HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH

 

 

CHAPTER XV.

 

POPE AND CLERGY.

 

 § 122. The canon Law.

 

Literature: Decretum Gratiani emendatum et notationibus illustratum. Una cum glossis, Gregorii XIII. Pont. Max. jussu editum, 6 vols. Rome, 1582.—Corpus juris canonici, ed. J. H. Boehmer, 2 vols. Halle 1747, with Introductions by Boehmer on Gratian’s Decretum, I. 1–42, and the later collections of decretals, II. 1–34.—Best critical ed. by A. L. Richter, 2 vols. Leip., 1839, revised ed. by E. Friedburg Leip., 1879–1881, 2 vols. (vol. I., Decret. Gratiani, vol. II., Decretalium collectiones). —J. Fr. von Schulte (Old-Cath. Prof. in Bonn): D. Gesch. der Quellen und Lit. des kanonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart, 3 vols. Stuttg., 1875–1880. —Dodd: Hist. of canon Law, Oxf., 1884. —T. Hinschius: D. Kirchenrecht d. Katholiken und Protestanten, etc., 6 vols. Berl., 1869–1897. —E. Friedberg: Lehrbuch des kath. und evangel. Kirchenrechts, 6th ed., Leip., 1903. —A. von Kirchenheim: Kirchenrecht, Bonn, 1900. —P. Hergenröther (Rom. Cath.): Lehrbuch d. kathol. Rechts, 2d. ed., Freib., 1905. —Other works by Walter, 14th ed., 1877. —Richter-Dove, 8th ed., Leip., Phillimore: The Eccles. Law of the Ch. of Engl., 2 vols. London, 1873, Supplem., 1876.—F. W. Maitland: Rom. Can. Law in the Ch. of Engl., Lond., 1898.—The artt. in Herzog, vol. X. Kanonen-Sammlungen, Kanonisches Rechtsbuch, Kirchenrecht. —Stubbs: Const. Hist. of Engl., II. 170 sqq., III. 295–388.—For extensive list of works on canon Law, see Friedberg: Kirchenrecht, pp. 3–11, and Hergenröther: Kirchenrecht, pp. 15 sqq.

 

Not the least of the characteristic and imposing products of the mediaeval Church was the gigantic fabric of the canon law.1838  It is embodied in a series of collections containing enactments of Councils and papal decretals, beginning with the collection of Gratian in the twelfth century and ending with the decretals of John XXII. in the fourteenth century. The canon law became the legal buttress of the papal theocracy and remained the ruling code till the Reformation.

The science of canon law looks back to Gratian as its father, and Bologna was the chief centre for its study. Although works on the subject were produced in other lands, Italy, through her universities, was far in the lead in their production till late in the fifteenth century.1839

Under the Roman state, the religious laws—the jus sacrum, jus pontificium — were not a distinct body of legislation . In the Christian Church the conception of a distinct and superior divine law existed from the beginning. The formulation of a written code followed the meeting of Christian synods and their regulations. As the jurisdiction of the hierarchy and the institution of the mediaeval papacy were developed, this legislation came to include civil obligations and all civil penalties except the death penalty.1840  The Church encroached more and more upon the jurisdiction of the civil court. Conflict was inevitable. Not only was the independence of civil law as a distinct branch of procedure threatened, but even its very existence. It was not till the fourteenth century that the secular governments were able successfully to resist such encroachments and to regain some of the just prerogatives of which the civil courts had been robbed. "Oh, that the canon law might be purged from the superfluities of the civil law and be ordered by theology," exclaimed Roger Bacon, writing in the thirteenth century. "Then would the government of the Church be carried on honorably and suitably to its high position."1841

Gratian’s work was preceded by the Penitential Books and a number of imperfect collections of ecclesiastical decisions, the chief of which were, two books of synodal cases by Regino d. 915, the collections of Burchard, bishop of Worms d. 1025, Anselm of Lucca d. 1086, Cardinal Deusdedit about 1087, and Ivo of Chartres d. 1117.1842  The pseudo-Isidorian decretals also belong to this class and they were much used, especially by Burchard.

The work of Gratian superseded these earlier compilations, and it enjoys the honor of being the monumental work on canon law. Gratian, a Camaldulensian monk, and an Italian by birth, taught at the convent of St. Felix, Bologna, at the same time that Irnerius was teaching civil law in the same city. No details of his life have been handed down. His biography is his great compilation which was made about 1140–1150. Its original title, A Concordance of Differing canons, concordantia canonum discordantium, has given way to the simple title, Decretum, the Book of Decrees. The work was a legal encyclopaedia, and at once became the manual in its department, as the Sentences of the Lombard, Gratian’s contemporary, became the manual of theology.1843  This recognition was not due to formal, papal, or synodal sanction, for it never received any. It was issued again and again by learned commentators, the first being one of Gratian’s pupils, Paucapalea. These editors and commentators were called Summists or Glossarists. The official Roman edition was prepared by a papal commission of thirty-five members and issued by Gregory XIII. in 1582. Gregory declared the text to be forever authoritative, but he did not pronounce upon the contents of Gratian’s work.1844

Gratian’s aim was to produce a work in which all real or apparent contradictions between customs and regulations in vogue in the Church should be removed or explained. This he secured by exclusion and by comments, called the dicta Gratiani, sayings of Gratian. The work is divided into three parts. The first, in one hundred and one sections or distinctiones, treats of the sources of canon law, councils and the mode of their convention, the authority of decretals, the election of the Roman pontiff, the election and consecration of bishops, the papal prerogative, papal legates, the ordination of the clergy, clerical celibacy, and kindred topics. The second, in thirty-six sections or causae, discusses different questions of procedure, such as the ordination and trial of bishops and the lower clergy, excommunication, simony, clerical and church property, marriage, heresy, magic, and penance. The third part is devoted to the sacraments of the eucharist and baptism and the consecration of churches. The scholastic method is pursued. A statement is made and objections, if any, are then formally refuted by citation of synodal acts and the testimony of the Fathers, popes, and other churchmen. The first distinction opens with the statement that the human race is governed by two principles, natural law and customs. Then a number of questions are propounded such as what is law, what are customs, what kinds of law there are, what is natural law, civil law, and the law of nations?

Gratian’s volume was soon found to require supplement. The two centuries following its appearance were most fruitful in papal decrees, especially in the pontificates of Alexander III., Innocent III., and Gregory IX. These centuries also witnessed the Lateran and other important Councils. The deliverances of popes and synods, made subsequently to the age of Gratian, were called extravagantes or fugitives.1845  Five compilations, called "the old compilations," were made from 1191 to 1226.1846  The third of these, issued by authority of Innocent III. and containing his decretals, was sent by that pontiff to the university of Bologna to be included in its course of instruction. This compilation was the first book of canon law having papal sanction.

The demand for a complete collection of these materials induced Gregory IX. to commit the task of gathering them into a single volume to his chaplain Raymund de Pennaforte.1847  The work, usually called Decretales Gregorii IX, was finished and sent to Paris and Bologna in 1234 with the direction that it be used for purposes of instruction, and in the trial of cases. The preparation of other compilations was strictly forbidden. Gregory’s collection comprises 185 titles and 1871 decretals and follows the fivefold division of Bernard of Pavia’s work.1848

A new collection, called the Sixth Book, liber sextus — or, as by English writers, the Sext,—was issued by the authority of Boniface VIII., 1298, and carried the collections of Gratian and Gregory IX. into Boniface’s reign. In 1314, Clement V. issued another collection, which included his own decretals and the decrees of the council of Vienne and was called the Seventh Book, liber septimus, or the Clementines. In 1317, John XXII. officially sent Clement’s collection to the universities of Bologna and Paris. Subsequent to the publication of the Clementines, twenty of John’s own decretals were added. In 1500 John Chappuis, in an edition of the liber sextus and the Clementines, added the decretals of John and seventy-one of other popes. This series of collections, namely, Gratian’s Decretum, Gregory IX,’s Decretales, the Sext, the Clementines, and the Extravagantes of John XXII., constitutes the official body of canon law—corpus juris canonici — and was published in the edition of Gregory XllI.

The canon law attempted the task of legislating in detail for all phases of human life—clerical, ecclesiastical, social, domestic—from the cradle to the grave by the sacramental decisions of the priesthood. It invaded the realm of the common law and threatened to completely set it aside. The Church had not only its own code and its specifically religious penalties, but also its own prisons.

This body of law was an improvement upon the arbitrary and barbaric severity of princes. It, at least, started out from the principles of justice and humanity. But it degenerated into an attempt to do for the individual action of the Christian world what the Pharisees attempted to do for Jewish life. It made the huge mistake of substituting an endless number of enactments, often the inventions of casuistry, for inclusive, comprehensive moral principles. It put a crushing restraint upon the progress of thought and bound weights, heavy to be borne, upon the necks of men. It had the virtues and all the vices of the papal system. It protected the clergy in the commission of crimes by demanding that they be tried in ecclesiastical courts for all offences whatsoever. It became a mighty support for the papal claims. It confirmed and perpetuated the fiction of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals and perpetrated new forgeries. It taught that the decisions of Rome are final.1849  As Christ is above the law, even so is the pope.1850  Döllinger closes his examination of the Decretum, by pronouncing it; "filled through and through with forgery and error" and says "it entered like a mighty wedge into the older structural organization of the Church and split it apart. "

The canon law also gave its sanction to the devilish principle of ecclesiastical compulsion, declaring that physical force is to be used to coerce ecclesiastical dissidents. It justified wars against the enemies of religion and the persecution of heretics, even as Sarah, the type of the heavenly Jerusalem, persecuted her handmaid Hagar. And it declared, with Urban II., that he who kills one who is under the sentence of excommunication is not to be dealt with as a murderer.1851  These principles, set forth in clear statements, were advocated by Thomas Aquinas and the other Schoolmen and asserted by the greatest of the popes.

