cipled nobility,* an intriguing clergy, and a ve- || thus-if Papal elections had been regularly nal populace, whose united fraud and violence and conscientiously conducted when the usually favored the most flagitious candi- civil governments of Europe were at the date, and promoted his success by means the lowest point of contentious and stupid im most shameful. And, therefore, through this becility-the era of Pontifical despotism lawless period we read of Popes tumultuous- would have been anticipated by nearly three ly chosen and hastily deposed; hurried from centuries, and the empire of opinion would the monastery to the chair, from the chair to have been more oppressive and more lastprison or to death. Their reigns were usual-ing, as the age was more deeply immersed ly short and wasted in fruitless endeavors to in ignorance and barbarism. prolong them; their sacred duties were forgotten or despised, and their personal characters were even more detestable than those | of the princes their contemporaries. Further, we may observe, that when the Church began to recover from the delirium of the tenth century; when one great man did at length arise within it, Hildebrand, the future Gregory, his influence was immediately ex-pations of national councils of Bishops on the erted, not only against Imperial interference to confirm, but against popular license to elect: for he had learned from long and late experience, that no scheme for the universal extension of Papal authority could be made effective, until the Popes themselves were secured from the capricious insolence of a domestic tyrant. If things had not been * From the deposition of the last Carlovingian king to the reign of Otho the Great, (a space of nearly fifty years,) the authority of the princes who held the imperial title was always vacillating and contested. In the meantime the city of Rome was no part of the kingdom of Italy, but depended on the imperial crown only; so that during the vacancy of the empire it recovered its independence, and thus fell under the turbulent oligarchy of its own nobles. These provided the candidates for the pontifical throne; and whosoever among them succeeded in obtaining it, secured, by means of the church rev enues, a great preponderance over all the others, and became as it were the chiefs of the republic. (See Sismondi, Repub. Ital. chap. iii.; to whose work we are compelled to refer the reader for the few facts which are ascertained respecting the revolutions of the Roman Government during this period.) For the further degradation of the Roman See the influence of female arts and charms was triumphantly exerted. 'Jamais les femmes n'eurent autant de crédit sur aucun gouvernement que celles de Rome en obtinrent, dans le dixième siècle, sur celui de leur patrie. Or auroit dit que la beauté avoit succédé a tous les droits de l'empire.' The names and scandals of Theodora and Marozia are distinguished in the ecclesiastical annals of the tenth century. In the rapid succession of popes, those most marked by disgrace or misfortune may have been Leo V., John X., John XI., John XII., Benedict VI., John XIV.; but to pursue the details of their history would be alike painful and unprofitable: for their crimes would teach us no lessons, and even their sufferings would scarcely raise our compassion. II. Encroachment of Ecclesiastical on Civil Authority. We proceed to examine the encroachments of Church upon State during the same period; and this part of our subject might again be subdivided under three heads the general usurpations of the See of Rome on any temporal rights—the particular usur civil authorities—and the individual usurpations of the episcopal office on that of the secular magistrate. But, not to perplex this matter by an attempt at exceeding minuteness, we shall rather follow the course of events and illustrate them with such observations as they may appear severally to demand. The first edict which permitted legal jurisdiction to the Episcopal order, and supported its decisions by civil authority, sowed the seeds of that confusion which afterwards involved and nearly obliterated the limits of temporal and spiritual power. There is scarcely any crime which an ingenious casuist might not construe into an offence against religion, and subject to ecclesiastical cognizance, in a rude and illiterate age; while, on the other hand, the best defined and most certain rights of an unarmed and dependent authority were liable to continual outrage either from a sovereign possessing no fixed principles of government, or from a lawless aristocracy more powerful than the sovereign. In the Eastern empire, indeed, this evil was greatly neutralized by the decided and unvarying supremacy of the civil power, nor was it immediately felt even in the West; at least we read little or nothing about the usurpation of the Clergy, until after the death of Charlemagne. The Popes, it is true, had displayed, from a very early period, great anxiety to enlarge their authority; but the efforts of Leo and even of Gregory were confined to the acquisition of some privilege from their own Metropolitans, or some title or province