A history of the church - tekst po angielsku

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A history of the church - tekst po angielsku

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BrT45 .D67 1840 v 3

D ollinger, Rev. J. J- 19

A History of the Church



HISTORY OF THE CHURCH



TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN



REV. J. J. IG. BOLLINGER, D.D.



PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY
IN THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH,



REV. EDWARD COX, D.D.

OF ST. EDMUND'S COLLEGE, OLD HALL GREEN, HERTS.



VOLUME THE THIRD.



LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY C. DOLMAN, 61, NEW BOND STREET,
AND BY T. JONES, 63, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1841.



LONDON :
C. EICHARDS, rEINTEE, 100, ST. MARTIn's LANE.



CONTENTS OF VOL. III.



PERIOD THE THIRD.

FUO.M THE SIXTH GENERAL COUNCIL TO (illEGORY VII. —
680 TO 1073.



CHAPTER THE EIRST.

EXTERNAL HISTORY OK THE CHURCH.

Section Pa(. k

I. — Germany: East France: Friesland. — St. Boniface in Thurin-

gia: Hesse: Bavaria. — Conversion of the Saxons . . 1

II. — Christianity in the north of Europe, in Denmark, Norway,

Sweden, and Iceland . . . .10

III. — Introduction of Christianity amongst the south-eastern Scla-
vonians: amongst the Moravians, Bohemians, and Poles:
amongst the Sclavonians on the north-east of Germany, and
amongst the Russians . . .21

IV. — Christianity amongst the Avari, Chazari, and Bulgarians. —
Conversion of the Magyari in Hungary. — Persecution of the
Christians in Spain. — Christianity in interior Asia . .31

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

HISTORY OF THE HERESIES, DOGMATICAL CONTESTS, AND SCHISMS.

I.— The Paulicians . . . . .39

II. — The Iconoclasts in the East . . . .44

III. — Transactions on the use of Images in France. — Claudius of

Tours . . . . . .55

IV. — Adoplionism . . . . .58

V. — Controversies on Predestination occasioned by Gotteschalc . 62

VI. — Transactions concerning the Eucharist in the Ninth Centuiy . G9

VII. — Berengarius of Tours . . . .74

VIII. — Commencement of the Oriental schism. — Ignatius and Photius 82
IX. — Relations of the two Churches in the Tenth and Eleventh

Centuries. — Renewal of the schism by Michael Cerulaviiis 102

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

HISTORY OF THE POPES.

I.— To the death of Leo III,— Sir. . .100

II.— To the death nf Silvester 1 1,-1 no;? . .120

III.— To the death of Alexander II,— 107:? .142



IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH, AND OF ECCLESIASTICAL

INSTITUTIONS.

I. — The Church in its Relations with the Civil Power . . 153

II. — Continuation. — The Feudal System, its influence on the
Church. — Investitures. — Political conditions of the Bishops
and Abbots . . . . .159

III. — Amelioration of the state of slavery. — The God's Peace. —

Ordeals — Civil Jurisdiction and Immunities of the Clergy . 168
IV. — The Primacy. — Papal Legates and Vicars . . .171

V. — Metropolitans. — Bishops. — Archdeacons. — Origin of Cathedral

Chapters. — Parishes and Tithes . . .180

VI.— Monastic State . . . . .190

VII. — Collections and Works of Canon Law . . . 197

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

STATE OF THE CHUUCH IN PARTICULAR COUNTRIES.

I. -The Church in French Gaul . . . .203

II.— The Church of Germany, from 888 to 1073 . . 218

III.— The Church in Italy .—The Pataria . . .231

IV. — The Church in England, Ireland, and Scotland . . 250



PERIOD THE FOURTH.

FROM POPE GREGORY VII TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PROTEST-
ANT SEPARATION FROM THE CHURCH, 1073 TO 1517.



CHAPTER THE FIRST.

EXTENSION OF THE CHURCH.

I. — Conversion of the Pomeranians. — Triumph of Christianity
amongst the Sclavonians in Germany and in the Isle of
Rugen. — Christianity in Finland and Livonia . . 272

II. — Introduction of Christianity into Prussia. — The German Orders

Prussia. — Attempt of the Lithuanians to convert the Moguls 280

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

HISTORY OF THE POPES FROM GREGORY VII TO THE DEATH OF CALIXTUS II.

I. — Gregoiy VII. — The Contest concerning Investitures . . 290

II. — Continuation. — Controversy amongst writers. — Victor III. —

Urban II.— Paschal II ... . 317

III. — Renewal of the Contest. — Henry V. against Paschal II. —

Gelasius II. — Calixtus 11— Concordat of Worms . . 334



HISTOKY OF THE CHUHCH.



PERIOD THE THIRD.

FROM THE SIXTH GENERAL COUNCIL TO GREGORY VII.

FROM THE YEAR 680 TO 1073.*



CHAPTER THE FIRST.



EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH : PROPAGATION
OF CHRISTIANITY.



Sect. I. — Germany : east France : friesland. —

ST. BONIFACE IN THURINGIA: HESSE: BAVARIA. —
CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS.f

In the preceding Period, we beheld Christianity intro-
duced into the south and west of Germany : in the

* The Byzantine Historians : Nicephorus, to 769 ; Theophanes, to
813; Constantine Porpliyrogenita, to 886; Genesius, from 813 to
886 ; Gregorius Monachus, to 948 ; Simeon Metaphrastes, to 967 ;
Leo Grammaticus, to 94'9 ; Cedrenus and Zonaras. Latins: Annales
Laurissensis (Loiseliani), 74'l-829; Annales Einhardi, 74' 1-829 ; An-
nales Fuldenses, 714-901 ; Bertiniani, 741-882, in the Monumenta
Germanise Hist. ed. Pertz, tom. i. Hannover, 1826. Eginhardi, Vita
Caroli Magni ; Theganus, de Gestis Ludovici Pii ; Astronomi, Vita
Ludovici P. in Bouquet, Rerum Gall, et Franc. Scriptores, tom. v. vi. ;
Analista Saxo, (741-1139) in Eccardi, Corp. Hist. tom. i. ; Reginonis,
Abb. Prumiens, Chronicon to 908, and continued to 967, in Pistorii
SS. edid. Struve ; Luitprandi, Episcopi Cremon. Hist. Rerum sue
tempore gestarura, (886-946) in Muratori SS. Ital. tom. ii. ; Ditmari,
Epis. Merseburg, Chronicon, (876-1028) ed. Wagner, Norirab.
1807, 4to.; Hermanni Contracti, Monachi Angiens, Chronicon, to
1054, in Ussermann, Monument, res Alemannicus illustrant, tom. i.
1790; Lamberti Schafnaburgensis, Chronicon, tom. 1077, in Pisto-
rius, tom. i. ; Mariani Scoti, Monachi Fuldens, Chronica to 1083, and
Sigeberti Gemblacensis, Chronicon, to 1112, in Pistorius.

f Vita S. Kiliani ; Aribonis, Vita S. Corbiniani ; Alcuini, Vita S.
VOL. III. . B



2 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

present, we shall see it penetrating by degrees into the
north and into the east, until, in the course of the
eighth century, it arrives on the banks of the Elbe ;
and, in the ninth and tenth, visits the distant tribes of
Scandinavia. Thus in this period is completed the
conversion of the Germanic nations, and for the fol-
lowing period was reserved only the conversion of the
tribes that dwelt between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea.
The commencement was among the East Franks, who
were then numbered amongst the Thuringians, and
were subject to the dominion of the Austrasian sove-
reigns. The Irishman Chilian, accompanied by a priest
named Coloman, and by a deacon named Totnan,
obtained, at Rome, in 686, from pope Conon, full
powders to labour in the conversion of these people,
amongst whom there were indeed a few Christian
families, the remnants of those who had been converted
by the Thuringians. Chilian baptized the duke Goz-
bert, who resided at the castle of Wurzburg, and many
of his subjects : but as he afterwards severely rebuked
his illustrious convert for his marriage with the widow
of his brother, he was slain, together with his compa-
nions, during the absence of the duke, at the instigation
of the adultress. Christianity continued to advance,
though slowly, under Hetan, the son of Gozbert.

About the same time, the Gospel was made known
to the then powerful Frieslanders by the Anglo-Saxons,
St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, and the monk Wigbert :
but more fruits were gathered in this land by their
countryman St. Willibrord, who had been educated in
Ireland, and who, in 692, went to Rome, to receive his
mission from the pope. He was consecrated by the
pontiff; and, upon his return from Rome, laboured
amongst the Frieslanders, who were subjected to the

Willibrordi ; Willibakli et Othlonis, Vita S. Bonifacii ; ^gilis, Vita
S. Sturmii; — all in Mabillon, Acta SS. O. S. Benedicti, torn. ii. iii. —
Bonifacii Epistolse, ed. Wiirdtwein, Mogunt. 1789, folio. For the
Saxons, Einhardi Annales, and the Poeta Saxo, in Pertz, toni. i. ;
Capitulatio de Partibus Saxoniie, in Baluzii Capit. Reguni Francorum



PERIOD THE THIRD. 3

Franks ; and under the protection of the Austrasian
major-domo Pepin, he founded at Wiltaburg (Ultra-
jectum) the metropolitan church of Utrecht. His
companion, Suidbert, preached at the same time in
West Friesland. Contemporary with these holy mis-
sionaries was Wulfram, who, in 712, came as a mes-
senger of salvation into the same country. He had
persuaded the prince Radbod to receive baptism ; but
when the prince had heard that his pagan ancestors
could not be in the kingdom of heaven, he suddenly
retired from the baptismal font. After the death of
Radbod, in 719? the Frieslanders became every day
more and more independant of the Franks ; and Willi-
brord, who had been carried by his zeal into Denmark,
was thereby enabled to labour more freely in their
conversion. He died in 739, after he had governed v"
his new Church, as bishop, for forty years.

But all preceding missionaries w ho had preached the
Gospel on the continent, w ere surpassed by the Anglo-
Saxon Winfrid. He was born at Kirton, in Wessex,
in the year 680 ; and by the extent and blessed effects
of his labours, obtained for himself the name of the
Apostle of Germany. Paganism was still spread over
a great portion of the south of Germany : in the central
provinces, it ruled alone. But the accounts of the
nature of this German idolatry, which have remained
to us, are few and defective. We know, however,
that these pagan tribes, together with their worship in
woods, under the sacred shade of trees, practised all
the rites of idolatry also in temples. Different deities
were honoured in different provinces ; but the worship
of Wodan, the father of kings, — of Thunar, the god of
thunder and of war, — of Hertha, the mother of the
earth, — and of Thuisco, the father of all, — was almost
universal. In woods and in sacred groves, — on the
banks of rivers and at fountains, — sacrifices of animals
and of men were offered. The future was explored by
the casting of lots, by the examination of the entrails
of victims, by the neighing of horses, or was learned
from the oracles of the revered prophetesses Wellada,

B 2



4 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Aurinia and Ganna. The priests, who formed no here-
ditary caste, were the chiefs of the people : they pre-
sided over all assemblies, — and, as the ministers of the
gods, they decided on life and death. In domestic
worship, the father of each family was priest.

Winfrid had already laboured in Friesland in 7 1 6,
when, having resolved to dedicate his whole life to the
conversion of idolaters, he journeyed to Rome in 718,
recommended to Gregory II by Daniel, bishop of Win-
chester, to obtain from his holiness power to preach
amongst the infidels. After a short time spent in
Hesse, he returned, after the death of Radbod, into
Friesland, where Willibrord wished to appoint him his
successor ; but as he had been destined by the pontiff
to preach principally in eastern Germany, he again, in
722, visited Hesse. His first labour here was to purify
Christianity from the many pagan rites with which it
had been mingled : he then founded a monastery at
Amoneburg, which was to be to him as a citadel of
faith, and a school for his clergy. After he had bap-
tized many thousands of the Hessians, he, in 723, again
went to Rome. He was consecrated bishop by the
pope, who, at his consecration, gave him the name of
Boniface : he at the same time took an oath to the
pope — a copy of which he wrote with his own hand,
and laid upon the tombs of the apostles — that he would
teach the pure Catholic faith, that he would preserve
ecclesiastical unity, that he would defend the authority
of the Holy See, and that he would not hold commu-
nion with bishops who acted against the ancient laws
of the Church. His was restricted to no particular
diocese. Provided with a copy of the canons, with
relics, and with letters of recommendation to Charles
M artel, to the bishops and nobles of France, to the
Thuringians and Saxons, Boniface returned into Hesse.
Under the protection of Charles Martel, without which
his personal safety could not have been ensured, amidst
the many opposing elements with which he had to
contend, he carried on the work of conversion with
rapidity and success. At Geismar, he cut down an



PERIOD THE THIRD.



aged oak, which was sacred to Thor, and had hitherto
been deemed inviolable, — from the wood of which he
built a chapel in honour of St. Peter. From 725 he
preached in Thuringia, defended by the nobles who
were dependant on Charles Martel : here also he had
to reform religion, which had been corrupted by an
admixture of heathenism. He built a cloister at Ordruf,
and now called to his assistance several fellow-labourers,
male and female, from England. The new pope, Gre-
gory III, by sending him the pallium, conferred upon
iiim the dignity of metropolitan, that he might, when
it should be expedient, consecrate other bishops.

In Bavaria, the Frank Corbinian, who had been sent
thither as bishop by Gregory II, laboured successfully
in the extirpation of the remains of idolatry ; and, in
718, founded a church at Freising. In 732, Boniface
arrived in this country, after he had founded the
churches of Frisslar, Amoneburg, and Erfurt. Aided
by the authority of Hugbert, the Bavarian duke, he
degraded some unworthy priests ; and when, in 739,
he had returned from his third journey to Rome, he
divided Bavaria, according to the plan which he had
before presented to Gregory II, and which was now
approved by the duke Odilo, into four dioceses — Salz-
burg, Ratisbon, Freising, and Passau : in these he
placed bishops, who, in 740, held a Bavarian synod.
The number of those whom Boniface had converted to
the faith, out of Bavaria, amounted, according to his
own account to the pope, to one hundred thousand.
For their government, he erected the sees of Eichstadt,
Wurzburg, and Buraburg in Hesse. These Churches
were endowed by Carlmann, the son of Charles Martel,
and governed by the Anglo-Saxon companions of Boni-
face. Wurzburg was held by Burchard, Eichstadt by
Wilibald, and Buraburg by Witta. About the same
time, Boniface held assemblies, at which several bishops
and nobles were present ; — two of these assemblies
were held at Salzburg : in 743, he convened the Synod
ofLiptina (Lestines, in Hennegan), at which was pre-
sented a long catalogue of pagan abuses, which the



6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

bishops, assisted by tlie nobles, resolved to destroy.
Amongst these abuses, were the sale of Christian slaves
to idolaters, — the burning or burying of the property,
the horses, slaves, and wives of the dead, — sacrifices
and feasts in honour of the dead, — the honour paid to
Mercury and Jupiter (Wodan and Thor), — phylacteries
and fillets, all kinds of augury and sorcery, — idols
formed of baked bread, — the drawing of magic lines
around their villages, — and many other similar rites of
superstition. Here also was adopted the well-known
formulas of faith and abjuration, by which the convert
renounced " Thunaer, Wodan, the Saxon Odin, and
all sorcerers, their associates."

In 744, Boniface and Sturm, a Bavarian, a worthy
disciple of his great master, founded the celebrated
cloister of Fulda, in the solitude of Buchwald, between
Thuringia and Hesse. Boniface had hitherto been
without a diocese ; but, in 745, when Gewilieb, bishop
of Metz, was deposed on account of a murder, he was
called by an assembly of the nation to govern that
Church, which was then raised to a metropolitan see :
the holy bishop would have preferred Cologne, that he
might be nearer to the Frieslanders. The pope Zachary,
in 748, confirmed the new metropolitan rank of the
Church of Mentz, and subjected to it the bishoprics of
Utrecht, Tongres, Cologne, Worms, and Spire, and
the newly converted provinces of Germany, with the
exception of Bavaria. The bishopric of Buraburg
ceased, after a short time, to exist, and Hesse was then
united with the diocese of Mentz. Cologne, at the
end of the century, was erected into an archiepiscopal
see, and extended its jurisdiction over Utrecht, as its
suffragan Church. He who, thirty years before, had
left the confines of Friesland, after fruitless labour, and
as a fugitive, was now an archbishop, the legate of the
supreme pontiff over Gaul (Austrasia and Neustria),
and the spiritual father of many nations. But his
whole life had been one unbroken series of combat and
of toil : demagogues and false teachers, such as Cle-
ment and Aldebert, opposed him in his career of merit,



PERIOD THE THIRD.



and more tlian once was the holy Boniface doomed to
experience that it was more difficult to reform turbu-
lent priests and bishops, than to convert the barbarous
pagans ; and yet, in his letter to pope Stephen II m
755, he informed the pope that he was then employed
n rebuilding churches, which had been destroyed more
than thirty "times by the infidels. Thus was Bom ace
supported by the popes, with whom he was m constant
correspondence, and whose decisions he sought and
followed in all difficulties,-alike great and revered as
a preacher of the faith, as a founder of new churches
and monasteries, and as the restorer of the deeply
fallen discipline of the Church of France. A martyr s
crown at length rewarded his toils. At an advanced
a^e, and after he had consecrated his disciple Lullus as
h?s successor at Mentz, he went again into Friesland,
where, when he had baptized thousands he was mur-
dered, together with his companions, by the pagans,
in the neilhbourhood of Dorcum. The disciples whom
he had formed, and in particular Sturm, Gregory the
abbot of Utrecht, and Burchard, bishop of Wurzburg,
had imbibed his spirit, and continued to labour m it.

But idolatry still triumphed in the north of Germany.
The powerful confederacy of the Saxons had hitherto
defeated every attempt at their conversion : the heralds
who had announced the faith to them were either slain,
as were the two Ewalds, or driven from their terri-
tories. The Saxons, one of the three chief nations of
the Germans, inhabited the country between the Baltic
Sea and the confines of Thuringia ^nd Hesse : to the
west, between the Ems and the Issel, dwelt the West-
phalians: between the Ems and the Weser were the
Engi ; and to the east were the Eastphalians bounded
by?he Elbe and the Trave, as far as Saale and Unstrut
Without cities and without kings, these people lived
divided into three classes-the nobles, the free men,
and the populace, under chosen leaders and judges :
their residences were huts and hovels. They oftered
human sacrifices to their Gods in great number,-tor
every tenth man of the prisoners taken m war, was



8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

reserved as a victim. In their hatred of the Christian
religion and of the Christian Franks, they ceased not
in their predatory incursions into the open territories
of their neighbours ; they destroyed all the churches
which they found on their march, and thus compelled
the Franks to wage against them a war of subjugation.
This, which was a religious war, was necessarily accom-
panied by the compulsory conversion of many of the
Saxons : their political constitution, with which pagan-
ism was most intricately blended, was destroyed ; but
they continued to be a hostile and a dangerous people,
who gladly profited by every calamity and commotion
of the Franks, to wreak a deadly revenge upon their
conquerors. The war between the Franks and the
Saxons had now lasted many years, when Charlemagne,
— who, besides the motive of extending and protecting
the Church, had the desire also of uniting, by the sub-
jugation of the Saxons, all the provinces of Germany
under his own dominion, — in 772, recommenced hosti-
lities, which he continued, without interruption, for
thirty years. At the very beginning of his campaign,
the pillars of Irmen, the sanctuary of the Saxons, were
destroyed : in "11^, many, yielding to the power of
Charles, were baptized ; but scarcely had he turned
his back, when the priests, the monks, and all the
Franks who remained, were driven from the country,
and the cross was thrown to the earth. To secure the
building of churches and the maintenance of the clergy
in the subdued provinces, the Saxons were compelled,
after 779, to pay the tithes of their possessions. This
they considered an intolerable oppression, and it served
only to enflame the more violently their hatred against
the foreign priests and their protector. It was in vain
that Alcuin, the friend of Charles, counselled him to
relieve them from this burden ; he imagined, that in
lands where he possessed nothing, churches and their
clergy could be supported only by tithes. In a new
insurrection in 782, the churches were destroyed, and
the ecclesiastics who could not escape were slain. But
the victorious arms of Charles again enforced sub-



PERIOD THE THIRD.



jection : the Saxon chieftains, Wittekind and Alboin,
were baptized in 7S3, at Attigny ; many of the nobles
followed their example, and the Christian priests were
now enabled to labour unmolested and effectually in
the conversion of the people. Partial insurrections in
793, occasioned chiefly by the oppressions of the army
of the Franks and of the tithes, induced Charles to
remove a portion of the inhabitants to other countries :
the Northalbingian Saxons, who were situate on the
remote banks of the Elbe, in the present Holstein, were
the last who continued the strife. At length Charles
consented, at the diet of Salz, in East France, that the
Saxons should be considered equal in rights and privi-
leges to the Franks, and that they should live according
to their own laws, upon the condition that they entirely
renounced idolatry, and contributed in the same man-
ner as the Franks to the support of the bishops and
clergy. The Saxons now suffered their children to be
baptized, and complied with the duties of the Church,
although many remained, in secret, still attached to
then- pagan ideas and pagan rites. The laws contained
m the Capitulatio cle partihis Saxonice, would prevent
them from returning again to idolatry, and would
ensure a respect, externally at least, for the preachers
of the Gospel. These laws were in part very severe.
The punishment of death was inflicted on the refusal of
baptism, on the heathen practice of burning the dead,
and on the violation of the days of fasting : only con-
fession, or the acceptance of penance, could save those
who had ofi'ended. Other pagan customs were punished
by fines : to render the churches more venerable, the
right of asylum was given to them. Between the years
780 and 814, the ecclesiastical division of Saxony was
completed ; the former missionary stations were con-
verted into firmly established bishoprics. The first
change was at Osnaburg, of which the first bishop was
Wiho, a disciple of St. Boniface. Paderborn, which
had been under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Wurz-
burg, received, as its bishop, in 795, the Saxon Ha-
thumar, a priest of Wurzburg. The Anglo-Saxon



10 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Willehad, a name that deserved well of religion in
Saxony, was the first bishop of Bremen : at Mime-
gardeford, (Munster) the Frieslander Ludger was con-
secrated bishop, in 802. The sees of Verden, Minden,
and Seligenstadt, (afterwards transferred to Halber-
stadt) were founded under Charlemagne ; and under
Lewis the Pious arose the celebrated cloister of New-
Corvey, and the church of Hildesheim.



SECTION II.



CHRISTIANITY IN THE NORTH OF EUROPE — IN DEN-
MARK, NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND ICELAND.*

The inhabitants of the Scandinavian North, that is, of
the Cimbrian and Scandinavian peninsulas, and of the
islands that lay between them, w ere originally a people
connected by language, religion and customs, with the
extensive family of the Germans. But the Swedes, the
Danes, and the Normans, continued for a long time to
exist as different nations, distinct from each other, in
small kingdoms or confederacies, and under kings,
whose power was confined within narrow limits. The
Gods that they adored were, Thor, the God of thunder,
represented with his hammer ; Odin, the father of Gods
and of men, to whom all the regal families of the north
traced their descent, the creator of the world ; and his
daughter Freya, the earth. After these deities they
revered the twelve divine Ases, the first priests, judges,

* Adarai Bremensis, Historia Ecclesiastica, (to 1076) ed. Fabri-
cius, Hamburg, 1706, fol. ; Remberti, Vita S. Anscharii, in Pertz
Monumenta, torn. ii. ; Saxonis Grammatici, Historia Danica, ed. Klotz,
Lipsiae, 1771) ^to. ; Kristni-Saga, that is, Historia Relig. Christianas
in Islandia introduc. Hafniae, 1778 ; Snorro Sturleson, Heimskringla
Saga, ed. Schcening, Hafniae, 1777, 5 vols, folio.

Miinter, Kirchengeschicte von Danemark und Norwegen, (Church
History of Denmark and Sweden) Leipzig, 1825 ; Claud. Oernhialm,
Historia Sueonum Gothorumque Ecclesiastica, Stockholm, 1689, 4to. ;
Finni Johannaei, Historia Eccles. Islandiae, Hafnige, 1772, 3 vols. 4to.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 11

and legislators amongst men. They believed the im-
mortality of the human soul ; great criminals were
punished after death in Nifiheim ; the inglorious dead
were doomed to languish in the dark halls of Hela,
whilst those who had fallen in battle were conducted to
Walhalla, where, hi the society of the Gods, they con-
tinued the occupations of their former lives, war and
drinking.

The Gods, in the beginning of their existence, had
fallen in combat with the powers of the deep (the rebel
powers of nature), and the world had been destroyed
in flames. A new earth then arose, upon which a new
generation of men was brought into existence, and lived
under the protection of the Gods and Ases, who returned
in part again to power. In the temples of the north,
which were not numerous, these Gods were represented
by figures, often of a colossal size. To these, sacrifices
of animals and of men were offered : the human victims
were chiefly criminals and captives, but sometimes, to
appease the Gods, free men and even kings were sacri-
ficed. Magic was practised to a great extent. The
priests and priestesses were often chosen from the most
noble families of the nation : some of them were revered
as incarnations of the Gods ; but not only they, the
kings and earls sometimes off'ered sacrifice, and in each
family the father acted as priest. The heathenish bap-
tism of children, and the hammer of Thor, which was
like to a cross, and with which food and drink were
signed, formed points of external similarity to the
Christian religion. Females were respected and pos-
sessed great influence ; polygamy was permitted, but
not frequently : concubines, however, were numerous.
The exposing, and even the murder of infants, was an
ordinary practice. The unhappy slaves were deprived
of all civil rights, and subjected to the capricious seve-
rity of their cruel masters. Revenge, even to blood,
was considered the most sacred of all duties, which
brought with it as necessary consequences, innumerable
and endless family feuds. Unconquerable obstinacy,
and a cool contempt of death, severity and cruelty to-



12 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

wards each other, were the strongest traits in the cha-
racter of the Scandinavian people, and were powerfully
increased by the religion of Odin. Death was courted
on the battle-field, and if not met, was too often found
in self-murder. The ambition to enter Walhalla with
treasures of wealth, impelled the Scandinavians forward
to plunder on land and to piracy on sea. Their expe-
ditions of plunder were so frequent iti the ninth cen-
tury, that France, Germany, and the British Islands,
were often laid waste beneath them. They gave the
nature of savages to the Normans, who now added the
traffic of human beings to their deeds of rapine. Hence
it will be seen, how great were the obstacles with
which Christianity had to contend, both in the pre-
vailing sentiments and customs of the people, and in
their deeply-rooted propensities to the idolatry of
Odin.

After the fruitless attempt of St. Willibrord in Jut-
land and in Schleswig, Willehad, who was afterwards
the first bishop of Bremen, preached in 780 to the
Dithmarsi : his companion, Atreban, was martyred in
782. The first Christian community in Heligoland was
founded by Ludger, afterwards bishop of Munster.
After the conquest of Saxony, the communications be-
tween the Franks and the Danes became more frequent ;
and in 822, Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims went, with the
monk Halitgar, as ambassador from the emperor and
as a preacher of the Gospel, to king Harold. This king
visited the emperor in 826, at Ingelheim, to implore his
assistance in war: he and his attendants were then
baptised, and upon his return to his native land he was
accompanied by the monk Anschar, who, in 823, began
to preach at Corvey on the Weser. Anschar and his
companion Autbert, erected a school at Hadeley for
redeemed captive youths, whom they employed as
assistants on their missions. But this happy beginning
was interrupted by the expulsion of Harold from his
kingdom in 828 : Autbert died in 829, and in 830
Anschar went into Sweden. The emperor Lewis car-
ried into execution a design of his father, by founding



PERIOD THE THIRD. 13

a new archbishopric at the point where Hamburg now
stands, as a centre for the missions of the north.
Anschar, althou,G:h only twenty-nine years of age, was
the first archbishop, and was with Ebbo, papal legate
for Denmark, Norway, and Sweden : but there was yet
in Northalbingia, in Jutland, and in the other parts of
the north, only few Christians, and Eric, the chief king
of Jutland, did all in his power to extirpate Christianity.
In 845 he destroyed Hamburg and scattered the flock,
part of which he led away into captivity, and part of
which he slew. But no evils could subdue the perse-
vering spirit of Anschar, although the loss of the clois-
ter at Turholt, which he had destined for a missionary
seminary, was now added to his other afflictions. In
580 his condition was improved by the union, confirmed
by pope Nicholas I, of the see of Bremen with Ham-
burg. As ambassador of the German king, he gained
the confidence of Eric ; he built a church at Schleswig,
and baptised many of the pagans. But the idolatrous
subjects of Eric rebelled against him, and in 854 he fell
fighting in battle against them. Christianity w^as again
oppressed, and the church at Hadeley was closed, until
Eric II shewed a more khidly feeling to the Christian
religion. Anschar then obtained for the Christians the
free exercise of their religion, and erected a church at
Ribe. In 865 this apostle of the northern nations died.
He had taught his disciples, whom he sent forth as
missionaries, to live by the labour of their own hands :
he was accustomed himself to weave nets, but as arch-
bishop, he observed strictly the rules of his order. He
redeemed many captives, and founded many hospitals
and cloisters ; he banished the traffic in slaves from
amongst the Northalbingians, and as he imposed the
severest restrictions upon himself, he was able to main-
tain many priests, and to make rich presents to pow-
erful heathens. He was in every respect one of the
greatest and most holy men of his time, and worthy to
be ranked with St. Patrick, St. Boniface, and St. Fran-
cis Xavier.

The successor of Anschar in the united churches of



14 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
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Hamburg and Bremen, was his disciple and biographer,
Rembert, who continued to labour with all the apostolic
spirit of his great prototype. But unhappy times suc-
ceeded. The Jutland king, Eric III, a bitter enemy of
the Christian name, in 880 destroyed the churches in
Northalbingia, and defeated the Saxons in a great
battle. From that time Germany also was doomed to
become the scene of Norman depredations : the ruins
of the churches and monasteries marked the march of
the invaders, and the barbarous massacre of many
ecclesiastics too plainly told their pagan hostihty to
Christianity. Gorm, the old king of Lithra in Zealand,
who became in 900 chieftain of the Danish tribes, be-
gan, in 915, to persecute the Christians. Hamburg
was for a third time laid waste: many of the clergy
suffered the most cruel tortures, whilst others saved
their lives by flight : the churches at Schleswig, Aarhus,
and Ribe, were reduced to ashes. But in 934, the
German king, Henry, restored Christianity, and South
Jutland became the dwelling-place of many Saxon
hermits. Unni, the archbishop of Hamburg, baptised
the king Frode, restored the churches, and preached
upon the islands. The long reign of Harold, from 941
to 991, was favourable to the cause of religion. The
archbishop, Adalbad, consecrated the first bishops for
Schleswig, Aarhus, and Ribe. Leofday, the bishop of
Ribe, was in a short time slain by the infidels. Harold
was conquered, in 972, by Otho I, and was baptised :
from that time his chief labour was to accelerate the
propagation of Christianity. His zeal, however, caused
a reaction of the still powerful party of infidels, headed
by his faithless son, Sweno Tueskiay. Palnatoke, the
founder of a republic of pirates at Jomsburg, on the
Sclavonian coast, which served also as a place of refuge
for the most violent of the infidels, slew Harold in 99 1 .
Still was paganism triumphant on the islands, although
a bishopric had been founded at Odense on Fuhnen, and
a church at Roschild, near the sacred grove of Lethra.
By the union of England, which had been conquered
by Sweno, with Denmark, the complete introduction of



PERIOD THE THIRD, 15

Christianity into the latter country was greatly facili-
tated. Canute the Great, who governed England and
Denmark from 1014 to 1035, to whom his dying father,
Sweno, earnestly recommended the cause of religion,
laboured much in its propagation. In 1026 he travelled
as a penitent pilgrim to Rome, where he founded an
hospital for Danes : he sent several English priests into
Denmark : he established the first cloisters in the
country, and promoted the erection of churches : he
gave a bishop to Zealand, and as Schonen had before
possessed a bishop, the whole of Denmark was now
divided under an ecclesiastical government ; but the
bishoprics founded by Sweno, of Lund in Schonen, and
of Borglum and Viborg in Jutland, were not united to
them before the year 1065. At the death of Canute, all
his Danish subjects were, externally at least, Christians.
The Frieslanders, on the coast of Schleswig, continued
in their idolatry as late as the twelfth century ; in North
Jutland, and in Schonen also, paganism still maintained
itself in part for a long time.

In Norway, as in Denmark, Christianity was intro-
duced by the kings. Hakon the Good, the son of king
Harold Harfagr, who first instituted the regal dignity
in his kingdom, had become, whilst the foster son of
the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstan, a most zealous Chris-
tian. He called into his kingdom some English priests,
and built several churches : but when, at an assembly
of the nation in 940, he proposed to the people the
introduction of Christianity, the multitude rose against
him, and menaced him with the threat of electing for
themselves another king. He was himself compelled
to eat of the flesh of a sacrificed horse, and to taste of
a drink which had been made sacred to Odin, Thor,
and Bragi. He at first endeavoured to deprive these
things of their pagan consecration, by making over
them the sign of the cross, which the Jarl Sigurd
shewed to the people as the hammer of Thor ; but this
was not permitted to him. The churches at More
were then destroyed ; the English priests were mur-
dered ; Hakon himself began to mingle pagan with



16 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Christian rites, and confessed upon his death-bed, i^but
with sincere repentance, that he had lived more like
an idolater than a Christian. Harold Grafeld, who
reigned from 963 to 967, sought to propagate Christi-
anity by violence ; but under Hakon Jarl, who had
offered his own son in sacrifice, idolatry was again
completely victorious. Hakon was indeed induced to
receive baptism at the court of Otho HI ; but from the
time of his return to his kingdom until the day of his
death, in 995, he ceased not to persecute Christianity
with the most deadly hate. But, on the other hand,
Olaf, who had embraced Christianity in England,
laboured with untiring zeal firmly to establish his reli-
gion : instruction and persuasion, presents and violent
compulsion, and even executions, were employed, to
effect his purpose. He broke down the strong oppo-
sition that was raised against him, particularly in his
northern provinces : he demonstrated to the people
the impotency of their idols, by breaking them in
pieces ; and at the time of his death, in 1000, when,
overpowered by his enemies, he plunged into the sea,
he had brought at least one-half of the Normans to
the knowledge of Christianity. The two Jarls, who
governed Norway as viceroys of the king of Denmark
and Sweden, granted freedom of religion to the Chris-
tians ; and the conversion of the country was com-
pleted by Olaf the Holy (1019-1033), a grand nephew
of Harold Harfagr, — a youthful prince, as brave as he
was magnanimous and zealous for religion. With the
assistance of English and German priests, the latter of
whom were sent to him by Unwan, archbishop of Bre-
men, who had been invested by the pope with metro-
political authority over Norway, the king instituted
the ecclesiastical government of his nation : he built
the church of St. Clement at Nidaros (Drontheim),
afterwards the most splendid monument of architecture
in the North ; he caused his subjects to swear to a
code of Christian laws, formed by the bishop Grinckel
and the priests of his court ; he everywhere established
schools, and did all in his power eflfectually to extirpate



PERIOD THE THIRD.



17



idolatry Although he declared that a compulsory cou-
version to the Christian faith could not be pleasnig to
God he sometimes exercised great severity aganist
obstinate infidels, and more particularly agamst apos-
tates The conversion of the people was greatly faci-
litated by an event which occurred at a numerous
assembly. At the command of Olaf, a colossal wooden
fi-ure of the God Thor was broken in pieces,--when
a number of rats, of mice, and of toads which had
hitherto subsisted on the food which had been offered
to the idol, ran from the dwellings which they had made
for themselves within it. Olaf fell in battle aganist a
party of his subjects who were still inclined to pagan-
ism and who had miited with the Danes agamst him.
He 'was honoured after his death as a saint, and his
tomb at Nidaros became a favourite resort of devout
pilo-rims. The four Norwegian sees— the archbishopric
of Nidaros, and the three bishoprics of Bergen, Ham-
mer, and Stavanger, formed themselves by degrees;
when the bishops, who had laboured as missionaries
without any distinct dioceses, settled in the principal

cities

In Sweden, although Christianity had been known
there at a more early period than in Norway, it began
to flourish later than in the other countries ot tne
North After the subjugation of the Finns, the country
was inhabited by two tribes,— by the Swedes in the
north and in the south by the Goths : amongst those
who dwelt upon the lake of Malar, were the sanctuary
of Sis;tuna, and Upsala, the metropolis of idolatry for
the whole of the Scandinavian North. Numerous
Christian captives, who had been carried into the coun-
try had awakened amongst the inhabitants a desire to
be made acquainted with their rehgion ; and an em-
bassy was therefore sent by them to Lewis the Pious,
to request of him to send to them preachers ot the
faith. Anschar followed this call in 830 : he remained
in the country one year, and in 853 returned to it
again By a decree of the assembly of the people, the
introduction of the new religion was submitted to the

VOL. III. ^



18 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

decision of an oracle of the Gods ; and as the answer
was favourable. Anschar received permission to erect a
church, and to call other ecclesiastics to his assistance.
But after his death, in 865, no missionary visited the
country for seventy years, if we except Adelwart, a
monk of Corvey, who was sent thither by the arch-
bishop Rembert. The first who again commenced the
work of conversion, was Unni, archbishop of Bremen,
who laboured for a short time in Birka. About the
year 1000, the Swedish king Olof received baptism
from Siegfried, an English priest, who, after Anschar,
might be called the Apostle of Sweden, to the con-
version of which he consecrated his whole life. Olof
would no longer be named the Upsala king, as by this
name he was designated, as chief of the pagan sacri-
fices : he henceforth took the title of king of the
Swedes. At Skara, in West Gothland, he founded the
first bishopric, and, in a short time, the see of Linko-
ping. It appears that the Christian faith was pro-
pagated for a long time only in this region, for the
heathens would grant to Olof only one province for the
exercise of the new religion : he selected West Goth-
land. In Upper Sweden, paganism still prevailed ;
but a decree of an assembly of the people declared the
practice of either religion to be in conformity with the
law. When the bishops Adelward of Skara, and Egino
of Lund, in 1063, prompted king Stenkil to destroy
the ancient temple of the idols at Upsala, he replied,
that such an attempt would cost them their lives, and
him his crown. Under the Goths, the destruction of
the idols met v»nth no opposition. During the civil
wars, which began in 1066, the Christians were for a
long time oppressed ; and it is narrated that, through
fear of the persecution, no bishop dared to visit Sweden.
Several English priests, who, at this period and some
years later, entered this country to preach the Gospel,
were nearly all crowned with the glory of martyrs.
When king Inge, the son of Stenkil, endeavoured to
induce the people to forsake idolatiy, and to receive
baptism, he was driven from his kingdom, and his



PERIOD THE THIRD. 19

cousin, the pagan Svend, was raised to the throne.
But after three years, Inge returned victorious : he
again established Christianity, — and, with the aid of
the Christian Danes, subdued the discontent of the
infidel Upper Swedes. Under king Swerker, ( 1 1 33-
1155) the first cloisters were founded by French
monks, who had been sent by St. Bernard ; and under
Eric (1155-1161), the successor of Swerker, Christi-
anity was firmly established in Upper Sweden. The
church of Upsal was now completed ; and Henry, the
apostle of the Finns, was its first bishop. In 1163,
this church was raised by the pope to the rank of
metropolitan, and it had for its suffragan churches the
bishoprics of Skara, Linkoping, Strengnas, Westeras, —
and later, Wexio and Abo.