At last the legalistic tyranny became too heavy for the enlightened conscience of Europe to bear, as was the case with the ceremonial law in the days of the Apostles, against which Peter protested at the council of Jerusalem and Paul in his Epistles. The Reformers raised their voices in protest against it. Into the same flames which consumed the papal bull at Wittenberg, 1520, Luther threw a copy of the canon law, the one representing the effrontery of an infallible pope, the other the intolerable arrogance of a human lawgiver in matters of religion, and both destructive of the liberty of the individual. In his Address to the Christian Nobles, Luther declared that it did not contain two lines adapted to instruct a religious man and that it includes so many dangerous regulations that the best disposition of it is to make of it a dung heap.

Even in the Catholic world its enactments have been largely superseded by the canons of the council of Trent, the papal decretals issued since, and the concordats between Catholic princes and the papal see. By virtue of his official infallibility, the pope may at any time supersede them by decisions and dispensations of his own.

The words of Goethe may be applied to the canon law:—

 

Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte

Wie eine ewige Krankheit fort

Sie schleppen von Geschlecht sich zum Geschlechte

Und schleichen sich von Ort zu Ort

Vernunft wird Unsinn, Wohlthat Plage.

 

 § 123. The Papal Supremacy in Church and State.

 

Literature: See the chapp. on Gregory VII. and Innocent III., and the works there cited.—Bernard: de consideratione, Migne, 182. 727–808.—Th. Aquinas: de regimine principum, and contra errores Graecorum. The latter ed. by *F. H. Reusch, d. 1900: D. Fälschungen in d. Tractat. d. Th. v Aq. gegen die Griechen, Munich, 1889.—The writings of Gregory VII., Alexander III., Innocent III., Gregory IX., etc. Corpus juris canonum, Friedberg’s ed.—*Mirbt: Quellen des Papstthums. —C. Lux: Constitutionum Apostolicarum de generali beneficiorum reservatione, 1265–1378, ... collectio et interpr., Wratislav, 1904.—Maassen: Primat des Bischofs von Rom, Bonn, 1853.—Schulte: D. Macht des röm. Papstthums, Prag, 2d ed., 1871,—*Döllinger-Friedrich: D. Papstthum, Munich, 1892.—*F. X. Leitner: D. hl. Th. von Aquino ueber d. unfehlbare Lehramt d. Papstes, Franf., 1872. Leitner wrote in opposition to Döllinger, and his work is of much importance,—*Bryce: Holy Rom. Emp., VI-XI.—G. B. Adams: Civilizat. during the M. A. chap. X.—W. Barry: The Papal Monarchy, 590–1303, N. Y., 1902. —*J. Haller: Papsttum und Kirchenreform, Berlin, 1903.—*A. Hauck: D. Gedanke der päpstl. Weltherrschaft bis auf Bonifaz VIII., Leip., 1904.—Ranke: Weltgesch., vol. VI.—Harnack: Dogmengesch., II. 392–419. The manuals on Canon Law by Friedberg, Hinschius, Hergenröther.

 

The papal assumptions of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. have already been presented (pp. 27 sqq., 152 sqq.). A large part of the history of this period is occupied by popes in the effort to realize the papal theocracy, from the opening struggle of Gregory VII. with Henry IV. to the death of Conradin, the Hohenstaufen. Their most vigorous utterances, so far as they are known, were not to summon men and nations to acts of Christian charity, but to enforce the papal jurisdiction. It is not the purpose here to repeat what has already been said, but to set forth the institution of the papacy as a realized fact and the estimate put upon it by Schoolmen and by the popular judgment.

Among the forty-one popes who occupied the chair of St. Peter from Gregory VII. to Boniface VIII., some, as has become evident, were men of rare ability, and occupy a place of first prominence as rulers. There were no scandals in the papal household such as there had been during the preceding period. No emperors from the North were required to descend upon Rome and remove pontiffs incompetent by reason of youth or profligacy. On the other hand, Rome had no reputation as a centre either of piety or of letters. Convents became noted for religious warmth, and Bologna, Paris, and other localities acquired a fame for intellectual culture, but Rome’s reputation was based solely upon her authority as a seat of ecclesiastical prerogative.

The sin of the popes was hierarchical pride, and yet we cannot help but be attracted by those imposing figures whose ideals of universal dominion equalled in ambition the boldest projects of the greater Roman emperors, but differed widely from theirs in the moral element which entered into them.1852

In this period the loftiest claims ever made for the papacy were realized in Western Europe. The pope was recognized as supreme in the Church over all bishops, and with some exceptions as the supreme ruler in temporal affairs. Protest there was against the application of both prerogatives, but the general sentiment of Europe supported the claims. To him belonged fulness of authority in both realms—plenitudo potestatis.

The Pope and the Church. – favorite illustration used by Innocent III. to support the claim of supremacy in the Church was drawn from the relation the head sustains to the body. As the head contains the plenitude of the forces of the body, and has dominion over it, so Peter’s successor, as the head of the Church, possesses the fulness of her prerogatives and the right of rule over her. The pope calls others to share in the care of the Church, but in such a way that there is no loss of authority to the head.1853  Innocent II., in opening the second Lateran Council, had used the same figure, and declared that no ecclesiastical dignity was lawfully held except by permission of the Roman pontiff. According to Gregory VII., he can depose and appoint bishops as he wills. The principle that the Apostolic see is subject to no human jurisdiction, stated by Gelasius, 493, was accepted by Bernard, though Bernard protested against the pope’s making his arbitrary will the law of the Church.1854  The Roman church, said Lanfranc, 1072, is, as it were, the sum of all churches, and all other churches are, as it were, parts of it. The arrangement of all church matters is only authoritative when approved by Peter’s successors.1855

The Fourth Lateran formally pronounced the Roman Church the mother and teacher of all believers, and declared its bishop to be above the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria in rank and authority. Leo IX., d. 1054, asserted this pretension against Caerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople.1856  Innocent III. vindicated it by substituting a Latin patriarch for the Greek patriarch in that venerable see. The second council of Lyons, 1274, demanded that the Greeks should sign a document acknowledging the "full primacy" of the Roman pontiff and his right to rule over the universal Church.

This theory of papal absolutism found full theological and canonical recognition from Thomas Aquinas and Gratian. Gratian declared that to disobey the pope is to disobey God.1857  Thomas reasoned that, as the bishop is head of a diocese, so there must of necessity be a supreme head uniting all dioceses and guaranteeing pure morals and teaching within the Church. The Church triumphant has one ruler, so also must the Church militant have one ruler, the pope. To the pope is committed the plenitude of power and the prelacy over the whole Church. To him belongs the right of determining what are matters of faith.1858

Bonaventura took the same ground. The pope is supreme in all matters pertaining to the Church. He is the source of authority in all that belongs to prelatic administration, yea his authority extends from the highest to the humblest member of the Church.1859  Great bishops might have their disputes with the Apostolic see, but, in the end, they yielded to its claim of supreme jurisdiction. So it was with Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln. He declared, "I know and know full well, that our lord, the pope, has authority to freely act concerning all ecclesiastical benefices."1860

Clement IV. was simply expressing the general opinion of Latin Christendom, when he claimed for the Roman pontiff the "full right to dispose of all churches, ecclesiastical dignities, positions, and benefices."1861

Theoretically it is a disputed point whether an oecumenical council or the pope was regarded as supreme. But, in fact, popes controlled the legislation of the general Councils in this period as though they were supreme, and they fixed the legislation of the Church, as was the case with Gregory IX. The relative authority of pope and council did not become an urgent question till the thirteenth century.

The pope also claimed the right to levy taxes at will on all portions of the Church. This claim, definitely made by the popes of the second half of the thirteenth century, led to the scandalous abuses of the fourteenth century which shocked the moral sense of Christendom and finally called forth the Reformatory Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel.

Beginning with Innocent III., it became the fixed custom for the pope to speak of himself as the vicar of Christ and the vicar of God. He was henceforth exclusively addressed as "holiness" or "most holy"—sanctitas or sanctissimus.1862

The Pope and the Individual. – For Cyprian’s motto, "there is no salvation outside of the Church," was substituted, there is no salvation outside of the Roman Church. It was distinctly stated that all who refuse subjection to the pope are heretics.1863  From the pope’s authority to loose and bind no human being is exempted. Nothing is exempted from his jurisdiction.1864

The Pope and the State. – England, Poland, Norway, and Sweden, Portugal, Aragon, Naples, Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, not to speak of portions of Central Italy, were in this period, for a longer or shorter time, fiefs of the Apostolic see. In 1299, the same claim was made over Scotland. The nations from Edessa to Scotland and from Castile to Riga were reminded that Rome was the throbbing centre of divinely bequeathed authority. The islands of the West were its to bestow. To Peter was given, so Innocent wrote, not only the universal Church, but the whole earth that he might rule it.1865  His practice, as we have seen, followed his pen. There was a time when the pope recognized the superior authority of the emperor, as did Gregory the Great in 593.1866  Peter Damiani, writing in the age of Gregory VII., recognized the distinction and coordination of the two swords and the two realms.1867  But another conception took its place, the subordination of all civil authority under the pope. To depose princes, to absolve subjects from allegiance, to actively foment rebellion as against Frederick II., to divert lands as in Southern France, to give away crowns, to extort by threat of the severest ecclesiastical penalties the payment of tribute, to punish religious dissenters with perpetual imprisonment or turn them over to the secular authorities, knowing death would be the punishment, to send and consecrate crusading armies, and to invade the realm of the civil court, usurp its authority, and annul a nation’s code, as in the case of Magna Charta,—these were the high prerogatives actually exercised by the papacy. The decision rendered on the field of Roncaglia by the jurists of Bologna, asserting the independent rights of the empire, was only an episode, and popes snapped their fingers at the academic impertinence. Now and then the wearers of the tiara were defeated, but they never ceased to insist upon the divine claims of their office. In vain did emperors, like Frederick II., appeal to the Scriptures as giving no countenance to the principle that popes have the right to punish kings and deprive them of their kingdoms.