from their rival at Constantinople. The dream of universal empire seems at no time to have warmed the imagination of those more moderate Pontiffs. It is not The devout spirit of the Barbarians pres ently increased the extent of their landed possessions without withholding from them any of the rights which, according to their system, were inseparable from land; and thus they entered upon temporal jurisdiction coextensive with their estates. By these means that we may not occasionally discover both them through their influence. If they had in the writings and in the conduct of the pre- || lands, no jurisdiction was necessarily annexlates of earlier days an abundance of spiritual || ed to them; they had no place in legislative zeal ever ready to overflow its just bounds, assemblies; they had no control, as a body, and gain somewhat upon the secular empire. in the direction of the state. The latter, too, found its occasions to retort; but we may remark, that while its operations were generally violent and interrupted, those of the clergy were more systematic and continuous. In the meantime the distinction between the two parties was becoming wider, and their differences were approaching near to dissension, before, and even during, the reign of Charlemagne : howbeit, the vigorous grasp of that monarch so firmly wielded the double sceptre, that the rent which was beginning to divide it was barely percepti- || ble, when it fell from his hand; but scarcely had it begun to tremble with the feeble touch of Lewis his son, when its ill-cemented materials exhibited a wide and irreparable incoherence. the Episcopal Courts became possessed of a double jurisdiction-over the Clergy and Laity of their diocese for the cognizance of crimes against the ecclesiastical law, and over the vassals of their barony as lords paramount; and these two departments they frequently so far confounded as to use the spiritual weapon of excommunication to enforce the judgments of both.* In the next place the Clergy became an order in the state, and thus entered into the enjoyment of privileges entirely unconnected with their spiritual charYet the necessary effect of the union of ecclesiastical with secular dignities was to blend two powers in the same person almost undistinguishably; and to confound, by indiscriminate use, the prerogatives of the bishop with those of the baron. Again, the Bishops being once established as feudal lords, had great advantages in increasing their possessions, owing to the influence which neces acter. The extraordinary change which had taken place in the institutions of the Western Empire during the two preceding, and which was progressive during the two present, centuries, greatly increased both to church and state the facility of mutual encroachment. Until the permanent settlement of the northern nations generally introduced the feudal system of government, the Clergy, though enjoying great immunities and ample possessions, yet, as they lived under absolute rule, had little real, and no independent pow-sarily devolved on them, not only from their er, excepting such as indirectly accrued to *In the Capitularies of Interrogations' proposed by Charlemagne, three years before his death, First,' (he says) 'I will separate the bishops, the abbots, and the secular nobles, and speak to them in private. I will ask them why they are not willing greater virtues and knowledge, but also from At the first establishment of the system, vassalage to an ecclesiastic conferred exemption from military service; but, among rude and warlike nations, when the greater force was generally the better law, this privilege *This subject is treated clearly, though shortly, by Burke, in his Abridgment of English History. Mosheim, who ascribes the secular encroachments of the Bishops to their acquisition of secular titles, de to assist each other, whether at home or in the camp, when the interests of their country demand it? Whence come those frequent complaints which I hear, either concerning their property or the vassals which pass from the one to the other? In what the ccclesiastics impede the service of the laity, the laity that of the ecclesiastics? To what extent a bishop or abbot ought to interfere in secular affairs; or a count or other layman in ecclesiastical matters,' &c. (Fleury, H. Eccl. 1. xiv. sect. 51. Guizot, Hist. Mod. Leçon 21.) Soon afterwards, in 826, the Council of Paris, after proposing some very extravagant epis-nies that such titles were conferred on them before copal claims, observes, as one great obstacle to harmony, that the princes have long mixed too much in ecclesiastical matters, and that the clergy, whether through avarice or ignorance, take unbecoming interest in secular matters. Again, at the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle (in 836) all the evils of the time are expressly attributed to the mutual encroachments of the spiritual and secular powers. the tenth age. Louis Thomassin (De Disciplin. Eccles. Vet. et Nova) endeavors to trace the prac tice to the ninth and even to the eighth century Whatever may be the fact respecting the titles, the jurisdiction certainly gained