuous above all the rest by his royal bearing. He was mounted on a tall charger and charged the enemy singly. His ashen lance was shivered by his repeated blows; but instantly drawing his sword, he pressed upon the fugitive Turks and mowed them down, sweeping away the hindmost and subduing the foremost. Thus he thundered on, cutting and hewing. No kind of armor could resist his blows, for the edge of his sword cut open the heads from the top to the teeth. Thus waving his sword to and fro, he scared away the routed Turks as a wolf when he pursues the flying sheep."

The exploits of the English king won even the admiration of the Arabs, whose historian reports how he rode up and down in front of the Saracen army defying them, and not a man dared to touch him. Presents passed between him and Saladin.

Baha-ed-din, as quoted by Lane-Poole, p. 354. De Hoveden speaks of fruits, the Itinerary of horses. Later story ascribes to Saladin a yearly grant of one thousand bezants of gold to the Knights of St. John at Acre. In order to test the charity of the knights, the sultan had gone to the hospital in disguise and found the reports of their merciful treatment well founded. Of this and of the story of his knighthood at the hands of Humphrey of Toron, and vouched for by the contemporary Itinerary of King Richard, the Arab authorities know nothing. See Lane-Poole,Life of Saladin, 387 sqq.

On his way back to England he was seized by Leopold, duke of Austria, whose enmity he had incurred before Joppa. The duke turned his captive over to the emperor, Henry VI., who had a grudge to settle growing out of Sicilian matters. Richard was released only on the humiliating terms of paying an enormous ransom and consenting to hold his kingdom as a fief of the empire. Saladin died March 4, 1193, by far the most famous of the foes of the Crusaders. Christendom has joined with Arab writers in praise of his chivalric courage, culture, and magnanimity.

A western legend given by Vincent de Beauvais relates that as Saladin was dying he called to him his standard-bearer and bade him carry through the streets of Damascus the banner of his death as he had carried the banner of his wars; namely, a rag attached to a lance, and cry out. "Lo, at his death, the king of the East can take nothing with him but this cloth only."

The recapture of Acre and the grant of protection to the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem were paltry achievements in view of the loss of life, the long months spent in making ready for the Crusade, the expenditure of money, and the combination of the great nations of Europe. In this case, as in the other Crusades, it was not so much the Saracens, or even the splendid abilities of Saladin, which defeated the Crusaders, but their feuds among themselves. Never again did so large an army from the West contend for the cross on Syrian soil.

§ 54. The Children’s Crusades.

Literature.—For the sources, see Wilken: Gesch. der Kreuzzüge, VI. 71–83.—Des Essards: La Croisade des enfants, Paris, 1875. — Röhricht, Die Kinderkreuzzüge, in Sybel, Hist. Zeitschrift, vol. XXXVI., 1876.—G. Z. Gray: The Children’s Crusade, N. Y., 1872, new ed. 1896.—Isabel S. Stone: The Little Crusaders, N. Y., 1901.—Hurter: Innocent III., II. 482–489.

The most tragic of the Crusader tragedies were the crusades of the children. They were a slaughter of the innocents on a large scale, and belong to those mysteries of Providence which the future only will solve.

The crusading epidemic broke out among the children of France and Germany in 1212. Begotten in enthusiasm, which was fanned by priestly zeal, the movement ended in pitiful disaster.

The French expedition was led by Stephen, a shepherd lad of twelve, living at Cloyes near Chartres. He had a vision, so the rumor went, in which Christ appeared to him as a pilgrim and made an appeal for the rescue of the holy places. Journeying to St. Denis, the boy retailed the account of what he had seen. Other children gathered around him. The enthusiasm spread from Brittany to the Pyrenees. In vain did the king of France attempt to check the movement. The army increased to thirty thousand, girls as well as boys, adults as well as children.

Hurter regards the numbers handed down as greatly exaggerated.

The centres of the movement in Germany were Nicholas, a child of ten, and a second leader whose name has been lost. Cologne was the rallying point. Children of noble families enlisted. Along with the boys and girls went men and women, good and bad.

The army under the anonymous leader passed through Eastern Switzerland and across the Alps to Brindisi, whence some of the children sailed, never to be heard from again. The army of Nicholas reached Genoa in August, 1212. The children sang songs on the way, and with them has been wrongly associated the tender old German hymn:

The numbers had been reduced by hardship, death, and moral shipwreck from twenty to seven thousand. At Genoa the waters were as pitiless as they were at Marseilles. Some of the children remained in the city and became, it is said, the ancestors of distinguished families.

Wilken for this assertion quotes theHistory of the Genoese Senate and People, by Peter Bizari, Antwerp, 1679. One of the families was the house of the Vivaldi.

The fate of the French children was, if possible, still more pitiable. At Marseilles they fell a prey to two slave dealers, who for "the sake of God and without price" offered to convey them across the Mediterranean. Their names are preserved,—Hugo Ferreus and William Porcus. Seven vessels set sail. Two were shipwrecked on the little island of San Pietro off the northwestern coast of Sardinia. The rest reached the African shore, where the children were sold into slavery.

The shipwreck of the little Crusaders was commemorated by Gregory IX., in the chapel of the New Innocents, ecclesia novorum innocentium, which he built on San Pietro. Innocent III. in summoning Europe to a new crusade included in his appeal the spectacle of their sacrifice. "They put us to shame. While they rush to the recovery of the Holy Land, we sleep."

See Wilken, VI. 83.

§ 55. The Fourth Crusade and the Capture of Constantinople. 1200–1204.

Literature.—Nicetas Acominatus, Byzantine patrician and grand logothete. During the Crusaders’ investment of Constantinople his palace was burnt, and with his wife and daughter he fled to Nicaea: Byzantina Historia, 1118–1206, in Recueil des historiens des Croisades, histor. Grecs, vol. I., and in Migne, Patr. Gr., vols. 139, 140.—Geoffroi de Villehardouin, a prominent participant in the Crusade, d. 1213?: Hist. de la Conquête de Constantinople avec la continuation de Henri de Valenciennes, earliest ed., Paris, 1585, ed. by Du Cange, Paris, 1857, and N. de Wailly, Paris, 1871, 3d ed. 1882, and E. Bouchet, with new trans., Paris, 1891. For other editions, See Potthast, II. 1094. Engl. trans. by T. Smith, London, 1829.—Robert de Clary, d. after 1216, a participant in the Crusade: La Prise de Constant., 1st ed. by P. Riant, Paris, 1868.—Guntherus Alemannus, a Cistercian, d. 1220?: Historia Constantinopolitana, in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. 212, 221–265, and ed. by Riant, Geneva, 1875, and repeated in his Exuviae Sacrae, a valuable description, based upon the relation of his abbot, Martin, a participant in the Crusade.—Innocent III. Letters, in Migne, vols. 214–217.—Charles Hopf: Chroniques Graeco-Romanes inédites ou peu connues, Berlin, 1873. Contains De Clary, the Devastatio Constantinopolitana, etc.—C. Klimke: D. Quellen zur Gesch. des 4ten Kreuzzuges, Breslau, 1875.—Short extracts from Villehardouin and De Clary are given in Trans. and Reprints, published by University of Pennsylvania, vol. III., Philadelphia, 1896.

Paul De Riant: Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae, Geneva, 1877–1878, 2 vols.—Tessier: Quatrième Croisade, la diversion sur Zara et Constantinople, Paris, 1884.—E. Pears: The Fall of Constantinople, being the Story of the Fourth Crusade, N. Y., 1886.—W. Nordau: Der vierte Kreuzzug, 1898.—A. Charasson: Un curé plébéien au XIIe Siècle, Foulques, Prédicateur de la IVe Croisade, Paris, 1905.—Gibbon, LX., LXI.—Hurter: Life of Innocent III., vol. I.—Ranke: Weltgesch., VIII. 280–298.—C. W. C. Oman: The Byzantine Empire, 1895, pp. 274–306.—F. C. Hodgson: The Early History of Venice, from the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople, 1204, 1901. An appendix contains an excursus on the historical sources of the Fourth Crusade.

It would be difficult to find in history a more notable diversion of a scheme from its original purpose than the Fourth Crusade. Inaugurated to strike a blow at the power which held the Holy Land, it destroyed the Christian city of Zara and overthrew the Greek empire of Constantinople. Its goals were determined by the blind doge, Henry Dandolo of Venice. As the First Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, so the Fourth Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople.

Innocent III., on ascending the papal throne, threw himself with all the energy of his nature into the effort of reviving the crusading spirit. He issued letter after letter

See the ample description of Hurter, I. pp. 221-230, etc.

For the expense of a new expedition the pope set apart one-tenth of his revenue, and he directed the cardinals to do the same. The clergy and all Christians were urged to give liberally. The goods and lands of Crusaders were to enjoy the special protection of the Holy See. Princes were instructed to compel Jewish money-lenders to remit interest due from those going on the expedition. Legates were despatched to Genoa, Pisa, and Venice to stir up zeal for the project; and these cities were forbidden to furnish to the Saracens supplies of arms, food, or other material. A cardinal was appointed to make special prayers for the Crusade, as Moses had prayed for Israel against the Amalekites.

The Cistercian abbot, Martin, preached in Germany;

Guntherus, Migne, 212, 225.

The leaders, meeting at Soissons in 1200, sent a deputation to Venice to secure transportation for the army. Egypt was chosen as the point of landing and attack, it being held that a movement would be most apt to be successful which cut off the Saracens’ supplies at their base in the land of the Nile.

Villehardouin, who was one of the six members of the commission (Wailly’s ed., p. 11), says, "The Turks could be more easily destroyed there than in any other country." Egypt was often called by the Crusaders, "the land of Babylon."

The Venetian Grand Council agreed to provide ships for 9000 esquires, 4500 knights, 20,000 foot-soldiers, and 4500 horses, and to furnish provisions for nine months for the sum of 85,000 marks, or about $1,000,000 in present money.

Wailly’s edition of Villehardouin, p. 452, makes the sum 4,420,000 francs. It reckons a mark as the equivalent of 52 francs. The Grand Council added fifty armed galleys "for the love of God," on condition that during the continuance of the alliance Venice should have one-half the spoils of conquest.

The crusading forces mustered at Venice. The fleet was ready, but the Crusaders were short of funds, and able to pay only 50,000 marks of the stipulated sum. Dandolo took advantage of these straits to advance the selfish aims of Venice, and proposed, as an equivalent for the balance of the passage money, that the Crusaders aid in capturing Zara.

Villehardouin, 56 sqq.; Wailly’s ed., 33 sq.

The departure of four hundred and eighty gayly rigged vessels is described by several eye-witnesses

Villehardouin and Robert de Clary. Clary’s account is very vivacious and much the more detailed of the two.

Zara was taken Nov. 24, 1202, given over to plunder, and razed to the ground. No wonder Innocent wrote that Satan had been the instigator of this destructive raid upon a Christian people and excommunicated the participants in it.

A deputation afterwards visited Innocent and secured his absolution, Villehardouin, 107; Wailly’s ed., 61. The news of the death of Fulke of Neuilly reached the Crusaders on the eve of their breaking away from Venice. Villehardouin, 73; Wailly’s ed., 43, calls him le bon, le saint homme.

Organized to dislodge the Saracens and reduced to a filibustering expedition, the Crusade was now to be directed against Constantinople. The rightful emperor, Isaac Angelus, was languishing in prison with his eyes put out by the hand of the usurper, Alexius III., his own brother. Isaac’s son, Alexius, had visited Innocent III. and Philip of Swabia, appealing for aid in behalf of his father. Philip, claimant to the German throne, had married the prince’s sister. Greek messengers appeared at Zara to appeal to Dandolo and the Crusaders to take up Isaac’s cause. The proposal suited the ambition of Venice, which could not have wished for a more favorable opportunity to confirm her superiority over the Pisans and Genoans, which had been threatened, if not impaired, on the Bosphorus.

As a compensation, Alexius made the tempting offer of 200,000 marks silver, the maintenance for a year of an army of 10,000 against the Mohammedans, and of 500 knights for life as a guard for the Holy Land, and the submission of the Eastern Church to the pope. The doge fell in at once with the proposition, but it was met by strong voices of dissent in the ranks of the Crusaders. Innocent’s threat of continued excommunication, if the expedition was turned against Constantinople, was ignored. A few of the Crusaders, like Simon de Montfort, refused to be used for private ends and withdrew from the expedition.

Villehardouin, 109. Pears, p. 268, speaks pathetically of the Crusaders as "about to commit the great crime of the Middle Ages, by the destruction of the citadel against which the hitherto irresistible wave of Moslem invasion had beaten and been broken." Not praiseworthy, it is true, was the motive of the Crusaders, yet there is no occasion for bemoaning the fate of Constantinople and the Greeks. The conquest of the Latins prolonged the successful resistance to the Turks.

Before reaching Corfu, the fleet was joined by Alexius in person. By the end of June, 1203, it had passed through the Dardanelles and was anchored opposite the Golden Horn. After prayers and exhortations by the bishops and clergy, the Galata tower was taken. Alexius III. fled, and Isaac was restored to the throne.

The agreements made with the Venetians, the Greeks found it impossible to fulfil. Confusion reigned among them. Two disastrous conflagrations devoured large portions of the city. One started in a mosque which evoked the wrath of the Crusaders.

Arabs were allowed to live in the city and granted the privileges of their religious rites. Gibbon with characteristic irony says. "The Flemish pilgrims were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or a synagogue in which one God was worshipped without a partner or a son."

The confusion within the palace and the failure to pay the promised reward were a sufficient excuse for the invaders to assault the city, which fell April 12, 1204.

Villehardouin, 233, Wailly’s ed. p. 137, pronounces the capture of Constantinople one of the most difficult feats ever undertaken, une des plus redoutables choses à faire qui jamais fut. A city of such strong fortifications the Franks had not seen before.

Innocent III., writing of the conquest of the city, says: —

"You have spared nothing that is sacred, neither age nor sex. You have given yourselves up to prostitution, to adultery, and to debauchery in the face of all the world. You have glutted your guilty passions, not only on married women, but upon women and virgins dedicated to the Saviour. You have not been content with the imperial treasures and the goods of rich and poor, but you have seized even the wealth of the Church and what belongs to it. You have pillaged the silver tables of the altars, you have broken into the sacristies and stolen the vessels."

Reg., VIII. Ep., 133.

To the revolt at these orgies succeeding ages have added regret for the irreparable loss which literature and art suffered in the wild and protracted sack. For the first time in eight hundred years its accumulated treasures were exposed to the ravages of the spoiler, who broke up the altars in its churches, as in St. Sophia, or melted priceless pieces of bronze statuary on the streets and highways.

Nicetas gives a list of these losses. See Gibbon, LX., and Hurter.

Constantinople proved to be the richest of sacred storehouses, full of relics, which excited the cupidity and satisfied the superstition of the Crusaders, who found nothing inconsistent in joining devout worship and the violation of the eighth commandment in getting possession of the objects of worship.

Villehardouin, 191; Wailly’s ed., 111, says des reliques it n’en faut point parler, car en ce jour il y en avait autant dans la ville que dans le reste du monde. The account of Guntherus, Migne, 212, 253 sqq., is the most elaborate. His informant the Abbot Martin, was an insatiable relic hunter.

Perhaps no sacred relics were received with more outward demonstrations of honor than the true crown of thorns, which Baldwin II. transferred to the king of France for ten thousand marks of silver.

Matthew Paris, in his account, says, "It was precious beyond gold or topaz, and to the credit of the French kingdom, and indeed, of all the Latins, it was solemnly and devoutly received in grand procession amidst the ringing of bells and the devout prayers of the faithful followers of Christ, and was placed in the king’s chapel in Paris." Luard’s ed., IV. 75; Giles’s trans., I. 311.

The Latin Empire of Constantinople, which followed the capture of the city, lasted from 1204 to 1261. Six electors representing the Venetians and six representing the Crusaders met in council and elected Baldwin of Flanders, emperors.

The mode of election was fixed before the capture of the city, Villehardouin, 234, 256-261; Wailly’s ed., 137,152 sqq. The election took place in a chamber of the palace. The leader of the French forces, Boniface of Montferrat, married the widow of the emperor Isaac and was made king of Salonica. Innocent III. (VIII. 134, Migne, 215, 714) congratulated Isaac’s widow upon her conversion to the Latin Church.

The attitude of Innocent III. to this remarkable transaction of Christian soldiery exhibited at once his righteous indignation and his politic acquiescence in the new responsibility thrust upon the Apostolic see.

He wrote to Baldwin that, while it was desirable the Eastern Church should be subdued, he was more concerned that the Holy Land should be rescued. He urged him and the Venetians to eat the bread of repentance that they might fight the battle of the Lord with a pure heart.

The last of the Latin emperors, Baldwin III., 1237–1261, spent most of his time in Western Europe making vain appeals for money. After his dethronement, in l261, by Michael Palaeologus he presents a pitiable spectacle, seeking to gain the ear of princes and ecclesiastics. For two hundred years more the Greeks had an uncertain tenure on the Bosphorus. The loss of Constantinople was bound to come sooner or later in the absence of a moral and muscular revival of the Greek people. The Latin conquest of the city was a romantic episode, and not a stage in the progress of civilization in the East; nor did it hasten the coming of the new era of letters in Western Europe. It widened the schism of the Greek and the Latin churches. The only party to reap substantial gain from the Fourth Crusade was the Venetians.

Pears concludes his work, The Fall of Constantinople, by the false judgment that the effects of the Fourth Crusade were altogether disastrous for civilization. He surmises that, but for it, the city would never have fallen into the hands of the Turks, and the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea would now be surrounded by "prosperous and civilized nations," pp. 412 sqq. There was no movement of progress in the Byzantine empire for the Crusaders to check.

§ 56. Frederick II. and the Fifth Crusade. 1229.

Röhricht: Studien zur Gesch. d. V. Kreuzzuges, Innsbruck, 1891.—Hauck, IV. 752–764, and the lit., §§ 42, 49.

Innocent III.’s ardor for the reconquest of Palestine continued unabated till his death. A fresh crusade constituted one of the main objects for which the Fourth Lateran Council was called. The date set for it to start was June 1, 1217, and it is known as the Fifth Crusade. The pope promised £30,000 from his private funds, and a ship to convey the Crusaders going from Rome and its vicinity. The cardinals joined him in promising to contribute one-tenth of their incomes and the clergy were called upon to set apart one-twentieth of their revenues for three years for the holy cause. To the penitent contributing money to the crusade, as well as to those participating in it, full indulgence for sins was offered.

Plenam suorum peccaminum veniam indulgemus. See Mansi, XXII. 1067; Mirbt, Quellen, 126, Gottlob, 137 sq.

Innocent died without seeing the expedition start. For his successor Honorius III., its promotion was a ruling passion, but he also died without seeing it realized.

In 1217 Andreas of Hungary led an army to Syria, but accomplished nothing. In 1219 William of Holland with his Germans, Norwegians, and Danes helped John of Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, to take Damietta. This city, situated on one of the mouths of the Nile, was a place of prime commercial importance and regarded as the key of Egypt. Egypt had come to be regarded as the proper way of military approach to Palestine. Malik-al-Kameel, who in 1218 had succeeded to power in Egypt, offered the Christians Jerusalem and all Palestine, except Kerak, together with the release of all Christian prisoners, on condition of the surrender of Damietta. It was a grand opportunity of securing the objects for which the Crusaders had been fighting, but, elated by victory and looking for help from the emperor, Frederick II., they rejected the offer. In 1221 Damietta fell back into the hands of Mohammedans.

For the text of Frederick’s summons to his crusade of 1221, see Mathews, Select Med. Documents, 120 sq.

The Fifth Crusade reached its results by diplomacy more than by the sword. Its leader, Frederick II., had little of the crusading spirit, and certainly the experiences of his ancestors Konrad and Barbarossa were not adapted to encourage him. His vow, made at his coronation in Aachen and repeated at his coronation in Rome, seems to have had little binding force for him. His marriage with Iolanthe, granddaughter of Conrad of Montferrat and heiress of the crown of Jerusalem, did not accelerate his preparations to which he was urged by Honorius III. In 1227 he sailed from Brindisi; but, as has already been said, he returned to port after three days on account of sickness among his men.

Funk, in Wetzer-Welte, VII. 1166, says that in view of contemporary testimony, Frederick’s sickness cannot be doubted. Roger Wendover, an. 1227, however, doubted it. Funk is wrong in saying that it was not till 1239 that Gregory, aggravated by the emperor’s conduct, impeached Frederick’s plea of sickness. In his sentence of excommunication of 1228, Gregory asserted that Frederick II "was enticed away to the usual pleasures of his kingdom and made a frivolous pretext of bodily infirmity." In 1235, at a time when emperor and pope were reconciled, Gregory spoke of Jerusalem, "as being restored to our well-beloved son in Christ, Frederick."

At last the emperor set forth with forty galleys and six hundred knights, and arrived in Acre, Sept. 7,1228. The sultans of Egypt and Damascus were at the time in bitter conflict. Taking advantage of the situation, Frederick concluded with Malik-al-Kameel a treaty which was to remain in force ten years and delivered up to the Christians Jerusalem with the exception of the mosque of Omar and the Temple area, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the pilgrim route from Acre to Jerusalem.

See Röhricht, Regesta regni Hier., 262, and Bréholles, III. 86-90.

Recalled probably by the dangers threatening his kingdom, Frederick arrived in Europe in the spring of 1229, but only to find himself for the fourth time put under the ban by his implacable antagonist, Gregory. In 1235 Gregory was again appealing to Christendom to make preparations for another expedition, and in his letter of 1239, excommunicating the emperor for the fifth time, he pronounced him the chief impediment in the way of a crusade.

In 1240 a petition signed by German bishops and princes and addressed to Gregory urged him to cease from strife with Frederick as it interfered with a crusade. Bréholles, V. 985.

It was certainly a singular spectacle that the Holy City should be gained by a diplomatic compact and not by hardship, heroic struggle, and the intervention of miracle, whether real or imagined. It was still more singular that the sacred goal should be reached without the aid of ecclesiastical sanction, nay in the face of solemn papal denunciation.

Frederick II. has been called by Freeman an unwilling Crusader and the conquest of Jerusalem a grotesque episode in his life.

Hist. Essays, I. 283-313.

Gregory’s continued appeals in 1235 and the succeeding years called for some minor expeditions, one of them led by Richard of Cornwall, afterwards German emperor-elect. The condition of the Christians in Palestine grew more and more deplorable and, in a battle with the Chorasmians, Oct. 14, 1244, they met with a disastrous defeat, and thenceforth Jerusalem was closed to them.

§ 57. St. Louis and the Last Crusades. 1248, 1270.

Literature. —Jehan de Joinville, d. 1319, the next great historical writer in old French after Villehardouin, companion of St. Louis on his first Crusade: Hist. de St. Louis, 1st ed. Poitiers, 1547; by Du Cange, 1668; by Michaud in Mémoires à l’hist. de France, Paris, 1857, I. 161–329, and by de Wailly, Paris, 1868. For other edd. see Potthast, Bibl., I. 679–681. Engl. trans., M. Th. Johnes, Haford, 1807, included in Chronicles of the Crusades, Bohn’s Libr. 340–556, and J. Hutton, London, 1868. Tillemont: Vie de St. Louis, publ. for the first time, Paris, 1847–1851, 6 vols.—Scholten: Gesch. Ludwigs des Heiligen, ed. by Junkemann and Janssen, 2 vols. Münster, 1850–1855.—Guizot: St. Louis and Calvin, Paris, 1868.—Mrs. Bray: Good St. Louis and his Times, London, 1870.—Wallon: St. Louis et son Temps, 3d ed. Tours, 1879. — St. Pathus: Vie de St. Louis, publiée par F. Delaborde, Paris, 1899.—F. Perry: St. Louis, Most Christian King, London, 1901.—Lane-Poole: Hist. of Egypt in the M. A., N. Y., 1901.

One more great Crusader, one in whom genuine piety was a leading trait, was yet to set his face towards the East and, by the abrupt termination of his career through sickness, to furnish one of the most memorable scenes in the long drama of the Crusades. The Sixth and Seventh Crusades owe their origin to the devotion of Louis IX., king of France, usually known as St. Louis. Louis combined the piety of the monk with the chivalry of the knight, and stands in the front rank of Christian sovereigns of all times.

"Piety was his ruling passion." Guizot, p. 117. De Joinville frequently calls him "the good king" and Matthew Paris "that most Christian king."

On one occasion, when he asked Joinville if he were called upon to choose between being a leper and committing mortal sin, which his choice would be, the seneschal replied, "he would rather commit thirty mortal sins than be a leper." The next day the king said to him, "How could you say what you did? There is no leper so hideous as he who is in a state of mortal sin. The leprosy of the body will pass away at death, but the leprosy of the soul may cling to it forever."

The sack of Jerusalem by the Chorasmians,

See the account in a letter from the prelates of the Holy Land in Matthew Paris, an. 1244. The invaders were called Tartars by Robert, patriarch of Jerusalem, in his letter to Innocent IV. Röhriclit, Reg. regni Hier., p. 299.

On June 12, 1248, Louis received at St. Denis from the hand of the papal legate the oriflamme, and the pilgrim’s wallet and staff. He was joined by his three brothers, Robert, count of Artois, Alphonso, count of Poitiers, and Charles of Anjou. Among others to accompany the king were Jean de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, whose graphic chronicle has preserved the annals of the Crusade.

Joinville, accompanied by twenty knights, joined the king at Cyprus. He was a man of religious fervor, made pilgrimages to all the shrines in the vicinity of his castle before his departure, and never failed in his long absence to confine himself to bread and water on Fridays (History, an. 1250). One of his paragraphs gives a graphic insight into the grief which must have been felt by thousands of Crusaders as they left their homes for the long and uncertain journey to the East. It runs: "In passing near the castle of Joinville, I dared never turn my eyes that way for fear of feeling too great regret and lest my courage should fail on leaving my children and my fair castle of Joinville, which I loved in my heart."

Leaving Alexandria to one side, and following the advice of the count of Artois, who argued that whoso wanted to kill a snake should first strike its head, Louis marched in the direction of the capital, Cairo, or Babylon, as it was called. The army was harassed by a sleepless foe, and reduced by fevers and dysentery. The Nile became polluted with the bodies of the dead.

See the appalling description of Joinville, an. 1249.

The king’s patient fortitude shone brightly in these misfortunes. Threatened with torture and death, he declined to deviate from his faith or to yield up any of the places in Palestine. For the ransom of his troops, he agreed to pay 500,000 livres, and for his own freedom to give up Damietta and abandon Egypt. The sultan remitted a fifth part of the ransom money on hearing of the readiness with which the king had accepted the terms.

Clad in garments which were a gift from the sultan, and in a ship meagrely furnished with comforts, the king sailed for Acre. On board ship, hearing that his brother, the count of Anjou, and Walter de Nemours were playing for money, he staggered from his bed of sickness and throwing the dice, tables, and money into the sea, reprimanded the count that he should be so soon forgetful of his brother’s death and the other disasters in Egypt, as to game.

Joinville, an. 1250.

Like Richard the Lion-hearted, Louis did not look upon Jerusalem. The sultan of Damascus offered him the opportunity and Louis would have accepted it but for the advice of his councillors,

Joinville, an. 1253.

So complete a failure might have been expected to destroy all hope of ever recovering Palestine. But the hold of the crusading idea upon the mind of Europe was still great. Urban IV. and Clement III. made renewed appeals to Christendom, and Louis did not forget the Holy Land. In 1267, with his hand upon the crown of thorns, he announced to his assembled prelates and barons his purpose to go forth a second time in holy crusade.

In the meantime the news from the East had been of continuous disaster at the hand of the enemy and of discord among the Christians themselves. In 1258 forty Venetian vessels engaged in conflict with a Genoese fleet of fifty ships off Acre with a loss of seventeen hundred men. A year later the Templars and Hospitallers had a pitched battle. In 1263 Bibars, the founder of the Mameluke rule in Egypt, appeared before Acre. In 1268 Antioch fell.

In spite of bodily weakness and the protest of his nobles, Louis sailed in 1270.

Joinville declined the king’s appeal to accompany him, and advised against the expedition on the ground of the peaceable state of France with the king at home, and of the king’s physical weakness which prevented him from wearing armor or sitting on horseback long at a time.

§ 58. The Last Stronghold of the Crusaders in Palestine.

With Louis the last hope of Christian tenure of any part of Palestine was gone. At his death the French army disbanded.

In 1271 Edward, son and heir of Henry III. of England, reached Acre by way of Tunis. His expedition was but a wing of Louis’s army. A loan of 30,000 marks from the French king enabled him to prepare the armament. His consort Eleanor was with him, and a daughter born on the Syrian coast was called Joan of Acre. Before returning to England to assume the crown, he concluded an empty treaty of peace for ten years.

Attempts were made to again fan the embers of the once fervid enthusiasm into a flame, but in vain. Gregory X., who was in the Holy Land at the time of his election to the papal chair, carried with him westward a passionate purpose to help the struggling Latin colonies in Palestine. Before leaving Acre, 1272, he preached from Ps. 137:5, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." His appeals, issued a day or two after his coronation, met with little response. The Council of Lyons, 1274, which he convened, had for its chief object the arrangements for a Crusade. Two years later Gregory died, and the enterprise was abandoned.

In 1289 Tripoli was lost, and the bitter rivalry between the Military Orders hastened the surrender of Acre, 1291,

For a contemporary description of Acre, see Itin. regis Ricardi, I. 32.

As the Crusades progressed, a voice was lifted here and there calling in question the religious propriety of such movements and their ultimate value. At the close of the twelfth century, the abbot Joachim complained that the popes were making them a pretext for their own aggrandizement, and upon the basis of Joshua 6:26; 1 Kings 16:24, he predicted a curse upon an attempt to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. "Let the popes," he said, "mourn over their own Jerusalem—that is, the universal Church not built with hands and purchased by divine blood, and not over the fallen Jerusalem."

Com. in Jerem., see Neander, Ch. Hist., IV. 189 sqq., Engl. trans.

Raymundus Lullus, after returning from his mission to North Africa, in 1308, declared

Contemplations of God. See Zwemer, Life of Raymund Lull, 52, 149.

The successors of Nicolas IV., however, continued to cling to the idea of conquering the Holy Land by arms. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they made repeated appeals to the piety and chivalry of Western Europe, but these were voices as from another age. The deliverance of Palestine by the sword was a dead issue. New problems were engaging men’s minds. The authority of the popes—now in exile in Avignon, now given to a luxurious life at Rome, or engaged in wars over papal territory—was incompetent to unite and direct the energies of Europe as it had once done. They did not discern the signs of the times. More important tasks there were for Christendom to accomplish than to rescue the holy places of the East.

Erasmus struck the right note and expressed the view of a later age. Writing at the very close of the Middle Ages making an appeal

Enchiridion militis christiani, Methuen’s ed. 1905, p. 8 sq.

§ 59. Effects of the Crusades.

Literature.—A. R. L. Heeren: Versuch einer Entwickelung der Folgen der Kreuzzüge für Europa, Göttingen, 1808; French trans., Paris, 1808.—Maxime de Choiseul-Daillecourt: De l’influence des croisades sur l’état des peuples de l’Europe, Paris, 1809. Crowned by the French Institute, it presents the Crusades as upon the whole favorable to civil liberty, commerce, etc.—J. L. Hahn: Ursachen und Folgen der Kreuzzüge, Greifsw., 1859.—G. B. Adams: Civilization during the M. A., N. Y., 1894, 258–311. See the general treatments of the Crusades by Gibbon, Wilken, Michaud, Archer-Kingsford, 425–451, etc., and especially Prutz (Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge and The Economic Development of Western Europe under the Influence of the Crusades in Essays on the Crusades, Burlington, 1903), who in presenting the social, political, commercial, and literary aspects and effects of the Crusades lays relatively too much stress upon them.

The Crusades failed in three respects. The Holy Land was not won. The advance of Islam was not permanently checked. The schism between the East and the West was not healed. These were the primary objects of the Crusades.

They were the cause of great evils. As a school of practical religion and morals, they were no doubt disastrous for most of the Crusaders. They were attended by all the usual demoralizing influences of war and the sojourn of armies in an enemy’s country. The vices of the Crusading camps were a source of deep shame in Europe. Popes lamented them. Bernard exposed them. Writers set forth the fatal mistake of those who were eager to make conquest of the earthly Jerusalem and were forgetful of the heavenly city. "Many wended their way to the holy city, unmindful that our Jerusalem is not here." So wrote the Englishman, Walter Map, after Saladin’s victories in 1187.