Iceland was discovered in 861 by the Norwegians,
who peopled it in 8/0, and founded there a free state,
which, until the end of the thirteenth century, was the
chief seat of the north German education and lite-
rature. Tidings of Christianity had been announced
to the mhabitants in 981, by Friedric, a Saxon priest, —
but his labour was without fruit : no greater success
attended the preaching of the messengers of the faith,
SteflFner an Icelander, and Thaugbrand a Saxon, who
were sent by Olaf the son of Trygwe. But the close
connexion of Iceland with Norway increased by degrees
the numbers of its Christians ; and, in the year 1 000,
Christianity was introduced into the island, at the pro-
posal of the Lagmann Thorgeir, in such a manner that
all the Icelanders were baptized, the temples and idols
were destroyed, and public sacrifices abolished ; but
private sacrifices were still practised by some, and the
usages of eating the flesh of horses, and of exposing
children, were still continued, — the two last customs
on account of the superabundant population of this
unfruitful island. A deputation from Olaf the Holy,
in 1016, endeavoured to persuade the Lagmann Skepto
to prevent these revolting practices ; but time and
prudence were required. English, Irish, and Saxon
priests and bishops, without dioceses, laboured on the

c 2



20 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

island, until Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, in 1056,
consecrated Isleif first bishop of Scalholt.

The islands of Faro, which had also been colonized
by the Norwegians, received the faith from the chief-
tain Sigimund Brastesen, who had been converted in
Norway by Olaf the son of Trygwe, and who returned
to his native land with a priest : in 1 1 50, these islands
possessed a bishop, who was suffragan to the archbishop
of Nidaros. The same Olaf led to Christianity the
Norwegian inhabitants of the Orcades, and of the Shet-
land Islands ; — it was preserved by their connexion
with Scotland ; the series of the bishops of these islands
commenced in 1 136. In the Icelandic and Norwegian
colonies in Greenland, Christianity was introduced
without difficulty: in 1055, Adalbert, archbishop of
Bremen, sent Albert, as bishop, into Greenland.

Amongst the Scandinavians who formed settlements
in Christian countries, the Christian religion found an
easier access than amongst those who remained in
their native land. Their devotedness to paganism was
weakened, as it had before been in the wandering
tribes of the Germans, by their distance from the
sacred cities of their homes, and by the sight, in their
new territories, of a firmly-founded Church, and of a
well-regulated worship. Thus the Normans who esta-
blished themselves in Dublin, in 948, were soon con-
verted to Christianity. The many Danes who came
into England, were brought into the Church princi-
pally by the exertions of Canute the Great. The
mighty Norman chieftain Rollo, who, from the year
876, was the terror of France, pledged himself, at the
treaty of the Epte, in 912, to embrace the Christian
faith : he received in return, on the north-west of
France, the country between the Epte and the sea,
known afterwards as the dukedom of Normandy. The
greater part of his Normans were baptized with him :
he, the duke, who was now named Robert, wore his
white garments for seven days, and distinguished each
day by rich donatives to churches. The ruined churches
were rebuilt and enlarged ; cloisters were erected, and



PERIOD THE THIRD. 21

the population was increased by the arrival of other
Normans, and of numbers of the Franks. Thus, under
the no less wise than powerful reign of Robert, this
desolated land was made to rival the most fruitful pro-
vinces of France. Those who continued to come from
the North, embraced Christianity ; or if they perse-
vered in their idolatry, they were compelled to leave
the shore, as were the Danes who came to the assis-
tance of duke Richard I, and whom he caused to be
transported to Spain.



SECTION III.

INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY AMONGST THE
SOUTH-EASTERN SCLAVONIANS : AMONGST THE
MORAVIANS, BOHEMIANS, AND POLES ; AMONGST
THE SCLAVONIANS ON THE NORTH-EAST OF GER-
MANY, AND AMONGST THE RUSSIANS.*

In the east of Europe, from the Elbe to the Don, and
from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea, dwelt the tribes of
the great Sclavonian family, — a name which, after the
seventh centuiy, was employed as the generic dis-

* Anonymi (a priest of Salzburg, towards the end of ninth century),
de Conversione Bojariorum et Carentanorum, in Oefele, Script. Rerum
Boic. i. 280 ; and Kleinraayern's Nachrichten von Juvavia, Salzburg,
1 784-, folio, Appendix, p. 10; Vita Constantini (Cyrilli), by a Con-
temporary, in the Acta SS. Mart. ii. 19; Presbyteri Diocleatis (about
1161) Regnum Slavorum, in Schwandtner, Scriptor. Rerum Hun-
garic. iii. 474' ; Cosmas Pragensis (1125), Chronicon Bohemorum, in
Pelzel and Dobrowsky, Scriptor. Rerum Bohem. torn. i. Prague, 1784;
Vita S. Ludraillae (997) and Christanni de Scala, Vita S. Ludmill* et
Wenceslai, in Actis SS. Septembr. v. 825 ; Hemoldi, Presbyt. Bosov.
(1170) Chronica Slavorum, ed. Bangert, Lubecte, 1659, 4to. ; Martini
Galli et Vincentii Kadlubkonis, Historia Polonica, Gedan. 1749, fol. ;
Nestor's (1123) Annals, translated into German by Schlosser, Got-
tingen, 1802, 5 vols.

J. S. Assemani, Calendaria Ecclesiae Univ. Romte, 1750, torn. i.-v. ;
J. Dobrowsky, Cyrill und Method der Slaven Apostel, Prag, 1823;
the same, Miihrische Legende von Cyrill und Method, Prag, 1826;
Strahl's Gcschichte der Russischen Kirche, Halle, 1830.



22 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tinctive appellation of a people. In later times, they
took possession of the conntries that had been left
unpeopled by the great emigration of the Germans, on
the Elbe, the Oder, the Vistula, and on the middle
Danube. In the reign of Heraclius, they possessed
Illyricum, Istria, Friuli, Carnia, and Carinthia ; twice,
in 550 and in 746, they extended their incursions
into Greece, as far as the Peloponesus. The uniformity
in language, religion, and customs of these people,
bespeak their common origin. The Sclavonian doc-
trine of the Deity was dualistic. They had their white
and black, or good and evil Gods, whom they named
Belbog and Zernebog. A supreme God, the father of
all other Gods, was believed to exist ; and it is pro-
bable that the triple-headed Triglav, at Stettin and
Julin, was a representation of this imaginary God.
The universally honoured Swantewits, a four-headed
giant idol, was adored in the temple at Arcona, on the
island of Rugen ; Radegast, the God of war, was adored
at Rhetra ; and Perun, the God of thunder, was ho-
noured by the Russians and Moravians. The idols of
the Gods with many and different heads and faces,
were peculiar to the Sclavonians. Magic was a neces-
sary consequence of the belief of good and evil Gods.
The priests were, at least amongst some of the Scla-
vonians, greatly honoured, and possessed great influ-
ence : the chief priest at Arcona was the ruler of his
people. Human sacrifices were frequent. The respect
paid by the Germans to females, was unknown to the
Sclavonians. Amongst them, the wife was no more
than the servant of the man ; often was she doomed to
follow him in death, — to throw herself into the flames
which consumed his corpse. Mothers were at liberty
to murder their infant daughters.

The first of the Scandinavians who embraced the
Christian religion, were the Croatians, — who, in the
reign of the emperor Heraclius, emigrated from Poland
or Southern Russia, and settled on the lands between
the Adriatic, the Danube, and Save. Porga, the })rince
of this nation, requested the emperor Constantine Pago-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 23

natus to send Christian missionaries to instruct his people
in the faith : the emperor directed him to Rome ; and the
priests who were sent by the pope baptized, in 670, the
prince, and many of his people. The j)ontiff then took
their country under the immediate protection of the
Apostolic See, and obliged the natives to abstain from
rapine and predatory warfare. Croatian bishops are first
mentioned in the year 879. The Servians, who inha-
bited a part of the ancient Dacia, Dardania, Dalmatia,
and the sea-coast of Albania as far as Durazza, and
were subject to the power of Constantinople, were
induced by Heraclius to receive baptism, almost imme-
diately after they had taken possession of these coun-
tries. But in the year 827, they threw off all subjection
to the empire of the Greeks ; they expelled their Chris-
tian instructors, and restored idolatry, till the year
868, W'hen they submitted to the emperor Basil, and
again embraced Christianity.

The Carantani, who, between the years 612 and 630,
migrated into Carinthia, Carnia, and Steyermark, were
converted to Christianity during the eighth century, by
their communication with Bavaria and Salzburg, and
by their dependance on the power of Gaul. Their
chieftain Boruth had permitted his son Carost, and his
nephew Chetumar, to be educated in Bavaria in the
Christian religion. Both these young princes suc-
ceeded Boruth, after the year 762. At the request of
the latter, who had subjected himself and his people to
the church of Salzburg, Virgilius, the bishop of that
see, sent into Carinthia Modestus, a bishop, and several
priests, amongst whom was Majoran, a nephew of Che-
tumar. In 800, Arno, bishop of Salzburg, commis-
sioned the bishop Dietrich to labour in this country,
and amongst the neighbouring Sclavonians. In 810,
a contest arose between Arno, and Ursus, patriarch of
Aquileia, as to the jurisdiction over Carinthia ; but it
was terminated by Charlemagne, who decreed that the
river Drave should form the boundary of their res-
pective sees. Adalwin, archbishop of Salzburg, in 870,
subjected Carinthia, which had been hitherto governed



24 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

by regionary bishops, (episcopi regionarii, vicars)
to his own immediate jurisdiction.

The Sclavonians who inhabited Dacia, Dalmatia, and
Illyricum, w ere converted in part, first by Latin, and
later, in 870, by Greek missionaries, who were sent to
them by the emperor Basil ; about the same time also
were converted the Sclavonians who had penetrated
into Hellas and the Peloponesus. The Mainotes, who
dwelt in the rocky pass of Taygetes, and who were des-
cendants of the ancient Greeks, now at length resigned
their obstinate adherence to idolatry.

The Moravians, a Sclavonian tribe, who had entered
into the ancient territory of the Q,uadi about the year
534, and who derived their name from the river Marave,
were first made acquainted with Christianity by the
arrival amongst them of priests who had been sent by
Virgilius and Arno, bishops of Salzburg, at the com-
mand of Charlemagne, and by the preaching of Urolf,
bishop of Passau, who visited them at the beginning of
the ninth century. Urolf sent an account of his mis-
sion to the pope, who conferred upon him the arch-
bishopric of Laureacum, now restored in 824, and
attached to it four suffragan churches, two of which
were in Moravia : but either this design was never
carried into effect, or these bishoprics, as w^ell as the
metropolitan see, again soon fell away, — for, after the
death of Urolf, we hear no more of the archbishop of
Laureacum, but only of the bishop of Passau. During
the reign of Lewis the Pious, the Moravian princes
Maymar and Priwina had already embraced the faith,
when Ratislav obtained from the Greek emperor Michael,
Cyril (Constantine), and Methodius, the apostle of the
Chazari and Bulgarians. They arrived in Moravia in
861 ; for four years and a half, they laboured with the
most happy success. They introduced the alphabet of
the ancient Sclavonian, which Cyril had invented, and
the use of the liturgy in the Sclavonian language. Me-
thodius was called to Rome by pope Adrian II, in 868
(Cyril had retired into a monastery) ; and having been
consecrated bishop, he returned to the Sclavonians as



PERIOD THE THIRD. 26

metropolitan of Pannonia and Moravia, but without
any fixed see. He now translated tlie Scriptures into
the Sclavonian tongue. When Methodius found him-
self impeded in his labours by the political troubles in
Moravia, he retired into Pannonia, which was then
subject to Moravia : he took with him some priests of
the diocese of Salzburg, who, being displeased with
him and his Sclavonian liturgy, laid suspicions of his
orthodoxy before the pope. But Methodius defended
himself at Rome, in 8/9 ; and moreover obtained from
John VIII an approbation of the liturgy, although the
pontiff at first required that the sacrifice of the mass
should be offered in one of the languages of the Church
— the Greek or Latin. Methodius returned from Rome
in 880, with full jurisdiction over all the clergy in the
Moravian territories, and also over Wichin, bishop of
Neitra : but he did not long survive ; — he went again
to Rome, where he died. The Moravian prince Moy-
mar, who, on account of his wars with the Germans,
was unwilling to submit to any ecclesiastical juris-
diction springing from them, obtained from the pope
John IX a grant, by which Moravia, which comprised
Bohemia and a part of Pannonia, was henceforth to
form a Church independent of the Church of Germany,
w4th an archbishop and two suffragans. This act called
forth complaints, in the year 900, from the archbishops
of Mentz and Salzburg, and of their suffragans : it was
a violation, they maintained, of the rights of the bishop
of Passau. But in 908 the kingdom of Moravia ceased
to exist ; its lands were laid waste by the Hungarians.
Moravia proper became a province of Bohemia, and
for thirty years we find no trace of a Moravian bishop.
In 9/3, and again, after a short interruption, in 981,
Moravia was united to the bishopric of Prague, until
1062, when an episcopal see was founded at Olmutz.

From Moravia, Christianity gained an easy entrance
into its dependant province ot" Bohemia. The Bohe-
mian duke Borziewog was baptized in 8/0, at the court
of the Moravian prince Swatopluc, by Methodius : his
wife Ludwilla was soon after baptized, and was most



26 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

fervent in her belief and practice of Christianity. Their
two sons also became sincere Christians, and were
earnest in their labours to propagate the faith amongst
the Bohemians. The duke Spetignew exerted himself
in the work of conversion, to the time of his death in
915; but after the death of his brother Wratislaus, his
widow Drahomira did all in her power to eradicate
Christianity, which was yet only weakly rooted in the
land. In 921, she procured the murder of Ludmilla,
her virtuous mother-in-law : she banished the clergy,
and destroyed the churches. But a change was effected,
when, in 925, Winceslaus, the son of Wratislaus and
Drahomira, who had been educated in virtue by his
grandmother Ludwilla, ascended the throne. The
change, however, was of short duration. Winceslaus
was slain in 935, by his unnatural pagan brother Boles-
laus. His death was followed by a second persecution
of the Christians, and particularly of the clergy.*
Boleslaus was soon engaged in a bloody war with the
Germans : he was made tributary to Otho III, and em-
braced Christianity. His son Boleslaus II, surnamed
the Pious, obtained, in 972, from the bishop of Ratisbon,
to whose diocese Bohemia belonged, what his father
had in vain attempted — the erection of an episcopal see
at Prague. Pope John XIII confirmed the foundation
of the bishopric, but with the condition that the liturgy
should be performed in the Latin, and not in the Scla-
vonian language. But it is highly probable that in
Bohemia, the first clergy of which were German priests
from the diocese of Ratisbon, no Sclavonian rite, or at
most only a Greek-Sclavonian rite, had hitherto been
practised. It is certain, however, that the Benedictine
monks of the abbey of Sazaver, which was founded
about the year 1050, continued for a long time to em-
ploy a Latin-Sclavonian liturgy. Dithmar, a Saxon,
was the first bishop of Prague. He and his successor
Adalbert, who had been educated at Magdeburg, and
whose Bohemian name was Wogteich, received their

* See Butler's Lives of the Saints, September 28.



PERIOD THE THIRD, 2/

investiture from the German emperor, as the new bish-
opric had before formed a part of the German diocese
of Ratisbon. Adalbert found, when he entered Bohe-
mia in 983, many pagan customs still existing — poly-
gamy, incestuous marriages, arbitrary divorces, the
traffic of captives and of Christian slaves with Jews
and infidels, — and, what was worse perhaps, a dissolute
clergy. Twice did he leave his Church in despair, and
return to his monastery. He at length went as a mis-
sionary into Prussia, where, in 997, he was crowned
with martyrdom.

The name of Poles was applied, from the tenth cen-
tury, to the Sclavonian tribe of the Belocroatians,
who inhabited the countries since known by the appel-
lation of Poland the Less and Red Russia ; of those
who dwelt on the banks of the central Vistula, and of
the Masuri about Polotzk. When the Poles, whose
kingdoin extended to the Netze and Oder, and over
the present Silesia, had yielded to the feudal superiority
of the Germans, they must at the same time have been
made acquainted with Christianity. The Polish duke,
Miecislaus, who had been seven times married, but
was without children, espoused in 965, Dambrowka,
the daughter of the Bohemian duke, Boleslaus. Soon
after his nuptials he was converted to the faith, and
baptised by a Bohemian priest named Bohuwid. He
then immediately issued a command, that on a certain
Sunday in the year 967, all the idols in the country
should be broken in pieces and cast into the water.
We do not read that this compulsory act produced any
reaction from the paganism of Poland. Boleslaus
Chrobri (992-1025), the son of Miecislaus, exerted his
zeal to establish more firmly the Christian religion in
his land. The observance of the precepts of the Church
was enforced by the severest laws : the violation of the
ecclesiastical fast was punished by the extraction of the
oflFender's teeth. Bishoprics were founded at Breslaw
(in Smogrow till the year 1052), at Cracow^ and at
Colberg, and an archbishopric at Gnesen. The bishop-
ric of Posen was founded in 970, by Otho I, and sub-



28 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

jected to the metropolitan church of Magdeburg. Happy
for Poland, which was rent by internal divisions, was
the reign of Casimir I (1034-1058), whom his coun-
trymen called from the abbey of Cluny (or Braunweiler),
where he was then a monk, to place him on the throne.
He erected two Benedictine abbeys, one at Tgniec near
Cracow, and another at Leubus in Silesia. But his
wicked son, Boleslaus H, murdered, with his own hand,
the blessed Stanislaus, bishop of Cracow, whilst at the
altar, because he had presumed to reprove the vicious
habits of his sovereign. The royal assassin w^as excom-
municated by Gregory VII : he was compelled to leave
his kingdom, and died, in a state of madness, in 1081.

In the north east of Germany dwelt separate inde-
pendent tribes of Sclavonians, who, in the beginning of
the tenth century, were still pagans, and were in
unceasing hostilities with the Germans. Between the
Elbe and the Saale were the Sorbi, with whom were
connected the Daleminzians, in Misnia ; the Milzenians
inhabited the upper, and the Lusizians the lower Lu-
sazia. More to the north, and between the Elbe and
the Oder, were settled the Leutizians, or Wilzians :
beyond them, and extending to the Baltic, w^ere the
Polaberians near Rasseburg, the Obotrites in Mecklen-
burg, and the Wagrians around Aldenburg. The insa-
tiable thirst of the Sclavonians for rapine could not
allow them to remain for any length of time in peace
with their more powerful neighbours, the Germans;
and the Germans, it would seem, knew of no other
means of reducing them to subjection than the violent
introduction of Christianity. Oftentimes, therefore,
was the Christian religion made known to the Sclavo-
nians at the point of the sword, or when they had first
been made slaves : we cannot then wonder if it were
received with reluctance, or rejected as soon as an
opportunity of rejection was presented. The emperor
Otho founded one after another different bishoprics in
the subjected Sclavonian lands ; at Havelburg, in 946 ;
at Brandenburg, in 949 ; at Misnia, in 965 ; at Zeiz,
Merseburg, and Aldenburg, then named Stargard, in



PERIOD THE THIRD. 29

968. From the year 1066, Benno, bishop of Misiiia,
laboured much amongst the Sorbi, and obtained for
himself, by his zeal, the title of Apostle of the Sclavo-
nians. But the 01)otrites and Leutizians, under their
prince Mistewoi, persecuted Christianity in the year
983 : they slew the Christians at Aldenburg;, and in-
flicted a slow and cruel death upon no less than sixty
priests. The bishoprics of Havelburg and Brandenburg
existed now, for a long time, only in name. Gottes-
chalk, the grandson of Mistewoi, in 1045, united the
tribes of the Obotrites and Leutizians in one powerful
nation, and laboured with zeal to reestablish amongst
them the Christian religion. In addition to Aldenburg,
episcopal sees were erected in Mecklenburg and Rasse-
burg. But in 1066 another insurrection burst forth:
the pagans murdered Gotteschalk and the Christian
priests ; they destroyed the churches, and sacrificed the
liishop of Mecklenburg on the altar of their idol Rade-
gart, at Rhetra. The churches of Hamburg and
Schleswig were now again overrun by paganism, and
thus was Christianity for a second time extirpated from
these countries.

The Sclavonian tribes, which inhabited the central
provinces of the present Russia, bordered on the south
by the Chazari, and on the north by the Tschudich, or
Finnish tribes, were formed into a kingdom, in 862, by
the Norman Ruric, whom they had elected to be their
guide and ruler. The capital of their kingdom was first
Nowgorod, and afterwards Kiov, which w-as situated
more to the south. From Ruric and from his com-
panions in arms, the Russians (so this new-formed
people were named) soon acquired the Norman spirit of
enterprise and plunder. They appeared as early as the
year 867, and again in the years 907 and 941, on the
Black Sea before Constantinople. Their war and trea-
ties with the Byzantine empire first introduced them to
a knowledge of Christianity. Photius speaks in the
highest terms of the faith of the Russians. In the
beginning of the tenth century, Russia was enumerated
as the sixtieth archbishopric under the eparchs who



30 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

were dependant on the patriarch of Constantinople.
In 945 Kiov was a metropolitan see, and in 95/, Olga,
the widow of the chief prince Igor, was baptised in the
imperial city of the Greeks ; but in vain did she endea-
vour to win her son, the haughty Swatoslaw, to the
faith of Christ : the conversion of Russia was, there-
fore, reserved for her grandson, Wladimir. This prince,
who, in 980, became sole monarch of Russia, had
resolved to embrace Christianity, when his conver-
sion was proposed to him as a condition by the Greek
emperor, the hand of whose sister he sought in marriage.
He was baptised at Cherson in 988 : he immediately
commanded all the idols at Kiov to be destroyed, and
the image of Perun, the chief God of the Russians, to
be thrown into the Dnieper. His decree, that all the
inhabitants should appear on the banks of the same
river to receive baptism on the following day, was
obeyed without opposition. Greek priests were now
sent into the different cities ; churches and cloisters
were erected, and schools established. The Sclavonian
alphabet, invented by Cyril, was introduced, and the
original dialect of the Sclavonians was carefully pre-
served in the monasteries. Michael, a Syrian by birth,
was the first metropolitan of Russia. But easily as the
people thus, in appearance, yielded to the change of
religion, paganism was not entirely banished, particu-
larly amongst the tribes that were not of Sclavonian
descent, before the twelfth century. The founding of
new cities, which were exclusively Christian, tended
greatly to the establishment of the faith. The con-
nexion of the Grecian with the Russian Church opened
the way for the introduction into Russia of the arts and
literature of Greece. It was doubtless on account of
the similarity of the two Churches, that Nicetas hesi-
tated not to name the Russians the most Christian
people. In the eleventh century Kiov possessed no
less than four hundred churches, and had gained for
itself the title of the second Constantinople. In one of
its cloisters, the monk Nestor (1056-1111) wrote his
annals in the language of the country. But the entire



PERIOD THE THIRD. 31

spiritual and hierarchical dependauce of the Russian
Church upon the Church of the Greeks — the Russian
metropolitans were always confirmed and consecrated
by the patriarchs of Constantinople — involved it in the
melancholy schism of the latter. Hence the Russian
clergy always arrayed themselves at a distance, and in
hostility, against the many ameliorations of social life
which were effected in the west, and placed the strongest
barriers against the many improvements that might
have flowed in upon their country from the Catholic
states of western Europe.



SECTION IV.

CHRISTIANITY AMONGST THE AVARI, CHAZARI, AND

BULGARIANS. CONVERSION OF THE MAGYARl IN

HUNGARY. PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS IN

SPAIN. — CHRISTIANITY IN INTERIOR ASIA.*

The Avari were a Tartar, or Turan tribe, from a pro-
vince of central Asia. In the seventh and eighth cen-
turies they ruled from the banks of the Dneiper over
Urania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Hungary, Moravia and
Bohemia, as far as the Norgaw. So also were the
Chazari, who in the ninth century dwelt between the
Dneiper and the Don; and the Bulgarians, who, in 679,
seized the regions between the Niester and the Danube,
and „from the Danube to Hamus. From them the
country derived its name. The western Avari were

* For the Bulgarians : The Epistles of Photius, in Canisius — Basnage,
torn. ii. pt. '2 ; and in Photii Epistolae, ed. Montacutius, Londini,
1651, fol.; The Writings of the Poj)es Nicholas 1, Adrian II, and
John VIII, in Harduin, torn. v. vi. — For the Hungarians: Chartuitii
(an Hungarian bishop, about 1095) Vita S. Stephani, in Schwandtner,
Script. Rerum Hungaric. torn, i.; Joh.de Tliurocz, Chronic. Hun-
gari, ibid. ; Wion, Vita S. Gerardi, in Katona Hist. Reguni Hungaric.
torn. i. ii. — On Spain : Eulogii Cordubens, Memoriale Sanctorum ;
Apologeticus SS. Martyruni ; Adhortatio ad Martyriuni ; Epistohu in

Bibliotheca PP. Lugdun. torn, xv On Asia : Asseniani, Biblioth.

Orientalis, torn. ii. iii.



32 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

compelled, by the victorious Charlemagne, to receive,
or rather to permit Christianity to be introduced,
amongst them. Three of their chiefs, with their fol-
iQwers, were baptised, and in 798 Charles intrusted the
churches of the conquered Avari to Arno, bishop of
Salzburg. Those of the northern Pannonia were sub-
jected to Urolf, bishop of Passau. But Christianity
had struck only weak roots in the land of the Avari.
The people themselves lost their existence as a nation
in the ninth century, and disappeared before the power
of the SclavonianSj Bulgarians, and Margyari. The
Gospel was first made known to the Chazari by the
Greek Cyril, about the year 850, but time was required
before it could entirely expel the religion of Muhammed.
Christianity had been propagated amongst the Bulga-
rians, who dwelt along the banks of the Danube, by
the Christians with whom they were mingled, when the
emperor Michael, at the request of the Bulgarian prince,
Bogor, sent to them, about the year 863, the monk
Methodius. This holy man exhibited to the prince a
picture of the last judgment, when Bogor, asking if
such a scene should in reality occur, and being told by
Methodius that all men should one day appear before
the great judge there represented, instantly laid aside
his martial attire to be instructed in the religion of
Christ. He w^as soon called to repress a rebellion of
his pagan subjects, whom after their defeat he led to
the waters of baptism. He then sent embassies to the
pope Nicholas and to the emperor Lewis H, praying
that bishops and priests might be sent to confirm his
people in their faith, and to request of the pontiff that
a metropolitan of the Bulgarian nation might be esta-
blished at Justiniana Prima. But a change soon came
over his sentiments. At first he would not permit any
priests but such as had come from Rome to preach to
his subjects, yet when the archbishop Silvester, who
had been appointed by Adrian H, arrived in Bulgaria,
he was sent back by Bogor, who obtained another
metropolitan from Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople,
even in opposition to all the remonstrances of the sove-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 33
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reii^u pontiff. From that period Bulgariji also took
part in the Grecian schism, although in the following
century, about 925, the Bulgarian archbisho]), with the
consent of the emperor Romanus Lecapenus, declared
his province independant of the patriarchate of Con-
stantinople.

The Magyari, or Hungarians, who passed from Asia
in the year 889, over the Carpathian mountains into
the ancient Pannonia, the modern Hungary, are of un-
known origin. They have been traced by different
historians to Finnish, Mongol, and Turkish tribes.
Their religion was dualistic, and the title of their evil
genius (Armanyos, Ahriman), bespeaks the Persian
descent of the people, or at least of their religion.
Sacrifices, particularly of white horses, were offered to
their deities, near fountains, in valleys, and on moun-
tains. Christianity first penetrated amongst them from
Constantinople, about the year 950. Two chieftains,
who had been baptised at Constantinople, returned to
their native country with the monk Hierotheus, who
had been ordained bishop of Hungary. In a short
time his success was great. Sarolta, a daughter of one
of the chieftains, was espoused to the duke Geisa (9/2-
997), and laboured much to propagate and confirm the
faith. Geisa himself was baptised, but he continued to
practise heathen rites together with the duties of
Christianity. It appeared that the Church of Hungary
was destined to stand in a relation with Greece, similar
to that in which the Church of Russia liad been before
placed ; but the extensive labours of western mission-
aries, tlie connexion of Geisa with the emperor Otho
III, with princes of Germany, and the Christian cap-
tives who had been carried away from countries of the
w est, and who in number almost equalled their masters,
effected a closer union betw^een Hungary and the
Western Church. Piligrinus, bishop of Passau, in his
epistle to the Roman pontiff in 9/4, related, that the
priests who had been sent by him into Hungary had
already baptised more than five thousand of the inhabi-
tants, and that the Christians (the Christian slaves

VOL. III. D



34 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

being included) far exceeded the number of the infidels.
The conversion of the country was greatly accelerated
by the Germans, who at the desire of Geisa, emigrated
into his country, and finally settled there. But in 99/
Geisa was succeeded by his great and holy son St. Ste-
phen, the legislator and benefactor of his native land,
the most noble of the princes of the middle ages, whose
many and exalted virtues have entitled him to rank
with Alfred of England, and with Lewis IX of France.
In the very commencement of his reign he was com-
pelled to take the field against his pagan subjects,
whose hatred against the favoured Christian foreigners
drove them to rebellion. The number of his faithful
followers was few, he was therefore necessitated to
invoke the aid of the princes of Germany. The first
care of Stephen in the establishment of religion, was to
erect schools for the education of priests : he founded
also, besides the monastery on Mount Panon, four
abbeys of Benedictines. He divided the country into
eleven dioceses : — on the right bank of the Danube the
archbishopric of Gran, and the bishoprics of Raab,
Wesprim, and Funfkirchen ; between the Danube and
the Theiss, Bacs, Colveza, Erlaw, and Wassen ; on the
opposite bank of the Theiss, Esanad and Grosswardein ;
in Siebenburgen, Weissenburg. Ecclesiastics were in-
vited by the holy prince from Germany and Bohemia.
Every ten villages were to form a Church, and all were
to pay tithes. To encourage a spirit of pilgrimage,
and thereby a communication with other Christian
nations, Stephen endowed cloister hospitals for Hunga-
rians at Ravenna, Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.
Pope Silvester II, to acknowledge the gratitude of the
apostolic see for his great zeal and labours, and to con-
firm the constitution of the Hungarian Church, sent an
embassy to Stephen. The pontiff conferred upon him
at the same time the title of king, granted him most
extensive powers in ecclesiastical affairs, and conse-
crated the monk Dominions as first metropolitan of
all Hungary.

After the death of St. Stephen paganism made a



PERIOD THE THIRD. 35

violent and dreadful stnii2;gle to regain its lost ascen-
dancy. The insurgent infidels deprived Peter, the
nephew of St. Stephen, of his sight and of his crown,
and in 1016 called from Russia, Andrew, a member of
the tribe of Arpad, whom they raised to the throne,
but obliged him to consent to the reestablishment of
idolatry. They began again to eat horse-flesh, and to
practise many abominations : bands of marauders de-
stroyed the churches, and slew the bishops, the priests,
and even the Christian laity. Many were the martyrs
w4io sealed their faith with their blood : but as soon as
the king found himself of sufficient strength to act, he
decreed that all his pagan subjects should abandon
their infidelity, nnder pain of immediate death. Again
the adherents to paganism endeavoured to resist. At
the first assembly of the nation which king Bela con-
voked in 1061, they arrogantly demanded permission
to live according to the customs of their ancestors ; to
strangle the bishops and the collectors of the tithes, to
destroy the churches and break in pieces the bells.
But a bold attempt made Bela master of the rebels :
their leaders were executed, and thus was paganism
banished for a second time from the land, externally at
least ; for it continued long to be cherished in the minds
and hearts of many.

The Hungarian bishops were nominated by the king,
and were, through the whole of the eleventh century,
for the most part foreigners, as was indeed the majority
of the inhabitants. Sclavonians, Magyari, Cumans,
Italians, and Germans, were here to be found com-
mingled indiscriminately together. To the eleven
dioceses established by St. Stephen, a twelfth was added
by St. Ladislaus, the bishopric of Agram (Zagrab), in
the recently acquired Croatia. The bishops, the abbots
of the fifteen Benedictine cloisters, and the deans of
chapters, formed (and the extent of their ecclesiastical
possession would have given them this rank) the first
state in the kingdom. The clergy were bound by a
law to employ the Latin language in their daily inter-
course with each other, and Latin became, in a short

D 2



36 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

time, the language of the court and of the halls of jus-
tice. That part of the book of the laws of St. Stephen
which treats of ecclesiastical affairs, was drawn from
the ancient canons, from the capitularies of the French
kings, and from the decrees of the councils of Mentz
from 847 to 888.

The West Gothic kingdom of the Pyrenean peninsula
was destroyed in 711 by an invasion of Arabs, who had
been called over from Africa by one of two contending
parties. The victory of the Muhammedans at Xeres de
la Frontera sealed the fate of Spain. In a short time
the Arabs overran the greater part of the country, and
it was only in the mountain fortresses of Gallicia, Biscay,
and Asturia, that the Christians could live in peace.
The Christians who were subject to the new caliphat
were compelled to pay a heavy tribute, but they en-
joyed many liberties : they were governed by their
own laws ; they were called to their churches, even in
Cordova, the capital of the Muhammedan kingdom, by
the sound of bells ; they continued to live under their
ancient ecclesiastical government of twenty-nine bishops
and three metropolitans. It was, however, natural
that the more zealous amongst the Christians should,
either accidentally, or when interrogated by the Mos-
lems, express their abhorrence of the religion of
Muhammed, whom they could designate by no other
appellation than by that of a false prophet. This pro-
voked the violent persecutions which burst forth under
Abderrahman II, Muhammed I, and Abderrahman III,
between the years 850 and 960. The effect of the first
executions was, that many deemed silence to be a
denial of their faith, and these, even uninterrogated,
were loud and vehement in their condemnation of
Muhammedanism. Children, moreover, that sprung
from the mixed marriages of Christians with infidels,
generally gave the preference to the religion of their
Christian parent, and hence youthful Christian virgins
were oftentimes barbarously tortured and cruelly exe-
cuted. In the first years of the persecution, 850 and
851, torrents of blood, the blood of priests, monks and



PERIOD THE THIRD. 37

laics, flowed over the land, and more copiously than
elsewhere, in Cordova, the seat of the Moorish power.
An edict of 852 decreed, that any one who sliould pre-
sume to utter a word against the religion of Muham-
med should be punished with instant death. As in the
persecutions of the Roman emperors, so in these, the
fear of tortures caused many Christians to fall from
their faith ; others accused the martyrs of an unneces-
sary and imprudent temerity, in exposing themselves to
torments. At the command of Abderrahman, the
bishops of his kingdom met in council, and the result
of their deliberations was a decree, expressed in ambi-
guous and equivocal language, forbidding the Christians
to seek death by a declaration of their faith, unless
they were judicially cited before their judges. Ab-
derrahman commanded also, that the bodies of those
who had suffered should be burnt, that their friends
might be deprived of the consolation of preserving their
relics. His son, Muhammed I, ordered the destruction
of all the churches in his kingdom. The execution of
the Christians still continued at Cordova, and the holy
Eulogius, archbishop elect of Toledo, — who has described
as an eye-witness the sufferings of the martyrs, who
encouraged many to persevere, and defended their
cause against their weaker brethren, — was himself glori-
fied with a martyr's crown in 859.

