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rations had been habitually received from the hand of the Pope, could not legally be worn except through such presentation; and then it followed, since there were many who zealously inculcated the consequence, that the gift conferred was in fact the property of the donor*, who again had power to recall his gift, and present it to some worthier candidate. At the same time we should never lose sight of that general veneration for the throne of St. Peter, which at that period especially overspread the prostrate nations, and overawed the reason of man; for it was, in truth, not an uncommon belief that the blessed Apostle invisibly presided over the altar of his martyrdom, and guarded and sanctified with mysterious majesty the chair of his successors.

The eagerness with which the emperors generally courted the ceremony of coronation, though it was attended by circumstances very humiliating to their pride, certainly proves that there existed among their subjects a strong feeling as to its propriety, perhaps its necessity. But that which gave the greatest colour to the extreme pretensions of the See, was the readiness with which princes acknowledged them, when they found their profit in the acknowledgment. The very edicts which they rejected with scorn when addressed to themselves, they embraced and effectuated when levelled against a rival. The right, as a general right, was never contested. The partial interests of the moment overpowered every consideration of a broader policy; and thus amid the ever-reviving jealousies and dissensions of monarchs and pretenders, the consistent perseverance of the Vatican established the most groundless claims, and accomplished the most extravagant purposes. Of course the agents for the dissemination of its principles and the instruments of its success were the ecclesiastical orders, and especially the monks; and the very general union and co-operation which at this time prevailed (more perhaps than at any other period, more certainly than at any later period) between the Pope, the clergy, and the monasteries, facilitated the execution of Innocent's boldest designs. The first interference of that pontiff in the affairs of the French court was defended by precedents, and occasioned by an offence at all times peculiarly liable to spiritual jurisdiction. Philippe Auguste having espoused a Danish princess, named Ingelburg, or Isemburg, hastened on the very day following the nuptials to divorce her. He pretended to have discovered that they were connected by too near a degree of affinity; and after some investigation, at which two legates and Pope Celestine assisted, the marriage was declared null. Innocent, probably considering that concession as extorted from the timidity of his predecessor, lost no time in setting aside the divorce, and commanding the king to take back his bride. He refused, and an interdict was immediately thrown on the whole kingdom. The public offices of worship were suspended; even the doors of the churches were closed; the Sacrament of Christ was no longered administeredt, and the rites of marriage and sepulture remained unperformed. We

Contest with Philippe Auguste.

*This inference required, of course, a large share of zeal in the teacher and docility in the disciple. The Patriarch of Constantinople had possessed from the earliest ages the office of crowning the Greek emperor, without ever dreaming that he acquired any sort of interest in the crown itself by the performance of an ordinary ceremony. But ecclesiastical matters were very differently conducted in the west.

+ We should mention, that even under the oppression of the severest interdict, the sacraments of Baptism, Confession, and Extreme Unction still continued to be administered. But it was attended by other prohibitions, not strictly of a religious nature, calculated to inspire gloom and fanaticism. The hair, for instance, and the beard were to be left

should here recollect, that with the mass of an ignorant people professing a corrupt form of faith, the public exercise of religion constituted, in fact, its entire substance. Deprived of that, they had no refuge in private prayer, or the consolations of internal devotion. To such persons the sentence of an interdict must have fallen like an immediate edict of rejection and separation from heaven; and such in the twelfth century was the multitude of every class. Philippe Auguste was a prince of uncommon resolution and address. Nevertheless he found it expedient to bend before the tempest, and obey the pontifical mandate.

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This was the earliest triumph of Innocent, and it encouraged his ambition to attempt more daring achievements. At least he did not long confine it to objects which offered any particular justification, but advanced on the broadest ground of universal interference. In a bull published in 1197, he declared, that it was not fit that any man should be invested with authority, who did not serve and obey the Holy See.' At another time he proclaimed, that he would not endure the least contempt of himself, or of God, whose place he held on earth, but would punish every disobedience without delay, and convince the whole world that he was determined to act like a sovereign.' As the sun and the moon are placed in the firmament, the greater as the light of the day and the lesser of the night, so are there two powers in the church, the pontifical, which, as having the charge of souls, is the greater; and the royal, which is the lesser, and to which only the bodies of men are trusted.'* Though I cannot judge of a fieft,' said Innocent to the kings of France and England, yet it is my province to judge when sin is committed, and my duty to prevent all public scandals. This was indeed the loftiest and the most respectable ground on which the Papal pretensions could be placed; and if the Bishops of Rome had really been contented with the exercise of a beneficial authority-if they had employed the mighty power with which they found themselves invested, only for the reconciliation of enmities, for the concord, the morality, the most obvious interests of the human race, then, indeed, we might have forgotten the origin of that power in its blessed uses, and pardoned to the Vicar of Christ his presumptuous appellation, when we saw him engaged in doing the works of Christ, and consoling his children upon earth.