The schism between the East and the West was widened by the insolent action of the popes in establishing Latin patriarchates in the East and their consent to the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople. The memory of the indignities heaped upon Greek emperors and ecclesiastics has not yet been forgotten.

Another evil was the deepening of the contempt and hatred in the minds of the Mohammedans for the doctrines of Christianity. The savagery of the Christian soldiery, their unscrupulous treatment of property, and the bitter rancors in the Crusading camps were a disgraceful spectacle which could have but one effect upon the peoples of the East. While the Crusades were still in progress, the objection was made in Western Europe, that they were not followed by spiritual fruits, but that on the contrary the Saracens were converted to blasphemy rather than to the faith. Being killed, they were sent to hell.

So Humbert de Romanis, 1274; Mansi, XXIV. 116. A sixth objection against the Crusades as stated and answered by him ran as follows: quod ex ista pugna non sequitur fructus spiritualis quia Saraceni magis convertuntur ad blasphemiam quam ad fidem; occisi autem ad infernum mittuntur, etc.

Again, the Crusades gave occasion for the rapid development of the system of papal indulgences, which became a dogma of the mediaeval theologians. The practice, once begun by Urban II. at the very outset of the movement, was extended further and further until indulgence for sins was promised not only for the warrior who took up arms against the Saracens in the East, but for those who were willing to fight against Christian heretics in Western Europe. Indulgences became a part of the very heart of the sacrament of penance, and did incalculable damage to the moral sense of Christendom. To this evil was added the exorbitant taxations levied by the popes and their emissaries. Matthew Paris complains of this extortion for the expenses of Crusades as a stain upon that holy cause.

II. 338, etc.

And yet the Crusades were not in vain. It is not possible to suppose that Providence did not carry out some important, immediate and ultimate purpose for the advancement of mankind through this long war, extending over two hundred years, and involving some of the best vital forces of two continents. It may not always be easy to distinguish between the effects of the Crusades and the effects of other forces active in this period, or to draw an even balance between them. But it may be regarded as certain that they made far-reaching contributions to the great moral, religious, and social change which the institutions of Europe underwent in the latter half of the Middle Ages.

First, the Crusades engaged the minds of men in the contemplation of a high and unselfish aim. The rescue of the Holy Sepulchre was a religious passion, drawing attention away from the petty struggles of ecclesiastics in the assertion of priestly prerogative, from the violent conflict of papacy and empire, and from the humdrum casuistry of scholastic and conventual dispute.

Archer, p. 447, well says: "They raised mankind above the ignoble sphere of petty ambitions to seek after an ideal that was neither sordid nor selfish. They called forth all that was heroic in human nature, and filled the world with the inspiration of noble thoughts and deeds."

Considered in their effects upon the papacy, they offered it an unexampled opportunity for the extension of its authority. But on the other hand, by educating the laity and developing secular interests, they also aided in undermining the power of the hierarchy.

As for the political institutions of Europe, they called forth and developed that spirit of nationality which resulted in the consolidation of the states of Europe in the form which they have since retained with little change. When the Crusades began, feudalism flourished. When the Crusades closed, feudalism was decadent throughout Europe, and had largely disappeared from parts of it. The need petty knights and great nobles had to furnish themselves with adequate equipments, led to the pawn or sale of their estates and their prolonged absence gave sovereigns a rare opportunity to extend their authority. And in the adjoining camps of armies on Syrian soil, the customs and pride of independent national life were fostered.

Upon the literature and individual intelligence of Western Europe, the Crusades, no doubt, exerted a powerful influence, although it may not be possible to weigh that influence in exact balances. It was a matter of great importance that men of all classes, from the emperor to the poorest serf, came into personal contact on the march and in the camp. They were equals in a common cause, and learned that they possessed the traits of a common humanity, of which the isolation of the baronial hall kept them ignorant. The emancipating effect which travel may always be expected to exert, was deeply felt.

This is clearly apparent from the English and other mediaeval chronicles, such as the Chronicles of M. Paris, Hoveden, etc.

As for commerce, it would be hazardous to say that the enterprise of the Italian ports would not, in time, have developed by the usual incentives of Eastern trade and the impulse of marine enterprise then astir. It cannot be doubted, however, that the Crusades gave to commerce an immense impetus. The fleets of Marseilles and the Italian ports were greatly enlarged through the demands for the transportation of tens of thousands of Crusaders; and the Pisans, Genoese, and Venetians were busy in traffic at Acre, Damietta, and other ports.

The ships of the two great Military Orders alone carried great numbers of pilgrims. In 1182 one of their ships was wrecked on the Egyptian coast with 1500 pilgrims. In 1180 several vessels met the same fate, 2500 pilgrims were drowned and 1500 sold into slavery. In 1246 their ships carried from the port of Marseilles alone 6000 pilgrims. See Prutz in Essays, p. 54. This author, in laying weight upon the economic influences of the Crusades, says properly, that they "had only in part to do with religion, and particularly with the church," p. 77. Arabic words, such as damask, tarif, and bazar, were introduced into the vocabularies of European nations, and products, such as saffron, maize, melons, and little onions, were carried back by the Crusaders. The transfer of money made necessary the development of the system of letters of credit.

In these various ways the spell of ignorance and narrowing prejudice was broken, and to the mind of Western Europe a new horizon of thought and acquisition was opened, and remotely within that horizon lay the institutions and ambitions of our modern civilization.

After the lapse of six centuries and more, the Crusades still have their stirring lessons of wisdom and warning, and these are not the least important of their results. The elevating spectacle of devotion to an unselfish aim has seldom been repeated in the history of religion on so grand a scale. This spectacle continues to be an inspiration. The very word "crusade" is synonymous with a lofty moral or religious movement, as the word "gospel" has come to be used to signify every message of good.

The Crusades also furnish the perpetual reminder that not in localities is the Church to seek its holiest satisfaction and not by the sword is the Church to win its way; but by the message of peace, by appeals to the heart and conscience, and by teaching the ministries of prayer and devout worship is she to accomplish her mission. The Crusader kneeling in the church of the Holy Sepulchre learned the meaning of the words, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen." And all succeeding generations know the meaning of these words better for his pilgrimage and his mistake.

Approaching the Crusades in enthusiasm, but differing from them as widely as the East is from the West in methods and also in results, has been the movement of modern Protestant missions to the heathen world which has witnessed no shedding of blood, save the blood of its own Christian emissaries, men and women, whose aims have been not the conquest of territory, but the redemption of the race.

The Crusades, said the eloquent Dr. Richard S. Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux, p. 558, furnished "as truly an ideal enthusiasm as that of any one who has sought to perform his missionary work in distant lands or has wrought into permanent laws and Institutions the principles of equity and the temper of love. And they must forever remain an example resplendent and shining of what an enthusiasm that is careless of obstacles and fearless of danger can accomplish."

§ 60. The Military Orders.

Literature.—The sources are the Rules of the orders and the scattered notices of contemporary chroniclers. No attempt is made to give an exhaustive list of the literature.—P. H. Helyot: Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux et militaires, 8 vols. Paris, 1719.—Perrot. Coll. Hist. des ordres de chivalrie, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1819. Supplementary vol. by Fayolle, 1846.—Bielenfeld: Gesch. und Verfassung aller geistlichen und weltlichen Ritterorden, 2 vols. Weimar, 1841.—F. C. Woodhouse: The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, London, 1879.—G. Uhlhorn: Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1884.—Hurter: Life of Innocent III., vol. IV. 313 sqq.—The general Histories of the Crusades.—Stubbs: Const. Hist. of England.

For the Knights of St. John: Abbe Vertot: Hist. des chevaliers hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jérusalem, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1726, and since.—Taafe: History of the Knights of Malta, 4 vols. London, 1852.—L. B. Larking: The Knights Hospitallers in England, London, 1857.—A. Winterfeld: Gesch. des Ordens St. Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem, Berlin, 1859.—H. Von Ortenburg: Der Ritterorden des hl. Johannis zu Jerusalem, 2 vols. Regensb. 1866.—Genl. Porter: Hist. of the Knights of Malta of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, London, 1883.—Von Finck: Uebersicht über die Gesch. des ritterlichen Ordens St. Johannis, Berlin, 1890.—G. Hönnicke: Studien zur Gesch. des Hospitalordens, 1099–1162, 1897.—*J. D. Le Roulx: De prima origine Hospitaliorum Hierosol., Paris, 1885; Cartulaire général de l’Ordre des Hospitaliers St. Jean de Jérusalem, 3 vols., Paris, 1894; Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chypre, 1100–1310, Paris, 1904, pp. 440.—J. Von Pflugk-Harttung: Die Anfänge des Johanniterordens in Deutschland, Berlin, 1899, and Der Johanniter und der Deutsche Orden im Kampfe Ludwigs des Baiern mit der Kirche, Leipzig, 1900. Knöpfler: Johanniter in Weltzer-Welte, VI. 1719–1803. For other Lit. see Le Roulx: Les Hospitaliers, pp. v-xiii.

For the Knights Templars: The literature is very abundant. Bernard Of Clairvaux: De laude novae militiae, ad milites templi, Migne, 182, pp. 921–940.—Dupuy: Hist. des Templiers, Paris, 1650.—F. Wilcke: Gesch. des Tempelherren Ordens, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1827, 2d ed. Halle, 1860.—*C. H. Maillard De Chambure: Règle et Statuts secrets des Templiers, Paris, 1840 (from three old French MSS.).—W. Havemann: Gesch. des Ausgangs des Tempelherren Ordens, Stuttgart, 1846. Michelet: Procès des Templiers, 2 vols. Paris, 1841–1851.—Boutaric: Clement V. Philippe le Bel et les Templiers, Paris, 1874, and Documents inédites de Philippe le Bel, Paris, 1861.—*Henri de Curzon: La Règle du Temple, Paris, 1886.—*H. Prutz: Geheimlehre und Geheimstatuten des Tempelherren Ordens, Berlin, 1879, Entwicklung und Untergang des Tempelherrenordens, Berlin, 1888.—K. Schottmüller: D. Untergang des Templer-Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1887.—W. Cunningham: Growth of English Industry, London, 1890.—J. Gmelin: Schuld oder Unschuld des Templerordens, Stuttgart, 1893.—*Döllinger: Der Untergang des Tempelordens in his "Akadem. Vorträge," Munich, 1891, III. 245–274, the last public address the author delivered before the Academy of Sciences of Munich.—A. Grange: Fall of the Knights Templars, "Dublin Review," 1895, pp. 329 sqq.—G. Schnürer: D. ursprüngliche Templerregel, Freib. 1903.—Mansi, XXI. 359–372, also gives the Rule of the Templars as set forth at the Synod of Troyes, 1128.—J. A. Froude: The Knights Templars in Short Essays.—Hefele-Knöpfler, VI.—*Funk: Templer in Wetzer-Welte, XI. pp. 1311–1345.—H. C. Lea: Hist. of the Inquisition, III. and Absolution Formula of the Templars, Amer. Soc. of Ch. Hist. Papers, V. 37–58.

For the Teutonic Knights: Strehlke: Tabulae ordinis teutonicae.—Hennes: Codex diplomaticus ordinis S. Mariae Theutonicorum, 2 vols. Mainz, 1845–1861.—E. Hennig: Die Statuten des deutschen Ordens, Würzburg, 1866.—M. Perlbach: Die Statuten des Deutschordens, Halle, 1890.—Joh. Voigt: Geschichte des Deutschen Ritter-Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1857–1859.—H. Prutz: Die Besitzungen des deutschen Ordens im heiligen Lande, Leipzig, 1877.—C. Herrlich: Die Balley Brandenburg, etc., Berlin, 1886.—C. Lempens: Geschichte d. Deutschen Ordens u. sr. Ordensländer Preussen u. Livland, 1904.—Ranke: Univ. Hist., VIII. 455–480.—Uhlhorn: Deutschorden, in Herzog, IV.

A product of the Crusades and their most important adjunct were the three great Military Orders, the Knights of St. John, the Knight Templars, and the Teutonic Knights. They combined monastic vows with the profession of arms. Their members were fighting monks and armed almoners. They constituted a standing army of Crusaders and were the vigilant guardians of Latin institutions in Palestine for nearly two centuries. The Templars and the Knights of St. John did valiant service on many a battle-field in Palestine and Asia Minor.

At the battle of Gaza with the Chorasmians, 1244, of two hundred and sixteen Knights of St. John who entered the battle, two hundred remained dead on the field.

These orders speedily attained to great popularity, wealth, and power. Kings did them honor. Pope after pope extended their authority and privileges. Their grand masters were recognized as among the chief personages of Christendom. But with wealth and popularity came pride and decay. The strength of the Knights of St. John and the Templars was also reduced by their rivalry which became the scandal of Europe, and broke out into open feuds and pitched battles as before Acre, 1241 to 1243 and in 1259.

See M. Paris, an. 1259. The famous antithesis of Gibbon (chap. LVIII.) pleases the ear and contains some truth, but makes a wrong impression. "The Knights of the Temple and St. John neglected to live, but they prepared to die in the service of Christ."

I. The order of the Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers,

Fratres hospitalis S. Johannis, Hospitalarii, Johannitae, milites hospitalis S. Johannis. From the fourteenth century they were also known as the Knights of Rhodes and from the sixteenth as the Knights of Malta. For a list of the houses of the female members of this order, Le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers, 300 sq.

The order increased with astonishing rapidity in numbers, influence, and wealth. Gifts were received from all parts of Europe, the givers being remembered in prayers offered up in Jerusalem. Raymund systematized the rules of the brotherhood and gave it a compact organization and in 1113 it gained papal sanction through Pascal II. At that time there were affiliated houses at St. Giles, Asti, Pisa, Otranto, and Tarentum.

Woodhouse, p. 20, gives a list of no less than fifty-four houses belonging to the Hospital in England.

The military feature of the organization was developed after the philanthropic feature of nursing and caring for unfortunate pilgrims and it quickly became the dominant feature. Raymund du Puy makes a clear distinction in the order between cleric and lay brethren. Innocent II., 1130, speaks of its members as priests, knights, and lay brethren, the last taking no vows. In its perfected organization the order was divided into three classes, knights, chaplains, and serving brethren. The knights and chaplains were bound by the threefold pledge of charity, poverty, and obedience.

They were monks. The order had no priests until the time of Alexander III., who gave it the right to receive priests and clerics. Priests became necessary in order that the new custom might be followed which gave to priests alone the right of absolution. During the first century of their existence, the members of military orders made confession of their sins in the open chapters and were punished at the order of the Master by public scourging or otherwise. The strict church law of confession and of absolution by the priest was not defined till later by the Fourth Lateran Council, and Thomas Aquinas. See Lea, The Absolution Formula of the Templars.

After Clement IV., 1267, the title of the chief official was "Grand master of the Hospital of Jerusalem and Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ." The distinctive dress of the order was, after 1259, a red mantle with a white Maltese cross worn on the left breast that "God through this emblem might give faith and obedience and protect us and all our Christian benefactors from the power of the devil." Its motto was pro fide, "for the faith."

For the formula of admission, see Le Roulx, 288 sq.

After the fall of Acre, the Hospitallers established themselves on the island of Cyprus and in 1310 removed to the island of Rhodes, where massive walls and foundations continue to attest the labor expended upon their fortifications and other buildings. From Rhodes, as a base, they did honorable service.

Under the grand master La Valette, the Knights bravely defended Malta against the fleet of Suleymon the Magnificent until Europe felt the thrill of relief caused by the memorable defeat of the Turkish fleet by Don John at Lepanto, 1571. From that time the order continued to decay.

On October 31, 1898, the emperor William II. of Germany, while on a visit to Jerusalem, dedicated the Protestant church of the Redeemer, built on the ancient site of the hospital of the Knights of St. John, opposite the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

II. The Knight Templars

Templarii, fratres militiae templi, equites templarii, pauperes commilitiones Christi templique Salamonis, are some of the titles by which they were known. There was not nearly as much resemblance between the Hospitallers and Templars as between the Templars and Teutonic knights. Curzon, p. xi.

Baldwin II. gave the brotherhood quarters in his palace on Mount Moriah, near the site of Solomon’s temple, whence the name Templars is derived. Hugo appeared at the council of Troyes in 1128,

William of Tyre. See Hefele, V. 401 sq.

The order spread with great rapidity.

In England they settled at the old Temple outside of Holborn, whence they removed to the new Temple on the Thames, 1185. The Temple church was completed in 1240. M. Paris gives an account of the dedication and the banquet which was provided by the Hospitallers. Stephen and his queen gave the Templars several places about 1150. Woodhouse, p. 260, gives a list of twenty-seven English houses.

Like the Hospitallers, the Templars took the triple vow and, in addition, the vow of military service and were divided into three classes: the knights who were of noble birth, the men at arms or serving brethren (fratres servientes, armigeri), and chaplains who were directly amenable to the pope. The dress of the knights was a white mantle with a red cross, of the serving brethren a dark habit with a red cross. The knights cropped their hair short and allowed their beards to grow. They were limited to three horses, except the grand master who was allowed four, and were forbidden to hunt except the lion, the symbol of the devil, who goes about seeking whom he may devour.

With reference to 1 Pet. 5:8, Curzon, 58.

The head of the order was called Grand Master, was granted the rank of a prince, and included in the invitations to the oecumenical councils, as, for example, the Fourth Lateran and the second council of Lyons. The Master of the Temple in England was a baron with seat in Parliament.

The Templars took part in all the Crusades except the first and the crusade of Frederick II., from which they held aloof on account of the papal prohibition. Their discipline was conspicuous on the disastrous march of the French from Laodicea to Attalia and their valor at the battle of Hattim, before Gaza

M. Paris, Luard’s ed., IV. 337 sqq., gives the letters from the patriarch of Jerusalem and the vice-master of the Temple, 1244. This chronicler is very severe upon the Templars for their arrogant pride and their jealous rivalry of the Hospitallers. An example of this jealousy was their refusal to accompany King Amalric to Egypt because to the Hospitallers had been assigned first place.

A famous passage in the history of Richard of England set forth the reputation the Templars had for pride. When Fulke of Neuilly was preaching the Third Crusade, he told Richard he had three daughters and called upon him to provide for them in marriage. The king exclaimed, "Liar, I have no daughters." "Nay, thou hast three evil daughters, Pride, Lust, and Luxury," was the priest’s reply. Turning to his courtiers, Richard retorted, "He bids me marry my three daughters. Well, so be it. To the Templars, I give my first-born, Pride, to the Cistercians my second-born, Lust, and to the prelates the third, Luxury."

Charasson, quoting Richard de Hoveden, Vie de Foulques de Neuilly, 89 sq.

The order survived the fall of Acre less than twenty years. After finding a brief refuge in Cyprus the knights concentrated their strength in France, where the once famous organization was suppressed by the violent measures of Philip the Fair and Clement V. The story of the suppression belongs to the next period.

III. The order of the Teutonic Knights

Deutscher Orden, Ordo S. Mariae Theutonicorum.

The order dates from 1190, when a hospital was erected in a tent under the walls of Acre by pilgrims from Bremen and Lübeck. Frederick of Swabia commended it, and Clement III. sanctioned it, 1191.

Under the name domus hospitalis S. Mariae Theutonicorum in Jerusalem. A German hospital was dedicated in Jerusalem to St. Mary, 1128.

Under Hermann von Salza (1210–1239), the fourth grand master, the order grew with great rapidity. Von Salza was a trusted adviser of Frederick II., and received the privilege of using the black eagle in the order’s banner. Following the invitation of the monk Christian and of Konrad of Morovia, 1226, to come to their relief against the Prussians, he diverted the attention and activity of the order from the Orient to this new sphere. The order had the promise of Culmland and half of its conquests for its assistance.

After the fall of Acre, the headquarters were transferred to Venice and in 1309 to Marienburg on the Vistula, where a splendid castle was erected. Henceforth the knights were occupied with the wild territories along the Baltic and southwards, whose populations were still in a semi-barbaric state. In the hour when the Templars were being suppressed, this order was enjoying its greatest prosperity. In 1237 it absorbed the Brothers of the Sword.

Fratres militiae Christi, gladiferi, a military order founded in 1202.

At one time the possessions of the Teutonic knights included fifty cities such as Culm, Marienburg, Thorn, and Königsberg, and lands with a population of two million. Its missionary labors are recorded in another chapter. With the rise of Poland began the shrinkage of the order, and in the battle of Tannenberg, 1410, its power was greatly shaken. In 1466 it gave up large blocks of territory to Poland, including Marienburg, and the grand master swore fealty to the Polish king. The order continued to hold Prussia and Sameland as fiefs. But the discipline had become loose, as was indicated by the popular saying, "Dressing and undressing, eating and drinking, and going to bed are the work the German knights do."

Kleider aus, Kleider an, Essen, Trinken, Schlafengehen, ist die Arbeit so die Deutsche Herren han.

§ 62. Monasticism and the Papacy.

Monasticism and the papacy, representing the opposite extremes of abandonment of the world and lordship over the world, strange to say, entered into the closest alliance. The monks came to be the standing army of the popes, and were their obedient and valorous champions in the battles the popes waged with secular rulers. Some of the best popes were monastic in their training, or their habits, or both. Gregory VII. was trained in the Benedictine convent on the Aventine, Victor III. proceeded from Monte Cassino, Urban II. and Pascal II. from Cluny, Adrian IV. from St. Albans. Eugenius III., the pupil of St. Bernard, continued after he was made pope to wear the shirt of the monks of Citeaux next to his body. Innocent III. wrote the ascetic work, Contempt of the World.

Monks, were declared by the synod of Nismes, 1096, to be better qualified for ruling than the secular clergy. Hefele, V. 244.

One monastic order after the other was founded from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. The organizing instinct and a pious impulse dotted Christendom with new convents or rebuilt old ones from Mt. Carmel to northern Scotland.

For lists, see Helyot and Dr. Littledale’s art. Monachism, "Enc. Brit."

It was the shrewd wisdom of the popes to encourage the orders, and to use them to further the centralization of ecclesiastical power in Rome. Each order had its own monastic code, its own distinctive customs. These codes, as well as the orders, were authorized and confirmed by the pope, and made, immediately or more loosely, subject to his sovereign jurisdiction. The mendicant orders of Sts. Francis and Dominic were directly amenable to the Holy See. The Fourth Lateran, in forbidding the creation of new orders, was moved to do so by the desire to avoid confusion in the Church by the multiplication of different rules. It commanded all who wished to be monks to join one of the orders already existing. The orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic, founded in the face of this rule, became the most faithful adherents the papacy ever had, until the Society of Jesus arose three centuries later.

The papal favor, shown to the monastic orders, tended to weaken the authority of the bishops, and to make the papacy independent of the episcopal system. Duns Scotus went so far as to declare that, as faith is more necessary for the world than sacramental ablution in water, so the body of monks is more important than the order of prelates. The monks constitute the heart, the substance of the Church. By preaching they start new life, and they preach without money and without price. The prelates are paid.

See the remarkable passage quoted by Seeberg, Duns Scotus, 478 sq.

Papal privileges and exemptions were freely poured out upon the orders, especially upon the Mendicants. They were the pets of the popes. They were practically given freedom to preach and dispense the sacrament in all places and at all times, irrespective of the bishops and their jurisdiction. The constant complaints and clashing which resulted, led to endless appeals of monasteries against the decisions of bishops, which flowed in a constant stream to Rome, and gave the members of the curia a rare chance to ply their trade.

Matthew Paris gives one case after the other, as do the other English chroniclers. Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, says that the history of mediaeval English monasticism is made up of stories of everlasting litigation. The convents were always in trouble with their bishops.

The riches, luxury,

Dr. Jessopp, p. 155, says of the English monks: "After all, it must be confessed that the greatest of all delights to the thirteenth-century monks was eating and drinking. The dinner in a great abbey was clearly a very important event of the day. It must strike any one who knows much of the literature of this age, that the weak point in the monastic life of the thirteenth century was the gormandizing." He says, however, that little is heard of drunkenness. The ale brewed in the convents was an important item in the year’s menu. Richard of Marisco, bishop of Durham, gave the Abbey of St. Albans the tithes of Eglingham, Northumberland, to help the monks make a better ale, "taking compassion upon the weakness of the convent’s drink."

A little earlier than our period the abbot of Weissenburg was able to muster as many men as his diocesan bishop of Spires, and the three abbots of Reichenau, St. Gall, and Kempten, three times as many as the bishop of the extensive diocese of Constance.

Hauck, III. 442.

Thus, by wealth and organization and by papal favor, the monastic orders were in a position to overshadow the episcopate. Backed by the pope they bade defiance to bishops, and in turn they enabled the papacy most effectually to exercise lordship over the episcopate.

In the struggle with the heretical sects the orders were the uncompromising champions of orthodoxy, and rendered the most effective assistance to the popes in carrying out their policy of repression. In the Inquisition they were the chief agents which the papacy had. They preached crusades against the Albigenses and were prominent in the ranks of the crusaders. In the work of bloody destruction, they were often in the lead, as was Arnold of Citeaux. Everywhere from Germany to Spain the leading Inquisitors were monks.

Again, in the relentless struggle of the papacy with princes and kings, they were always to be relied upon. Here they did valiant service for the papacy, as notably in the struggle against the emperor, Frederick II., when they sowed sedition and organized revolt in Germany and other parts of his empire.

Once more, as agents to fill the papal treasury, they did efficient and welcome service to the Holy See. In this interest they were active all over Europe. The pages of English chroniclers are filled with protests against them on the score of their exactions from the people.

M. Paris and other English chroniclers are continually damning these Mendicant tax gatherers for their extortion. They were raising money for the pope in England as early as 1234.

The orders of this period may be grouped in five main families: the family which followed the Benedictine rule, the family which followed the so-called Augustinian rule, the Carmelites, the hermit orders of which the Carthusians were the chief, and the original mendicant orders,

Hurter, Innocent III., IV. 238. Gasquet gives an elaborate list of the monastic houses of England, pp. 251-318, and an account of the religious orders represented in England, together with instructive engravings, 211 sqq. According to Gasquet’s list there were more than fifteen hundred conventual houses in England alone.

§ 63. The Monks of Cluny.

Literature.—See Lit. vol. IV, pp. 367 and 861; Mabillon: Ann. ord. S. Bened., III.-V., Paris, 1706–1708; Statuta Cluniacensia, Migne, 189, 1023–47.—Bernard et Bruel: Recueil des chartes de l’abbaye de Cluni, to 1300, 6 vols. Paris, 1876–93; Consuetudines monasticae, vol. I.; Consuet. Farfenses, ed. by Albers, Stuttgart, 1900. The consuetudines are statutes and customs which convents adopted supplementary to the Rules of their orders. These of Farfa, a convent in Italy, were taken down from Odilo of Cluny and enforced at Farfa.

The Lives of St. Bernard.—C. A. Wilkens: Petrus der Ehrwürdige, Leipzig, 1857, 277 pp.—M. Kerker; Wilhelm der Selige, Abt zu Hirschau, Tübingen, 1863.—Witten: Der Selige Wilhelm, Abt von Hirschau, Bonn, 1890.—Champly: Hist. de l’abbaye de Cluny, Mâcon, 1866.—L’Huillier: Vie de Hugo, Solesmes, 1887.—K. Sackur: Die Cluniacenser bis zur Mitte des 11ten Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. Halle, 1892–94.—H. Kutter: Wilhelm von St. Thierry, ein Representant der mittelalterlichen Frömmigkeit, Giessen, 1898.—Maitland: The Dark Ages, 1890, pp. 350–491.—Hauck, vol. III.—Art. Hirschau, in Herzog, VIII. 138 sqq.

The convent of Cluny,

The town now has four thousand inhabitants.

No religious locality in the Latin church enjoyed a purer fame than Cluny. Four of its abbots, Odo, Majolus, Odilo, and Hugh, attained the dignity of canonized saints. Three popes were among its monks, Gregory VII.,

Hauck, III. 596, thinks there is no doubt Gregory was a Cluniac.

The Cluniacs re-enforced the rule of St. Benedict in the direction of greater austerity. In Lorraine and Germany the Cluny influence began to be felt after the monastic reform, led by such men as Abbot Gerhard of Brogne in the tenth century, had run its course.

Hauck, III. 345 sqq.

Under Pontius, the seventh abbot, 1109–22, the current of decay ran deep and strong. The convent had become rich in lands and goods. The plain furnishings had been discarded for rich appointments, and austerity of habits gave way to self-indulgence. Papal favors were heaped upon Pontius, and Pascal, his godfather, sent him the dalmatic.

The wide-sleeved over-garment stretching to the feet. The mitre, the distinctive cap of the bishop, was also frequently sent to abbots. One of the first instances was its presentation by Alexander II. to the abbot of St. Augustine of Canterbury. The abbot of Fulda received it and also the ring from Innocent II., 1137.

Pontius gave way completely to worldly ambition, and assumed the title of archabbot, which was the exclusive prerogative of the head of the convent of Monte Cassino. Charges were made against him by the bishop of Macon and, forced to resign, he set his face towards Jerusalem as a pilgrim. The pilgrimage did not arouse any feelings of submission, and on his return the deposed abbot made an effort to seize his former charge. He forced the convent gates and compelled the monks to swear him fealty. The sacred vessels of gold and silver were melted down and divided among the wild intruders. The devastation was then carried beyond the convent walls to the neighboring estates. The anathema was laid upon Pontius by Honorius II., and, summoned to Rome, he was thrown into prison, where he died, impenitent, 1126. This was one of the most notorious cases of monastic malversation of office in the Middle Ages.

Peter the Venerable had been elected abbot of Cluny during Pontius’ absence in the East and filled the office for nearly forty years, 1122–57. He was the friend of St. Bernard, one of the most eminent of the mediaeval monks and one of the most attractive ecclesiastical personages of his age. Born in Auvergne and trained in a Cistercian convent, he was only twenty-eight when he was made abbot. Under his administration Cluny regained its renown. In addition to the study of the Bible, Peter also encouraged the study of the classics, a course which drew upon him bitter attacks. He visited the Cluniac houses abroad in England and Spain.

On the tenth anniversary of his official primacy, Peter welcomed two hundred priors and twelve hundred and twelve members of the order at Cluny. Four hundred and sixty monks constituted the family of the mother house. No less than two thousand convents are said to have acknowledged the Cluniac rule, two of which were at Jerusalem and Mt. Tabor. In 1246 Peter introduced through a General Chapter seventy six new rules, re-enforcing and elaborating the Benedictine code already in force.

See Migne, 189, 1026 sqq. The volume contains Peter’s works.

To the labors of abbot Peter added the activity of an author. He wrote famous tracts to persuade the Jews and Mohammedans, and against the heretic Peter de Bruys. His last work was on miracles,

Liber duo illustrium miraculorum. A translation of the Koran was made under Peter’s patronage. A revised edition by Bibliander was published at Basel, 1543. These works are contained in Migne, vol. 189, 507-903, which also prints Peter’s letters and sermons, and the hymns which are ascribed to him.

It was while this mild and wise man held office, that Abaelard knocked at Cluny for admission and by his hearty permission spent within its walls the last weary hours of his life.

During Peter’s incumbency St. Bernard made his famous attack against the self-indulgence of the Cluniacs. Robert, a young kinsman of Bernard, had transferred his allegiance from the Cistercian order to Cluny. Bernard’s request that he be given up Pontius declined to grant. What his predecessor had declined to do, Peter did. Perhaps it was not without feeling over the memory of Pontius’ action that Bernard wrote, comparing

Apologia ad Guillelmum. Migne, 182, 895-918.

This tract, famous in the annals of monastic controversial literature, Bernard opened by condemning the lack of spirituality among his own brethren, the Cistercians. "How can we," he exclaims, "with our bellies full of beans and our minds full of pride, condemn those who are full of meat, as if it were not better to eat on occasion a little fat, than be gorged even to belching with windy vegetables!" He then passed to an arraignment of the Cluniacs for self-indulgence in diet, small talk, and jocularity. At meals, he said, dish was added to dish and eggs were served, cooked in many forms, and more than one kind of wine was drunk at a sitting. The monks preferred to look on marble rather than to read the Scriptures. Candelabra and altar cloths were elaborate. The art and architecture were excessive. The outward ornamentations were the proof of avarice and love of show, not of a contrite and penitent heart. He had seen one of them followed by a retinue of sixty horsemen and having none of the appearance of a pastor of souls. He charged them with taking gifts of castles, villas, peasants, and slaves, and holding them against just complainants.