The declarations of the popes were clear and positive. The figures employed by Gregory VII., comparing the two realms to gold and lead, sun and moon, soul and body, Innocent elaborated and pressed. Gregory asserted that it rested upon him to give account for all the kingdoms of God. 1868  To him had been committed universal dominion—regimen universale.1869 Innocent III. found in Melchizedek, the priest-king, the full type of the pope combining in himself the sacerdotal and regal functions.

Men of less originality and moral power could do no more than reaffirm the claims of these two master rulers and repeat their metaphors. Of these no one had more self-assurance than Gregory IX., who, at an age when most men are decrepit, bravely opposed to Frederick II,’s plans the fiction of the Donation of Constantine. Was not the Roman sceptre committed to the Apostolic see by the first Christian emperor, and did not the Apostolic see transfer the empire from the Greeks to the Germans, Charlemagne and Frederick himself being the successors of Arcadius, Valentinian, Theodosius, and the other Christian emperors of Rome.1870  But Innocent IV., 1254, returned to the position assumed by Hildebrand, that the papacy does not depend upon Constantine for secular dominion, as Peter received it directly from God.1871

When the struggle with the Hohenstaufen had been brought to a close, and peace established by the elevation of Rudolf of Hapsburg to the imperial throne, Gregory X. wrote to Rudolf: "If the sacred chair is vacant, the empire lacks the dispenser of salvation; if the throne is empty, the Church is defenceless before her persecutors. It is the duty of the Church’s ruler to maintain kings in their office, and of kings to protect the rights of the Church."  This was a mild statement of the supremacy of the Apostolic see. It remained for Boniface VIII., in his famous bull, unam sanctam, 1302, to state exactly, though somewhat brusquely, what his predecessors from Hildebrand, and indeed from Nicolas I., had claimed—supreme right to both swords, the spiritual and the temporal, with the one ruling the souls of men and with the other their temporal concerns.

These claims were advocated in special treatises by Bernard and Thomas Aquinas, two of the foremost churchmen of all the Christian centuries. Bernard was the friend of popes and the ruling spirit of Europe during the pontificates of Innocent II. and Eugenius III. the mightiest moral force of his age. Thomas Aquinas wrote as a theologian and with him began the separate treatment of the papacy in systems of theology. In his Rule of Princes and against the Errors of the Greeks, Thomas unequivocally sets forth the supremacy of the Apostolic see over the State as well as in the universal Church. As for Bernard, both Ultramontane and Gallican claim his authority, but there are expressions in his work addressed to Eugenius III., De consideratione, which admit of no other fair interpretation than that the pope is supreme in both realms.

Bernard’s treatise, filling eighty compact columns in the edition of Migne, summons Eugenius, whom he addresses as his spiritual son, to reflect in four directions: upon himself, upon that which is beneath him, upon that which is around about him, and upon that which is above him. Such a voice of warning and admonition has seldom been heard by the occupant of a throne. The author was writing, probably, in the very last year of his life.

Meditating upon himself, it became the pope to remember that he was raised to his office not for the sake of ruling but of being a prophet, not to make show of power but to have care of the churches. The pope is greatest only as he shows himself to be a servant. As pontiff, he is heir of the Apostles, the prince of bishops. He is in the line of the primacy of Abel, Abraham, Melchizedek, Moses, Aaron, Samuel, and Peter. To him belong the keys. Others are intrusted with single flocks, he is pastor of all the sheep and the pastor of pastors. Even bishops he may depose and exclude from the kingdom of heaven. And yet Eugenius is a man. Pope though he is, he is vile as the vilest ashes. Change of position effected no change of person. Even the king, David, became a fool.

The things beneath the pope are the Church and all men to whom the Gospel should be preached.

The things around about the pope are the cardinals and the entire papal household. Here, greed and ambition are to be rebuked, the noise of appealed judicial cases is to be hushed, worthy officials are to be chosen. The Romans are a bad set, flattering the pontiff for what they can make out of his administration. A man who strives after godliness they look upon as a hypocrite.

The faithful counsellor waxed eloquent in describing the ideal pope. He is one of the bishops, not their lord. He is the brother of all, loving God. He is set to be a pattern of righteousness, a defender of the truth, the advocate of the poor, the refuge of the oppressed. He is the priest of the Highest, the vicar of Christ, the anointed of the Lord, the God of Pharaoh; that is, he has authority over disobedient princes.

Bernard distinctly grants the two swords to the pope, who himself draws the spiritual sword and by his wink commands the worldly sword to be unsheathed.1872  It is true he lays stress upon Peter’s Apostolic simplicity and poverty. Peter wore no gems, was attended by no bodyguard, and sat on no white horse. In adopting such outward show "the popes had followed Constantine, not the Apostle."  It is also true that Bernard follows his generation in making the pope the viceregent of God on earth.1873

The views of Thomas Aquinas have already received notice (p. 673). His statements are so positive as to admit of no doubt as to their meaning. In the pope resides the plenitude of power. To the Roman Church obedience is due as to Christ.1874  These are assertions made in his treatise against the errors of the Greeks written at a time when the second council of Lyons was impending and measures were being taken to heal the schism between the East and the West. The pope is both king and priest, and the temporal realm gets its authority from Peter and his successors.1875  Thomas went further still. He declared for the infallibility of the pope. In confirmation of this view he quoted spurious writings of Cyril, but also genuine passages from the Fathers.1876

The popular opinion current among priests and monks was no doubt accurately expressed by Caesar of Heisterbach at the beginning of the thirteenth century when he compared the Church to the firmament, the pope to the sun, the emperor to the moon, the bishops to the stars, the clergy to the day, and the laity to the night.

We stand amazed at the vastness of such claims, but there can be no doubt that they were sincerely believed by popes who asserted them and by theologians and people. The supremacy of the Roman pontiff in the Church and over the State was a fixed conviction. The passage, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s, quoted to-day for the separation of the two realms, was quoted then but with another interpretation. The Church was defined, as it had been defined by Augustine, as the university of believers by Hugo of St. Victor,1877 — universitas fidelium, — or as the congregation of the faithful confessing Christ and the arsenal of the sacraments by Alanus de Insulis.1878  But the idea of the individual liberty of the Christian and his immediate responsibility to Christ, as revealed through the New Testament, had no hold. As a temporary expedient, the fiction of papal sovereignty had some advantage in binding together the disturbed and warring parts of European society. The dread of the decisions of the supreme pontiff held wild and lawless temporal rulers in check. But the theory, as a principle of divine appointment and permanent application, is untenable and pernicious. The states of Europe have long since outgrown it and the Protestant communions of Christendom can never be expected to yield obedience to one who claims to be the vicar of Christ, however willing they may be to show respect to any Roman bishop who exhibits the spirit of Christ as they did to Leo XIII.

 

 § 124. The Pope and the Curia.

 

Literature: For the election of a pope.—The text of the laws of Nicolas II. and Gregory X. is given in Mirbt: Quellen, 57 sqq., 146, Friedberg’s ed. of Gratian, I. 78 sq.—W. C. Cartwright: The Papal Conclave, Edinb., 1868.—Zöpffel: D. Papstwahlen etc. vom 11–15. Jahrh., Götting., 1871.—T. A. Trollope: The Papal Conclaves as they were and as they are, Lond., 1876.—L. Lector: Le conclave, etc., Paris, 1894.—Hefele-Knöpfler, IV. 800–826; VI. 146 sqq.—Schwane: Dogmengesch., pp. 522–589.—Friedberg: Kirchenrecht, pp. 165 sqq.—Hergenröther, Kirchenrecht, pp. 267–302.—Artt. Papstwahl., in Herzog, XI. 213–217, by Hinschius and Wetzer-Welte, IX. 1442–1461.

For the financial policy of the curia.—B. P. Woker: D. kirchl. Finanzwesen d. Päpste, Nördl., 1878.—Fabre: Le libre censuum de l’église Romaine, Paris, 1892.—*M. Tangl: D. Taxenwesen der päpstl. Kanzlei vom 13. bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrh., Innsbr., 1892.—*J. P. Kirsch: Die Finanzverwaltung des Kardinalkollegiums im XIII. und XIV. Jahrh., Munster, 1895.—*P. M. Baumgarten: Untersuchungen und Urkunden über die Camera Collegii Cardinalium, 1295–1437, Leip., 1898.—*A. Gottlob: D. päpstl. Kreuzzugssteuern des 13. Jahrh., Heiligens., 1892; *D. Servitientaxe im 13. Jahrh., Stuttg., 1903.—*O. Jensen: D. englische Peterspfennig, Heidelb., 1903.—Haller: Papsttum u. Kirchenreform, Berlin, 1903.—Hurter: Inn. III., IV. 161 sqq.—For add’l lit. bearing on the financial policy of the popes, especially in the 14th century, see Part II. of this vol. under John XXII.

 

The curia is the designation given to the cardinals and minor officials of the papal household. Its importance increased greatly in this period through the centralization of authority in Rome. The pope was forced to employ an army of notaries, advocates, procurators, and other officials to share, with him the burdens of the vast amount of business brought to his attention.

In a restricted sense, the word "curia" is applied to the college of cardinals. This body came to sustain to the pope a relation similar to the relation sustained by the chapter to the bishop and a cabinet to a prince. At the oecumenical councils of Lyons, 1245 and 1274, its members were given precedence over all other ecclesiastical dignitaries.

The legislation fixing the mode of choosing the pope originated in this period with Nicolas II., speaking through the council of Rome 1059, and Gregory X., speaking through the second council of Lyons, 1274. From the ninth century, the emperor had claimed the right to confirm or veto papal elections, a right set aside under the influence of Gregory VII. The law of Nicolas, conforming to Gregory’s views, confined the right of election to the cardinals, and this became their primary function. It marks an important step in the complete independence of the papacy, though it was not strictly enforced till after its confirmation by Alexander III, at the Third Lateran, 1179. A majority of two-thirds of the cardinals was made necessary for an election. An important provision made papal elections conducted outside the city of Rome valid.