In the north of Spain the Christians, who were at
first despised by the Moors, having defended themselves
by many a bloody combat against their foes, began to
form for themselves an independent nationality. A new
ardour for the cause of Christianity, and an increased
detestation of Muhammedanism, grew within their souls,
and imparted to the war the character of a war of reli-
gion. In the north-west, the provinces of Asturia,
Gallicia, and Leon, w^ere united, and formed the king-
dom of Leon. Some years later Catalonia asserted its
independance ; the kingdom of Navarre was also
formed, and finally, in 1035, the kingdom of Arragon.

After the successive reconquest of different pro-
vinces, the ancient bishoprics were again established.



38 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

or new ones erected ; so that at the close of the eleventh
century, the Cln'istian kingdoms of the north of Spain
were in possession of twenty- three bishoprics. The
synods which were now held were, as they had been in
the times of the West Goths, assemblies of ecclesiastics
and of the temporal nobles.

In the interior of Asia, Christianity advanced rapidly
during this period, through the exertions of the Nesto-
rians, but its existence there was only transitory. At
Maru and Hara, the two principal cities of Corasan,
the ancient Hircania, and also at Sarmarcand, there
had been bishops since the fifth century. Towards the
end of the eighth century, the Nestorian patriarch sent
missionaries to the inhabitants of the shores of the
Caspian Sea, the Geli, the Dailamiti, and the Tabor-
stani, who had fallen from the Christian faith. In the
ninth century there were two bishoprics amongst these
Tartar tribes. Even amongst the people who dwelt on
the northern confines of China, there were Christian
communities in the eighth century. In the year 990
the whole of the Tartar tribe of the Cerithi, which
inhabited the country nearest to China, followed the
example of its king in embracing the faith of Christ.
Many of the successors of this prince bore the name of
John, with the title of priest, and from this circum-
stance was derived the report, which was spread in the
west during the following centuries, that there was
in the east a mighty kingdom, of which a priest named
John was king. Of the extensive propagation of the
Christian religion in central Asia to the boundaries of
China, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we may
assure ourselves from the fact, that in the catalogue of
Nestorian bishops, we find five metropolitans, whose
provinces were within Great Tartary, and who dwelt at
Carchar, Novocat, Cauda, Turkestan, and Tanguth.



PERIOD Til!-: THIRD. 30



CHAPTER THE SECOND.



HISTORY OF THE I1P:RES1E8, DOGMATICAL
CONTESTS, AND SCHISMS.



1. THE PAULICIANS.*



Through the whole course of Ecclesiastical History,
down to the latest period of the Middle Ages, we may
trace au unbroken succession of Gnostic-Manichean
doctrines and sects. Together with the Manichees, the
Marcionites also appear to have maintained themselves
for a long time, and particularly hi Syria. Theodoret
found them in great numbers in his diocese. The
Paulicians were, it is more than probable, a new forma-
tion of these sects : they derived their name, not from
their founder, or from their more early chiefs — the
brothers Paul and John, sons of the Manichean woman
Callinche— but rather from the apostle St. Paul, whose
doctrines they pretended to follow in opposition to the
doctrines of the other apostles, especially of St. Peter.
From the disciples of St. Paul they borrowed the names
of their superiors, and designated their communities
after the Churches which he had either planted or regu-
lated.

The founder of the sect was a Gnostic— probably a
Marciouite Gnostic — a Syrian named Constantine (Sil-
vanus), who, between the years 657 and 684, dissemi-
nated his doctrines with great success, from Kibossa in



* Photius, adversus Paulianistas, sc. recentiores Manichaaos, lib. iy.
in Wolfii Anecdotis Grajcis, torn. i. ; Petri Siculi (about 870) Hi.^toria
Maniclucoruin, ed. Matth. Rader, Ingolst. 1604- ; Johannis Ozniensis,
Armenioruiu Catholici (about 718) Oratio contra Pauiicianos, in tjus
0pp. e<l. Aucher, Venet. 18fM-; Ponnula Abjurationis Athinganorum,
in Bandini Anecdotis Gra'cis, torn. ii. 1763.



40 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Armenia. Simeon, an officer who was sent by the
emperor, caused him to be apprehended and stoned to
deatli by his own disciples ; but in a short time Simeon
himself passed over to the sect, and became its chief,
under the name of Titus. Internal dissensions revealed
to the emperor Justinian II, in 690, that the sect still
continued to exist. He condemned all those who
should persevere in it to death by fire. Simeon, and
many of his adherents, sufiPered under this severe
decree. The Armenian Paul, who with his two sons,
Gegnasius and Theodoras, had fled from his country,
was constituted the head of his party at Episparis, in
the Armenian province of Phanaroea. After his death
a schism between his sons divided the entire sect ;
Gegnasius claimed the superiority, because the gifts of
the Spirit had passed from his father to him : his bro-
ther asserted that they had been imparted to him
immediately from heaven. Gegnasius, in /I/, gave to
his doctrines an appearance of orthodoxy, by the equi-
vocal expressions in which he clothed them before the
patriarch of Constantinople : he then received letters of
protection from the emperor, and placed his residence
in the village of Mananalis, in the dominions of the
Caliphat. His death also was followed by a schism
between his son Zacharias and his foster-son Joseph,
who split the sect into two violent factions. The adhe-
rents of the former perished, nearly all, beneath the
swords of the Saracens, but Joseph propagated his
party from Antioch in Pisidia into Asia Minor. He
was followed, in 770, by Baanes, who, on account of
his shameless vices, w^as named the Filthy (o Qv-n-a^o^).
The sect had then fallen into so public and deep a
degradation of morals, that in a short time it must have
destroyed itself, or have lost its attractions, had not
Sergius, a man of exalted talent in every respect, given
a new impulse to the party that had attached itself to
him, in opposition to those w^ho remained with Baanes.
The name of Tychicus which he now assumed, gave to
him, in the language of metempsychosis, the dignity of
the disciple of St. Paul, of the same name, who had ap-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 41

peared, he said, in liis person. He suffered himself to
be honoured by his devoted followers, as the Paraclete :
he called himself a burning and a shinini^ light, the
good shepherd, the bearer of the body of Christ, which
was to remain with his followers all days, to the end of
the world : he boasted that he had journeyed from the
east to the west, and from the north to the south, to
make known to men the gospel of Christ. During the
long period in which he presided over his party, the
external affairs of the Paulicians assumed a change :
they acquired many adherents even in Constantinople.
The emperor Nicephorus favoured them about the year
810, and Michael I, when he deliberated in council on
the punishments to be inflicted upon them, found his
advisers divided in opinion. Some maintained, that in
affairs of religion punishment of death ought not to be
inflicted ; whilst others, amongst whom was the pa-
triarch, argued that the Paulicians were dangerous
seducers, who poisoned whole provinces with their
doctrines, and should therefore, if need required it, be
extirpated by the sword. Michael contented himself
with the execution of a few. His successor, Leo, sent
amongst them two judges, with powers to behead those
who were more obstinate ; but the judges were mur-
dered by the Paulicians, who now, contrary indeed to
the representations of Sergius, made frequent incursions
from Armenia, which the Saracens had subjugated, and
carried away on their return crowds of captives. When
Sergius was slain in 835, his confidential disciples
undertook the government of the sect, wdiicli had now
become numerous in Asia Minor. At Constantinople,
under Theodora, the resolve was taken either to convert
or to destroy them. A hundred thousand men must
then have been hanged, beheaded, or drowned. Car-
beas, one of the sect, with five thousand Paulicians,
found protection in the dominions of the Caliphs.
From their fortresses, Argeum, Tephrica, and Amara,
they were the scourge of the Asiatic provinces. They
received all malefactors who fled to them for asylum,
and strengthened their power by the union of the



42 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Baanites and Sergiotes. After a contest, which was
prolonged by the weakness of the Byzantine govern-
ment, they were finally subdued, in 873, by the emperor
Basil. From that time their power was broken for
ever. The emperor John Zimisces transplanted the
remnant of the sect, in 969, into the country of Philip-
popolis in Thrace. Constantine Copronymus had acted
in a similar manner two hundred years before. Alexius
Comnenus entered into controversy with them in 1084,
and asserted that he converted many.

The Paulicians distinguished, according to the dualist
doctrines of the Manichees, the good God, the Lord of
Heaven and author of the world of spirits, whom alone
they adored, from the evil God, the Demiurgos, who
had sprung from fire and from darkness, the creator of
this world and of the human body, of whom the Old
Testament taught and whom Catholic Christians adored.
According to their doctrines, the human soul, which
was similar in essence to the highest God, was in the
body the seat of all evil passions, as in an impure
prison. The fall of the first man into sin they declared
to be a blessing, probably because therein they ima-
gined that they beheld an act of rebellion against the
law of the Demiurgos, occasioned by a revelation from
the supreme God. The Redeemer, whose mission,
according to the Paulician idea, had no other object
than to commence the process of the purification of the
soul, w^hich was held captive and defiled by matter,
descended from the heaven of the good God, invested
with a celestial body, and passed from Mary (who
did not remain a virgin, and belonged scarcely to
the good, much less to the holy portion of men) as
from a channel. They could not acknowledge the
sufferings of Christ to be anything real, and could not
therefore attribute any efficacy to them. The cross
had no reference to him, only as far as that when
praying and blessing, he extended his arms in the form
of a cross ; to honour this sign of malediction was
therefore an abomination, and yet, in the time of sick-
ness, they w^ere guilty of superstition in their use of it.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 43

The sacraments, even baptism and the eucharist, were
rejected by them, in their dekision that matter was the
seat of evil. They taught that Christ did not institute
baptism by water, for he called himself the living
water ; that at his last supper he did not give to his
disciples bread and wine, but that the words which he
spoke to them were figuratively expressive of those
elements. They, of course, condemned the entire
system of the constitution of the Church, the priest-
hood, and all ecclesiastical ceremonies. With the Old
Testament, they rejected also the Acts of the Apostles
and the Catholic Epistles. They w^ere violent in their
hatred of the apostle St. Peter, whom they declared to
be a thief and a robber, and a falsifier of the word of
God. They named themselves Christians, the Catholics,
Romans : their places of worship were not denominated
churches, but prayer-stations (Tr^oaev^m). They ho-
noured their founder, and his immediate successors, as
prophets and apostles, and the letters of Sergius they
reverenced as inspired. To misrepresent or to deny
their belief, to conceal it beneath expressions of double
signification, to join in the w'orship, and even to receive
the sacraments of the Catholic Church, they considered
justifiable if circumstances should so require. That in
the nocturnal assemblies of the Paulicians, as of the
more ancient Gnostics, the greatest abominations were
practised, we learn both from Greek and Armenian his-
torians, whose narratives are wholly independent of
each other. The only question can be, whether this
imputation can apply to the entire body, or to only a
part of the sect. Sergius laboured both to repress
and to conceal these shameful excesses. After this, we
can hardly wonder at the severity of the Greek empe-
rors against them.

About the year 840, there was formed in Armenia a
sect which sprung from the Paulicians. Its founder
was a man named Sembat, and his followers were
named Thondracites, from Thondrac, the city in which
they first appeared. Together with the sacniments,
they repudiated all faith in the immortality of the soul.



44 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

and in the providence of God. Notwithstanding the
severe measures that were adopted against them, they
continued, under a succession of nine chiefs, as late as
the eleventh century. Contemporary with the Pauli-
cians in the Byzantine empire, we find named also the
Athingans, a sect which, at one period, was widely
spread. They were considered as a continuation of
the old Melchisedechites or Theodotians, as they taught
that Melchisedech was the great i)ower of God, —
greater, indeed, than Christ, whose father and God he
was. They observed the sabbath, and rejected bap-
tism ; and gave themselves up to the practice of incan-
tations and astrology. They received their name from
the anxiety with which they avoided all connexion with
any other creed : they would have considered them-
selves to have thereby contracted a defilement^ from
which purification by water was necessary.

II. THE ICONOCLASTS IN THE EAST.*

During the great controversies on the Trinity, and
on the mutual relations of the two natures in Christ,
it had been made evident that, in the East, even the
people participated deeply in the speculative questions
which required in those who treated them the greatest
learning and penetration of mind. Had any external
subject, a subject which came every day under their
observation, formed the matter of dispute, its effect
upon the mass of the people would have been great.



* The Chronicle of Theophanes, and the Breviarium of the Patriarch
Nieephorus (died in 828) ; Three Epistles of tlie Patriarch Germanus,
in the Acts of the Second Council of Nice, Hardouin. torn. iv. ; Epis-
tles of Gregory II, in Hardouin, torn. iv. ; The Acts of the Synod of
754, with those of the Nicene Synod ; Joannis Damasceni Orationes
de Imaginibus, in 0pp. ed. Le Qnien, i. 305 ; Acta Stephani in Ana-
lect. Graecis, Paris, 1688, ^to. 396; Vita Tarasii, in Actis SS. Febru-
arii III, 576 ; Vita S. Nicephori, ib. Martii IT, 704 ; Vita Nicetre, ib.
April I, 261 ; Vita Theophanis, ib. Martii II, 218; Theodori Studitae
Epistola; et Opera Dogmatica, cum ejus vita, in 0pp. Sismondi, torn. v.
Paris, 1696, fol. ; Nicolai Studitte Vita, in Actis SS. Febr. I, 538 ;
The Acts of the Synod of 84-2, in Mansi, torn. xiv.

Maimbourg, Histoire de rHertsie des Iconoclastes, Paris, 1679, 2 vols.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 45

and a mighty shock of all ecclesiastical and civil con-
stitutions might have been the result.

The emperor Leo the Isaurian, a rude and untaught
soldier, who had violently compelled the Jews to receive
baptism, and who, by a like tyranny, had driven the
Montanists to deeds of desperate self-murder, now
adopted the Jewish and Muhammedan idea that the
use and the veneration of the images of Christ and of
the saints was no less a crime than idolatry. He
resolved, therefore, to constitute himself, by extirpating
this superstition, a reformer of the Church. Beser, a
Syrian, a renegade who had been reconverted to Chris-
tianity, and a bishop, Theophilus, of Nacolia in Phrygia,
were the partners of his design. The representations
of the theologians of the capital, and of Germanus, the
patriarch, could not restrain him from publishing, in
726, an edict, by which he prohibited the veneration of
images, as being an adoration of idols. Leo sought to
allay the universal discontent which immediately dis-
played itself, by declaring that the statues and pictures
should not be destroyed, but only placed higher in the
churches, that so the profanation might be removed
with the danger of contagion. In Italy, this edict,
united with the discontent occasioned by the imposition
of a heavy tax, caused a violent reaction ; and had it
not been for the interposition of the pope, whose re-
monstrances Leo had answered with a threat of depo-
sition, a new emperor would have been elected, or an
immediate separation from the Greek empire would
have followed. The opposition which Leo everywhere
encountered embittered his mind, and drove him to
the adoption of measures more severe and more tyran-
nical. As the greater number of artists resided in
monasteries, and as the monks exercised great influ-
ence over the minds of the populace, the enmity of the
emperor was naturally turned against the religious ;
and as he then took from the monasteries the direction
of the higher schools, he well-nigh effected the ruin of
the sciences throughout the East. After he had over-
come an insurrection of the inhabitants of the Greek



46 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

islands, whom his war against images had driven into
rebellion, and who had appeared in their ships under
the walls of Constantinople, — he, in 728, commanded,
by a new decree, that the use of images should be uni-
versally discontinued. At first, indeed, the images of
our Saviour and of his holy mother were tolerated ;
but these also, after a time, were commanded to be
removed. Anastasius, the imperial secretary, was
placed in the patriarchal throne of Germanus, who had
been compelled to resign, and lent his name as the
complying instrument in all the designs of his master.
Even in the capital, the destruction of a crucifix which
had stood in a public square, raised a tumult which
was not suppressed before blood had been shed. The
views of the emperor and of the party, which had now
been formed, of image-destroyers, (a/covovAoarcu) were
made known by the inscription that was placed under
the cross, which was erected on the spot where the
crucifix had before stood ; — the emperor could not
endure that a dumb and soulless figure, formed of
earthly materials, and defiled with colours, should be
made to represent Christ. Thus this enmity against
religious representations manifested itself as a blind
and senseless hatred of the imitative arts.

The patriarch Germanus, the popes Gregory II and
Gregory III, and John of Damascus, opposed the
attempts of the emperor, and defended the ecclesias-
tical use of images and pictures. They stated : the
declaration that the Church had for centuries tolerated
and favoured gross idolatry, and a violation of the first
of the divine precepts, must shock the mind of every
Christian ; — that no Christian could be persuaded into
the belief that the matter of the statue was anything
divine, or that it was animated by the Divinity, — conse-
quently, that he never could adore it ; — that the weakest
mind could distinguish between an absolute adoration
of images, and a relative honour given to the images in
reference to their originals ; — that the precept respecting
representations, formerly given to the Jews, was not
obligatory on Christians ; and that since the incarna-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 47

tion of the second person of the sacred Trinity, a repre-
sentation of his human form was possible, and to be
permitted.

All the Churches that had nothing to fear from the
revenge of Leo, ceased all communion with the Icono-
clasts. At Rome, Gregory III held a council of ninety-
three bishops, who pronounced sentence of excommu-
nication against the enemies of sacred images. Leo
resolved to subdue opposition in Italy, by the force of
arms ; but a tempest destroyed his fleet in the Adriatic
Gulf, and he contented his indignation by confiscating
the patrimonies of the Roman Church in Calabria and
in Sicily, and by separating the Illyrian provinces from
the Roman patriarchate. Constantine Copronymus
(741-/50) exceeded even the violence of his father.
In the very beginning of his reign, he had to defend
his throne against the usurper Artabasdus, who, to gain
the people to his party, declared himself the champion
of the use of sacred images. After his victory, Con-
stantine raged against his enemies with merciless fury :
upon the miserable Anastasius, who had espoused the
cause of his rival, he inflicted the most awful cruelties ;
but, after some time, he restored him again to his dig-
nity, that he might possess in him a minister subser-
vient to his designs. After the death of Anastasius, the
emperor, to decide the controversy on images, convened
a synod of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops at
Constantinople, in the year 754. This assembly, at
which only the bishops of Asia Minor, Thrace, Mace-
donia, and Greece, but not one of the three oriental
patriarchs, w ere present, revealed the deep degradation
into which the Byzantine Church had fallen. Only a
few of the bishops were in reality opposed to the res-
pect shewn to images ; but the great majority bowed
in servile compliance to the will of the court. The
decree that was formed by them stated, — that as God
in former times had sent the apostles, so, in these last
days, he had raised up the pious emperors to extirpate
idolatry, which had been again introduced by the arti-
fices of the devil ; — that the disgraceful and blasphe-



48 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

mous art of painters had destroyed the work of our
redemption, and had perverted all the decrees of the
six general councils ; — that there was only one true
and real image of Christ — the Eucharist, which was
the body of Christ united with the Godhead, and which
therefore contained both his body and his divinity, and
the plenitude of the Holy Spirit residing in his huma-
nity ; — that it alone was worthy of adoration, and was
free from all the illusions which were in other images.
The formation and veneration of images were therefore
prohibited by the severest penalties ; but the veneration
and invocation of saints were confirmed. The deceased
patriarch Germanus, George of Cyprus, and John of
Damascus, were anathematized. The emperor then
received an oath from the bishops and many others,
that they would look upon all images as idols, and all
who respected them as idolaters ; and that they would
hate and persecute monks, wherever they might find
them. Then followed the destruction of every kind of
figure and representation on the altars and walls, on
the vessels and ornaments of the churches. Many
Catholics, particularly the monks, the persecution of
whom w as now efi'ectually commenced, fled into Italy,
into Cyprus, and into the Muhammedan Asia. The
pope and the three patriarchs of the East rejected and
condemned the decree of 754. The persecution of
those who w^ere bold enough to resist this new degree,
increased every day in cruelty ; and it was the delight
of Constantine to feed his eyes with the view of those
W'ho were scourged or maimed by his orders. The
monk Andrew the Calybite paid with his life for his
freedom of speech in defence of the faith of the Church,
as did the abbot Stephen, who, with a piece of gold on
which was a bust of the emperor, proved that the
insult offered to the image might be referred to the
original. When he was cast into prison, he found
there three hundred aiul forty-two monks, of whom the
greater part had been tortured or maimed, and who all
awaited the sentence of death. Constantine, in whom,
as in most tyrants, the greatest cruelty was united w ith



PERIOD THE THIRD. 49

the most unnatural moral vices, now meditated the entire
destruction of all the monasteries and monks in his
empire. The cloisters, and with them their rich libra-
ries, were either burnt or converted into barracks ; —
the monks were compelled to lay aside their habits and
to marry, or to save their lives in foreign lands. Even
his own patriarch, who had hitherto obeyed his every
will, was deposed, and soon after executed. The Ico-
noclasts, to whom not only the army and the officers of
state, but the populace also, now belonged, at length
turned their rage against the relics of the saints. These
they either consumed by fire, or cast into the sea :
crosses without figures of our crucified Redeemer, were
all that were now exposed to the veneration of the
people.

During the short reign of Leo IV (775-/80), the
laws against images were rigidly enforced : every
bishop, at his ordination, was compelled to sign their
condemnation. Many of the exiled monks, however,
now returned. Irene, the widow of Leo, who governed
the empire during the minority of her son Constan-
tine VI, dared not, at first, declare publicly in favour
of sacred pictures and images ; but in secret she pro-
tected the orthodox Catholics. The patriarch Paul
now died, with expressions of deep regret and repent-
ance that he had taken upon himself the government
of a Church which was separated from the communion
of the whole Christian world, and that, through human
respect, he had sworn to the condemnation of religious
representations. Tarasius, an excellent man, an officer
of state, whom Paul recommended as his successor,
declared, in 784, that he would assume the patriarchal
dignity, only with the condition that the unity of the
Church should be restored, and that, with the consent
of the bishop of Rome, a general council should be
convoked. Adrian, the Roman pontiff, before whom
Tarasius laid a profession of faith, received him into the
communion of the Church, and wrote to the empress,
who had sent to him a deputation of bishops, to request
him to preside over the council. As preliminaries,

VOL. III. E



50 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Adrian required that the acts of the false council of
754 should be rescinded, and that he should receive a
sworn declaration that the freedom of the council, to
which he w^ould send his legates, should not be invaded.
To his demand that the patrimonies of the Roman
Church, which had been seized by Leo, should be res-
tored, no attention was given. The delegates whom
Tarasius sent to the three patriarchs of the East, were
prevented by the suspicious policy of the Muhammedans
from reaching their destination. The monks of Jeru-
salem, whose patriarch, Elias, had been banished into
Persia, selected two of their number, John and Thomas,
of whom the one had been secretary of the patriarch of
Alexandria, and the other of the patriarch of Antioch.
These were sent to the synod, to represent, as far as
the necessities of the times would permit, the three
oriental patriarchs. The absence of the patriarchs
could not, the monks declared, affect the authority of
the council, as long as the bishop of Rome took part
therein by his legates. The first sittings of the council
were held in 7^^^, in the metropolis ; but the soldiers,
who were in the interest of the Iconoclast bishops,
caused a tumult which interrupted the proceedings of
the synod. In 7^7, the assembly again opened, not at
Constantinople, where the pow er of the opposition was
too great, but in the city of Nice. Two hundred and
forty-five bishops, with one hundred and thirty-two
abbots and monks, w ere present. Tarasius, although
he sat below the papal legates, directed the proceedings.
Many bishops, who had before belonged to the party
of the Iconoclasts, recanted their errors ; and as many
as had participated in the acts of the synod of 754,
declared that they had then been deceived by false
citations from the Fathers. The principles that were
laid down by Adrian in his letter on the respect to be
paid to images, were first adopted by Tarasius, and,
after him, by the whole council. Proofs were then
adduced, that the formation and veneration of sacred
figures were lawful and useful, from the Sacred Scrip-
tures, from which the example of the cherubim on the



PERIOD THE THIRD. 51

ark was cited, — from the writings of the fathers of the
fourth and fifth centuries, and from the testimonies of
other genuine writings : passages which declare the
lawfuhiess of the respect paid to sacred images, were
presented from the works of St. Maximus, and of
Leontius, bishop of Cyprus. In the next session, the
prelates were occupied in proving that Jews, Muham-
medans, and heretics (the Manichees), were the cause
of the war against religious images : the acts of the
council of 754 were then read and condemned. In the
seventh session, a profession of all the articles of faith
which had been determined by the six general councils
was read and adopted. The synodical degree on the
subject of deliberation was then read : — Figures of
Christ, of his holy mother, and of other saints, as also
figures of the cross, are to be had in churches, on the
sacred vessels, on ecclesiastical vestments, in houses
and on the public ways, as by them the minds of the
beholders are raised to their prototypes, and to a love
of them ; these figures are to be honoured according to
ancient custom, by kissing them, by burning incense
and tapers, by bowing or prostrating (rj/xr/rt/crj w^naKv-
vi](Tig) before them, in the same manner that reverence
had been always paid to the form of the cross, to the
holy Gospels, and other sacred things ; but adoration
(AoTpeto), which belongs exclusively to God, was not to
be given to them. For only a relative {cry^iTiKr]) honour,
which was to be referred to the original, could be paid
to images. The synod expressed itself in the strongest
terms against the imputation of idolatry, and against
the comparison of the respect shewn by Christians to
images, with the adoration of pagans. " Christians do
not call their images Gods ; — they do not serve them
as Gods ; — they do not place their hope of salvation in
them, nor expect from them their future judgment :
but they respect and salute them in memory and in
love of their prototypes, but without paying divine
honours to them." The last session was held at Con-
stantinople, in presence of the empress, of her son, and
of a vast concourse of people, for whose instruction in

E 2



52 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the reverence to be paid to sacred images, many une-
quivocal passages of the holy Fathers were read. The
representations of Christ and of his Saints were now
everywhere restored, and a heresy which had shed
more blood than any that had preceded it, appeared to
have been suppressed for ever. But it was not so.

There still continued to exist at Constantinople a
powerful party of Iconoclasts, who concealed their prin-
ciples during the reigns of Irene, Nicephorus, and
Michael. The memories of Leo and of his son Con-
stantine Copronymus were held by them in reverence ;
and they felt themselves inspired with new hopes, when
they beheld another soldier, Leo the Armenian (813-
820), ascend the throne of the empire. Two chiefs of
the party, — the abbot John Grammaticus, who, on
account of his practice in divination, was named Leca-
nomantis, and Theodotus Cassiteras, impressed upon
the mind of the emperor the persuasion that the un-
happy state of his dominions was a curse of the Al-
mighty, inflicted upon him in punishment of the idolatry
of the people. They foretold to him, that if he should
banish the worship of idols, his reign would be long
and happy. Leo himself thought that he could read
the judgments of God in the different fates of his pre-
decessors ; — those who had been enemies to images
had reigned victoriously, and had died in possession of
the empire ; whilst those who had defended the honour
paid to images, had died in misfortune. But the patri-
arch Nicephorus, who was supported by Theodore,
abbot of the cloister school of Constantinople, then the
most learned and powerful champion of the veneration
of sacred images, undauntedly resisted the attempts of
the court. The emperor desired that a conference
should be held ; but Nicephorus, and the many bishops
who Vv ere with him, refused to meet the Iconoclasts, as
the cause had already been judged by a general council.
The Catholic bishops were therefore debarred from all
intercourse with each other, and, in 816, an imperial
decree prohibited, as contrary to the law of God, all
honour paid to images. Nicephorus was immured in



PERIOD THE THIRD. 53

a monastery ; and now, for the space of twenty-seven
years, tlic Iconoclast patriarchs succeeded each other in
the see of Constantinople. The first of the three, The-
odotus Cassiteras, who had before been captain of a
troop of the body guards, held an assembly of his party,
in which the acts of the council of 754, or, as it was
then called, of the seventh general council, were read.
Several Catholic bishops were then violently dragged
before the meeting, where they received blows and
kicks, and were then cast into prison. The sacred
images were again broken in pieces, and burnt ; the
vessels of the church, on which any figure had been
formed, were destroyed ; all who refused to submit,
were scourged ; many suffered the loss of their tongues ;
banishment and confiscation of property were consi-
dered the mildest chastisements. Bishops and monks
suffered torture unto death, or were frequently tied in
sacks, and cast into the sea. The mere possession of a
religious picture, or of a book defending the use of
images, — the reception of an exile, or an act of mercy
exercised towards a prisoner, brought with it the hea-
viest punishment. Spies were hired to discover offend-
ers. Many ecclesiastics and monks fled for refuge to
Rome, where the pope. Paschal, built for them the
monastery of St. Praxedis. The chief support of the
Catholics, at this time, was Theodore the Studite, who,
although in chains, and subjected to the most inhuman
cruelties, ceased not by letters to console the perse-
cuted, to confirm the wavering, and to instruct the
ignorant. His writings contain the most profound
and most ample defence of the Catholic veneration of
images, as well as the refutation of the objections of
the Iconoclasts.

jNIichael the Stammerer, who reigned from 820 to
829, permitted the banished Catholics to return to
their homes. Rude, ignorant and unbelieving, he acted
with perfect indifference in the controversy on images.
He would make no new laws, but granted freedom to
all. To prevent disturbance, however, in the capital,
he would not allow any new images to be erected.



54 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

But a change was soon effected in him. He chose
Constantine Copronymus, the hero of the Iconoclasts,
as his model, and John Lecanomantes began, as under
Leo, to persecute the bishops and monks. Euthymius,
bishop of Sardes, expired beneath the scourge. In an
epistle to the emperor Lewis, Michael charged the
defenders of images with the most fanatical supersti-
tions. According to him, they formally adored images
and expected from them their salvation, and the priests
mine:led with the bread and wine of the eucharist the
colours which had been scraped from the statues, and
gave both to the communicants. Many of the accusa-
tions of the Iconoclasts were direct calumnies : other
circumstances were the effect of an exultation after a
long and sanguinary persecution, such as the fact of
admitting the figure of a saint to represent the sponsor
of a child at baptism. This was approved by Theodore
the Studite.

Theophilus (829-842), the son of Michael, had im-
bibed from his instructor, John Lecanomantis, an
embittered hatred against the " idolatry" of the vene-
ration of images. Now commenced a new work of
devastation, and a new persecution of ecclesiastics.
The monks were expelled from their cloisters and
driven from cities and villages : many of them died in
their exile from hunger and misery. The emperor
himself condescended to enter into a disputation with
some of the Catholics, and amongst others, with the
famed brothers Theodore and Theophanes, upon whose
brows he, with refined cruelty, branded twelve verses.
After his death, his widow Theodora, in unison with
her nncle Manuel and her brother Bardas, the guar-
dians of the young emperor, endeavoured to restore the
state in which affairs had been placed in I'liJ- The
unworthy patriarch John was deposed, and Methodius,
who had endured severe persecutions under the two
preceding emperors, was invested with his dignity.
In 842 a council was called at Constantinople, at which
the friends of images who had been restored to liberty,
and those bishops who knew no other law than the will



PERIOD THE THIRD. 55

of the court, formed the majority. The decrees of the
second council of Nice were confirmed, and the Icono-
clasts anathematized. At the declaration of the eni-
press, that her husband, Theophilus, had upon his
death-bed given signs of repentance, he was absolved
from excommunication, and a yearly festival was esta-
blished to commemorate the restoration of orthodoxy,
after a sanguinary struggle of one hundred and twenty
years.
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SECTION III.

TRANSACTIONS ON THE USE OF IMAGES IN FRANCE. —



CLAUDIUS OF TOURS.



*



In France, the first information of the Iconoclast con-
troversy was received from pope Adrian, who sent into
that country the acts of the seventh general council in
a translation, which was however defective and almost
unintelligible. Hitherto representations of Christ and
of his saints had not been in use in France, for in many
parts of the kingdom pagan ideas and pagan supersti-
tions were still prevalent amongst the people, and it
had been a constant care of the councils of the nation,
to exhort the clergy to labour in the extirpation of these
relics of heathenism. It might therefore be feared
that the rude and half pagan minds of the people might
not understand the external honour which was paid to
religious images, and might therefore easily convert it
into idolatry. Moreover, there was not in France an
analogy for the veneration of images. In the Grecian
empire it had long been the custom to honour, not only
the emperor, but his statues also, with marks of great
external respect. The people were accustomed to
honour these images and statues by burning before
them incense and wax lights, and they therefore
thought, and thought correctly, that the same demon-

* Augusta Concilii Nicaeni Censura (Libri Carolini) ed. Heunian,
Hanov. 1731; Mansi Concil. Coll. torn. xiii. xiv. ; Claudius Tauro-
nensis de cultu Iruaginum (Fragments), and Dungali Liber Respons.
in Biblioth. Max. PP. torn. xiv.



56 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

strations of reverence might be exhibited to images of
Christ and of the saints. But it was far different in
France, where these marks of respect would have
borne another signification, and where the prostration
(TrpocThwrjaig) which was sauctioncd by the second coun-
cil of Nice, would have been viewed as an act of adora-
tion due only to the Almighty. Hence arose the
difference of the ideas entertained by the bishops of
France, and the disapprobation, arising from ignorance,
with which they received the decrees of the council of
Nice. Twelve French bishops had, indeed, subscribed
to the synod held in Rome under Stephen II, in 769,
which approved of the veneration of images ; and all
were of opinion, that the hostility of the Iconoclasts
against sacred images and pictures, was as senseless as
it was censurable : but the bishops, who met at Franc-
fort in 794, misled either by the defectiveness of the
translation of the acts of the council, or by a false
interpretation, based upon this translation, erroneously
imagined that the bishops at Nice had fallen into the
extreme, opposed to the principles of the Iconoclasts,
and had sanctioned the practice of paying divine
honours to images. According to this translation,
Constantino, bishop of Cyprus, had declared at Nice,
that the same adoration which was given to the Sacred
Trinity, was to be given also to sacred images, whereas
he had, in truth, declared the direct contrary — that the
worship of adoration was to be given only to the
Trinity (?) mm XuTpsiuy 7!-()0(Ti:vy7](ng) . Upon these false
grounds the synod of Francfort raised its censure ; that
the council of Constantinople (it should have been
Nice) had ordained, that he should be anathematised
who should refuse to the images of the saints the same
worship and the same adoration which were given to
the most high Trinity. The synod then declared, that
it permitted the use of holy images in and out of the
churches, but forbade all Christians to adore them,
whilst it also forbade that they should be broken or
destroyed, following on this subject the principles of
the pope, St. Gregory the Great.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 5/

Soon after this time appeared the " Caroline Books"
(Libri Carolini) — a vehement refutation of the acts of
the Nicene synod, compiled, it is probable, by several
bishops, in the name of Charles, and sent by him to the
pope. The work contains, amongst many groundless
objections, which evidently arose from misconceptions
of the meaning of the acts (such, for example, as the
refutation of the expression supposed to have been used
by Tarasius, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Father through the Son), many solid answers to the
weak arguments, by which some not very learned
bishops endeavoured to justify their conduct at Nice in
respect to images. Pope Adrian, who had confirmed
the decree of the council of Nice, refuted these books
at length. From this time the controversy reposed,
until it was again awakened by an embassy from the
emperor Michael to Lewis the Pious, and by Claudius,
bishop of Turin, in 825. The emperor Lewis, with the
consent of the pontiff Eugene, called an assembly of
bishops at Paris, who, in their epistle to the pope,
rejected the council of Nice, and accused Adrian of
having favoured the superstition of the Greeks. But
by a strange contradiction, they at the same time con-
ceded to the figure of the cross an honour which they
refused to the figure of Christ. It is not known what
was the conduct of the pope towards an embassy
that was sent to him by Lewis. The controversy was
continued in writing, when the Spaniard Claudius, to
whom Lewis had given the bishopric of Turin, with all
the spirit of a true Iconoclast, removed all images from
the churches of his diocese, where they had hitherto
been revered, and caused them to be destroyed. When
these proceedings were reprehended by the abbot
Theodemir, Claudius defended himself by this wretched
sophism, — " if we are to honour the cross on account
of its relation to Christ, so we should honour mangers
also, because Christ was laid in one ; and asses, because
he rode upon one." Passing, in his violence, further
even than the Greek Iconoclasts had gone, he forbade
the invocation of saints, as no reliance could be placed



38 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

in their prayers ; he declared their relics to be as
worthless as the bones of animals ; and taking Vigi-
lantius as a model, he prohibited lights to be used in
churches during the day : he forbade the faithful to
pray with their eyes cast down ; and finally, he refused
to attend a council which had been convened to exa-
mine his principles, designating it a council of asses.
Dungal, an Irish monk of St. Denis, and Jonas, bishop
of Orleans, w rote against him : the arguments of the
latter, however, were not strong. Dungal, and after
him Walafrid Strabo, and Hincmar of Rheims, stated
the true principle, that to images belonged the same
veneration that was then shewn in France to the figure
of the cross, and to the relics of the saints. This prin-
ciple, which was most conclusive, must have defeated
all others which were then defended by the opposite
party, in which was Agobard, bishop of Lyons. The
opposition to the decree of the council of Nice, which
was founded on a misunderstanding which might have
been easily removed, fell of itself away.



SECTION IV.

ADOPTIONISM.*



The first great controversy which occupied the bishops
and theologians of the West, after the emigration of



* Eeati (a priest at Astorga) et Etherii (bishop of Osma) de adop-
tione Filii Dei, adversus Elipandum, lib. ii. in Canisius — Basnage,
Thesaur. torn, ii.; Alcuini Libellus adv. Haeresin Felicis, et Epistohi
ad Felicem ; adv. Felicem, lib. vii. ; adv. Elipandum, lib. iv. ; opp. ed.
Frobenius, torn. ii. ; Paulini Aquilej. Sacrosyllabus et contra Felicem,
lib. iii. ; opp. ed. Madrisius, Venet. 1737, fol.; Agobardi, Archiep.
Lugdun. adv. dogma Felicis; opp. ed. Balusius, Paris, 1666; The
Epistles of Elipandus, in Alcuini opp. torn. ii. ; The Declaration of
Pope Adrian, the Acts of the Council of Francfort, and the Confessio
Fidei of Felix, in Mansi Concil. CoUec. torn. xiii.

