The Power Of The Popes

t was not much extended: they knew not how to reap the fruits of the labours of Gregory VII. Pascal II. however, who reigned near twenty years, from 109

ing of France, it was, doubtless, because Urban II. had commenced the quarrel, and that the notoriety, the censures with which this prince had been struck, admitted of no retraction. Pascal II. therefore, ventured to send legates into France, who were to excommunicate king Philip anew, but still on account of his divorce. Indignant at the attempts of these priests, William, count of Poitou, and Duke of Aquitain, did himself honour under these circumstances, by a courage,

. confirmed the anathemas of his predecessors against Henry IV.

pentance:173 it was replied, that an excommunicated

imself elected emperor in a diet held at Mayence. Henry the elder, retired to the castle of Ingelheim: there the

T

church of God,

the bishopricks,

dignity; thou ha

d canons: for all

e pope and the

the throne as f

u," replied

arc

gne, and you

rich prelacies,

at which you pu

y exacted from yo

erefore do you

hiefs of my en

rmination of a l

ht abridge, and

e the crown on the he

to fathers; he addressed hi

, cried one of t

ate kings, and

ve made a b

at this moment for the sins of his youth, they would not escape the punishment due to their sacrilegious disloyalty, they smiled at his menace, and to s

ory over the rebels; but, vanquished without resource, in a second combat, he fell into the hands of his enemies, wh

of the popes

o violate the law

on against me; t

idelity he had

to invade my k

ceal, he has even pr

ed him; Pascal II. would not allow an excommunicated corpse to repose in peace; five years, the remains of an emperor who had distinguished himself in sixty-six battles, remained without burial; the clergy o

he had just condemned in a council held at Troyes. But he had hardly mentioned this pretension, when he was arrested, carried off to the Sabine, and confined in a fortress. There such a terror seized the Holy Father, that he, with sixteen cardinals; signed a treaty, in which he secures to the emperor, the right of investiture, provided he mingles with it no simony; he did more, he bound himself never to excommu

m-himself, so scrupulous is he still of violating his engagement! It was the Cardinals who pronounced this anathema in the presence of Pascal II. Not only did this Council condemn investitures, but furthermore, it termed all those heretics who did not condemn them. Henry V. conceived little danger from it. He came into Italy in 1116, to take possession of the rich inheritance bequeathed by Matilda to St. Peter. She had not transferred either sovereign rights or prerogatives, nor yet fiefs, but merely landed property, which the Roman Church was to enjoy as the proprietor, 'jure proprietario'.177 It matters not-the emperor pretends that the countess had no power, even on these grounds, to dispose of those

ta, his country, from the time he was aware that Henry approached Rome. Henry had Bourdin raised to the papacy, who, having taken the name of Gregory VIII. crowned the new emperor. But the moment the latter quitte

elates should be elected only in the presence of the emperor, or of his lieutenants:-that in case of misunderstanding, the matter should be referred to the emperor, who should take the opinion of the bishops: that, finally, the emperor should bestow investiture by the sceptre, and not by the crozier and ring178 Calixtus ratified this treaty in the midst of the general Lateran Council of 1123. We may also applaud this pontiff for saving the life of his rival Bourdin; he contented himself with exposing him to the jests of the populace, co

eated. The king of France, Louis le Gros, was then exposed to the censures of the bishops of his own kingdom: the seditious conduct of the bishop of Paris having required repressive measures, this prelate, whose temporalities were seized, dared to place his own diocese, and the possessions of the king, under interdict. The most praiseworthy action of Honorius is the remova

wo appellations are the names of two German houses, which in 1125, when Henry V. died, disputed the imperial crown. One of these families, sometimes called* Salique, sometimes Guiebelinga or Waiblinge, reigned in Franconia, and had f

f Henry duke of Bavaria. The duke of Franconia, Conrade, was then in Palestine; he hastened to combat Lothaire, re-animated the partisans of the house of Ghibeline

died; his successor Victor abdicated the tiara; the schism was extinguished; and Pope Innocent II. considered himself sufficiently firm upon the pontifical throne, to menace Count Robert, and the king of France, Louis the Young. Roger defeated the troops of Innocent, who, fallen into the hands of the conqueror, saw himself compelled to confirm the title of king, given to Roger by Anaclet. Louis VII. defended himself with less success: exercising the right which all his predecessors had exercised, he had refused to ratify the election of an archbishop of Bourges. Innocent received the pretended archbishop, consecrated him, and sent him to take possession, spoke of the king as of a young m