More precise regulations were shown to be necessary by the long pontifical vacancy of nearly three years following the death of Clement IV. (d. 1268). The law, as perfected under Gregory X., is, with slight modifications, still in force. It provides that, within ten days of a pope’s decease and in the same building where he expired, the cardinals shall assemble to choose a successor. The conclave, —from clavis, meaning key,—or room of meeting, has given its name to the assembly itself. During the progress of the vote, the assembled ecclesiastics are kept secluded from the outside world and receive food through a window. If after three days no conclusion has been reached, the fare is reduced to a single dish for supper and a single dish for dinner. Should eight days pass without a choice, the fare is reduced to bread and wine. The secular authorities are intrusted with the duty of guarding the conclave against interruption and violence.

The committees, or congregations, into which the cardinals are now grouped is of late origin. The oldest, the Holy Office or Congregation of the Inquisition, was established 1542. The red hat was conferred upon them, as a sign of their office, by Innocent IV., 1245; the purple mantle, two hundred years later, by Paul II., 1464. They wear a sapphire ring and by the enactment of Urban VIII., 1630, are addressed as "Eminence."  In 1586 their number was limited by Sixtus V. to seventy. The exact membership within this limit is dependent upon the pleasure of the reigning pontiff. The largest number at any time was under Pius IV., 1559, when there were seventy-six. In the latter half of the thirteenth century the number often ran very low and at one time was reduced to seven. Since Urban VI., 1378–1382, none but a cardinal has been elevated to the papal dignity. The pope’s right to abdicate is based upon the precedents of Gregory VI., 1046, Coelestin V., 1294, and Gregory XII., 1415.

The pope’s coronation and enthronement were an occasion of increasing pomp and ostentation and were usually celebrated with a procession through the city from St. Peter’s to the Lateran in which the nobility and civil authorities as well as the pope and the higher and lower clergy took part. The tiara, or triple crown, seems not to have been used till the reign of Urban V., 1362–1372. This crown is regarded as symbolical of the pope’s rule over heaven, earth, and the lower world; or of his earthly power and his power to loose for time and eternity; or of Rome, the Western patriarchate and the whole earth.

To this period belongs the development of the system of papal legates which proved to be an important instrumentality in the extention of the pope’s jurisdiction. These officials are constantly met with from the pontificate of Gregory VII. Clement IV. likened them to the Roman proconsuls. They were appointed to represent the Apostolic see on special occasions, and took precedence of the bishops in the regions to which they were sent, presided at synods, and claimed for themselves the respect due to the pope himself.

Gregory VII., in commending a legate, quoted Luke 10:16, "whosoever heareth you, heareth me also."1879  He was represented by Cardinal Hugo in Spain and by other legates in Sardinia, France, Denmark, Poland, and England.1880  Hildebrand himself had represented the popes on special missions, and Adrian IV. won distinction by his successful administration of the legatine office in Northern Europe. Papal legates were present at the coronation of William the Conqueror, 1070.

Legates had the reputation of living like princes and depended for their support upon the countries to which they were despatched. Their encroachment upon the prerogatives of the episcopate and their demands for money called forth bitter complaint from one end of Europe to the other. Barbarossa wrote Adrian IV., refusing to receive the papal legates because they came to him as plunderers and not as priests.1881  John of Salisbury and Matthew Paris joined St. Bernard in condemning their assumption and rapacity. Bernard succeeded in finding only two cases of incorruptible legates. One, Martin, who had been sent to Dacia, returned to Italy so poor that he could with difficulty get to Florence and would have had to foot it from there to Rome but for the loan of a horse. Bernard felt his description would be regarded as an idle tale, a legate coming back from the land of gold without gold and traversing the land of silver without possessing silver!  The other case was the legate Gaufrid of Aquitaine who would not accept even fish and vegetables without paying for them so that no one might be able to say, "we have made Abraham rich," Gen. 14:23.1882

Salimbene, the genial Franciscan chronicler, also gives us a dark picture of papal legates of Northern Italy, some of whom he had known personally. He gives the names of twelve, four of whom he specially accuses of unchastity, including Ugolino, afterwards Gregory IX., and mentioning some of their children by name. Two of them were hard drinkers. He makes the general charge that legates "rob the churches and carry off whatsoever they can."1883

As the ultimate legal tribunal of Western Europe, the papal court assumed an importance never dreamed of before. Innumerable cases of appeal were brought before it. If the contestants had money or time, no dispute was too trivial to be contested at Rome. Appeals poured in from princes and kings, chapters and bishops, convents and abbots. Burchard of Ursperg says1884 that there was not a diocese or parish which did not have a case pending at Rome, and all parties who went had their hands full of gold and silver. There was a constant procession of litigants to the Eternal City, so that it once more became literally true that all roads led to Rome. The hours of daylight, as Bernard lamented, were not long enough for these disputes, and the hearings were continued into the night.1885  Appeals were encouraged by the curia, who found in them an inexhaustible source of revenue. Bernard, writing to Eugenius, lamented the time the chief bishop of Christendom took from his proper duties, and consumed upon the hearing of common lawsuits and personal complaints. The halls of the papal palace rang with the laws of Justinian rather than the precepts of the Lord. Bernard himself recognized the right of appeal as an incontestable privilege, but would have limited it to the complaints of widows and the poor, and excluded disputes over property.1886

The expression ad calendas Graecas became proverbial in Rome for delays of justice till one party or the other was dead or, worn out by waiting, gave what was demanded. The following example, given by Bernard, will indicate the extent to which the right of appeal was carried. A marriage ceremony in Paris was suddenly checked by a complainant appearing at the altar and making appeal to Rome against the marriage on the ground that the bride had been promised to him. The priest could not proceed, and bride and bridegroom had to live apart until the case was argued before the curia. So great did the curia’s power become that its decision was regarded as determining what was sound doctrine and what was heresy.1887

In the thirteenth century, the papal exchequer gained an offensive notoriety through the exactions of the curia, but it was not till the fourteenth century, during the period of the Avignon exile, that they aroused a clamorous protest throughout Europe. The increased expenses of the papal household called for large sums, and had to be met. The supreme pontiff has a claim upon the entire communion over which he presides, and the churches recognized its justice. It was expressed by Pascal II. when he wrote to Anselm of Canterbury, 1101: "You know well our daily necessities and our want of means. The work of the Roman church inures to the benefit of all the churches, and every church which sends her gifts thereby recognizes not only that they are in debt to her but to the whole of Christendom as well."1888  It was the scandalous abuse of this just claim that called forth bitter complaint.

As bearing on the papal revenues early in the thirteenth century, a ledger account of the income of Innocent III. has come down to us, prepared by his chamberlain, Cencius, afterwards made a cardinal.1889 Of the 633 bishoprics therein listed, 330 paid tribute of one kind or another to Rome. In addition to gifts of money, all sorts of articles are catalogued—vegetables, wine, grain, fish, wood, wax, linen, yokes of oxen, horses.—Convents, churches, and hospitals made contributions to the pope’s wants. The abbot of Reichenau, at his induction, sent two white horses, a breviary, and a book of the Gospels. A hospital in the see of Terouanne sent 100 herrings, St. Basil’s, in Rome, two loads of fish.

In the latter half of the thirteenth century, the administration of the papal finances was reduced to a system, and definite rules were adopted for the division of the revenues between the pope and the college of cardinals. We are restricted to a single tax list1890 for this period, while for the first half of the fourteenth century we have a number of detailed and highly interesting ledger accounts which give the exact prices levied for papal privileges of all sorts. There, we have fiscal contracts drawn up between prelates and papal officials and receipts such as would be expected in a careful banking system. These lists and other sources of information enable us to conclude what methods were practised from 1250–1300.

The sources from which the papal treasury drew its revenues were the annual tributes of feudal states, called census, payments made by prelates and other holders of church benefices called servitia, visitationes, and annates; and the occasional taxes levied upon the Church at large, or sections of it, for crusades and other special movements. To these usual sources of revenue are to be added assessments for all sorts of specific papal concessions and indulgences.1891

The servitia,1892 visitationes, and annates, originally freewill offerings of the clergy, had come by the end of the thirteenth century to be recognized as obligatory assessments. The annates were payments made by papal appointees of a portion of a year’s income of benefices which the pope reserved to himself the right of filling, such as prebends, canonries, and other livings. The portion was usually one-half. The visitationes were payments made by prelates; that is, archbishops, bishops, and abbots on their visits in Rome.1893  These visits were made at fixed periods, the time being settled by law. The prelates, on taking their oath of office, obligated themselves to make them.

The servitia1894 were gifts of money paid by archbishops, bishops, and abbots at their confirmation in office. They constituted a large source of revenue. The amounts to be paid in each case were computed upon the basis of a year’s income. Once fixed they remained fixed and obligatory until new valuations were made.1895  The levy was usually, though not uniformly, one-third of a year’s income.1896  The exact origin of this form of tribute is not known, but it was recognized as custom, having the force of law before the reign of Nicolas III. (1277–1280), and probably as early as the middle of the thirteenth century.1897  The tax was usually paid by the prelates on their visit in Rome, when the appointment was confirmed. Sometimes the obligation of payment was made through a commercial house.1898

The census included the taxes paid by the State of the Church, the assessments paid by convents and churches under the special protection of the Apostolic see, the tributes of the vassal—states, Naples, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, and England, and the income of Peter’s Pence. The tribute of 1000 marks, promised by John for England and Ireland, was over and above the amounts due from Peter’s Pence. The tribute of Sicily in 1272, amounting to 8000 oz. of gold, was divided into two equal parts by Gregory X., one part going to the cardinals. In 1307, a demand was made upon Charles II. of Naples for back payments on this account amounting to the enormous sum of 93,340 oz. of gold. In 1350, the amount due was 88,852 oz.1899

The custom of paying Peter’s Pence, or a stipulated amount for every household, was in vogue in England, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Northern Germany, and Poland, but was never introduced into France though Gregory VII. attempted to collect it there but failed.1900  Robert Guiscard, in 1059, pledged for Sicily twelve denarii for every yoke of oxen to be paid for all time.1901  Far-off Greenland also added its contributions to this tax and it was paid under Olaf, bishop of Gardar, 1246.1902

During the second half of the thirteenth century, the custom was developed of dividing the revenues from visitationes, servitia, and census between the pope and the college of cardinals.1903  Up to that time the cardinals had depended upon benefices held in their own names and the tributes of castles and towns in the papal territory set aside for them by popes. To these sources of revenue were added during the thirteenth century livings in foreign lands which they administered, if administered at all, through vicars. A number of benefices were often held by a member of the curia, but the abuse of pluralities did not reach its largest proportions till the latter half of the fifteenth century. In 1291, Benedict Gaetani (Boniface VIII.) cardinal of S. Nicolas in Carcere, held, in addition to that living, two archdeaneries and two churches in France, three churches in Rome and prebend stalls in Langres, Chartres, Lyons, Paris, Anagni, Todi, Terouanne, and St. Peter’s in Rome.