J. F. Madrisii Dissertat. de Felicis et Elipandi Ha^resi, in his edition
of Paulinus ; J. C. F. Walchii Historia Adoptianorum, Getting. 1755;
Frobesii et Enheuber Dissertat. de Hseresi Elipandi, in Alcuini opp.
tom. i.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 59

the northern tribes, was only an echo of that contro-
versy on the personality of Christ, wliich, ages before,
had shaken the entire Church of the East, but which
had been scarcely felt in the West. The doctrines of
Adoptionism soon betrayed their near relationship with
the errors of Nestorianism, Two Spanish bishops,
Elipandus of Toledo, and Felix of Urgel, began, in the
year 7^0, to teach that Christ, in his divine nature,
was the true, natural son of God, — but that, as man,
he was the son of God only by adoption and in name.
These doctrines, which probably had their origin in the
desire to explain to the Muhammedans of Spain the
mystery of the incarnation with the least possible
offence, soon found acceptance even amongst bishops,
and in a short time travelled over the Pyrenees into
Aquitaine. Ehpandus, a passionately vehement and
haughty man, treated all those who would not receive
his doctrines as heretics, who deserved to be banished
from their country. Felix, more prudent and more
learned, propagated and defended the new doctrines
with greater ability. Both appealed to passages in the
Mosarabic liturg\% in which the expressions " adopted
man," " adoption of the flesh," not " adopted son,"
were found, and used evidently in the sense of " as-
sumption," to express the union of the human with the
divine nature, — not to designate the relation of the
man Christ with the Father. The adversaries who
combated these errors by their writings, Beatus, Ethe-
rius bishop of Osma, and Paul patriarch of Aquileia,
but principally the English monk Alcuin, the most
learned amongst the theologians of his age, soon dis-
covered that the Adoptionists had entered into the
path of the Nestorians, and employed the same argu-
ments with which Theodore of Mopsueste and Nesto-
rius had formerly endeavoured to defend their heresy.
Nestorius had said, and Felix now repeated, that the
Logos dwelt, as in a temple, in the man whom it had
taken to itself ; — that Christ was a man bearing God
within him. Christ, who was to be like to men in all
things except in sin, was made an adopted son of God



60 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

in the same manner that the faithful are made children
of God, but in a degree more sublime ; and at his bap-
tism in the Jordan, when the Father spoke these wordh^,
" This is my beloved Son," the solemn act of adoption
took place. Christ, as Felix expressly taught, did not
stand in need of baptism to be purified from sin, but to
be thereby spiritually born and regenerated. It is
therefore an error to say that the true God was con-
ceived in the womb of the Virgin, or that he who was
conceived was the son of God : but the man Christ,
the servant, was conceived, and the natural son of God
dwells in the adopted son,^ — the Lord of the servant in
the servant. Christ, as man, is indeed called God, —
but this is only in name, as other men are sometimes
in the Scriptures called Gods ; and as a man may have
both a natural and an adopting father, so the man
Christ is, according to the flesh, the son of David, but
by adoption or by grace the son of God. As man, as
the adopted son of God, but not as God, is he our inter-
cessor with the Father, and therefore prayed for him-
self as well as for us : it is never, as Felix erroneously
asserted, stated in the Scriptures that the son of God,
but always that the son of man, w^as given for us.
Thus, by this Adoption ist system, was Christ evidently
divided, and the mystery of the incarnation attacked in
its very essence, although Felix constantly guarded
himself against every expression that would argue a
division of persons in Christ.

The defenders of the Catholic doctrine, Paulinus and
Alcuin, proved, on the contrary, with a degree of theo-
logical acumen, and with a knowledge of the ecclesias-
tical Fathers, which, in that age, may surprise us, that
Christ, even in his human nature, is the true ((Sto^)
Son of God ; — that the sacred Scriptures and the uni-
versal Church knew only of an indivisible Son of God,
who was Son of God in his human as well as in his
divine nature. They remarked : adoption supposes the
person adopted to have been before entirely distinct
from him who adopts ; but this could not be said of
Christ even as man, for there never was a moment in



PERIOD THE THIRD. 61

which he was not God. The mother of the Lord can
be called mother of God only so far as that he who was
born of her was truly and properly God, — consequently,
by nature the Son of God. Sonship is not founded on
the nature, but on the person ; the two natures do not
form two sons, for they are indivisible, and are inse-
parably united in one Christ : neither nature, distinct
from the other, is called son, but the entire Christ is
naturally the son of God, and naturally also the son of
man. There is, therefore, in Christ no room for an
adopted sonship, — for the natural sonship, which must
precede adoption, necessarily excludes it.

In Spain, Theodula, bishop of Cordova, pronounced
an anathema upon the doctrines of Adoptionism. Pope
Adrian also condemned them, in an epistle to the Spa-
nish bishops. As Fehx, as bishop of Urgel, belonged
to the French kingdom and to the metropolitan pro-
vince of Narbonne, Charlemagne, in 792, called an
assembly of bishops at Ratisbon. Here the doctrines
were condemned : Felix renounced them, and pro-
mised, confirming his promise with an oath, that he
would never again propose them. He did the same
before the pope at Rome, whither he had been sent
from Ratisbon ; but after his return to Urgel, he again
fell, under the influence of the Spanish Adoptionists,
into errors which he had so solemnly renounced. Eli-
pand, and the bishops who had imbibed his doctrines,
now turned to the French prelates ; they wrote also to
Charlemagne, and accused the abbot Beatus of being
the author of the heresy, which was opposed to their
Catholic faith, and which was imputed to them : they,
therefore, conjured the king that he would decide
according to his justice between Felix and the adhe-
rents of Beatus. Charles convened, in 794, at Franc-
fort, a numerous council, at which, together with legates
of the pope, three hundred bishops from Germany,
Gaul, Aquitaine, Britain, and Italy, were present ; but
neither Felix, nor any. of his party, appeared. The
judgment of condemnation which was here passed, was
sent by the king, together with his own declaration of



62 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

approval, to Elipandus and the other Spanish bishops.
Adrian called another synod in Rome, in 794, in which
the decree of the synod of Francfort was confirmed.
The letter of the pope, containing this confirmation,
was sent to Charles, and by him to the prelates of
Spain. The epistles and the writings which passed
between Felix and Alcuin during the next year, appear
to have produced no effect : more was done by a con-
ference between them at the synod of Aachen (Aix-la-
Chapelle), in 799. After a disputation of seven days,
Felix surrendered as vanquished, and a second time
swore never again to maintain his past errors. But
experience had taught, that full confidence was not to
be placed in his asseverations ; he was, therefore, not
permitted to return to his diocese, but was delivered to
the custody of Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons. He lived
at Lyons until 816, but appears to have been attached
to his last days to his old opinions ; for after his death
a paper was found which contained the Adoptionist
theory in its original form. This paper occasioned the
archbishop Agabard to write the last work that appeared
on this heresy. Alcuin, in the meantime, had answered
a bitter and disgraceful work of Elipandus. Charle-
magne twice sent the archbishops Leidrad of Lyons, and
Nefrid of Narbonne, and Benedict, abbot of Aniana,
into the countries infected with Adoptionism, where
they laboured with the most happy success, converted
ten thousand persons from their errors, and thus de-
stroyed this heresy.



SECTION V.

CONTROVERSIES ON PREDESTINATION, OCCASIONED
BY GOTTESCHALC*

GoTTESCHALC, by birth a Saxon, a monk, first at Fulda,
and afterwards in the cloister of Orbais in the diocese

* The works of Ratramnus, Joh. Erigena, Lupus, Florus, Remi-
gius, Prudentius, with the Confessions and Fragments of th(^ Writings



PERIOD THE THIRD. (>3

of Soissons, formed to himself a system on Divine pre-
destination similar to that which the priest Lucidus
had before abandoned.* God, he asserted, predestined
in the same manner to life and to death : by predesti-
nation to death, man is so far necessitated to sin, that
no one, who is not in the number of the elect, can con-
vert himself or obtain salvation : Christ, therefore, shed
his blood only for the elect, and no one who has been
redeemed by his blood can be eternally lost. The sa-
craments also are only for those predestinated to life :
for those, who after the reception of them, shall incur
condemnation, they are no more than fruitless cere-
monies, so that these men, although baptized, are not
incorporated with Christ and his Church, and never
can become true Christians : for them, therefore, we
can only pray that God would use some mercy in the
infliction of those punishments, which infallibly await
them. Gotteschalc first developed his system during
his travels, and made it known to Nothing, bishop of
Verona, who being shocked at the novelty, wrote con-
cerning it to the celebrated Rabanus Maurus, who had
been archbishop of Mentz since the year 847. Rabanus
w-rote a refutation of the errors of Gotteschalc, and
sent it to the bishop of Verona. Gotteschalc then re-
turned to Germany, where he wrote a work in which
he accused Rabanus Maurus of semi-Pelagianism ; but
at a great synod at Mentz, in 848, at which king Lewis
was present, he delivered a profession of faith, in which
he declared that God had irrevocably predestinated to
eternal death, all those who should be condemned on
account of their sins on the last day. As the synod
could not prevail upon him to retract these errors, he
was sent to his metropolitan, Hincmar, of Rheims,

of Gotteschalc, in Gilb. Mauguin, Veterum Auctorum, qui sajculo IX
de Prajclestinatione et Gratia scripserunt, Opera et Fragmcnta, Paris,
1650, 2 vols. 4to. ; Hincinari Klicniensis Opera, ed. Sirmond, 1648,
2 vols. fol.

Cellot, Historia Godeschalchi, Paris, 1655, fol. ; INIauguin, Gottes-
chalcanaj Controversiie Histor. et Cliroii. Synopsis, Paris, 1650, 4to.

* See vol. ii. p. 148.



64 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

with a synodical epistle, composed by Rabanus Maurus.
When in the following year, he showed himself equally
obstinate in a council, called by Hincmar, at Quiercy on
the Oise, he was there condemned (according to the
canon of the council of Agde, and to the rule of St. Bene-
dict, as he had, uncalled, interfered with political and
ecclesiastical affairs), to be corporally punished, and to
be confined in the cloister of Hautvilliers : he was com-
pelled to cast his writings into the fire, and perpetual
silence w^as imposed upon him.. Hincmar sent to hini
a dogmatical epistle, as a formulary of faith, subscrip-
tion to which would have procured for him his liberty.
But he refused, and opposed to it from his cloister two
confessions, a shorter and a longer, in which he care-
fully avoided all mention of the subject of the contro-
versy, but offered to prove the truth of his doctrines by
submitting to the ordeal of fire. His situation, in the
meantime, excited great attention. On the one side,
together with Rabanus and Hincmar, Pardulus bishop
of Laon, and Amolo archbishop of Rheims, also de-
clared against him. Amolo refuted his errors in writing,
and severely reprehended him, for his constant outrages
upon those bishops who refused to join with him, call-
ing them in contempt heretics and Rabanists, and for
his arrogant assumption of infallibility in defending his
doctrines. On the other side, several great men ap-
peared as the defenders of Gotteschalc, partly through
compassion or through aversion to Hincmar, and partly
through their predilection for the doctrine of the two-
fold predestination of which Gotteschalc appeared to
them to be the martyr. The king, Charles the Bald,
who delighted in theological controversies of this na-
ture, desired Lupus abbot of Ferriers, and Ratramnus
a monk of Corby, to w rite on the contested doctrines.
They did so, but without adopting the severe system of
Gotteschalc. Lupus appears, indeed, to have confined
the will of God regarding the salvation of all men ; but
only so far as this will is not effectual in all men. Ra-
tramnus, and with him the deacon Florus, in the name of
the Church of Lyons, and Prudentius bishop of Troyes,



PERIOD THE THIRD. 65

directed their works against the book which the famed
John Erigena, by commission of Hincmar, had written,
more philosophically than theologically, in refutation of
Gotteschalc.

The often-repeated assertion, that Gotteschalc did not
profess the errors that were imputed to him, as in his
two confessions we find no mention of them, is entirely
without foundation. The archbishop Amolo, who cannot
be supposed prejudiced in this affair, and to whom
Gotteschalc addressed one of his works, found therein
contained, in the clearest words, the doctrine of abso-
lute predestination in all its severity, and with all the
consequences which we have above enumerated. But
there now appeared a new patron of Gotteschalc, the
author of the book " On the Three Epistles," that is,
against the epistles of Hincmar and Pardulus to Amolo,
and the epistle of Rabanus to Nothing. General report
attributed this book to the archbishop Remigius, the
successor of Amolo ; Hincmar ascribed it to Ebbo,
bishop of Grenoble. In this work, it was asserted that
the only subject of dispute between Gotteschalc and the
bishops, was the twofold predestinaton which the former
maintained, but which the latter rejected : that the
predestination of the wicked was, indeed, very different
from that which was taught by Gotteschalc : that their
evil works were foreseen, not predestinated, by God :
that predestination imposed upon no one the necessity
of being wicked, or the impossibility of conversion.
The author maintained, also, that it was incredible that
Gotteschalc could have taught, as Hincmar asserted,
that the free will of man was inclined only to evil, and
not at all to good : that it ought not to be declared as an
article of faith, that God wishes the salvation of all
men, as it was only a pious belief : that Christ did not
die for those who should persevere in infidelity, but only
for the faithful, and that the assertion of Gotteschalc,
that God wishes only the salvation of the elect, ought
not to be condemned. This author, it will therefore be
seen, endeavoured to open a new path between the
doctrine of Gotteschalc and the refutations of its adver-

VOL. III. F



66 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

saries ; he imagined that the system of the monk of
Orbais had been misunderstood or misrepresented ; but
he, at the same time, rejected in substance, the doctrine
of the Church, that God wishes the salvation of all men.
But he and his adversaries would not have been so far
separated on this subject from each other, if they un-
derstood predestination to be a preceding, conditional
will of God, and if he rejected the assertion of an abso-
lute, subsequent, and effectual will of God.

Hincmar, who had made known the affair of Gottes-
clialc to the pope, and had left the fate of the monk to
his decision, held, in 853, by the command of the king,
Charles, a second synod at Q-uiercy, at which the me-
tropolitans of Sens and of Tours were present. Here
were presented four articles on the contested dogma.
They asserted ; there is but one predestination, of which
the object is either the conferring of grace, or the re-
ward of justice : that the will of man, to do good,
requires preventing (antecedent) and assisting grace :
that God wishes all men, without exception, to be saved,
and that Christ died for all men, although not all will
be, in effect, saved by his sufferings. Prudentius,
bishop of Troyes, who assisted at this council, and who
subscribed to its definitions, seems soon to have re-
pented of his act, and made known his change of sen-
timents in a manner that was most unbecoming. He
submitted to ^Eneas, the newly-elected bishop of Paris,
four articles for his signature, upon which condition
only, he would consent to acknowledge him. In these
articles it was declared, that the blood of Christ was
shed only for those who believed in him, and that God
wishes for the salvation of those only who shall obtain
it. More direct opposition was shown by the bishops
of Lorraine, where, principally from political motives,
Hincmar was not held in favour. A new work, by the
auther of the book " On the Three Epistles," appeared
in 855, entitled " On preserving the Truth of Scrip-
ture," which, like the former, according to a clausula,
which was added later, was written in the name of the
Church of Lyons. In it the bishops of the synod of



PERIOD THE THIRD. 67

Quiercy were accused with bitterness, that they had
decreed against the most evident truths contained in the
Scriptures and in the writings of the fathers. Against
the four articles of that council, was poured out a tor-
rent of reprehensions, arising from distortions or from
wilful misunderstanding of their signification. Then
came the council of Valence, in 855, formed of the
archbishops of Aries and Vienne, and of which Ebbo
of Grenoble was the animating soul. In this council
six canons w^ere drawn up, the forms of which were
opposed to that of the articles of Quiercy : these arti-
cles w^ere, at length, expressly rejected by the bishops
at Valence. The opposition regarded chiefly the single
predestination, defended by the bishops of Quiercy : at
Valence a twofold predestination, to life and to death,
was asserted, but with this modification, that God pre-
destinates to punishment, not to sin : next to this came
the doctrine on the death of Christ. The doctrine of
the opponents of Gotteschalc w as, that Christ had re-
deemed all men by his blood, even those infidels that
had been condemned, and that this precious blood might
be applied to all men of all ages, whilst the bishops at
Quiercy wished to assert, by their proposition, that
Christ had died for all, no more, than that the sacrifice
of the sufferings and death of Christ, was, from its
infinite value, and according to the will of Christ, sacri-
ficed, sufficient for the redemption of all men. This
the prelates at Valence did not deny, although they
designated the opinion of the Universalists, the asserters
of an universal redemption, as a monstrous error.

Hincmar replied to them in a great work, which is
now lost, " On Predestination and Free Will." But it
appears that the bishops themselves were soon con-
vinced that, in condemning the four Articles, which
they appended as a clause to their fourth dogmatical
canon, they had gone too far. For in the copy of the
acts of their synod, which Ebbo, in 850, presented to
king Charles, this clause is not found : it was omitted
also, when the canons were read, at the synod of

F 2



68 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Laiigres, in 859 ; and in that of Savonieres, where the
bishops of the three kingdoms were united, many of
them protested against the confirmation of the canons
of Valence, whilst it appears that the four Articles were
admitted without opposition. It was here agreed that
the controversy should be definitively determined by a
great council. In the interval before its convocatior,
Hincmar, to whom the king had sent the canons of the
synod of Langres, with a commission to express to him
in writing his opinion on them, wrote his great work,
which we still possess, " On Predestination." In this
work he asserted the genuineness of the book ascribed
to St. Augustine, entitled Hypognosticon, (which might
have been attributed to Marius Mercator), although
Prudentius and Remigius had before incontrovertibly
proved that St. Augustine could not have been the
author of the work. The declaration of the partial
Prudentius, contained in the Bertinian Annals, that the
pope, Nicholas, had approved of the canons of Valence,
appears to have been without foundation. Prudentius
must have taken the silence of the pontiff for approbation.
At length the controversy was terminated, in 860, by
the council of Touzy, in the diocese of Toul. Here
there were assembled fifty-seven bishops, from fourteen
French provinces : amongst them were the prelates who
had before met at Valence, and those also who had
before formed the synod of Quiercy. Without entering
upon long discussions, the bishops received a synodical
epistle, presented to them by Hincmar, in which no
mention was made either of the decrees of Valence or
Quiercy, but in which it was merely stated, that there
is a predestination of the elect ; that free-will exists,
even after the fall of Adam, but that it stands in need
of grace to assist it in its weakness ; that God wishes
the salvation of all men, and that Christ was subjected
to the law of death for all. Gotteschalc, who had in
the meantime appealed, but in vain, to the pope, joined
not in this act of peace, but remained in his cloister-
prison. W^hen visited by a severe sickness, Hincmar



PERIOD THE THIRD. 69

sent to him a formula of faith, by subscribing which he
might be restored to the communion of the Church ; but
he sent it back, and preferred to die excommunicated
and \Yithout the sacraments.



SECTION VI.



TRANSACTIONS CONCERNING THE EUCHARIST IN THE
NINTH CENTURY.*

The doctrine on tlie eucharist had been unassailed
down to the ninth century. Only a few solitary pow erless
voices had been raised against the Catholic faith of the
real presence, or of the essential changes in this sacra-
ment ; and hence it is, that none of the fathers found
themselves necessitated to write expressly on this dog-
ma, or to defend it against the objections of adver-
saries. They were content in their catechetical dis-
courses, which were intended for the instruction of the
neophytes, to declare and to explain the faith of the
Church ; which was, that by the substantial change of
the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ were
present in the sacrament of the eucharist.

Paschasius Radbertus, a monk, and, from the year
844, the abbot of the cloister of Corbey, wrote in 831,
and published in 844, for the instruction of the Saxon
youths who Avere educated in his abbey, a treatise on
the sacrament of the eucharist. In this work, he had
no other view, than to present to his readers the faith of
the universal Church ; but, supporting himself on the
authority of St. Ambrose, he asserted that the body of

* Paschasii Radberti de Sacramento Eucharistite, in Martene's Coll.
Ampliss. Monum. torn. ix. ; Rabani Mauri Epistola ad Heribalduni,
in Canisius — Basnage, Tliesaur. torn. ii. ; Dicta ciijusdam Sapientis
de Corpore et Sanguine Domini, in Mabillon's Acta SS. O. S. Bene-
dicti, SfEC. IV, torn. i. 591 ; Flori, Epistolaj adv. Amalarium, in Miu--
tene's Coll. Ampliss. torn. ix. ; Ratramnus de Corpore et Sanguine
Domini, ed. Boileau, Paris, 1712 ; Gerbertus de Corpore et Sanguine
Domini, in Pczii Anecdot. torn. i. pt. ii.



70 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

our Lord in the eucharist was in every respect the
same with that which was conceived in the w^omb of
the Holy Virgin, which was born and crucified. At
this proposition his contemporaries took offence. They
maintained that the body of the Lord in the eucharist
has properties which were not common to that body
which was visible on this earth. A distinction must,
therefore, be made, as the assertion of a perfect iden-
tity would lead to the ideas of the Capharnaites.
Appealing to various passages in the writings of St.
Jerome and St. Augustine, they distinguished a twofold,
or rather a threefold, body of Christ, the natural, the
sacramental, and the mystical body of the Church.
This distinction was maintained by the unknown author
of the Dicta cujusdam Sapientis, whose w ork was pub-
lished by Mabillon, and by the author, also unknown, of a
fragment on the same subject. The body of Christ in the
eucharist, is, they said, in nature one with the body that
was born of the Blessed Virgin ; but in its form of appear-
ance (specialiter) it is different. The same idea was
afterwards expressed by Alger, who maintained a dupli-
city of the body of Christ, not in substance, but in form.
Less clear is the proposition of the first-mentioned
theologian, that the body of Christ, which is produced
by the words of consecration, is afterwards changed by
the prayer of the priest, into the body that was born of
the Virgin Mother, and that in this manner Christ gives
to the members of his body (the faithful) his body of
his body. Heriger, abbot of Lobes, and Rabanus,
archbishop of Mentz, also wrote against the doctrine of
Radbertus on the identity of the body of Christ ; but
their writings have been lost. This, however, is certain,
that on the subject of transubstantiation, Rabanus was
in perfect agreement with Radbertus.

In another manner was the triplicity of the body of
Christ defended by Amalarius, a priest of Metz. He
probably drew^ his ideas from the assertion frequently
to be found in the fathers, and which had been repeat-
ed by Radbertus, that the body of the Lord in the
eucharist nourishes not only the soul, but the body also



PERIOD THE THIRD. 71

of mail ; that it prepares it for immortality and incor-
riiption. From this, he concluded that the eucharist
was commingled with the flesh and blood of the
Christian, and that it was united inseparably with the
same, even after death. He, therefore, distinguished
between the natural body of Christ, and the eucharistic,
as it exists in the living Christian, and as it exists again
in the Christian after death. But Amalarius did not
admit of an essential difference in these bodies, for he
expressly states, that the blood which flowed from the
side of our Lord, is the same with that which is re-
ceived from the chalice. Florus opposed himself to the
system of Amalarius, and procured the condemnation
of it in a synod of Quiercy, in 837. But Amalarius
gave greater ofi'ence, by an expression in which he
seemed to favour the system of Stercoranism, or the
opinion that the holy eucharist was subject to the same
decomposition in the human body that is undergone by
our corporeal food. Rabanus Maurus also drew upon
himself the accusation of being attached to the same
opinion, by his weak answer to a question on this sub-
ject, proposed to him by Heribald bishop of Auxerre.
To others, this error appeared reprehensible only in its
consequence, as it would argue that there was contained
in the flesh of Christ a physical nourishment, and that
it was absorbed by the body of the communicant. From
this time, we find this opinion mentioned as a system
in the writings of theologians. Thus Gerbert, after-
wards pope, with the name of Sylvester II, in his work
on the eucharist, enumerates three opinions ; that of
tlie Sterconarists, which could not be maintained ; that
of Radbertus, that at the altar was received the same
identical body that was born of the Holy Virgin ; and
that of the opponents of Radbertus, that the eucharistic
body of Christ was not in every respect identical with
his natural body. Gerbertus himself taught, that be-
tween the two latter opinions, there w^as no essential
diff"erence ; and that in one sense, it might with full
propriety be maintained that the sacramental body of
Christ is the same that was born of the blessed Mary.



72 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
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But about the middle of the ninth century there
appeared a work on the eucharist, the name of the
author of which was for a long time uncertain : it was
sometimes ascribed to Ratramnus, the monk of Corbey,
sometimes to an unknown, Bertram, and at others to
Joannes Erigena. That this work was the production
of Ratramnus, cannot be doubted, if we believe the
testimonies of Gerbert, Siegbert, the unknown writer of
Molk, and of the manuscripts seen by Mabillon. It
has, indeed, been more frequently asserted that Joan-
nes Erigena was the author ; and, in fact, a work, sup-
posed to have been written by this Irishman, on the
eucharist, and to which Berengarius afterwards ap-
pealed, was condemned at a synod of Paris, and was
burnt at Vercelli ; but what is related of this book cor-
responded so exactly with the known work of Ratram-
nus, that we may almost conclude that Erigena never
wrote upon the eucharist ; and that the work of the
monk of Corby was erroneously ascribed to him. The
book, of which we now speak, is very obscure, both as
it regards the adversary whom it undertakes to refute,
and the object which it proposes to itself. This adver-
sary is made to say, that between the external and
internal of the sacrament, there is no distinction ; that
the body of Christ has in reality the form that is pre-
sented to the senses ; that in the sacrament, therefore,
all is without figure or veil ; and that what is perceived
by the senses is not different from that which faith dis-
covers. From this, it would seem to follow that the
body of our Lord would be broken in pieces when we
divide the sacrament, either with our hands or with
our teeth. This latter opinion w^as attributed to some
of the Greeks, and, in particular, to John of Damascus,
in consequence of his assertion, that in the eucharist
there is no figure or sign ; and also to Haimo, bishop of
Halberstadt, who had expressed himself in like manner,
but less clearly on this subject, but not to Paschasius
Radbertus, with whom Ratramnus agreed in many
points. Ratramnus easily refuted this proposition,
showing, that if it were true, faith would not be exer-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 73

cised in the eucharist ; that that which was externally
seen was not the thing itself (res sacramenti), but only
its form, and that what was known to exist internally
was the truth, the reality, of the thing. But when we
arrive at that part of the work in which we might ex-
pect an explanation of the mystery, the language is
obscure, equivocal, and confused. On the one hand,
the author appears to admit, in the sense of the Church,
a substantial change of the bread into the body of
Christ, by the words of consecration ; on the other, he
awakens within us the suspicion, that, in his idea, not
the substance of the body of Christ, but the Divine
Logos, which supplies the place of the flesh of Christ,
is given in the sacrament. He wanders so far as to
assert that the Israelites received the body of Christ in
the manna ; and that the mystical body of Christ, the
Church, is contained in the eucharist, in the same man-
ner as is his true and natural body. We cannot free
Ratramnus from the charge of great and striking con-
tradictions, and it appears that he saw fully how little
his doctrine was in harmony with the doctrines of the
Church, or how arbitrary and forced were the explana-
tions which he endeavours to give to these doctrines,
that he endeavours to conceal by artifice the chasm
which was between his own ideas and the Catholic
dogma, and that he only occasionally suffered his real
opinions to escape.*



* A curious manuscript has lately been found in the Vatican library
at Rome, containing a commentary of Scotus upon the Monarchia
Ccelestis of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, in which his ideas, as there
expressed, concerning the Eucharist, are certainly erroneous. " Intu-
ere, quam pulcre, quam expresse asserit, visibilem hanc Eucharistiam,
quam quotidie sacerdotes ecclesia? in altari conficiunt ex sensibili
materia ])anis et vini, quam confectam et sanctificatam corporaliter
accipiunt, ti/picam esse similitudinem spiritualis principationis Jesit,
quam fideliter solo inteUectu gnstamus" &c. &c. See an interesting
work, '" The German Popes," (Die Deutschen Papste, 2 abth. p. 80)
by Const. Hofler, who asserts tliat Scotus, not Berengarius, was the
first author of the Protestant errors on the Eucharist. — (Translator.)



74. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

SECTION VII.

BERENGARIUS OF TOURS.*

More decided, and beyond all doubt heretical, was the
doctrine of Berengarius on the eucharist. This man,
who was born most probably at Tours, and was a
scholar of the famed Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, after-
wards Scholasticus, or director of the cathedral school
of Tours, which, imder his care, rose to high distinction,
was, in 1040, appointed archdeacon of Angers. He
was eloquent, a skilful dialectitian, learned for his age,
of pure morals, and had already acquired many warm
friends amongst the most celebrated men of the French
Church, when, after long studies in grammar and dia-
lectics, he turned his attention to studies of theology.
His first errors were in his attacks against marriage
and the baptism of children ; and when he had aban-
doned these questions, he assailed the doctrine of the
Church on the eucharist. In tracing his error to its
source, we are greatly assisted by a remark of the abbot
Wolphelm, and of the bishop Guitmond, who state that
he denied that the body of Christ, after the resurrection,
could pass through closed doors into the room in which
the apostles were assembled. From this we may per-
ceive that he did not at all understand the properties of
a glorified and spiritualized body, its contractive and
expansive powers, by virtue of which it may make

* The writings of Lanfranc, Guitmnnd, Hugo bishop of Langres,
Theoiluin, and Durandus, in the Biblioth. Max. PP. torn. XAiii.;
Adelmanni de Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Domini ad Berengarium
Epistola, ed. C. A. Sclunid, Brunsvici, 1770 ; Eusebii Brunonis Epis-
tola ad Berengarium, ed. Fr. De Roye, in his Vita Ha3resis et Pcrni-
tentia Berengarii, Andegavi, 1656, 4to. ; The Epistles and Confessions
of Berengarius, and the Acts of the Synods that were held against
him, in Mansi CoUect. ConciU. tom. xix. ; Berengarii de S. Ca>na
adversus Lanfrancum, liber posterior, ed. A. et F. Th. Vischer, Berolin,
1834 ; Bernaldus Constantiensis de Berengarii multiplici Condcm-
natione, in the Raccolta Ferrarese di Opuscoli, tom. xxi. Venezia,
1789 ; Second Part, p. 77 ct seqq. Regensburg, 1839.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 75

itself now manifest and now invisible ; its superiority
over nature, by which it can penetrate and rule all
baser matter, and by a closer connexion and rela-
tion with it, can convert it into its own substance ;
and that consequently, the mystery of the real pre-
sence and of transubstantiation was to him unintel-
ligible.

As soon as the nimour of the error of Berengarius
first was spread abroad, Adelmann, superior of the
school at Liege, and, in 1048, bishop of Brescia, wrote
to him, in 1045 and in 1047, and announced to him
that already the whole of Germany had been scandal-
ized by his innovations. Hugo also, bishop of Langres,
and formerly a school-fellow of Berengarius, addressed
to him a treatise on the presumption of attempting to
reconcile the mystery of the eucharist with our under-
standing, and of looking upon it, as Berengarius him-
self said, with eyes different from those of the multitude.
But Berengarius now openly proclaimed, in letters to
Lanfranc, then director of the cloister school of Bee, in
Normandy, that on the eucharist he fully adopted the
opinions of Joannes Erigena, — that he rejected those of
Paschasius Radbertus, — and concluded by inviting Lan-
franc to a disputation on this subject. These letters
were read in the synod of Rome, in 1050, and were the
immediate cause of the excommunication of Beren-
garius. The presence of Berengarius in Normandy
induced the duke, William, to call a conference at
Brione, in which two monks of the abbey of Bee so far
overcame Berengarius and his companions, as to oblige
them to profess, in words at least, the true Catholic
doctrine. It is probable that Berengarius granted in
this conference, as he was accustomed to acknowledge
elsewhere, that in the eucharist a change was effected
by the words of consecration, but that he understood
by this change something very different from the belief
of the assembly, which thought a profession of tran-
substantiation to be contained in the words of Beren-
garius. In the meantime, he heard of his condemnation
at Rome, and therefore, in his letter to the clergy of



76 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Chartres, poured out his most bitter indignation on the
pope and the Roman Church, which he accused of
direct heresy. At another council, which the pope
Leo IX held at Vercelli, in 1050, the doctrine of Beren-
garius, together with the book attributed to Joannes
Erigena, was condemned. Berengarius, although in-
vited, did not appear, — his excuse being that he was
held in confinement by the king of France. About the
same time, the king of France called the bishops of his
dominions to a council at Paris, although Theoduin,
bishop of Liege, had written to him to state that the
evident falsehood of the new doctrine, which attacked
a dogma of the Church that had long been defined, and
always universally believed, rendered the convocation
of a council (for which the consent of the pope was
required) unnecessary. Berengarius refused to attend
this council also ; but a letter from him to Paulinus,
the primicerius of Metz, was read, and his heresy, as
contained in that letter, condemned. The resolution
that it was necessary to raise a French army to suppress
the new sect, proves that Berengarius had already
drawn around him a large body of adherents. At a
synod which was held at Tours, in 1054, by the papal
legates Hildebrand and Gerhard, Berengarius made a
profession of faith, in which he solemnly declared that
he believed that the bread and wine were changed by
the words of consecration into the body and blood of
Christ, and afiirmed upon oath that he inwardly believed
what he outwardly professed. He has himself, in his
forced narration of this transaction, so represented
Hildebrand, as if this legate of the pontifi" esteemed him
orthodox, and as if he desired only that Berengarius
could convince the pope and the French bishops that
his faith was the faith of the Church. And well he
might deceive Hildebrand, whose whole attention and
activity were, at this time, turned from theological
questions to the great practical subject of the reforma-
tion of abuses which had forced themselves into the
Church. Berengarius too well knew how to employ
all the arts of hypocritical sophistry, where he foresaw



PERIOD THE THIRD. *^^

that they would prevail. He asserted that he believed
and taught the change, eifected by the words of conse-
cration, of the bread into the body of Christ, and com-
plained of the injustice that was done to him by those
who could doubt of his belief ; whilst, in truth, according
to his doctrine there was no change, but the bread and
wine continued to be what they had always been. To
those of whose protection he stood in need, he declared
that he attacked only the harsh Capharnaite opinions
of some men ; and with evident bad faith, he repre-
sented the doctrines of his adversaries as if they taught
that, by the consecration, a portion of the flesh of
Christ was brought down upon the altar, and placed
there instead of the bread ; whilst he himself, as he
said, asserted the change of the bread and wine into
the entire body and entire blood of Christ.

In 1059, the new pope, Nicholas II, convened a
council in Rome, at which there were present one hun-
dred and thirteen bishops. Berengarius also appeared,
and was compelled to burn his own writings, and to
subscribe, confirming his sincerity with an oath, a pro-
fession of faith that had been drawn up by bishop
Humbert. The contents of this profession were, that
the bread and wine after consecration were not only a
sacrament, but also the true body and blood of Christ ;
and that this body is not only present in the sacrament,
but is, in truth, touched and broken by the hands of
the priest and by the teeth of the faithful. It was only
by this means that the council thought itself able to
hold fast this wily sophist. The harshly sounding ex-
pressions of this profession are to be justified by the
intimate union of the external sign with the body of
Christ, which union produces a communication of pro-
perties (communicatlo idiomatum), in the same manner
as the union of the two natures ; so that that which is
ascribed to the sign may, in a certain sense, be predi-
cated of the body which is concealed beneath it. In this
sense, some of the fathers, and in particular St. John
Chrysostom, had spoken of touching the body of our
Lord.