great ground during the ninth age; more, perhaps, through the superstition of the people, and the weakness of the princes, than by its own legitimacy. and it is but justice to add, that they made frequent attempts to abolish them. * could not possibly be of long duration. It || of their judicial authority, and they divide was withdrawn universally, at different times, that disgrace with the Kings and the civil by different princes, according to their power magistrates of the time; but they had not or their necessities. The Church fiefdoms the crime of introducing them. They rethus assumed a very different appearance, ceived and executed them as they were handand the spirituality of the sacred charactered down from a remote and blind antiquity became still further corrupted; for, as soon as the vassals became military, it was found difficult to hold them in subjection to an un- Moreover, through the free spirit which armed lord, and the Clergy were, in many formed the only merit of the feudal system, instances, obliged to descend from their the affairs of the state were more or less peaceful condition, assume the sword and regulated by public assemblies, and the highhelmet, and conduct their subjects into bat- er ranks of the clergy found a place in these. tle: in many instances they did so without Thus, again, were they placed in contact any such obligation. This direct derelic- || with the great temporal interests of their tion of the pastoral character became the im- || country, and invited to examine and direct mediate means of securing their property them; and no doubt their feudal temporaland increasing their power; but, notwith-ities, as well as their spiritual influence, added standing the contempt to which the peaceful || weight and authority to their counsel. But, virtues are occasionally exposed among rude || besides these, which some might overbear and military nations, it is probable that they lost thereby as much in influence as they gained in power. * and others might affect to despise, their political consideration was derived from another-a more honorable and a more certain instrument of power-their intellectual superiority. The learning of the age continued still to be confined to their order; † few among the laity could even read, and therefore few were qualified for any public duty, and thus the various offices requiring any Again, the strange and irrational method of Trials which even now came generally into use, must have tended, by the intermixture of superstition, to enlarge the dominion of ecclesiastical influence. The ordinary proofs by fire, by water, by hot iron, indicate some imposture perhaps only prac-degree of literature fell necessarily into the ticable by the more informed craft of the clergy. The proofs of the Cross and the Eucharist bear more obvious marks of sacerdotal superintendence. The clergy disgraced themselves by upholding such abuses * The practice crept, without the same excuse, and of course with much less frequency, into the Greek Church. In the year 713 a Subdeacon commanded || the troops of Naples; and the Admiral of the Emperor's fleet was a Deacon. (Fleury, ix. 172, &c.) But the low ecclesiastical rank which these officers held would prove, if it were necessary, that they did || not take the field as feudal lords. In the West this practice appears to have commenced soon after the admission of barbarians to the clerical order; which, if we are to judge by names, scarcely took place before the seventh century. hands of the clergy. Those who consider their advance to such offices as usurpations do not sufficiently weigh the circumstances of the times; they do not reflect that there are moral as well as physical necessities, and that a state of society is not even possible, in case of any injustice a miracle was constantly expected to remedy it. * A council held at Attigni, probably in 822, under Lewis the Meek, especially prohibited the Trial by the Cross; according to which, the two parties stood up before a cross, and whichever of them fell first lost his cause. Again, at the Council of Worms (in 829,) these judgments were strongly discouraged. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, an influential prelate, had written expressly against them. The Council of Valence, held in 855, published the following canon. 'Duels shall not be suffered, though author In the address (already mentioned) which was presented on this subject to Charlemagne by his peo-ized by custom. He who shall have slain his adverple, it is remarkable that the petitioners felt it necessary to offer a solemn assurance, that their motive for disarming the Clergy was not (as might, it seems, have been suspected) a design to plunder their property. We may add, that the indecent violation of the sacerdotal character is a reason, which seems to have been overlooked by both parties. Even the trial by Duel, which seems the farthest removed from priestly interference, was preceded by some religious forms; great precautions were taken to prevent the arms from being enchanted; and in sary shall be subject to the penance of homicide; he who shall have been slain, shall be deprived of the prayers and sepulture of the church. The Emperor shall be prayed to abolish that abuse by public ordi. nance.' See Fleury, 1. xlvi., s. 48. 