To this charge Peter replied that such property was much better in the hands of the monks than of wild laymen.

After Peter’s death the glory of Cluny declined.

The election of the abbot was taken out of the hands of the monks. During the Avignon captivity the popes, and later the French king, claimed the right to appoint that official. The Guises had the patronage of the abbey for nearly a hundred years. In 1627 Richelieu was appointed abbot.

The piety of Western Christendom owes a lasting debt to Cluny for the hymn "Jerusalem the Golden," taken from the de contemptu mundi written by Bernard of Cluny, a contemporary of Peter the Venerable and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

See Schaff, Christ in Song, and Julian, Hymnology.

§ 64. The Cistercians.

Literature.—Exordium parvum ordinis Cisterciensiae, Migne, 166. Exordium magnum ord. Cisterc., by Conrad of Eberbach, d. 1220; Migne, 185.—Manriquez: Ann. ord. Cisterc., 4 vols. Lyons, 1642.—Mabillon: Ann. ord. St. Benedict, Paris, 1706–1708.—P. Guignard: Les monuments primitifs de la règle Cistercienne, publiés d’après les manuscripts de l’abbaye de Citeaux, Dijon, 1878, pp. cxii. 656.—Pierre le Nain: Essai de l’hist. de l’ordre de Citeaux, Paris, 1696.—J. H. Newman: The Cistercian Saints of England, London, 1844.—Franz Winter: Die Cistercienser des nord-östlichen Deutschlands bis zum Auftreten der Bettelorden, 3 vols. Gotha, 1868–1871.—L. Janauschek: Origines Cisterciensium, Vienna, 1877.—B. Albers: Untersuchungen zu den ältesten Mönchsgewohnheiten. Ein Beitrag zur Benedictinerordensregel der X-XIIten Jahrhunderte, Munich, 1905.—Sharpe: Architecture of the Cisterc., London, 1874.—Cisterc. Abbeys of Yorkshire, in "Fraser’s Mag.," September, 1876.—Dean Hodges: Fountains Abbey, The Story of a Mediaeval Monastery, London, 1904.—Deutsch: art. Cistercienser, in Herzog, IV. 116–127; art. Harding, in "Dict. Natl. Biogr.," XXIV. 333–335; the Biographies of St. Bernard. For extended Lit. see the work of Janauschek.

With the Cluniac monks the Cistercians divide the distinction of being the most numerous and most useful monastic order of the Middle Ages,

Cardinal Hergenröther says, "The Cistercians reached a much higher distinction than the order of Cluny." Kirchengesch., II. 351.

The founder, Robert Molêsme, was born in Champagne, 1024, and after attempting in vain to introduce a more rigorous discipline in several Benedictine convents, retired to the woods of Molêsme and in 1098 settled with twenty companions on some swampy ground near Citeaux,

The name comes from the stagnant pools in the neighborhood.

Alberic, Robert’s successor, received for the new establishment the sanction of Pascal II., and placed it under the special care of the Virgin. She is said to have appeared to him in the white dress of the order.

See Helyot, V. 404. According to Hauck, IV. 337, the Cistercians were the first to introduce into Germany the exaggerated cult of the Virgin.

Under the third abbot, Stephen Harding, an Englishman, known as St. Stephen, who filled the office twenty-five years (1110–1134),

He was a man of much administrative ability. William of Malmesbury, IV. 1, speaks of Stephen as "the original contriver of the whole scheme, the especial and celebrated ornament of our times." It is related that on a journey to Rome, and before entering Citeaux, he repeated the whole Psalter. Basil had enjoined the memorizing of the Psalter. According to the biographer of abbot Odo of Cluny, the monks of Cluny daily repeated 138 Psalms. Maitland, p. 375.

New houses followed rapidly. In 1130 there were 30 Cistercian convents, in 1168, 288. A rule was framed forbidding the erection of new establishments, but without avail, and their number in the fourteenth century had risen to 738.

Janauschek has shown that 1800, the number formerly given, is an exaggeration.

The carta charitatis, the Rule of Love, the code of the Cistercians, dates from Harding’s administration and was confirmed by Calixtus II.—1119. It commanded the strict observance of the Benedictine Rule, but introduced a new method of organization for the whole body. In contrast to the relaxed habits of the Cluniacs, the mode of life was made austerely simple. The rule of silence was emphasized and flesh forbidden, except in the case of severe illness. The conventual menu was confined to two dishes. All unnecessary adornment of the churches was avoided, so that nothing should remain in the house of God which savored of pride or superfluity. The crosses were of wood till the statutes of 1157 allowed them to be of gold. Emphasis was placed upon manual labor as an essential part of monastic life. A novice at Clairvaux writes enthusiastically of the employment of the monks, whom he found with hoes in the gardens, forks and rakes in the meadows, sickles in the fields, and axes in the forest.

Peter de Roya, Ep. St. Bernard, 492; Migne, 182, 711.

Following the practice introduced at the convent of Hirschau, the Cistercians constituted an adjunct body of laymen, or conversi.

Called at Hirschau also barbati, the bearded.

The administration of the Cistercians was an oligarchy as compared with that of the Cluniacs. The abbot of Cluny was supreme in his order, and the subordinate houses received their priors by his appointment. Among the Cistercians each convent chose its own head. At the same time the community of all the houses was insured by the observance of the Rule of 1119, and by yearly chapters, which were the ultimate arbiters of questions in dispute. The five earliest houses exercised the right of annual visitation, which was performed by their abbots over five respective groups. A General Council of twenty-five consisted of these five abbots and of four others from each of the five groups. The General Chapters were held yearly and were attended by all the abbots within a certain district. Those at remote distances attended less frequently: the abbots from Spain, every two years; from Sweden and Norway, every three years; from Scotland, Ireland, Hungary, and Greece, every four years; and from the Orient, every seven years. It became a proverb that "The gray monks were always on their feet."

The Cistercians spread over all Western Europe. The Spanish orders of Alcantara and Calatrava adopted their rule. The first Cistercian house in Italy was founded 1120 at Tiglieto, Liguria, and in Germany at Altenkamp about 1123.

See Hauck, IV. 326 sqq., for the names of the German houses.

Of all the Cistercian convents, Port Royal has the most romantic history. Founded in 1204 by Mathilda de Garlande in commemoration of the safe return of her husband from the Fourth Crusade, it became in the seventeenth century a famous centre of piety and scholarship. Its association with the tenets of the Jansenists, and the attacks of Pascal upon the Jesuits, brought on its tragic downfall. The famous hospice, among the snows of St. Gotthard, is under the care of St. Bernard monks.

In the thirteenth century the power of the Cistercians yielded to the energy of the orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic. It was not a rare thing for them to pass over to the newer monastic organizations.

As early as 1223 such Cistercians are called fugitives by the General Chapter. Contrasting the Cistercians with the Dominicans, Matthew Paris, an. 1255, Luard’s ed., V. 529, says of them, "They do not wander through the cities and towns, but they remain quietly shut up within the walls of their domiciles, obeying their superior."

§ 65. St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Virtus in pace acquiritur, in pressura probatur, approbatur in victoria, St. Bernard.

Ep., 126; Migne, 182, 271.

Literature.—The Works of St. Bernard, ed. by Mabillon, 2 vols. Paris, 1667, reprinted with additions in Migne, 182–185, Engl. trans. by Saml. J. Eales, London, 1889, 2 vols.—Xenia Bernardina, a Memorial ed. by Cistercian convents of Austro-Hungary, 6 vols. Vienna, 1891. Leop. Janauschek: Bibliographia Bernardina, Vienna, 1891. The tract De consideratione, trans. by Bp. J. H. Reinkens, Münster, 1870.

Biographies.—Contemporary, in Migne, vol. 185: I. the so-called Vita prima, in six parts, by William of Thierry (while Bernard was still living), Gaufrid of Clairvaux, and Ernald, abbot of Bona Vallis; II. the Vita secunda, by Alanus of Auxerre; III. Fragments collected by Gaufrid; IV.—a Life, by John The Hermit, full of legendary materials.—Modern, by Neander, Berlin, 1813, 1848, 1868, new ed. with Introd. and Notes, by * S. M. Deutsch, 2 vols. Gotha, 1889. Engl. trans. London, 1843.—Ellendorf, Essen, 1837.—Abbé T. Ratisbonne, 2 vols. Paris, 1841, etc. Full of enthusiasm for Bernard as a saint.—* J. C. Morison, London, 1863; rev. ed. 1868, 1884. Cool and impartial.—Capefigue, Paris, 1866.—Chevallier, 2 vols. Lille, 1888.—Hofmeister, Berlin, 1891.—Eales (Rom. Cath.), London, 1891.—*Richard S. Storrs, 1892, stimulating and eloquent.—*L’Abbé E. Vacandard, 2 vols. Paris, 1895, 2d ed. 1897. A thorough study following a number of previous presentations in magazines and brochures.—J. Lagardère, Besançon, 1900.—Deutsch, art. Bernhard, in Herzog, II. 623–639. Also H. Kutter: Wilhelm von St. Thierry, ein Representant der mittelalterlichen Frömmigkeit, Giessen, 1898. For other literature see chapters, Mystical Theology and Hymns.

St. Bernard, 1090–1153, founder and abbot of the convent of Clairvaux, was the model monk of the Middle Ages, the most imposing figure of his time, and one of the best men of all the Christian centuries. He possessed a magnetic personality, a lively imagination, a rich culture, and a heart glowing with love for God and man. Although not free from what might now be called ecclesiastical rigor, he was not equalled by any of his contemporaries in services for the Church and man. "In his countenance," according to the contemporary biographer who knew him well, "there shone forth a pureness not of earth but of heaven, and his eyes had the clearness of an angel’s and the mildness of a dove’s eyes."

Vita prima, III. 1; Migne, 185, 303. Gaufrid, the biographer, presents an elaborate description of his qualities. He says, Bernard was magnanimus in fide, longanimis in spe, profusus in charitate, summur in humilitate, praecipuus in pietate. Alanus in Vita secunda, XVII. 47, Migne, 185, 497, gives this high praise, humanissimus in affectione, magis tamen forte in fide.

In the twelfth century there were at least two other ecclesiastics of the first order of genius, Anselm and Innocent III. The former passed away a few years after the century opened. Innocent began his papal reign two years before it went out. Anselm has pre-eminence as a profound theological thinker and dialectician. Innocent ruled the world, as pope never ruled it before or since. Between the two fall the intellectual genius and activity of Bernard, combining some of the qualities of Anselm and Innocent. As a mystical theologian he is allied to Anselm, whose Meditations give him a high place in the annals of devotional literature. And Bernard was also a statesman, although he did not attain the eminence of Innocent and shrank from participation in public affairs which were so much to the taste of the great pope. Contemporary with himself was Peter Abaelard, whose brilliant mind won for him enviable fame as a teacher and thinker. But Abaelard never won the confidence of his own age, and is not to be compared with Bernard in moral dignity.

By preference a monk, Bernard figured, with almost equal prominence, in the history of the papacy, the Crusades, mysticism, monasticism, and hymnology. In the annals of monasticism, the pulpit, and devotional literature he easily occupies a place in the front rank. He was called the "honey-flowing doctor," doctor mellifluus. Twenty years after his death he was canonized by Alexander III. as "shining preeminently in his own person by virtue of sanctity and religion, and in the whole Church by the light of his doctrine and faith."

The document is given in Migne, 185, 622 sq.

Bernard was descended from a noble family of Burgundy, and was born at Fontaines near Dijon. He was one of seven children, six of whom were sons. His mother, Aletha, like Nonna and Monica, was a deeply pious woman and planted in the son the seeds of religious faith.

Her piety is greatly praised by contemporaries. The abbot of St. Benignus at Dijon begged her body for his convent. William of St. Thierry said of her that "she ruled her household in the fear of God, was urgent in works of mercy, and brought up her sons in all obedience," enutriens filios in omni disciplina. Vita prima, I. 1.

This was in 1113 that Bernard cast in his lot with the Cistercians, and the event proved to be an epoch in the history of that new community. His diet was bread and milk or a decoction of herbs.

Migne, 185, 260.

In 1115, in company with twelve companions, Bernard founded Clairvaux—Claravallis, Clear Valley—in a locality which before had been called Wormwood, and been the seat of robbers. William of St. Thierry, Bernard’s close friend and biographer, is in doubt whether the name vallis absinthialis came from the amount of wormwood which grew there or from the bitter sufferings sustained by the victims of the robbers.

Vita prima, I. 5.

In this new cloistral retreat Bernard preached, wrought miracles, wrote innumerable letters,

His letters include long compositions abounding in allegory and moralizations and brief pithy statements, which approach the subject in hand with modern directness. Alanus gives a list of churchmen high in position going forth from Clairvaux. Vita secunda, XX. 54; Migne, 185, 154

William of St. Thierry

William was born at Liège about 1085, and died about 1149. In 1119 he was made abbot of the Cistercian convent of Thierry near Rheims. We meet him frequently in the company of Bernard, and in the controversies over Abaelard and Gilbert of Poitiers.

I tarried with him a few days, unworthy though I was, and whichever way I turned my eyes, I marvelled and thought I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and also the old pathways of the Egyptian monks, our fathers, marked with the recent footsteps of the men of our time left in them. The golden ages seemed to have returned and revisited the world there at Clairvaux.... At the first glance, as you entered, after descending the hill, you could feel that God was in the place; and the silent valley bespoke, in the simplicity of its buildings, the genuine humility of the poor of Christ dwelling there. The silence of the noon was as the silence of the midnight, broken only by the chants of the choral service, and the sound of garden and field implements. No one was idle. In the hours not devoted to sleep or prayer, the brethren kept busy with hoe, scythe, and axe, taming the wild land and clearing the forest. And although there was such a number in the valley, yet each seemed to be a solitary.

Vita prima, I. 7; Migne, 182, 268.

Here is another description by the novice, Peter de Roya, writing from Clairvaux:

The genuineness of the letter is questionable. Ep., 492; Migne, 182, 706-713.

"Its monks have found a Jacob’s ladder with angels upon it, descending to provide help to the bodies of the monks that they fail not in the way, and also ascending, and so controlling the monks’ minds that their bodies may be glorified. Their song seems to be little less than angelic, but much more than human.... It seems to me I am hardly looking upon men when I see them in the gardens with hoe, in the fields with forks and rakes and sickles, in the woods with axe, clad in disordered garments—but that I am looking on a race of fools without speech and sense, the reproach of mankind. However, my reason assures me that their life is with Christ in the heavens."

Bernard, to whom monastic seclusion was the highest ideal of the Christian life, bent his energies to induce his friends to take the vow. Its vigils and mortifications were the best means for developing the two cardinal virtues of love and humility.

Ep., 142; Migne, 182, 297.

Bernard’s attack upon the conventual establishment of Cluny was born of mistaken zeal. If of the two men Peter the Venerable appears to much better advantage in that controversy, it was different when it came to the treatment of the Jews. Here Peter seems to have completely laid aside his mild spirit, while Bernard displays a spirit of humaneness and Christian charity far beyond his age. In the controversy with Abaelard, a subject which belongs to another chapter, the abbot of Clairvaux stands forth as the churchman who saw only evil in views which did not conform strictly to the doctrinal system of the Church.

Bernard was a man of his age as well as a monastic. He fully shared the feelings of his time about the Crusades. In 1128, at the Synod of Troyes, his voice secured recognition for the Knight Templars, "the new soldiery." The ignoble failure of the Second Crusade, which he had preached with such warmth, 1146, called forth from him a passionate lament over the sins of the Crusaders, and he has given us a glimpse into the keen pangs he felt over the detractions that undertaking called forth.

De consideratione, II. 1; Migne, 182, 743.

When, at a later time, Bernard was chosen at Chartres to lead another Crusade, the choice was confirmed by the pope, but the Cistercians refused to give their consent.

Bernard refers to this election in a letter to Eugenius, Ep., 256. "Who am I," he writes, "to establish camps and march at the head of armed men?"

In the reigns of Innocent II. and Eugenius III. Bernard stood very near the papacy. He did more than any other single individual to secure the general recognition of Innocent II. as the rightful pope over his rival, Anacletus II. He induced the king of France to pronounce in favor of Innocent. Bent on the same mission, he had interviews with Henry I. of England at Chartres, and the German emperor at Liége. He entertained Innocent at Clairvaux, and accompanied him to Italy. It was on this journey that so profound were the impressions of Bernard’s personality and miracles that the people of Milan fell at his feet and would fain have compelled him to ascend the chair of St. Ambrose. On his third journey to Rome, in 1138,

It was on this journey that St. Bernard performed the miracle which has a humorous side. While he was crossing the Alps, the devil broke one of his carriage wheels. Bernard repaired the damage by commanding the devil to take the place of the broken wheel, which he did, and the wagon moved on again to the traveller’s comfort.

Eugenius III. had been an inmate of Clairvaux and one of Bernard’s special wards. The tract de consideratione

Migne, 182, 727-808.

As a preacher, Bernard excels in the glow of his imagination and the fervor of his passion. Luther said, "Bernard is superior to all the doctors in his sermons, even to Augustine himself, because he preaches Christ most excellently."

Bindseil, Colloquia, III. 134.

The miraculous power of Bernard is so well attested by contemporary accounts that it is not easy to deny it except on the assumption that all the miraculous of the Middle Ages is to be ascribed to mediaeval credulity. Miracles meet us in almost every religious biographer of the Middle Ages. The biographer of Boniface, the apostle of Germany, found it necessary to apologize for not having miracles to relate of him. But the miracles of Bernard seem to be vouched for as are no other mediaeval works of power. The cases given are very numerous. They occurred on Bernard’s journeys in Toulouse and Italy, nearer home in France, and along the Rhine from Basel northward. William of St. Thierry, Gaufrid, and other contemporaries relate them in detail. His brothers, the monks Gerard and Guido, agree that he had more than human power. Walter Map, the Englishman who flourished in the latter years of Bernard’s life and later, speaks in the same breath of Bernard’s miracles and his eloquence.

I. 24, Wright’s ed., p. 20.

These miracles were performed at different periods of Bernard’s life and, as has been said, in different localities. The bishop of Langres, a near relative, says that the first miracle he saw Bernard perform was upon a boy with an ulcer on his foot. In answer to the boy’s appeal, Bernard made the sign of the cross and the child was healed. A mother met him carrying her child which had a withered hand and crooked arm. The useless members were restored and the child embraced its mother before the bystanders.

William of St. Thierry, in Vita prima, I. 9; Migne, 186, 253.

Sometimes Bernard placed his hand upon the patient, sometimes made the sign of the cross, sometimes offered prayer, sometimes used the consecrated wafer or holy water.

Febricitantibus multis sanctus manus imponens et aquam benedictam porrigens ad bibendum, sanitatem o btinuit, etc., Migne, 185, 278.

Abaelard and his pupil, Berengar, were exceptions to their age in expressing doubts about the genuineness of contemporary miracles, but they do not charge Bernard by name with being self-deceived or deceiving others. Morison, a writer of little enthusiasm, no credulity, and a large amount of cool, critical common sense, says that Bernard’s "miracles are neither to be accepted with credulity nor denied with fury."

Life of Bernard, p. 66. Dr. Morison died 1905.

Bernard’s activity was marked, all through, by a practical consideration for the needs of life, and his writings are full of useful suggestions adapted to help and ameliorate human conditions. He was a student by preference, but there were men in his day of more scholastic attainments than he. And yet in the department of speculative and controversial theology his writings also have their value. In his work on the Freedom of the Will

De gratia et libero arbitrio.

Severe at times as Bernard, the Churchman, from the standpoint of this tolerant age seems to be, the testimonies to his exalted moral eminence are too weighty to be set aside. Bernard’s own writings give the final and abundant proof of his ethical quality. It shines through his works on personal religion, all those treatises and sermons which give him a place in the front rank of the mystics of all ages.

See chapter on Mysticism.

William of St. Thierry, himself no mean theological writer, felt that in visiting Bernard’s cell he had been "at the very altar of God."

Domus ipsa incutiebat reverentiam sui ac si ingrederer ad altare Dei, Vita prima, VII. 33; Migne, 185, 246.

"Though he came from the West, he was truly the dayspring on high to us. With psalms and hymns and spiritual songs we followed our friend on his heavenward journey. He was taken by angels out of our hands. Truly he fell asleep. All eyes were fixed upon him, yet none could say when the spirit took its flight. When he was dead, we thought him to be alive; while yet alive, we thought him to be dead.

Mortuus vivere et vivens mortuus putabatur, Vita St. Malachy, XXXI. 74; Migne, 185, 1116. Tender as he is to his Irish friend, Bernard described the Irish people as utter barbarians in that age.

Bernard’s sense of personal unworthiness was a controlling element in his religious experience. In this regard he forms a striking contrast to the self-confidence and swagger of Abaelard. He relied with childlike trust upon the divine grace. In one of his very last letters he begged his friend the abbot of Bonneval to be solicitous in prayer to the Saviour of sinners in his behalf. His last days were not without sorrow. His trusted secretary was found to have betrayed his confidence, and used his seal for his own purposes. William of St. Thierry and other friends had been passing away. Bernard’s last journey was to Metz to compose a dispute between bishop Stephen and the duke of Lorraine. Deutsch, perhaps the chief living authority on Bernard, says: "Religious warmth, Genialitaet, is the chief thing in his character and among his gifts."

Herzog, II. 634.

The encomium of Bernard’s early biographer Alanus is high praise, but probably no man since the Apostles has deserved it more: "The majesty of his name was surpassed by his lowliness of heart,"

Vita secunda, XVII.; Migne, 185, 498.

vincebat tamen sublimitatem nominis humilitas cordis.

§ 66. The Augustinians, Carthusians, Carmelites, and other Orders.

Among the greater orders which came into existence before 1200 are the Augustinians, the Premonstrants, the Carthusians, and the Carmelites.

1. The Augustinians were a distinct family from the Benedictines, followed the so-called rule of St. Augustine, and were divided into the canons regular of St. Augustine and the mendicant friars of St. Augustine.

The bodies of canons regular were numerous, but their organization was not compact like that of the stricter monastic orders.

See art. Augustiner, in Herzog, II. 254 sqq., and in Wetzer-Welte, I. 1655 sqq. Theod. Kolde, D. deutsche Augustiner Congregation und Joh. von Staupitz, Gotha, 1879.

Moved by the strong impulse in the direction of conventual communities, these groups inclined to the communal life and sought some common rule of discipline. For it they looked back to Augustine of Hippo, and took his household as their model. We know that Augustine had living with him a group of clerics. We also know that he commended his sister for associating herself with other women and withdrawing from the world, and gave her some advice. But so far as is known Augustine prescribed no definite code such as Benedict afterwards drew up, either for his own household or for any other community.

About 750 Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, drew up a code for his cathedral chapter, whom he enjoined to live together in common,

Chrodegana provided a common table for the clergy of his chapter, and a common dormitory. The Roman synods of 1059, 1063, recommended priests to have their revenues in common.

In the twelfth century we find many groups of clerics who adopted what began to be known as the rule of St. Augustine.

The tradition runs that this rule was prescribed by Innocent II., 1139, for all canons regular. Helyot, II. 21.

The Augustinian rule established a community of goods. Even gifts went into the common fund. The clerics ate together and slept in one dormitory. They wore a common dress, and no one on returning his suit to the clothing room retained any peculiar right to it. The papal attempts to unite these groups into a close organization proved to be in vain.

The cathedral of Bristol is built up from the old abbey of St. Augustine. The Augustinian, or Austin, canons were also called the Black Canons in England. They were very popular there. St. Botolph’s, Colchester, their first English house, was established about 1100. At the suppression of the monasteries there were one hundred and seventy houses in England, and a much larger number in Ireland. Gasquet, p. 225. See W. G. D. Fletcher, The Blackfriars in Oxford.

The Augustinian hermits, or Austin friars, as they were called in England, were monastics in the true sense. They arose after the canons regular,

See Hurter, III. 238.

The rule of St. Augustine was also adopted with modification by the Premonstrants, the Gilbertines of England,

The Gilbertines, founded by St. Gilbert, rector of Sandringham, about 1140, were confined to England. There were twenty-six houses at the time of the suppression of the monasteries. The convents for men and women used a common church.

2. The Premonstrants adopted the Augustinian rule, were called from their dress White Canons, and grew with great rapidity.

Norbert’s Works and Life are given in Migne, vol. 170, and his Life in Mon. Ger. XII., 670 sqq.; Germ. trans. by Hertel, in Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit, Leipzig, 1881. See also Hauck, IV. 350-66; J. von Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, vol. II. Leipzig, 1906, pp. 119-129, and the art. Praemonstratenser, X. 267 sqq., and Norbert, IX. 448 sqq., in Wetzer-Welte, and Praemonstratenser, in Herzog, XV. 606 sqq., and the literature there given; and Gasquet, The Engl. Praemonstratensians, in transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc., vol. XVII. London, 1903.

Norbert in 1126 was made archbishop of Magdeburg and welcomed the opportunity to introduce the order in Northeastern Germany. He joined Bernard in supporting Innocent II. against the antipope Anacletus II. He died 1134, at Magdeburg, and was canonized in 1582. Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Clairvaux praised the order and Norbert himself as a man who stood near to God.

Bernard, Sermon, XXII.; Ep., 56

The almost incredible number of one thousand houses is claimed for this order in its flourishing period. There was also an order of Premonstrant nuns, which is said to have numbered ten thousand women during Norbert’s lifetime.

See Hurter, IV. 208.

3. More original and strict were the Carthusians,

Consuetudines Carthusienses, printed among Bruno’s Works in Migne, 153, 651-759. Peter Dorland, Chronicon Carthusianae, Col. 1608. For literature see Wetzer-Welte, art. Karthäuser, VII. 203, and the art. Bruno, vol. II. 1356-63. Bruno’s Works in Migne, 152, 153. In his Com. on the Romans he anticipates Luther by inserting sola, "alone" in Rom. 3:28, "a man is justified by faith alone, without the works of the law." See Dr. Fr. Duesterdieck, Studien u. Kritiken, 1903, p. 506.

The first Carthusian statutes were committed to writing by the fifth prior Guigo, d. 1137. The rule now in force was fixed in 1578, and reconfirmed by Innocent XI., 1682.

Nova collectio statutorum Ord. Carthusiensis, Paris, 1682.

In England the Carthusians were not popular.

"The discipline was too rigid, the loneliness too dreadful for our tastes and climate." Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, p. 125.

In recent times the monks of the Chartreuse became famous for the Chartreuse liqueur which they distilled. In its preparation the young buds of pine trees were used.

4. The Carmelites, or the Order of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Mt. Carmel, had their origin during the Crusades, 1156.

Ordo B. M. V. de Monte Carmelo is the name given by Innocent IV. The brethren are called fratres eremiti de monte Carmelo, by Honorius III., in his sanction of the order, 1226. The art. Carmelite, in Wetzer-Welte, II. 1966-1976, and Karmeliter, in Herzog, X. 84-88, give a good account and contain lists of literature. Potthast, I. No. 7524.

Our first trustworthy notice is derived from Phocas, a Greek monk, who visited Mt. Carmel in 1185. Berthold of Calabria, a Crusader, made a vow under the walls of Antioch that in case the Christians were victorious over Zenki, he would devote himself to the monastic life. The prayer was answered, and Berthold with ten companions established himself on Mt. Carmel.

The convent on Mt. Carmel is a conspicuous object as you approach the coast from the Mediterranean, and from the hills round about Nazareth. The present building was erected in 1828, and is an hour’s walk from Haifa. Napoleon used the former buildings for a hospital during his Syrian campaign.

The community received its rule about 1208 from Albert, afterwards patriarch of Constantinople. It was confirmed by Honorius III., 1226. Its original sixteen articles gave the usual regulations against eating meat, enjoined daily silence, from vespers to tierce (6 P. M. to 9 A. M.), and provided that the monks live the hermit’s life in cells like the Carthusians. The dress was at first a striped garment, white and black, which was afterwards changed for brown.

With the Christian losses in Palestine, the Carmelites began to migrate westwards. In 1238 they were in Cyprus, and before the middle of the thirteenth century they were settled in far Western Europe. The first English house was at Alnwick, and a general chapter was held at Aylesford, 1246.

From the general of the order, Simon Stock, an Englishman (1245–65), dates the veneration of the scapulary,

The Carmelites are often called the Brotherhood of the Scapulary. The scapulary is a sleeveless jacket covering the breast and back, and was originally worn over the other garments when the monk was at work. The garment has been the frequent subject of papal decree down to Leo XIII., 1892. July 16 has been set apart since 1587 as a special festival of the scapulary, and is one of the feasts of the Virgin. A work has been written on the proper use of the scapulary, by Brocard: Recueil des instructions sur la devotion au St. Scapulaire de Notre Dame de Monte Carmelo, Gand, 4th ed. 1875. Simon Stock was one hundred when he died.

After the success of the Franciscans and Dominicans, the Carmelites, with the sanction of Innocent IV., adopted the practice of mendicancy, 1245, and the coenobite life was substituted for life in solitary cells. The rules concerning clothing and food were relaxed to meet the climatic conditions of Europe.

A division took place in the order in 1378. The wing, holding to the stricter rule as confirmed by Innocent IV., is known as the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance. Both wings have their respective generals. The Carmelite name most famous in the annals of piety is that of St. Theresa, the Spanish saint who joined herself to the Carmelites, 1533. She aided in founding seventeen convents for women and fourteen for monks. This new branch, the Barefoot Carmelites, spread to different parts of Europe, Mt. Carmel, Africa, Mexico, and other countries. The monks wear leathern sandals, and the nuns a light shoe.

By the decision of Clement VIII., 1593, the Barefoot monks became an independent order, and elect their own general superior. Hurter, IV. 213, concludes his short account of the Carmelites by saying, that among other things which they used to exaggerate to a ridiculous extent was the number of their houses, which they gave at 7500, and of their monks, which they gave as 180,000.

Of the other numerous monastic orders, the following may be mentioned. The Antonites, or Brothers of the Hospital of St. Antonius

Falco, Antonianae Hist. compendium, Lyons, 1534. Uhlhorn, D. christl. Liebesthätigkeit d. Mittelalters, Stuttg. 1884, 178-186, 343 sqq.

The Trinitarians, ordo sanctissima Trinitatis de redemptione captivorum, had for their mission the redemption of Christian captives out of the hands of the Saracens and Moors. Their founder was John of Matha (1160–1213). The order was also called the ordo asinorum, Order of the Asses, from the fact that its members rode on asses and never on horseback.

The Trinitarians were also called Maturines, from their house in Paris near St. Mathurine’s chapel. They had a few houses in England. A Spanish order with the same design, the Ordo B. V. M. de Mercede redemptionis captivorum, was founded by Peter Nolasco and Raymond of Pennaforte. See Hurter, IV. 219.

The Order of Grammont, founded by Stephen of Auvergne, deserves mention for the high rank it once held in France. It enjoyed the special patronage of Louis VII. and other French sovereigns, and had sixty houses in France. It was an order of hermits. Arrested while on a pilgrimage, by sickness, Stephen was led by the example of the hermits of Calabria to devote himself to the hermit life. These monks went as far in denying themselves the necessities of life as it is possible to do and yet survive,

Hurter, IV. 140. See art. Grammont, in Wetzer-Welte, VI. 990 sqq.

The Brothers of the Sack

Fratres saccati, fratres de sacco, saccophori, etc. See art. Sackbrüder, in Herzog, XVII. 327. Gasquet, 241 sq.

§ 67. Monastic Prophets.

St. Hildegard and Joachim of Flore.

Literature.—Hildegard’s works in Migne, vol. 197, and some not there given in Pitra: Analecta sacra. For a list see Preger: Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, I. 13–36.—Lives by Godefrid and Theodorich, contemporaries in Migne.—Dahl, Mainz, 1832.—Clarius, with translation of Hildegard’s letters, 2 vols. Regensburg, 1854.—Richaud, Aix, 1876.—J. P. Schmelzeis, Freiburg, 1897.—P. Franche, Paris, 1903.—Benrath, in Herzog, VIII. 71 sq.—Hildegard’s Causae et curae, ed. by Kaiser, Leipzig, 1903, is a sort of mediaeval manual of medicine.