The half portion, accruing to the cardinals, was divided equally between those dignitaries. In case a cardinal was suspended his portion was divided equally between the papal treasury and the other cardinals. It became customary at the close of the thirteenth century, in appointing a cardinal, to announce that he was entitled to a share of the servitia.1904

During the absence of a cardinal on legatine business or for other reasons, he ceased to participate in the fund.

These revenues were handled by two treasurers: a papal treasurer, or chamberlain, and a treasurer for the college of cardinals.1905  The latter held his office for life. The two offices were never vested in the same person. Each treasurer, at least from the time of Benedict XII. in the fourteenth century, kept his own set of books and at times copies of the papal ledgers were made and turned over to the cardinals. To such a system had the finances been reduced that, as early as the reign of Boniface VIII., the Registers of preceding pontiffs were consulted.1906  In the period 1295–1298, the college of cardinals received as their share, coin amounting to 85,431 gold florins, a sum equal in face value to $200,000.1907

To the pope’s own exchequer went the additional sums accruing from annates as defined above, the special taxes imposed by the pope at will, and the gifts for special papal favors. The crusades against the Saracens and Frederick II. were an inviting pretext for special taxation. They were the cause of endless friction especially in France and England, where the papal mulcts were most frequent and most bitterly complained of. The first papal levy for revenue in France seems to have been in 1188. As early as 1247 such a levy upon church property was met by a firm protest. In 1269, Louis IX. issued the pragmatic sanction which forbade papal taxes being put on church property in France without the sovereign’s consent. One of the most famous levies of mediaeval England was the Saladin tax, for a crusade against the Saracens.

The curia was already, in the time of St. Bernard, notorious for its rapacity. No sums could satisfy its greed, and upon it was heaped the blame for the incessant demands which went out from Rome. Bernard presents a vivid, if perhaps overcolored, picture of this hungry horde of officials and exclaims: "When has Rome refused gold?  Rome has been turned from a shrine into a place of traffic. The Germans travel to Rome with their pack animals laden with treasure. Silver has become as plentiful as hay. It is to Eugenius’ credit that he has turned his face against such gifts. The curia is responsible. They have made Rome a place of buying and selling. The ’Romans,’ for this was the distinctive name given to this body of officials, are a pack of shameless beggars and know not how to decline silver and gold. They are dragons and scorpions, not sheep."1908

The English chronicler, Matthew Paris, writing a century later, has on almost every other page of his chronicle a complaint against the exactions of the papal tax gatherers. One might easily get the impression from his annals, that the English Church and people existed chiefly to fill the Roman treasury. The curia, he said, was like a gulf swallowing up the resources of all classes and the revenues of bishops and abbots.1909  The contemporary Italian chronicler Salimbene has biting words for the luxury and idleness of the cardinals and reports the invectives of Hugh de Digne delivered at the council of Lyons, 1245.1910

Bernard of Cluny and other poets of the time lashed the Curia for its simony.1911  Everything at Rome had its price. Poems, ascribed to Walter Map, abound in bitter invective against the wide-open mouths of the cardinals which only money could fill. In one of them, the Ruin of Rome, the city is compared to the waters between Scylla and Charybdis, more capacious of gold than of ships."

"The meeting place of our pirates, the cardinals"

 

Ibi latrat Scylla rapax et Charybdis auri capax

Potius quam navium, ibi cursus galearum

Et concursus piratarum, id est cardinalium.

 

There, at that deep gulf, are the Syrtes and Sirens who threaten the whole world with shipwreck, the gulf which has the mouth of a man but the heart of a devil. There the cardinals sell the patrimony, wearing the aspect of Peter and having the heart of Nero, looking like lambs and having the nature of wolves.1912  In a conversation, purporting to have occurred between Thomas Aquinas and the pope, the pope said, as he showed the theologian the papal treasure-room, "Thomas, Peter could now no longer say as he once said to the lame man "silver and gold have I none.’ "  "Nor," was Thomas’ reply, "has his successor the power now to lay his hand on the lame man and heal him."

 

 § 125. Bishops.

 

Although the episcopate lost some of its ancient prestige through the centralization of power in the papacy, the incumbents of the great sees were fully as powerful as the greater secular princes. The old theory, that all bishops are the successors of Peter, had a waning number of open advocates. Bernard said1913 that, like the pope, they were pastors and porters of the kingdom of heaven and fountains of authority, but, in power and rank, they were inferior to the pope who is the immediate successor of the prince of the Apostles. A hundred years later Grosseteste still held to the equal dignity of all bishops as being successors of Peter.1914

By the law of Gregory IX., archbishops took an oath of allegiance to the pope, and Martin V. (1417–1431) extended it so as to include all bishops. Gregory IX. and other popes made this oath the ground of demands for military service. Long before this, in 1139, Innocent II. had addressed the bishops as occupying a relation to the papal see such as vassals occupy to their prince. They were to be known as "bishops by the grace of God and the Apostolic see."1915  Innocent III. distinctly stated that bishops receive their authority by the grace of the pope in whom resides the fulness of authority.1916  The confirmation of bishops by the pope was made a fixed rule by Nicolas III. (1277–1280).1917  And the ancient right which bishops had exercised of resigning their sees was now denied and the privilege made dependent upon the pope’s dispensation.

After the Concordat of Worms, 1122, the appointment of bishops by princes and other lay patrons, in theory, ceased. Pope after pope declared the right of election belonged to the cathedral chapters. But, in fact, the elections were not free. Princes ignored the rights of the chapters and dictated the nominees, or had unsatisfactory elections set aside by appealing to Rome. In France and Spain, a royal writ was required before an election could be had and the royal acceptance of the candidate was interposed as a condition of consecration. In England, in spite of the settlement between Anselm and Henry I., the rights of the chapters were constantly set aside, and disputed elections were a constant recurrence. By John’s charter, the election took place in the chapter house of the cathedral, and the king might exercise the right of nomination and confirmation.1918  In the case of disputed elections, the pope acted as umpire and might set aside all candidates and order a new election, as did Innocent III., in the case of Stephen Langton. The Fourth Lateran established the rule that a chapter, failing to reach a conclusion in three months, forfeited the right of election.

The law requiring a bishop to be at least thirty years old1919 and of legitimate birth was often set aside. Geoffrey, natural son of Henry II., was appointed bishop of Lincoln before he was twenty and for six years he enjoyed the revenues of the see without being ordained priest. He was afterwards made archbishop of York. Gerlach of Nassau was made archbishop at twenty. We have in this period no case quite so flagrant as that of Hugh of Vermandois, about 930, who, after poisoning the archbishop of Rheims, put his own son, a child of five, into the office. Disregard of the age-limit reached its height in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The larger sees were a tempting prize to noblemen, and Innocent III. felt it necessary to emphasize merit as a qualification for the episcopal office as against noble birth.

The important right of canonization was withdrawn from the bishops by Alexander III., 1181, and its exercise thenceforth restricted to the pope. Bishops were not popular material for sainthood. Otto of Bamberg is a shining exception.

From the time of Otto the Great, German bishops had the rank of princes.1920  In France, England, and other countries, they were raised to the dignity of the peerage. The three German sees of Treves, Mainz, and Cologne probably enjoyed larger revenues and authority than any other sees in Western Christendom. They gave to the territory along the Rhine the name of the "priests’ alley."  Their three prelates were among the seven electors of the empire. In Northern Germany, the see of Bremen retained its relative importance. Lund was the metropolitan see of Denmark and Scandinavia. In France, the ancient archbishoprics of Lyons and Rheims perpetuated the rank and influence of an earlier period. In England, after the see of Canterbury, Lincoln was the most influential diocese.

The cathedral and collegiate chapters grew in importance. In the earlier part of this period, it was still the custom for the canons belonging to a chapter to live under the same roof and eat at the same table. In the thirteenth century a great change took place. With the increasing wealth of the churches, the chapters threatened to assert the rights of distinct corporations, and to become virtually independent of the bishops.1921  Prebends or stalls—stallum in choro—were furnished with endowments of their own. The sons of nobles coveted and secured these places which brought emolument and influence without work. The canons lived apart by themselves, supported by the revenues of their stalls and their portion of the cathedral income. No places were more often filled by papal appointment in the way of reservation and expectance.1922

The archdeacon, still called as of old, "the bishop’s eye," assisted the bishop in matters of diocesan administration, visited churches, made investigation of the sacred robes and vessels, adjudicated disputes, presided over synods, and, as provided for by the English Constitutions of Otho, instructed the clergy on the sacraments and other subjects. This official threatened to assume the rank of bishop-coadjutor, or even to become independent of the bishop.1923  His duties are frequently dwelt upon by English, German, and French synods. The large dioceses employed a plurality of them. As early as the eleventh century, the see of Treves had five, Cologne six, and Halberstadt thirty.1924  After the Norman Conquest, the English dioceses adopted the system. Lincoln included the archdeaconries of Lincoln, Leicester, Stow, Buckingham, Huntingdon, Northampton, Oxford, and Bedford. Archdeacons were often appointed at an early age, and it became the custom for them to go abroad to pursue the study of canon law before entering upon the duties of their office. They were inclined to allow themselves more liberties than other ecclesiastics, and John of Salisbury propounded the question whether an archdeacon could be saved. Among the better known of the English archdeacons were Thomas à Becket, Walter Map, archdeacon of Oxford, and Peter of Blois, archdeacon of London. Peter complained to Innocent III. that he received no financial support from the 120 churches of London.

