^ 
 
 
 President White Library 
 Cornell University 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BX955 .K94 1909 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 388 158 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029388158 
 
THE PAPACY 
 
THE PAPACY 
 
 THE IDEA AND ITS EXPONENTS 
 
 GUSTAV KRUGER 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ECCLESUSTICAL HISTORY IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF GIESSEN 
 
 TRANSLATED BY F. M. S. BATCHELOR AND C, A. MILES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 27 AND 29 West 23D St. 
 1909 
 
NOTE 
 
 As no saiisfaetory short history of the Papacy, 
 covering its entire development, at prese/nt exists 
 in EngUsh, it is hoped that this volume, by 
 one of the foremost Oerman authorities on 
 ecclesiastical history, may prove meful in its 
 translated form. 
 
 (All rightt reterved.) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FAQS 
 INTBODOOTION . . . . . .7 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE BEGINNINGS . . . . .13 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 TWO GEBAT POPES . . . .28 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE COMPACT WITH THE FBANES . . .45 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 BTOBUT TIMES . . . . .58 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 GBEGOBT VII. AND HIS SUCCESSOBS . . .78 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 AT THE SUMMIT OP POWBB . . .99 
 
6 Contents 
 
 OHAPTBB VIII 
 
 FAQE 
 
 THE BABTLONIAN CAPTIVITY AND THE PAELIAMENTABY 
 
 GOVEENMBNT OP THE CHUBCH . . . 120 
 
 CHAPTEB IX 
 THE POPES AS PATRONS OF THE FINE AETS . . 141 
 
 OHAPTEB X 
 THE GERMAN REVOLUTION .... 160 
 
 OHAPTEB XI 
 FRESH TROOPS. ..... 180 
 
 CHAPTEB Xn 
 DEFEATS ...... 199 
 
 OHAPTEB XIII 
 RECONSTRUCTION ..... 219 
 
 OHAPTEB XIV 
 THE FUTURE IN THE LIGHT OP THE PRESENT . 249 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 267 
 
 LIST OP ROMAN PONTIFFS .... 269 
 
 INDEX ....... 271 
 
THE PAPACY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN his famous essay on Banke's "History of 
 the Popes " Macaulay writes : " There is 
 not, and there never was on this earth, a 
 work of human policy so well deserving of 
 examination as the Roman Catholic Church. 
 The history of that Church joins together the 
 two great ages of human civilisation. No other 
 institution is left standing which carries the 
 mind back to the times when the smoke of 
 sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when 
 cameleopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian 
 amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are 
 but of yesterday, when compared with the line 
 of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace 
 back in an unbroken series, from the Pope 
 who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth 
 
8 The Papacy 
 
 century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in 
 the eighth ; and far beyond the time of Pepin 
 the august dynasty extends, till it is lost 
 in the twilight of fable. The republic of 
 Venice came next in antiquity. But the 
 republic of Venice was modern when com- 
 pared with the Papacy ; and the republic of 
 Venice is gone and the Papacy remains. The 
 Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere 
 antique, but full of life and youthful vigour." 
 
 In 1840, when these winged words were 
 written, men's minds were full of the extra- 
 ordinary increase of power which the Papacy, 
 seemingly doomed to decay at the time of the 
 Revolution and of Napoleon, had gained under 
 the Restoration. Since then two generations 
 have passed. The year 1870 has intervened, 
 with its triumph and its defeat. The jewel of 
 Infallibility has been added to the papal tiara 
 by Pius IX., and that at the very moment 
 when the movement for Italian unity robbed 
 him of the temporal crown. To-day Rome is 
 still a world-power, and the successor of 
 St. Peter does not shun the fight, but looks 
 forward — even in the most difficult circum- 
 stances of the present time — ^to that victory 
 which grace from on high shall give him. 
 
 Two hundred and sixty Popes have sat in 
 Peter's Chair. It is not our intention to tell 
 
Introduction g 
 
 of those — ^and they are many — who have ruled 
 in name only, for the greatness of the story 
 of the Papacy lies precisely in this : that the 
 small men pass away like dust, whil&^constantly, 
 after periods of decline, strong personalities 
 arise to carry the Idea onward to victory. 
 What is this«[dea, and of what sort have the 
 men been who have stood for it? This is 
 the question which we will set ourselves to 
 answer. 
 