Joachim’s published works, Liber concordiae novi et veteris Testamenti, Venice, 1519; Expositio in Apocalypsin and Psalterium decem chordarum, Venice, 1527. The errors of Joachim are given in Mansi, xxii. 981 and Denifle: Chartularium Univ., Par I. 272–275.—Salimbene: Chronicon, Parma, 1857; Coulton’s trans., London, 1906.—Luna Consentinus, d. 1224, perhaps an amanuensis: Synopsis virtutum b. Joach. in Ughelli, Italia sacra, IX. 205 sqq.—Gervaise: Hist. de l’abbé Joachim, 2 vols. Paris, 1745.—Reuter: Gesch. der Aufklärung, 1877, pp. 191–218.—Renan in Nouvelles études d’hist. rel., Paris, 1884, pp. 217–323.—*Denifle: Das Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagni, in Archiv für Lit.- und Kirchengesch., 1885, pp. 49–142. *Döllinger: Die Papstfabeln des Mittelalters, 2d ed. by J. Friedrich, Stuttgart, 1890; Engl. trans. of 1st ed. by H. B. Smith, N. Y., 1872, pp. 364–391.—*Artt: Joachim, in Wetzer-Welte by Ehrle, VI. 1471–1480, and in Herzog by Deutsch, IX. 227–232.—*E. Schott: Die Gedanken Joachims in Brieger’s Zeitschrift, 1902, pp. 157–187.

The monasteries also had their prophets. Men’s minds, stirred by the disasters in Palestine, and by the spread of heresy in Europe, here and there saw beyond the prevailing ritual of church and convent to a new era in which, however, neither hierarchy nor convent would be given up. In the twelfth century the spirit of prophecy broke out almost simultaneously in convents on the Rhine and in Southern Italy. Its chief exponents were Hildegard of Bingen, Elizabeth of Schoenau, and Joachim, the abbot of Flore.

Among others who were expecting the millennium soon to dawn, was Norbert, who wrote to St. Bernard that the age in which he lived was the age of antichrist. Bernard, Ep., 56; Migne, 182, 50, wrote back taking a contrary view.

Hildegard (1098–1179), abbess of the Benedictine convent of Disebodenberg, near Bingen on the Rhine, was the most prominent woman in the church of her day.

The name of Héloïse was perhaps as widely known, but it was for her connection with Abelard, not for her works in the Church. The Latin form of Hildegard is Hildegardis. M. Paris, Luard’s Ed., V. 195, in his summary of the events of 1200-1250, mentions Hildegard and Elizabeth of Thuringia as the prominent religious female characters of the period, but Hildegard died 1177.

Infirm of body, Hildegard was, by her own statement, the recipient of visions from her childhood. As she wrote to St. Bernard, she saw them "not with the external eye of sense but with the inner eye." The deeper meanings of Scripture touched her breast and burnt into her soul like a flame."

animam meam sicut flammam comburens, Migne, 197, 190. St. Bernard, writing to Hildegard, spoke of the "sweetness of her holy love," and Hildegard compares the abbot of Clairvaux to the eagle and addresses him as the most mild of fathers, mitissime pater.

It is reported by contemporaries of this godly woman that scarcely a sick person came to her without being healed.

Migne, 197, 117.

As a censor of the Church, Hildegard lamented the low condition of the clergy, announced that the Cathari would be used to stir up Christendom to self-purification, called attention to the Scriptures and the Catholic faith as the supreme fonts of authority, and bade men look for salvation not to priests but to Christ.

She was also an enthusiastic student of nature. Her treatises on herbs, trees, and fishes are among the most elaborate on natural objects of the Middle Ages. She gives the properties of no less than two hundred and thirteen herbs or their products, and regarded heat and cold as very important qualities of plant life. They are treated with an eye to their medicinal virtue. Butter, she says, is good for persons in ill health and suffering from feverish blood and the butter of cows is more wholesome than the butter of sheep and goats. Licorice,

de plantis, Migne, 197, 1139.

A kindred spirit to Hildegard was Elizabeth of Schoenau, who died 1165 at the age of thirty-six.

Her writings are given in Migne, 195, 119-196. First complete edition by F. W. C. Roth: Die Visionen der heiligen Elizabeth, Brünn, 1884. See Preger: Gesch. d. deutschen Mystik, 1, 37-43.

Joachim of Flore,

After the convent St. Johannes in Flore, which he founded. The members of Joachim’s order are called in the papal bull, Florentii fratres, Potthast, No. 2092, vol. I. 182.

Joachim enjoyed the reputation of a prophet during his lifetime.

When Richard Coeur de Lion was in Sicily on his way to Palestine in 1190, he was moved by Joachim’s fame to send for him. The abbot interpreted to him John’s prophecy of anti-christ, whom he declared was already born, and would in time be elevated to the Apostolic chair and strive against everything called of God. De Hoveden, Engl. trans., II. pp. 177 sqq.

Joachim’s views on the doctrine of the Trinity are of slight importance. The abbot has a place in history by his theory of historical development and his eschatology. His opinions are set forth in three writings of whose genuineness there is no question, an exposition of the Psalms, an exposition of the Apocalypse, and a Concord of the Old and New Testaments.

Joachim, in a list, 1200, gives these three writings and also mentions works against the Jews and on the articles of the Christian faith. Schott, p. 170, counts twenty-four works, genuine and ungenuine, which are ascribed to him. Among those pronounced ungenuine are the commentaries on Jeremiah and Isaiah which were much used by the Franciscans from the middle of the thirteenth century on. They call Rome, Babylon and show a bitter hostility to the pope, representations which are in conflict with Joachim’s genuine writings. They also abound in detailed prophecies of events which actually occur-red. "If these books were genuine," says Döllinger, p. 369, "the exact fulfilment of the many predictions would present the most wonderful phenomenon in the history of prophecy."

Interwoven with his prophecies is Joachim’s theory of historical development. There are three ages in history. The Old Testament age has its time of beginning and bloom. So has that of the New Testament. But a third age is to follow. The basis for this theory of three periods is found in a comparison of the Old and New Testaments, a comparison which reveals a parallelism between the leading periods of the history of Israel and the periods of Christian history. This parallelism was disclosed to Joachim on an Easter night, and made as clear as day.

The first of the three ages was the age of the Father, the second the age of the Son, of the Gospel, and the sacraments, the third, the age of the Holy Spirit which was yet to come. The three were represented by Peter, Paul, and John. The first was an age of law, the second of grace, the third of more grace. The first was characterized by fear, the second by faith, the third was to be marked by charity. The first was the age of servants, the second of freedmen, the third of friends. The first brought forth water, the second wine, the third was to bring forth oil. The first was as the light of the stars, the second of the dawn, the third of the perfect day. The first was the age of the married, and corresponded to the flesh; the second of priests, with the elements of the flesh and the Spirit mixed; the third of monks, and was to be wholly spiritual. Each of these ages had a beginning, a maturity, and an end.

principium, fructificatio, finis.

The Gospel of the letter is temporal not eternal, and gives way in the third period to the Eternal Gospel, Rev. 14:6. Then the spiritual meaning of the Gospel will be fully known. Joachim did not mean to deny the permanent authority of the two Testaments, when he put into his third period the full understanding of them, in the spiritual sense, and the complete embodiment of their teachings in life and conduct. The Eternal Gospel he described, not as a newly written revelation, but as the spiritual and permanent message of Christ’s Gospel, which is hidden under the surface of the letter. This Gospel he also called the Spiritual Gospel, and the Gospel of the Kingdom.

See Denifle, pp. 53 sqq.

It was in the conception of the maturition of the periods as much as in the succession of the periods that the theory of development is brought out.

So Schott, p. 180, Die Fructification ist nichts anders als ein neuer Ausdruck für den Entwicklungsgedanken.

Joachim was no sectary. He was not even a reformer. Like many of his contemporaries he was severe upon the vices of the clergy of his day. "Where is quarrelling," he exclaims, "where fraud, except among the sons of Juda, except among the clergy of the Lord? Where is crime, where ambition, except among the clergy of the Lord?"

See Schott, 175.

An ecclesiastical judgment upon Joachim’s views was precipitated by the Franciscan Gerardus of Borgo San Donnino, who wrote a tract called the Introduction to the Eternal Gospel,

Introductorius in Evangelium aeternum.

When Gerard’s work appeared, in 1254, it created a great stir and was condemned by professors at Paris, the enemies of the Franciscans, William of St. Amour among the number. The strict wing of the Franciscans, the Spirituals, adopted some of Joachim’s views and looked upon him as the prophet of their order. Articles of accusation were brought before Innocent IV. His successor, Alexander IV., in 1255 condemned Gerardo and his book without, however, passing judgment upon Joachim.

The practical English monk, M. Paris, speaks of Joachim’s doctrines as "new and absurd." III. p. 206.

§ 68. The Mendicant Orders.

For literature, see §§ 69, 72.

A powerful impulse was imported into monasticism and the life of the mediaeval Church by the two great mendicant orders,

Ordines mendicantium..

The appearance of these two organizations was without question one of the most momentous events of the Middle Ages,

Wilhelm Kothe: Kirchliche Zustände Strassburgs im 14ten Jahrhundert, Freib. im Br., 1903, says the mendicant monks were distrusted in Strassburg from the beginning and the Dominicans had to remain outside of the walls till 1250, and their attempt at that time to build a chapel stirred up a warm conflict.

Two temperaments could scarcely have differed more widely than the temperaments of Francis and Dominic. Dante has described Francis as an Ardor, inflaming the world with love; Dominic as a Brightness, filling it with light.

Neither touched life on so many sides as did Bernard. They were not involved in the external policies of states. They were not called upon to heal papal schisms, nor were they brought into a position to influence the papal policy. But each excelled the monk of Clairvaux as the fathers of well-disciplined and permanent organizations.

Francis is the most unpretentious, gentle, and lovable of all monastic saints.

Harnack says: "If ever man practised what he preached, that man was Francis." Monachism, p. 68.

It is probable that on at least three occasions the two leaders met.

Karl Müller accepts the evidence which Sabatier gives. See Literatur-Zeitung, 1895, p. 181.

It was the purpose neither of Francis nor Dominic to reform existing orders, or to revive the rigor of rules half-obeyed. It may be doubted whether Francis, at the outset, had any intention of founding an organization. His object was rather to start a movement to transform the world as with leaven. They both sought to revive Apostolic practice.

The Franciscan and Dominican orders differed from the older orders in five important particulars.

The first characteristic feature was absolute poverty. Mendicancy was a primal principle of their platforms. The rules of both orders, the Franciscans leading the way, forbade the possession of property. The corporation, as well as the individual monk, was pledged to poverty. The intention of Francis was to prohibit forever the holding of corporate property as well as individual property among his followers.

This does not mean that the Franciscans in their early period were idlers. They were expected to work. Sabatier, S. François, VIII. p. 138.

The practice of absolute poverty had been emphasized by preachers and sects in the century before Francis and Dominic began their careers, and sects, such as the Humiliati, the Poor Men of Lombardy, and the Poor Men of Lyons, were advocating it in their time. Robert d’Abrissel, d. 1117, had for his ideal to follow "the bare Christ on the cross, without any goods of his own."

nudus nudum Christum in cruce sequi, Walter, Wanderprediger.

The second feature was their devotion to practical activities in society. The monk had fled into solitude from the day when St. Anthony retired to the Thebaid desert. The Black and Gray Friars, as the Dominicans and Franciscans were called from the colors of their dress, threw themselves into the currents of the busy world. To lonely contemplation they joined itinerancy in the marts and on the thoroughfares.

Hergenröther says, "Chivalry reappeared in them in a new form. In happy unison were blended peace and battle, contemplation and active life, faith and love, prudent moderation and flaming enthusiasm." Kirchengeschichte, II. 369.

A third characteristic of the orders was the lay brotherhoods which they developed, the third order, called Tertiaries, or the penitential brothers, fratres de poenitentia.

So called in the bull of Gregory IX., 1228; Potthast, I. p. 703.

A fourth feature was their activity as teachers in the universities. They recognized that these new centres of education were centres of powerful influence, and they adapted themselves to the situation. Twenty years had scarcely elapsed before the Franciscans and Dominicans entered upon a career of great distinction at these universities. Francis, it is true, had set his face against learning, and said that demons had more knowledge of the stars than men could have. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. To a novice he said, "If you have a psaltery, you will want a breviary; and if you have a breviary, you will sit on a high chair like a prelate, and say to your brother, ’Bring me a breviary.’ " To another he said, "The time of tribulation will come when books will be useless and be thrown away."

See the quotations from the Speculum andVita secunda of Celano, in Seppelt, pp. 234 sqq. Also Sabatier, S. François, ch. XVI.

At Paris and Oxford, Cologne, and other universities, they furnished the greatest of the Schoolmen. Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Durandus, were Dominicans; John of St. Giles, Alexander Hales, Adam Marsh, Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, Ockham, and Roger Bacon were of the order of St. Francis. Among other distinguished Franciscans of the Middle Ages were the exegete Nicolas of Lyra, the preachers Anthony of Padua, David of Augsburg, Bernardino of Siena, and Bertholdt of Regensburg (d. 1272); the missionaries, Rubruquis and John of Monte Corvino; the hymn-writers, Thomas of Celano and Jacopone da Todi. Among Dominicans were the mystics, Eckhart and Tauler, Las Casas, the missionary of Mexico, and Savonarola.

The fifth notable feature was the immediate subjection of the two orders to the Apostolic see. The Franciscans and Dominicans were the first monastic bodies to vow allegiance directly to the pope. No bishop, abbot, or general chapter intervened between them and him. The two orders became his bodyguard and proved themselves to be the bulwark of the papacy. Such organized support the papacy had never had before. The legend represents Innocent III. as having seen in a vision the structure of the Lateran supported by two monks.

Villani, V. 25, says, "This vision was true, for it was evident the Church of God was falling through licentiousness and many errors, not fearing God."

Favor followed favor from the Roman court. In 1222 Honorius III. granted, first to the Dominicans and then to the Franciscans, the notable privilege of conducting services in their churches in localities where the interdict was in force.

The bulls are dated March 7 and 29. See Potthast, I. 590. The same privilege was conceded to the Carmelites, April 9, 1229.

Orthodoxy had no more zealous champions than the Franciscans and Dominicans. They excelled all other orders as promoters of religious persecution and hunters of heretics. In Southern France they wiped out the stain of heresy with the streams of blood which flowed from the victims of their crusading fanaticism. They were the leading instruments of the Inquisition. Torquemada was a Dominican, and so was Konrad of Marburg. As early as 1232 Gregory IX. confided the execution of the Inquisition to the Dominicans, but the order of Francis demanded and secured a share in the gruesome work. Under the lead of Duns Scotus the Franciscans became the unflagging champions of the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary which was pronounced a dogma in 1854, as later the Jesuits became the unflagging champions of the dogma of papal infallibility.

The rapid growth of the two orders in number and influence was accompanied by bitter rivalry. The disputes between them were so violent that in 1255 their respective generals had to call upon their monks to avoid strife. The papal privileges were a bone of contention, one order being constantly suspicious lest the other should enjoy more favor at the hand of the pope than itself.

Their abuse of power called forth papal briefs restricting their privileges. Innocent IV. in 1254, in what is known among the orders as the "terrible bull,"

Potthast, II. 1280. Innocent died a few weeks after issuing this bull and, as is said, in answer to the prayers of the mendicants. Hence came the saying, "from the prayers of the Preachers, good Lord, deliver us." A litanis praedicatorum libera nos, Domine.

The pretensions of the mendicant friars soon became unbearable to the church at large. They intruded themselves into every parish and incurred the bitter hostility of the secular clergy whose rights they usurped, exercising with free hand the privilege of hearing confessions and granting absolution. It was not praise that Chaucer intended when he said of the Franciscan in his Canterbury Tales,—He was an easy man to give penance.

These monks also delayed a thorough reformation of the Church. They were at first reformers themselves and offered an offset to the Cathari and the Poor Men of Lyons by their Apostolic self-denial and popular sympathies. But they degenerated into obstinate obstructors of progress in theology and civilization. From being the advocates of learning, they became the props of popular ignorance. The virtue of poverty was made the cloak for vulgar idleness and mendicancy for insolence.

These changes set in long before the century closed in which the two orders had their birth. Bishops opposed them. The secular clergy complained of them. The universities ridiculed and denounced them for their mock piety and vices. William of St. Amour took the lead in the opposition in Paris. His sharp pen compared the mendicants to the Pharisees and Scribes and declared that Christ and his Apostles did not go around begging. To work was more scriptural than to beg.

In his treatise de periculis novissorum temporum, "The Perils of the Last Times," Basel, 1555, William has been held up as a precursor of Rabelais and Pascal on account of his keen satire. He was answered by Bonaventura and by Thomas Aquinas in hiscontra impugnantes religionem. Alexander IV. ordered William’s treatise burnt, and in the bull, dated Oct. 5, 1256, declared it to be "most dangerous and detestable," valde perniciosum et detestabilem. See Potthast, II. 1357. When an edition of Williaim’s treatise appeared at Paris, 1632, the Mendicants secured an order from Louis XIII. suppressing it. William was inhibited from preaching and teaching and retired to Franche-Comte, where he died. See Chartularium Univ. Parisiensis, I. Nos. 295, 296, 314, 318, 321, 332, 339, 343, 315, etc.

The time came in the early part of the fifteenth century when the great teacher Gerson, in a public sermon, enumerated as the four persecutors of the Church, tyrants, heretics, antichrist, and the Mendicants.

Matthew Paris in his résumé of the chief events of 1200-1250 has this to say of the decay of the orders, "These Preachers and Minorites at first led the life of poverty and greatest sanctity and devoted themselves assiduously to preaching, confessions, divine duties in the church, reading and study, and abandoned many revenues, embracing voluntary poverty in the service of God and reserving nothing in the way of food for themselves for the morrow, but within a few years, they got themselves into excellent condition and constructed most costly houses, etc." Luard’s ed., V. 194.

§ 69. Franciscan Literature.

I. St. Francis: Works in Latin text, ed. by Wadding, Antwerp, 1623, by de la Haye, Paris, 1841, Col., 1849, Paris, 1880-Quaracchi, 1904.—Bernardo da Fivizzano: Oposcoli di S. Fr. d’Assise, Florence, 1880. Gives the Latin text and Ital. trans., the Rule of 1223, St. Francis’ will, letters, etc.—French trans. by Ed. d’Alencon: Les Opuscules de S. François, Paris, 1905.—H. Böhmer: Analekten zur Gesch. des Franc. von Assisi, Francisci opuscula, regula poenitentium, etc., mit einer Einleittung, Tübingen, 1904.—Writings of St. Francis of Assisi, trans. by Father Paschal Robinson, Phil., 1906.

Lives.—1. Thomas of Celano: Vita prima, written 1228 at the command of Gregory IX., to justify the canonization of Francis, Rome, 1880.—2. Th. of Celano: Vita secunda, written about 1247 and revealing the struggles within the Franciscan order, ed. by Fivizzano, Rome, 1880. Both lives ed. by H. G. Rosedale: Thomas de Celano, St. F. d’Assisi with a crit. Introd. containing a description with every extant version in the original Latin, N. Y., 1904. Also Ed. d’Alençon: Th. a Celano, S. Franc. Assisiensis vita et miracula, etc., pp. lxxxvii, 481, Rome, 1906.—Fr. of Assisi according to Th. of Celano. His descriptions of the Seraphic Father, 1229–1257, Introd. by H. G. Rosedale, Lond., 1904.—3. Legenda trium sociorum, the Legend of the Three Companions, Leo, Angelo, and Rufino, intimate associates of Francis. Written in 1246 and first publ. in full by the Bollandists as an appendix to Celano’s Lives, Louvaine, 1768, Rome, 1880. It has been preserved in a mutilated condition. The disputes within the order account for the expurgation of parts to suit the lax or papal wing.—4. Speculum perfectionis seu S. Francesci Assisiensis legenda antiquissima, auctore fratre Leone, nunc primum edidit, Paul Sabatier, Paris, 1898; also ed. by Ed. Lemmens, Quaracchi, 1901. Sabatier dates it 1227. Eng. trans. by Constance, Countess de la Warr, Lond., 1902. See note below.—5. Legenda major, or Aurea legenda major, by Bonaventura, in Peltier’s ed., and Quaracchi, 1898, Engl. trans., Douai, 1610, and by Miss Lockhart with Pref. by Card. Manning, Lond., 3d ed., 1889. Written in obedience to the order of the Franciscan Chapter and approved by it at Pisa, 1263. Here the legendary element is greatly enlarged. Once treated as the chief authority, it is now relegated to a subordinate place, as it suppresses the distinctive element represented by Francis’ will.—6. Liber conformitatum, by Bartholomew Albericus of Pisa, d. 1401. Institutes forty comparisons between Francis and Christ. Luther called it der Barfussmönche Eulenspiegel und Alkoran, The owls’ looking-glass and Koran of the Barefoot monks.—7. Actus B. Francesci et sociorum ejus, ed. Sabatier, Paris, 1902. A collection of sayings and acts of Francis, handed down from eye-witnesses and others, hitherto unpubl. and to be dated not later than 1328.—8. Legenda of Julian of Spires. About 1230.—9. Legenda of Bernard of Bess, publ. in the Analecta Franciscana III., Quaracchi, near Florence. A compilation.—10. Francisci beati sacrum commercium cum domina paupertate, with an Ital. trans. by Ed. d’Alençon, Rome, 1900. Engl. trans., The Lady Poverty, by Montgomery Carmichael, N. Y., 1902. Goes back, at least, to the 13th century, as Ubertino da Casale was acquainted with it.—11. The Fioretti, or Little Flowers of St. Francis, first publ., 1476, ed. Sabatier, Paris, 1902, pp. xvi., 250. Engl. trans. by Abby L. Alger, Boston, 1887, and Woodroffe, London, 1905. Belongs to the 14th century. A collection of legends very popular in Italy. Sabatier says none of them are genuine, but that they perfectly reveal the soul of St. Francis,—12. Fratris Fr. Bartholi de Assisio Tractatus de indulgentia S. Mariae de Portiuncula, ed. Sabatier, Paris, 1900. Belongs to the 14th century. See Lit.-zeitung, 1901, 110 sqq.—13. Regula antiqua fratrum et sororum de poenitentia seu tertii ordinis S. Francisci, nunc primum ed., Sabatier, Paris, 1901. See S. Minocchi: La Leggenda antica. Nuova fonte biogr. di S. Francesco d’Assisi tratto da un codice Vaticana, Florence, 1905, pp. 184. Unfavorably noticed by Lempp, in Lit.-zeitung, 1906, p. 509, who says that the contents of the MS. were for the most part drawn from the Speculum perfectionis.

Modern Biographies.—By Chavin De Malan, Paris, 1841, 2d ed., 1845.—K. Hase, Leip. 1856, 2d ed., 1892. First crit. biog.—Mrs. Oliphant, Lond., 1870.—Magliano, 2 vols., Rome, 1874, Eng. trans., N. Y., 1887.—L. de Chérancé, Paris, 1892, Engl. trans., 1901.—Henry Thode, Berlin, 1885, 1904.—*Paul Sabatier, a Protestant pastor: Vie de S. François d’Assise, Paris, 1894. 33d ed., 1906. Crowned by the French Academy. Engl. trans. by L. S. Houghton, N. Y., 1894. I use the 27th ed.—W. J. Knox-Little, Lond., 1896.—P. Doreau, Paris, 1903, p. 648.—A. Barine: S. Fr. d’Assisi et le légende des trois Compagnons, Paris, 1901.—J. Herkless: Francis and Dominic, N. Y., 1904.—H. v. Redern, Schwerin, 1905.—*G. Schnürer: Franz von Assisi. Die Vertiefung des religiösen Lebens im Abendlande zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, Munich, 1905.—Nino Tamassia: S. Francesco d’Assisi e la sua leggenda, Padua, 1906, p. 216.—F. Van Ortroy: Julien de Spire, biographe de St. François, Brussels, 1890.—J. E. Weis: Julian von Speier, d. 1285, Munich, 1900.—Ed. Lempp: Frère Elie de Cortona, Paris, 1901.—H. Tilemann: Speculum perfectionis und Legenda trium sociorum, Ein Beitrag zur Quellenkritik der Gesch. des hl. Franz. von Assisi, Leip. 1902.—Potthast: Bibl. Hist., II. 1319 sqq. gives a list of ninety biographies. For further Lit. see Zöckler in Herzog, VI. 197–222, and "Engl. Hist. Rev." 1903, 165 sqq., for a list and critical estimate of the lit., W. Goetz: Die Quellen zur Gesch. des hl. Franz von Assisi, Gotha, 1904. First published in Brieger’s Zeitschrift and reviewed in Lit.-zeitung, 1905, pp. 8–10.

II. The Franciscans: Earliest Chronicles.—Jordanus Da Giano: de primitivorum fratrum in Teutoniam missorum conversatione et vita memorabilia, for the years 1207–1238, in Analecta Franciscana, pp. 1–19.—Thomas of Eccleston, a Franciscan: de adventu Minorum in Angliam, 1224–1250 in the Analecta Franciscana and best in Monumenta Franciscana, ed. by J. S. Brewer, with valuable Preface, London, 1858, Engl. trans. by Cuthbert, London, 1903. The volume also contains the Letters of Adam de Marisco, etc.; vol. II., ed. by Richard Howlett, with Preface, contains fragments of Eccleston and other English documents bearing on the Franciscans.—Analecta Franciscana sive chronica aliaque documenta ad historiam Minorum spectantia, Quaracchi, 1885.—Bullarium Franciscanum sive Romanorum pontificum constitutiones, epistolae, diplomata, etc., vols. I.-IV., Rome, 1759, ed. by J. H. Sbaraglea and Rossi, vols. V., VII., Rome, 1898–1904, ed. by Conrad Eubel; the collection extends to 1378.—Seraphicae legationis textus originales, Quaracchi, 1897, containing the Rule of 1223 and other documents. Luke Wadding: Annales Minorum, 7 vols., Lyons, 1625–1648, the most valuable history of the order.—Denifle and Ehrle give valuable materials and criticisms in Archiv für Lit. und Kirchengeschichte d. Mittelalters, vol. I. 145 sqq.; 509–569, III. 553 sqq.; VI. 1I sqq., Berlin, 1885–1891.—Karl Müller: Die Anfänge des Minoriten-ordens und der Bussbruderschaften, Freib., 1885.—A. G. Little: The Grey-friars in Oxford, Oxford, 1891.—Eubel: Die avignonesische Obedienz der Mendikanten-Orden, etc., zur Zeit des grossen Schismas beleuchtet durch die von Clement VII. und Benedict XIII. an dieselben gerichteten Schreiben, Paderborn, 1900.—Pierre Madonnet: Les origines de l’ordre de poenitentia, Freib., 1898; also Les règles et le gouvernement de l’ordre de poenitentia am XIIIe siècle (1212–1234), Paris, 1902.—F. X. Seppelt: Der Kampf der Bettelorden an der Universität Paris in der Mitte des 13ten Jahrh. Heiligenstadt, 1892.—F. Glaser: Die franziskanische Bewegung. Ein Beitrag zur Gesch. sozialer Reformideen im Mittelalter, Stuttg., 1903.—H. Felder: Gesch. der wissenschaftlichen Studien im Franziskanerorden bis c. 1250, Freib., 1904, pp. 557. Ricard St. Clara: St. Claire d’Assise, Paris, 1895.—E. Wauer: Entstehung und Ausbreitung des Klarissenordens besonders in deutschen Minoritenprovinzen, Leip., 1906.—E. Knoth: Ubertino da Casale, Marburg, 19 Bibliothek zu Breslau befindlichen handschrift-lichen Aufzeichnungen von Reden und Tractaten Capistrans, etc., 2 Parts, Breslau, 1903–1905.—L. de Chérancé: St. Antoine de Padoue, Paris, 1906.—Helyot: Relig. Orders, VII. 1–421.—Lea. Hist. of the Inquisition, I. 242–304.—M. Creighton: The Coming of the Friars, in Lectures and Addresses, pp. 69–84.—A. Jessopp: The Coming of the Friars.—Stevenson: Life of Grosseteste, London, 1899, pp. 59–87.—Hauck, IV. 366–483.

Note on the recent literature on St. Francis. A phenomenal impulse was given to the study of the life of St. Francis by the publication of Sabatier’s biography in 1804. This biography, Karl Müller placed "at the summit of modern historical workmanship.," Lit.-zeitung, 1895, pp. 179–186. It showed a mastery of the literature before unknown and a profound sympathy with the spirit of the Italian saint. It has revolutionized the opinion of Protestants in regard to him, and has given to the world a correct picture of the real Francis. Strange that a Protestant pastor should have proved himself the leading modern student of Francis and one of his most devoted admirers! Sabatier has followed up his first work with tireless investigations into the early literature and history of St. Francis and the Franciscans, giving up his pastorate, making tour after tour to Italy, and spending much time in Assisi, where he is held in high esteem, and is pointed out as one of the chief sights of the place. He has been fortunate in his discoveries of documents and, as an editor, he has created a new Franciscan literature. His enthusiasm and labors have stimulated a number of scholars in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland to make a specialty of the early Franciscan literature such as Minocchi, Madonnet, Müller, Lempp, and Schnürer. His Life of St. Francis has been put on the Index because it is said to misrepresent Catholic customs.

While Sabatier’s presentation of Francis’ career and character may be said to have gained general acceptance, except among Franciscans, there is a large difference of opinion in regard to the dates of the early documents and their original contents. This literary aspect of the subject has become greatly complicated by the publication of manuscripts which differ widely from one another and the divergent criticisms of scholars. This confusion has been likened by Müller, Lit.-zeitung, 1902, p. 593, and Lempp, Lit. zeitung, 1906, p. 509, to a thicket through which it is almost impossible to see a path. The confusion grows out of the determined policy of Gregory IX. and the conventual wing of the early Franciscans to destroy all materials which show that Francis was opposed to a strict discipline within the order and insisted upon the rule of absolute poverty. The Franciscan chapter of 1264 ordered all biographies of Francis, written up to that time, destroyed, except the biography by Bonaventura. St. Francis’ insistence upon the rule of absolute poverty, the original Rule, and his will, were to be utterly effaced. The new study, introduced by the clear eye of Sabatier, has gone back of this date, 1264, and rescued the portrait of the real Francis.

The attention of scholars is chiefly concentrated on the Speculum perfectionis published by Sabatier, 1898, and the original Rule of the Franciscan Tertiaries. The Speculum perfectionis is a life of Francis and, according to Sabatier (Introd. li.), is the first biography, dating back to 1227. The discovery of the document is one of the most interesting and remarkable of recent historical discoveries. The way it came to be found was this:—

Materials for the Life of Francis are contained in a volume entitled Speculum vitae St. Francisci et sociorum ejus, published first at Venice, 1504, and next at Paris, 1509. In studying the Paris edition of 1509, Sabatier discovered 118 chapters ascribed to no author and differing in spirit and style from the other parts. He used the document in the construction of his biography and was inclined to ascribe it to the three companions of Francis,—Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. See Vie de S. François, pp. lxxii. sq. At a later time he found that in several MSS. these chapters were marked as a distinct document. In the MS. in the Mazarin library he found 124 distinctive chapters. In these are included the 16 of the Paris edition of 1509. These chapters Sabatier regards as a distinct volume, the Speculum perfectionis, written by Leo, the primary composition bearing on Francis’ career and teachings. The date for its composition is derived from the Mazarin MS. which gives the date as MCCXXVIII. This date Sabatier finds confirmed by indications in the document itself, p. xxii. etc.

This sympathetic, lucid, and frank narrative puts Francis in a new light, as a martyr to the ambitious designs of Gregory IX. who set aside the rule of absolute poverty which was most dear to Francis’ heart and placed over him a representative of his own papal views. Leo, so Sabatier contends (Introd. p. li.), wrote his work immediately after the announcement by Elias of Cortona of the intention to erect an imposing cathedral over the "Little Poor Man." Leo was unable to suppress his indignation and so uttered his protest against the violent manipulation of Francis’ plan and memory.