1. xlvii, s. 30. 1. xlix., s. 23. In many of the councils held during the ninth century, canons were enacted enjoining the Bishop tc suspend a Priest for ignorance, and to promote and regulate the schools which were established for the education of the clergy. siderable fiefs, as the price of their protection against depredators. But those Advocates became themselves too often the spoilers, and oppressed the helpless ecclesiastics for whose defence they had been engaged. We have thought it right, though at the risk of some repetition, to premise this general view of the relative situation of the cler which the only persons at all qualified to fill || tors, under the name of Advocates, with conthe offices of the state should be the only persons excluded from them. It is far from our intention to advocate any general departure from the spiritual character in the sacred orders; and the divines of the ninth and tenth centuries would undoubtedly have been great gainers both in virtue and in happiness, had they preserved that character pure and uncontaminated. But it was made impos-gy and laity during the period which we are sible by the political system under which they lived, that it could be so; and without seeking any excuse for the individual misconduct of thousands among them, we cannot avoid perceiving, that their interference in temporal affairs, to a certain extent, was absolutely unavoidable-and where and by whom, in those unsettled ages, were the limits of that interference to be drawn and pre- || served? If the clergy were in many respects gainers by the imperfection of civil government, it would be partial to conceal, that they were. sufferers by it also. In times of confusion || (and those days were seldom tranquil) the property of the Church was the constant obJect of cupidity and invasion.* On such occasions no inconsiderable portion of its revenues passed into the hands of lay impropriators, who employed curates at the cheapest rate. And both Bishops and Monasteries were obliged to invest powerful lay protec *The councils of the ninth century abound with complaints of the spoliation of Church property by laymen, who are frequently specified; and new Capitularies were continually enacted to prevent or allay differences between the Clergy and the laity. The confusion generally prevalent is proved by the capitularies published at Quercy (in 857,) by which every diocesan is exhorted to preach against pillage and violence, as well as by the Letters of Hincmar published in 859, and that of the Bishops of France to King Lewis, attributed to the same prelate. The frequency too of personal assaults on the Clergy is evinced by various regulations for their protection, and even more so, perhaps, by the slight punishment attached to such offences. Some promulgated in France (probably in 822) ordain as follows-the murderer of a Deacon or Priest is condemned to a penance of twelve years and a fine of 900 sous; the murderer of a Bishop is to abstain from flesh and wine for the whole of his life, to quit the profession of arms, and abstain from marriage.' Yet the confirmation of this canon was thought highly important by the episcopal order. Fleury 1. xlvi, s. 48; 1. xlix, 8.40. † An abuse (as Mr. Hallam remarks) which has never ceased in the Church. Middle Ages, chap. vii. We take this opportunity of acknowledging various obligations to that historian. describing; otherwise it would be difficult to form any just and impartial views, or even any very definite notions, of the real character of the events which it contains. Penance of Lewis the Meek. In the civil war which took place in the year 833 between Lewis the Meek* and his sons, Pope Gregory IV. presented himself in France at the camp of the rebels. The motive which he pretended was to reconcile the combatants and terminate a dissension † so scandalous to Christendom; and such really may have been his design. At least it is certain that his interference was a single and inconsequent act, unaccompanied by any insolence of pretension; the Pope offered his mediation, and, though we may suspect his impartiality, he advanced no claim of apostolical authority to dispose of the crown. We shall, therefore, pass on from this event to one which immediately followed it, and which French historians consider as the first instance of ecclesiastical aggression on the ed by his soldiers into the hands of his sons, rights of their sovereign. Lewis was betraywho immediately deposed him and divided the empire amongst themselves: but fearing that he might hereafter be restored by popular favor, they determined to inflict upon him a still deeper and even hopeless humiliation. An assembly held at Compiègne condemned him to perform public penance, and he sub mitted with some reluctance to the sentence. Having received a paper containing the list * Charlemagne died in 814; Lewis the Meek in 840, and his successor, Charles the Bald, in 877. The empire passed from Charlemagne's descendants to the German