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However, the interference, even of Innocent III., was not always for evil. On the strength of his delegated authority he dictated a truce to Philippe and Richard, and after some difficulties obliged both parties to submit to it. It was about the same time that he directed one of his legates to compel the observance of peace between the Kings of Castille

unshaven; the use of meat was forbidden; and even the ordinary salutation was prohibited. But the suspension of sepulture, the exposure of the corpses to dogs or birds, or even their promiscuous interment in unhallowed ground, was probably in practice the most appalling part of the sentence. From the learned treatise, De l'Origine et du Progrès des Interdits Ecclésiastiques,' by Pierre Pithon, it appears that there were indications of such an exercise of ecclesiastical power in very early ages; though it was not applied to any grand purpose, as a pontifical implement, until the time of Hildebrand.

Innocent's famous Rescript to the emperor of Constantinople (in which the above allegory is produced) respected chiefly the immunity of clerks; and as it was founded on the maxims published by Gratian, which were themselves founded on the False Decretals, so itself became in process of time a new Decretal, the groundwork, if necessary, of other still more inordinate pretensions. It was thus that the system grew.

The general cognizance of causes relating to fiefs had escaped, as it would seem, ecclesiastical usurpation.

and Portugal, if necessary, by excommunication and interdict. He moreover enjoined the King of Arragon to restore to its intrinsic value the coin which he had lately debased, thereby oppressing and defrauding his subjects. The mere wanton display of power may not have been his motive-some generous considerations may sometimes have influenced him. A great mind (says Hallam), such as Innocent III. doubtedly possessed, though prone to sacrifice every other object to ambition, can never be indifferent to the beauty of social order and the happiness of mankind.'

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Not contented to influence the most vigorous monarchs of the most powerful kingdoms of the age, he descended to issue his edicts to inferior princes. He sent forth instructions to the King of Navarre respecting the restoration of certain castles to Richard. He distributed the insignia of royalty to Briscislaus, Duke of Bohemia, and to the Dukes of Wallachia and Bulgaria. He conferred the crown of Arragon on Peter II. as his subject and tributary. And finally (that no race or clime might seem inaccessible to his arm), he gave a king to the Armenian nation, dwelling on the border of the Caspian Sea.

With John of
England.

The

Yet, with all this extent of despotic sway, it was in England that his boldest pretensions were advanced, and advanced with the most surprising success. The circumstances are known to all readers. In the year 1199, Richard I. was succeeded on the throne by John, the feeblest of the human race; and that prince was presently assailed by an outrage from the Holy See, which disturbed for some years the repose and allegiance of his subjects, and the stability of his throne. On the vacancy of the see of Canterbury, the monks in chapter publicly elected to that dignity John, Bishop of Norwich, who was recommended and confirmed by the King. At the same time they chose, at a private meeting, Reginald, their own subprior*, and sent him to Rome for institution. When this matter was referred to Innocent, he immediately reversed both elections, and nominated Stephen Langton, a Roman cardinal, of English descent. chapter listened to the spiritual, in preference to the temporal, tyrant; and the monks were in consequence expelled from their residence, and their property was confiscated. The Pope proceeded with no less energy to enforce his asserted rights, and commanded the Bishops of London, Worcester, and Ely, to lay the whole kingdom under an interdict. There were some prelates, however, and several inferior ecclesiastics, who hesitated to enforce this edict; and since John made no concession, Innocent issued, in the following year (1201), a bull of excommunication against This sentence, still ineffectual, the name and person of the sovereign. The subjects of was followed, in 1211, by another yet more appalling. John were absolved from their allegiance, and commanded to avoid his presence. Yet as even this measure was insufficient for his entire success, he had then recourse to the last and most dangerous among the bolts of the Vatican. He pronounced the final sentence of deposition; and having declared the vacancy of the throne, gave force to his words by conferring it upon Philippe Auguste of France. At the same time he ordered that monarch to execute the sentence.

Philippe's obedience was secured by his ambition; he was joined by the exiles of his rival's tyranny; and to ensure his success, or, more probably,

*Pagi Brev. Pont. Rom. Vit. Innoc. III. Sect. 49.

to complete the consternation of John, Innocent proclaimed a crusade against the English king as against an infidel or a heretic. The armies were assembled on both sides, and hostilities were on the point of commencing, when Pandulph, the legate of the Pope, presented himself at the camp at Dover. He there displayed the final demands of the Pope, and the King had courage to resist no longer. The demands to which he submitted were these,-that he should resign his crown to the legate, and receive it again as a present from the Holy See; that he should declare his dominions tributary to the same See; and that he should do homage and swear fealty to Innocent, as a vassal and a feudatory. The shame of this humiliation was increased by the ceremony attending it; by the multitude of sorrowful or indignant witnesses; by the very manner in which the haughty legate bore himself on his triumph. Yet, to the eye of an earnest and fervent Papist, is the degradation of England's monarch, while he stood waiting, amid his nobles and his soldiers, to accept his crown from the suspended band of Pandulph-is it, after all, a spectacle of such lofty exultation-is it a picture so flattering to his spiritual, even to his ecclesiastical, pride-as the half-naked form of the imperial penitent of older days, shivering, with his scanty train of attendants, before the castle gates of Gregory?