Serious objection has been raised to Sabatier’s date of the Speculum perfectionis. In agreement with Minocchi,—Tilemann, Goetz, and others have adopted the date given in the Ognissanti (a convent in Florence) MS. namely MCCCXVII, and by a careful study of the other lives of Francis conclude that the Speculum is a compilation. Some of its contents, however, they agree, antedate Thomas a Celano’s Vita secunda or second Life of Francis or are still older. Müller, Lit.-zeitung, 1899, 49–52, 1902, p. 598, and Lempp, while not accepting the early date of 1227, place the document in the first half of the 13th century and regard it as an authority of the first rank, eine Quelle ersten Ranges. It shows a deep penetration into the real mind and soul of Francis, says Lempp, Lit.-zeitung, 1905, pp. 9 sq. Tilemann also ascribes to the document the highest value. For the numerous articles in Reviews, by Minocchi, van Ortroy, etc., see Tilemann, Speculum perfectionis, p. 4.

If Sabatier has given us the real Francis of history, as there is reason to believe he has, then the spectacle of Francis’ loss of authority by the skilled hand of Cardinal Ugolino, Gregory IX., is one of the most pathetic spectacles in history and Francis stands out as one of the most unselfish and pure-minded men of the Christian centuries.

§ 70. St. Francis d’Assisi.

High up in the list of hagiography stands the name of Francis of Assisi, the founder of the order of the Franciscans. Of all the Italian saints, he is the most popular in Italy and beyond it.

The former unfavorable view of most Protestant historians concerning Francis is no longer held. Hallam, Middle Ages, II. 197, called him "a harmless enthusiast, pious and sincere, but hardly of sane mind." Lea, representing the present tendency, goes far, when he says. "No human creature since Christ has more fully incarnated the ideal of Christianity than Francis." Hist. of Inquis., I. 260. Harnack says, "If ever a man practised what he preached, it was St. Francis." An anonymous writer, reviewing some of the Franciscan literature in the Independent, 1901, p. 2044, seriously pronounced the judgment that "Since the Apostles, Francis received into his being the love of Christ toward men and the lower creatures more fully than any other man, and his appearance has been an epoch of spiritual history only less significant than that of the original Good Tidings." More judicious is Sabatier’s verdict, Vie de S. Franc., p. viii., "that Francis is pre-eminently the saint of the Middle Ages. Owing nothing to the Church, he was truly theodidact."

Francesco,—Francis,—Bernardone, 1182–1226, was born and died in Assisi. His baptismal name was Giovanni, John, and the name Francis seems to have been given him by his father, Pietro Bernardone, a rich dealer in textile fabrics, with reference to France, to which he made business journeys. Francis studied Latin and was imperfectly acquainted with the art of writing. He had money to spend, and spent it in gayeties. In a war between Assisi and Perugia he joined the ranks, and was taken prisoner. When released, he was twenty-two. During an illness which ensued, his religious nature began to be stirred. He arose from his bed disgusted with himself and unsatisfied with the world. Again he enlisted, and, starting to join Walter of Brienne in Southern Italy, he proceeded as far as Spoleto. But he was destined for another than a soldier’s career. Turning back, and moved by serious convictions, he retired to a grotto near Assisi for seclusion. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, whether to do penance or not, is not known. His sympathies began to go out to the poor. He met a leper and shrank back in horror at first, but, turning about, kissed the leper’s hand, and left in it all the money he had. He frequented the chapels in the suburbs of his native city, but lingered most at St. Damian, an humble chapel, rudely furnished, and served by a single priest. This became to his soul a Bethel. At the rude altar he seemed to hear the voice of Christ. In his zeal he took goods from his father and gave them to the priest. So far as we know, Francis never felt called upon to repent of this act. Here we have an instance of a different moral standard from our own. How different, for example, was the feeling of Dr. Samuel Johnson, when, for an act of disobedience to his father, he stood, as a full-grown man, a penitent in the rain in the open square of Litchfield, his head uncovered!

The change which had overcome the gay votary of pleasure brought upon Francis the ridicule of the city and his father’s relentless indignation. He was cast out of his father’s house. Without any of those expressions of regret which we would expect from a son under similar circumstances, he renounced his filial obligation in public in these words: "Up to this time I have called Pietro Bernardone father, but now I desire to serve God and to say nothing else than ’Our Father which art in heaven.’ " Henceforth Francis was devoted to the religious life. He dressed scantily, took up his abode among the lepers, washing their sores, and restored St. Damian, begging the stones on the squares and streets of the city. This was in 1208.

Francis now received from the Benedictine abbot of Mt. Subasio the gift of the little chapel, Santa Maria degli Angeli.

The Speculum perfectionis, pp. 94 sqq., leaves no room for doubting the gift of the church to Francis. The gift was made on condition that the chapel should always remain the centre of the brotherhood.

In 1209 Francis heard the words, "Preach, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. Provide neither silver nor gold, nor brass in your purses." Throwing away his staff, purse, and, shoes, he made these Apostolic injunctions the rule of his life. He preached repentance and gathered about him Bernardo di Quintavallo, Egidio, and other companions. The three passages commanding poverty and taking up the cross, Matt. xvi:24–26; xix:21; Luke ix:1–6, were made their Rule.

Sabatier limits the Rule to these passages of Scripture. Thomas of Celano, Vita sec., II. 10, says that Francis "used chiefly the words of the Holy Gospel" but says further that "he added a few other things which were necessary for a holy life pauca tamen inseruit alia."

They were to preach, but especially were they to exemplify the precepts of the Gospel in their lives. Living was the most important concern, more important than sermons and than learning. Learning, Francis feared, would destroy humility. To a woman who came to him for alms he gave a copy of the New Testament, which they read at matins, the only book in the convent at the time. The convent did not even possess a breviary.

Speculum, 38; 2 Cel. 3, 35. The woman was expected to sell the book.

In 1210 Francis and some of his companions went to Rome, and were received by Innocent III.

Giotto has made the meeting with Innocent seated on his throne the subject of one of his frescoes. A splendid contrast indeed, the sovereign of kings and potentates and yet the successor of Peter, recognizing the humble devotee, whose fame was destined to equal his own! The date usually given is 1209. Sabatier gives reasons for the change to 1210. St. François, p. 100.

The brotherhood increased rapidly. The members were expected to work. In his will Francis urged the brethren to work at some trade as he had done. He compared an idle monk to a drone.

Spectulum, p. 49. See also Cel. 10; 2 Cel. 97. Sabatier insists that Francis had "no intention of creating a mendicant order, but a working order." S. François, p.138. Denifle also called attention to this feature, Archiv, 1885, p. 482.

In 1212 Clara of Sciffi entered into the horizon of Francis’ life. She was twelve years his junior and sixteen when she first heard him preach at the Cathedral of Assisi. The sermon entered her soul. With Francis’ aid she escaped from her father’s house, and was admitted to vows by him.

Francis was a deacon and never a priest. According to Thomas à Celano, Francis was austere in his relations to women, and knew only two women by sight. Sabatier, pp. 169 sq., pronounces this portraiture false and speaks of "the love of St. Francis and St. Clara." Here, as in other places, the biographer allows himself the license of the idealist. Francis’ last message to Clara is given in the Speculum Perfectionis, pp. 180 sqq. The Franciscan Rule of 1223 forbids, suspicious conferences with women, "but allows the friars to enter monastaries of nuns by permission of the Holy See. See Robinson, p. 73.

In 1217 Francis was presented to Honorius III. and the curia. At the advice of Cardinal Ugolino, later Gregory IX., he prepared himself and memorized the sermon. Arrived in the pontiff’s presence, he forgot what he had prepared and delivered an impromptu discourse, which won the assembly.

Francis made evangelistic tours through Italy which were extended to Egypt and Syria 1219. Returning from the East the little Poor Man, il poverello, found a new element had been introduced into the brotherhood through the influence of the stern disciplinarian Ugolino. This violent change made the rest of the years a time of bitter, though scarcely expressed, sorrow for him. Passing through Bologna in 1220, he was pained to the depths at seeing a house being erected for the brothers. Cardinal Ugolino had determined to manipulate the society in the interest of the curia. He had offered Francis his help, and Francis had accepted the offer. Under the cardinal’s influence, a new code was adopted in 1221, and still a third in 1223 in which Francis’ distinctive wishes were set aside. The original Rule of poverty was modified, the old ideas of monastic discipline introduced, and a new element of absolute submission to the pope added. The mind of Francis was too simple and unsophisticated for the shrewd rulers of the church. The policy of the ecclesiastic henceforth had control of the order.

According to the Speculum, pp. 1-4, 76, Francis made three Rules. Sabatier defines them as the Rule of 1210, confirmed by Innocent III., the Rule of 1221, confirmed by Honorius III., which in part misrepresented Francis’ views. The Rule of 1223 went further in this direction and completely overthrew Francis’ original intention. The first clause of the Rule of 1228 runs, "Brother Francis promises obedience and reverence to the lord pope, Honorius, and his successors." This rule is still in force in the first Franciscan order. Madonnet substantially agrees with Sabatier as does Karl Müller. Father Robinson, himself a Franciscan friar, pp. 25-31, 182, following the Quaracchi editors, who are Franciscans also, denies the genuineness of the Rule of 1221, and holds that there were only two Rules, and that there is no conflict between them. This conclusion is in the face of Francis’ will and the plain statement of Leo’s Legenda which, however, Robinson pays little attention to.

This forced self-subordination of Francis offers one of the most touching spectacles of mediaeval biography. Francis had withheld himself from papal privileges. He had favored freedom of movement. The skilled hand of Ugolino substituted strict monastic obedience. Organization was to take the place of spontaneous devotion. Ugolino was, no doubt, Francis’ real as well as professed friend. He laid the foundation of the cathedral in Assisi to his honor, and canonized him two years after his death. But Francis’ spirit he did not appreciate. Francis was henceforth helpless to carry out his original ideas,

Almost everything done in the order after 1221 was done either "without Francis’ knowledge or against his, will and mind," are the words of Sabatier. S. François, p. 316.

These ideas are reaffirmed in Francis’ famous will. This document is one of the most affecting pieces in Christian literature. Here Francis calls himself "little brother," frater parvulus. All he had to leave the brothers was his benediction, the memory of the early days of the brotherhood, and counsels to abide by the first Rule. This Rule he had received from no human teacher. The Almighty God himself had revealed it unto him, that he ought to live according to the mode of the Holy Gospel. He reminded them how the first members loved to live in poor and abandoned churches. He bade them not accept churches or houses, except as it might be in accordance with the rule of holy poverty they had professed. He forbade their receiving bulls from the papal court, even for their personal protection. At the same time, he pledged his obedience to the minister-general and expressed his purpose to go nowhere and do nothing against his will "for he is my lord." Through the whole of the document there runs a chord of anguish.

For the Latin text of this remarkable writing see Speculum, 309-313. Sabatier gives a French trans., in his S. Francois, 389 sqq.

Francis’ heart was broken. Never strong, his last years were full of infirmities. Change of locality brought only temporary relief. The remedial measures of the physician, such as the age knew, were employed. An iron, heated to white heat, was applied to Francis’ forehead. Francis shrank at first, but submitted to the treatment, saying, "Brother Fire, you are beautiful above all creatures, be favorable to me in this hour." He jocosely called his body, Brother Ass.

This designation was not original with Francis. In the fourth century Hilarion called his body the ass which ought to have chaff and not barley. Schaff, Ch. Hist. III., 190.

Two years before his death Francis composed the Canticle to the Sun, which Renan has called the most perfect expression of modern religious feeling.

Nouvelles Etudes d’hist. rel., 2d ed., Paris, 1844, pp. 333-35l. No reasonable doubt is possible that Francis was the author of the Canticle, now that the Speculum has been published (pp. 234 sqq., and Sabatier’s remarks, 278-288).

Francis had a message for the brute creation and preached to the birds. "Brother birds," he said on one occasion, "you ought to love and praise your Creator very much. He has given you feathers for clothing, wings for flying, and all things that can be of use to you. You have neither to sow, nor to reap, and yet He takes care of you." And the birds curved their necks and looked at him as if to thank him. He would have had the emperor make a special law against killing or doing any injury to, our sisters, the birds."

Speculum, 223-226. See Longfellow’s poem, The Sermon of St. Francis.

The last week of his life, the saint had repeated to him again and again the 142d Psalm, beginning with the words, "I cry with my voice unto Jehovah," and also his Canticle to the Sun. He called in brothers Angelo and Leo to sing to him about sister Death.

Speculum, p. 241.

Before the coffin was closed, great honors began to be heaped upon the saintly man. The citizens of Assisi took possession of the body, and Francis’ name has become the chief attraction of the picturesque and somnolent old town. He was canonized two years later.

Potthast, 8236, 8240, vol. I. 709-710.

The historical evidence for the reality of these marks is as follows. It was the day after Francis’ death that Elias of Cortona, as vicar of the order, sent letters in all directions to the Franciscans, announcing the fact that he had seen the stigmata on Francis’ body. His letter contained these words: "Never has the world seen such a sign except on the Son of God. For a long time before his death, our brother had in his body five wounds which were truly the stigmata of Christ, for his hands and feet have marks as of nails, without and within, a kind of scars, while from his side, as if pierced by a lance, a little blood oozed." The Speculum Perfectionis, perhaps the first biography of Francis, refers to them incidentally, but distinctly, in the course of a description of the severe temptations by which Francis was beset.

p. 194. It is at first sight striking that the author does not give a detailed description of this wonderful event. From another standpoint the passing reference may be regarded as a stronger testimony to its reality. See Sabatier’s observations, Speculum, pp. lxvi. sqq. It will be remembered that Sabatier places this document in 1227, only seven months after Francis’ death.

On the other hand, a very strong argument against their genuineness is the omission of all reference to them by Gregory IX. in his bull canonizing Francis, 1228. Francis’ claim to saintship, we would think, could have had no better authentication, and the omission is inexplicable.

The evidence for the genuineness is accepted by Sabatier, S. François, 401 sqq. Among other testimonies he adduces a Benediction upon Leo ostensibly written by Francis’ own hand, and found among the archives of Assisi. See Speculum, p. lxvii. sq. On the margin of this document Leo has written his authentication. He vouches for the scene on the Verna and the stigmata. If this document be genuine, as Sabatier insists, it is the most weighty of all the testimonies. Hase stated, as strongly as it can be stated, the view that the whole tale was a fraud, invented by Elias, Francis of Assisi, 143-202, and Kirchengeschichte, II. 385 sqq. Elias was the only eye-witness, and it is contrary to all laws that he should have denied the people the privilege of looking at the marks, after the saint was dead, if they had really been there. On the contrary, he hurried the body to the grave. Hase makes a strong case, but it must be remembered that he wrote without having before him the later evidence brought to light by Sabatier

Three explanations have been given of the stigmata on the supposition that Francis’ body really bore the scars. 1. They were due to supernatural miracle. This is the Catholic view. In 1304 Benedict XI. established a festival of the stigmata. 2. They were the product of a highly wrought mental state proceeding from the contemplation of Christ on the cross. This is the view of Sabatier.

S. François, 401 sqq. Sabatier does not regard them as miraculous but as unusual, as, for example, are the mathematical powers and musical genius of youthful prodigies. According to Hase, this was also Tholuck’s explanation. See art. Stigmatization, in Herzog, XIV. 728-734, which takes the same view and compares the scars to the effects of parental states before childbirth.

The study of the career of Francis d’Assisi, as told by his contemporaries, and as his spirit is revealed in his own last testament, makes the impression of purity of purpose and humility of spirit,—of genuine saintliness. He sought not positions of honor nor a place with the great. With simple mind, he sought to serve his fellow-men by republishing the precepts of the Gospel, and living them out in his own example. He sought once more to give the Gospel to the common people, and the common people heard him gladly. He may not have possessed great strength of intellect. He lacked the gifts of the ecclesiastical diplomat, but he certainly possessed glowing fervor of heart and a magnetic personality, due to consuming love for men. He was not a theological thinker, but he was a man of practical religious sympathies to which his deeds corresponded. He spoke and acted as one who feels full confidence in his divinely appointed mission.

In his will he refers again and again to his divine appointment Deus mihi dedit, "God has given to me."

Few men of history have made so profound an impression as did Francis. His personality shed light far and near in his own time. But his mission extends to all the centuries. He was not a foreigner in his own age by any protest in matters of ritual or dogma, but he is at home in all ages by reason of his Apostolic simplicity and his artless gentleness. Our admiration for him turns not to devotion as for a perfect model of the ideal life. Francis’ piety, after all, has a mediaeval glow. But, so far as we can know, he stands well among those of all time who have discerned the meaning of Christ’s words and breathed His spirit. So Harnack can call him the "wonderful saint of Assisi," and Sabatier utter the lofty praise, that it was given to him to divine the superiority of the spiritual priesthood."

Monasticism, Engl. trans., p. 67, and S. François, p. viii.

The Canticle of The Sun

§ 71. The Franciscans.

"Sweet Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again!"

The Brethren Minor—fratres minores, or Minorites, the official title of the Franciscans—got their name from the democratic faction in Assisi, the Minores, whom Francis at a time of feud reconciled to the party of the aristocrats. Before the curia at Rome, Francis insisted upon the application of the name as a warning to the members not to aspire after positions of distinction.

Speculum, p. 76. Domine, said Francis, minores ideo vocati sunt fratres mei ut majores fieri non proesumant.

According to the Rule of 1210 and Francis’ last will they were to be a free brotherhood devoted to evangelical poverty and Apostolic practice, rather than a close organization bound by precise rules.

See Sabatier, S. François, pp. 80 sqq. Also Madonnet, Les Origines de l’ordo de Poenitentia, pp. 4, 21 sq. etc., who presents this feature of Francis’ society in its early days in a clear light.

At the chapter of 1217, the decision was made to send missionaries beyond the confines of Italy. Elias of Cortona, once a mattress-maker in Assisi and destined to be notorious for setting aside Francis’ original plan, led a band of missionaries to Syria. Others went to Germany, Hungary, France, Spain and England. As foreign missionaries, the Franciscans showed dauntless enterprise, going south to Morocco and east as far as Pekin. They enjoy the distinction of having accompanied Columbus on his second journey to the New World and were subsequently most active in the early American missions from Florida to California and from Quebec along the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes and southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Rule of 1221, by its lack of unity and decision, betrays two influences at work, one proceeding from Ugolino and one from Francis. There are signs of the struggle which had already begun several years before. The Rule placed a general at the head of the order and a governing body was constituted, consisting of the heads of the different houses. Poverty, however, is still enjoined and the duty of labor is emphasized that the members might be saved from becoming idlers. The sale of the products of their labor was forbidden except as it might benefit the sick.

The Rule of 1223, which is briefer and consists of twelve chapters, repeats the preceding code and was solemnly approved by the pope November 29 of the same year. This code goes still further in setting aside the distinguished will of Francis. The mendicant character of the order is strongly emphasized. But obedience to the pope is introduced and a cardinal is made its protector and guardian. The Roman Breviary is ordered to be used as the book of daily worship. Monastic discipline has taken the place of biblical liberty. The strong hand of the hierarchy is evident. The freedom of the Rule of 1210 has disappeared.

See Sabatier, Vie de S. François, pp. 273 sqq.

The Clarisses, the Minorite nuns, getting their name from Clara of Sciffi who was canonized in 1255, were also called Sisters of St. Damian from the Church of St. Damian. Francis wrote a Rule for them which enforced poverty

This Rule has only recently been found and published in the Seraphicae legislationis textus originales, Quaracchi, 1897. See Robinson, pp. 76sqq.

The Tertiaries, or Brothers and Sisters of Penitence,

Frates et sorores de poenitentia.

It is possible that Francis’ first plan was for an organization of laymen, and that the idea of an organization of monks developed later in his mind. The division of the Franciscans into three grades was permanently established by the chapter of 1221.

See Walter Goetz, Die Regel des Tertiarierordens, in Brieger’s Zeitschrift, 1902, pp. 97 sqq.

To follow the history of the Franciscans from 1223, the stricter party, who sought to carry out Francis’ practice of strict Apostolic poverty and his views as set forth in his last will, were known as the Observants, or Spirituals, or Zealots. The party, favoring a relaxation of Francis’ Rule and supported by Gregory IX., were often called the Conventuals from occupying convents of their own, especially more pretentious buildings in cities.

The Observants looked to Portiuncula as the centre of the order, the Conventuals to the cathedral of Assisi.

The matter in dispute among the Franciscans was the right of the order as a corporation to hold property in fee simple. The papal decisions in favor of such tenure began with the bull of Gregory IX., 1230. It allowed the order to collect money through "faithful men" appointed for districts, these monies to be applied to the rearing of conventual buildings, to missions, and other objects, and to be held in trust for the givers. This privilege was elaborated by Innocent IV., 1245, and was made to include the possession of books, tools, houses, and lands. Innocent made the clear distinction between tenure in fee simple and tenure for use and granted the right of tenure for use. By this was meant that the order might receive gifts and bequests and hold them indefinitely as for the donors. This was equivalent to perpetual ownership, and might be compared to modern thousand-year leases. Innocent also made the tenure of all property within the order subject to the immediate supervision of the pope.

Determined resistance was offered by the Observants to these papal decrees, and they were persecuted by Elias of Cortona, who vigorously pushed the papal policy. But they were strong and Elias was deposed from the headship of the order by the chapter of 1227. He was reinstated in 1232, but again deposed in 1239. He espoused the cause of Frederick II., and died 1253.

One of the leading men of the wing true to Francis was Brother Leo, the author of what is probably the first biography of Francis, the Speculum Perfectionis, the Mirror of Perfection. When the project was bruited of erecting the great church at Assisi over Francis’ remains and Elias placed a marble vessel on the site to receive contributions, Leo, who regarded the project as a profanation of the memory of the saint, dashed the vessel to pieces. For this act he was banished, amidst tumult, from Assisi.

Sabatier, Speculum, pp. li sq.

It seemed for a while doubtful which party would gain the upper hand. The Observants were in power under John of Parma, general of the order for ten years, 1247–1257, when he was obliged to resign and retire into strict monastic seclusion. John was followed by Bonaventura, 1257–1274, the great Schoolman, who, in the main, cast his influence on the side of the Conventuals. The Observants became identified with the dreams of Joachim of Flore and applied his prophecy of a new religious order to themselves. These views became a new source of discord and strife lasting for more than a century. Bonaventura pronounced against the adoption of Joachim’s views by condemning Gerardo Borgo’s Introduction to Joachim’s writings. The Life of St. Francis, written by Bonaventura at the mandate of the General Chapter of Narbonne, 1260, and declared the authoritative biography of the saint by the Chapter of 1263, suppressed Francis’ will and other materials favorable to the contention of the Observants, and emphasized the churchly and disciplinary elements of the order. The Observants, from this time on, fought a brave but hopeless battle. They could not successfully wage war against the policy pushed by the papal court.

The report that Gregory X., through the acts of the council of Lyons, 1274, intended to force the order to hold property, stirred opposition into a flame and a number of the Observants were thrown into prison, including Angelo Clareno, an influential author. Nicholas III., in the bull Exiit qui seminat,

Potthast, II. 1746.

And so the century in which Francis was born went out with the controversy still going on with unabated warmth. A somewhat new aspect was given to the controversy in the fourteenth century. The dogmatic question was then put into the foreground, whether Christ and his Apostles practised absolute poverty or not. In 1323 John XXII. sought to put a final stop to the dissension by giving papal authority to the statement that they did not practise absolute poverty. Thus the underlying foundation of the strict Franciscan Rule was taken away.

In another respect the Franciscans departed from the mind of their founder. Francis disparaged learning. In 1220 he reprimanded and then cursed Pietro Staccia, a doctor of laws, for establishing a Franciscan school at Bologna. On hearing of a famous doctor, who had entered the order, he is reported to have said, "I am afraid such doctors will be the destruction of my vineyard. True doctors are they who with the meekness of wisdom exhibit good works for the betterment of their neighbors." To Anthony of Padua, Francis wrote—and the genuineness of the letter is not disputed—"I am agreed that you continue reading lectures on theology to the brethren provided that kind of study does not extinguish in them the spirit of humility and prayer."

2 Lempp, Anthony of Padua, p. 439.

The order spread rapidly from Palestine to Ireland.

The Franciscans became guardians of the holy places in Palestine. In answer to my question put to a Franciscan in Nazareth, whether the Church of the Annunciation there was the veritable place where Mary had received the message of the angel, he replied, "Most certainly! We Franciscans have been in this land 600 years and have thoroughly investigated all these matters."

As for England, nine Franciscans, four of them clerics, only one of whom was in priest’s orders, landed at Dover, 1224, and went to Canterbury, and then to London. The account of their early labors on English soil, by Thomas of Eccleston, a contemporary,

All that we know about his life is gotten from his account of the Franciscans in England. He died about 1260. Eccleston gives the names of the nine first missionaries. Mon. Franc., pp. 5 sqq. Agnellus of Pisa stood at their head. Three of the clerics were Englishmen.

Partly from necessity and partly from pure choice these ardent religionists made choice of quarters in the poorest and most neglected parts of the towns. In Norwich they settled in a swamp through which the city sewerage passed. At Newgate, now a part of London, they betook themselves to Stinking Lane. At Cambridge they occupied the decayed gaol.

No wonder that such zeal received recognition. The people soon learned to respect the new apostles. Adam Marsh joined them, and he and Grosseteste, the most influential English ecclesiastic of his day, lectured in the Franciscan school at Oxford. The burgesses of London and other towns gave them lands, as did also the king, at Shrewsbury. In 1256 the number of English friars had increased to 1242, settled in forty-nine different localities.

54 Mon. Franc., p. xli.

In time, the history of the Franciscans followed the usual course of human prosperity.

John L’Estrange says that, at the time they were falling out of favor, one English will out of every three conveyed property to the Franciscans. Quoted by Howlett in his Preface to Mon. Franc., II. p. xxvii.

§ 72. St. Dominic and the Dominicans.

Literature.—The earliest Life by Jordanus, Dominic’s successor as head of the order: de principiis ordinis praedicatorum in Quétif-Echard, who gives five other early biographies (Bartholomew of Trent, 1244–1251, Humbert de Romanis, 1250, etc.), and ed. by J. J. Berthier, Freib., i. Schw., 1892.—H. D. Lacordaire, d. 1861: Vie de S. Dominique, Paris, 1840, 8th ed. 1882. Also Hist. Studies of the Order of S. Dom. 1170-1221, Engl. trans., N. Y., 1869.—E. Caro: S. Dom. et les Dominicains, Paris, 1853.—A. T. Drane: Hist. of St. Dom., Founder of the Friar Preachers, London, 1891.—Balme et Lelaidier: Cartulaire ou hist. diplomatique de S. Dom., Paris, 1892.—J. Guiraud: S. Dom., Paris, 2d ed., 1899.—For titles of about thirty lives, see Potthast, II. 1272.—Quétif-Echard: Script. ord. Praedicatorum, 2 vols. Paris, 1719–1721.—Ripoll and Bermond: Bullarium ord. Praed., 8 vols. Rome, 1737 sqq.—Mamachi: Annal. ord. Praed., Rome, 1756.—Monumenta ord. fratrum Praed. hist., ed. by B. M. Reichert, Louvaine and Rome, 10 vols., 1897–1901. Vol. III. gives the acts of the general chapters of the order, 1220–1308.—A. Danzas: Etudes sur les temps primitifs de l’ordre de S. Dom., Paris, 1873–1885.—*Denifle: Die Constitutionen des Predigerordens vom Jahre 1228, and Die Constitutionen des Raymunds von Peñaforte 1238–1241 in Archiv für Lit. und Kirchengesch., 1885, pp. 165–227 and 1889, 530–565.—Helyot: Bel. Orders.—Lea: Hist. of Inquisition, I. 242–304, etc. Wetzer-Welte, art. Dominicus, III. 1931–1945.—W. Lescher: St. Dominic and the Rosary, London, 1902.—H. Holzapfel: S. Dom. und der Rosenkranz, Munich, 1903.

The Spaniard, Dominic, founder of the order of preachers, usually called the Dominicans,

Ordo praedicatorum, fratres praedicatores, or simply praedicatores, as in the papal bulls and the constitutions of the order.

Domingo, or Dominic, was born 1170 at Calaroga, Spain, and died Aug. 6, 1121, in Bologna.

His descent from the noble family of Guzman has been disputed by the Bollandists.

An epoch in Dominic’s career was his visit in Rome during the sessions of the Fourth Lateran Council, when he received encouragement from Innocent III. who declined to assent to the proposal of a new order and bade him adopt one of the existing monastic constitutions.

Potthast, I. 436.

The legendary accounts of his life represent the saint at this time as engaged in endless scourgings and other most rigorous asceticisms. Miracles, even to the raising of the dead, were ascribed to him.

In 1217 Dominic sent out monks to start colonies. The order took quick root in large cities,—Paris, Bologna, and Rome,—the famous professor of canon law at Paris, Reginald, taking its vows. Dominic himself in 1218 established two convents in Spain, one for women in Madrid and one for men at Seville. The first Dominican house in Paris, the convent of St. Jacques, gave the name Jacobins to the Dominicans in France and Jacobites to the party in the French Revolution which held its meetings there. In 1224 St. Jacques had one hundred and twenty inmates. The order had a strong French element and included in its prayers a prayer for the French king. From France, the Dominicans went into Germany. Jordanus and other inmates of St. Jacques were Germans. They quickly established themselves, in spite of episcopal prohibitions and opposition from other orders, in Cologne, Worms, Strassburg, Basel, and other German cities.

Hauck, IV. 391-394.

The first General Chapter was held 1220 in Bologna. Dominic preached with much zeal in Northern Italy. He died, lying on ashes, at Bologna, Aug. 6, 1221, and lies buried there in the convent of St. Nicholas, which has been adorned by the art of Nicholas of Pisa and Michael Angelo. As compared with the speedy papal recognition of Francis and Anthony of Padua, the canonization of the Spanish saint followed tardily, thirteen years after his death, July 13, 1234.

Potthast, I. 810.

At the time of Dominic’s death, the preaching friars had sixty convents scattered in the provinces of Provence, Northern France, Spain, Lombardy, Italy, England, Germany, and Hungary, each of which held its own chapter yearly. To these eight provinces, by 1228, four others had been added, Poland, Denmark, Greece, and Jerusalem.

See the Constitution of 1228, Denifle, pp. 212, 215.

Mendicancy was made the rule of the order at the first General Chapter, 1220.

Denifle, pp. 181 sqq., states that the idea of poverty was in Dominic’s mind before Honorius sanctioned the order, and that it was thoroughly as original with him as it was with Francis. This view seems to be contradicted by the bull of Honorius, 1216, which confirms Dominic and his followers in the possession of goods. Jordanus, c. 27, states that the principle of poverty was adopted that the preachers might be freed from the care of earthly goods, ne predicationis impediretur officium sollicitudine terrenorum. Francis adopted this principle as a means of personal sanctification; Dominic, in order that he and his followers might give themselves up unreservedly to the work of saving souls.

Unlike the man of Assisi, Dominic did not combine manual labor with the other employments of his monks. For work with their hands he substituted study and preaching. The Dominicans were the first monastics to adopt definite rules of study. When Dominic founded St. Jacques in Paris, and sent seventeen of his order to man that convent, he instructed them to "study and preach." Cells were constructed at Toulouse for study.

Denifle, pp. 185 sqq.

Preaching and the saving of souls were defined as the chief aim of the order.

Ordo noster specialiter ob praedicationem et animarum salutem ab initio institutus. Prol. to Constitution of 1228.

The annals of the Inquisition give to the Dominican order large space. The Dominicans were the most prominent and zealous, "inquisitors of heretical depravity." Dante had this in mind when he characterized Dominic as "Good to his friends, dreadful, to his enemies," "Benigno ai suoi ed ai nimici crudo."

Paradiso, XII.

In 1232 the conduct of the Inquisition was largely committed to their care. Northern France, Spain, and Germany fell to their lot.

See Potthast, II. 9386, 9388 (Gregory IX., 1284), etc. The Franciscans were made inquisitors in Italy and Southern France. See chapter on the Inquisition.