 " When Jesus came into the coasts of GsBsarea 
 Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying. Whom 
 say ye that I am ? And Simon Peter answered 
 and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God. And Jesus answered and said unto 
 him. Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, 
 but My Father which is in heaven. And I say 
 also iinto thee, That thou art Peter ; and upon 
 this rock I will build My Church ; and the gates 
 of heU shall not prevail against it. And I 
 will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
 on earth shall be bound in heaven : and what- 
 soever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed 
 in heaven." Such is the tradition, declared 
 sacred by the Church, according to the evan- 
 gelist St. Matthew. 
 
 The battle over these words still rages on 
 
lo The Papacy 
 
 all sides. Roman Catholics see in them the 
 solid foundations on which stands the heaven- 
 ward-soaring fabric of their papal Church. 
 Orthodox Protestants, resting their faith on 
 the Bible, will have none of that. They do 
 no^ question the promise to St. Peter, which 
 to them also is sacred ; but they will not 
 extend it to his successors, and are careful to 
 distinguish spiritual from temporal power. 
 Finally, modern critics have put a question 
 mark against this tradition, as against so many 
 others. They point out that the words of 
 Jesus to St. Peter have no parallel in a 
 similar context in the other Gospels. They 
 remind us that in the literature of the two 
 first centuries of the Christian era nothing is 
 heard of this weighty promise, nay, that the 
 authenticated history of apostolic and post- 
 apostolic times stands in strange contradiction 
 to it. Nor can they find in the words and acts 
 of Jesus anything to render intelligible such a 
 care for His " Church " — or His " congregation," 
 as Luther prudently rendered it. We need not 
 settle the dispute, but we make no secret of 
 the fact that to us also the authenticity of 
 these words of Jesus seems more than impro- 
 bable. Like a prophet wise in the light of 
 past events, the historian can only say that 
 no better motto can be found for the history 
 
Introduction 1 1 
 
 of the Papacy than this sentence of the " Rock " 
 which shines in golden letters in the dome of 
 St. Peter's— a glittering symbol of the might 
 and splendour of the Roman Church. 
 
 If we consider the personality of St. Peter, 
 what significance has it for our history ? 
 According to jthe traditions of the Primitive 
 Church, put together most fully by St. Jerome 
 at the end of the fourth century, St. Peter, 
 after he had been bishop of Antioch and had 
 preached to the believers of the Circumcision in 
 Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 
 came to Rome in the second year of the reign 
 of the Emperor Claudius (a.d. 42), and there 
 ruled as bishop for twenty-five years, finally 
 suffering martyrdom on the cross, head down- 
 wards, in the last year of the reign of the 
 Emperor Nero (in a.d. 67 therefore, not 64). In 
 this tradition almost everything is legendary, 
 especially St. Peter's silver wedding, to repeat 
 a well-known expression, with the Roman See. 
 It cannot even be clearly proved by unques- 
 tioned testimony that St. Peter ever was in 
 Rome at all ; in any case he exercised no 
 demonstrable influence on the course of events. 
 Yet here also the historian must acknowledge 
 that nothing could more worthily preface this 
 history than the haloed figure of the chief of 
 the apostles. With words of power — so legend 
 
12 The Papacy 
 
 tells — he brings his arch-enemy, the heaven- 
 storming magician, Simon, down again to earth, 
 so that he is dashed to pieces before all Rome, 
 And yet in his humility he feels himself un- 
 worthy to be crucified in the same manner as 
 his Lord and Master. 
 
 According to the account in the last chapter 
 of the Gospel according to St. John, the risen 
 Lord said to St. Peter, " Feed My lambs ! " and 
 twice He repeated it with emphasis, " Feed My 
 sheep ! " That also is a legend. But if ever a 
 legend contained a truth these words do. They 
 reveal the inmost meaning of the history of the 
 Papacy. Every Pope who has taken his office 
 seriously has looked upon it as the office of 
 Pastor to the flock of the faithful entrusted to 
 him by God and His Anointed in the succession 
 of St. Peter. 
 
. CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS 
 
 IN the days of the Emperors Claudius (a.d. 
 41-54) and Nero (54-68) a Christian church 
 was formed in Rome. We do not know who 
 was the founder, but it is improbable that any 
 single person played the part which legend 
 assigns to St. Peter. Jews and Jewish prose- 
 lytes were probably in the majority until the 
 increase of heathen converts pushed them into 
 the background and they gradually disappeared. 
 This church very soon gained prestige beyond 
 the boundaries of Rome. Even in early times 
 the Christians in the Empire looked to her for 
 leadership and advice. Towards the end of the 
 first century a letter was sent on behalf of 
 the Roman church by the learned Clement — 
 the third successor of St. Peter according to the 
 official reckoning of the Popes — to the church 
 at Corinth, at that time torn by dissensions. 
 It testifies eloquently to the discreet way in 
 