h Roger, king of Sicily, and declared himself against Stephen, who had taken possession of the English throne. The pontificate of ?elestine II. and that

left Italy, and had taken refuge in the territory of Zurich. During his exile the Romans, discontented with Innocent II. restored some semblance of their former liberty; and these attempts, more bold under ?elestine II. became, under Louis, serious undertakings. They created a patrician, popular magistrate, and president of a senate composed of fifty-six

wisdom, sa

nd the attempts

your august p

isans, and the Sic

eague with them

trages. But the s

ve resumed the

s senate, by wh

d Justinian gov

prayers and exe

degree of po

oger threatened, Lucius advanced towards the capital; he marched surrounded by priests and soldiers. This parade of all his temporal and spiritual arms, however, was useless; a shower of stones crushed the double army of the pope, and he hi

Arnauld of Brescia returned to Rome, followed by two thousand Swiss185 he proposed restoring the consul, the tribunes, the equestrian order of the ancient Republic of Rome, to allow the pope the exercise of no civil power, and to limit the power they were obliged to leave in the emperor's hands. Eugenius re-appeared in the capital in 1149, quitted again almost immediately, again returned in 1153 to quit it no more. Imploring the assistance of Barbaross

s whom she had by the king of France, married Henry Plantagenet, and added two large provinces to Maine and Anjou, already possessed by Henry, who became afterwards king of England. Here we behold one of the principal causes of the long rivalry of these two kin

xpound it in the schools, to cite it at the tribunals, to invoke it in treaties; and it had almost become the general law of Europe, when the return of learning slowly dissipated these gross impostures. The clergy withdrawn from the secular tribunals; the civil power subjected to the ecclesiastical supremacy; the estates of individuals, and the acts which determined them, sovereignly regulated, confirmed, annulled, by the canons, and by the clergy; the papal power freed from all restriction; the sanction of all the laws of the church conferred on the Holy See, itself independent of the laws published and confirmed by it: such are the actual consequences of this system of jurisprudence. Some churches, and that of France in particular, have modified it; but it is preserved pure and unaltered in the Roman Church, which has availed itself of it in the succeeding centuries to trouble the world. From the end of the eighth century the decretals of Isidore had sowed the seeds of the whole pontifical power. Gratian has compiled and enriched them. Represented as the source of all irrefragable decisions, the universal tribunal which-determines all differences, dis

the families of Guelph and Ghibeline. He seemed destined to extinguish, or at least to suspend, the fury of the two factions. He announced the design of confirming in I

an annual tax of one penny out of each house in Ireland. Fleury187 supposes that John of Salisbury was one of the ambassadors sent by the king to the pontiff to solicit Ireland from him; but Matthew Paris188 names the deputies without mentioning John of Salisbury; however, the latter might have been commissioned to second the application to Adrian, whose intimate friend he was.-They passed three months together at Beneventum. There it was that Adrian, having asked John what they said of the Roman Church, was answered, that she passed for the step-mother rather than the mother of other churches, that the Pope himself was a great expense to the world, and that so many violences, so much avarice, and so much pride disgus

nvincible constancy, and to have them restored to the heritages of which they had been deprived. However, the pope shut up in Beneventum, saw himself obliged to capitulate, and to sacrifice the Sicilians who had armed themselves in his defence. William of Tyre has blamed him for it;192 but according to Baronius,193 we must only pity him, for he lacked th

t the break of day, without the knowledge of the people. His ashes were thrown into the Tiber, for fear, says Fleury194 that the people should collect them as those of a martyr. But this service rendered by Frederick to Adrian did not prevent their becoming enemies. From the year 1155, when Frederick came to Rome to receive the imperia

ores, jurans pri

aps, sumit, quo

verses, as well as of the emblems they explained, and obtained but the vague promise of their future suppression. They still subsisted when, in the month of April, 1157, the pope's legates presented themsel