The rosary also had a prominent place in the history of the Dominicans. An untrustworthy tradition assigns to Dominic its first use. During the crusades against the Albigenses, Mary, so the story runs, appeared to Dominic, and bade him use the rosary as a means for the conversion of the heretics. It consists of fifteen pater nosters and one hundred and fifty ave Marias, told off in beads. The Dominicans early became devotees of the rosary, but soon had rivals in the Carmelites for the honor of being the first to introduce it. The notorious Dominican inquisitor and hunter of witches, Jacob Sprenger, founded the first confraternity of the rosary. Pius V. ascribed the victory of Lepanto, 157l, to its use. In recent times Pius IX. and Leo XIII. have been ardent devotees of the rosary. Leo, in his encyclical of Sept. 1, 1883, ascribed its introduction to the great Dominic, as a balm for the wounds of his contemporaries." This encyclical represents Mary as "placed on the highest summit of power and glory in heaven … who is to be besought that, by her intercession, her devout Son may be appeased and softened as to the evils which afflict us."

Leo commended the rosary in repeated encyclicals, Aug. 30, 1884, 1891, etc., coupling plenary indulgence for sin with its use. He also ordered the title regina sanctissimi rosarii, "queen of the most holy rosary," inserted into the liturgy of Loreto. On the history of the rosary, see Lea, Hist. of Auric. Conf., III. 484 sqq., and especially the dissertation St. Dominikus und der Rosenkranz, by the Franciscan, Heribert Holzapfel. This writer declares, point blank, that the rosary was not invented nor propagated by Dominic. There is no reference to it in the original Constitution of 1228, which contains detailed prescriptions concerning prayer and the worship of the Virgin, nor in any of the eighteen biographical notices of the thirteenth century. Holzapfel makes the statement, p. 12, that the entire thirteenth and fourteenth centuries know nothing of any association whatsoever of St. Dominic with the rosary. Sixtus IV., 1478, was the first pope to commend the rosary; but Sixtus does not associate it with the name of Dominic. Such association began with Leo X. What has become of the author of this bold denial of the distinct statement of Leo XIII. in his encyclical of ten years before, September, 1883, I do not know. Holzapfel distinctly asserts his opposition to the papal deliverances on the rosary, when he says, p. 37, "High as the regard is in which the Catholic holds the authority of Peter’s successors in religious things, he must be equally on his guard against extending that authority to every possible question." Perhaps Father Holzapfel’s pamphlet points to the existence of a remainder of the hot feeling which used to exist between the Thomists and Scotists.

Leo XIII. paid highest honor to the Dominicans when he pronounced Thomas Aquinas the authoritative teacher of Catholic theology and morals, and the patron of Catholic schools.

§ 78. Literature for the Entire Chapter.

General Works: Flacius Illyricus: Catalogus testium veritatis qui ante nostram aetatem reclamarunt papae, Basel, 1556.—Du Plessis d’argentré: Coll. judiciorum de novis erroribus qui ab initio XII. saec. usque ad 1632 in ecclesia postscripti sunt et notati, 3 vols. Paris, 1728.—*Döllinger: Beiträge zur Sektengesch. des Mittelalters, Munich, 1890. A most valuable work. Part II., pp. 736, contains original documents, in the collection of which Döllinger spent many years and made many journeys.—Paul Fredericq: Corpus documentorum haer. pravitatis Neerlandicae, 5 vols. Ghent, 1889 sqq.—Caesar of Heisterbach: Dialogus.—Etienne De Bourbon: Anecdotes Historiques, ed. by Lecoy de la Marche, Paris, 1877.—Map: De nugis curialium, Wright’s ed. Epp. Innocentii III., Migne, 214–216.—Jacques de Vitry: Hist. orientalis, Douai, 1672, and in Martene and Durand, Thes. anecd., 5 vols. Paris, 1717.—Arnold: Unpartheiische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, Frankf., 1729.—Füsslin: Kirchen- und Ketzergesch. der mittleren Zeit, 3 vols. Leipzig, 1770–1774.—Mosheim: Versuch einer unparthei. Ketzergesch., Helmstädt, 1746.—Hahn: Gesch. der Ketzer im Mittelalter, 3 vols. Stuttg., 1845–1847.—A. Jundt: Hist. du panthéisme pop. au moyen âge, Paris, 1876.—*LEA: Hist. of the Inquisition, 3 vols. N. Y., 1888. On the sects, I. 67–208.—M. F. Tocco: L’eresia net medio evo, Florence, 1884.—P. Alphandéry: Les idées morales chez les Hetérédoxes Latins au début du XIII siècle, Paris, 1903.—Hefele-Knöpfler, vol. V.—A. H. Newman: Recent Researches concerning Med. Sects in Papers of Amer. Soc. of Ch. Hist. 1892, IV. 167–221.

For The Cathari, § 80 — Bonacursus (at first a Catharan teacher): Vita haereticorum seu contra Catharos (1190?), Migne, 204. 775–792.—Ecbertus (canon of Cologne about 1150): Sermones XIII. adv. Catharorum errores, Migne, 195. —- Ermengaudus: Contra haeret., Migne, 204, 1235–1275.—Moneta Cremonensis (1240): Adv. Catharos et Valdenses, Rome, 1763.—Rainerius Sacchone (d. about 1263, was a leader among the Cathari for seventeen years, then became a Dominican and an active inquisitor): De Catharibus et Leonistis seu pauperibus de Lugduno in Martène-Durand, Thes. Anecd., V. 1759–1776.—Bernardus Guidonis: Practica inquisitionis hereticae pravitatis, ed. by Douais, Paris, 1886.—C. Douais, bp. of Beauvais: Documents pour servir à l’Hist. de l’inquis. dans le Languedoc, 2 vols. Paris, 1900. Trans. and Reprints, by Univ. of Phila., III. No. 6.—*C. Schmidt: Hist. et Doctr. de la secte des Cathares ou Albigeois, 2 vols. Paris, 1849.

For The Petrobrusians, etc.,

For The Beguines And Beghards, § 83: Bernardus Guy: pp. 141 sqq., 264–268.—Fredericq, II. 9 sqq., 72 sqq.—Döllinger, II. 378–416, 702 sqq.—*J. L. Mosheim: De Beghardis et Beguinabus, Leipzig, 1790.—G. Uhlhorn: D. christl. Liebesthätigkeit im Mittelalter, pp. 376–394.—H. Delacroix: Le Mysticisme speculatif en Allemagne au 14e siècle, Paris, 1900, pp. 52–134.—Ullmann: Reformers before the Reformation. — LEA: II. 350 sqq.—*Haupt, art. Beguinen und Begharden in Herzog, II. 516–526, and art. Beguinen in Wetzer-Welte, II. 204 sqq.

For The Waldenses, § 84, the works of Rainerius, Moneta, Bernardus Guy.—Döllinger: Beiträge.—Bernardus, Abbas Fontis Calidi (d. about 1193): Adv. Waldensium sectam, Migne, 204. 793–840.—Alanus ab Insulis (d. about 1202): Adv. haeret. Waldenses, Judaeos et Paganos, Migne, 210. 377–399;—Rescriptum haeresiarcharum Lombardiae ad Leonistas in Alemannia, by the so-called "Anonymous of Passau" (about 1315), ed. by Preger in Beiträge zur Gesch. der Waldesier im Mittelalter, Munich, 1876. Gieseler, in his De Rainerii Sacchone, Götting., 1834, recognized this as a distinct work.—Etienne de Bourbon, pp. 290–296, etc.—David of Augsburg: Tractatus de inquis. haereticorum, ed. by Preger, Munich, 1878. Döllinger gives parts of Bernard Guy’s Practica, II. 6–17, etc., the Rescriptum, II. 42–52, and David of Augsburg, II. 351–319.—Also Fredericq, vols. I., II.

Mod. Works, § 84: Perrin: Hist. des Vaudois, Geneva, 1619, in three parts,—the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and the Ten Persecutions of the Vaudois. The Phila. ed. (1847) contains an introd. by Professor Samuel Miller of Princeton.—Gilles: Hist. Eccles. des églises réf. en quelques vallées de Piémont, Geneva, 1648.—Morland: Hist. of the evang. Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont, London, 1658. —- Leger: Hist. générale des églises evang. des Vallées, etc., Leyden, 1669, with large maps of the three Waldensian valleys and pictures of the martyrdoms. Leger, a leading Waldensian pastor, took refuge in Leyden from persecution.—Peyran: Hist. Defence of the Waldenses, London, 1826.—Gilly (canon of Durham): Waldensian Researches, London, 1831.—Muston: Hist. des Vaudois, Paris, 1834; L’Israel des Alpes, Paris, 1851, Engl. trans., 2 vols. London, 1857, — Blair: Hist. of the Waldenses, 2 vols. Edinb., 1833.—Monastier: Hist. de l’église vaudoise, 2 vols. Lausanne, 1847.—*A. W. Dieckhoff: Die Waldenser im Mittelalter, Götting. 1861.—*J. J. Herzog: Die romanischen Waldenser, Halle, 1853.—Maitland: Facts and Documents of the Waldenses, London, 1862.—F. Palacky: Die Beziehungen der Waldenser zu den ehemaligen Sekten in Böhmen, Prague, 1869.—*Jaroslav Goll: Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Gesch. der Böhmischen Brüder, Prague, 1878–1882.—*H. Haupt: Die relig. Sekten in Franken vor der Reformation, Würz b. 1882; Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung der mittelalterlichen Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis, Würzb., 1885; Waldenserhtum und Inquisition im südöstlichen Deutschland, Freib., 1890; Der Waldensische Ursprung d. Codex Teplensis, Würzb., 1886.—Montet: Hist. litt. des Vaudois du Piémont, Paris, 1885.—*L. Keller: Die Waldenser und die deutschen Bibelübersetzungen, Leipzig, 1886.—*F. Jostes: Die Waldenser und die vorluth. deutsche Bibelübersetzung, Munich, 1885; Die Tepler Bibelübersetzung, Münster, 1886.—*Preger: Das Verhältniss der Taboriten zu den Waldesiern des 14ten Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1887; Die Verfassung der französ. Waldesier, etc., Munich, 1890.—*K. Muller. Die Waldenser und ihre einzelnen Gruppen bis zum Anfang des 14ten Jahrhunderts, Gotha, 1886.—*E. COMBA: Hist. des Vaudois d’Italie avant la Réforme, Paris, 1887, new ed. 1901, Engl. trans., London, 1889.—Sofia Bompiani A Short Hist. of the Ital. Waldenses, N. Y. 1897. See also Lea: Inquis., vol. II.—E. E. Hale: In his Name, Boston, 1887, a chaste tale of the early Waldenses in Lyons.—H. C. Vedder: Origin and Early Teachings of the Waldenses in "Am. Jour. of Theol.," 1900, pp. 465–489.

For The Crusades Against The Albigenses, § 85: Innocent III.’s Letters, Migne, 214–216. The Abbot Pierre de Vaux de Cernay in Rec. Hist. de France, XXI. 7 sqq.—Hurter: Inn. III. vol. II. 257–349, 379–389, 413–432.—Hefele-Knöpfler: V. 827–861, etc.—Lea: I. 114–209.—A. Luchaire: Inn. III. et la croisade des Albigeois, Paris, 1905. —Mandell Creighton: Simon de Montfort, in Hist. Biog.

For The Inquisition, §§ 86, 87, see Douais, Bernard Guy, and other sources and the works of Döllinger, Schmidt, Lea, Hurter (II. 257–269), Hefele, etc., as cited above.—Mirbt: Quellen zur Gesch. des Papstthums, 2d ed., pp. 126–146; — Doct. de modo proced. c. haeret., in Martene-Durand, Thes. anecd., V. 1795–1822.—Nic. Eymericus (inquis. general of Spain, d. 1399): Directorium inquisitorum, ed. F. Pegna, Rome, 1578. For MSS. of Eymericus, see Denifle: Archiv, 1886, pp. 143 sqq.—P. Fredericq: Corpus documentorum inquis. haer. prav. Neerlandicae, 5 vols. Ghent, 1889–1902. Vol. I. opens with the year 1025.—Lud. A Paramo (a Sicilian inquisitor): De orig. et progressu officii s. inguis., Madrid, 1698.—P. Limborch: Hist. inquis., Amster., 1692, includes the important liber sententiarum inquis. Tolosonae, Engl. trans., 2 vols. London, 1731.—J. A. Llorente (secretary of the Madrid Inquis. 1789–1791): Hist. critique de l’inquis. d’Espagne (to Ferdinand VII.), 4 vols. Paris, 1817. Condens. Engl. trans., Phil. 1843.—Rule: Hist. of the Inquis., 2 vols. London, 1874.—F. Hoffmann: Gesch. der Inquis. (down to the last cent.), 2 vols. Bonn, 1878.—C. Molinier: L’Inquis. dans le midi de la France au 13e et 14e siècle, Paris, 1881.—Ficker: Die gesetzl. Einführung der Todesstrafe für Ketzerei in Mittheilungen für Oester. Geschichtsforschung, 1880, pp. 188 sqq.—J. Havet: L’hérésie et le bras séculier aut moyen âge, Paris, 1881.—Tamburini: Storia generale dell’ Inquisizione, 4 vols.—L. Tanon: L’Hist. des tribunaux de l’Inquis. en France, Paris, 1893.—HENNER: Beiträge zur Organization und Kompetenz der päpstlichen Ketzergerichte, . Leipzig, 1893.—Graf von Hoensbroech: Das Papstthum, etc., Leipzig, 1900; 4th ed., 1901. Chap. on the Papacy and the Inquis., I. 1–206.—P. Flade: Das römische Inquisitionsverfahren in Deutschland bis zu den Hexenprocessen, Leipzig, 1902.—Hurter: art. Inquisition in Wetzer-Welte, VI. 765 sqq., and Herzog, IX. 152–167.—E. L. Th. Henke: Konrad von Marburg, Marb., 1861.—B. Kaltner: Konrad v. Marburg u. d. Inquis. in Deutschland, Prague, 1882.—R. Schmidt: Die Herkunft des Inquisitionsprocesses, Freib. i. Breig. 1902.—C. H. Haskins: Robert le Bougre and the Beginnings of the Inquis. in Northern France in "Amer. Hist. Rev.," 1902, pp. 421–437, 631–653.—The works on canon law by Hinschius, Friedberg, and Ph. Hergenröther (R. C.), pp. 126, 601–610.—E. Vacandard: L’inquisition, Etude Hist. et crit. sur le pouvoir coercitif de l’église, Paris, 1907, pp. 340.

§ 79. The Mediaeval Dissenters.

The centralization of ecclesiastical authority in the papacy was met by a widespread counter-movement of religious individualism and dissent. It was when the theocratic programme of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. was being pressed most vigorously that an ominous spiritual revolt showed itself in communities of dissenters. While the crusading armaments were battling against the infidel abroad, heretical depravity, to use the official term, arose in the Church at home to disturb its peace.

For nearly five hundred years heresy had been unknown in Western Europe. When Gregory the Great converted the Arians of Spain and Lombardy in the latter part of the sixth century, it was supposed that the last sparks of heresy were extinguished. In the second half of the eleventh century here and there, in Milan, Orleans, Strassburg, Cologne, and Mainz, little flames of heresy shot forth; but they were quickly put out and the Church went on its way again in peace. In the twelfth century, heresy again broke out simultaneously in different parts of Europe, from Hungary to the Pyrenees and northwards to Bremen. The two burning centres of the infection were Milan in Northern Italy and Toulouse in Southern France. The Church authorities looked on with alarm, and, led by the pope, proceeded to employ vigorous measures to stamp out the threatening evil. Jacques of Vitry, after visiting Milan, called it a pit of heretics, fovea haereticorum, and declared that there was hardly a person left to resist the spiritual rebels, so numerous were they in that city.

See the quotation at length in Alphandéry, p. 29.

The dissenting movement started with the people and not with the schools or princes, much provocation as the princes had for showing their resentment at the avarice and worldliness of the clergy and their invasion of the realm of civil authority. The vast majority of those who suffered punishment as heretics were of the common people. Their ignorance was a constant subject of gibe and derision as they stood for trial before the ecclesiastical tribunals. The heresy of a later period, the fifteenth century, differs in this regard, having scholars among its advocates.

Our knowledge of the mediaeval sectaries and their practices is drawn almost wholly from the testimonies of those who were arrayed against them. These testimonies are found in tracts, manuals for the treatment of heresy, occasional notices of ecclesiastical writers like Salimbene, Vitry, Etienne de Bourbon, Caesar of Heisterbach, or Matthew Paris, in the decrees of synods and in the records of the heresy trials themselves. These last records, written down by Catholic hands, have come down to us in large numbers.

Migne, 214. 537; 215. 654.

The exciting cause of this religious revolt is to be looked for in the worldliness and arrogance of the clergy, the formalism of the Church’s ritual, and the worldly ambitions of the papal policy. In their depositions before the Church inquisitors, the accused called attention to the pride, cupidity, and immorality of the priests. Tanchelm, Henry of Lausanne, and other leaders directed their invectives against the priests and bishops who sought power and ease rather than the good of the people.

Underneath all this discontent was the spiritual hunger of the masses. The Bible was not an altogether forgotten book. The people remembered it. Popular preachers like Bernard of Thiron, Robert of Abrissel and Vitalis of Savigny quoted its precepts and relied upon its authority. There was a hankering after the Gospel which the Church did not set forth. The people wanted to get behind the clergy and the ritual of the sacraments to Christ himself, and, in doing so, a large body of the sectaries went to the extreme of abandoning the outward celebration of the sacraments, and withdrew themselves altogether from priestly offices. The aim of all the sects was moral and religious reformation. The Cathari, it is true, differed in a philosophical question and were Manichaeans, but it was not a question of philosophy they were concerned about. Their chief purpose was to get away from the worldly aims of the established church, and this explains their rapid diffusion in Lombardy and Southern France.

See Lempp’s criticism of Alphandéry’s work, Theol. Lit.-zeitung, 1905, p. 601 sq.

A prominent charge made against the dissenters was that they put their own interpretations upon the Gospels and Epistles and employed these interpretations to establish their own systems and rebuke the Catholic hierarchy. Special honor was given by the Cathari to the Gospel of John, and the Waldensian movement started with an attempt to make known the Scriptures through the vulgar tongue. The humbler classes knew enough about clerical abuses from their own observation; but the complaints of the best men of the times were in the air, and these must also have reached their ears and increased the general restlessness. St. Bernard rebuked the clergy for ambition, pride, and lust. Grosseteste called clerics antichrists and devils. Walter von der Vogelweide, among the poets, spoke of priests as those —

These men did not mean to condemn the priestly office, but it should occasion no surprise that the people made no distinction between the office and the priest who abused the office.

The voices of the prophets were also heard beyond the walls of the convent,—Joachim of Flore and Hildegard. Of an independent ecclesiastical movement they had no thought. But they cried out for clerical reform, and the people, after long waiting, seeing no signs of a reform, found hope of relief only in separatistic societies and groups of believers. The prophetess on the Rhine, having in mind the Cathari, called upon all kings and Christians to put down the Sadducees and heretics who indulged in lust, and, in the face of the early command to the race to go forth and multiply, rejected marriage. But to her credit, it is to be said, that at a time when heretics were being burnt at Bonn and Cologne, she remonstrated against the death penalty for the heretic on the ground that in spite of his heresy he bore the image of God.

For quotation see Döllinger, I. 111.

It is also most probable that the elements of heresy were introduced into Central and Western Europe from the East. In the Byzantine empire the germs of early heresies continued to sprout, and from there they seem to have been carried to the West, where they were adopted by the Manichaean Cathari and Albigenses. Travelling merchants and mercenaries from Germany, Denmark, France, and Flanders, who had travelled in the East or served in the Byzantine armies, may have brought them with them on their return to their homes.

The matters in which the heretical sects differed from the Catholic Church concerned doctrine, ritual, and the organization of the Church. Among the dogmas repudiated were transubstantiation and the sacerdotal theory of the priesthood. The validity of infant baptism was also quite widely denied, and the Cathari abandoned water baptism altogether. The worship of the cross and other images was regarded as idolatry. Oaths and even military service were renounced. Bernard Guy, inquisitor-general of Toulouse and our chief authority for the heretical beliefs current in Southern France in the fourteenth century, says

So also Peter the Venerable in his c. Petrobrus, Migne, 189. 1185. Bernard Guy was born in Southem France, 1261. He entered the Dominican order and administered the office of inquisitor-general for sixteen years, prosecuting Cathari and other heretics. He was made bishop of Tuy, 1323. His Practica inquisitionis, a manual to be used by inquisitors, is a most interesting and valuable document.

A heretic, that is, one who dissented from the dogmatic belief of the Catholic Church, was regarded as worse than a Saracen and worse than a person of depraved morals. In a sermon, issued by Werner of St. Blasius about 1125, the statement is made that the "holy Catholic Church patiently tolerates those who live ill, male viventes, but casts out from itself those who believe erroneously, male credentes."

Deflorationes SS. Patrum, Migne, 157. 1050.

The Fourth Lateran also used the figure of Samson’s foxes, whose faces had different aspects, but whose tails were bound together for one and the same fell purpose.

Facies quidem habentes diversas sed caudas ad invicem collegatas quia de varietate conveniunt in id ipsum, Mirbt, p. 133. The same expression in De Bourbon, p. 278

The principle of toleration was unknown, or at best only here and there a voice was raised against the death penalty, as in the case of Hildegard, Rupert of Deutz,

See Döllinger, Akad. Vortäge, III. 280.

The confusion, which reigned among the Church authorities concerning the sectaries, and also the differences which existed among the sectaries themselves, appear from the many names by which they were known. The most elaborate list is given in the code of Frederick II. 1238,

Catharos, Patarenos, Speronistas, Leonistas, Arnaldistas, Circumcisos, Passaginos, Josephinos, Garatenses, Albanenses, Franziscos, Bagnarolos, Commixtos, Waldenses, Roncarolos, Communellos, Warinos et Ortolinos cum illis de Aqua Nigra et omnes haereticos utriusque sexus, quocumque nomine censeantur. Bréholles, V. 280.

The mediaeval dissenters have sometimes been classed with the Protestants. The classification is true only on the broad ground of their common refusal to be bound by the yoke of the Catholic hierarchy. Some of the tenets of the dissenters and some of their practices the Protestant Reformation repudiated, fully as much as did the established Church of the Middle Ages. Interesting as they are in themselves and by reason of the terrible ordeals they were forced to undergo, the sects were side currents compared with the great stream of the Catholic Church, to which, with all its abuses and persecuting enormities, the credit belongs of Christianizing the barbarians, developing learning, building cathedrals, cultivating art, furnishing hymns, constructing theological systems, and in other ways contributing to the progress of mankind. That which makes them most interesting to us is their revolt against the priesthood, in which they all agreed, and the emphasis they laid upon purity of speech and purity of life. Their history shows many good men, but no great personality. Peter Waldo is the most notable among their leaders.

A clear classification of the mediaeval heretics is made difficult if not impossible by the uncertainty concerning the opinions held by some of them and also by the apparent confusion of one sect with another by mediaeval writers.

The Cathari, or Manichaean heretics, form a class by themselves. The Waldenses, Humiliati, and probably the Arnoldists, represent the group of evangelical dissenters. The Amauricians and probably the Ortlibenses were pantheistic. he isolated leaders, Peter de Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, Eudo, and Tanchelm, were preachers and iconoclasts—using the term in a good sense—rather than founders of sects. The Beguines and Beghards represented a reform movement within the Church, one wing going off into paths of doctrinal heresy and lawlessness, and incurring thereby the anathemas of the ecclesiastical authorities.

§ 80. The Cathari.

The most widely distributed of the heretical sects were the Cathari. The term comes from the Greek katharos, meaning pure, and has given to the German its word for heretic, Ketzer. It was first used by the Cathari themselves.

Schmidt. II. 276; Döllinger, I. 127. The term "Cathari" occurs in the twelfth century in Ecbertus and the acts of the Third Lateran Council, 1179, which speak of the heretics in Southern France as Cathari, Patrini, Publicani, or as known by some other name. Quos alii Catharos, alii Patrinos, alii Publicanos, etc., alii aliis nominibus vocant. Innocent III. called them Cathari and Patarenes, Epp. I. 94; II. 228; VIII. 85, 105, etc.

In Southern France they were called Albigenses, from the town of Albi, one of the centres of their strength. From the territory in Eastern Europe, whence their theological tenets were drawn, they were known as Bulgari, Bugares, or Bugres.

M. Paris, Luard’s ed., III. 520, speaks of "Bugares" as a common appellation for the "Paterini, Jovinians, Albigenses, and those stained with other heresies," and associates with them Robert Bugre, who from being a heretic became a Dominican and noted Inquisitor. The modern word "bugger" is derived from his name.

It was the general belief of the age that the Cathari derived their doctrinal views from heretical sects of Eastern Europe and the Orient, such as the Paulicians and Bogomili. This was brought out in the testimony of members of the sect at their trials, and it has in its favor the official recognition which leaders from Eastern Europe, Bosnia, and Constantinople gave to the Western heretics. The Paulicians had existed since the fifth century in Asia Minor, and had pushed their way to Constantinople.

Ibid., I. 1-51, gives an elaborate description of the Paulicians and the Bogomili. He regards the Paulicians as the bridge between the Gnostics of the ancient Church and the sectaries of the Middle Ages, p. 3.

The Paulicians rejected the Old Testament and taught a strict dualism. The Bogomili held to the Sabellian Trinity, rejected the eucharist, and substituted for baptism with water a ritual of prayer and the imposition of hands. Marriage they pronounced an unclean relationship. The worship of images and the use of the cross were discarded.

It was in the early years of the eleventh century, that the first reports of the appearance of heresy were bruited about here and there in Italy and Southern France. About the year 1000 a certain Leuthard, claiming to be inspired, appeared in the diocese of Châlons, destroying crosses and denouncing tithes. In 1012 Manichaean separatists appeared for the first time in Germany, at Mainz,

Hauck, Kirchengesch., III. 431.

About the middle of the twelfth century, heresy suddenly appeared again at Liége, and prosecutions were begun. In 1145 eight men and three women were burnt at Cologne. The firmness of the victims was exemplified in the case of a young woman, who was held back for a time with the promise of marriage, but, on seeing her coreligionists burnt, broke from her keepers and, hiding her face in her dress, threw herself into the flames. And so, Caesar of Heisterbach goes on to say, she descended with her fellow-heretics to hell.

Dial., V. 19.

Their only appearance in England was at Oxford, 1161, when more than thirty illiterate Germans, men and women, strove to propagate their errors. They were reported as "detesting" marriage, the eucharist, baptism, and the Catholic Church, and as having quoted Matt. 5:10, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." A council of bishops ordered them branded on the forehead and flogged.

William of Newburgh, Hamilton’s ed., pp. 121-123. Walter Map, De Nugis, p. 62, reduces the number to sixteen. They were called Publicani by the Oxford council, 1260

In France the Cathari were strong enough in 1167 to hold a council at St. Felix de Caraman near Toulouse. It was attended by Nicetas of Constantinople, to whom the title of pope was given. He was accompanied by a Catharan bishop, Marcus of Lombardy.

Döllinger, I. 121 sq., has no hesitation in declaring him a bishop of the Paulicians

Agreed as the Cathari were in opposing many customs and doctrines of the established Church, they were divided among themselves and broken up into sects,—seventy-two, according to one document.

Döllinger, II. 300.

The differences between the Albanenses and Concorrezzi were of a theological character and concerned the nature of God and the origin of matter. The Albanenses were strict dualists. Matter is eternal and the product of the evil god. Paul speaks of the things, which are seen, as dung. The Concorrezzi seem to have rejected dualism and to have regarded evil as the creation of Lucifer, the highest of the angels.

In matters of ritual and practical conduct, and in antagonism to the Church establishment, all groups of the Cathari were agreed. Since Schmidt wrote his History of the Cathari, it has been common to represent Catharism as a philosophical system,

See also Alphandéry, p. 35. Lempp, in a criticism of Alphandéry’s work, Lit.-zeitung, 1905, p. 601, takes the view which is presented in the text.

The Cathari agreed—to use the expression of their opponents—in vituperating the established Church and in calling its adherents Romanists. There are two Churches, they held,—one of the wicked and one of the righteous. They themselves constituted the Church of the righteous, outside of which there is no salvation,

Döllinger, II. 322, etc.; Douais, II. 105, etc.; Bonacursus, Migne, 204. 777.

The depositions at their trials indicate that the Cathari made much use of the Scriptures. The treatises of Bonacursus, Ermengaudus, and other writers in refutation of Catharan teachings abound in quotations of Scripture, a fact indicating the regard the heretics had for them. They put spiritual interpretations upon the miracles and freely allegorized parables. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the man who fell among the thieves was Adam, whose spirit, at God’s command, descended from heaven to earth and fell among thieves in this lower world.

Bonacursus, p. 775.

The Catharan doctrine seems to have highly exalted Christ, though it denied the full reality of his human nature. He was created in heaven and was not born on the earth, but passed through Mary as through a pipe. He neither ate material food nor drank material drink. As for John the Baptist, he was one of the major demons and was damned for doubting when he sent to Christ the question, "Art thou he that should come or do we look for another?"

Bonacursus, p. 777; Ermengaud, p. 1234 sq.; Douais, II. 93, 96</cbr>, 103, etc.

A strange account of the fall of the angels was current in Southern France. Satan ascended to heaven and waited in vain thirty-two years for admittance. He was then noticed and admitted by the porter. Hidden from the Father, he remained among the angels a year before he began to use his art to deceive. He asked them whether they had no other glory or pleasure besides what he saw. When they replied they had not, he asked whether they would not like to descend to his world and kingdom, promising to give them gifts, fields, vineyards, springs, meadows, fruits, gold, silver, and women. Then he began to praise woman and the pleasures of the flesh. When they inquired more particularly about the women, the devil said he would descend and bring one back with him. This he did. The woman was decked in jewels and gold and beautiful of form. The angels were inflamed with passion, and Satan seeing this, took her and left heaven. The angels followed. The exodus continued for nine days and nights, when God closed up the fissure which had been made.

Döllinger, II. 149-153.

The Cathari divided themselves into two classes, the Perfecti and the Credentes, or Believers. The Perfect were those who had received the rite of the consolamentum , and were also called bons hommes,

Boni homines, Döllinger, II. 22, 27, etc.; Boni Christiani, II. 4, 17</cbr>, 25, etc. In Southern France one of the of the repeated charges was that the accused called the Cathari bons hommes, Douais, II. 9, 11, 14</cbr>, 25, etc. The Credentes are so called by French synods, by Innocent III., in letters written by papal legates, etc. See Hefele, V. 846, 850, etc.; Döllinger and Douais under Credentes in Index.

The consolamentum took the place of baptism and meant more. Its administration was treated by the Catholic authorities as equivalent to an initiation into heresy — haereticatio, as it was called. The usual form in which the court stated the charge of heresy was, "He has submitted to heretication."

Haereticationi interfuit, Douais, II. 17, 19</cbr>, 22, etc.

The Perfect had a monopoly of salvation. Those not receiving the consolamentum were considered lost or passed at death into another body and returned to the earth. The rite involved not only the absolution of all previous sins but of sins that might be committed thereafter. However, relapse was possible and sometimes occurred.

Among those who recanted was the rich citizen Morand of Toulouse, who did penance by standing naked to the waist at the altar of St. Saturninus and allowing himself to be scourged in the presence of the papal legate. He went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but on his return went back to the Cathari and died as one of the Perfect. Schmidt, I. 77 sqq.

The consolamentum involved the renunciation of the seven sacraments. Baptism with water was pronounced a material and corruptible thing, the work of the evil god. Even little children were not saved who received absolution and imposition of bands.

Ibid., II. 5, 322.

As for the eucharist, the Cathari held that God would not appoint the consecrated host as a medium of grace, nor can God be in the host, for it passes through the belly, and the vilest part of the body.

In latrinam ventris et per turpissimum locum, quae non possunt fieri, si esset ibi deus. Döllinger, II. 5.

The marriage bed was renounced as contrary to God’s law, and some went so far as to say openly that the human body was made by the devil. The love of husband and wife should be like the love of Christ for the Church, without carnal desire. The command to avoid looking on a woman, Matt. 5:27, 28, was taken literally, and the command to leave husband and wife was interpreted to mean the renunciation of sexual cohabitation. Witnesses condemned marriage absolutely,

Moneta, p. 315; jacere cum uxore sua sicut cum meretrice, Döllinger, II. 30; matrimonium est meretricium, Douais, II. 93; Döllinger, II. 18, 21, 23, 25, 28, 40, 156</cbr>, 300, etc. omnem carnalem concubitum dampnabilem dicunt, Douais, II. 93, 96, etc.

As for animal nourishment, not only were all meats forbidden, but also eggs and cheese. The reason given was that these were the product of carnal intercourse.

