position 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 Tojedo, 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 favour of Ervigius; on which matter the prelates pronounced as follows- We have read this act and think right to give it our confirmation. Wherefore we declare that the 'people is absolved from all obligation and oath by which it was engaged to Vamba, and that it should recognize for its only master Ervigius, whom God has chosen, whom his predecessor has appointed, and, what 'is still more, whom the whole people desires *.' Still we may observe that, even in this instance, the prelates did not professedly proceed to the whole length of deposition, though such was unquestionably the real nature of the measure. We may also remind the reader, that the aggressions which have been thus far mentioned were entirely the work of the episcopal order, not in any way directed or influenced by the See of Rome. It is very true that they may have prepared the way for the more extensive usurpations of Papacy, and the authority which had been insulted by provincial bishops could scarcely hope to be long held sacred by the Chief of the whole body: still the Pope had not yet found himself sufficiently powerful to engage in the enterprise. 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 being desirous to dispossess their brother Lothaire of a portion of his dominions, did not presume, notwithstanding great military advantages which they had obtained over him, to proceed in their design without the 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 The assembly condemned the crimes and incapacity of Lothaire, and declared that God had justly withdrawn his protection from him; but it would not permit his brothers to occupy his kingdom until they had made a public vow to govern it, not after the example of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 conquerors, were immediately, and, as it would seem, permanently transferred to their sceptre, in consequence of the episcopal award. In the year 859 Charles presented to the Council of Savonières a formal complaint against Vénilo, Archbishop of Sens, which breathes the lowest spirit of humiliation. By his own election' (the King says), ‘and ' that of the other Bishops, and by the will and consent and acclamation ' of the rest of my subjects, Vénilo, with the other Bishops and Arch'bishops, consecrated me King, according to the tradition of the Church, ' and anointed me to the kingdom with the holy chrism, and raised me to the throne with the diadem and sceptre. After which consecration and * It is the first canon of the Council, and is cited by Fleury, 1. xl. s. 29. regal elevation I ought to have been degraded by no one without the 'hearing and judgment of the Bishops, by whose ministry I was conse'crated to royalty, who are called the thrones of God. In them God sits; by them he makes known his judgments; and to their paternal 'corrections and penal authority I was prepared to subject myself, and am now subject * These words (as Fleury admits) are remarkable in the mouth of a king, and especially of a king of France; but the example of his predecessor, enforced by his own misfortunes † and feebleness, may have reduced Charles to the necessity of such degradation. But, on the other hand, can we feel astonishment that the Hierarchy took advantage of what appeared the voluntary and gratuitous prostration of royalty? When we blame the ambition of those who received the offering, should we forget the weakness and pusillanimity of those who presented it? A year or two afterwards, Lothaire, King of Lorraine, grandson of Lewis the Meek, divorced his wife in order to espouse his concubine. It appears that no less than three Councils of Bishops sanctioned the act of their monarch; nevertheless the repudiated queen made her appeal to Rome. Nicholas I. was then Pope, and he interfered in her favour with his usual vehemence and perseverance: the threat of excommunication was long suspended over the king, who employed submissive language and persisted in disobedience. There is some reason to believe that the Pope, towards the end of his life, executed his menace; and if so, it may seem a strange return for the generosity of Charlemagne to the Holy See, that the first discharge of its deadliest bolt should have been directed, within fifty years from his death, against one of his own descendants. But he had in some degree secured this retribution by his own imprudence for it was his custom to engage the Bishops to pervert the ecclesiastical censures to the service of the civil government. The confusion between the two powers was thus augmented; and the misapplication of the great spiritual weapon to the purposes of the State naturally led to the second abuse, which turned it, for Church purposes, against the state. On the death of Lothaire, Adrian II. endeavoured to exclude Charles the Bald from the succession to his states, and to confer them on the Emperor Lewis. To effect this object he addressed one letter to the nobles of the kingdom of Lothaire, in which he exhorted them to adhere to the Emperor on pain of anathema and excommunication; and a second to the subjects of Charles, in which he eulogized the Emperor, and repeated the same menaces. He continued to the following purpose :-' If any one shall oppose himself to the just pretensions of the Emperor, let him know that the Holy See is in favour of that Prince, and that the arms which God has placed in our hands are prepared for his defence.' We may consider this as the first attempt of papal ambition to regulate *The original is cited by Baronius, ann. 859. s. xxvi. The Bishops had a very simple process of reasoning, by which they proved their supremacy. A Bishop can consecrate a King, but a King cannot consecrate a Bishop: therefore a Bishop is superior to a King. We might well wonder that any serious attention should ever have been paid to such undisguised nonsense, if we did not recollect what undue weight is always attached to ceremony in ignorant ages. + It should also be recollected that this was the crisis of the general dissolution of government and society into the feudal form. Fleury (1. li. s. 7.) collects the fact from the Pope's letter to Charles, in favour of Heltrude, widow of Count Berenger, and sister of Lothaire. But many historians are silent respecting it, and in the first intercourse between Lothaire and Adrian II. the successor of Nicholas, we can discover no proof that the King was then lying under the sentence. 