 n 
 
14 The Papacy 
 
 which the Romans gave their advice after 
 judiciously weighing all the circumstances, and 
 also to the assurance with which they asserted 
 their authority. Shortly after, Ignatius, Bishop 
 of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom in Rome, 
 praises the church in the highest terms in a 
 letter addressed to the brethren there; and 
 again, a few decades later, we read as follows 
 in a letter of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth : 
 "From the beginning ye have been wont to 
 show forth divers good works towards aU the 
 brethren. To many churches in divers towns 
 have ye sent supplies and in this manner either 
 relieved the poverty of the needy or provided 
 necessary sustenance for the brethren in the 
 mines. By such gifts do ye as Romans remain 
 faithful to the customs inherited from your 
 fathers. So also has your worthy bishop Soter 
 not only kept up this custom, but has practised 
 it in increasing measure, for not only does he 
 make lavish distribution of the gifts for the 
 saints [i.e., the members of the church], but 
 he also cheers the brethren coming from afar 
 with blessed words, as a loving father cheers 
 his children." 
 
 The above-mentioned Bishop Soter, in oflSce 
 about the year 170, was certainly the sole 
 head of the church. Roman Catholic tradition, 
 however, asserts that from the beginning the 
 
The Beginnings 15 
 
 Boman church was directed by one bishop as 
 successor of the chief of the apostles; Linus, 
 Cletus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, 
 Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus are 
 the names of those who are reckoned as 
 " Popes " before Soter. But no unimpeachable 
 testimony supports this tradition. The small 
 bands of believers who, in different quarters 
 of the great city, assembled in the house of 
 some good master- worker for praise and prayer, 
 for the hearing of God's Word, and for the 
 breaking of bread, were not at first so closely 
 connected with each other that it would be 
 possible to speak of one centralised leadership. 
 It is indeed in the nature of human relation- 
 ships that even in such circumstances certain 
 men stand out as leaders by virtue of some 
 commanding quality. Such must have been the 
 case, for example, with Clement, who as a 
 freedman of the Flavian imperial house may 
 have gained an ascendancy over his fellows 
 through his superior education. But in the 
 letter to the Corinthian church which goes by 
 his name it is in no way the bishop who speaks ; 
 the name of Clement is nowhere mentioned, and 
 only indirect evidence points to him as the 
 author. Nevertheless there are distinct indica- 
 tions that at an early date the exigencies of 
 worship and administration, but above all the 
 
1 6 The Papacy 
 
 need for a line of demarcation between the 
 Christian Church and sundry conventicles which 
 fostered heathen or Jewish heresies under the 
 cloak of Christianity, compelled the separate 
 congregations to band themselves together 
 under a common head. With enthusiastic 
 idealism Ignatius of Antioch composes varia- 
 tions on the theme of the bishop as vicegerent 
 of God, without whom Church life is an impos- 
 sibility. Before him even, and with consider- 
 ably greater realistic force, it had been explained 
 in Clement's epistle how the apostles, after they 
 had received their charge from Jesus Christ, 
 the envoy of God, proclaimed the news of the 
 Kingdom of God in town and village and' 
 appointed those converts who were the first- 
 fruits of their missionary labours to be bishops 
 and deacons of the future believers. The 
 bishops as "successors of the apostles" form 
 a chain which maintains the unity of the 
 present with the earliest times, and the Roman 
 bishop as the successor of St. Peter is called to 
 be the chief link in this chain of tradition. 
 
 In the meantime legend had been at work. 
 It was an established historical fact that St. 
 Paul, having appealed to Csesar, had preached 
 to the church in Rome while undergoing light 
 imprisonment pending his trial. The manner 
 of his going to Rome is related simply and 
 
The Beginnings 17 
 
 trustworthily in the Acts of the Apostles. In 
 the year 170 A.D., however, the Goruxthians 
 helieved, and Bishop Dionysius bears witness 
 to it, that St. Peter and St. Paul had founded 
 the church of Corinth, that both had laid the 
 foundation of the Roman church also, and had 
 suffered martyrdom together. The dispute 
 between the two apostles at Antioch, so clearly 
 described by St. Paul himself in the Epistle to 
 the Galatians, had thus been forgotten. It is 
 in the name of St. Peter and St. Paul that 
 Home is to conquer. A few years after Diony- 
 sius, Bishop Irenseus of Lyons, whom the 
 Catholic Church honours as the oldest of the 
 Fathers, wrote these now famous words : — 
 
 "As it would be tedious in a book of this 
 nature to enumerate the [apostolic] successions 
 of all the churches, I will point to the tradition 
 (which she inherits from the apostles) of the 
 church of Rome, the greatest and the oldest, 
 known everywhere, foimded and established by 
 the glorious apostles Peter and Paul, and to the 
 faith proclaimed throughout the whole world 
 [Rom. i. 8], which has come down through a 
 succession of bishops to our own time. . . . 
 With this church, on account of her special 
 rank, every church, i,e., the faithful in every 
 place, must be in agreement." 
 