Ibid., p. 777; Rainerius, p. 1762; Döllinger, II. 294, 300.

The condemnation of capital punishment was based on such passages as: "Give place unto wrath, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," Rom. 12:19; and the judicial execution of heretics and criminals was pronounced homicide, a survival from the Old Testament and the influence of its evil god. The Cathari quoted Christ’s words, "Ye have heard how it hath been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

Salve Burce, in Döllinger, II. 71, a remarkable passage; Douais, II. 94 Rainerius, p. 1762.

The interdiction of oaths was in obedience to the words of Christ, and was in the interest of strict integrity of speech.

Bonacursus, p. 777; Ermengaud, p. 1269. See Alphandéry, p. 83 sq.

The Cathari also renounced priestly vestments, altars, and crosses as idolatrous. They called the cross the mark of the beast, and declared it had no more virtue than a ribbon for binding the hair. It was the instrument of Christ’s shame and death, and therefore not to be used.

Döllinger, under Kreuz in Index II. 730; Bonacursus, p. 777 Douais, II. 94.

They also rejected, as might have been expected, the doctrines of purgatory and indulgences.

Rainerius, 1762. See Alphandéry, p. 44.

In addition to the consolamentum, the Cathari practised two rites called the melioramentum and the endura.

See Döllinger in Index under these two words and Schmidt, II. 71-103.

The endura, which has been called the most cruel practice the history of asceticism has to show, was a voluntary starvation unto death by those who had received the consolamentum. Sometimes these rigorous religionists waited for thirteen days for the end to come,

Alphandéry, p. 51; Döllinger, II. 205.

Our knowledge of the form of Church government practised by the Cathari is scant. Some of the groups of Italy and Languedoc had bishops. The bishop had as assistants a "major" and a "minor" son and a deacon, the two former taking the bishop’s place in his absence.

Rainerius, p. 1766; Döllinger, II. 82, 278, 295</cbr>, 324. At the time of Nicetas’visit, Bernard Raymund was ordained bishop of Toulouse, Guiraud Mercier, bishop of Carcassonne, and Raymund of Casalis, bishop of Val d’Aran.

The steadfast endurance of the Catharan dissenters before hostile tribunals and in the face of death belong to the annals of heroism and must call forth our admiration as it called forth the wonder of contemporaries like Bernard.

Sermon, 65, Migne, 183. 1091.

"A hard and wandering life. We flee from city to city like sheep in the midst of wolves. We suffer persecution like the Apostles and the martyrs because our life to holy and austere. It is passed amidst prayers, abstinence, and labors, but everything is easy for us because we are not of this world."

Dr. Lea, the eminent authority on the Inquisition, has said (I. 104) that no religion can show a more unbroken roll of victims who unshrinkingly and joyfully sought death in its most abhorrent form in preference to apostasy than the Cathari. Serious as some of the errors were which they held, nevertheless their effort to cultivate piety by other methods than the Church was offering calls for sympathy. Their rupture with the established organization can be to a Protestant no reason for condemnation; and their dependence upon the Scriptures and their moral tendencies must awaken within him a feeling of kinship. He cannot follow them in their rejection of baptism and the eucharist. In the repudiation of judicial oaths and war, they anticipated some of the later Christian bodies, such as the Quakers and Mennonites.

§ 81. Peter de Bruys and Other Independent Leaders.

Independent of the Cathari and yet sharing some of their views and uniting with them in protest against the abuses of the established Church, were Peter de Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, and other leaders. Peter and Henry exercised their influence in Southern France. Tanchelm and Eudo preached in Flanders and Brittany. At least three of them died in prison or otherwise suffered death by violence. Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, Otto of Freising, and other contemporary Catholic writers are very severe upon them and speak contemptuously of their followers as drawn from the ignorant classes.

Tanchelm, a layman, preached in the diocese of Cologne and westwards to Antwerp and Utrecht. There was at the time only a single priest in Antwerp, and he living in concubinage. Tanchelm pronounced the sacraments of no avail when performed by a priest of immoral life and is said to have turned "very many from the faith and the sacraments."

Fredericq, Corpus Inq., I. 6. For Tanchelm, see Fredericq, vols. I. and II., and Life of Norbert in Mon. Germ., ch. 16.

The movement in Brittany was led by Eudo de l’Etoile, who also pretended to be the Son of God. He was one of the sect of the Apostolicals, a name given to heretical groups in France and Belgium whose members refused flesh and repudiated marriage and other sacraments.

Döllinger, I. 98-104. Otto of Freising, De gestis Frid., 54, says he called himself Eudo or Eon, from the liturgical formula, per eum qui venturus est judicare, etc. He is also mentioned by Abaelard in his Introd. ad Theol.

The movement led by Peter de Bruys and Henry of Lausanne was far more substantial. Both leaders were men of sound sense and ability. Of the personal fortunes of Peter, nothing more is known than that he was a priest, appeared as a reformer about 1105 in Southern France, and was burnt to death, 1126. Peter the Venerable has given us a tolerably satisfactory account of his teachings and their effect.

Adv. Petrobrusianos, Migne, 189. 719-850. Abaelard gives a few lines to him. Migne, 178. 1056. Peter speaks of Peter de Bruys and Henry of Lausanne as duo homuncios, p. 728. See Döllinger, I. 75-98.

Of Henry of Lausanne, Peter’s successor, we know more.

See Peter the Venerable, Adv. Petrobrus., Bernard, Ep., 241, in Migne, 182. 435. Döllinger, I. 79 sqq.; J. von Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, II. 130-140; Hauck, in Herzog, VIII. 606 sqq.

Peter the Venerable, at the outset of his treatise, laid down five errors of the Petrobrusians which he proposed to show the falseness and wickedness of. (1) The baptism of persons before they have reached the years of discretion is invalid. Believers’ baptism was based upon Mark 16:16, and children, growing up, were rebaptized. (2) Church edifices and consecrated altars are useless. (3) Crosses should be broken up and burnt. (4) The mass is nothing in the world. (5) Prayers, alms, and other good works are unavailing for the dead. These heresies the good abbot of Cluny called the five poisonous bushes, quinque vigulta venenata, which Peter de Bruys had planted. He gives half of his space to the refutation of the heresy about baptism.

Peter and Henry revived the Donatistic view that piety is essential to a legitimate priesthood. The word "Church" signifies the congregation of the faithful and consists in the unity of the assembled believers and not in the stones of the building.

Nomen ecclesiae congregationem fidelium signat, etc., Pet. Ven., p. 762. Peter goes back as far as Noah’s altar to prove the sacredness of localities.

The doctrine of transubstantiation was distinctly renounced, and perhaps the Lord’s Supper, on the ground that Christ gave up his body on the night of the betrayal once for all.

Peter of Cluny’s meaning is not clear at this point, pp. 722, 765, 787.

St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable,

Bernard, Migne, 182. 434; Peter, pp. 729, 761 sq.

The synod of Toulouse, 1119, in condemning as heretics those who rejected the Lord’s Supper, infant baptism, and priestly ordination, condemned the Petrobrusians, though Peter de Bruys is not mentioned by name. Those who hung upon the preaching of Peter de Bruys and Henry of Lausanne were soon lost among the Cathari and other sects.

Döllinger, I. 75 sqq., makes an elaborate attempt to prove that Peter and Henry were Cathari, but the differences in their teachings and practices seem to make this impossible. So Newman (Papers of Am. Soc. of Ch. Hist., IV. 184-189), Hauck, and Walter, p. 130. Peter and Henry are nowhere called Manichaeans or dualists by Peter the Venerable and Bernard, who would scarcely have omitted this charge had there been just ground for it. They commended marriage; the Cathari rejected it. They insisted upon adult baptism; the Cathari repudiated all baptism. None of the rites peculiar to the Cathari were associated with Peter and Henry.

§ 82. The Amaurians and Other Isolated Sects.

Occupying a distinct place of their own were the pantheistic coteries of dissenters, the Amaurians and Ortlibenses, and perhaps other groups, like the Passagians and Speronistae, of which we know scarcely more than the names.

The Amaurians, or Amauricians,

Mansi, XXII. 801-809; Denifle, Chartul. Un. Paris, I. 70, 71, 72, 79</cbr>, 107, etc.; Caesar of Heisterbach, Strange ed., II., 304 sqq.; Martène-Durand, Thes. anec., IV. 166 sq.; Jundt, Hist. du pantheisme, etc., p. 20 sq.; Preger, Gesch. der deutschen Mystik, I. 173-184; Delacroix, Le mysticisme speculatif, etc., 32-51; Alpbandéry, pp. 141-154. For other sources, see Delacroix, p. 39 sq.

From the detailed account given by Caesar of Heisterbach, we learn that a number of Amaury’s followers were seized and examined by the bishops. Eight priests and William the Goldsmith, called also one of the seven apostles, were burnt. Four other priests were condemned to lifelong imprisonment. Amaury’s bones were exhumed and thrown into a field.

Chartularium, p. 70. Here, also, are given the names of the priests who were burnt or imprisoned.

The Amaurians seem to have relied for their pantheistic views upon John Scotus Erigena, whose work, De divisione naturae, was also condemned at the synod of Paris, 1209. Amaury’s system was also condemned by the Fourth Lateran, which represented him as holding that God was all things, deus erat omnia. To this he added the two doctrines that every Christian must believe that he is a member of Christ’s body, this faith being as necessary to salvation as the faith in Christ’s birth and death; and that to him who abides in love, sin is not reckoned. God becomes incarnate in believers who are members of Christ’s body, as He became incarnate in the body of Jesus. God was as much in the body of Ovid as He was in the body of Augustine. Christ is no more in the consecrated bread than in any other bread or object. The Amaurians denied the resurrection of the body, and said that heaven and hell are states of the soul. The sinner carries hell in himself, even as a mouth holds a bad tooth.

Putridus dens in ore, synod of Paris, 1209.

From these statements the conclusion is to be drawn that Amaury and his followers insisted upon the liberty of the Spirit working independently of outer rites and dwelling in the heart. The Fourth Lateran, in its second canon, declared that the father of lies had so blinded Amaury’s mind that his doctrine was the raving of an insane man rather than a heresy. Amaury absorbed Joachism, for he speaks of three ages, the ages of the Father and the Son, and the age of the Spirit, which was the last age, had begun in Amaury’s time, and would continue to the consummation of all things. Amaury’s followers seem to have become merged with the Brethren of the Free Spirit.

So Preger, I. 212, on the basis of the "Anonymous of Passau." For the ninety-seven errors ascribed to the Brethren of the Free Spirit, see Preger, I. 461-469, and Hauck, in Herzog, I. 431.

The synod of Paris, which condemned the Amaurians, also condemned David of Dinant, and ordered one of his works, the Quarternuli, burnt. His writings were also forbidden by the statutes of the University of Paris of 1215, which forbade the reading of some of the works of Aristotle, Amaury the heretic, and Maurice of Spain.

Chartul., pp. 70, 79.

Belonging to the same class were the followers of Ortlieb of Strassburg, called Ortlibenses, Ortilibarii, Oriliwenses, Ortoleni,

This name, given in the code of Frederick II., would seem to refer to the same sect. The "Anonymous of Passau," writing about 1316, is our chief authority. See Müller, Die Waldenser, pp. 147 sqq.; Döllinger, Beiträge, II. 301, 703, etc.; Preger, II. 191-196; Delacroix, 52-76; Alphandéry, 154-167; Deutsch, art. Ortlieb, in Herzog, XIV. 499-501. Alphandéry urges the affiliation of the Ortlibenses with the Vaudois, chiefly because of their frequent juxtaposition in mediaeval writings.

The Passagii, or Passageni, a sect whose name is first mentioned in the acts of the synod of Verona, seem to have been unique in that they required the literal observance of the Mosaic law, including the Jewish Sabbath and circumcision. It is possible they are identical with the Circumcisi spoken of in the code of Frederick II. As late as 1267 and 1274 papal bulls call for the punishment of heretics who had gone back to Jewish rites, and the Passagii

See Döllinger, II. 327; Alphandéry, 168 sqq.

The Luciferans

The notices are scattered. See under diabolus and Lucifer in Döllinger and Alphandéry, pp. 174 sqq. M. Paris, writing of 1226 and Frederick’s march through Northern Italy, speaks of Milan being a refuge and receptacle of all sorts of heretics, Patarines, Luciferi, Publicani, Albigenses, and usurers.

As for the Warini, Speronistae, and Josephini, who are also mentioned in the Frederican code, we know nothing more than the names.

The Josephini are mentioned by the synod of Verona, 1184, and the bull of Gregory IX., June 25, 1231, and the Speronistae by Salve Burce, Döllinger, II. 62, and in the bulls of Gregory IX., Aug. 20, 1229, June 25, 1231. See Fredericq, I. 75 sq.

§ 83. The Beguines and Beghards.

While the Cathari and Waldenses were engaging the attention of the Church authorities in Southern Europe, communities, called Beguines and Beghards, were being formed along the lower Rhine and in the territories adjacent to it. They were lay associations intended at first to foster a warmer type of piety than they found in the Church.

Hase, Karl Müller, Kirchengesch. I. 570, Alphandéry, p. 2 sqq., and others treat the subject under the head of lay-activity.

The Beguines, who were chiefly women, seem to have derived their origin and their name from Lambert le Bègue, a priest of Liége, who died about 1177.

The Beguines are called a sect, secta Beguinarum, in Guy’s Practica, p.264, etc. The term Beguines, or Bequini, is also derived from beggan, to beg, by Jundt, or from bègue, to stammer. See Haupt, in Herzog, II. 517. Lea, p. 351, seems inclined to advocate the old opinion which derived the name from St. Begga, d. 694, the mother of Pepin of Heristal and the reputed founder of a convent.

The communities supported themselves by spinning, weaving, caring for the sick, and other occupations. Some of the houses forbade begging. Some of them, as those in Cologne, were afterwards turned into hospitals. As a rule they practised mendicancy and went about in the streets crying Brod durch Gott, "Bread for the sake of God." They wore a distinctive dress.

The brief of Boniface IX. mentions "gray and other colors," Döllinger, Beiträge, II. 383.

The earliest community of Beghards known to us is the community of Löwen, 1220. The Beghards practised mendicancy and they spread as far as Poland and Switzerland. It was not long till they were charged with loose tendencies, a disregard of the hierarchy, and heresy. Neither the Beguines as a body nor the Beghards ever received distinct papal sanction.

A synod of Béziers, p. 299, forbade both male and female societies on the ground that there was no papal sanction. Wetzer-Welte, II. 204, calls them ordensähnliche Gesellschaften, and Alphandéry, p. 2, extra-ecclésiastiques.

Both associations were the objects of synodal enactment as early as the middle of the thirteenth century. The synod of Mainz, 1259, warned the Beghards against going through the streets, crying, "Bread for God’s sake," and admonished them to put aside offensive peculiarities and not to mingle with Beguines. Another synod of Mainz, 1261, referred to scandals among the Beguines. A synod of Cologne, a year later, condemned their unchurchly independence and bade them confess to priests on pain of excommunication. In 1310 synods, held at Treves and Mainz, forbade clerics entering beguinages on any pretext whatever and forbade Beghards explaining the Bible to the ignorant.

Hefele, VI. 490, 600.

The communities became more and more the objects of suspicion, and a sharp blow was struck at them in 1312 by Clement V. and the council of Vienne. The council forbade their communal mode of life, and accused them of heresies.

Hefele, VI. 543, 544.

Clement’s bull erred by its failure to discriminate between heretical and orthodox communities, a defect which was corrected by John XXII. This pope expressly gave protection to the orthodox communities. In the fourteenth century, the number of houses increased very rapidly in Germany and by 1400 there was scarcely a German town which had not its beguinage. Up to that date, fifty-seven had been organized in Frankfurt, and in the middle of the fifteenth century there were one hundred and six such houses in Cologne and sixty in Strassburg. In 1368 Erfurt had four hundred Beguines and Beghards.

Haupt, in Herzog, II. 519.

In the earlier part of the fourteenth century, the Beguines appeared in Southern France, where the Inquisition associated them closely with the Tertiaries of St. Francis and accused them of adopting the views of John Peter Olivi.

Bernard Guy, 264 sqq. See also the letter of the bishop of Utrecht, Oct. 6, 1318, in Fredericq, II. 74.

In the latter part of the fourteenth century, the Inquisition broke up many of the houses in Germany, their effects being equally divided between itself, the poor, and the municipality. Gregory XI., 1377, recognized that many of the Beghards were leading good lives. Boniface IX., 1394, made a sharp distinction between the communities and classed the heterodox Beghards with Lollards and Swestriones.

"Sisters," a popular name for the Beguines.

These sectaries were in part forerunners and contemporaries of other communities with a pious and benevolent design developed in Holland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and with which German mysticism is closely associated.

§ 84. The Waldenses.

Distinct from the Cathari and other sects in origin and doctrine, but sharing with them the condemnation of the established Church, were the Waldenses. The Cathari lived completely apart from the Catholic Church. The Waldenses, leaning upon the Scriptures, sought to revive the simple precepts of the Apostolic age. They were the strictly biblical sect of the Middle Ages. This fact, and the pitiless and protracted persecutions to which they were subjected, long ago won the sympathies of the Protestant churches. They present a rare spectacle of the survival of a body of believers which has come up out of great tribulation.

Southern France was their first home, but they were a small party as compared with the Albigenses in those parts. From France they spread into Piedmont, and also into Austria and Germany, as recent investigations have clearly brought out. In Italy, they continue to this day in their ancestral valleys and, since 1870, endowed with full rights of citizenship. In Austria, they kept their light burning as in a dark place for centuries, had a close historic connection with the Hussites and Bohemian Brethren, and prepared, in some measure, the way for the Anabaptists in the time of the Reformation.

The Waldenses derive their origin and name from Peter Waldus or Valdez,

Valdesius, Valdensius, or Waldunus. The name is given in these and other forms by writers of the thirteenth century. De Bourbon, p. 290; Guy, p. 244; Döllinger, II. 6, 300, etc. Bernard, abbot of Fontis Calidi, Migne, 204. 793, allegorizes when he says they were called "Valdenses, as though they came from a dense valley and are involved in its deep thick darkness of errors." Alanus de insulis, Migne, 210, p. 377 sqq., says the "Waldenses are so called from their heresiarch Waldus, the founder of the new sect who presumed to preach without authority of prelate, without divine inspiration, knowledge, or letters. A philosopher without head, a prophet without vision, an apostle without mission, a teacher without instructor, whose disciples, or rather musciples (discipuli imo muscipuli), seduce the unwary in different parts of the world."

The name by which they were known among themselves was Brethren or the Poor of Christ,

Inter se vocant Fratres seu Pauperes Christi. Guy, p. 256.

Of Waldo’s life little is known. A prosperous merchant of Lyons, he was aroused to religious zeal by the sudden death of a leading citizen of the city, of which he was a witness, and by a ballad he heard sung by a minstrel on the public square. The song was about St. Alexis, the son of wealthy parents who no sooner returned from the marriage altar than, impressed by the claims of celibacy, he left his bride, to start on a pilgrimage to the East. On his return he called on his relatives and begged them to give him shelter, but they did not recognize who he was till they found him dead. The moral drawn from the tale was: life is short, the times are evil, prepare for heaven.

Waldo sought counsel from a priest, who told him there were many ways to heaven, but if he would be perfect, he must obey Christ’s precepts, and go and sell all that he had and give to the poor, and follow him. It was the text that had moved Anthony of Egypt to flee from society. Waldo renounced his property, sent his two daughters to the convent of Fontevrault, gave his wife a portion of his goods, and distributed the remainder to the poor. This was about 1170.

His rule of life, Waldo drew from the plain precepts of the Bible. He employed Bernard Ydros and Stephen of Ansa to translate into the vernacular the Gospels and other parts of the Scriptures, together with sayings of the Fathers. He preached, and his followers, imitating his example, preached in the streets and villages, going about two by two.

Per vicos et plateas evangelium praedicare et Valdesius multos homines utriusque sexus viros et mulieres complices sibi fecit ad similem praesumptionem, etc. Guy, p. 244.

Very unexpectedly the Waldenses made their appearance at the Third Lateran council, 1179, at least two of their number being present. They besought Alexander III. to give his sanction to their mode of life and to allow them to go on preaching. They presented him with a copy of their Bible translation. The pope appointed a commission to examine them. Its chairman, Walter Map, an Englishman of Welsh descent and the representative of the English king, has left us a curious account of the examination. He ridicules their manners and lack of learning.

de nugis, Wright’s ed., p. 64 sq. Map, who felt highly honored by his appointment, called them simple and illiterate, idiotae et illiterati, terms used also by de Bourbon, p. 292, and Guy, p. 244.

Without calling the Waldenses by name, the council forbade them to preach. The synod of Verona, 1184, designated them as "Humiliati, or Poor Men of Lyons," and anathematized them, putting them into the same category with the Cathari and Patarines. Their offence was preaching without the consent of the bishops.

Although they were expelled from Lyons and excommunicated by the highest authority of the Church, the Waldenses ceased not to teach and preach. They were called to take part in disputations at Narbonne (1190) and other places. They were charged with being in rebellion against the ecclesiastical authorities and with daring to preach, though they were only laymen. Durandus of Huesca, who had belonged to their company, withdrew in 1207 and took up a propaganda against them. He went to Rome and secured the pope’s sanction for a new order under the name of the "Catholic Poor" who were bound to poverty; the name, as is probable, being derived from the sect he had abandoned.

Spreading into Lombardy, they met a party already organized and like-minded. This party was known as the Humiliati. Its adherents were plain in dress and abstained from oaths and falsehood and from lawsuits. The language, used by the Third Oecumenical council and the synod of Verona, identified them with the Poor Men of Lyons.

The exact relation of the Poor Men of Lyons to the Humiliati is still a matter of discussion. Müller, in his Anfänge des Minoritenordens, etc., has done much to change our knowledge of the Humiliati. The view taken above may account for the language of the Verona council, Humiliati vel Pauperes de Lugduno, which was probably chosen for the very purpose of indicating that the resemblance between the two parties was so close as to make it uncertain whether there were two sects or only one. This view seems to be borne out by the two statements of Salve Burce. Döllinger, II. 64, 74.

A dispute arose between the Humiliati and the Poor Men of Lyons as to their relation to one another and to Peter Waldo, which led to a conference, in 1218, at Bergamo. Each party had six representatives.

The account is given in the Rescriptum. See Preger, Döllinger, II. 42-52, and Müller, Die Waldenser, p. 22. The separation between the Lombard and the Lyonnese parties is referred to in the list of inquisitorial questions to be put to them. Döllinger, II. 320 sq.

In the crusades against heretics, in Southern France, the Waldenses were included, but their sufferings were small compared with those endured by the Albigenses. Nor do they seem to have furnished many victims to the Inquisition in the fourteenth century. Although Bernard Guy opened his trials in 1308, it was not till 1316 that a Waldensian was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and another to death by burning. Three years later, twenty-six were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and three to death in the flames.

Summing up all the cases under Guy, Lea, II. 149, says that there was no very active persecution against the Lyonnese Waldenses.

It was in Italy and Austria that the Waldenses furnished their glorious spectacle of unyielding martyrdom. From France they overflowed into Piedmont, partly to find a refuge in its high valleys, seamed by the mountain streams of the Perouse, the Luserne, and the Angrogne. There, in the Cottian Alps, they dwelt for some time without molestation. They had colonies as far south as Calabria, and the emigration continued in that direction till the fifteenth century.

Comba, p. 103 sq.; Lea, II. 259 sqq.

Innocent VIII., notorious for his official recognition of witchcraft, was the first papal persecutor to resort to rigorous measures. In 1487, he announced a crusade, and called upon Charles VIII. of France and the duke of Savoy to execute the decree. Everything the Waldenses had endured before, as Leger says, was as "roses and flowers" compared with what they were now called upon to suffer. Innocent furnished an army of eighteen-thousand. The Piedmontese Waldenses were forced to crouch up higher into the valleys, and were subject to almost incredible hardship. The most bitter sufferings of this Israel of the Alps were reserved for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, after they had accepted the Reformation.

In 1530 the mediaeval period of their history closes. At that date two of their number, Morel and Peter Masson, were sent to consult with Bucer, Oecolampadius, and other Reformers. Morel was beheaded on his return journey. His letter to Oecolampadius and the Reformer’s reply are given by Dieckhoff, pp. 364-373. The Waldenses adopted the Reformation, 1532.

The history of the Waldensian movement in different parts of Germany and Austria has scarcely less interest than the Franco-Italian movement. It had a more extensive influence by preparing the way for other separatist and evangelical movements. It is supposed that a translation of parts of the Scriptures belonging to the Waldenses was in circulation in Metz at the end of the twelfth century. Copies were committed to the flames. It is also supposed that Waldenses were among the heretics ferreted out in Strassburg in 1212, eighty of whom were burnt, twelve priests and twenty-three women being of the number. The Waldenses spread as far north as Königsberg and Stettin and were found in Swabia, Poland, Bavaria, and especially in Bohemia and the Austrian diocese of Passau.

See Comba, 74 sqq. A number of the documents given by Döllinger are interrogatories for use against the Waldenses of Germany and Austria, or accounts of their trials. One of them, in German, belongs as late as the sixteenth century, Döllinger, II. 701 sq. Haupt, Keller, Preger, and Goll have extended our knowledge of the Austrian Waldenses.

They were subjected to persecution as early as in 1260. Fifty years later there were at least forty-two Waldensian communities in Austria and a number of Waldensian schools. Neumeister, a bishop of the Austrian heretics, who suffered death with many others in 1315, testified that in the diocese of Passau alone the sect had over eighty thousand adherents.

Haupt, Waldenserthum, p. 21.

In spite of persecutions, the German Waldenses continued to maintain themselves to the fifteenth century.

The Austrian dissenters were active in the distribution of the Scriptures. And Whittier has based his poem of the Vaudois Teacher upon the account of the so-called Anonymous writer of Passau of the fourteenth century. He speaks of the Waldenses as going about as peddlers to the houses of the noble families and offering first gems and other goods and then the richest gem of all, the Word of God. This writer praised their honesty, industry, and sobriety. Their speech, he said, was free from oaths and falsehoods.

We have thus three types of Waldenses: the Poor Men of Lyons, the Poor Men of Lombardy, and the Austrian Waldensians.

The earliest writers, as the abbot Bernard and Alanus, make no distinctions. Rainerius, 1260, does, as do also the Rescriptum which has an eye to the Waldenses of Passau and Salve Burce in his Supra Stella, 1235, who refers more particularly to the Poor Men of Lombardy. David of Augsburg, 1256, an inquisitor of high repute, has in mind the Waldensians, as a body. Bernard Guy, 1320, treats of the Lyonnese Waldensians. The documents given by Döllinger extend to the sixteenth century, many of them bearing upon the Waldenses of Austria.

In their earliest period the Waldenses were not heretics, although the charge was made against them that they claimed to be "the only imitators of Christ." Closely as they and the Cathari were associated geographically and by the acts of councils, papal decrees, and in literary refutations of heresy, the Waldenses differ radically from the Cathari. They never adopted Manichaean elements. Nor did they repudiate the sacramental system of the established Church and invent strange rites of their own. They were also far removed from mysticism and have no connection with the German mystics as some of the other sectaries had. They were likewise not Protestants, for we seek in vain among them for a statement of the doctrine of justification by faith. It is possible, they held to the universal priesthood of believers. According to de Bourbon and others, they declared all good men to be priests. They placed the stress upon following the practice of the Apostles and obeying the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, and they did not know the definition which Luther put on the word "justification." They approached more closely to an opinion now current among Protestants when they said, righteousness is found only in good men and good women.

De Bourbon, p. 297.

The first distinguishing principle of the Waldenses bore on daily conduct and was summed up in the words of the Apostles, "we ought to obey God rather than men." This the Catholics interpreted to mean a refusal to submit to the authority of the pope and prelates. All the early attacks against them contain this charge.

The abbot Bernard, Migne, 204. 796, sqq., 817 sqq.; Alanus, Migne, 210. 380 sqq.; de Bourbon, p. 292; Döllinger, II. 6, 51.

The second distinguishing principle was the authority and popular use of the Scriptures. Here again the Waldenses anticipated the Protestant Reformation without realizing, as is probable, the full meaning of their demand. The reading of the Bible, it is true, had not yet been forbidden, but Waldo made it a living book and the vernacular translation was diligently taught. The Anonymous writer of Passau said he had seen laymen who knew almost the entire Gospels of Matthew and Luke by heart, so that it was hardly possible to quote a word without their being able to continue the text from memory.

The third principle was the importance of preaching and the right of laymen to exercise that function. Peter Waldo and his associates were lay evangelists. All the early documents refer to their practice of preaching as one of the worst heresies of the Waldenses and an evident proof of their arrogance and insubordination. Alanus calls them false preachers, pseudo-praedicatores. Innocent III., writing, in 1199, of the heretics of Metz, declared their desire to understand the Scriptures a laudable one but their meeting in secret and usurping the function of the priesthood in preaching as only evil. Alanus, in a long passage, brought against the Waldenses that Christ was sent by the Father and that Jonah, Jeremiah, and others received authority from above before they undertook to preach, for "how shall they preach unless they be sent." The Waldenses were without commission. To this charge, the Waldenses, as at the disputation of Narbonne, answered that all Christians are in duty bound to spread the Gospel in obedience to Christ’s last command and to James 4:17, "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

Comba, pp. 47-52, gives a translation of the disputation at Narbonne. The abbot Bernard, Migne, 204. 805, also quotes James 4 as a passage upon which the Waldenses relied.

The Waldenses went still further in shocking old-time custom and claimed the right to preach for women as well as for men, and when Paul’s words enjoining silence upon the women were quoted, they replied that it was with them more a question of teaching than of formal preaching and quoted back Titus 2:3, "the aged women should be teachers of good things." The abbot Bernard of Fontis Calidi, in contesting the right of laics of both sexes to preach, quoted the Lord’s words commanding the evil spirit to hold his peace who had said, "Thou art the Holy One of God," Mark 1:25. If Christ did not allow the devil to use his mouth, how could he intend to preach through a Waldensian?

Migne, 204. 806 sq., 825;II. 300, etc.

It was an equally far-reaching principle when the Waldenses declared that it was spiritual endowment, or merit, and not the Church’s ordination which gave the right to bind and loose, to consecrate and bless.

Magis operatur meritum ad consecrandum vel benedictionem, ligandum vel solvendum, quam ordo vel officium, Alanus, Migne, 204, 385. Alphandéry, p. 129, justly lays stress upon this charge.

As for the administration of baptism, there were also differences of view between the Waldenses of Italy and those of France. There was a disposition, in some quarters at least, to deny infant baptism and to some extent the opinion seems to have prevailed that infants were saved without baptism.

Rainerius declares without qualification that the Poor Men of Lombardy hold to the salvation of infants not baptized, but the Rescriptum declares that baptism was regarded as necessary for all. So also David of Augsburg. See Döllinger, II. 45.

To the affirmation of these fundamental principles the Waldenses, on the basis of the Sermon on the Mount, added the rejection of oaths,

Alanus, 210, 392; de Bourbon, pp. 292, 296; Guy, p. 246; Döllinger, II. 85 (Salve Burce), 107, 126, etc.

The Waldenses regarded themselves, as Professor Comba has said, as a church within the Church, a select circle. They probably went no further, though they were charged with pronouncing the Roman Church the Babylonian harlot, and calling it a house of lies.

Rainerius, p. 1775; Guy, p. 247. Also, the abbot Bernard, Migne, 204, 795 sqq., and Alanus, Migne, 210, 379 sqq.

From the first, the Lyonnese branch had a literature of its own and in this again a marked contrast is presented to the Cathari. Of the early Waldensian translation of the Bible in Romaunt, there are extant the New Testament complete and the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. A translation in French had preceded this Waldensian version.

Berger, La Bible française au moyen âge, Paris, 1884. There are marked differences in the MSS. of the Romaunt version, in language, etc. Comba, pp. 182-185, gives paragraphs from different MSS.

The Nobla Leyczon,

The title is from lectio, reading. The text is given by Herzog, pp. 445-457, and an English translation by Perrin, pp. 263-271.