1 the successions of princes. It was 'unsuccessful; Charles, with the aid of Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, and other Prelates, had already placed himself in possession of the throne when the legates of Adrian arrived; and the subsequent efforts of the Pontiff to oblige him to abdication were repelled with courage and constancy both by the king and his metropolitau*. Lewis III. and These events took place about the year 870; and ten years afterwards the same Hincmar was equally firm in defending the rights of the Church when they were in opposition to the claims of the king, Lewis III. That Prince was desirous to intrude into the See of Beauvais an unworthy minister, and pressed his appointment by supplication and menace. Hincmar defended the original liberty of elections which had been restored by Lewis the Meek, and the independence of the Church. "That you are the master of the elections, and of the ecclesiastical property, are assertions proceeding from hell and from the mouth of the serpent. Remember the promise which you made at your consecration, which you subscribed with your hand, and presented to God on the altar in the presence of the Bishops. Reconsider it with the aid of your Council, and pretend not to introduce into the Church that which the mighty Emperors, your predecessors, pretended not in their time. I trust that I shall always preserve towards you the fidelity and devotion which are due; I laboured much for your election; do not then return me evil for good by persuading me to abandon in my old age the holy regulations which I have followed, through the grace of God, during six and thirty years of episcopacy....... A subsequent letter by the same Prelate contained even stronger expressions to the following effect- It is not you who have chosen me to govern the Church; but it is I and my colleagues and the rest of the faithful who have chosen you to govern the kingdom, on the condition of observing the laws. We fear not to give account of our conduct before the Bishops, because we have not violated the Canons. But as to you, if you change not what you have ill done, God will redress it in his own good time. The Emperor Lewis lived not so long as his father Charles; your grandfather Charles lived not so long as his father, nor your father † The Pope commanded Hincmar to abstain from the communion of Charles, if he continued refractory. The Archbishop (professedly in the name of his fellow-subjects) replied, among other matters,- Let the Pope consider that he is not at the same time king and bishop; that his predecessors have regulated the Church,which is their concern— not the State, which is the heritage of kings; and consequently that he should neither command us to obey a king too distant to protect us against the sudden attacks of the Pagans, nor pretend to subjugate us-us who are Franks..... If a Bishop excommunicates a Christian, contrary to rule, he abuses his power; but he can deprive no one of eternal life who is not deprived of it by his sins. It is improper in a Bishop to say that any man not incorrigible should be separated from the Christian name and consigned to condemnation; and that too, not on account of his crimes, but for the sake of withholding or conferring a temporal sovereignty. If then the Pope is really desirous to establish concord, let him not attempt it by fomenting dissensions; for he will never persuade us that we cannot arrive at the kingdom of Heaven except by receiving the king whom he may choose to give us on earth.' Again, in an answer of Charles to an epistle of Adrian, that Prince argues respecting the distinction between the temporal and the spiritual power, and also alleges the peculiar supremacy of the kings of France. To prove these and similar points, he refers not only to the Archives of the Roman Church, but to the writings of St. Gelasius, St. Leo, St. Gregory, and even St. Augustin himself. (See Hist. Littéraire de la France. Fleury, 1. lii., s. 8, 22.) Hincmar wrote many of that king's letters, and may probably have been the author of this. + Lewis the Stammerer. as his father; and when you are at Compiègne, where they repose, cast down your eyes and look where lies your father and where your grandfather is buried; and presume not to exalt yourself in the presence of Him who died for you and for us all, and who was raised again, and dies no more. . . . . . . You will pass away speedily; but the Holy Church and its ministers under Jesus Christ their Chief will subsist eternally according to his promise.' This vain menace of temporal retribution (for as such it was obviously intended) was however singularly accomplished; Lewis, in the vigour of youth, died in the following year; and the strange coincidence may have encouraged future Prelates to indulge in similar predictions which proved not equally fortunate. We have already mentioned that Charles the Bald, about fifteen years after his contest with Pope Nicholas, condescended to accept the vacant empire as the donation of John VIII. The immediate result of this act was, that the government of Italy and the Imperial throne were, for some years afterwards, placed in a great measure at the disposal of the Pope, who shamelessly abused his influence. But it had a more lasting and still more pernicious consequence, in so far as it furnished to the more powerful Pontiffs of after ages one of their pretexts for interference in the succession to the Imperial throne. The ceremony of coronation to which Charlemagne had consented to submit at Rome was their only foundation for the pretension that the