id the p

such a crime be

an it be indif

rgotten the bene

ly See? Has no

ly conferred on

re not other fa

disposed

he pope?" one of the princes no longer restrained his indignation; he drew his sword, and he had infallibly cut off the legate's head, if Frederick had not hastened to oppose his imperial authority to this violence, and to h

hem to neglect no means of bringing Frederick back to more humble sentim

Y

to the holy fat

t, and we canno

n never suppose

ignity: he swea

o subject throne

God; he speaks

ich you possess,

he will not suff

. We invite you

ostility betwee

we adjure you t

in addressing t

conformable t

other epistle from Adrian201 The pope explained in it the terms of his first letter, and the explanation amounted to a retraction. "By the word 'beneffcium,' he says, we understand not a benefice or a fief, but a benefit or a service. In speaking of your crown, we do not pretend having conferred i

ian wrote an epistle to Frederick which has not been preserved; but Radevic, who gives us a relation of it,204 says, that it concealed, under humble and gentle terms, much bitterness and hauteur. In replying to it, Frederick affected to place, in the inscription, his own name before that of the sovereign pontiff.205 It was to revert to an ancient custom, to wh

e to you, "those whom the Scriptures call Gods, sons of the "Most High, is to want that faith which you "have sworn to St. Peter, and to us. Ha

ttempted in an assembly at Bologna in 1159, war was going to break out, had not the pope died the first of September

of the envoys of Adrian, found in Frederick Barbarossa a formidable enemy. This emperor seeing that they had at the same moment elected two successors of Adrian, Alexander and Victor, summoned them to appear at Pavia, where he would decide between them in a council convoked by him. Victor appeared there and was pronounced the true pontiff. Alexander excommunicated by this council, in return

eplied, a

ubject, to the ju

kings nor of peop

em know that no

escend from the

levate

exandria, to a city built by them in 1168, at the confluence of the Tanaro and the Bormida. The pope excited the Greek emperor Manuel to arm against the emperor of the West, and attempted to reconcile the two churches, separated since the pontificate of Leo IX. But when Manuel required that the Holy See should be establis

chbishop of Canterbury. This prelate elevated by the king, Henry II., to the most eminent dignities, dared to oppose himself to the

nce, threatened the king with the fate of Nebuchadnezzar, and pronounced anathemas against the most faithful ministers and subjects of Henry. This prince attempted to recal Becket to reason and his duty: he exhausted every way for the purpose, even that of taking for arbiter his rival Louis the Young, king of France. Let the archbishop, said he, conduct himself towards me, as the most holy of his predecessors did with the least illustrious of mine, and I shall be satisfied. An apparent reconciliation led Becket back to England; but if he returned it was to excommunicate anew all the clerks, curates, canons and bishops, who had declared against him. Henry lost all patience; even to that degree that he exclaimed: will none of my se

ng himself, and dreaded the consequences of too lo

red not re-appear at Court after the commission of the crime. Hume adds, that the king suspecting the intention of these gentlemen from some words whi

ferment. He returned to it in 1178; his entry was solemn; he received the homage of the people and the oaths of the nobles, and held in 1179 the third general council of the Lateran. A crown being sent by him to the king of Portugal, Alphonso Henriquez, in order that this conqueror should not reign without the approbation of the Holy See, he was repaid by an annual tribute of two marks of gold.212 Such have been the principal events of the pontificate of Alexander III. to whom the college of cardinals is indebted for the exclusive privilege of electing the popes; he ruled tha

a third crusade, which was not undertaken until under Clement III. in 1189. To draw France and England towards the Holy Land, it was requisite to deaden the ardour of the quarrels which, from

do I c

, replied Phili

reaten or dist

roper to bring

we may plainly

e sterling money

o occupy the peoples minds with this remote expedition. The papal authority had been weakened anew under the short and feeble pontificates of his two predecessors. The Romans who had obtained royal privileges, restored them to the Holy See, only on condition

decision of the French bishops, who had approved the repudiation of Ingelburg II. the wife of Philip Augustus. It is to be remarked that these anathemas although still formidable, had lost a large portion of their unfortunate efficacy. Philip took a third wife, without any new opposition on the part of Celestine. This pope, for some marcs of silver, acknowledged, as king of Sicily, Frederick II. a child of three years, son of the emperor Henry VI. In 1197, Henry died, and Germany was divided between Philip of Swabia, and Otho of Saxony; the simultan