A hard struggle was carried on to remove the hand of the secular power from church funds. Synods, local and oecumenical, threatened severest penalties upon any interference of this kind. In 1209, Otto IV. renounced the old right of spoliation—jus spolii or jus exuviarum,—whereby the secular prince might seize the revenues of vacant sees and livings, and appropriate them to himself. The Church was exempted by Innocent III. from all civil taxation at the hands of laymen, except as it was sanctioned by pope or bishop, and lay patrons were enjoined against withholding or seizing for their own use church livings to which they had the right of appointment.1925  The goods, laid aside by clerics from their livings, were the property of the Church,1926 and in case a priest died intestate, it was, in some parts, the privilege of the bishop to administer his estate. Priests were exempt from personal taxation. For prescribed taxes, free gifts so called, were substituted. Peter of Blois commended the piety of certain princes who declined to levy taxes upon churches and other ecclesiastical institutions, even for necessary expenditures, such as the repair of city walls; but met them, if not from their own resources, from booty taken from enemies.1927

Besides the usual income accruing from landed endowments and tithes, the bishop had other sources of revenue. He might at pleasure levy taxes for the spiritual needs of his see,1928 and appropriate the first year’s income of newly appointed priests. Other additions, from the eleventh century on, came in the way of fees and collections for indulgences and gifts at the dedication of churches and altars, and the benediction of cemeteries. Abaelard speaks of the throngs which assembled on such festal occasions, and the large offerings which were, in part, payments for the relaxation of penances.1929

As for the pastoral fidelity and morals of the bishops, there was much ground for complaint, and there are also records of exemplary prelates. As a whole, the prelates were a militant class. No pope of this age wore armor as did John XII., and, at a later time, Julius II., though there were few if any pontiffs, who did not encourage war under the name of religion. Bishops and abbots were often among the bravest warriors and led their troops into the thickest of the fight both on European soil and under Syrian suns. Monks and priests wore armor and went into battle. When the pope asked for the release of the fighting bishop of Beauvais, whom Richard Coeur de Lion had seized, Richard sent him the bishop’s coat of mail clotted with blood and the words taken from the story of Joseph, "We found this. Is it not thy son’s coat?"  Archbishop Christian of Mainz (d. 1183) is said to have felled, with his own hand, nine antagonists in the Lombard war, and to have struck out the teeth of thirty others. Absalom and Andrew of Lund were famous warriors.1930  So were Odo of Bayeux, Roger of York, and Geoffrey, his successor, and many other English prelates. The abbot Henry, afterwards archbishop of Narbonne, went at the head of the armies sent against the Albigenses, and did more, wearing the monk’s garb, to encourage bloodshed than he could have done in military dress.

The chastity of the bishops was often open to just suspicion. The Christian, already referred to, a loyal supporter of Barbarossa, kept a harem.1931  When the confirmation of Geoffrey Riddel to the see of Ely was being prosecuted at the papal court, and Geoffrey was absent, the bishop of Orleans facetiously explained his absence by saying, "He hath married a wife, and therefore he cannot come."1932  The case of Henry of Liége, prince-bishop of Liége, is perhaps the most notorious case. He was cited before Gregory X. at the second council of Lyons, and forced to resign. He was an illiterate, and could not read the book presented to him. For thirty years he had led a shameless life. Two abbesses and a nun were among his concubines and he boasted of having had fourteen children in twenty-two months. The worst seems to have occurred before he was made priest. Innocent IV. had been his strong friend. Salimbene tells the popular tale of his day that the saintly Cistercian, Geoffroi de Péronne, came back from the other world and announced that if he had accepted the bishopric of Tournai, as the pope urged him to do, he would have been burning in hell. From the pages of this chronicler we have the pictures of many unworthy prelates given to wine and pleasure, but also of some who were model pastors.1933

The prelates of Germany had no better reputation than those of Italy, and Caesar of Heisterbach1934 reports the conversation of a Paris clerk, who declared that he "could believe all things, but it was not possible for him to believe that any German bishop could be saved."  When asked the reason for such a judgment, he replied, that the German prelates carried both swords, waged wars, and were more concerned about the pay of soldiers than the salvation of the souls committed to them.

The other side to this picture is not so apt to be presented. Chroniclers are more addicted to point out the scandalous lives of priests than to dwell upon clerical fidelity. There were faithful and good bishops and abbots. The names of Anselm of Canterbury and Hugh of Lincoln, Bernard and Peter the Venerable only need to be mentioned to put us on our guard against accepting the cases of unworthy and profligate prelates which have been handed down as indicating a universal rule.

 

 § 126. The Lower Clergy.

 

The cure of souls—regimen animarum — was pronounced by the Fourth Lateran, following Gregory the Great, to be the art of arts, and bishops were admonished to see to it that men capable in knowledge and of fit morals be appointed to benefices. The people were taught to respect the priest for the sake of his holy office and the fifth commandment was adduced as divine authority for submission to him.1935

The old rule was repeated, making the canonical age for consecration to the priesthood twenty-five. Councils and popes laid constant stress upon the priest’s moral obligations, such as integrity, temperance in the use of strong drink,1936 simplicity in diet and dress, abstinence from the practice of usury.1937  He was forbidden to frequent taverns, to play at dice, to attend theatrical and mimic performances, and to allow dances in church buildings and church yards.

The old rules were renewed, debarring from the sacerdotal office persons afflicted with bodily defects, and Innocent III. complained of the bishop of Angoulême for ordaining a priest who had lost a thumb.1938

Beginning with the twelfth century, the number of parishes increased with great rapidity both in the rural districts and in the towns. In German cities the division of the old parishes was encouraged by the citizens, as in Freiburg, Mainz, Worms, and Lübeck, and they insisted upon the right of choosing their pastor.1939  On the other hand, the convents were busy establishing churches and, in Germany, there were thousands under their control.1940  The eleventh and twelfth centuries were a busy time of church building.

What occurred in Germany occurred also in England. But here the endowment of churches and chapels by devout and wealthy laymen was more frequent. Such parishes, it is true, often fell to the charge of the orders, but also a large share of them to the charge of the cathedral chapters and bishops.

Clerical incomes varied fully as much in those days as they do now, if not more. The poorer German priests received from one-tenth to one-twentieth of the incomes of more fortunate rectors and canons.1941  The Fourth Lateran made small salaries responsible for a poorly trained ministry.

The clergy depended for their maintenance chiefly upon the income from lands and the tithe. The theory was that the tenth belonged to the Church, "for the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof."  The principle was extended to include the tithe of the fish-catch, the product of the chase, and the product of commerce.1942  The clergy also received fees for special Sacerdotal services from baptism to burial and rites pertaining to the soul after death. Such fees became general after the twelfth century, but not without vigorous protests against them. The Second Lateran and other synods1943 forbade priests making charges for the administration of baptism, marriage, extreme unction, and other rites, and for sepulture. The ground was taken by Innocent III. that, while gifts for such services were proper, they should be spontaneous and not forced. The Fourth Lateran bade laymen see they were not overlooked.

Priests receiving their benefices from laymen were likened to thieves who came not in by the door but climbed in some other way. The lay patron had the right of nomination—presentatio. To the bishop belonged the right of confirmation—concessio. Laymen venturing to confer a living without the consent of the ecclesiastical authority exposed themselves to the sentence of excommunication.1944  Stories were current of clerics who had bought their way to ordination and to benefices, who afterwards gnawed through their tongues in remorse.1945  The system of pluralities was practised in spite of the decrees of oecumenical and local synods.1946

The ideal of a faithful priest was not a preacher but one who administered the sacraments and other solemn rites upon the living and the dead. Restricted as the education of the priest was, it greatly surpassed that of his lay brother, and it was not so meagre as it has often been represented. There were writers who held up the ignorance of the clergy to scorn, but it is dangerous to base wide generalizations on such statements. Statements of another kind can be adduced to show that a class of priests had literary interests as wide as the age was familiar with. The schools that existed were for the training of the clergy. Synods assumed that clerics could read and prescribed that they should read their breviaries even while travelling on journeys. Peter of Blois urged them to read the Scriptures, which he called David’s harp, a plough working up the fallow field of the heart, and which he compared to drink, medicine, balsam, and a weapon. He also warned priests against allowing themselves "to be enticed away by the puerilities of heathen literature and the inventions of philosophers."  When the universities arose, a large opportunity was offered for culture and the students who attended them were clerics or men who were looking forward to holy orders. The synod of Cologne, 1260, probably struck the medium in regard to the culture of the clergy, when it declared that it did not demand eminent learning of clerics but that they know how to read and properly sing the church service.

The function of parish-preaching was not altogether neglected. Bishops were enjoined by the Fourth Lateran to appoint men capable of preaching in all cathedral and conventual churches. In the eleventh century there was scarcely a German parish in which there was not some preaching during the year, and subsequent to that time, sermons were delivered regularly.1947  The sermons were sometimes in Latin and sometimes in German. Those which are preserved abound in stories and practical lessons and show more dependence upon the Fathers than upon the Scriptures. In England and other parts of Europe sermonizing was a less common practice. English priests were required to give expositions of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the evangelical precepts, the seven works of mercy, the seven cardinal virtues, and the seven sacraments, and to cover these subjects once a quarter. Grosseteste called upon them to be diligent in visiting the sick night and day, to preach, and to carefully read the Scriptures that they might be able to give a reason for the hope that was in them.1948  In the regions infected with the Albigensian heresy, instruction was ordered given to children in the articles of the Catholic faith. The mendicant monks started out as preachers and supplied a popular demand. The ignorance of the priesthood at times called for inhibitions of preaching, as by the synod of Oxford, 1281.