III. The Increase of Pontifical Authority within the Church-The description of John's humiliation, and of the steps which led to it, connects the second with the third part of this inquiry-for, in the first place, it shows the extent to which Innocent carried his claims to patronage within the Church; and in the next, it exhibits one motive of the general anxiety evinced by the see to extend that internal influence. The Interdict, which was now become the favourite instrument of papal usurpation, however formidable in name and deed, was an empty denunciation, unless enforced by the personal exertions of the Bishops, and even of the inferior clergy of the kingdom subjected to it—as we, indeed, observed, that in England the sentence of Innocent failed of its full effect, through the opposition of a part of the clergy. And thus, in any project of temporal aggrandizement which a Pope might undertake, success could never be secured unless he could command the co-operation of the very great proportion of the ecclesiastical body. It was partly for this reason that so many foreign, and especially Italian, prelates were placed, for many ages, in English sees. In Germany, too, Innocent showed the same anxiety to extend his right of appointment; by a formal capitulation with Otho IV. he obtained that of decision in disputed cases; and it is obvious to what easy abuse it was liable. In other countries he advanced the same claim, which had been so fatally disputed in England, with less resistance and equal success. His example was imitated by following Pontiffs and the facility thus acquired, of exciting rebellion amongst a restless nobility and a superstitious people, against a weak and arbitrary government, terrified the boldest monarchs, and frequently led them to sacrifice the future security of the crown to the hopes or apprehensions of the moment.

The Saladin tax.

On the other hand, the very great progress made by Innocent in extending the papal influence among the priesthood, was counteracted by a measure which may have been necessitated by other causes, but which cer *Among other circumstances it is related, that Pandulph did actually keep the crown in his possession for some minutes. The annual tribute stipulated was 1000 marks.

tainly was ill calculated to increase the attachment of that body. Not contented to exact from them very considerable occasional contributions, he imposed a regular tax on ecclesiastical property, and he was the first Pope who ventured upon that measure. It was called the Saladin tax; and it is true that the service of religion,—whether in Languedoc or in Palestine, for the murder of Saracens or of heretic Christians,-was alike the pretext, and in part the motive, for those exactions. Nevertheless, they were advanced with reluctance; and the innovation was the less tolerable, as it would certainly become a precedent for future and more oppressive extortions.

It is also necessary to observe, that the collective power of the episcopal order was not so great at that time as it had been in the ninth or tenth, or even in the earlier part of the eleventh century, owing to the gradual disuse of those national synods which, in former ages, controlled the conduct of kings. But we should at the same time remark, that the authority thus lost by the hierarchy was not gained by the sovereign. It changed owners, indeed, but it did not pass out of the possession of the church. It was merely transferred from one part of that body to another; from the members to the head; from the prelacy to the Pope and by him it was exercised with a reckless audacity, an unity of design, and a consistent perseverance, which could not possibly have directed a long series of local and dependent councils. So that the change in the constitution of the church, by which it became less aristocratical, (if we may so apply that term,) and more despotic, though it considerably altered the relative positions of the crown and the mitre, did not at all increase the preponderance of the former; on the contrary, the greater concentration of ecclesiastical authority in one instead of many hands, made it a more dangerous rival to the civil government. The advance of pontifical power was very closely connected with the improvement of discipline, and the progress of that system of uniformity, which was designed entirely to pervade and bind together the Universal Church.

The fourth Lateran Council.

Among the most important acts of Innocent's pontificate was the convocation of the fourth Lateran Council,-the most numerous and most celebrated of the ancient assemblies of the Latin church. This august body consisted of nearly five hundred* archbishops and bishops, besides a much greater multitude of abbots and priors, and delegates of absent prelates, and ambassadors from most of the Christian courts of the west and of the east. It met together in the November of 1215, for the professed consideration of two grand objects. The first was the recovery of the Holy Land; the second was the Reformation of the church in faith and in discipline. Seventy canons were then dictated by Innocent, and received its obsequious confirmation. It does not appear that its deliberations (if they may so be called) were attended with any freedom of debate; and within a month† from the day of its opening, having executed its appointed office, it was dismissed.

Among the articles on that occasion enacted, there were several wisely constructed for the welfare of the Roman Catholic church: they amplified the body of the canon law, and regulated in many respects the practice

* The numbers are, of course, variously stated; that of the archbishops at seventy-one or seventy-seven, that of the bishops generally at four hundred and twelve, that of the abbots and priors at eight hundred.

This fact alone proves that the canons in question were not made matter of discussion with that numerous assembly.

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