 The precise explanation of these words, which 
 2 
 
1 8 The Papacy 
 
 are only preserved in a Latin translation from 
 the Greek and can hardly be rendered into 
 good English, is still a matter of controversy. 
 It is clear, however, that the Roman church is 
 singled out as the foremost of a great number 
 of churches reaching back to early Christian 
 times, in order to show by her example the 
 value of the unbroken ecclesiastical tradition 
 as against the innovating tendencies of heretical 
 sects. It is clear, on the other hand, that we 
 are not justified in reading into the words of 
 Irenseus a legal superiority of the Roman 
 church over the other churches. 
 
 In any case these churches were not disposed 
 to admit such a claim, if it was ever advanced, 
 and the so-called Paschal controversy affords a 
 proof of it. The Christian churches on the coast 
 of Asia Minor, especially those of Ephesus and 
 Smyrna, had always jealously guarded their 
 independence. They too appealed to apostolic 
 tradition. The graves of St. John and St. 
 Philip were to be seen at Ephesus, and the 
 venerable Polycarp, himself one of the Apostle's 
 pupils, was at the head of the church in Smyrna 
 until the year 156. Now it was one of the ancient 
 customs of these churches always to keep the 
 Paschal feast on the day of the Old Testament 
 Passover — i.e., on the fourteenth day of the 
 Jewish month Nisan, regardless of the day of 
 
The Beginnings 19 
 
 the week on which it fell. At Rome, on the 
 contrary, and, as it appears, everjrwrhere else, 
 it had become the custom to hold the feast on 
 the Lord's Day (Sunday) after the 14th Nisan, 
 in commemoration of Christ's resurrection on 
 that day. Polycarp of Smyrna, with one foot 
 in the grave, had not shrunk from the long 
 journey to Rome (in 154) in order to discuss 
 this question with his colleague Anicetus. If 
 a complete understanding had not been possible, 
 they had at least agreed on mutual tolerance. 
 A generation later relations once more became 
 strained. The energetic and ruthless Victor of 
 Rome (189-198), whose term of office is impor- 
 tant for more than one reason, took advantage / 
 of a division among the Asiatics to interfere. 
 He threatened to excommunicate those churches 
 which were still resolved to keep to the old 
 custom, and carried out his threat. He was 
 severely censured by many of the bishops, but 
 the result was in his favour. The bishop of 
 Rome now begins to assert the rights of an 
 overlord. 
 
 Victor might well be called the first Pope. 
 But this title belongs even more justly to his 
 next successor but one, Oalixtus I. (217-222). 
 After a doubtful past — he was said to have been 
 guilty of dishonest banking transactions — this 
 ambitious man succeeded Bishop Zephyrinus 
 
20 The Papacy 
 
 9-217), whose right hand he had become. 
 The church of Borne must at that time have 
 already numbered some thousands, and it is 
 easy to understand how the severe discipline of 
 the Primitive Church, which expelled grievous 
 sinners from the ranks of the faithful, relaxed 
 by degrees. Oalixtus took an important step 
 by admitting the principle that, after due 
 penance done, even infringements of the sixth 
 commandment should not involve permanent 
 excommunication from the Church. He based 
 this arbitrary decision upon his " power of the 
 keys," i.e., upon the judicial authority bestowed 
 by the Lord on the apostles, and in particular on 
 St. Peter. He encountered lively opposition in 
 the matter. Part of his congregation elected 
 a rival bishop, the presbyter Hippolytus, in 
 opposition to him, and in a passionate lampoon 
 the Carthaginian Tertullian ^attacked with his 
 biting sarcasm the Roman bishop's claims to 
 supremacy. Thus for the fitst time was the 
 promise to St. Peter brought into ecclesiastical 
 controversy. 
 