Not the least important among the priest’s functions was the supervision of wills that the Church might come in for seemly remembrance. State laws in conflict with this custom were set aside. Abuses were recognized by synods, and the synod of Paris, 1212, ordered that laymen should not be compelled to make provision in their wills for the payment of thirty mortuary masses. The priest’s signature insured the validity of a will, and some synods made the failure to call in a priest to attest the last testament a ground of excommunication.1949

Turning to the priest as a member of society, the Church, with unwavering emphasis, insisted upon his independence of the secular tribunal. In the seventh century, Heraclius had granted to the clergy, even in the case of criminal offences, the right of trial in ecclesiastical courts. The Isidorian fiction fully stated this theory. These and other privileges led many to enter the minor clerical orders who had no intention of performing ecclesiastical functions. Council after council pronounced the priest’s person inviolate and upon no other matter was Innocent III. more insistent.1950  Violence offered to a priest was punished with the anathema, and civil authorities venturing to cite clerics to appear before them incurred the same penalty.1951  Such legislation did not, however, bring complete immunity from injury or exempt church property from spoliation. In England, Thomas à Becket is the most noteworthy example. A bishop of Caithness had his tongue cut out. A Spanish bishop received the same treatment at the hands of a king of Aragon. In Germany, Bishop Dietrich of Naumburg, a learned man, was murdered, 1123; as were also Conrad, bishop of Utrecht, 1099; Arnold bishop of Merseburg, 1126, and other bishops. Lawrence, archdeacon of York, was murdered in the vestibule of his church by a knight. The life of Norbert of Magdeburg was attempted twice.1952  The principle which the Church recognized in the punishment of clerical crimes was laid down by Coelestin III., 1192. Theft, homicide, perjury, or other "mortal crimes" were punished with deposition. If the priest persisted in committing offences, he was excommunicated and, at last, turned over to the state for punishment.1953  There was no little complaint against the application of the canon law. Roger Bacon complained bitterly against the time given to its study in Bologna. He declared its study was obliterating the distinction between the clerical and lay professions. The doctors of law called themselves clerks though they had not the tonsure and took to themselves wives. He demanded that, if clergymen and laymen were to be subjected to the same law, it should be the law of England for Englishmen, and of France for Frenchmen and not the law of Lombardy.

Clerical manners were a constant subject of conciliar action. Ordination afforded no immunity from vanity and love of ostentation. The extravagance of bishops and other clergy in dress and ornaments gave rise to much scandal. The Third Lateran sought to check vain display by forbidding a retinue of more than 40 or 50 horse to archbishops, 25 to cardinals, and 20 or 30 to bishops. Archdeacons were reduced to the paltry number of 5 or 7 and deans to 2. There was some excuse for retinues in an age of violence with no provision for public police. The chase had its peculiar fascination and bishops were forbidden to take hounds or falcons with them on their journeys of visitation. Dogs and hunting were in localities denied to clergymen altogether.1954

The fondness of the clergy for gay apparel was often rebuked. In Southern France, clergymen ventured to wear red and green colors and to substitute for the close-fitting garment the graceful and flowing open robe. They followed the fashions of the times in ornamenting themselves with buckles and belts of gold and silver and hid the tonsure by wearing their hair long. They affected the latest styles of shoes and paraded about in silk gloves and gilded spurs, with gilded breastbands on their horses and on gilded saddles.1955

Full as the atmosphere of the age was of war-clamor, and many warring prelates as there were, the legislation of the Church was against a fighting clergy. The wearing of swords and dirks and of a military dress was repeatedly forbidden to them. Wars for the extermination of heresy were in a different category from feuds among Catholic Christians. It was in regard to the former that Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, said, "As for the enemies of Christ, we shall slay them and purify the face of the earth, that the whole world may be subject to one Catholic Church and become one fold and one shepherd."1956  Priests were prohibited from attending executions, and also tournaments and duels, on the ground that these contests presented the possibility of untimely death to the contestants. In case a combatant received a mortal wound he was entitled to the sacrament but was denied ecclesiastical burial.1957  The Fourth Lateran solemnly enjoined ecclesiastics against pronouncing the death sentence or executing it, and the same council forbade surgery also, so far as it involved cutting and burning, to deacons and subdeacons as well as to priests.

The period opens with the dark picture of clerical morals by Peter Damiani who likened them to the morals of the Cities of the Plain. Bernard, a hundred years later, in condemning clergymen for the use of military dress, declared they had neither the courage of the soldier nor the virtues of the clergyman.1958  A hundred years later still Grosseteste, in describing the low moral and religious state of the English people, made the immoral lives of the clergy responsible for it.

Dice were played even on the altars of Notre Dame, Paris,1959 and dice-playing is often forbidden to priests in the acts of synods. Wine-drinking to excess was also a fault of the clergy, and Salimbene knew Italian clerics who sold wine and kept taverns.1960  According to Caesar of Heisterbach, wine often flowed at the dedication of churches. A Devonshire priest was accustomed to brew his beer in the church-building.

The most famous passage of all is the passage in which Jacob de Vitry describes conditions in Paris. Fornication among clergymen, he says, was considered no sin. Loose women paraded the streets and, as it were by force, drew them to their lodgings. And if they refused, the women pointed the finger at them, crying "Sodomites."  Things were so bad and the leprosy so incurable that it was considered honorable to have one or more concubines. In the same building, school was held upstairs and prostitutes lived below. In the upper story masters read and in the lower story loose women plied their trade. In one part of the building women and their procurors disputed and in another part the clergy held forth in their disputations.1961

The Fourth Lateran arraigned bishops for spending the nights in revelry and wantonness. The archbishopric of Rouen was occupied for 113 years by three prelates of scandalous fame. Two of them were bastards of the ducal house and all rivalled or excelled the barons round about in turbulence and license. A notorious case in high places was that of the papal legate, Cardinal John of Crema. He held a council which forbade priests and the lower clergy to have wives or concubines; but, sent to the bishop of Durham to remonstrate with him over the debauchery which ruled in his palace, the cardinal himself yielded to a woman whom the bishop provided. The bishop regarded it as a jest when he pointed out the cardinal in the act of fornication.

Marriage and concubinage continued to be practised by the clergy in spite of the Hildebrandian legislation. Innocent III. agreed with Hildebrand that a priest with a family is divided in his affections and cannot give to God and the Church his full allegiance in time and thought.1962  Writers, like Salimbene and Caesar of Heisterbach, were severe on married priests. According to the Fourth Lateran, bishops not only violated the canons of the Church themselves by committing the "crime of the flesh," as Gregory VII. called it, but winked at their violation by priests for a money-compensation. A common saying among priests was, si non caste, caute; that is, "if not chaste, at least cautious."  In this way Paul’s words were misinterpreted when he said, "If they cannot contain, let them marry."  Bonaventura, who knew the facts, declared "that very many of the clergy are notoriously unchaste, keeping concubines in their houses and elsewhere or notoriously sinning here and there with many persons."1963

Conditions must have been bad indeed, if they equalled the priestly customs of the fourteenth century and the example set by the popes in the latter half of the fifteenth. Who will forget the example and mistresses of the first and only Scotch cardinal, Archbishop Beaton, who condemned Patrick Hamilton and Wishart to death!  Were not the Swiss Reformers Bullinger and Leo Jud sons of priests, and was not Zwingli, in spite of his offence against the law of continence, in good standing so long as he remained in the papal communion!

The violation of the ecclesiastical law of celibacy was, however, by no means in all cases a violation of the moral law. Without the ceremony of marriage, many a priest lived honorably with the woman he had chosen, and cared for and protected his family. The Roman pontiff’s ordinance, setting aside an appointment of the Almighty, was one of the most offensive pieces of papal legislation and did unspeakable injury to the Church.

 

 § 127. The Councils.

 

The legislation of the oecumenical and local synods of this age gives the most impressive evidence of the moral ideals of the Church and its effort to introduce moral reforms. The large number of councils, as compared with the period just before 1050, was a healthy sign.1964  Their time was largely taken up with disciplinary and moral subjects. They legislated upon the relation of the Church to the empire, and the election of the pope, against simony and clerical marriage, upon heresy and measures for its repression, upon the crusades and the truce of God, on the details of clerical conduct and dress, and upon the rites of worship. The doctrine of transubstantiation, defined at the Fourth Lateran, was the only doctrine which was added by oecumenical authority to the list of the great dogmas handed down from the early Church.

At one period one subject, and at another, another subject, was prominent. The character of the legislation also differed with the locality. The synods in Rome, during the latter half of the eleventh century, discussed clerical celibacy, simony, and investiture by laymen. The synods of Southern France and Spain, from the year 1200, abound in decrees upon the subject of heresy. The synods of England and Germany were more concerned about customs of worship and clerical conduct.

A notable feature is the attendance of popes on synods held outside of Rome. Leo IX. attended synods in France and Germany, as well as in Italy. Urban II. presided at the great synod of Clermont, 1095. Innocent II. attended a number of synods outside of Rome. Alexander III. was present at the important synod of Tours, where Thomas à Becket sat at his right. Lucius III. presided at the council of Verona, 1184. Innocent IV. and Gregory X. were present at the first and second councils of Lyons. Such synods had double weight from the presence of the supreme head of Christendom. The synods may be divided into three classes: —

I.  Local Synods, 1050–1122.—The synods held in this, the Hildebrandian period, were a symptom of a new era in Church history. The chief synods were held in Rome and, beginning with 1049, they carried through the reformatory legislation, enforcing clerical celibacy and forbidding simony. The legislation against lay-investiture culminated in the Lenten synods at Rome, 1074 and 1075, presided over by Gregory VII. Local synods, especially in France and England, repeated this legislation. The method of electing a pope was settled by the Roman synod held by Nicolas, and confirmed by the Third Lateran, 1179. The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, as advocated by Berengar, d. 1088, called forth action at Rome and Vercelli, 1050, and again at Rome, 1059 and 1079. The legislation bearing on the conquest of the Holy Places was inaugurated at Piacenza and more seriously at the synod of Clermont, both held in 1095.