78 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

After his return to France, Berengarius declared
that only the fear of death, with which he had been
threatened, had induced him to swear to the above
declaration, and he wreaked his revenge upon his
adversaries, by pouring upon them the bitterness of his
abuse, and upon the apostolic see, which he designated
as the seat of Satan. The pope, Alexander II, in 1061,
exhorted him with kindness again to renounce errors
which brought with them confusion into the Church. But
Berengarius sent, in reply, an answer of haughtiness
and scorn. Soon after this, the bishops of Normandy
also rejected the doctrine which opposed the dogma of
the substantial change in the eucharist. Durandus,
abbot of Troarn and Lanfranc, wrote especial works
in defence of this change. Eusebius Bruno, bishop of
Angers , who had been suspected of participating in the
errors of Berengarius, and who had promised him his
protection, now confessed, in a letter to Berengarius,
that the bread and wine were changed by the words of
consecration into the body and blood of Christ. In
proof of the possibility of this, he adduced the fact of
our Lord's body, after the resurrection, having passed
through closed doors ; he names the new doctrine a
pest, which a short time before had been condemned by
a synod in the chapel of the count of Anjou, at which
he (Eusebius) and the archbishop of Besancon had
been present. About the year 1070, Berengarius
wrote his book (which has been lately printed) against
Lanfranc. In the year 1075, and 1076, his heresy was
condemned in the synods of St. Maxient and Poitiers ;
at the latter place, indignation against him arose to
such a height, that his life was endangered; at St.
Maxient he condemned his errors, and professed him-
self, as hypocritically as ever, a sincere believer in the
Catholic faith. Hildebrand, now pope Gregory VII,
called Berengarius to Rome, and in a synod, convened
in that city in 1078, required him simply to declare
that the bread, after the consecration, was the true body
of Christ, which was born of the Virgin Mary. But
many of the bishops represented to the pontiff, that



PERIOD THE THIRD. 79

Berengarius had oftentimes before made a similar
declaration, and had always known how to unite with
it his own errors. At the next Roman synod, in 1079,
at which some few bishops favoured his doctrines, but
were reduced to silence by the majority of their oppo-
nents, he was compelled to sign a formula, which con-
tained these words : " that the bread and wine were
changed according to their substance into the body and
blood of Christ ;" words which seemed to admit of no
further subterfuge. But Berengarius was able to ob-
scure things the most clear. From this formula he drew
a signification directly contrary to its intent, namely,
that the substance of the bread remained unchanged.
But a greater humiliation to his pride than the sign-
ing of the formula could be, was the declaration which
the pontiff exacted from him, that he had hitherto been
in error on the mystery of the eucharist. Lamenting
that the Almighty had withdrawn from him the gift of
fortitude, he surrendered at length through fear of ex-
communication and of the indignation of the people,
and returned to his native country with letters of safe
conduct and testimonials of his orthodoxy from the
pope. After his return from Rome, he composed a
work on the two Roman synods, replete with the bit-
terest insults and calumnies against those who had
acted against him. He represented, in particular, the
conduct of the pope, in a manner that is in direct con-
tradiction with the historically well-known character of
Gregory ; that in wavering inconstancy he had hesita-
ted in his choice of doctrine, that he had commanded
a monk to obtain by revelation from the Virgin Mary
instruction how he was to act in the cause of Beren-
garius, and that, contrary to his own inclination, and to
the advice which he had received from heaven, he had
yielded to the compulsory persuasion of a few bishops.
Again, in 1080, did Berengarius defend himself
before a synod at Bourdeaux. Guitmund, a scholar of
Lanfranc, and afterwards bishop of Aversa, now op-
posed the doctrines of Berengarius in a learned work.
During the last years of his life, Berengarius retired to



80 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the island of St. Come, near Tours. He lived there in
solitude and repentance, and died, according to an
ancient tradition of the country, and the testimony of
his contemporaries, in the true faith of the Church.
Berthold of Constance, whose authority, on account of
comparatively recent date, is of little value, is the only
author who asserts the contrary.

According to Berengarius, the words of institution
are not to be taken in their literal sense ; and even if it
be correct to say, that the bread is changed into the
true body of Christ, we are to understand a change that
does not take from the bread its nature, but which en-
nobles it and imparts to it a high virtue, as the water of
baptism, without ceasing to be water, receives a sacra-
mental power by which it regenerates the souls of men,
and is so far indeed changed. By the mouth, the
sacrament, that is, the bread and wine, is received ; by
the heart, or spiritually, the virtue of the sacrament, the
virtue of the body and blood of Christ, is received ;
only the faithful, therefore, and not the wicked, are
made partakers of this sacred food. Hence, when
Berengarius speaks of a change which is effected in the
eucharist, he speaks not in the strict sense of the word,
for he understands thereby such a change only as is
effected in the other sacraments, by the consecration of
the matter, as of the water or of the oil. If he speaks
of the presence of the true body of Christ, he wishes to
assert no more than that, being far removed from the
Manichean error of a merely apparent body of Christ,
he admits a real and glorified body, but which is not
really present in the eucharist, either by consecration
or by an union with the bread ; for he imagines that
after the consecration, the bread represents the body of
Christ, and that by means of the bread, the faithful
receives something analogous to the body of Christ. The
doctrine of the real presence might indeed be drawn
from many passages of the writings of Berengarius,
from such, for example, in which he speaks of a real ob-
lation of the body of Christ in the sacrifice of the mass.
But Berengarius, as he had not introduced any new



PERIOD THE THIRD. 81

mode of speech, no terminology accommodated to his
own system, but employed the received language of the
Church, oftentimes says more than he, in fact, believed.
He often clothed his ideas in an ecclesiastical. Catholic,
dress, of which when they were stripped, they revealed
themselves in a system not far removed from the doc-
trines of Calvin. This obscurity, and his evident en-
deavour to accommodate himself to the then prevailing
forms of expression, contributed much to the errors
which prevailed amongst his followers. Only on one
subject were the Berengarians unanimous, — in the re-
jection of a substantial change in the matter of the
holy sacrament ; in other things they divided them-
selves into many sects. One party would admit of
nothing more than a simple figure of the body of Christ
in the eucharist, another asserted a real presence of
the body of Christ with the bread, a kind of impana-
tion ; some believed in a partial change of the bread
and wine, w^hilst others taught that the body and blood
of Christ were really in the eucharist, but that for the
w icked, who received it, it was no more than bread and
wine.

Those who opposed Berengarius, appealed with firm
confidence to the universal belief of the Church in the
doctrine of transubstantiation. They declared that the
doctrine of Berengarius was new and unknown in the
Church, and to be found nowhere but in the writings
of Erigena. And, in fact, Berengarius himself sup-
ported his system by no other authority, if we except a
few passages from the writings of the fathers, than by
the w orks of this Irish writer. The Berengarians de-
clared that the Church, by the ignorance of its bishops,
had fallen into error, and that the true Church was to
be found only amongst them. But they were, and
they continued to be during their short-lived existence,
like the Pelagians before them, only a school. Their
teacher never addressed his doctrine to the people ;
he directed his writings only to the learned, and hence
there never was a sect of Berengarians separated from
the Church.

VOL. III. G



82 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.



SECTION VIII.



COMMENCEMENT OF THE ORIENTAL SCHISM.



IGNATIUS AND PHOTIUS.



*



Already had ecclesiastical communion between the
east and the west been more than once interrupted.
This, as we have seen, occurred after the council of
Sardica, again in the schism of the patriarch Acacius,
and during the temporary prevalence of Monotheletism.
But these separations, as they originated in dogmatical
controversies, were closed again by the triumph of or-
thodoxy. From the end, however, of the seventh
century, there had been collecting, by degrees, seeds of
dissension, which sooner or later would produce a more
serious division, as, in addition to them, the diiferent
development of the two Churches, or rather the ever-
increasing degeneracy of the Greek Church, opposed to
the vigorous life which now began to display itself in
the Churches of the west, necessarily widened the
breach between the west and the east. The ambition
of the patriarchs of Constantinople had occasioned the
disputes on the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, and
on the title of " universal patriarch ;" and whilst these
prelates were in a state of the most oppressive depend-
ence on the humour and caprice of an immoral court,
and often condescended to be made the disgraceful
instruments of a tyranny founded on military dominion,
of a crowd of v/omen and of eunuchs, they were ena-



* Nicetas Davidis Vita S. Ignatii, in Mansi Cone. Collect, torn. xvi. ;
Photii EpistoliB, ed. Montacutius, Londini, 1651, fol. ; The Epistles
of the Popes, the Acts of the Synods of 869 and 879, and fragments
of othei* Acts, in Mansi, torn. xv. xvi. xvii. ; -^neoe Episcopi Parisi-
ensis Liber adversus objectiones Grsecorum, and Ratramni Libri IV
contra Gra;corum opposita, in D'Achery Spicileg. torn. i.

Laurentii Cozza Historia Polemica de Groscorum Schismate, Romae,
1719, 4 vols. fol. ; Stephani de Altimura (Mich. Le Quien) Panoidia
contra Schisma Grajcorum, Paris, 1718, 4to. ; Leo AUatiusde Ecclesiaj
Occid. et Orient, perpetua Consonsione, Colon. 1648, 4to.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 83
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bled, by the favour and the support of the same court,
to raise their own power over the bishops of their
patriarchate to the height of a monarchical despotic
sway. These bishops would then follow in the same
way which led their patriarchs to ambition and to pride.
In the year 691, the synod of the Trullo, so called
from the chamber of the imperial palace in which it was
convened, w^as held at Constantinople. The last two
oecumenical councils, the fifth and the sixth, had occu-
pied themselves only with questions of faith : the Trul-
laii council wished, therefore, to provide for the wants
of ecclesiastical discipline by a series of canons ; it was
thence considered as a supplement to the two preceding
synods, and was named by the Latins the Quinisext, by
the Greeks the awoBoc; TrevOeKTt]. It appeared as if the
bishops of this synod, in their fastidiousness on the
subject of the superiority of the Church of Rome in
matters of faith, in which the authority of this Church
had always triumphed, wished to maintain their own
independence in subjects of discipline, and, as it were,
to revenge themselves, by their disapprobation of many
practices of the w^estern Church, on that superiority
which their Grecian vanity so unwillingly endured.
Thus, without any apparent cause for their proceeding,
they in their first canon confirmed the African synods
which were held in the time of St. Cyprian, and W'hich
declared invalid the baptism of heretics and schis-
matics ; and in evident contradiction to their own act,
they forljade, in their ninety-fifth canon, baptism to be
readministered to converted Arians, Macedonians, Apol-
linarists, and other heretics. In their thirteenth canon
they reprehended the celibacy of the western clergy,
and in the fifty-fifth and eighty-ninth, they condemned
the fast of Saturday, which was practised in the Roman
Church, as forbidden by the sixty-sixth of the aposto-
lical canons. The popes immediately declared, that of
the two hundred and two canons of this synod, they
would sanction only those which were in accordance
with the decrees of earlier pontifi's and the approved
discipline of the western Church. It was in vain, there-

G 2



84 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

fore, that Justinian II used every endeavour, probably
at the instigation of the patriarch, to induce the pontiff,
Sergius, to sign the acts of this synod.

Soon after this, the Iconoclast controversy arose.
The Isaurian Leo wrested from the Roman patriarchate
the Illyrian provinces, and subjected them to the patri-
arch of Constantinople. During the celebration of the
second council of Nice, pope Adrian demanded that the
Roman patrimonies and these provinces should be re-
stored to his patriarchal jurisdiction ; but he demanded
in vain. The representations of a later pontiff, Nicho-
las I, met with no better success. The Greeks after-
wards declared that these provinces had been given to
the bishop of Constantinople, because the pope of an-
cient Rome had passed under the dominion of barbarian
nations, the Lombards and the Franks.

To the consciousness of an injury inflicted was now
added the indignation at one supposed to have been
received, namely, the restoration, by the popes, of the
western empire, and the fall of the Grecian power in
Italy. But during the Iconoclast controversy, the su-
premacy of the Roman pontiff was confessed in the
clearest terms by the Greek Catholics. The principal
reason adduced by them for their rejection of the council
of 754 was, that the pontiff had not confirmed its acts,
without whose confirmation, they said, nothing could
be valid in ecclesiastical affairs. Such was the declara-
tion of the martyr Stephen the Younger, and of the
bishops assembled at Nice. The patriarch Nicfephorus,
in his Aiitirrheticus, against the Iconoclasts, defended
the legitimacy of the second council of Nice, on the
ground that it had been sanctioned by the see of ancient
Rome, which had presided over it, w^hicli sanction was
necessary for the validity of an ecclesiastical decision.
In many ways, and in the strongest terms, w as the same
principle enforced by Theodore the Studite : he com-
plained that the party of the Iconoclasts had separated
themselves from the see of Peter, to whom Christ had
given the keys of faith, and that they had thereby
divided themselves from the body of Christ. He there-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 85

fore insisted, that a new synod should be called by the
authority of the pope, upon which the dignity of au
oecumenical council depended, or that both parties
should send delegates to Rome, that in conformity with
ancient tradition, the see of that city might decide on
tlie controversy on sacred images.

The monk Ignatius,* son of the emperor Michael
Rangabe, was chosen in a46, by the unanimous election
of the clergy and people, to succeed the deceased pa-
triarch Methodius. A prelate of such sincere piety and
firmness of mind must necessarily soon come into con-
flict witli a court sunk into the depths of the lowest
vice, and as it was ever in the east, must as necessarily
be overcome. The young emperor, Michael, whom his
luicle Bardas had formed into a worthless voluptuary,
added to his excesses mockery of religion : he appointed
a buffoon as patriarch in his palace : he profaned the
most sacred mysteries with unheard-of impieties, and
loaded the patriarch Ignatius, and his own mother, with
ignominious opprobium. The bishops of the imperial
city had long been unaccustomed to employ against the
emperors, whatever their conduct might have been, the
spiritual arms of religion ; but Ignatius thought that
this forbearance should not be observed towards the
Csesar, Bardas. Bardas had divorced himself from his
lawful wife, and lived in a state of scandalous incest
with his step-daughter ; Ignatius, therefore, after re-
peated warnings, excommunicated him. It was now
resolved at court to oblige the empress Theodora and
her daughters, the mother and the sisters of Michael,
to put on the religious veil : the refusal of Ignatius to
co-operate in this act of violence embittered against
him the mind of the young emperor, and presented to
the all-powerful Bardas an occasion of wreaking his
revenge upon him. False testimonies to criminate him
were not wanting : he was accused of acting in league
with a madman named Gedeon, who pretended to be a

* See tlie life of St. Ignatius, in Butler's Lives of the Saints, Oct. 23.



86 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

son of Theodore, and laid claim therefore to the impe-
rial crown. He was banished to the island of Tere-
binthus ; whither bishops and patricians w^ere sent to
induce him to resign his patriarchate, but without effect.
The opposition of many bishops, who strongly defended
tbeir adherence to the holy patriarch, determined Bar-
das to offer to each the patriarchal dignity, upon the
condition that each one should seem to decline it.
They were ensnared by this artifice ; but they were
taken at their word, and a layman named Photius, a
member of the imperial family, and first secretary, was,
in 858, appointed patriarch. He was the most learned
man of his age, but of unbounded ambition, not un-
touched by the corruption of the court, and well versed
in all the arts of its intrigue. In six days after his
nomination he received the episcopal consecration.
Gregory Asbestas, archbishop of Syracuse, whom Me-
thodius had excommunicated and Ignatius had deposed,
allowed himself to be persuaded to consecrate the new
patriarch. The bishops who were at Constantinople
were induced to acknowledge him, but not before he
had solemnly promised them, in writing, to spare Igna-
tius, and to honour him as his father. But the contrary
to this occurred. Ignatius steadfastly refused to resign :
he was therefore treated with ignominy, and even suf-
fered from blows inflicted on him by his enemies, whilst
a more severe doom awaited those who in Constantino-
ple still adhered to him, or who refused to enter into
communion wdth Photius. Photius himself complained,
in his letter to Bardas, of the severities to which priests
were subjected, but he afterwards went further on the
path which others had opened. A synod at Constanti-
nople declared Photius excommunicated, but the greater
number of the bishops were afterwards seduced to his
party, either by promises or threats : only five persisted
in their refusal to acknowledge him, for which they
were deposed, imprisoned, and, lastly, banished. Pho-
tius and Bardas, in the meantime, called an assembly of
their partisans, which deposed Ignatius, on three
grounds, — the invalidity of his election, the illegality of



PERIOD THE THIRD. 87

his consecration, and his pretended conspiracy against
the emperor.

Nothing was more important to Photius than to ob-
tain the recognition of the Roman pontiff. An imposing
embassy of bishops, at whose head was an uncle of the
emperor, went with rich presents to Rome. They re-
lated that Ignatius had resigned, on account of his great
age ; an assertion that was contradicted by the letter
which they presented to the pope, and which stated
that Ignatius had been deposed by a synod. The pope
was requested also to send legates to Constantinople, to
attend a council in which the controversy respecting
sacred images was to be terminated, and canons of
ecclesiastical discipline formed. Photius, in an epistle
to the pontiff, represented, in a tone of feigned humility
and complaint, the violence that had been used to
oblige him to receive the patriarchate. Nicholas, the
pope, who was not sufficiently informed of the true
state of affairs, acted with prudence. In his answer, he
contented himself with reprehending the uncanonical
and rapid elevation of Photius from the state of a lay-
man to the highest ecclesiastical dignity ; and he com-
missioned his legates, Zacharias bishop of Anagni, and
Rodvald bishop of Porto, first to gain true information,
and to withhold themselves from all communion with
Photius. In his letter to the emperor, the pontiff com-
plained that Ignatius had been deposed without any
consultation with the see of Rome, and that a layman
had been ordained in his place : he required that the
patriarch should be heard ; that his cause should be ex-
amined in a synod to be holden by his legates, upon
whose report he would determine. But the legates had
received, whilst on their journey, presents from the
emperor and from Photius. When arrived in the im-
perial city, they were lodged in the palace, in a kind of
honourable custody, and carefully prevented from all
communication from without. Unceasingly assailed,
for three months, by allurements and threats, they
yielded at length, and promised to ratify, in a synod,
the election of Photius and the deposition of Ignatius.



88 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

This synod, at which there were present three hundred
and eighteen bishops, was opened, in 861, by the papal
legates. The letter of the pope was only so far read as
it seemed to favour the party, and even in these pas-
sages it was falsified. Against Ignatius, who was com-
pelled to appear, the thirtieth of the apostolical canons,
which decreed that a bishop who had attained his
dignity by means of the civil power should be deposed,
was made to bear : seventy-two suborned witnesses
swore that Ignatius, who had been for twelve years
acknowledged as lawful patriarch by all Churches and
bishops, by the people and the court, had procured his
election by uncanonical practices. Ignatius appealed
to the pope, and ten metropolitans signed his appeal.
But the sentence of his deposition was pronounced and
signed by the timid legates. A deposed subdeacon tore
from him his episcopal robes, as a sign of his degrada-
tion. He was then required to declare the justice of
his deposition by his own signature ; new indignities
and cruelties followed his refusal, until force was used
to keep his hand on the paper. He avoided by flight
the further indignity of reading his own condemnation
in the church ; but after some time, to prevent a tumult
of the people, he returned to his monastery.

As soon as Nicholas had received the acts of the
synod, together with a letter from the emperor, and
another, composed with artful hypocrisy, from Photius,
he convened a council of the Roman clergy. He there
declared that he had not consented to the degradation
of Ignatius or to the elevation of Photius, and that he
would not, until the offences imputed to the former
could be proved agahist him. He addressed an ency-
clical letter, containing this declaration, to the three
patriarchs of the East, and wTote at the same time to
Photius and the emperor. To Photius he wrote, that
he had acted as an adulterer, in invading the Church of
another ; that his assertion, that he had been conse-
crated by violence and against his will, was proved to
be false, by his injustice and cruelties against Ignatius
and his friends. At a Roman synod, in 863, the legate



PERIOD THE THIRD. 89

Zacharias, who, according to his own confession, had
been coriTipted by bribes, was deposed and excommu-
nicated, llodvald, the other legate, who was still
absent, was visited a short time later with a similar
punishment. In the same synod, the pope, as he saw
that his letter had produced no effect in Constantinople,
pronounced against Photius sentence of deposition and
of separation from the body of the clergy, accompany-
ing it with the threat of excommunication, if he should
endeavour to retain the patriarchal see or to obstruct
Ignatius in the government of his Church : all those
who had been ordained by Photius were commanded to
return to the rank of laics, and all that had been done
against Ignatius was to be considered invalid. The
pontiff also declared Gregory of Syracuse to be deposed.
Another messenger now arrived from Constantinople,
the bearer of an epistle from the emperor, in which,
after many outrages against the pope and the see of
Rome, Michael imperiously demanded that the pope
should confirm all that had been done at Constantinople.
But Nicholas replied, with dignified moderation, that
unless the emperor w'ould command that letter to be
burnt, he would excommunicate all those who had
counselled him to send it, as well as those who had
composed it, and that he himself would burn it in a
synod.

Amidst the frightful excesses and crimes of the By-
zantine court, Photius was silent, or rather took part
in them : he assisted at the imperial drinking feats, and
in them contended w ith the rabble of the court for the
precedence ; not indeed that w^e are to suppose that he
acted thus from inclination, but only to confirm himself
in the favour of the emperor and of those around him.
For his patron, Bardas, the author of all these evils, had
been murdered, in 866, with the approbation of IMichael,
by Basilius, a new favourite : but Photius retained his
influence, and as he could now assure himself of the
sympathy of the whole body of the oriental clergy in
the controversy with the Bulgarians, he proceeded to
the extreme of violence against the see of Rome. The



90 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Bulgarians had at this time given the preference to the
priests who had been sent to them from Rome, before
those who had come from Greece, and had obliged the
latter to return to their own country. The two bishops
who had followed the priests from Rome, had moreover
declared the confirmation administered by the Greek
priests invalid, and began to confirm again the con-
verted Bulgarians. Three papal legates, who wished to
pass from Bulgaria to Constantinople, w^ere not permit-
ted to enter the empire. Photius now called a synod
of the bishops who were devoted to him, and endea-
voured to give to it the authority of a general council.
There appeared in it pretended representatives of the
three patriarchs : false accusations were heard, and
anathemas pronounced, against the pope. It appears
that only twenty-one bishops signed the decree. Pho-
tius, therefore, must have procured thousands of suf-
frages and signatures from the bishops of his party,
from priests, deacons and patricians, of whom the
greater number had never heard of the existence of the
synod. To ensure to himself the support of the empe-
ror Lewis, and of his empress Ingelberge, against the
pontiff, Photius introduced into the acts of the council,
acclamations, in which the bishops gave to them the
title of imperial, an appellation which had always been
refused by the Greeks to the western emperors : he
sent this piece of forgery, with rich presents, to the
emperor and Ingelberge. He then addressed a circular
to the three patriarchs, in which he objected to the
western ecclesiastics in Bulgaria, and through them to
the whole Western Church, that they fasted on Satur-
day, that they abridged the time of Lent by a week,
and that, during the fast, they took milk food ; that
they despised those priests who lived in virtuous matri-
mony, and rejected the anointing (confirmation) ad-
ministered by priests ; that they falsified the confessions
of faith, w^hich had been sanctioned by general councils,
by adding to them, and taught that the Holy Ghost
proceeds, not from the Father only, but from the Son
also, by which they introduced into the Trinity two



PERIOD THE THIRD. 91

principles, makiiij^ the Father the principle of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost, and the Son also a principle of
the Holy Ghost.

The most conspicuous accusation, and that to which
Photius attached the greatest importance, was the last ;
partly, because it was the only one by which a dogma
of the Church was affected ; and partly, because it was
of a nature to excite a strong hostile feeling in the
people, on account of the addition to the symbol of
faith of the word filioqtte, " and from the Son." But
additions to the symbol had before been frequently
made. The ancient apostles' creed had received several
before the council of Nice : at Nice, on account of the
Arian and Sabellian heresies, its formulas were extend-
ed, and at Sardica, it was decreed that it should thus con-
tinue for the future. But in 371, it w as thought ad-
visable, in order to oppose the new heresies against the
Holy Ghost, to add the proposition which spoke of this
Holy Spirit, as " the Lord and vivifier, who proceeds
from the Father, who is adored and glorified with the
Father and the Son, who spoke by the prophets." The
second oecumenical council of 381, confirmed the intro-
duction of this formula. At the council of Ephesus, in
431, it was ordained that the symbol of Nice (with the
additions of 381) should not be again changed ; but at
the council of Chalcedon, in 451, the necessity was felt
of opposing to the errors of Nestorianism and Euty-
chianism a profession of faith, similar to that which St.
Cyril had received from the orientals and from John,
patriarch of Antioch. The Monophysites produced
the Ephesine canon against the validity of this formula,
but the Catholics replied that the Ephesine synod had
forbidden no more than the addition of any formula
which might be in contradiction with the formulas of
the Nicene symbol. The word filioq^ie was first in-
troduced by the Spanish Church in its profession of
faith, about the beginning of the fifth century ; it is to
be found in the symbol of the first council of Toledo,
held against the Priscillianists, in the year 400. In the
symbol of Nice, as enlarged at Constantinople, it was



92 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

found at the time of the conversion of the West Goths
to the Catholic Church ; and at the synod of Toledo, in
589, it had been introduced, and was ordered to be sung
according to a decree of this council, together with the
entire formula, by the people at the celebration of the
divine mysteries. From Spain, the word passed into
France and Germany, during the eighth century ; and
in the synod of Friuli, in 794, and in that of Frankfort,
of 794, the word JiUoque was adopted in the con-
fession of faith. And, in fact, the introduction of this
word was most desirable, to convey a more perfect
declaration of the doctrine of the Trinity : for, ac-
cording to the principles of the Greek fathers, the real
ground on which the like essence of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost with the Father necessarily rests, is,
that both spring from the Father ; the Son by gene-
ration and the Holy Ghost by procession ; so the Holy
Ghost, as he is of like essence with the Son, and yet dis-
tinct from him in person, must receive his divine sub-
stance also from the Son. Both the perfect equality of
nature, and the personal distinction of the Holy Ghost
from the Son, are expressed by the vford Jllioque. The
council of 381 had defined against the Macedonians,
who maintained that the Holy Ghost was a creature of
the Son, merely the Homousion of the Holy Ghost with
the Father, and consequently the procession of the same
Divine Spirit from the Father ; that the Holy Ghost
proceeded from the Son, these heretics did not deny.
The first who denied this procession were the Monothe-
lites at Constantinople ; when they found this doctrine
asserted in an epistle of the pope St. Martin, they were
followed by the Iconoclasts, and hence this subject was
discussed in a synod at Gentilly, near Paris, in 7(^7-
The complaints which the monk John raised at Jerusalem
against the western monks who resided there, on this
same question, were the occasion of the synod which
assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 809, in the presence of
the emperor. This synod sent to Rome the bishop of
Worms, and Adelhard, abbot of Corby, to request the
pontiff to insert the word JiUoque in the symbol of the



PERIOD THE THIRD. 03

first two councils. With this request the pope refused
to comply, as he did not wish to exalt himself above the
holy fathers, who had compiled the symbol ; and as
other things which regarded the doctrine of the Trini-
ty, and were therefore necessary to be believed, were
also omitted by them. In the dogma the pontiff was,
of course, of the same belief as were the delegates ;
for, in his letter to the monks of Jerusalem, he had
asserted the doctrine of the procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Father and from the Son. The for-
mula was, however, soon after received into the symbol
at Rome.

The pope Nicholas wrote to the French bishops, and
in particular to Ilincmar of Rheims, and requested them
to co-operate with him in refuting the accusations that
had been made by the Greeks against the western
Church. In addition to the objections which we have
named above, he now mentioned others that had been
added, that the Latins offered on the altar at Easter a
lamb together with the body of our Lord ; that the
priests did not permit their beards to grow ; that they
consecrated deacons, bishops, without having first or-
dained them priests ; and that they prepared the chrisnx,
from river water. It was not for the French theologians,
iEneas bishop of Paris, and Ratramnus the monk of
Corby, a difficult task to reply to these groundless, and
in part, ludicrously trifling objections.

The miserable Michael was murdered in 867, by the
machinations of his favourite and co-regent Basilius.
Being now sole emperor, Basilius lost no time in driving
Photius from the patriarchal throne, and in restoring
the lawful patriarch, Ignatius, after ten years of wan-
dering in persecution, to his Church. With him, the
bishops, abbots, and monks, who had been banished on
his account, returned also from exile. But Photius,
during the ten years of his usurpation, had been able to
gain over to his interests nearly all the Greek bishop-
rics, and now held no less than three hundred bishops
in his party, whilst Ignatius met at every step opposition
and contradiction. It therefore appeared necessary to



94 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

convene a general council to restore again to order the
affairs of the Greek Church. The emperor sent an
embassy to Rome to request the pontiff to send legates
and to consult with him upon the conduct to be
observed towards the adherents of Photius, and towards
those who had been ordained by him. Photius also sent
to Rome the metropolitan of Sardes, who died on his
journey. In a synod at Rome, the pope Adrian II
pronounced anathema against Photius, caused the acts
of his false synod to be burnt, but promised pardon to
his followers, if they w ould acknowledge themselves to
have been in error, and would return to the communion
of Ignatius. Three legates conveyed the acts of this
synod and letters from the pope to Constantinople,
where a delegate of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the
archbishop of Tyre, as representative of the lately
deceased patriarch of Antioch, had already arrived.
The synod, the eighth general council of the Church,
was opened on the fifth day of October 869, in the
church of St. Sophia. The pontifical legates presided ;
after them sat Ignatius and the representatives of the
patriarchs. The legates presented a formula of union,
-which every bishop was required to sign before he
could take part in the council. It contained an ana-
thema against all heresies, against Photius, and against
all those who should remain in communion with him ;
also an explanatory declaration of the synods which had
been holden by the popes Nicholas and Adrian, against
Photius, and the condemnation of all that he had
attempted against the see of Ptome. The first session
in w^hich this document, and one of a similar nature
from the patriarchs, were read, consisted of only
eighteen prelates ; but their number increased as the
separation of the innocent from the guilty and the sub-
scription to the formula proceeded. In the second
session, the elder bishops who had been consecrated by
Methodius and Ignatius, but who had passed over to
Photius, presented an acknowledgment of their fault,
requested, as they had yielded only to violence, to be
admitted to pardon, and were received after they had



PERIOD THE THIRD. 95

signed the formula. To the other ecclesiastics, who had
acted in the same manner, a penance was assi,i^ned, after
the performance of which they were permitted to re-
sume their ecclesiastical functions. In the next sitting
several of the bishops refused to sign the papal formu-
lary, because, as it appears, they imagined they saw in
it too great a concession to be made by them to the
Roman legates ; some of them, therefore, laid their
difficulty before the emperor, complaining that the By-
zantine Church was made the handmaid of the Church
of Rome. In the fifth session, Photius, although against
his will, was introduced ; but he persevered in an ob-
stinate silence, and at length replied to only a few
questions, employing in his answers words of Christ
taken from the Scriptures. At the three following
sessions the emperor was present. The bishops who
had been consecrated by Photius, and who were in pur-
suance of the pope's decree to be deposed, endeavoured
to defend the ordination of Photius and their own.
Those who spoke were Euthymius of Csesarea, Zacha-
rias of Chalcedon, and Eulampius of Apamea. The
popes, these bishops asserted, are not superior to the
canons ; if, therefore, they transgress the canons, they
may be resisted. They were answered by Metropha-
nes of Smyrna, who reminded them that the party of
Photius itself had appealed to the Roman pontiff,
Nicholas. The emperor also, in an address w^hicli he
caused to be read by his secretary, exhorted them to
yield to the decision of the present synod, which was
celebrated with the co-operation of the united patri-
archal sees. Photius and Gregory of Syracuse, who
were introduced in the seventh session, declared that
they would give the reasons for their conduct oidy to
the emperor, and not to the legates of the pope. They
were then excommunicated, with all their obstinate
adherents. In the eighth session, the subscriptions
which Photius had obtained from the different classes
of the clergy and laics by force or by fraud, with his
writings against the pope and the patriarch Ignatius,
were consigned to the flames. The deception and



96 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the falsifications of which he had been guilty in his last
pretended council were now laid open, and the canon
of the Roman synod, held under the pope Martin,
which condemned to excommunication for the whole
period of his life, the falsifier of ecclesiastical decrees,
was read to the council.

After an interruption of three months, the ninth ses-
sion, at which the delegate of the patriarch of Alexan-
dria was present, opened on the 1 2th of February, in the
year 8/0. This session was dedicated to the examination
of the false testimonies that had been employed against
Ignatius. At the tenth and last session, the most numer-
ously attended of all, there were present one hundred
and two prelates, the emperor and his sons, the ambas-
sadors of the Western emperor, Lewis, and twenty
patricians. The decrees of the pope against Photius
and in favour of Ignatius were confirmed ; the ordina-
tions conferred by Photius, who had never been lawful
bishop, w^ere declared illegal ; the seven preceding
general councils were confirmed, and the decrees
against the Monothelites and Iconoclasts renewed. Of
the twenty- seven canons of this council, two in par-
ticular prove that, notwithstanding the presence of the
emperor, its acts were entirely free. One of these two
decreed the deposition of such bishops as had been
intruded into their sees by an abuse of the civil power ;
the other condemned the opinion, that the presence of
the emperor was necessary for the validity of a council.
The twenty-first (thirteenth) spoke of the honour that
was due to the patriarchs, particularly to the patriarch
of ancient Rome. Whoever, either by words or by
writing, should attack the see of Peter, should be con-
demned, as were Dioscorus and Photius. If, in a
general council, a controversy should arise respecting
the Church of Rome, information, and the solution of
the controversy, should be sought with the becoming
reverence, but that no one should speak with presump-
tion against the hierarchy of ancient Rome. The
emperor signed the decrees of the council, after the
delegates of the patriarchal Churches. The Roman



PERIOD THE THIRD. 97
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legates added to their subscription, the clause — with
reservation of the revision of the pope. This addition
gave rise to some reclamations on the side of the Greeks.
Hov^^ever great miglit have been the harmony with
which the Greeks and the papal delegates had conducted
the chief acts of this council, it was not difficult to
discover beneath it the distrustful jealousy of the By-
zantines against Rome. Some of the Greek bishops so
far influenced the emperor, as to allow the subtraction
of a part of the papal formulary : it was restored by
means of the ambassadors of the emperor Lewis. But
the great stone of scandal was the question of the juris-
diction over the Bulgarians. With this question was
involved, not only the rights of the patriarch, but the
political interest also of the emperor, which would
appear to be injured by the independence of the Bulga-
rians of the Church of Constantinople. The ambassadors
of the Bulgarian king, in a conference which was held
immediately after the termination of the synod, and at
which, with Ignatius and the legates, only the repre-
sentatives of the patriarchs were present, proposed this
question, — To what Church should the Church of their
nation be considered subject ? The orientals answered,
that as Bulgaria had formerly constituted a part of the
Greek empire, and as the Bulgarians, when they took
possession of the country, found there, not Latin, but
Greek priests, it was evident that they should be incor-
porated with the patriarchate of Constantinople. The
legates replied, that the jurisdiction of the Church was
not confined by the political divisions of the empire,
and ought not to vary with the variations of territorial
boundaries, that Rome had ordained, either immedi-
ately or by its vicars, the bishops in the two provinces
of Epirus, in Thessaly and Dardania (Bulgaria) until
these provinces had been wrested from its jurisdiction
by the violence of Leo the Isaurian ; that the Bulga-
rians had of their own will subjected themselves to the
Roman Church ; that they had been converted by
Roman missionaries ; and that for three years they had
been governed by bishops and priests, who had been

VOL. III. H



98 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

sent to them from Rome. The legates, at last, asserted
the higher authority of the Church of Rome, which
would not sul^ject itself to the decision of another. But
the Greeks persevered in their opposition the more, as
the Romans no longer acknowledged the authority of
the Greek emperor, but had attached themselves to the
emperor of the Franks. It was in vain that the legates
appealed to Ignatius, conjuring him not to join in de-
spoiling of its rights that Church, by the assistance of
which he had regained possession of his own. His
answer was indefinite and foreign to the subject. Soon
after he sent the learned Theophylactus, as first metro-
pohtan, into Bulgaria. The successor of Adrian, the
too imperious John VIII, sent, at the request of the
emperor, the bishops of Ancona and Ostia, as legates to
Constantinople, to remedy the evils which the still
existing party of Photius had occasioned. They con-
veyed to Ignatius letters from the pope, in which he was
commanded to recall all the Greek bishops and priests
from Bulgaria. He was threatened, if he should hesi-
tate to comply, first with suspension, and then with
excommunication. But death freed him from this con-
troversy.