Through one channel the Waldenses exercised an influence over the Catholic Church. It was through the Waldensian choice of poverty. They made the, "profession of poverty," as Etienne de Bourbon calls it, or "the false profession of poverty," as Bernard Guy pronounced it. By preaching and by poverty they strove after evangelical perfection, as was distinctly charged by these and other writers. Francis d’Assisi took up with this ideal and was perhaps more immediately the disciple of the obscure Waldensians of Northern Italy than can be proved in so many words. The ideal of Apostolic poverty and practice was in the air and it would not detract from the services of St. Francis, if his followers would recognize that these dissenters of Lyons and Italy were actuated by his spirit, and thus antedated his propaganda by nearly half a century.

Felder, the Roman Catholic author of the able Gesch. der wissenschaftlichen Studien im Franziskanerorden, 1904, approaches this view very closely, recognizes the effort of the Waldenses to realize the ideal of Apostolic poverty, and says, p. 1 sq., that Francis of Assisi in his work was moved by "the idea deeply rooted in his age, eine tief gewurzelte Zeitidee."

Note: Lit. bearing on the early Waldenses. For the titles, see § 79.—A new era in the study of the history and tenets of the Waldenses was opened by Dieckhoff, 1851, who was followed by Herzog, 1853. More recently, Preger, Karl Müller, Haupt, and Keller have added much to our knowledge in details, and in clearing up disputed points. Comba, professor in the Waldensian college at Florence, accepts the conclusions of modern research and gives up the claim of ancient origin, even Apostolic origin being claimed by the older Waldensian writers. The chief sources for the early history of the sect are the abbot Bernard of Fontis Calidi, d. 1193; the theologian Alanus de Insulis, d. about 1200; Salve Burce (whose work is given by Döllinger), 1235; Etienne de Bourbon, d. 1261, whose work is of an encyclopedic character, a kind of ready-reference book; the Rescriptum haeresiarcharum written by an unknown priest, about 1316, called the Anonymous of Passau; an Austrian divine, David of Augsburg, d. 1271; and the Inquisitor in Southern France, Bernard Guy, d. 1331. Other valuable documents are given by Döllinger, in his Beiträge, vol. II. These writers represent a period of more than a hundred years. In most of their characterizations they agree, and upon the main heresies of the Waldenses the earliest writers are as insistent as the later.

The Waldensian MSS., some of which date back to the thirteenth century, are found chiefly in the libraries of Cambridge, Dublin (Trinity College), Paris, Geneva, Grenoble, and Lyons. The Dublin Collection was made by Abp. Ussher who purchased in 1634 a number of valuable volumes from a French layman for five hundred and fifty francs. The Cambridge MSS. were procured by Sir Samuel Morland, Cromwell’s special envoy sent to Turin to check the persecutions of the Waldenses.

§ 85. The Crusades against the Albigenses.

The mediaeval measures against heretics assumed an organized form in the crusades against the Albigenses, before the institution of the Inquisition received its full development. To the papacy belongs the whole responsibility of these merciless wars. Toulouse paid a bitter penalty for being the head centre of heresy.

The Fourth Lateran spoke of the city as quae magis haeretica labes corrupta.

Councils, beginning with the synod of Toulouse, 1119, issued articles against heresy and called upon the secular power to punish it. Mild measures were tried and proved ineffectual, whether they were the preaching and miracles of St. Bernard, 1147, or the diplomatic address of papal legates. Sixty years after Bernard, St. Dominic entered upon a tour of evangelism in the vicinity of Toulouse, and some heretics were won; but in spite of Dominic, and synodal decrees, heresy spread and continued to defy the Church authorities.

It remained for Innocent III. to direct the full force of his native vigor against the spreading contagion and to execute the principles already solemnly announced by oecumenical and local councils. To him heretics were worse than the infidel who had never made profession of Christianity. While Christendom was sending armaments against the Saracens, why should it not send an armament to crush the spiritual treason at home? In response to papal appeals, at least four distinct crusades were set on foot against the sectaries in Southern France. These religious wars continued thirty years. Priests and abbots went at the head of the armies and, in the name of religion, commanded or justified the most atrocious barbarities. One of the fairest portions of Europe was laid waste and the counts of Toulouse were stripped by the pope of their authority and territory.

The long conflict was fully opened when Innocent called upon Louis VII. to take the field, that "it might be shown that the Lord had not given him the sword in vain," and promised him the lands of nobles shielding heresy.

Epp., VII. 186, 212; Migne, 215, pp. 503, 527. In the second letter Innocent compares heretics to Samson’s foxes and to beasts, belluas.

A crisis was precipitated in 1208 by the murder of Peter of Castelnau by two unknown assassins.

For another version of the murder, see Lea, I. 146. It has been compared to Becket’s taking-off.

In a general epistle to the faithful, Innocent wrote: —

"O most mighty soldiers of Christ, most brave warriors; Ye oppose the agents of anti-Christ, and ye fight against the servants of the old serpent. Perchance up to this time ye have fought for transitory glory, now fight for the glory which is everlasting. Ye have fought for the body, fight now for the soul. Ye have fought for the world, now do ye fight for God. For we have not exhorted you to the service of God for a worldly prize, but for the heavenly kingdom, which for this reason we promise to you with all confidence."

Ep., XI. 230; Migne, 215. 1546. Innocent wrote repeatedly and at length, encouraging the enterprise. Epp., XI. 33, 229, etc.; Migne, 215. 1361, etc.

Awed by the sound of the coming storm, Raymund offered his submission and promised to crush out heresy. The humiliating spectacle of Raymund’s penance was then enacted in the convent church of St. Gilles. In the vestibule, naked to the waist, he professed compliance with all the papal conditions. Sixteen of the count’s vassals took oath to see the hard vow was kept and pledged themselves to renew the oath every year, upon pain of being classed with heretics. Then holding the ends of a stole, wrapped around the penitent’s neck like a halter, the papal legate led Raymund before the altar, the count being flagellated as he proceeded.

See full description in Hurter, II. 317 sq., and Lea, I. 150 sq.

Raymund’s submission, however, did not check the muster of troops which were gathering in large numbers at Lyons.

Hurter, II. 322, always careful, speaks of the army as a zahllose Menge, and then of 50,000. Lea, I. 152, is inclined to accept a much larger number, 20,000 knights and 200,000 footmen.

In spite of the remonstrance of Raymund, who had joined the army, the papal legate, Arnold of Citeaux, refused to check its march. Béziers was stormed and horrible scenes followed. The wild soldiery heeded well the legate’s command, "Fell all to the ground. The Lord knows His own."

Caedite eos, novit enim dominus qui sunt ejus, Caesar of Heisterbach, V. 21; Strange ed., I. 302. And so Caesar adds, "an innumerable multitude were killed in that city." Hurter speaks of the "unbridled frenzy" of the troops, zügellose Wuth, II. 331. Describing other scenes of carnage during the crusade he uses such expressions as "horrible butchery,"furchtbarer Gemetzel, "heartrending barbarities,"empoerende Graeuel, pp. 420, 423, 427, etc. He expresses the charitable hope that the abbot of Citeaux did not say what was ascribed to him by so good and churchly a witness as Caesarof Heisterbach. Brischar, in Wetzer-Welte, I. 434, speaks with horror of the barbarities of Simon’s troops.

At Carcassonne the inhabitants were allowed to depart, the men in their shirts, the women in their chemises, carrying with them, as the chronicler writes, nothing else except their sins, nihil secum praeter peccata portantes. Dread had taken hold of the country, and village after village was abandoned by the fleeing inhabitants. Raymund was again put under excommunication at a council held at Avignon.

Hefele, V. 846 sqq.

Again, in 1211, the count of Toulouse sought to come to an agreement with the legates. But the terms, which included the razing to the ground of all his castles, were too humiliating. The crusade was preached again. All the territory of Toulouse had been overrun and it only remained for the crusaders to capture the city itself.

Pedro of Aragon, fresh from his crushing victory over the Moors at Novas de Tolosa, now interceded with the pope for his brother-in-law. The synod of Lavaur, 1213, appointed referee by Innocent, rejected the king’s propositions. Pedro then joined Raymund, but fell at the disastrous defeat of Muret the same year, 1213. It was a strange combination whereby the king of Aragon, who had won the highest distinction a year before as a hero of the Catholic faith, was killed in the ranks of those who were rebels to the papal authority.

Pedro’s son, Jayme, ascribed his father’s defeat to his moral laxity. The Albigensian nobles had placed their wives and daughters at his disposal and, it is reported, he was so weakened the morning of the engagement that he could not stand at the celebration of the mass. Lea, I. 177.

The complications in Southern France were one of the chief questions brought before the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215. Raymund was present and demanded back his lands, inasmuch as he had submitted to the Church; but by an overwhelming majority, the synod voted against him and Montfort was confirmed in the possession of his conquests.

Harter, II. 567 sqq.; Hefele, V. 881 sq., 902 sq.; Potthast, Regesta, I. 439.

The further progress of the Albigensian campaigns requires only brief notice here, for they were converted into a war of territorial plunder. In 1218, Montfort fell dead under the walls of Toulouse, his head crushed by a stone. In the reign of Honorius, whose supreme concern was a crusade in the East, the sectaries reasserted themselves, and Raymund regained most of his territory. But the pope was relentless, and again the sentence of excommunication was launched against the house of Toulouse.

In 1226, Louis VIII. took the cross, supported by the French parliament as well as by the Church. Thus the final chapter in the crusades was begun, a war of the king of France for the possession of Toulouse. Louis died a few months later. Arnold of Citeaux, for nearly twenty years their energetic and iron-hearted promoter, had preceded him to the grave. Louis IX. took up the plans of his royal predecessor, and in 1229 the hostilities were brought to a close by Raymund’s accepting the conditions proposed by the papal legate.

Raymund renounced two-thirds of his paternal lands in favor of France. The other third was to go at his death to his daughter who subsequently married Louis IX.’s brother, and, in case there was no issue to the marriage, it was to pass to the French crown, and so it did at the death of Jeanne, the last heir of the house of Toulouse. Thus the domain of France was extended to the Pyrenees.

Further measures of repression were directed against the remnants of the Albigensian heresy, for Raymund VII. had promised to cleanse the land of it. The machinery of the Inquisition was put into full action as it was perfected by the great inquisitorial council of Toulouse, 1229. The University of Toulouse received papal sanction, and one of its chief objects was announced to be "to bring the Catholic faith in those regions into a flourishing state."

Potthast, 9173.

The papal policy had met with complete but blighting success and, after the thirteenth century, heresy in Southern France was almost like a noiseless underground stream. Languedoc at the opening of the wars had been one of the most prosperous and cultured parts of Europe. At their close its villages and vineyards were in ruins, its industries shattered, its population impoverished and decimated. The country that had given promise of leading Europe in a renaissance of intellectual culture fell behind her neighbors in the race of progress. Protestant generations, that have been since sitting in judgment upon the barbarous measures, conceived and pushed by the papacy, have wondered whether another movement, stirred by the power of the Gospel, will not yet arise in the old domain that responded to the religious dissent and received the warm blood of the Albigenses, the Waldenses, and of Peter de Bruys and his followers.

The Stedinger. While the wars against the Albigenses were going on, another people, the Stedinger, living in the vicinity of Bremen and Oldenburg, were also being reduced by a papal crusade. They represented the spirit of national independence rather than doctrinal dissent and had shown an unwillingness to pay tithes to the archbishop of Bremen. When a husband put a priest to death for an indignity to his wife, the archbishop Hartwig II. announced penalty after penalty but in vain. Under his successor, Gerhard (1219–1258), the refractory peasants were reduced to submission. A synod of Bremen, in 1230, pronounced them heretics, and Gregory IX., accepting the decision, called upon a number of German bishops to join in preaching and prosecuting a crusade. The same indulgence was offered to the crusaders in the North as to those who went on the Church’s business to Palestine. The first campaign in 1233 was unsuccessful, but a second carried all the horrors of war into the eastern section of the Stedingers’ territory. In 1231 another army led by a number of princes completely defeated this brave people at Altenesch. Their lands were divided between the archbishop of Bremen and the count of Oldenburg.

§ 86. The Inquisition. Its Origin and Purpose.

The measures for the repression and extermination of heresy culminated in the organized system, known as the Inquisition. Its history presents what is probably the most revolting spectacle in the annals of civilized Europe.

Such a calm Church historian as Karl Müller, an expert in mediaeval history, pronounces a similar judgment, "Die Thätigkeit der Inquisition ist vielleicht das entsetzlichste was die Geschichte der Menschheit kennt."Kirchengesch., I. 590.

It has been argued in extenuation of the Church that she stopped with the decree of excommunication and the sentence to lifelong imprisonment and did not pronounce the sentence of death. And the old maxim is quoted as true of her in all times, that the Church abhors blood—ecclesia non sitit sanguinem. The argument is based upon a pure technicality. The Church, after sitting in judgment, turned the heretics over to the civil authorities, knowing full well that, as night follows day, the sentence of death would follow her sentence of excommunication.

The usual expression for turning heretics over to the civil tribunal was saeculari judiciore relinquere, and for perpetual imprisonment, in perpetuum carcerem retrudi orperpetuo commorari.

The official designation of the Inquisitorial process was the Inquisition of heretical depravity.

Inquis. haereticae pravitatis. The first case, so far as I know, of the use of the expression "inquisition of heretics,"inquis. haereticorum, was by the synod of Toulouse, 1229. Heretical depravity was the usual expression for heresy, Inn. Ep., II., 142, etc.; Migne, 214. 698. The term "inquirare" was a judicial term in use before. See Schmidt.

The Inquisition was a thoroughly papal institution, wrought out in all its details by the popes of the thirteenth century, beginning with Innocent III. and not ending with Boniface VIII. In his famous manual for the treatment of heresy the Inquisitor, Bernard Guy, a man who in spite of his office elicits our respect,

Practica, p. 176, habet excellentiamaltitudinis ex sua origine, quia immediate a sede apostolica dirivatur, committitur et noscitur institutum.

Precedent enough there was for severe temporal measures. Constantine banished the Arians and burned their books. Theodosius the Great fixed death as the punishment for heresy. The Priscillianists were executed in 385. The great authority of Augustine was appealed to and his fatal interpretation of the words of the parable "Compel them to come in,"

Cogite intrare. Ep., 93, ad Vincent, contra Gaudent., I. 1. On the other hand he expressed himself against putting upon them the sufferings they deserved. Ep., 100, ad Donat., etc.; Migne, 33. 360.

Innocent III. wrote that as treason was punished with death and confiscation of goods, how much more should these punishments be meted out to those who blaspheme God and God’s Son. A crime against God, so he reasoned, is surely a much graver misdemeanor than a crime against the secular power.

Ep., II. 1. Hurter, II. 264, thus describes Innocent’s attitude to incorrigible heretics. They are fallen under the power of Satan, should be deprived of all their possessions, and the bodies of the dead dug up from consecrated ground. Secular princes were to draw the sword against them, for the Lord has confided it to the mighty for the protection of the pious and the dismay of evil-doers and nowhere could it be put to better use than upon those who were seeking to lure others away from the true faith and rob them of eternal life.

The calm discussion, to which the eminent theologian, Thomas Aquinas, subjects the treatment due heretics, was made at least a quarter of a century after the Inquisition was put into full force. Leaning back upon Augustine and his interpretation of "compel them to come in," he declared in clearest terms that heretics deserved not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but to be excluded from the earth by judicial death.

Meruerunt non solum ab ecclesia per excommunicationem separari sed etiam per mortem a mundo excludi. Summa, II. Pt. II. 11; Migne’s ed., III. 109.

The legislation, fixing the Inquisition as a Church institution and elaborating its powers, began with the synod of Tours in 1163 and the oecumenical council of 1179. A large step in advance was made by the council of Verona, 1184. The Fourth Lateran, 1215, and the council of Toulouse, 1229, formally established the Inquisition and perfected the organization. Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Alexander IV. enforced its regulations and added to them. From first to last the popes were its chief promoters.

The synod of Tours, 1163, called upon the bishops and clergy to forbid the Catholics from mingling with the Albigenses and from having commercial dealings with them and giving them refuge. Princes were instructed to imprison them and confiscate their goods. The Third Lateran, 1179, extended the punishments to the defenders of heretics and their friends. It gave permission to princes to reduce heretics to slavery and shortened the time of penance by two years for those taking up arms against them. At the council of Verona, 1184, pope Lucius III. and the emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, joined in making common cause in the sacred undertaking and announced their attitude in the cathedral. Frederick had the law of the empire against heretics recited and threw his glove down upon the floor as a token that he would enforce it. Then Lucius announced the decree of the council, which enjoined bishops to visit, at least once a year, all parts of their sees, to try all suspects, and to turn them, if guilty, over to the civil authorities. Princes were ordered to take an oath to support the Church against heresy upon pain of forfeiting their dignities. Cities, refusing to punish offenders, were to be cut off from other cities and, if episcopal seats, were to be deprived of that honor.

Innocent III., the most vigorous of persecutors, was no sooner on the throne than he began to wage war against heretical infection. In one letter after another, he struck at it and commended military armaments for its destruction. The Fourth Lateran gave formal and final expression to Innocent’s views. The third canon opens with an anathematization of heretics of all names. It again enjoined princes to swear to protect the faith on pain of losing their lands. To all taking part in the extermination of heretics—ad haereticorum exterminium — was offered the indulgence extended to the Crusaders in Palestine. All "believers" and also the entertainers, defenders, and friends of heretics were to be excommunicated and excluded from receiving their natural inheritance.

Credentes, praeterea receptores, defensores et fautores haereticorum. Frederick II., in his Constitution of 1220, uses these terms, and they became the accepted, legal form of statement. See Bernard Guy, pp. 176, 194, etc. The term "fautor" became the usual term, in the subsequent history of the Inquisition, for the abettors of heresy. The term "believers" is the technical term used for the Cathari, etc.

For more than a century after Innocent, the enforcement of the rules for the detection and punishment of heretics form the continual subject of bulls issued by the Apostolic see and of synodal action especially in Southern France and Spain. Innocent IV. and Alexander IV. alone issued more than one hundred such bulls.

Between 1255-1258, Alexander IV., according to Flade, p. 1, issued no less than thirty-eight bulls against heretics.

The regulations for the episcopal supervision of the Inquisition were completed at the synod of Toulouse, 1229. Bishops were commanded to appoint a priest and laymen to ferret out heretics—inquirant haereticos—in houses and rooms. They were authorized to go outside their sees and princes outside of their realms to do this work. But no heretic was to be punished till he had been tried before the bishop’s tribunal. Princes were ordered to destroy the domiciles and refuges of heretics, even if they were underground. If heretics were found to reside on their lands without their knowledge, such princes were to be punished. Men above fourteen and women above twelve were obliged to swear to inform on heretics. And all, wishing to avoid the charge of heresy, were bound to present themselves at the confessional at least once a year. As a protection against heretical infection, boys above the age of seven were obliged to go to church every Sabbath and on festival days that they might learn the credo, the pater noster, and the ave Maria.

The legislation of the state showed its full sympathy with the rules of the Church. Peter of Aragon, 1197, banished heretics from his dominions or threatened them with death by fire. In 1226, Don Jayme I. of Aragon forbade all heretics entering his kingdom. He was the first prince to prohibit the Bible in the vernacular Romancia, 1234. From another source, whence we might have expected better things, came a series of severe edicts. At his coronation, 1220, Frederick II. spoke of heretics as the viperous sons of perfidy, and placed them under the ban of the empire.

Vipereos perfidiae filios. Frederick’s oath ran Catharos, Patarenos, Speronistas, Leonistias, Arnaldistas, Circumcisos et omnes haereticos utriusque sexus quocumque nomine censeantur perpetua damnamus infamia, diffidamus atque bannimus. See Bréholles, II. 6, 7, and Mirbt, p. 137. Hefele says Torquemada himself could not have used more vigorous language than Frederick used on this occasion. V. 993.

The princes and cities of Italy followed Frederick’s example. In Rome, after 1231, and at the demand of Gregory IX., the senator took oath to seize heretics pointed out by the Inquisition, and to put them to death within eight days of the ecclesiastical sentence. In Venice, beginning with 1249, the doge included in his oath the pledge to burn heretics. In France, the rules of the Inquisition were fully recognized in Louis IX.’s laws of 1228. The two great codes of Germany, the Sachsenspiegel and the Schwabenspiegel, ordered heretics burned to death.

For the Sachsenspiegel, see Mirbt, 139. The act of the Schwabenspiegel runs "where persons are believed to be heretics, they shall be accused before the spiritual court. When convicted, they shall be taken in hand by the secular court, which shall sentence them as is right, that is, they shall be burnt at the stake." Wackernagel’s ed., p. 241, sqq.

That the Church fully accepted Frederick’s severe legislation, is attested by the action of Honorius III. who sent the emperor’s edict of 1220 to Bologna with instructions that it be taught as part of the canon law. Frederick’s subsequent legislation was commended by popes and bishops,

Thus the Archbishop of Milan reënforced it at a provincial council, 1287. Hefele, VI. 253, and Lea, I. 322 sq. The synod of Mainz, 1233, instructed bishops to scrupulously observe the imperial and papal edicts. Hefele, V. 1027.

To more efficiently carry out the purpose of the Inquisition, the trial and punishment of heresy were taken out of the hands of the bishops and put into the hands of the monastic orders by Gregory IX. As early as 1227, this pope appointed a Dominican of Florence to proceed against the heretical bishop, Philip Paternon. In 1232, the first Dominicans were appointed inquisitors in Germany and Aragon.

Frederick II. united in appointing the Dominicans inquisitors of Germany. Bréholles, IV. 298-301.

One more step remained to be taken. By the famous bull ad exstirpanda, of 1252, Innocent IV. authorized torture as a measure for extorting confessions. The merciless use of this weapon was one of the most atrocious features of the whole procedure.

The Inquisitors, in spite of papal authority, synodal action, and state legislation, did not always have an easy path. In 1235, the citizens of Narbonne drove them out of their city. In 1242, a number were murdered in Avignon, whom Pius IX., in 1866, sought to recompense by giving them the honor of canonization as he had done the year before to the bloodiest of Inquisitors, the Spaniard Arbues, d. 1485. Parma, according to Salimbene,

Coulton, p. 203.

Down to the very close of the Middle Ages, the pages of history were disfigured by the decrees of popes and synods, confirming death as the penalty for heresy, and for persons supposed to be possessed with witchcraft. The great council of Constance, 1415, did not get away from this atmosphere, and ordered heretics punished even by the flames,—puniantur ad ignem. And the bull of Leo X., 1520, condemning Luther, cursed as heresy the Reformer’s liberal statement that the burning of heretics is contrary to the will of the Spirit.

To the great humiliation of the Protestant churches, religious intolerance and even persecution unto death were continued long after the Reformation. In Geneva, the pernicious theory was put into practice by state and church, even to the use of torture and the admission of the testimony of children against their parents, and with the sanction of Calvin. Bullinger, in the second Helvetic Confession, announced the principle that heresy should be punished like murder or treason. The treatment of the Anabaptists is a great blot on the page of the Reformation, Strassburg being the only centre that tolerated them. Cranmer persuaded Edward VI. to burn women. Elizabeth saw the death penalty executed upon Puritans. The spirit of intolerance was carried across the seas, and was as strong in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the American colonies, with some exceptions, as it was in Europe. The execution of Quakers in Boston, and of persons accused of witchcraft in Salem, together with the laws of Virginia and other colonies, were the unfortunate survivals of the vicious history of the Middle Ages, which forgot Christ’s example as he wept over Jerusalem, and the Apostle’s words, "vengeance is mine, I will repay," saith the Lord.

So far as we know, the Roman Catholic Church has never officially revoked the theory and practice of the mediaeval popes and councils, but on the contrary the utterances of Pius IX. and Leo XIII. show the same spirit of vicious reprobation for Protestants and their agencies.

§ 87. The Inquisition. Its Mode of Procedure and Penalties.

The Inquisition was called the Holy Office—sanctum officium— from the praiseworthy work it was regarded as being engaged in. Its chief officials, the Inquisitors, were exempted by Alexander IV., 1259, and Urban IV., 1262, from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, whether bishops, archbishops, or papal legates, except the jurisdiction of the Apostolic

See the presentation of Bernard Guy, pp. 209-211.

It is due to Innocent III. to say that he did not invent the inquisitorial mode of procedure, but drew it from the practice already in vogue in the state.

Schmidt, in his Herkunft d. Inquisitionsprocesses, finds the beginnings of the inquisitorial mode of procedure in the legislation of Charlemagne. The element of inquisitio came to dominate in the legal procedure of all Western Europe, except England. Its leading feature was that public fame or suspicion—publica fama, mala fama, clamor publicus, infamia, etc.,—justifies magistrates in seizing the suspect and instituting trial. The Normans attempted in vain to introduce it into England, where the Magna Charta established a different principle. The Normans, however, carried the inquisition with them to Southern Italy, where Frederick II. found it in vogue. Innocent, a student of canon law, found it exactly to his purpose to adopt the inquisitorial mode of procedure.

A party, not answering a citation within a year, was declared a heretic even when no proofs were advanced. Likewise, one who harbored a heretic forty days after a warning was served was treated as a heretic.

Physicians were forbidden to practise medicine on persons suspected of heresy and were forced to take oath not to defend it. Synods of Toulouse, 1229; Béziers, 1246; Albi, 1254.

Penitent heretics, if there was any doubt of their sincerity, were obliged to change their places of abode and, according to the synod of Toulouse, if they belonged to the Perfect, had to do so in all cases. The penances imposed were fines, which were allowed by papal decree as early as 1237 and 1245, pilgrimages, and wearing of two crosses on the left and right side of the body called the poena confusibilis.

The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was forbidden by a synod of Narbonne, 1243, which referred to a recent papal deliverance prohibiting it, that the sacred places might be protected against the infection of heresy. Young women were often excused from wearing the crosses, as it might interfere with their prospects of marriage. According to French law, pregnant women condemned to death, were not executed till after the birth of the child.

Local synods in Southern France ordered heretics and their defenders excommunicated every Sunday and that sentence should be pronounced amidst the ringing of bells and with candles extinguished. And as a protection against heresy, the bells were to be rung every evening.

Imprisonment for life was ordered by Gregory IX., 1229, for all induced to return to the faith through fear of punishment.

Potthast, 8445. The council of Toulouse, Canon XI., prescribed that the expense of incarceration be met by the bishop, provided the culprit had no goods of his own.

The rules for the division of confiscated property differed in different localities. In Venice, after prolonged negotiations with the pope, it was decided that they should pass to the state.

Lea, I. 512.

Not satisfied with seeing the death penalty executed upon the living, the Inquisition made war upon the dead, and exhumed the bodies of those found to have died in heresy and burned them.

This was often done. The most famous case was that of Wyclif whose bones were exhumed and burnt by the order of the council of Constance. One of the notable instances of prosecution after death was that of Roger, count of Foix, surnamed the Good. His wife and a sister were Waldenses, and another sister a Catharan. In 1263, years after the count’s death, proceedings were begun against him. See Lea, II. 53 sqq.

In the period before 1480 the Inquisition claimed most of its victims in Southern France. Douais has given us a list of seventeen Inquisitors-general who served from 1229 to 1329.

Documents, etc., I. CXXIX-CCVI.

During the administration of Bernard Guy, as inquisitor of Toulouse, 1306–1323, forty-two persons were burnt to death, sixty-nine bodies were exhumed and burnt, three hundred and seven were imprisoned, and one hundred and forty-three were condemned to wear crosses.

Douais, I. CCV, where a table is given of the sentences passed under Guy.

In the other parts of France, the Inquisition was not so vigorously prosecuted. It included, as we have seen, the order of the Templars. In 1253 the Dominican provincial of Paris was made the supreme Inquisitor. Among the more grim Inquisitors of France was the Dominican Robert le Petit, known as Le Bougre from his having been a Patarene.

Lea, II. 115 sqq., and especially Haskins.

In the Spanish kingdom of Aragon, the number of heretics does not seem to have been large. In 1232 the archbishop of Tarragona was ordered by Gregory IX. to proceed against heretics in conjunction with the Dominicans.

Potthast, 8932.

In Northern and Central Italy, the Inquisition was fully developed, the first papal commissioners being the bishops of Brescia and Modena, 1224. The cases of heresy in Southern Italy were few and isolated. In Rome, the first pyres were lighted in 1231, in front of St. Maria Maggiore. From that year on, and at the demand of Gregory IX., the Roman senator took an oath to execute heretics within eight days of their conviction by the ecclesiastical court. The houses sheltering them were to be pulled down. The sentence condemning heretics was read by the Inquisitor on the steps of the Capitol in the presence of the senator.

Gregorovius, V. 156-161. The assertion has often been made, by the Spaniard Balmes in 1842, the Abbé Coeur, 1846, a writer in the Dublin Review, 1850, and others, that Rome never witnessed an execution for heresy. Döllinger and Reusch in their edition of Bellarmin, Bonn, 1887, p. 233, have paid their respects to this mistake and give a list of more than twenty persons, Waldenses, Lutherans, and Jews, burnt in the papal city as late as1553-1635.

In Germany, the Inquisition did not take full hold till the crusade against witchcraft was started. The Dominicans were formally appointed to take charge of the business in 1248. Of sixty-three papal Inquisitors, known by name, ten were Franciscans, two Augustinians, one of the order of Coelestin, and the rest Dominicans.

Flade, p. 37 sq.

The centres of heresy in Germany were Strassburg, as early as 1212, Cologne, and Erfurt. The number of victims is said to have been very large and at least five hundred can be accounted for definitely in reported burnings.

Flade, p. 116. The pages of this author must be read to gain any adequate idea of the horrors of the Inquisition in Germany. He pronounces it even more bloody than the Inquisition in Southern France.

As Torquemada stands out as the incorporation of all that is inhuman in the Spanish Inquisition, so in the German does Konrad of Marburg.

This Dominican ecclesiastic, whom Gregory IX. called the "Lord’s watch-dog," first came into prominence at the court of Louis IV. of Thuringia on the Wartburg, the old castle which was the scene of the contests of the Minnesingers, and was destined to be made famous by Luther’s confinement after the diet of Worms, 1521. Konrad became confessor of Louis’ wife, the young and saintly Elizabeth. The daughter of King Andreas II. of Hungary, she was married to the Landgrave of Thuringia in 1221, at the age of fourteen. At his death at Brindisi, on his way to the Holy Land, in 1227, she came more completely under the power of Konrad. Scarcely any scene in Christian history exhibits such wanton and pitiless cruelty to a spiritual ward as he displayed to the tender woman who yielded him obedience. From the Wartburg, where she was adored for her charities and good works, she removed to Marburg. There Konrad subjected her to daily castigations and menial services, deprived her gradually of all her maids of honor, and separated her from her three children. On one occasion when she visited a convent of nuns at Oldenburg, a thing which was against their rigid rule, Konrad made Elizabeth and her attendant lie prostrate and receive a severe scourging from friar Gerhard while he himself looked on and repeated the Miserere. This, the most honored woman of mediaeval Germany, died of her castigations in 1231. Four years later she was canonized, and the St. Elizabeth church was begun which still stands to her memory in Marburg.

The year of Elizabeth’s death, Gregory IX. invested Konrad with a general inquisitorial authority and right to appoint his own assistants and call upon the secular power for aid. Luciferans, so called, and other heretics were freely burned. It was Konrad’s custom to burn the offenders the very day their sentences were pronounced.

Roman Catholic writers have recently tried to remove the impression that Konrad’s victims were numerous. See Benrath’s reply, art. Konrad of Marburg, Herzog, X. 749 sqq.

In the Lowlands, Antwerp, Brussels, and other cities were lively centres of heresy and afforded a fine opportunity for the Inquisitor. The lists of the accused and of those executed in the flames and by other means include Waldenses, Beguines, Beghards, Apostolicals, Lollards, and other sectaries. Their sufferings have been given a splendid memorial in the volumes of Fredericq. Holland’s baptism of blood on a grand scale was reserved for the days of Philip II. and the Duke of Alva in the sixteenth century.

In England, the methods of the Inquisition never had any foothold. When the papal agents arrived to prosecute the Templars, King Edward forbade the use of torture as contrary to the common law of the realm. The flogging of the Publicani, who are said to have made a single English convert, has already been referred to. In 1222 a deacon, who had turned Jew, was hanged.

See Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. 353 (note) sqq., who says that if there was any persecution for heresy before 1382, it must have taken the ordinary form of prosecution in the spiritual court. See Prof. Maitland, Can. Law in the Church of England, p. 158 sq.