II.  The Oecumenical Councils.—Six general councils were held within a period of one hundred and fifty years, 1123–1274, as against eight held between 325–869, or a period of five hundred years. The first four go by the name of the Lateran Councils, from the Lateran in Rome, where they assembled. The last two were held in Lyons. They were called by the popes, and temporal sovereigns had nothing to do in summoning them.1965  They were presided over by popes, and the dockets of business were prepared by papal direction. The pope ratified their decrees. The first canon of the First Lateran ran, "by the authority of the Apostolic see, we forbid," etc., — auctoritate sedis apostol. prohibemus. It is true that the assent of the assembled prelates was assumed or, if expressly mentioned, the formula ran, "with the assent of the holy synod," or "the holy synod being in session,"—sacro approbante concilio, or sacro praesente concilio. So it was with the Fourth Lateran. The six oecumenical councils are:—

1. The First Lateran, 1123, called by Calixtus II., is listed by the Latins as the Ninth oecumenical council. Its chief business was to ratify the Concordat of Worms. It was the first oecumenical council to forbid the marriage of priests. It renewed Urban II.’s legislation granting indulgences to the Crusaders.

2. The Second Lateran, 1139, opened with an address by Innocent II., consummated the close of the recent papal schism and pronounced against the errors of Arnold of Brescia.

3. The Third Lateran, 1179, under the presidency of Alexander III., celebrated the restoration of peace between the Church and the empire and, falling back on the canon of the Second Lateran, legislated against the Cathari and Patarenes. It ordered separate churches and burial-grounds for lepers. Two hundred and eighty-seven, or, according to other reports, three hundred or three hundred and ninety-six bishops attended.

4. The Fourth Lateran or Twelfth oecumenical, 1215, marks an epoch in the Middle Ages. It established the Inquisition and formulated the doctrine of transubstantiation, the two most far-reaching decrees of the mediaeval Church. Innocent III. dominated the council, and its disciplinary and moral canons are on a high plane and would of themselves have made the assemblage notable. It was here that the matter of Raymund of Toulouse was adjudicated, and here the crusade was appointed for 1217 which afterwards gave Frederick II. and Innocent’s two immediate successors so much trouble. A novel feature was the attendance of a number of Latin patriarchs from the East, possessing meagre authority, but venerable titles. The decisions of the council were quoted as authoritative by Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas.1966

5. The First council of Lyons, 1245, presided over by Innocent IV., has its fame from the prosecution and deposition of the emperor Frederick II. It also took up the distressed condition of Jerusalem and the menace of the Tartars to Eastern Europe.

6. The Second council of Lyons or the Fourteenth oecumenical, 1274, was summoned by Gregory X., and attended by five hundred bishops and one thousand other ecclesiastics. Gregory opened the sessions with an address as Innocent III. had opened the Fourth Lateran and Innocent IV. the First council of Lyons. The first of its thirty-one canons reaffirmed the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son. It repeated the legislation of the Fourth Lateran, prohibiting the institution of new monastic orders. The council’s chief significance was the attempt to reunite the churches of the West and the East, the latter being represented by an imposing delegation.

These oecumenical assemblages have their importance from the questions they discussed and the personalities they brought together. They had an important influence in uniting all parts of Western Christendom and in developing the attachment to the Apostolic see, as the norm of Church unity.

III. Local Synods, 1122–1294.—Some of the local synods of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are of even more importance than some of the oecumenical councils of the same period. If they were to be characterized for a single subject of legislation, it would be the repression of heresy. Some of them had far more than a local significance, as, for example, the synod of Tours, 1163, when Spain, Sicily, Italy, England, Scotland, and Ireland were represented as well as France. Alexander III. and seventeen cardinals were present. The synod legislated against heresy.

The synod of Verona, 1184, passed a lengthy and notable decree concerning the trial and punishment of heretics. It heard the plea of the Waldenses, but declined to grant it.

The synod of Treves, 1227, passed important canons bearing on the administration of the sacraments.

The synod of Toulouse, 1229, presided over by the papal legate, celebrated the close of the Albigensian crusades and perfected the code of the Inquisition. It has an unenviable distinction among the great synods on account of its decree forbidding laymen to have the Bible in their possession.

These synods were great events, enlightening the age and stirring up thought. Unwholesome as were their measures against ecclesiastical dissent and on certain other subjects, their legislation was, upon the whole, in the right direction of purity of morals and the rights of the people.

 

 § 128. Church and Clergy in England.

 

Literature: I. The works of William of Malmesbury, William of Newburgh, Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Wendover, M. Paris, Richard of Hoveden, John of Salisbury, Walter Map, Giraldus Cambrensis, Ordericus Vitalis, Peter of Blois, Grosseteste, etc.

II. Phillimore: The Eccles. Law of Engl., 2 vols. Lond., 1873, Supplem., 1870.—Stubbs: Select Charters of Engl. Const. Hist., 8th ed., Oxf., 1896; Constit. Hist. of Engl., 6th ed., 1897, 3 vols.—Gee and Hardy: Documents Illustr. of Engl. Ch. Hist., Lond., 1896.—F. W. Maitland: Rom. Canon Law in the Ch. of Engl., Lond., 1898.—Jessopp: The Coming of the Friars.—H. D. Traill: Social England, a Record of the Progress of the People, etc., 2 vols. Lond., 2d ed., 1894.—W. R. W. Stephens: A Hist. of the Engl. Church, 1066–1272, Lond., 1901. Freeman: The Norman Conquest and William Rufus.—Histt. of England and the Ch. of England, etc.—Dict. of Nat. Biogr.

 

With the Norman Conquest the Roman curia began to manifest anxious concern for the English Church and to reach out for her revenues. Reverent as the Saxon kings had been towards the pope, as was shown in their visits to Rome and the payment of Peter’s Pence, the wild condition of the country during the invasions of the Danes offered little attraction to the Church rulers of the South. Henry Of Huntingdon called the England of his day—the twelfth century—"Merrie England"1967 and said that Englishmen were a free people, free in spirit and free in tongue, with even more freedom in giving, having abundance for themselves and something to spare for their neighbors across the sea. The Romans were quick to find this out and treated the English Church as a rich mine to be worked. It is probable that in no other part of Christendom were such constant and unblushing demands made upon church patronage and goods.1968  On the other hand, in no country was so persistent a struggle maintained for popular rights in Church and state against the impositions both of pope and crown.

Among the first distinct papal encroachments upon the liberties of the English Church were the appointment of legates and the demand that the archbishop go to Rome to receive the pallium. The first legates to England seem to have been sent at the invitation of William the Conqueror, 1070, to take up the case of Stigand, the Saxon archbishop of Canterbury, who had espoused the cause of the antipope. It was not long before the appointment of foreign legates was resisted and the pope, after the refusal to receive several of his representatives, was forced to yield and made it a rule to associate the legatine authority with the archbishops of Canterbury and York,—a rule, however, which had many exceptions. The legates of English birth were called legati nati in distinction from the foreign appointees, called le nati a latere.

The pope’s right to interfere in the appointment of bishops and to fill benefices was asserted soon after the Conqueror’s death. In such matters, the king showed an almost equally strong hand. Again and again the pope quashed the elections of chapters either upon his own motion or at the king’s appeal. Eugenius III. set aside William, canonically chosen archbishop of York. Stephen Langton 1207, Edmund Rich 1234, the Franciscan Kilwardby 1273, Peckham 1279, and Reynolds 1313, all archbishops of Canterbury, were substituted for the candidates canonically elected. Bonaventura was substituted for William Langton, elected archbishop of York, 1264. Such cases were constantly recurring. Bishops, already consecrated, were set aside by the pope in virtue of his "fulness of power," as was the case when Richard de Bury, d. 1345, was substituted for Robert Graystanes in the see of Durham.

This violence, done to the rights of the chapters, led to a vast amount of litigation. Almost every bishop had to fight a battle at Rome before he obtained his see. Between 1215–1264 not fewer than thirty cases of contested episcopal elections were carried to Rome. It was a bad day when the pope or the king could not find a dissident minority in a chapter and, through appeals, secure a hearing at Rome and finally a reversal of the chapter’s decision. Of the four hundred and seventy decretals of Alexander III., accepted by Gregory IX., about one hundred and eighty were directed to England.1969

The regular appointment to benefices was also invalidated by the pernicious custom of papal reservations which threatened even in this period to include every high office in the English Church. A little later, in 1317, the supreme pontiff reserved for his own appointment the sees of Worcester, Hereford, Durham, and Rochester; in 1320 Lincoln and Winchester; in 1322, 1323 Lichfield and Winchester; 1325 Carlisle and Norwich; 1327 Worcester, Exeter, and Hereford.1970

Another way by which the pope asserted his overlordship in the English Church was the translation of a bishop from one see to another. This, said Matthew Paris (V. 228), "became custom so that one church seemed to be the paramour of the other."

The English clergy and the barons looked upon these practices with disfavor, and, as at the Mad Parliament, 1258, demanded the freedom of capitular elections. The Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164, clearly expressed the national opposition, but the pope continued to go his own way.

The convents, for the most part, escaped papal interference in the election of their abbots. The reason is to be sought in the support which the orders gave to the pope in his struggle to reduce the episcopate to subjection. Nor did the crown venture to interfere, repelled, no doubt, by the compact organization of the monastic orders, the order rising