In the meantime, the artful and designing Photius
had secured to himself powerful friends at court : he
had flattered the emperor by a genealogical tree, on
which he had traced his descent from the Arsacides : he
had been the tutor of the young princes, the counsellor
of the emperor, and now, three days after the death of
Ignatius, in 8/8, he appeared once more as patriarch.
He again employed, as before, all the arts of corruption
and of force, either to gain or to remove the bishops
that were opposed to him. He sent the abbot Theo-
dore Santabares, a fit instrument of his nefarious
designs, as his apocrisarius to the pope. In his letter,
he lamented, in a tone of great humility, the violence
that had again been used to place him on the patriarchal
throne. The two legates, who had been sent to Igna-
tius, allowed themselves to be drawn to the party of
Photius ; their example was followed by many bishops,



PERIOD THE THIRD. 99

and an embassy to the pope arrived in Rome from the
emperor, who, in his epistle to the pontiif, asserted that
all the bishops who had been ordained by Methodius
and Ignatius now declared for Photius, and he therefore
requested him to receive Photius into communion with
the see of Rome, and to confirm him as patriarch.
John VIII, who then required the aid of Basilius against
the Saracens, that menaced the desolation of Italy, and
whom a promise that the Bulgarian Church should be
left under his jurisdiction appears to have influenced,
and who was moved also perhaps by a just fear of an
irremediable schism, yielded to the request, and removed
all censures from Photius and his adherents, but with
the conditions that Photius shoukl declare, before a
synod, his sorrow for his past offences, that the Bulga-
rians should be restored to the jurisdiction of the Roman
patriarchate, that no layman should be again elected
bishop, and that all those who had been ordained by
Ignatius should retain their places. After the arrival
of the cardinal, Peter, the papal legate, a great council
of three hundred and eighty bishops was held in 8/9,
in which Photius gained a signal triumph. Zacharias
of Ephesus, in the first session, after a fulsome pane-
gyric of the " divine" Photius, declared that this council,
for which there was indeed no necessity, was held only
to repel the calumnies of a small party of heretics, and
more through respect for the see of Rome, on whose
authority it was based. In the second and third ses-
sions, Photius read the letter of the pope, and his in-
structions to the legate, in a translation in which these
documents were mutilated and falsified. All that dis-
pleased him in them — the reference to his own usurpa-
tion, the demand of an acknowledgment of his crimes —
he omitted or changed, and substituted in their place a
eulogy of himself, and an entire rejection of the council
of 869. Interpolated or forged were, without doubt,
the epistles of the three patriarchs, which abounded
with praises of Photius and the emperor, and declared
the delegates of the patriarchs, at the last synod, to
have been liars and deceivers. It is far more probable

h2



100 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

that these epithets were more applicable to the dele-
gates at the present synod, who gave their voice to all
that was required of them ; for a contemporary, the
author of the Breviarum of the eighth general council,
testifies, that since the pontiff Nicholas, with the con-
currence of the three oriental patriarchs, had anathem-
atised Photius, Photius had been recognised by none
of them. When, in the fourth session, the conditions
and requisitions of the pope were mentioned, there was
not exhibited by the councnl even the appearance of a
desire to gratify the pontiff, who had weakened his
authority by his condescension : the question of the
Bulgarian jurisdiction was referred to the emperor, and
the ordinance of the pope, that a layman should no
more be elected bishop, was pronounced intolerable ;
but joy was shown when it was proposed to condemn
the synods that had been held against Photius, and to
excommunicate the schismatics, those who refused to
acknowledge Photius. In the fifth session, on the 28th
of January 880, a species of covenant was pretended to
be concluded between the patriarchs of ancient and
new Rome, by which neither was for the future to
sanction the deposition or the excommunication of the
other. The following two sessions were held in pre-
sence of the emperor. The symbol of 381 was adopted,
with an anathema, directed evidently against the West-
ern Church, which prohibited all changes, either by
strange words, by additions or by omissions, as formula-
ries of faith. Procopius of Caesarea then pronounced a
panegyric of Photius, whom he compared to Christ, and
the council was closed by a series of acclamations, of
which one was, " Many years to the patriarchs Photius
and John!" To the acts of the council was added a
pretended letter from the pontiff to Photius, in which
the word Jilioque is declared to be an addition rejected
by the Church of Rome, and a blasphemy which must
be abolished, but calmly and by degrees. This synod
might be viewed in all its parts as a worthy sister of the
Council of Robbers of the year 449 ; with this differ-
ence, that in the earlier synod violence and tyranny, in



PERIOD THE THIRD. 101

the later artifice, fraud and falsehood, were employed by
wicked men to work out their wicked designs. Photius
had, on many preceding occasions, given such proofs of
his mastery in the art of falsification, that it is more
than probable, and this suspicion cannot be removed by
contemporary records, of which there are so few, that
many things in the acts of this synod were forged or
interpolated by him. This much, however, is certain,
that the papal legates, the cardinal Peter, and two
bishops, who had been sent in a former delegation,
surrounded by a web of deceit, and not mindful of Gre-
cian artifice, acted a lamentable part in this aifair. So
deeply corrupted were the Byzantine clergy, and in
general so degraded, that it required a more than ordi-
nary degree of prudence and caution to escape untouched
in this poisoned atmosphere of infection. The pope,
deceived by his legates and by false accounts that
Bulgaria had been surrendered to the patriarchal juris-
diction of the Church of Rome, thanked the emperor
for the service which he had done to the Church by
this synod : but he seemed to have entertained some
suspicion, for he added, " if perchance his legates had
in any thing acted contrary to the papal instructions,
this he could not confirm." By degrees his eyes were
opened. He then sent to Constantinople the bishop
Marinus, to declare invalid all that the legates had done
contrary to their instructions. For the execution of
this commission he was cast by the emperor into prison,
where he remained for a month. Marinus, when suc-
cessor of John VIII, rejected the Photian synod and
condemned Photius : this condemnation was repealed
by Adrian III. When Basilius died, in 886, Photius
found himself necessitated again to abdicate his patri-
archal throne. His creature, Theodore Santabares,
whom he raised to the archbishopric of Euchaites, had
made the unsuccessful attempt to create enmities be-
tween the emperor and his son Leo. As soon as Leo
ascended the throne of his father, he resolved to revenge
himself upon Theodore and his patron. Two imperial
officers read in the church a catalogue of the crimes



102 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

committed by Photius, whom they declared to be de-
posed. For five years he lived in retirement in a clois-
ter, and was succeeded in his dignity by the young
Stephen, the brother of the emperor. This young man
had been ordained deacon by Photius ; but as the Roman
see and the council of 869 had declared all the ordina-
tions of Photius invalid, the emperor required of all the
bishops who were then at Constantinople to write with
him to the pope, praying him to grant dispensation and
absolution to all those who had been ordained by Pho-
tius. The emperor, therefore, and Stylianus, metro-
politan of Csesarea, sent letters to Rome ; but as the
emperor in his letter stated that Photius had resigned,
whilst Stylianus alluded to his expulsion, the pope,
Stephen IV, suspended his judgment until he should
receive more accurate information. In the meantime,
the young patriarch Stephen died, in 893, and under
his successor, Anthony, Stylianus and many other
bishops wrote again to Rome, where Formosus had
become pope, praying for leniency towards those who
had been ordained by Photius, and expressed a wish
that the pontiff would address, for the same purpose, an
encyclical letter to the patriarchs of the East. Formosus
sent two bishops to Constantinople, the bearers of his
decision, which was, that those who had received ordi-
nation from Photius should be received into the com-
munion of the Church, but only as laics.



SECTION IX.



RELATIONS OF THE TWO CHURCHES IN THE TENTH
AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. RENEWAL OF THE
SCHISM BY MICHAEL CERULARIUS.



*



The emperor Leo, by espousing a fourth wife, Zoe
Carbonopsine, in the year 905, caused a widely extend-

* The Letters of the Patriarcli Nicholas, in Baronius, ad annum
912 ; Glaber Radulpli. 4, 1 ; Luitprandi Legatio ad Nicephorum



PERIOD THE THIRD. 103

ing schism in the Byzantine Church. A fourth marriage
had been long prohibited by the Greeks. The patriarch
Nicholas Mysticus had most earnestly implored the
emperor not to give this scandal to his subjects, and
when Leo, notwithstanding his entreaties, received the
nuptial benediction from an ecclesiastic of the palace,
the patriarch excommunicated the priest and forbade
the emperor to enter the church. Even the represen-
tations of the papal legates, who had come to Constan-
tinople at the request of the emperor, failed to shake
the constancy of Nicholas. He was at length violently
removed by the command of Leo, in 900, and the
syncellus Euthymius, who received the emperor to
communion, was appointed to succeed him. But Ni-
cholas was recalled after the death of Leo, or durmg
his last sickness : he consulted the pope, John X, on
the subject of fourth espousals, and as the question was
now no lon2;er personal, he requested that it might be
impartially "decided. For since the deposition of Eu-
thymius a schism had arisen between the two parties of
the Nicholaites and the Euthymians, the opponents and
the defenders of fourth marriages. The legates of the
pontiff restored peace, and these marriages were pro-
hibited for the future by an edict of the emperor Con-

stantine. . i , r»i •

The accusations that had been raised by Fhotius
against the Western Church were now forgotten, or
were no longer mentioned. Luitprand, bishop of Cre-
mona, who, m 968, was at Constantinople as ambassa-
dor of the emperor Otho, heard nothing of these
objections. But there were not wanting other causes
of dissension. Whilst Luitprand was still in the impe-



Phocam, in Corp. Script. Byzant. pt. xi. Bonn. 1828 ; The Letters of
Cerularius and Leo of Achrida, the Writings of Humbert and Isicetus
Pectoratus, the Coramemoratio eorum qua; gesserunt Apocrisaru b. K.
EcclesiiB in Regia Urbe, and the Letters of Excommunication, in
Canisius-Basnage Thesaur. tom. iii. pt. i. 281-328; Tlie Lpistles of
Pope Leo IX, in Mansi, tom. xix. ; Two Epistles of Cerularius to
Peter, patriarch of Antioch, and the Answers, in Cotclerii Monum.
Graec. tom. ii.



104 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

rial city, legates from pope John XIII arrived, bearing
letters to the emperor Nicephoras Phocas, who was
named therein " emperor of the Greeks," and in which
to Otho were given the titles, " Emperor of the Romans,
and Augustus." So great was the bitterness excited
by this circumstance, that the legates were thrown into
prison. Added to this was the command of the em-
peror, that the episcopal see of Otranto should be raised
to the dignity of an archbishopric by the patriarch
Polyeuctus, as he, and not the pope, ordained the
bishops of the surrounding country : it was decreed
also that the Greek, and not the Latin, language should
be henceforth used in the liturgy, in Calabria and Apu-
lia. The title of " oecumenical patriarch" had not been
laid aside by the patriarchs of Constantinople, but their
pride was wounded by the refusal of the popes, and of
the entire Western Church, to award it to them. The
patriarch Eustathius, supported by the emperor, and
armed with rich presents of gold, applied, in the year
1024, to the pope, John XIX. In Rome, where, un-
happily, simony was then not unfrequent, there was
shown an inclination to accede to his request. But no
sooner was the negotiation made known, than a voice
of general disapprobation was raised in Italy and in
France. Many prelates earnestly besought the pope
that so foul a blot might not be cast on the Roman see,
and the grant was therefore suspended.

But Michael Cerularius, who, when a laic, had been
compelled to enter a monastery on account of a conspi-
racy into which he had entered against the emperor,
Michael the Paphligonian, and who, when patriarch (1043
— 1059) proved himself to be a man of insatiable am-
bition, and withal ignorant and superstitious, completed
the separation which so many causes had prepared.
In 1053, in conjunction with Leo of Archida, the learned
metropolitan of Bulgaria, he directed a letter to John,
bishop of Trani, and through him to all the bishops,
priests, and people of France, and to the pope himself.
In this letter it was objected to the Churches of the
west, that, following the practice of the Jews, and con-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 105

trary to the usage observed by Christ, they employed
unleavened bread in the eucharist, that they fasted on
the Saturdays in Lent, that they eat blood and things
strangled, and that in the time of fasting they did not
sing the alleluja. This letter was translated into Latin
by the Cardinal Humbert, and presented by him to the
pope, St. Leo IX. The pontiff immediately wrote a
refutation of it, and, amongst other things remarked
that whilst Cerularius had closed the churches of the
Latins, and had taken their churches from the Latin
abbots and monks, as long as they refused to adopt the
rites of the Greeks, the numerous churches and cloisters
of the Greeks at Rome were, on the contrary, permitted
to retain the religious usages of Greece. This more
apologetical than polemical epistle of the pope, was
followed by another of a different kind, which was
conveyed, in 1054, to Constantinople, by three legates,
Humbert cardinal of St. Rufina, Peter archbishop of
Amalfi, and the chancellor Frederic. In this it was
objected to Cerularius, that he wished to subject to
himself the patriarchs of Alexandria and of Antioch ;
and that he had arrogated to himself the title of oecu-
menical patriarch. Humbert, during his residence at
Constantinople, composed a defence of the pope's let-
ter, and accused the Greeks of the abuses of which
they were guilty ; that they rebaptised the Latins,
that they permitted their priests to reside with their
wives on the days on which they were called to the
altars, and that they did not baptize their children
before the eighth day after birth. The controversy on
the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the eucha-
rist was based on the historical question, ' what species
of bread did Christ employ at his last supper ?' The
work of the Cardinal was translated into Greek by
command of the emperor Monomachus, wdiose political
interests made him averse to a schism, and who, there-
fore, received the legates with kindness, and lodged
them in his palace. Nicetus Pectoratus, a monk of the
Studium, in his bitter reply to Humbert, undertook the
defence of the marriage of the clergy, and asserted that



106 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

unleavened bread was an imperfect bread, void of all
life and power, by partaking of which the Latins placed
themselves at the table of the Jews. In his answer,
Humbert passed the boundaries of justifiable defence.
He designated his adversary a Stercoranist, because he
had said that the eucharist broke the fast ; he anathe-
matised him, and all who thought with him, until they
should forsake their errors. And, in effect, Nicetas
retracted his assertions, condemned his writings, and
all who should deny the supremacy of the Church of
Rome over all other Churches, or who should assail the
pure doctrines taught by that Church. From an oppo-
nent, he became a sincere and zealous friend of the
legates.

As Cerularius had hitherto obstinately avoided all
intercourse with the legates, they placed upon the altar
of the Church of St. Sophia, in presence of the clergy
and people, a writ of excommunication, in which the
accusations which Cerularius had raised against the
Latins were turned against himself, and others added
to them. They also pronounced anathema in presence
of the emperor, against all who should pertinaciously
censure the faith of the Church of Rome, or its mode of
offering the holy sacrifice. Immediately after their
departure, the legates were recalled by the emperor, at
the request of Cerularius himself, who, it appears, pre-
tended to wish for a conference with them, only with
the view of delivering them up to the fury of the popu-
lace, whose minds he had embittered by a false trans-
lation of the letter of excommunication. But his design
was frustrated by the emperor, and the legates again
commenced their return. Cerularius, by his accusation
against the emperor, whom he represented as in league
with the Romans to destroy the Greek Church, excited
an insurrection. In a synod, which had been hastily
assembled, he pronounced anathema against the legates :
he drew up a relation of all that had passed between
himself and the legates, in which he accused them of
fraud, having, in conjunction with his enemy, the gene-
ral Argyrus, pretended that they had been sent by the



PERIOD THE THIRD. 107

pope, in whose name they had forged letters. Finally,
he exerted himself to induce the oriental patriarchs to
discontinue their alliance with the see of Rome. His
letter to Peter, the patriarch of Antioch, contained a
catalogue of other scandals which he had discovered in
the western Church. It was allowed, he said, in that
Church, to two brothers to espouse two sisters ; he
stated also that the bishops w^ore rings, and engaged in
warfare ; that in the mass one ecclesiastic embraced
another ; that baptism was administered by a single
immersion, and that salt was placed in the mouth of
the child baptized ; that the images and relics of saints
were not honoured, and that Gregory the Theologian,
Basil and John Chrysostom, were not numbered amongst
the saints. Amongst these objections there was one,
the martial spirit of many bishops, which was correct ;
one, the addition of the word filioque, which was of
importance ; of the others, many were totally false,
trifling, and futile. It was part of the Byzantine ob-
stinacy, the effect of ignorance, to adhere to these
appearances, and to assume such things as the pretext
of that schism, the awful consequences of which it was
not difficult to foresee. Characteristic of this obstinacy
and arrogance were the astonishment and displeasure
of Cerularius, expressed by him in his letter to the
patriarch of Antioch, caused by the declaration of the
papal legates, that they had come to Constantinople not
to be taught, but to teach. The patriarch of Antioch,
who, when he entered his see, had renewed his commu-
nion with the pope, by a synodal letter addressed to
him, answ ered his colleague of Constantinople in w ords
of peace. He refuted the assertion that the names of
the Roman pontiffs had not been inserted in the dyptics
of the oriental Church since the time of Vigilius, by his
statement of the fact, that forty-five years before he
had himself seen the name of Sergius in the dyptics of
Constantinople. Of the objections that had been enu-
merated against the Latins, he added, the only one of
consequence ^Yas that which regarded the addition to
the symbol ; it was indeed reprehensible that they



108 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

should prevent married priests from ofiFering the holy
sacrifice, and that in the eucharist they should use un-
leavened bread ; but if the addition to the symbol were
omitted, the other things might be tolerated. The
other objections he declared to be in part groundless
and in part insignificant. Cerularius, he concluded,
should persuade himself that the evils and miseries of
the Greek empire sprung from its separation from the
first apostolical see, and should remember that in the
east also, many abuses which had insinuated themselves
amongst the people, were from necessity tolerated.
Peter wrote in a similar pacific tone to Dominicus,
bishop of Aquileia. His letter to Cerularius produced
but little effect, for a second epistle addressed by him
to Peter, was no more than a repetition of his former
accusations against the legates. His influence at Con-
stantinople was now so powerful, that in 1057, he was
able to dethrone the emperor, Michael Strationicus, and
to place the imperial diadem on the head of Isaac Com-
nenus. But with his power, his haughtiness also in-
creased ; he assumed the emblems of majesty, and de-
clared that between the priestly and the imperial rank
the distinction was small. His ambition was rewarded
with exile to Proconesus, where he died in 1059. The
evils, however, of which he had sown the seeds in the
Church, did not die with him. There did not, indeed,
immediately follow a formal, declared schism, but there
succeeded a coldness and reserve, although the pope
Alexander, in 10/1, sent Peter, the bishop of Anagni, as
his apocrisarius to Constantinople, where he remained
during an entire year.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 109



CHAPTER THE THIRD.



HISTORY OF THE POPES.



Section I. — to the death of leo hi (816).*

The Church of Rome presents itself to us, at the com-
menceraent of this period, in a state of confusion and
of severe oppression. The political relations of Italy,
from which this state of confusion and oppression
sprun;^, showed no signs of stability, but of evident
dissolution, and hence it fell to the lot of the popes to
be called, as they were often by their station necessita-
ted, not to remain passive, but to perform an active and
important part in this time of transition. The Greek
emperors, who still governed Rome, with the south and
part of the north of Italy, were too weak to afford to
this part of their dominions constant protection, but
sufficiently strong to inflict upon it many severities.
The Lombards pursued their design, which was the
natural consequence of their position, of subduing all
Italy, but particularly Rome and the popes ; and thus
was left to the popes and to the Romans only the choice
between the oppression of the Greeks and the still more
hated yoke of the Lombards. The first popes of this
period, Leo II (from 682 to 681) and Benedict II (to
686), still continued to receive testimonies of the honour
and respect which the emperor Constanthie bore to the

* Monumenta Dominationis Pontificifc, sou Codex Carolinus, ed.
Cenni, Ronne, 1760, 2 vols. 4to. (It contains letters of the Poi)es,
from Gregory III to Adrian I, to Charles Martel, Pepin, Carlonian,
and Charlemagne.) — Anastasius Bibliothecarius.

Orsi, Dell' Origine del Dominio e della Sovranita de' Romani Pon-
tefici sopra gli stati loro temporalmentc soggetti. See Ediz. da Gaet.
Cenni, Roma, 1754.



110 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

see of Rome. He decreed that the pontiff, who should
be chosen by the clergy and people of Rome, should be
consecrated without the confirmation of the emperor or
of the exarch of Ravenna. But Justinian II appears to
have repealed this grant. The elections of the popes were
oftentimes the cause of contention, as well on account
of the high political station which they now occupied
as the actual chiefs of the Roman republic — for, com-
pared with them, the duke and exarch named by the
Byzantine court were of no authority — it was natural
that political motives should often guide the choice of
the Roman people ; whilst with the clergy, the ecclesi-
astical qualities of the candidates were of greater w^eight.
After the short reigns of John V and Conon, Sergius I
succeeded, in 687. He rejected the canons of the Trul-
lan synod, in 694, and the emperor Justinian sought
therefore to have him conveyed as a prisoner to Con-
stantinople. But the soldiers of Ravenna and of the
Pentapolis hastened to his defence. In the same manner
the attempt of the exarch John to expel Sergius and to
place upon the papal throne the archdeacon Paschal
failed, through the determination of the people to pro-
tect their bishop from violence. Under John VI (701
to 705), the mere suspicion that the exarch was design-
ing something to the prejudice of the pontiff appears to
have caused a tumult, which only the persuasions of the
pope could tranquillise. It is well worthy of remark,
that at this time seven successive pontiffs, John V,
Conon, Sergius, and John VI, John VII (705-707), Si-
sinnius (708), and Constantine (708-715), were either
Greeks or Syrians ; a fact that w^e can ascribe only to
the want of theological scholars in Rome, or to the
influence of the Byzantine court. This we know, that
a great number of learned orientals resided at this pe-
riod in Rome, and that a part of the Roman clergy were
Greeks, whose numbers were increased by the persecu-
tions of the Iconoclast emperors. Constantine, who
was called to Constantinople by the emperor Justinian,
probably on account of the Trullan synod, some of the
canons of which were not sanctioned by the Roman see,



PERIOD THE THIRD. HI

was met at Nicomedia with marks of the greatest
honour : the emperor with his crown on his head, pros-
trated before him, received the communion from his
hands, and presented to him a confirmation of all the
rights of the Roman Church.

Gregory II (/l.V/Sl), by birth a Roman, and not
unworthy to be ranked with his great predecessor of
the same name, beheld the beginnings of the long-
menaced conflict. The attempt of the "emperor Leo to
extend his edicts against sacred images, and the impo-
sition of a new poll-tax, occasioned a rising of the
people. The Greek duke at Rome, who, at the insti-
gation of the emperor, had formed a conspiracy against
the life of the holy pope, was driven from the city ; the
exarch Paul, who marched against Rome, was compelled
to retire before the armed Romans and Tuscans, and
the pope w^as thus necessitated to take upon himself, in
its full extent, the government of the state. The Ita-
lians wished immediately to elect a new emperor, but
they were prevented by the pope. Rome, the Penta-
polis (that is, the confederation of the five cities, Pesaro,
Rimini, Fano, Umana, and Ancona), Venice, and Ra-
venna, threw off the government of the emperor, and,
supported by the Lombards, and under the patronage
of the pope, elected their own dukes. But the Lombards
were uncertain and dangerous allies. Their king, Luit-
prand, soon after appeared as a confederate of the
Greek exarchs, with his army, before the walls of Rome.
But the eloquence of the pope prevailed upon him to
consent to a cessation of hostilities, and by his media-
tion terms of peace were obtained from the exarch.

Gregory III (73 1 -74 1 ), a Syrian, saw himself involved
in the same ecclesiastical conflicts with the Iconoclasts,
and the same political troubles with the Lombards,
which had surrounded his predecessor. His ambassa-
dors, whom he sent to Constantinople, were ill-treated.
Luitprand taking, as a pretext, the refusal of the pope
to surrender to him Guido, duke of Spoleto, who had
fled to Rome, seized four cities of the Roman dukedom,
and laid waste the patrimony of the Roman Church.



112 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
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It was evident that he would not stop there, as it was
obvious that Rome, with the East in hostility against it,
must fall beneath the overwhelming power of the Lom-
bards. Gregory then turned himself to the victorious
Charles Martel, the powerful lord of the Franks : he
sent to him the keys of the tomb of the holy apostle St.
Peter, and conjured him to protect the church of the
apostle, the sacred vesssels and furniture of which had
been plundered by the Lombards. Charles sent mes-
sengers, but no effective assistance, to Rome. Zachary
(741-752), the successor of Gregory, and also a Syrian,
was compelled to give up the duke of Spoleto, and ob-
tained, in an interview with Luitprand, the restoration
of the four cities, and of the patrimonies that had been
seized, and finally, a peace or armistice of twenty years.
At this time, the most powerful ruler in Italy was
Luitprand ; after him, next came the pope, to whom
the oppressed from all parts of the Italian empire fled
for refuge. His power was founded, not on arms, but
on the authority of his high station, upon the possessions
of the Roman Church in every part of Italy, and on the
well-proved disinterestedness of his character. Nar-
rowly confined was the power of the exarch of Ravenna,
and the authority of the emperor had faded into a name.
Four times was Zachary enabled, by the force of
eloquence, to oblige the Lombard kings to lay down
their arms, and to move them to spare the Italian pro-
vinces, which they threatened with desolation. Such
an influence bears witness to the religious spirit of the
age, an age in which kings and princes often received
the religious habit from the hands of the popes. Thus
in the year 728, Ina, king of Wessex, went to Rome,
where he died, a recluse, having for some time supported
himself by the labour of his hands. He was followed,
in 745, by Unald, duke of Aquitaine. In 747, the
Austrasian duke Carloman, the brother of Pepin, re-
ceived the religious habit from the pope; in 750, the
Lombard king Rachis, his wife and his daughter, took
the same step ; and a few years later, Anselm duke of
Friuli entered a cloister. A short time before his death,



PERIOD THE THIRD. 113

Zachary performed an important ecclesiastico-political
act, by which he confirmed the chancre of dynasty in
France, which had been effected by the people. Bur-
chard bishop of Wurzburg, and the chaplain Fulrad,
were the bearers of the decision of the pope, tliat he
who in fact possessed the kingly power should be king ;
and thus was Pepin, by the choice of the Franks, by the
authority of the Roman see, and the consecration of the
bishops, raised to the throne, at Soissons, on the 1st of
March, in the year 7^2. Childeric, the last weak
nominal king of the Merovingian dynasty, died in a
cloister.

Under Stephen II, (752—75/), the Lombard king,
Aistulf. by the seizure of the exarchate of Ravenna and
of the Pentapolis, annihilated the power of the Greeks
in Upper Italy. He marched against Rome, observed a
peace, which he had sw^orn to the pope to maintain for
twenty years, only four months, and imposed upon the
Romans, as if Rome w^ere already his, a poll-tax. It
was in vain that the pope implored the aid of Constan-
tinople ; in vain that he sought peace from Aistulf.
He therefore accepted the invitation of the French
ambassadors to pass into their country, and Aistulf was
compelled, against his will, to permit him to traverse
his dominions. In the abbey of St. Denis, Stephen
anointed, for the second time, Pepin and his sons,
Charles and Carloman ; he at the same time granted to
them and to their successors the title of Roman patri-
cians. It was with this title that the emperors had
been accustomed to convey imperial jurisdiction to the
exarchs. The pope, it appears, granted this title as
bishop of Rome, and as chief of the Roman republic,
and to have united with it the idea of the protector of
the Roman Church. Pepin, accompanied by the pope,
marched into Italy, in 754, and Aistulf, who was shut
up hi Pavia, promised no more to molest Rome, and to
restore the cities which he had lately taken. But, a
violator of his word, he renewed the war, in 755 ; he
oppressed Rome by laying waste the surrounding coun-

VOL. III. I



114 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

try, but was compelled by Pepin, whom the pope called
again to his assistance, to retire from the invaded pro-
vinces ; and now the king of the Franks gave the ex-
archate, which comprised the cities of Ravenna, Rimini,
Pesaro, Fano, Cesena, Sinigaglia, Forlinpopoli, Forli,
Jesi, Comacchio, and Narino, for ever, to St. Peter, to
the Roman Church, and to its bishops ; or, as it is said
in one of the letters of the pope, to St Peter, to the
Church, and to the Roman republic ; that is, to the
popes, who, for a long period, had been in reality the
chiefs of the Roman commonwealth. Rome, as it had
not been taken by the Lombards, could not be comprised
in the gift, but the pope had been already acknowledged
as sovereign of the city ; and Pepin exhorted the Ro-
mans to pay to the pontiff that obedience which was
due to him. Pepin answered the Greek envoys, who
demanded in the name of the emperor, the restoration
of the exarchate, that he had undertaken this contest
for the sake of no man, but in his veneration for the
apostle St. Peter. The origin, therefore, of the states
of the Church sprung from the necessities of the times
and from the peculiar relations of Italy. Roman Italy,
freed from the Lombard yoke, could not submit itself
again to the oppressive rule of the Greeks, it could not
submit itself to the persecutor of the Church, Constan-
tine Copronymus. From the time of Gregory the Great,
the popes alone preserved Italy from becoming entire
the prey of the Lombards ; they were the natural guar-
dians of the Roman people against their foreign inva-
ders. The gift, therefore, of Pepin, was without doubt
in conformity with the wish of those who were included
in it, and the real sovereignty of the popes was already
so widely extended through the territories above-named,
that the gift is named by many contemporary historians
an act of restitution. The condition of Italy at this time,
required the formation of a new ])ower, and the elements
ofthis were nowhere to be found in greater aptitude for
coalescence than in Rome, and in the person of the popes.
The popes, therefore, like the other Italian princes, now



PERIOD THE THIRD. 115

entered upon those rights and duties, which were neces-
sary for the internal and external establishment and
conservation of a principality.

Under Paul I (75? — 7(^7) the brother of the prece-
ding pontiff, new contests arose with the Lombards.
Of the seven cities of the PentapoUs, and yEmilia, which
the Lombards had pledged themselves to restore, they
had retained Imola, Bologna, Osimo, and Ancona, and
had frequently invaded in arms the dominions of the
pope. French ambassadors arrived in Italy to mediate
and decide. The letters which passed between Paul
and Pepin prove that the pope was actual governor of
Rome, but that in all important cases he consulted with
the patrician Pepin. During the last illness of the
pope, a layman named Constantine, was placed by force
of arms on the papal throne, by his brother the Duke
Toto. Constantine retained possession for a year, at
the end of which he was driven from Rome by the pri-
micerius, Christopher, and his son Sergius. A party
then endeavoured to place the monk Philip in the
vacant see. Philip, however, soon returned to his
cloister, and Stephen III (IV), a Sicilian priest and
monk, was elected by the clergy and people. The new
pope held, in 769, a numerous synod in the Lateran
basilica, at which twelve French bishops attended. It
w'as here resolved, that in future, no layman should be
chosen to fill the chair of St. Peter. Two parties, of
which one was French, the other Lombard, now stood
opposed to each other in Rome. Desiderius, the Lombard
king, came with an army to the assistance of the latter
party, in whose power the pope appears to have kept
for some time, and under whose influence he wTote to
the French king an epistle in which he names Deside-
rius his beloved son, and declares that the king had
made every indemnification and restitution {justitias Be-
ati Petri) due to the see of Rome. Christopher and Ser-
gius on the one side, and Paul Axiartas, the leader of the
Lombard party, on the other, are the first in that long se-
ries of Roman citizens who for centuries cramped the
popes in the exercise of their temporal power, and who

1 2



116 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

sometimes made themselves masters of the see, to place
upon it their creatures or their relatives. It is uncertain,
whether the epistle of the pope, in which he warns the
two kings, Charles and Carlomaiin, against their union
with two Lombard princesses (which had been suggested
by the mother, but which they could effect only by a
separation from their lawful wives), were written before
or after this letter. Charles took for his wife the
daughter of Desiderius, but soon repudiated her to
espouse another. This profanation of the sacred rite
of marriage is the darkest stain on the character of this
king. At the very commencement of the pontificate
of Adrian I (772-796), the depredations of the Lom-
bards were renewed. Desiderius seized many of the
cities of the exarchate, wished to compel the pope to
crown the son of Carlomann, by which act he would
have incurred theenmity of Charles, and threatened, when
Adrian refused, to march down upon Rome with an
army. The pope sought, as his predecessors had done,
assistance from the king and patrician Charles, who
as Desiderius violated the faith which he had given to
restore all that he had taken, passed into Italy in 773,
overcame the Lombards, and at Rome, into which city
he entered Avith permission requested from the pope,
he confirmed the gift of his father, and according to
the account of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, he added to
it several provinces in the north and centre of Italy,
with Corsica and the dukedoms of Spoleto and Bene-
vento. But as after this time, the pope in reality pos-
sessed no cities beyond the exarchate, the dukedom of
Rome and of Spoleto, it appears that Charles promised
more than he afterwards, in other times and circum-
stances, fulfilled. In 11^^ after the capture of Deside-
rius, Charles united the French and Lombard crowns,
and continued thenceforth to style himself king of the
French and Lombards, and patrician of Rome. Twice
after this, Adrian received Charlemagne in Rome, in
the year 781, when he crowned his son, the young
Pepin, king of the Lombards, and Lewis, king of Aqui-
taine ; and again, in 787, when Charles subdued the



PERIOD THE THIRD. Il7

Beneventines, and increased the present to the Roman
see, by the gift of several cities which had been ceded
by the duke of Bencvento, and of some districts in
Tuscany.

Adrian was succeeded by Leo III (795-816), who
was chosen by the unanimous consent of the Romans.
Leo immediately recognized Charlemagne as patrician
or guardian of the Church of Rome, by sending to him
a banner and the keys of St. Peter, a species of relic
which the popes had formed of gold and particles of the
iron chains of the holy apostle. He, at the same time,
requested the king to depute a plenipotentiary to re-
ceive from the Romans the oath of fidelity, — whether to
the king as patrician, or to the pontiif, is not clear. In
799, Leo was attacked, severely wounded, and impri-
soned by a hostile party, at the head of which were
Paschasius and Campulus, relatives of the deceased
pope. He escaped to Spoleto, from which city he
journeyed to the king, who w^as then at the camp at
Paderborn, to implore his assistance. The king received
him with every demonstration of honour, and it is pro-
bable that he now consulted with him on his elevation
to the dignity of emperor. The pope returned, in com-
pany with several French bishops and counts, to Rome :
his enemies w ere sent into France. Cliarles arrived in
Rome in November of the year 800. The enemies of
Leo now^ laid before the king many severe charges
against the conduct of the pontiff ; but as the French
bishops declared that they could not presume to judge
him who sat in the see of St. Peter, the pope, of his
own free-will, took the canonical oath of purgation.
On the following festival of Christmas, the pope crowned
Charles as Roman emperor, amidst the acclamations of
the people, whilst he knelt before the altar of St. Peter,
and anointed him and his son Pepin. Thus, after an
interval of three hundred and twenty-five years, was the
dignity of Roman emperor renewed, not transferred
from the Greeks to the Franks, for the Byzantine empe-
rors were still acknowledged as such by the popes and
by the emperors of the west. But the empire of Con-



118 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

stantinople, which had oftentimes been the prey of a
fortunate adventurer or rude soldier, which had oppres-
sed and persecuted rather than defended the Church,
possessed now no more authority in the west ; the
Greeks themselves had long looked upon the Italian
provinces not as component parts of the empire, but as
foreign conquered lands. By their perfect inability to
guard them and to protect them against the attacks of
the Lombards, they had forfeited their claims to these
provinces, and over Rome and the Roman dukedom,
the sovereignty of the popes had been established during
the course of the eighth century. The popes had re-
cognised the superiority of the Greek emperors only by
the insertion of their names and the years of their reign
in public records, and by the coining of money bearing
their effigies — a practice which had been observed also
by the kings of the Franks. Now^, therefore, Charles
w^as raised above all the princes and kings of the west ;
his rank was no longer inferior but equal to that of
emperor of Constantinople ; he, who as patrician had
hitherto been the guardian of the Church of Rome, was
now, as emperor, the protector and advocate of the
entire Church, and as this was destined by its Founder
to be extended to all mankind, there was comprised in
his power, not only the idea of a pre-eminence above
all other princes, but of the empire of the world (impe-
rium immd'i), in virtue of which, it was his duty to pro-
mote the propagation of Christianity even amongst bar-
barous infidel nations, and to provide in general for the
welfare of the Christian Church. The imperial supre-
macy was naturally extended over the States of the
Church, but without any trespass on the authority of
the pontiff. The pope continued to be what he had
been, lord of Rome, and of the dukedom, and chief of
the exarchate ; but recent events had proved that in
the troubled state of those countries, and in the unceas-
ing conflicts of pow erful parties, the temporal pow er of
the pope could not stand, and that the personal safety
of the pontiif called for the assistance of a powerful arm.
For this end was instituted the rank of patrician ; and



PERIOD THE THIRD. 1 19

if Charles as patrician could exercise his power of guar-
dian in Rome, and in its surroundina; territory, to his
former was now added the imperial dignity, by which
Rome was subjected to his imperium. But the pope
was not, therefore, a subject of the emperor ; the Ro-
mans, indeed, swore to him an oath of fidelity, that he
might continue to possess his advocacy and the jurisdic-
tion connected with it, but they pledged themselves
with an express reservation of the fidelity due by them
to the Roman pontiff, their sovereign. Neither is it to
be supposed that the pope, before independent and
free, wished to give to himself and his successors a lord
and master, by this restoration of the imperial dignity.
Both, however, the pope and the emperor, entered into
a state of mutual dependance ; each swore to the other
an oath of fidelity, that is, of reverence and respect ;
the emperor acquired his dignity only by the coronation
and anointing performed by the pope ; whilst the pope,
who now stood in need of the assistance of the emperor,
as he had before of the patrician, was, as a temporal
prince, under the universal imperial dominion ; and
could not ascend to his high rank without the consent
and approbation of the emperor. Pope Leo himself
exercised in Rome, in the first year of the new emperor,
Lewis, the rights of majesty, by putting to death the
leaders of a conspiracy against his life. Lewis, who
viewed this as an invasion upon his jurisdiction, sent
his nephew, Bernard king of Italy, to Rome, but the
papal ambassadors, who in the meantime arrived at his
court, pacified him by their representations of the con-
dition in which the pope was placed.



120 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.



SECTION II.