Conrad just a century after his death; and in 987 his dynasty was extinguished in France by the accession of Hugh Capet. †Baron., ann. 833, s. v. Gregory held the See from 828 to 844. It was made a complaint against the Emperor by Agobard, the Archbishop of Lyons (ap. Baron., ann. 833, s. vi.) that he did not address the Pope with the due expressions of respect-since he saluted him, in a letter, Brother and Papa indiscriminately: the paternal appellation should alone, it seems, have been adopted. of his pretended crimes, and confessed his || act and think right to give it our confirmation. guilt, he prostrated himself on a rough mat || Wherefore we declare that the people is abat the foot of the altar, cast aside his baldric, || solved from all obligation and oath by which it his sword, and his secular vestments, and as- was engaged to Vamba, and that it should resumed the garb of a penitent. And, after the cognise for its only master Ervigius, whom Bishops had placed their hands on him, and God has chosen, whom his predecessor has the customary psalms and prayers had been appointed, and, what is still more, whom the performed, he was conducted in sackcloth to whole people desires.'* Still we may observe the cell assigned for his perpetual residence. that, even in this instance, the prelates did It was intended by those who condemned || not professedly proceed to the whole length him to this ignominy, thereby to disqualify of deposition, though such was unquestiontheir former sovereign for every office both ably the real nature of the measure. We civil and military. But neither does it ap- || may also remind the reader, that the aggrespear that such was the necessary consesions which have been thus far mentioned quence of canonical penance, unless when were entirely the work of the episcopal orimposed for life; nor could they have for- der, not in any way directed or influenced by gotten that eleven years previously the same the See of Rome. It is very true that they monarch had already performed a public may have prepared the way for the more penance, for certain political offences then extensive usurpations of Papacy, and the aucharged on him. It proved then, as might thority which had been insulted by provincial have been expected, that the ceremony de- bishops could scarcely hope to be long held scribed had no more important effect than the sacred by the Chief of the whole body: still temporary humiliation of the royal person. the Pope had not yet found himself sufficientProbably his popularity was increased by the ly powerful to engage in the enterprise. show of persecution; and, as soon as political circumstances changed in his favor, the Bishops immediately reconciled the penitent to the Church, and replaced him on the throne. † * || Charles the Bald. The long reign of Charles the Bald furnishes more numerous instances of the exercise of ecclesiastical influence in affairs of state, some of which deserve our notice. That prince and Lewis of Bavaria This stretch of Episcopal power is blamed being desirous to dispossess their brother by many Roman Catholic historians, who, Lothaire of a portion of his dominions, did at the same time, are careful to show that it not presume, notwithstanding great military was simply an act of penance, not of deposi- || advantages which they had obtained over tion, justified by the memorable submission || him, to proceed in their design without the of Theodosius to ecclesiastical discipline. Nevertheless, we cannot in justice otherwise consider it, than as a daring outrage committed on the highest temporal authority, with || the intention of perpetuating the deposition of Lewis by the pretext of penance. Yet it had been surpassed in an earlier age and in a different country, by a measure of episcopal usurpation which is less generally recorded. At the twelfth Council of Toledo, in 682, the bishops undertook to decide on the succession to the crown. Vamba, king of the Visigoths, having done penance and assumed the monastic habit, formally abdicated in favor of Ervigius; on which matter the prelates proncunced as follows-'We have read this sanction of the Clergy. To that end they summoned a council of Bishops and Priests † at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the year 842, and submitted the question to their consideration. The assembly condemned the crimes and incapacity of Lothaire, and declared that God had justly withdrawn his protection from him; but it would not permit his brothers to occupy his kingdom until they had made a public vow to govern it, not after the example of Lothaire, but according to the will of God. The Bishops then pronounced their final decision in these words-Receive the kingdom by the authority of God, and govern it according to his will; we counsel, we exhort, we command you to do so.' The effect of this sentence was not, indeed, the entire spoliation of Lothaire, who retained his throne to the end of his life; but certain provinces, already in the occupation of the con It is the first canon of the Council, and s cited by Fleury, l. xl. s. 29. Fleury, H. E. 1. xlviii. s. 11. Baron., ann. 842. s. 1, 2, 3. |