empire had been transferred from the Greeks to the Latins by papal authority; and on the same ground it was subsequently transferred by the same agency from the French to the Italians, from the Italians to Otho I. and the Germans. The mere act of ministry in a customary, and, as was then thought, a necessary solemnity, was exalted into a display of superiority and an exercise of power; and many among the ignorant vulgar were really led to believe that the rights of sovereignty were conferred by the form of consecration. But the condescension of Charles the Bald, though conceding no very definite privilege, nor any which could be reasonably binding on his successors, yet furnished a pretence which was somewhat more substantial than a mere ceremony t. On a review of this short narrative, we perceive that the Prelates of the ninth century advanced, for the first time, claims of temporal authority; that such claims were asserted by national assemblies of Bishops even more daringly than by the Popes; and that they were so immoderate as to be inconsistent with the necessary rights of Princes, and the vigour and stability of civil government. We observe, moreover, that the Hierarchy, though on some particular occasions their efforts were frustrated, had made, during the period of sixty-three years from the death of Charlemagne to that of Charles the Bald, very considerable strides in the advancement of their power and privileges. The immediate successor of Charles, Louis the Stammerer, was consecrated to the throne of France by the Pope; and a Council of Bishops assembled at Troyes * See Mosh. Cent. ix. p. ii. c. ii. Giannone, Stor. Nap. lib. viii. Introduct. + Some of the expressions of the Pope delivered on this occasion should be cited. 'Unde nos, tantis indiciis divinitùs incumbentibus, luce clarius agnitis, superni decreti consilium manifestè cognovimus. Et quia pridem Apostolicæ memoriæ Decessori nostro Papa Nicolao idipsum jam inspiratione divina revelatum fuisse comperimus, elegimus merito et approbavimus una cum annisu et voto omnium Fratrum et Coepiscoporum nostrorum et aliorum Sanctæ Rom. Ecclesiæ Ministrorum, amplique senatus, totiusque Rom. populi gentisque togatæ, et secundum priscam consuetudinem, solemniter ad Imperi Romani Sceptra proverimus, et Augustali nomine decoravimus, ungentes eum oleo extrinsecus, ut interioris quoque Spiritus Sancti unctionis monstraremus virtutem, &c.' See Baron. Ann. 876, s. 6. about the same time (in 878), published, as the first Canon, that the Powers of the world should treat the Bishops with every sort of respect, and that no one should presume to sit down in their presence unless by their command;' as the last, that all those Canons be observed, under pain of deposition for clerks, and privation of all dignity for laymen.' The Pope and the King were both present at this Council, and the latter appears to have sanctioned the very bold usurpation contained in the last clause. Soon after this period the Popes became so much embarrassed by domestic inquietude and disorder, that they had little leisure to extend their conquests abroad; and thus for above a century the thunders of the Vatican murmured with extreme faintness, or altogether slept. But the principle of ecclesiastical supremacy, and the disposition to submit to it were not extinguished in the tumults of the tenth age; and the storm, when it again broke forth, seemed even to have gained strength from the sullen repose which had preceded it. The occasion was thisRobert, King of France, had married a relative, four degrees removed, indeed, but still too near akin for the severity of canonical morality. Gregory V. in a Council of Italian Bishops, held at Rome in the year 998, launched a peremptory order, that the king should put away his wife, and both parties perform seven years of penance. The king resisted; but so united was the Church at that time, and so powerful, that he was presently excommunicated by his own Prelates, and shunned by his nobles and people. At length, after some ineffectual struggles, he submitted to anathemas so generally respected and enforced*, and complied with both the injunctions of the Pontiff. This is the third instance of an authoritative interference on the part of the Popes in the concerns of sovereigns which we have had occasion to mention, and we may here remind the reader that two of them were on the ground of uncanonical marriages. It is not our intention to enumerate the many trifling occasions on which the claims of the Church were brought into collision with the rights or dignity of monarchs: the instances which have been produced are the most important, and they are worthy of more particular reflection than can here be bestowed on them. But at present it must suffice to have noticed, even thus briefly, the earliest movements by which the spirit of ecclesiastical ambition pressed towards universal domination, and to have called some attention to those bold, but irregular, encroachments, which furnished to after ages precedents for wider and more systematic usurpation. Internal usurpations of the Roman See. III. We have already mentioned that, from a very early period, the Bishop of Rome possessed the first rank among the rulers of the Church; and if, after the Council of Chalcedon, it was disputed with him by the Patriarch of Constantinople, it was at no time contested (at least after the time of Constantine) in the western Churches, It is equally true, that his pre-eminence in rank was unattended by any sort of authority beyond the limits of his own diocese; and the sort of * Petrus Damiani, who wrote about sixty years afterwards, relates, that the ecclesiastical censure was so exactly observed, that no one would hold any communion with the king, excepting two servants who carried him the necessaries of life, and that even these burnt the vessels which he had used. But that author throws suspicion on a narration not improbable, by adding that the fruit of the marriage was a monster which had the head and neck of a goose. See Fleury, 1. lvii., s. 57. |