TO THE DEATH OF SILVESTER II (1003.)*

Stephen IV, who was consecrated in June 816, and
whose pontificate was of only seven months, being me-
naced by the Roman factions, caused the citizens to
take an oath of fidelity to the emperor. He then imme-
diately travelled into France, where he was received by
Lewis, who thrice prostrated before him, with every
mark of honour. At Rheims, the emperor was crowned
by the pontiff, although he had been before designa-
ted emperor by his father in 813, and at an assembly
at Aix-la- Chapelle, had placed the crown on his own
head. Paschal I (817-824) was consecrated imme-
diately after his election, and contrary to the synodal
decree of his predecessor, before the arrival and co-
operation of the imperial ambassadors. The pope
pleaded as an exculpation the violence w^hich was
offered to him ; which the emperor not only received, but
sent to the pontiff a document, which confirmed the
gift of his father to the Church ; but whether the diplo-
ma, w^hich now exists, bearing the name of Lewis, be
genuine or not, is very doubtful ; for together with Sar-
dinia, Lower Italy and Sicily, which then belonged to the
Greeks, are therein presented to the apostolic see. Lo-
thaire 1, the son of Lewis, who had been named co-
emperor by his father in 8 1 7, was crowned at Rome in
823, by the pope. When, some time after, two noble
Romans were put to death, as it was said on account
of their connexion with Lothaire, the emperor sent to



* Anastasius Bib. Theganus, Nithardus, Paschasii Radbcrti, Vita
S. Adalhardi, in the BoUandists, ad 2 Januar.; Gnilehni Vita Hadri-
arii II et Stephani V^I, in Anastasius ; The Fuklan and Bertinian
Annals ; Kcgino — Flodoardi Liber de Eomanis Pontiticibus (from
715 to 935) in Muratori Scriptor. Rer. Ital. torn. iii. pt. ii. ; Luit-
prand — Hennannus Contractus ; Hincmarus do Divortio Lotharii
Regis, 0pp. ed. Sirniondiis, i. 557 ; Auxilii Liber super Negotio For-
mosi,. ed. Mabillon, Analecta ejusdem, libri ii. Dc Ordinationibus a
Formoso factis, ed. Bib. Max. PP. torn. xvii.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 121

Rome two plenipotentiaries to examine the affair. The
pope, with thirty-four bishops, swore that the act had
occurred without their knowledge ; but as the persons
executed had been guilty of high-treason against him,
Paschal took the authors of their death under his pro-
tection, and the emperor was pacified. The election
of Eugene II (824-82/) was a cause of contention be-
tween the party of the people, and the party of the
clergy and nobility ; the latter prevailed. The disor-
ders which had of late been occasioned in Rome by the
conflicts of parties, induced Lewis to send thither his
son, the emperor Lothaire. In conjunction with the
pope, Lothaire compelled those who possessed pro-
perty, which had been unjustly confiscated, to restore it
to the lawful owners : the people then took an oath of
fidelity to the two emperors, without prejudice to their
obedience to the pope, and pledged themselves that
each newly-elected pope should take a similar oath,
before his consecration, in presence of an imperial am-
bassador and the people, such as Eugene had of his own
will taken : namely, that it was his desire to shew to the
emperor the honour that was due to him as protector
of the Church. The constitution which Lothaire at the
same time promulgated, lays before us in the clearest
light the relation of the imperial and papal power in
Rome. By this it was ordained, that no one should
punish with death any person who might be under the
particular protection of the pope or of the emperor ;
that all should obey the pope, and the dukes and judges
appointed by him ; that annually, a commissioner who
should be appointed by the pope and the emperor,
should report to the latter the administration of justice,
and the observance of the constitution ; that complaints
against the dukes and judges should be submitted to tlie
pope, that he might answer them immediately by his
nuncios, or refer them to the emperor ; that all pro-
perty which had been unjustly taken from the apostolic
see should be restored ; that all dukes and judges
should appear at Rome before the pope, that he might
learn their names and numbers, and that they might



122 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

receive from him instructions on their various duties.
Finally, obedience to the pope in all things was strictly
enjoined to all persons. The pope, therefore, was the
actual sovereign of Rome and the Roman territory,
although the emperor as guardian of the Roman Church
exercised a degree of jurisdiction, which in the then
reigning spirit of discontent and faction, was a support
and protection to the pope himself, who without it,
might have often fallen a prey to one party or the other.
Valentine, after a short pontificate of a few weeks,
was follow^ed by Gregory IV. As, according to the
established order, the pope could not be consecrated
before the arrival of the imperial ambassador, the con-
secration of Gregory was preceded, as had been that of
Valentine, by the ceremony of enthronization. This
pope was engaged in the unhappy contest between the
emperor Lewis and his sons, and was necessitated,
contrary to his own will, to co-operate in its ignominious
issue. Lewis feeling, in 817, his inability to govern
alone his vast empire, associated with himself in the
administration the sons of his first marriage. Lothaire
was made co- emperor ; Pepin, king of Aquitaine ; and
Lewis, king of Bavaria. His nephew Bernard, king of
Italy, rose in arms against the elevation of Lothaire,
and lost his life in 818. But, in 829, Lewis saw^ his
own sons arrayed against him ; when, led away by the
persuasion of his second wife, Judith, he caused her son
Charles (afterwards known by the name of the Bald) to
be anointed king of Swabia, Rhoetia, and a part of Bur-
gundy, and conferred a too extensive power upon Ber-
nard count of Barcelona, who w as intimately connected
with Judith. An insurrection, headed by Pepin and
Lothaire, placed the emperor in the hands of his sons ;
but at the diet of Nimwegen, in 831, he was liberated
by a reaction of the people. But in 833, as Lewis
continued to follow the suggestions of his machinating
consort, and thought only of the elevation of his son
Charles, a new insurrection broke out. The three elder
brothers, who were leagued together, marched against
their father ; and influential prelates, Agobard of Lyons,



PERIOD THE THIRD. 123

the abbots Wala and Helisachar, and the hitherto faith-
ful Ebbo of Rheims, favoured and supported their en-
terprise. Greiz:ory IV thought himself called upon, by
his right and by his duty, to enter as mediator and
pacificator into this contest, most prejudicial to the
interests of the state and the Church. That the emperor
Lothaire, who had been crowned by the holy see, with
the consent of Lewis, and who had from the time of his
coronation exercised the imperial authority in Italy,
should now deprive himself of his rank, could not be
borne by the pope : his opposition to this would neces-
sarily place him on the side of Lothaire ; and his ap-
pearance in Germany in company with Lothaire raised
against him the suspicion of partiality. The report,
that he sought to bring over those bishops who adhered
to Lewis to the party of the three brothers, by a threat
of excommunication, had preceded him, and excited
these bishops to menace him with the like censure.
When the two armies faced each other in battle-array
on the field of Colmar, Gregory advanced from the
army of the confederates and entered into conference
with Lewis. But already had the majority of the em-
peror's followers been won by the arts of his sons.
Gregory, who, after some days, returned to the camp,
to lay before them the issue of his conference, was
detained by them, and the news, that the pope w^ould
not again return to the camp of Lewis, was the signal
for an almost general defection, which placed the de-
fenceless and aged emperor at the mercy of his sons.
The pope thus beheld himself compelled, against his
will and with the bitterest feelings of sorrow, to concur
in the completion of an unjustifiable deed, and to return
to Rome, leaving unloosened the entangled knot. Lewis
was forced by his son Lothaire into the abbey of St.
Medard at Soissons : at the diet of Compeigne he was
deposed ; and to render him incapable of bearing arms,
and consequently of asserting his claims to his crown,
he was subjected by Ebbo of Rheims to public canonical
penance, and was compelled to read a public confession
of his sins. The universal detestation of this abuse
of religion, and the unmerited sufferings of the aged



124 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

monarch, called to arms the other two brothers. Lewis
was again solemnly invested with the imperial dignity :
Ebbo of Rheims resigned his archbishopric, and Agobard
of Lyons was deposed.

Sergius II (844-847) was consecrated immediately
after his election, without the knowledge of the emperor
Lothaire. and before the arrival of the imperial envoy,
probably to secure himself against the attempts of a
deacon named John, who sought to place himself by
violence in the holy see. Lothaire was so indignant
at this precipitation, that he sent his son Lewis to
Rome with an army, which laid waste the states of the
Church as if they had been the territory of an enemy.
The pope received the king on the steps of the church
of St. Peter : he suffered the gates of the basilica to be
opened only when the king declared that he entertained
no hostile designs ; he then crowned him king of the
Lombards, but resolutely rejected the requisition that
the nobility of Rome should take the oath of fidelity to
him, a claim which could be advanced only by the
emperor.

Leo IV (847-855) was elected in that fearful time
when the Saracens menaced even Rome with an attack.
He was, therefore, consecrated before an imperial dele-
gate could arrive, but with the protestation, that the
right of the emperor was not thereby infringed. To
him the emperor Lothaire, in 850, sent his son, Lewis
II, to receive from his hands the imperial crown. In
the year 853, Alfred, the son of the English king Ethel-
wulf, arrived in Rome, and was anointed king and
adopted as his son by the pontiff. Between Leo and
his immediate successor Benedict, fable has placed the
female pope Joan. This fiction is not found in any
historian from the ninth to the eleventh century, but
appears first in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, in
the chronicles of Marianus Scotus and Martinus Polonus.
It is void of all historical foundation and has been de-
fended only as a paradox by later authors.*

* Should a fui'ther ref'utiition of this absurd invention be required, see
an able eritical dissertation in Pahna's Pradectiones, Hist. Eccl. Roma?.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 125

After the death of Leo, Benedict III (855-858) was
unanimously elected. A faction, of which Arsenius
bishop of Gubbio was the moving soul, Jrupported by
the representatives of the emperor, raised, in opposition
to Benedict, the cardinal priest Anastasius, who, in a
synod, had been deposed by Leo. But the firmness of
the bishops, of the clergy, and of the people, in their
resolve to recognise as pope no other than Benedict,
finally compelled the envoys to abandon Anastasius.
Benedict was then solemnly consecrated in their pre-
sence. After him, Nicholas I (858-8C7) was elected in
presence of the emperor Lewis II, consecrated, and
crowned — the first instance of the papal coronation.
When, some time after, he paid a visit to the emperor,
in his camp near Rome, Lewis, for a considerable dis-
tance, conducted his horse by the bridle. The pontifi-
cate of Nicholas fell in troublous times. He found
himself obliged to enter into a severe contest against
depraved morals and venal prelates, a contest, however,
from which the papal power came forth victorious and
strengthened. The splendour of the mighty monarchy
of the Franks was now extinguished. The degenerate
grandsons of Charlemagne, after the death of their
father, were arrayed in arms against each other, to win
the greater portions of the inheritance : the battle of
Fontenay, in 84 1 , cast to the ground the imperial dig-
nity, in the person of the conquered Lothaire ; the
unity of the kingdom which it represented was in fact
destroyed ; the pride of the nobility of France was an-
nihilated, and by the convention of Verdun, in 843,
four self-existing, independent kingdoms, were created
in the place of the ancient monarchy. By this conven-
tion Pepin acquired Aquitaine ; Charles the Bald,
Neustria ; Lewis, Germany ; and Lothaire, Burgundy
and Provence. A short time before his death, 855,
Lothaire made another division of his kingdom amongst
his three sons, assigning Italy to the emperor Lewis II,
to Lothaire the province called from him Lotharingia,
noW' Lorraine, comprising the countries between the
Rhine, the Scheld, and the Meuse ; and Provence to



126 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Charles. The weak and vicious Lothaire endeavoured
to separate from his wife Theitberge, that he might be
enabled to marry another woman, named Waldrade.
The alleged motive for the divorce was an unnatural
crime of which he pretended that Theitberge had been
guilty before her marriage, with her brother, the abbot
Hugbert. She consented to submit to the ordeal of
boiling water, and as she passed through it unharmed,
she was declared innocent. But it was not long before
Lothaire renewed his attempts to reduce her to a con-
fession of her crime. Theitberge yielded at length to
persecution, and in 860, before a council of bishops,
who were all devoted to the king, she declared herself
guilty. She was compelled to repeat this declaration
before an assembly of bishops at Fran-^fort, where she
was condemned to a course of public penance ; but she
had previously warned the pope to pay no regard to
any confession that might be violently extorted from
her. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, wrote a work in
defence of the injured queen, in which he proved the
obligation that existed of awaiting in this cause the de-
cision of the Roman see. The pope had before answered
to the question of Ado, archbishop of Vienne, that a
wife accused of crimes committed before marriage
could not on that account be repudiated. Another
synod, at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 862, at which were present
the all-serving archbishops Gunther of Cologne and
Thietgaud of Treves, together with the no less servile
bishops of Metz, Verdun, Toul, Tongers, Utrecht, and
Strasburg, complied with the desire of Lothaire, and
permitted him to espouse Waldrade. In the meantime
Thietberge, who had found an asylum in the court of
Charles the Bald, claimed, with protestations of her in-
nocence, the protection of the pontiff, and Charles him-
self required of his nephew to submit to the judgment
of the pope and bishops in the cause of his divorce.
Nicholas, whom Lothaire hypocritically requested to
send his legates to a new synod, convoked an assembly
at Metz, at which, with the prelates of Lorraine,
bishops from Provence, also from Neustria and Ger-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 127

many, were to be present. When he heard that Lothaire
had anticipated their sentence, and had indeed married
Waldrade, he called upon the French and German
bishops in a circular letter to join with his legates in
pronouncing a canonical sentence upon Lothaire, whom
he threatened with excommunication. But the legates
suffered themselves to be corrupted by Lothaire, and
the synod of Metz terminated, in 8(33, with a justifica-
tion of the king, whose divorce was now grounded on
a pretended previous marriage with Waldrade, and with
a commission to Gunther and Thietgaud to lay before
the pope the motives of their decision. Nicholas, who
had been informed of these proceedings by a letter from
the Neustrian bishops, convened a council at Rome :
the two archbishops, who arrived during its sittings,
were deposed ; the acts of the synod at Metz were an-
nulled ; and the other bishops who had therein taken
part were threatened with deprivation, unless they
should ask pardon of the holy see and submit them-
selves to its judgment. Gunther and Thietgaud betook
themselves to the emperor Lewis, who was then at Be-
ne ventum, and by persuading him that the conduct of
the pope towards his brother was an implied insult to
himself, they induced him to lead an army against
Rome. His troops attacked a procession with which
the pope was passing through the city. Nicholas fled
into St. Peter's church ; but the sudden death of a sol-
dier who had trodden the holy cross in the mire, and a
disease with which Lewis was assailed, in a short time
changed his sentiments : he listened to the representa-
tions of the pontiff, and left Rome. In vain did Gun-
ther, by the hands of his brother Halduin, lay upon the
tomb of St. Peter a deed of protest ; in vain did he and
Thietgaud endeavour to excite the other bishops of
Lorraine to make common cause of opposition against
the pope, who, they said, raised himself to an equality
with the apostles, and assumed power as if he were em-
peror of the whole earth : so far did they go, as to seek
for sup})ort from Photius, who had at the same time
been deposed by Nicholas. Lothaire himself wrote a



128 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

submissive letter to the pope, offered to attend in per-
son at Rome, and presented to the pontiff only a peti-
tion in favour of Gunther and Thietgaud. Adventius
bishop of Metz and Franco bishop of Tongers were the
first who sought for pardon and absolution : Thietgaud
of his own will abstained from his episcopal functions.
The kings Lewis and Charles the Bald sent, at the re-
quest of the pope, ambassadors to their nephew, im-
ploring him to remove the scandal which he had raised
in the Church by his divorce. With the advice of his
bishops, Lothaire banished Gunther from his church.
He however revenged himself, for he went to Rome,
where he unveiled to the pope the entire system of
fraud and violence that had been practised. The papal
legate Arsenius now announced to Lothaire the sentence
of excommunication that awaited him, unless he should
immediately separate from Waldrade, and take to him-
self again Thietberge as his lawful wife. Lothaire,
fearing lest his uncles might make his excommunication
a pretext for invading his states, promised all that was
required of him ; but it was not long before he recalled
Waldrade, who, in apparent penitence, had followed the
legates into Italy. The pontiff then at length, in 866,
pronounced sentence of excommunication against her.
Lothaire, that he might free himself from the presence
of Thietberge, accused her of adultery ; and this perse-
cuted woman herself implored the pope to pronounce a
judgment of separation, and to permit her to enter into
a cloister. But the unmovable and indefatigable Ni-
cholas wrote to her, to the bishops of Lorraine, to
Lothaire and to Charles the Bald, reminding each of
what was their duty in this conjuncture. Whilst Lo-
thaire in the most humble manner wTote to assure the
pope that he had not seen Waldrade since the depar-
ture of the legate, Thietberge was compelled to retire
before unceasing persecution into the territories of
Charles the Bald. Thus affairs stood when Nicholas
died.

With equal firmness and constancy did this pontiff
act in other circumstances. John archbishop of Ra-



PERIOD THE THIRD. 129

venna, who had long oppressed and plundered the
churches and inhabitants of Raveinia, .Emilia, and the
Pentapolis, was called by him to answer for his conduct
before a synod at Rome ; and, as he refused to appear,
was excommunicated. John called to his aid the assist-
ance of the emperor, who sent delegates with him to
Rome ; but the pope, at the request of the principal
citizens of Ravenna, visited that city, and commanded
the restitution of all that had been usurped by John
and his brothers. John was compelled again to jour-
ney to Rome, whither he w\is sent by the emperor,
and to submit to all the conditions prescribed by
Nicholas. The controversy between this pope and the
archbishop Hincmar, are found in another part of this
history.

^ When Adrian II. (867-872) was chosen, the impe-
rial delegates, who were then at Rome, expressed their
indignation that they had not been present at the elec-
tion ; but they were pacified when they had been as-
sured that they had not been called, lest their presence
might be hereafter alleged as a proof that the imperial
ambassadors had a right to assist at the election, as w ell
as at the consecration, of the popes. Adrian so closely
followed the model given to him by his great predeces-
sor, that the enemies of Nicholas named him a Nicho-
laite. Lothaire, who hoped to find the new pontiff
more flexible, wrote him a flattering letter, in which he
requested that he might be called his son. Thietberge
appeared in person at Rome to obtain the dissolution of
her marriage ; but the pope insisted that she should re-
turn to the court of her husband, and menaced Lothaire
with excommunication if he should refuse to receive
her as his lawful wife. In the meantime, having re-
ceived from the emperor an assurance of the repentance
of Waldrade, he removed from her the sentence of ex-
communication, so that some zealous bishops, such as
Ado of Vienne, thought it their duty to warn him
against too great a compliance in this aff'air. In 809,
Lothaire went into Italy, and accompanied by his cousin,
the empress Ingelberge, entered the abbey of Monte

VOL. III. K



130 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Cassino with the pope. It was his particular desire, in
order not to be considered excommunicated, to receive
the holy communion from the hands of Adrian. The
pope consented to administer it to him, but conjured
him not to receive the body of our Lord, if he had
been in connexion with Waldrade since her excommu-
nication by Nicholas, and unless he were firmly resolved
ever to remain separate from her ; he administered the
sacrament to the nobles in the suite of the king, with
the condition that they were conscious of no participa-
tion or consent in the acts of Lothaire and Waldrade.
Only a few retired from the altar ; Lothaire and most of
his followers received the holy communion in spite of
the guilt of their conscience. Amongst the attendants
of Lothaire was Gunther, the late Archbishop of Co-
logne, who now professed his submission to the papal
judgment and was admitted by the pope to lay commu-
nion. Adrian then appointed legates, who were to
examine, with the bishops of Lorraine, the case of the
divorce, and to report their decision to him. But Lo-
thaire and all the nobles who had received the commu-
nion from the pope, died within a few days on their
return through Italy. Thietberge and Waldrade retired
into monasteries.

Adrian laboured earnestly to preserved the order of
succession in the kingdom of Lothaire to the rightful
heir, the emperor Lewis, who was then engaged in
defending the states of the Church and central Italy
against the inroads of the Saracens ; but neither his
letters nor his legates could prevent Charles the Bald
from causing himself to be crowned at Metz in 869, by
Hincmar of Rheims and the bishops of Lorraine (the
sees of Cologne and Treves were still vacant), as sove-
reign of that kingdom. Charles then ceded to Lewis,
king of Germany, the territory on the opposite bank of
the Meuse, and on tlie left of the Rhine from Utrecht
to Basil. Of this division the pope had not been in-
formed, when in 870 he sent another epistle, and an
embassy of five prelates, to Charles, with the most
direct requisition that he should renounce his unjust



PERIOD THE THIRD. 131

possession of those countries ; and in a letter to Hinc-
mar, he required that prelate and the other French
bishops to withdraw from the communion of Charles,
should he persevere in his usurpation. Whilst thus the
pontiif fought boldly in the cause of justice, he tarnished
his fame, by receiving under his protection as an inno-
cent victim of persecution, Carlomann, the unworthy
son of the king, who as an apostate monk had been
threatened with excommunication, in punishment of
his shameful vices. Thus did he injure his own autho-
rity ; his legates returned to Rome, leaving affairs un-
settled. Charles sent ambassadors and presents to the
pope, but only that he might not be further molested in
the possession of his kingdom, and Hincmar, in an
apparently respectful letter to Adrian, represented to
him, that he could not, without the greatest prejudice
to the Church, separate from the communion of the
king ; that no preceding pontiff had ever required such
a thing ; that the French Church and the country of
Lorraine stood in need of powerful protection against
the incursions of the Normans, such as could not be
given by the distant emperor. The emperor caused
himself to be crowned king of Lorraine, in 872. He
obtained the title and no more. Adrian then withdrew
from the contest the more willingly, as he now found
himself in a new controversy, on account of Hincmar
of Laon, w ith the king and the archbishop of Rheims.

John VIII (872-882) w^as the first pope, who since the
restoration of the imperial dignity in the west, had to
decide on the claims of contending rivals for the crowns.
These were the brothers and uncles of Lewis, who died
in 875. John gave the preference to Charles the Bald,
who, by a rapid march over the Alps, anticipated the
German monarch, and was crowned at Rome, on the
festival of Christmas, in 876. Charles confirmed to the
holy see all its possession and rites, and at a diet at
Pavia, in presence of the assembled bishops and counts,
was proclaimed, as he had been placed over the empire
by the pontiff, king of Italy. The pope, after repeated
warnings, threatened the king of Germany with excom-

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munication, should he presume, in pursuing his claims
to the empire and kingdom of Italy, to invade the states
of his brother. In Rome, a powerful party, at the head
of which were Formosus, bishop of Porto, and Gregory
Nomenclator, dissatisfied with the elevation of Charles,
aimed at a revolution, for which its chiefs were excom-
municated by the pope. Soon after, John was com-
pelled to send urgent letters to the emperor, to implore
his aid against the Saracens, who were laying waste the
country around Rome. In 877, Charles marched into
Italy, but returned from it in haste before his nephew
Carlomann, and died on his retreat. In France, he was
succeeded by his son Lewis the Stammerer. In Italy
Carlomann was elected king, and by promises to exalt
the Church of Rome, even beyond the point to which
his predecessors had raised it, endeavoured to obtain
for himself the imperial crown ; the condition imposed
by the pope was the confirmation of former grants and
privileges. But Carlomann was prevented, probably by
illness, from visiting Rome : John was compelled to
purchase peace from the Saracens by the payment of
an oppressive tribute ; the neighbouring duke of Spo-
leto joined in the faction opposed to the pope in Rome,
and so far prevailed against him as to compel him to
seek for safety by flight across the sea (the way by land
was closed against him), into France. He here held a
synod at Troyes, to which he had invited, but in vain,
the three German kings, Carlomann, Lewis II, and
Charles III. Not having obtained in France, which
could not defend itself against the Normans, the desired
assistance, the pope returned into Italy, and in virtue
of his authority as vicar of the kingdom of Italy, to
which office he had been named by Carlomann, he con-
voked a diet to meet at Pavia, in 879, which, however,
was never held. That during the w^eak state of the
infirm Carlomann, the pope offered the Italian and impe-
rial crowns to tlie count Boso, who was afterwards the
first king of Provence, cannot be shown, and is not
probable ; he turned rather to the brother of Carlomann,
Charles le Gros, whom he crowned emperor in 881, but



PERIOD THE THIRD. 133

ill the hopes of whose assistance he was disappointed,
John died in December 882, after his last days had
been embittered by the view of the incursions of the
Saracens, and of the general devastation of Italy. The
extensive collection of his epistles is a standing memo-
rial of his untiring energy ; that he, more frequently
than any of his predecessors, pronounced sentence of
excommunication against bishops and powerful laics,
must be ascribed to the prevailing depravity of the age,
and to that state of hard necessity to which the see of
Rome was then reduced.

Marinus I (882-884) was the first pope who, before
his elevation to the papal see, had received episcopal
consecration. He absolved Formosus from the censures
which had been pronounced against him by John VIII ;
but prohibited him from ever entering either Rome or
Porto. He had an interview with the emperor Charles
at Modena, in 883, but which, so great was now the
weakness of the empire, appears to have been followed
by no important result. Adrian III died in 883, on a
journey which he had undertaken at the desire of the
emperor, to attend an assembly at Worms. Stephen V
was consecrated immediately after his election, probably
in virtue of a decree of Adrian III, that for the future
the newly-elected pontiff should not await the arrival of
the imperial delegates before his consecration. The
emperor wished to depose him, but Stephen sent to the
emperor the deed of his election, to which the names of
all the voters were attached, and was no more molested.
It was not long before the weak and impotent Charles
was himself dethroned in Germany. After his death,
in 888, the kingdom of the Franks, which had been for
the last time united under him, was again divided : the
Germans chose Arnulf, a natural son of Carlomann ; the
West Franks, count Odo of Paris, to be their kings.
Besides the south Burgundian kingdom, founded by
Boso, there now arose a north Burgundian kingdom
under Rudolf, a grandson of Lewis the Pious. In Italy,
Guido duke of Spoleto, and Berengarius duke of Friuli,
contended for the crown : the former, who was prefer-



134 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

red to Berengarius, was crowned by the pope, as em-
peror, in 891. Stephen died soon after this event,
and was succeeded by Formosus (891-896), who had
been deprived by John VIII, but to whom the succeed-
ing pontiffs had given their confidence. As he was
already a bishop, he was not consecrated, but was so-
lemnly enthroned. In 892 he crowned Lambert, the
son of Guido, as co-emperor : but when he looked upon
the melancholy state of Italy, and the incapability of
Guido and Lambert to apply a remedy thereto by the
establishment of a permanent government, he called in
the assistance of the German king Arnulf. After the
death of Guido, Arnulf marched into Italy : he took
Rome, into which city the mother of Lambert had
thrown herself, by storm ; he liberated the pope from
his confinement, and in 896 received from his hands
the imperial crown. The Romans, with the reservation
of their obedience to the pope, took an oath of fidelity
to the new emperor. But Arnulf could not long delay
in Italy, and now the see of Rome began to experience
the eifects of the universal confusion and of that savage-
like degeneracy of manners which now everywhere
prevailed. Boniface VI was raised to the papal throne
after the death of Formosus by a popular commotion ;
but he survived his consecration only fifteen days. The
party that had always been hostile to Formosus suc-
ceeded in the election of one of their own body,
Stephen VI. This pope sacrificed the honour of the
apostolic see to the revengeful spirit of his party : he
permitted the corpse of Formosus to be disinhumed ;
he convoked a synod in which Formosus was condemned,
because, contrary to the canons, he had forsaken his
church of Porto, and had intruded himself into the see
of Rome. This sentence was executed by indignities
ofi'ered to his dead body : finally, all those who had
been ordained by him were suspended. The simple
translation from one episcopal see to another could not
justify these proceedings, for, as we have seen, it was
the same with pope Marinus, who, before his election
to the supreme pontificate, had been bishop of Cervetri.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 135

This the enemies of Formosus knew, and they therefore
added to their accusations this other, that he had
caused himself to be a second time consecrated. But
the French priest Auxilius, who had been ordained by
Formosus, and who in several works defended his ordi-
nations, and his actions in general, proved this to have
been a calumny. Stephen objected also to recognise
as emperor Arnulf, who had been crowned by Formo-
sus : he passed over to the side of Lambert ; but in
897 he was cast into prison by a Roman faction, and
strangled. He was succeeded by Romanus, after whose
early death Theodore II was elected, whose brief pon-
tificate gave him only time sufficient to order the body
of Formosus to be drawn from the Tiber, into which it
had been cast, and to restore to their offices those who
had been ordained by him. John IX, whom the party
of Formosus elected in 898, was opposed by Sergius, an
enemy of that pontiff. John, in a Roman synod, can-
celled all that had been previously decreed against
Formosus : the acts of the synod holden under Stephen
VI were given to the flames. At the same time the
election and coronation of Lambert, and the rejection
of Arnulf, were confirmed ; and the decree of Stephen
IV, in 816, regarding the consecration of the newly-
elected pope in presence of the imperial delegates, was
renewed. Both the pope and Lambert, in 898, held a
numerous ecclesiastical and civil assembly at Ravenna,
where the pontiff represented, in the strongest terms,
the misery of the States of the Church, which were ex-
posed to unceasing ravages, and the entire impoverish
ment of his see.

Now followed in rapid succession Benedict IV (900-
903) and Leo V, who, in 903, was dethroned and cast
into prison by Christopher. Sergius III, to whom
Christopher was compelled to give way, and who, as
he belonged to the anti-Formosian party, confirmed all
the acts of Stephen VI against Formosus. At this pe-
riod, Berengarius of Friuli and Lewis king of Provence
contested with varying success the throne of Italy ; and
to fill up the measure of the country's woes, the Ma-



136 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

gyari now commenced their depredations. The Roman
see, after the short pontificates of Anastasius III (911-
9 1 3) and of Lando, appears to have been in a state of
disgraceful dependence on certain Roman women, who,
influential as they were capricious, placed therein their
favourites or sons ; a state in which the papal see might
have been compared to a captive in chains, to whom,
being deprived of freedom, we are not to impute the
disgrace which he endures. John X, who had been
bishop of Bologna, and afterwards archbishop of Ra-
venna, was elected pope through the influence of a
female named Theodora, to whom his personal appear-
ance, it is said, recommended him. But this history,
and much more that is told of female domination at
this time in Rome, may be justly suspected, as the only
writer whose testimony can be given is the credulous
Luitprand. This author appeals to a written life of
Theodora, which might be denominated rather a satiri-
cal libel or romance than a serious biography. Thus
Luitprand writes that the pope John XI was the son of
Sergius III and of Merozia, the sister of Theodora,
whilst all contemporary historians assert that he was
the son of Merozia and of Alberich duke of Camerino.
John crowned Berengarius emperor, and saved central
Italy, by a victory over the Saracens at Garigliano.
The pow erful Marozia, who then held possession of the
castle of St. Angelo, cast the pontiff into prison, where
it is probable that he died a violent death. Leo VI
died a few months, Stephen VII two years, after his
election. John XI was then raised, by the intrigues of
his mother, to the papal throne ; but being confined by
his brother Alberich in the castle of St. Angelo, he w as
compelled to resign to him all power in Rome. He
was succeeded in 936 by the holy Leo VII, and in 939
by Stephen VIII (IX). This pontiff" threatened with
excommunication the French nobles, who, until Christ-
mas of 942, refused to submit to their king, Lewds, the
son of Charles the Simple. Marinus II (943-946) and
Agapite (946-955) were pontiff's of blameless character.
During the pontificate of the latter, there occurred in



PERIOD THE THIRD. 137

Italy great, and to the Roman see important, events.
Hugo of Provence, who as husband of Marozia had
acquired the dominion of Rome, but who had been
driven from that city by his step-son Alberich, had by
his timid, and at the same time tyrannical, government
of the kingdom of Italy, gained for himself such general
odium, that when Berengarius, the margrave of Ivrea,
grandson of Berengarius I, marched from Germany into
Italy, in 94G, Hugo was obliged to abandon the king-
dom, leaving to his son Lothaire the name of king,
whilst the sovereign power fell into the hands of Beren-
garius. After the sudden death of Lothaire, in 950,
Berengarius and his son Adalbert were crowned kings
of Italy at Pavia. But now the victorious king of the
Germans, Otho I, was invited by the friends of Ade-
laide, the injured widow of Lothaire, and by others who
w'ere not content w ith Berengarius, to receive, together
with the hand of the queen, the kingdom of Lombardy.
Otho, supported by Manasses, the powerful archbishop
of Milan, entered Pavia towards the end of 951, es-
poused Adelaide, and styled himself in his decrees king
of Italy. He then requested of the pope to allow him
to march into Rome, but this, Agapite, compelled pro-
bably by Alderich, refused. After his return into Ger-
many, Berengarius, accompanied by many of the Italian
nobles, was present at the diet of Augsburg, where he
received the kingdom of Italy as a fief from Otho, and
took the oath of fidelity to him.

At Rome, after the death of Agapite, in 956, Octa-
vian, a youth of only eighteen years of age, the son of
the Roman tyrant Alberich, seized for himself possession
of the papal throne. He named himself— the first ex-
ample of such a change — John XII. Driven to extremes
by the oppressions of Berengarius and his son, the pope,
in concurrence with the bishops and nobles of Italy,
called for the assistance of Otho. This prince, before
he left Germany, promised with an oath that he would
preserve uninjured the possessions and rights of the
Roman see, that he would protect the pontiff, and not
intrude upon hi- sovereignty of Rome. He then



138 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

marclied a second time into Italy, received at Milan, in
961, the crown of Lombardy, and at Rome obtained
from the pope the imperial diadem, which had now
been for thirty-eight years without a wearer. Thus
commenced the connexion between the Italian and the
German states, between the imperial and the German
regal dignities. Now, if ever, Otho published the cele-
brated but much-contested diploma, by which all former
donations to the see of Rome were ronfirmed, and the
dukedoms of Spoleto and Beneventum, Tuscany and
Sicily (should Otho subdue this island), were added to
the possessions of the States of the Church, with the
reservation, however, of the imperial supremacy over
the dukedoms. The freedom, moreover, of the papal
elections was guaranteed, the pope engaging to bind
himself, before his consecration and in presence of
the imperial delegates, to govern according to law and
right. The provisions relating to the administration of
justice are similar to those contained in the constitution
of Loth aire.

Otho, soon after his departure from Rome, received
many complaints against the shameless and scandalous
conduct of John. The emperor sought to excuse him.
" He is but a boy," he said, " and may amend." But
John now endeavoured to persuade the Hungarians to
invade Italy, and united himself with Adalbert, with
the design to raise him to the imperial throne, and to
extinguish in Italy the pow er of Otho. Adalbert had
already arrived in Rome, at the invitation of the pope,
when Otho, requested by the Romans who remained
faithful to his cause, hastened thither, in 963. After
the flight of John and Adalbert, the Romans swore to
the emperor that they would allow no pope to take
possession of the see of Rome who had not received
the approbation of Otho and of his son Otho II. The
emperor then convened a synod at Rome, in wdiich
there were present forty Italian and German bisliops
and sixteen cardinals. Here John was arraigned by
the bishops and cardinals of simony, perjury, murder,
and sacrilege : he was accused of having converted the



PERIOD THE THIRD. 139

Lateran palace into a house of dissipation, of having
placed a boy of ten years of age in the see of Todi, and
to have uttered, at a feast of riot and drunkenness,
words of blasphemy. To a citation that was sent to
him, he replied, " that if they presumed to elect a new
pontiff, he would excommunicate them." He was now
accused by the emperor of treason, and was declared
deposed. With the consent of Otho, Leo, chancellor
of the Roman Church, a layman, was, contrary to the
canons, elected pope. If it l)e true that a pope — and
Octavian, notwithstanding his usurpation, was pope, by
the acknowledgment of the universal Church and of
Otho himself — can be deposed only on account of
heresy or of an obstinate maintenance of error, and
then only by an oecumenical council, this proceeding,
whatever appearance of right the emperor and his
synod may have had, was most assuredly contrary to
all law, and was therefore to be condemned.

An attack which the Romans, who, since the year
9G4, had become embittered against the German domi-
nation, made upon Otho and his few troops, failed
indeed, but after the departure of Otho, John XII
returned to Rome, raged cruelly against the chiefs of
his opponents, and after the antipope had fled from the
city he convened a synod of sixteen bishops and twelve
cardinal priests, the majority of whom had taken part
in the preceding assembly. Here the acts of that
assembly were cancelled : Leo VIII and the bishops
w^lio had consecrated him were deposed, and all who
had been ordained by Leo were compelled to acknow-
ledge in writing that their ordination was invalid.
Soon after, John XII died, as we are told by the Con-
tinuator of Luitprand, from the effects of a wound
received in a nightly debauch. Instead of closing the
schism by the election of Leo VIII, the Romans chose
a new pope, Benedict V, who threatened with excom-
munication the emperor, who was then encamped before
the city. Rome was forced to open its gates to Otho
and to the antipope. Leo presided over a synod which
had been hastily assembled, in which the weak-minded



140 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Benedict prostrated himself before him, and with a con-
fession of his fault implored pardon. Otho conducted
Benedict into Germany, and consigned him to the cus-
tody of the bishop of Hamburg. After the death of
Leo VIII the Romans besought the emperor to restore
Benedict ; but as he had also in the meantime died,
John XIII was elected, in presence of the ambassadors
of Otho, Otgar bishop of Spire, and Luitprand bishop
of Cremona. A faction of powerful Romans seized and
held in captivity the newly-elected pontiff, until he
found an asylum in the court of Pandolf prince of Capua.
Otho thereupon marched into Italy, for the third time,
in 966. He visited with severe punishment, first the
adherents of Adalbert in Lombardy, and upon his arri-
val in Rome, inflicted a heavy judgment upon the
authors of the last insurrection : thirteen of the chiefs
were hanged, beheaded, or deprived of sight. In a
synod at Ravenna, in 96/, Otho restored to the pope
possession of the exarchate, which had been seized by
the last kings of Italy. This province, however, cannot
have been long retained by the Roman see, for soon
after this period we find the Venetians masters of Fer-
rara, Comacchio, Ravenna, and other cities of the
exarchate. John now crowned as emperor Otho II, a
youth of fourteen years of age.

After the death of John in 972, Benedict VI was
elected in the presence of the ambassadors of the em-
peror. Scarcely had the intelligence of the death of
Otho the Great arrived in Rome, when the ancient
spirit of rebellion and lawlessness revived in the city.
Crescentius, the son of the famed Theodora, in union
with the ambitious cardinal Boniface Franco, seized the
person of the pope, and caused him to be murdered in
prison. Boniface endeavoured to place himself in the
vacant see, but the Romans rose against him, amd com-
pelled him to seek for safety in flight. Bonus II was
elected, but he survived his election only a few days.
Otho II now wished to direct the election in favour of
Majolus, the abbot of Cluny ; but the holy man de-
clined the proffered honour, as the manners of the



PERIOD THE THIRD. 141

Romans were so repugnant to his, that to rule them
would be to him a difficult undertaking. Benedict VII
bishop of Sutri, of the family of the counts of Tusculum,
was therefore elected in 9/5. He threatened with ex-
communication the turbulent Boniface, and died, it is
probable, in 983 ; for in that year Otho II, a short time
before his death, procured the election of his chancellor,
Peter bishop of Pavia, who named himself John XIV.
But Boniface now returned from Constantinople, and,
supported by a powerful faction in Rome, cast the pope
into the castle of St. Angelo, where he died of hunger.
No one in the city could or would oppose the usurper.
Happily, he died after a few months, and the populace
revenged themselves by the indignities which they
offered to his corpse. John XV next ascended the
papal throne, but so oppressive was the state of depend-
ance on the despotic patrician and consul Crescen-
tius, that he invited to Rome the young Otho III to
receive the imperial crown. Otho proceeded into
Italy in 996. At Ravenna, he heard of the death of
the pontiff, and directed the Roman embassy, which
consulted him although he was not yet emperor, on the
choice of a successor to the deceased pope, to elect his
cousin Bruno, a son of the Flemish duke Otho, and of
Luitgarden, a daughter of Otho the Great. Bruno,
although only twenty-four years of age, was elected,
named himself Gregory V, and crowned Otho emperor.
But scarcely had the young emperor returned into
Germany, when Crescentius, for whom Gregory by his
intercession had obtained pardon, obliged the pope to
flee from Rome, and gave to Philagathus, bishop of
Piacenza, a Greek from Calabria, his pow erful assistance
in his usurpation of the papal see. In a synod at Pavia
Gregory passed on Crescentius sentence of excommuni-
cation. Otho marched upon Rome, and the antipope
endeavoured to avoid him by flight. But he was kept
in confinement by the people, and after the entry of
Otho and Gregory into Rome, he was barbarously mu-
tilated and insulted, after the manner of the Greeks, in
public. Crescentius and twelve of his adherents were



142 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

beheaded. Gregory died in 999 ; and now, for the first
time, a native of France was raised to the papal see.
This was Gerbert, the tutor of Otho III. He was born
in Auvergne, and was first a monk in the cloister of
Aurillac, then abbot of Bobbio, and afterwards director
of the school of Rheims, in which capacity we have
seen him in the controversies on the eucharist.* In 992,
after the deprivation of Arnulf, archbishop of Rheims,
he succeeded to that see ; but being deposed by John
XV in 995, he followed his scholar Otho into Italy,
where he obtained the archbishopric of Ravenna. From
Ravenna he was transferred to Rome, with the title of
Silvester II.



SECTION III.

TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER II (l073).f

After the death of Silvester, in 1003, John XVI and
John XVII (generally called John XVIII) succeeded,
in a short space of time : they were followed, in 1009,
by Sergius IV and, in 1012, by Benedict VIII, of the
family of the counts of Tusculum, who were now all-
powerful at Rome. A man named Gregory, who con-
tested the pontificate with him, and who stood at the
head of a strong party, drove him from Rome. Bene-
dict fled to the court of the German king Henry II,
and implored him to assist him. The king marched
into Italy in 1013, and in 1014 arrived in Rome, where,
when he had vowed to be for ever a true defender of
the Roman Church, and had promised fidelity to the
pope and his successors, he and his queen Cunigunde

* See page 71.

f Dithmar of Merseberg ; Glaber Radulphiis ; Lanclulphii?, the
Elder and the Younger ; Leonis Ostiensis Chronicon Cassinense ;
Desiderii (Victoris III) Dialog, libri iii. in Biblioth. Max. PP.
torn, xviii. ; Bonizonis Lutriensis Episcopi, in Oefele, Seriptores Rerum
Boicarum, torn. ii. ; Brunonis Signiensis Vita Leonis TX, in Biblioth.
Max. PP. torn. xx. ; Wiberti Vita Leonis IX, in Mabillon, Acta SS.
O.S.B. Sa3c. VI, pt. ii.; S. Petri Damiani Epistola3 et Opuscula, ed.
Cetari, Romai, 1606, fol.



PERIOD THE THIRD, 143

received from Benedict the imperial dignity. Dithmar
of Merseberg remarks that Benedict acted in his pon-
tificate with greater freedom and independence than
had been exercised by his immediate predecessors. He
defeated the Saracens, who assailed him from Sardinia
and Tnscany : he gave to the Pisans, who at his insti-
gation drove these enemies of the faith from Sardinia,
the fendal tenure of the island ; and confirmed to the
Church of Ravenna, the bishop of which was Arnold,
the brother of the emperor, the donation which had
been made by his predecessors of the cities of Ravenna,
Bologna, Imola, and Faenza, and in addition to these,
of Forli and Cervia. In 1020, Benedict, invited by the
emperor, and induced by the progress of the Grecian
armies in Lower Italy, visited him at Bamberg. It is
probable that Henry there gave to the pope the diplo-
ma, which was nearly similar to that of Otho, by which
he confirmed all former grants to the Roman see in
Italy, the possession of the abbey of Fulda, of all other
cloisters subjected immediately to the pope in Germany,
and of the recently-founded bishopric of Bamberg, and
at the same time renewed the condition, that the pon-
tiff elected by the clergy and people of Rome should be
consecrated in presence of his ambassadors. Benedict
was succeeded in 1024 by his brother, John XIX,
whom, according to the expression of Romuald of
Salerno, the same day beheld a layman and pope ; so
great was then the power of the counts of Tusculum.
From him Conrad II, the fiirst German king of the
Frank- Salic family, after he had w^on for himself the
crown of Italy, received the diadem of the empire. The
counts of Tusculum, who had already seen upon the
papal throne their relatives Sergius III, John XI and
XII, Benedict VH, and lastly, the two brothers Bene-
dict VIII and John XIX, wished to make the Roman see
an inheritance in their family ; and count Alberich, the
brother of the deceased John XIX, effected, by means
of rich bribes of gold, the election of his son Theophy-
lactus, who was named Benedict IX, and who dared to
desecrate, for eleven years, the chair of Peter. This



144 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

disgrace of the Roman, and consequently of the entire
catholic Church, could have gone unpunished only in
an age of the deepest corruption, in which, according
to the assertion of the abbot Guido of Pomposa, almost
all the bishops were guilty of simony. The scandalous
life of this miserable man at length caused a tumult
amongst the people : he was driven from the city, but
was brought back by the emperor Conrad II, in 1038.
After a few years, he was compelled to withdraw a
second time, and his enemies, by distributing bribes
amongst the people, gained their support for an antipope,
John, bishop of Sabina, who entitled himself Sdvester
III. Aided by his powerful relatives, Benedict returned
in 1044, after an absence of a few months, and thought
seriously of marrying his own cousin, whose father re-
quired as a condition, that he should resign the pope-
dom ; and hoping to live undisturbed as a private man,
he listened to the counsel of the arch-priest John, a
moral, pious, and prudent man ; he received a large
sum of money, resigned, and retired to a castle belong-
ing to his family. John, who had long earnestly desired
to see the Roman Church freed from the tyranny of the
patricians, and the liberty of election restored, knew
of no other means of preventing the election of a client
of the nobility by the populace, who were accustomed
to bribery, than to be more liberal than the nobles in
his gifts, and to secure the votes of the people in his
own favour. He took the name of Gregory VI, and
was, without doubt, the legitimate pontiff, although
Benedict soon repented of his resignation, and under
the protection of his relations came forth from his
retirement again as pope. Thus there were now three
pretendants to the papal authority ; but only Gregory,
of whom his better contemporaries speak with respect
and praise, was in actual possession of the supreme au-
thority. The Roman Church was, at this period, borne
down into the depths of misery and degradation ; the
greater part of its lands, its possessions, and revenues,
was in the hands of strangers ; there were no apparent
means of averting the ruin which threatened the Church



PERIOD THE THIRD. 145

of the apostles, and Gregory saw himself compelled to
ask for alms of William duke of Aqiiitaine, and other
princes. The environs of Rome, and Rome itself, were
filled with robbers ; scarcely were the oblations laid
upon the altars, before they were frequently sacrile-
giously carried away. Gregory, who wielded in vain
his spiritual arms, placed himself at the head of a l)ody
of men to restore in some degree the public security.

In the mean time, the German king, Henry III,
marched into Italy with the resolution of putting an
end to the schism. In 1046, he convened a synod at Pa via,
and, as the bishops would not judge the pope unheard,
he caused another to be holden at Sutri. To this latter
city he was accompanied by Gregory, who had been in-
vited to meet him at Piacenza. Silvester III was de-
posed and condemned to enclosure in a cloister ; of
Benedict, who had resigned, no further notice was taken.
Gregory related the manner of his own election, and
confessed that he had been guilty of simony, but with
the best intentions. The bishops were unwilling to
pronounce sentence upon him, the legitimate pope ;
iDut he himself pronounced his own condemnation, and
declared that on account of the bribery which had ac-
companied his election, he then resigned the pontificate.
A new pope was now to be chosen at Rome, but the
Romans had sworn to Gregory that they would elect no
other during his life, and there was certainly among the
Roman clergy none more worthy than he. It was
therefore left to the king, to whom and to whose suc-
cessors had been granted the dignity of the patriciate,
to name the new pontiff. His choice fell upon Suidger
bishop of Bamberg, who named himself Clement II, and
gave to Henry the imperial crown. In a synod which
was held by Clement, in presence of the emperor, who
was still in Rome, in 1047, excommunication was pro-
nounced upon all who should purchase either a bene-
fice or ordination, and all who should knowingly receive
orders from a simonaical bishop, were condemned to an
ecclesiastical penance of forty days. Henry, after he
had passed some ordinances for the protection of the

VOL. III. L



146 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Roman see against the tyranny of the nobles, returned
into Germany, and took with him Gregory, who w^as
accompanied by his scholar Hildebrand, afterwards the
famed Gregory VII. Clement II died a few^ months
after his return from a journey into Germany, and
Benedict IX with the aid of his adherents contrived to
possess himself for the third time, of the papal chair,
which he held for eight months. Ambassadors from
Rome visited the imperial court, and requested to have
as pope, Alinard, archbishop of Lyons. Alinard de-
clined the dignity, and they therefore elected Poppo
bishop of Brixen, who was named Damasus II, and
who died twenty-three days after his exaltation, at
Palestrina. On the day of his enthronization, Benedict,
seized with remorse and with a desire to do penance,
retired to the abbey of Grotta Ferrata, near Frascati,
where he died in 1065. When a new embassy appeared
in Germany to solicit the nomination of a pope, the
German bishops, terrified at the rapid deaths of the last
two pontiffs, were every one unwilling to accept the
dangerous honour. At length the holy, indefatigable,
and universally beloved Bruno, bishop of Toul, was in-
duced to comply, but with the condition that his elec-
tion should be unanimously confirmed by the clergy and
people of Rome. In the garb of a pilgrim he arrived
in Rome, and in an assembly of the clergy he declared
that he was prepared to return to Toul, should they not
concur in his election. All testified their joyful appro-
bation, and he was elected, with the name of Leo IX,
on the 12th of February 1019. With him returned to
Rome, Hildebrand, whose greater and more powerful
mind gradually acquired an influence in the counsels of
this and the following popes, which extended to the
subsequent events of the Church.

Leo laboured with untiring energy to root out the
great evil of simony, which had spread such wide cor-
ruption in the Church. In a great synod held in Rome,
he declared as invalid all orders that had been conferred
by bishops guilty of simony, when not only the Roman
clergy, but many bishops also remonstrated against this



PERIOD THE THIRD. 14/

severe measure, which would oblige them to close their
churches and to suspend the sacred offices. He was
therefore, content to renew the decree of Clement II,
and he himself afterwards promoted to bishoprics several
who, without their fault, had been ordained by simo-
naical bishops. Continually journeying during his pon-
tificate from one place to another, to effect with greater
certainty ecclesiastical reform, he held synods at Pavia
and at Rheims, although at the instigation of the king,
the French bishops who knew themselves guilty, endea-
voured to prevent the latter assembly. At Rheims the
pontiff recounted the abuses of the French Church, and
exhorted those bishops and abbots who were conscious
of their offences publicly to confess their guilt. Some
obeyed and resigned ; the bishops of Langres and
Nantes were deprived ; those, who although convinced
of their guilt, did not appear, or who, not to be present
at the synod, had accompanied the king in his wars,
were excommunicated. In Germany, where Leo held a
synod at Mentz, he was powerfully supported by the
emperor, who like the pope, would place only worthy
ecclesiastics in the higher dignities of the Church. A
synod which assembled at Mantua, in 1053, was disturbed
by a tumult of ecclesiastics who dreaded the severity of
the holy pontiff. In the meantime, the Normans, who
since the year 1017 had been rapidly conquering in
Lower Italy the territories of the Saracens and Greeks,
treated with harshness and cruelty those whom they had
subdued ; they destroyed cities, churches, and cloisters,
and seized upon the possessions of the Roman Church in
Calabria and Apulia. Leo, to whom the emperor had
granted, in place of the bishopric of Bamberg, the terri-
tory of Beneventum, and who had frequently gone into
Apulia to plead for the oppressed subjects and the ra-
vished property of his church, proceeded against the bar-
barians, to whom plunder and murder had now become
natural, and with whom entreaties and prayers were
fruitless, at the head of a small army. But an unex-
pected attack of the Normans dispersed his troops and
compelled him to seek for refuge in Civitate. Upon

L 2



148 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

receiving from tliem an assurance of their sorrow for
the outrages committed by them, and of their wilUngness
to comply with all his desires, Leo entered their camp,
where he was received with every mark of respect, and
by treaty confirmed to them possession of all that they
had conquered, and all that they might in future win
from the Saracens.*

After the death of St. Leo in 1054, the Roman clergy,
as no one of their own body was found every way com-
petent to the highest dignity of the Church, sent Hilde-
brand and other delegates to the emperor, to obtain
another German pontiff. It was with great unwilling-
ness that Henry consented to part with Gebhard bishop
of Eichstadt, whom the Roman delegates had named.
Gebhard was elected at Rome, in April 1055, and en-
throned with the title of Victor IL He and the emperor
assisted soon after at a synod at Florence, where he
confirmed the decrees of his predecessor. Hildebrand,
whom the pope sent into France as his legate to com-
plete the reform of the French Church, which had been
begun by St. Leo, deposed at Lyons six bishops who
had been guilty of simony. The same legatine powers
were exercised in the south of France, by the archbish-
ops of Aix and of Aries. Invited by Henry, the pontiff
visited Germany in 1056, where he was present at the
death of this great emperor, his friend ; and where he
assisted by his counsel the empress Agnes, the protec-
trix of the young king Henry IV, who w as then only in
his fourteenth year. Victor died at Florence on his
return to Rome, in 1057- The cardinal Frederic, ab-
bot of Monte Cassino, brother of Godfrey, duke of Lor-
raine, w^as, notwithstanding his own opposition, unani-
mously chosen to succeed. As the imperial dignity was
then vacant, foreign confirmation was not required.
He gave himself the name of Stephen X. He proceeded
to take measures against the hostile Normans, but died

* For an interesting life of this holy pope, and of his Gennan pre-
decessors and successors, see ^^Die Deutscheri Papste'^ (The German
Popes), by Constantine Hofler, Regensburg, 1839.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 149
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at Florence, in ^laroh 1().')8. A short time previous to
his death the Romans had sworn to him that they woidd
not enter upon a new election, until Hildebrand, who was
then archdeacon of the Roman Church, had returned
from Germany. Of this interval the Tusculan party
took advantaj^e, to place upon the papal throne the car-
dinal John bishop of Velletri, who took the title of
Benedict X. Peter Damian and the majority of the
cardinals protested against this irregularity, but were
compelled to leave the city. Resolved rather to receive
again a pontiff from the German court than to submit
themselves to one, who should be forced upon them by
the faction of the nobles, the party of the cardinals sent
delegates to Germany, with the declaration that they
would preserve to Henry the fidelity which they had
sworn to his father, and that they were willing to re-
ceive as pontiff the man whom he should designate.
Hildebrand, wiio was then at Florence, directed the
election in favour of Gerard, the bishop of that city, a
Burgundian. When Gerard, accompanied by duke
Godfrey and other Italian nobles, drew near to Rome,
Benedict laid aside the papal insignia, and retired to his
church of Velletri. Nicholas H (so the new pope was
named) was immediately enthroned. The perjured John
of Velletri was deprived by the pope of his sacerdotal
powders. Recent experience had shown the necessity
of establishing some firm law to regulate the election of
the Roman pontiffs. It was therefore resolved, in a
synod of one hundred and thirteen bishops, who met in
Rome in 1059, that when a vacancy of the holy see
should occur, the seven cardinal bishops should first as-
semble to deliberate on the choice to be made ; that
they should then admit the other cardinals, and finally
consult the wish of the clergy and people ; the choice
was always to fall upon a member of the Roman clergy,
and only when a person of capacity amongst them
could not be found, should a stranger be elected. This
was decreed, however, with reservation of the respect
and honour due to Henry, the future emperor, and to
all his successors, who should receive their rights per-



150 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

sonally from the apostolic see. This was a strong mea-
sure, and well directed to secure the freedom of the
Church. By it the declaration was made, that a king
could exercise only as emperor (and the pope was the
source of the imperial dignity), or only by a special con-
cession granted to him personally, the right of confirm-
ing the election of the Roman pontiff.

What Leo IX had commenced, with regard to the
Normans, was completed by Nicholas. To their victo-
rious leader, count Robert Guiscard, he gave the title
of duke of Calabria and Apulia, and confirmed to him,
for the payment of a yearly tribute, the possession of
the island of Sicily. Robert swore to him the fidelity
of a vassal, and plighted his faith to protect the Roman
see, its possessions, and the freedom of the elections of
its pontifi's. And in fact a powerful body of Normans
returned with the pope to Rome, destroyed the fast-
nesses of the counts of Tusculum, of Proeneste and
Galera, so that at length the Roman Church hoped for
deliverance from these ruthless tyrants.

After the death of Nicholas II, in 1061, the cardinals
cast their eyes upon the universally-revered Anselm of
Badaggio, bishop of Lucca. But a powerful opposition,
consisting of the counts of Tusculum and Galera, of
ecclesiastics and nobles who were averse to every re-
formation of abuses, of the fierce highway robber Cenci,
and the ambitious cardinal Hugo, sent the emblems of
the patrician dignity to Henry, with the request that
he would name a pope. The cardinals, and those who
desired the freedom and the amelioration of the state
of the Church, sent also their delegate, the cardinal
Stephen, to the empress. The empress called an as-
sembly of the nobles of both nations to meet at Basil.
Here came, conducted by the chancellor Wibert, the
bishops of Lombardy, at that period the home of
simony and incontinency. The pope, it was said, must
be taken from the paradise of Italy (Lombardy), he
must be a man who could evince patience and compas-
sion for their weaknesses. The empress yielded to
their persuasions ; and as the cardinal Stephen had



PERIOD THE THIRD. 151

expected in vain five days for an audience, he returned
into Italy. But as Hildebrand and those who thought
with liim would not be compelled by a youth of fifteen
years, and by a woman, to receive as pope one of the
unworthy bishops of Lombard y, and had elected Anselm,
who took the name of Alexander II, the party of Basil
presented to Henry the patrician insignia, revoked the
decree of Nicholas II concerning the election of the
pope, and cancelled the election of Alexander. Then,
and chiefly at the instigation of the bishops of Vercelli
and Piacenza, Cadolous bishop of Parma, who had for-
merly been chancellor of Henry III, a rich but vicious
man, w^as chosen, and gave himself the title of Hono-
rius II. In this manner were opposed to each other
the two parties w^hich at this period divided the Church,
of which one endeavoured to effect the restoration of
ecclesiastical discipline, which had almost universally
fallen away, of the freedom and independence" of the
Church from the temporal power, whilst the other
sought to maintain the abuses which it had so long
cherished : each pope was the representative of his
respective party. It was not long before the sword
was drawn. Beiizo bishop of Alba preceded Cadolous,
and everywhere sought, particularly in Rome, by per-
suasion, by promises, and by bribes, to gain adherents
to his cause. In his march towards Rome, Cadolous
defeated the army of Alexander, but he dared not to
remain in the city. Fear of the powerful duke Godfrey
obliged him, in 1062, to return to his see of Parma. In
Germany the law ful pope or his opponent was acknow-
ledged according to the opinions of those who ruled
during the minority of the sovereign. Anno archbishop
of Cologne, in a synod at Wurzburg, condemned the
election of Cadolous, and the chancellor Wibert, who
was the soul of his party, as Hildebrand was of the
opposite, was deposed. But Adalbert archbishop of
Bremen, who for a long time retained the favour of the
young king, declared for Cadolous. Whilst the contest
was continued, but with some interruptions, in Rome,
and Cadolous was beleaguered in the castle of St. An-



152 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

gelo, which Cenci had ceded to him, Alexander con-
vened a numerous council even in Rome for the correc-
tion of ecclesiastical abuses : he was recognised as
pontiff by the entire Christian world, with the exception
of Lombardy and a part of Germany, and sent Peter
Damian as his legate, with extensive powers, into
France. The empress Agnes now repented of the part
which she had taken in the schism, and received a
penance that was imposed upon her by Alexander. In
the meantime, the government in Germany had passed
again, in 1066, over to Anno and to the princes who
were associated with him, and it was then resolved to
hold a synod at Mantua, for the recognition of one or
other of the popes. Anno himself, accompanied by a
numerous retinue, went into Italy, first to Rome and
afterwards, with Alexander, to Mantua. Here Alexan-
der justified the acts of his election, and as Anno, the
duke Godfrey, and Beatrix, declared in his favour, he
was solemnly acknowledged. From this time the party
of Cadolous, who during the synod had paraded, with
his soldiers, the streets of Mantua, rapidly declined ;
and from the year 1069 Alexander could so far exert
his authority, as to restrain the young king from his
intended divorce. The German bishops, with the ex-
ception of Siegfrid archbishop of Mentz, comported
themselves with greater propriety than had the bishops
of Lorraine in a similar conjuncture. But it was the
cardinal Peter Damian who, as papal legate at the synod
of Mentz, declared in the strongest terms that the
Roman see would never sanction the separation of
Henry from his wife Bertha, and if he persisted therein,
would never crown him emperor. He finally induced
Henry to abandon his design, and to be reconciled with
his queen. The last important step taken by Alexander,
the full consequences of which devolved upon his more
daring successor, was his excommunication of those
counsellors of Henry who had sold ecclesiastical digni-
ties and benefices. He died in 1073.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 153



CHAPTER THE FOURTH.



HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH
AND OF ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS.



Section I. — the church in its relations with

THE civil power.*

I . Relations between the Popes and the Emperors. —

When the pontiff Leo placed the imperial crown upon
the brow of Charlemagne, it was his desire to give to
Christendom a head, and to the Church a protector.
He did not so much found a new empire as restore the
ancient Roman sway, the remembrance of which had
not yet been obliterated, even in the West. The neces-
sity of opposing a Christian empire to the Muhammedan
caliphat of the East was felt by all : the Byzantine
emperors had, for a long series of years, shown them-
selves the oppressors of the Church : their lineage was,
moreover, now extinct, and their throne was occupied
by a female. The empire, the supreme authority of
which was transferred to Charlemagne, was one which
united the eastern and western parts of the Roman em-
pire. In later times, as long at least as ecclesiastical
unity was preserved, the Byzantine and the Western
empires were not considered as distinct imperial powers,
but as the one Roman empire, which was governed, as
it had often been in earlier ages, by two emperors.
But whilst the Byzantine empire preserved its ancient
pagan character, an entirely Christian idea formed the
foundation of the new empire of the West : the supreme
head of the Church imparted the dignity, and the de-
fence of the Church was its principal design ; for as



* Capitularia Keguin Fraiicoruni, c<U(lit Baliizius. Paris, 1677
2 torn, folio.



154 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Christendom possessed a spiritual superior in the bishop
of Rome, it wished for a temporal head in the person of
the emperor.

Hence the emperor swore to the pope an oath of
homage, an oath of personal reverence and respect;
and it was only by the coronation, consequently by the
consent of the pontiff, that the emperor acquired his
high dignity. Charlemagne indeed, in 813, declared
his son Lewis co-emperor with himself, but he did this
only in virtue of the approbation which Leo III had, in
806, given to the proposed division of the empire. At
the assembly of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 817, Lothaire was
named regent by his father Lewis, but he did not
assume the name of emperor before the year 823, when
he was crowned at Rome by the pope. When the
Greek emperor Basilius resented the assumption of the
title of Roman emperor by Lewis II, this prince ap-
pealed to the anointing and coronation of himself and
his predecessors by the bishop of Rome. In subsequent
years, after the extinction of the Carlovingian race, and
when Italy w as made the desolated scene of the anarch-
ical wars of its nobles, the popes could not deny the
title of emperor to any, the most powerful, general who
might advance upon Rome at the head of an army.
Hence arose those shadow-emperors, Guido, Lambert,
Lewis III, and Berengarius. After the death of the
last-named, the diadem was without a wearer until the
year 962, when John XII called Otho I to assume it,
and crowned him, after he had sworn to the papal am-
bassadors at Pavia that he would undertake nothing in
Rome without the counsel of the pontiff. By this act,
the imperial dignity was transferred to the princes of
Germany, amongst whom it has since remained. As
the Roman pontiffs of the tenth and of the first half of
the eleventh century were rendered politically power-
less by the factions of the nobles, they were able to
maintain their dominion over the States of the Church
only with difficulty and with many interruptions. The
German emperors also exercised so unlimited a power
in Rome and the States, that the ancient and legitimate



PERIOD THE THIRD. 155

authority of the popes was often compelled to yield.
Particularly worthy of remark on this subject is the
fact, that Arnold, brother of the emperor Henry the
Holy, was, in 1017, invested with the regalia as arch-
bishop of Ravenna by the imperial plenipotentiaries.

The election of the popes in the interval between the
decadence of the Byzantine power in Rome and the
restoration of the Western empire was left entirely free.
A synodical decree found in Gratian, by which Adrian I
is said to have ceded to king Charles of France, in 774,
the right of naming the pontiff, and of investing with
the emblems of their rank all the bishops of his king-
dom, is not genuine. Leo HI, indeed, in 796, sent to
the French king the decree of his election. If the
decretal of Stephen V, or rather, according to Pagi's
criticism, of Stephen VI (VII), is to be credited, it was
first determined by a treaty between Eugene II* and
Lothaire, that the consecration of the freely-elected
pontiff should take place in the presence of the emperor
or of his ambassadors. But many popes, such as Va-
lentine, Sergius II, Leo IV, Adrian II, and John VIII,
were consecrated without awaiting the arrival of the
ambassadors of the emperor : this, however, occurred,
as in the case of Leo IV, generally in circumstances of
confusion and peril. In 884, when the imperial power
had deeply sunk, Adrian III decreed that, for the future,
the pontiffs should be crowned immediately after elec-
tion, without any reference to the emperors or their
envoys. But in the wild conflicts of the Roman fac-
tions, each of which sought in turn to become master
of the papal see, John IX was compelled, in 898, to
restore the former usage. His ordinance, however, was
made ineffectual by the troubles of the times, and the
weakness of the emperors : the papal see, stript of all
defence, became the prey of the prevailing factions and
of their leaders, male and female. By the oath which the
Romans swore to Otho I, they deprived themselves of
the right of free election, which indeed they could not

* See page 121.



loG HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

exercise, in the lawless condition of their affairs. From
this cause it arose that, under the son and grandson of
Otho, the popes were nominated immediately by the
emperor ; and under Henry III, the schism occasioned
by Benedict IX produced a similar consequence. But
this was an unnatural dependance, and could exist only
as long as the Roman see was subjected to the oppres-
sion of the Roman nobles. Thus Leo IX, after he had
been nominated by the emperor, caused himself to be
formally elected at Rome. Nicholas II, with the coun-
sel of his Roman synod, restored the freedom of election,
and endeavoured to render it secure and independent
of foreign influence, by placing it in the hands of an
elective college. The members of this college were
named cardinals, a title which had been originally
borne by bishops, priests, and deacons, as they possessed
their dignities in perpetuity, and were not to be con-
sidered as only temporary officials. The bishops amongst
the Roman cardinals were the seven bishops of the
neighbouring sees of Ostia, Rufina, Porto, Albano, Tus-
culum, Sabina, and Palestrina, who were the suffragans
of the pope, as metropolitan. As they took part in all
the counsels on affairs of importance in the Roman
Church, and as by a decree of pope Stephen IV they
officiated alternately in the Lateran basilica, they were
by degrees incorporated with the Roman clergy. The
cardinal-priests were the superiors of the twenty-eight
parish churches in Rome : to these were added eighteen
cardinal-deacons, fourteen regiouarii, and four jjulatini.
These latter officiated in the Lateran church.

2. Aj^pointment to Bi.shoprics. — Charlemagne and
his son Lewis restored the freedom of episcopal election,
when the former, in 803, and the latter in 816, decreed
that the clergy and people of the vacant see should elect
the person to fill it. They reserved, however, to them-
selves the long-practised approval of the election.
About the middle of the ninth century, the form of
election was regulated in the following order. The
clergy and people of the diocese made known to the
metropolitan the death of their departed bishop ; the



PERIOD THE THIRD. 157

metropolitan, with the consent of the king, appointed a
bishop to preside over the choice of a successor : the
canons of the cathedral, and of the other churches, the
parish priests, the monks, and the ])rincipal of the laity,
gave their votes in the choice. The election, after it
had received the approbation of the king, was made
public : the prelate elect was conducted to the metro-
politan, who examined him, and caused him to read
and sign a profession of faith. If the clergy and people
had chosen one who was unworthy of the episcopal
dignity, the election then devolved on the metropolitan
and other bishops, or upon the king. The popes some-
times interfered, in cases of improper elections, as when
Nicholas I declared against the nomination of Hilduin
to the bishopric of Cambrai, and of Hugo to the see of
Cologne. At the consecration of the new bishop, all
the prelates of the province were accustomed to assist,
either in person or l3y their representatives.

Sometimes, indeed, in the election, this prescribed
form was not fully observed. Lewis the Pious occa-
sionally cramped the freedom of election by recom-
mending certain persons to the electors : Charles the
Bald, and other kings of the Carlovingian race, some-
times absolutely named the bishops, or sent ecclesiastics
from their court to the metropolitan to receive ordina-
tion. The synod of Valence therefore, in 855, resolved
to implore the monarch to restore the entire freedom
of election, and decreed that such persons as had been
nominated by the court should be examined by the
metropolitan, and, if found unworthy, rejected. Some
Churches endeavoured to protect themselves more
effectually from the encroachment of the kings, by
obtaining privileges which ensured to them an unre-
stricted freedom in the election of their bishops. About
the year 915, the interference of the kings with elections
had proceeded so far, that pope John X declared the
right of the French king Charles to nominate the
bishops of his kingdom to be an ancient and well-
founded right. We may perhaps restrict this in some
degree to the right of approbation. But the usurpation



158 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

of the dukes «ind counts, which followed the decline of
the regal power, was attended with still more pernicious
results. These men conferred the bishoprics under
their influence generally upon their relatives, or upon
men who were otherwise personally attached to them,
and upon those in particular who were less inclined to
oppose their violent alienation of Church property.
Thus Herbert, the pow^erful count of Vermandois, for
many years held the Church of Rheims under his ty-
ranny : he forced upon it, in 925, his son, a youth of
fifteen years, as archbishop, and contrived to obtain the
papal approbation.* In Italy also, during the tenth
century, as Atto bishop of Vercelli laments, youths W' ere
not unfrequently appointed to bishoprics, and in truth,
it was a benefit to the defenceless Church, that in the
times of desolation and confusion, the German kings
and emperors often nominated the bishops in Germany,
and after the time of Otho I, also in Italy. In Germany,
the kings drew from the many rich foundations, formed
by themselves or by their ancestors, a right to name to
many bishoprics. When an election occurred, the de-
legates of the clergy and temporal vassals presented to
the king the ring and crosier of the deceased prelate,
and prayed him to confirm their choice : if, however,
as it was frequently the case, there were no election,
the king was requested to nominate and to send to the
vacant see a prelate of his own choice. The Saxon and
French kings promoted many most worthy bishops to
the German sees ; but that political views were often
considered is shown by the fact, that, under Otho I, a
son, a brother, and an uncle of this emperor were in
possession of the three Rhenish archbishoprics.

* See chapter V. sect. 1.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 159



SECTION II.

CONTINUATION. — THE FEUDAL SYSTEM, IN ITS IN-
FLUENCE ON THE CHURCH. — INVESTITURES.— PO-
LITICAL CONDITION OF THE BISHOPS AND ABBOTS.

The prevailing passion of the Carlovingian age to
extend to all landed possessions the system of feudal
tenure must necessarily have affected the Church. If
not all, many of the possessions of episcopal churches
were held by this tenure ; and from this arose that
often-practised and always-reprobated custom of the
kings, by which they conferred these possessions as
feuds upon laics. The newly elected or nominated
bishops, therefore, gave to the king, not only the oath
of personal fidelity, but from the ninth century they
added also the oath of feudal fidelity to him, their liege
lord, to whom they became thus subjected by the feudal
temporalties of their sees. This oath {hoviagium) was
taken by the vassal with his hands placed within the
hands of his lord. By this oath the vassal swore to
serve the king in war, to appear at his call at court, to
assist at his tribunals, and to subject himself to his ju-
risdiction. But it is difficult to determine at what time
this feudal oath was first exacted from the bishops : the
more ancient of the Carlovingian kings appear not to
have required it. The bishops who were assembled at
Quiercy in 858 understood the demand of the German
king Lewis, that they should swear to him the oath of
fidelity, as a requisition of the feudal oath ; for in their
answer they declare, that they could not, like laics,
subject themselves as vassals to any man, and that it was
not permitted to them after their ordination to present
their consecrated hands to take this worldly oath.
From the demand, as well as from the answer, it appears
that the bishops took this oath before their consecra-
tion. The written oath of fidelity which Hincmar of
Laon, in 870, presented to Charles the Bald, was an evi-



160 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

dent homage, for in it he promised to be ffiithful to him
" as a man to his seignem-" (,sicut homo suo senion.)
In addition to this, the bitter complaints of Hincmar
and of other bishops regarding this oath, whicli the
kings called upon them frequently to repeat, prove to
us that they well comprehended the tendency of this
oath, and the state of vassalage to which it reduced
them. The supposition,* therefore, that the homage
which the German king, Conrad II, required from Heri-
bert archbishop of Milan, in 1026, is the first example
of such an exaction from a bishop, cannot be defended.
The taking of the oath was followed by the investi-
ture of the temporalties of the see, which the feudal
lord granted, by giving to the new bishop the crosier
and ring, as emblems of his episcopal rank and power.
The use of these symbols at the nomination or con-
firmation of the election of a bishop had been prac-
tised in earlier times. In 623, Clovis II delivered to
Romanus bishop of Rouen, the pastoral staff at the time
of his enthronization. But during the course of the
tenth century, when the feudal system had fully de-
veloped itself, and had drawn within itself the Church,
the ring and the crosier were employed as the peculiar
symbols of the investiture of bishops, as were the sword
and the lance in the creation of civil or military officers,
and as these symbols were expressive only of the spiritual
relations of the bishop, his espousals with his Church,
and his jurisdiction, so in an age, when a deep signifi-
cation was attached to everything symbolical in the
different transactions of life, it might frequently have
been imagined by the feudal lord and by the people,
that he, the feudal lord, conferred upon the bishop his
episcopal rank and power, by the delivery of the em-
blems, in the same manner that he really conferred
power and rank, when he delivered to laics the emblems
of their jurisdiction or of the honours to whichthey
had been raised. Thus it was that three things, closely
connected, the vassalage of the bishops with all its con-

* Of Katercamp, in his Eccl. Hist. IV. 531.



PERIOD THE THIRD. 161

sequences which flowed from the duties of feudality, the
investiture w ith the ring and crosier, and the almost
universal annihilation of the freedom of election, in the
eleventh century, formed a yoke as dangerous as it was
oppressive to the Church. To the degradation and de-
fenceless condition of the Church, to the personal un-
worthiness of some popes and impotence of others, and
to the exercise, in general the beneficent exercise, of that
power which the last emperors Henry II and III had
obtained, are we to ascribe the causes why the Church
did not sooner exert itself to obtain its liberation from
this state of servitude. As soon as a spirit of regenera-
tion was awakened in the Church, the attempt was
made to break the first links of this chain. In the first
year of his pontificate, the holy pontifi" Leo IX decreed
in the synod of Rheims, in 1049, that henceforth no one
should receive episcopal consecration who had not been
elected by the clergy and people. This was the first
signal for that great contest for the freedom and re-
exaltation of the enslaved and degraded Church, which
so soon afterwards ensued.

The numerous and extensive grants and privileges
which many churches received from the monarchs of
the Carlovingian family, were attended by this twofold
consequence, — the bishops and abbots gained on one
side in wealth, in power, and in influence ; whilst
on the other they lost in independence, for the king
was enabled, by the feudal system, to attach closely
to himself that body of men, who formerly by their
ecclesiastical stations, and now^ by their possessions,
formed the first class in the nation. The royal rights
which the kings granted to the Church, were some-
times held as fiefs, but were generally perpetual pro-
perties. To these belonged the right of levying cus-
toms, without, however, the power of increasing their
number, or of erecting new stations for receiving them,
the right of holding fairs, and of coining money. More
important was the right of criminal judgment, which,
according to an ordinance of Charlemagne in 803, was
granted to bishops over their poorer dependants, their
VOL. III. ^i



162 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
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