 The episcopate of Calixtus occurred at a time 
 of peace for the churches as regards their rela- 
 tion with the State. ^The Emperor Septimius 
 Severus {cir. 200) had oppressed them and had 
 tried in particular to curb their missionary 
 activity. Under Caracalla, Elagabalus, and 
 
The Beginnings 21 
 
 Alexander Severus they were able to develop 
 undisturbed. This was especially true of the 
 Roman church. According to a statement 
 made by Bishop Cornelius, in the middle of the 
 third century, there were in office in Rome 
 forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub- 
 deacons, and nimety-four clergy of lower grades, 
 while the list of those recommended to the 
 benevolence of the church showed more than 
 fifteen hundred in need of aid. If we consider 
 how rigid the clerical organisation — to judge by 
 manifold indications — must have been, even as 
 early as this, we can understand the saying 
 reported of the Emperor Decius, that a rival 
 emperor was less vexatious to him than a new 
 Roman bishop. It was this same Emperor who, 
 thinking that the Christian hierarchy was in a 
 fair way of becoming dangerous to the State, 
 organised the first general persecution of the 
 Christians (from 250 onwards). Under him and 
 the Emperor Valerian two Roman bishops 
 received the baptism of blood — Cornelius in 
 September, 253, and Sixtus II. on August 6, 258. 
 Our attention is next drawn particularly to 
 Stephen I. (251-257), because, in imitation of 
 Victor and Calixtus, he entered the lists with 
 reckless energy, to further the idea of the 
 Roman primacy. He had differed in opinion 
 from his colleagues in Asia and Africa on a 
 
22 The Papacy 
 
 question of Church government which bordered 
 upon the realm of doctrine. The question was 
 whether a heretic should be baptized on join- 
 ing the Church or whether the laying on of 
 hands and the consequent bestowal of the Holy 
 Spirit should suffice. Stephen upheld the view 
 that baptism by a heretic according to the 
 regular form should be recognised as valid, 
 but that only in the Church as the fellowship of 
 the Holy Spirit did it become efficacious. His 
 opponents were of opinion that such a baptism 
 was nothing but an unhallowed ablution which 
 did not blot out sins but rather added to them, 
 and was therefore to be considered as not 
 having taken place. In order to ejiforce the 
 acceptance of his view, Stephen now invoked 
 the fact that as occupant of the Chair of St. 
 Peter, chief of the apostles, the first-chosen of 
 the Lord, he ranked above his colleagues and 
 thus had the right to provide authoritatively 
 for the maintenance of the true doctrine in the 
 Church. 
 
 The spokesman of the other side was Cyprian, 
 Bishop of Carthage. Some years before^ in a 
 bulky treatise on " the Unity of the Church," he 
 had had occasion to set forth his views on the 
 position of the bishops — views which were at 
 that time in complete agreement with those of 
 Cornelius of Rome. A schism in the Church, 
 
The Beginnings 23 
 
 which arose on the election of Cornelius, and 
 endangered the prerogatives of the episcopal 
 ot&ce, had involved the Carthaginian community. 
 As against the schismatics Cyprian had pointed 
 out that the unity of the Church depended on 
 the unity of the episcopate, for since all bishops 
 were successofs of the apostles, and after His 
 resurrection the Lord had extended to all the 
 apostles (John xx. 21) the promise to St. Peter 
 (Matt. xvi. 18), it followed that in their multi- 
 plicity unity was reflected. Cyprian had at that 
 time no occasion to go into the question whether 
 or how far superiority over the other bishops 
 belonged to the Boman bishop as successor to 
 St. Peter in the narrower sense. But his corre- 
 spondence with Cornelius shows that he saw in 
 the Roman church " the womb and the root of 
 the Catholic Church " for the very reason of her 
 peculiar relation to St. Peter. 
 
 At the same time, Cyprian's dispute with 
 Stephen shows that from this pre-eminent 
 dignity of the Boman See he deduced no rights 
 that would affect the independence of the other 
 bishops, but, on the contrary, set his face firmly 
 against any such pretensions on the part of 
 the Boman bishop. He vigorously repels his 
 opponent's attempts to put the primacy of St. 
 Peter on a different footing from that of the 
 other apostles. St. Peter himself, he points out. 
 
24 The Papacy 
 
 claimed no rights of primacy in his dispute with 
 St. Paul on the question of circumcision. In 
 the direction of the Church each hishop has 
 fuU discretion, each one has received a part 
 of God's flock to feed, and is answerable to 
 God alone for it. He and Bishop Pirmilian of 
 Caesarea, who hastened to his support, expressed 
 themselves very sharply about the unbrotherly 
 behaviour of Stephen, who set himself up as 
 chief bishop and with foolish arrogance boasted 
 of his succession to St. Peter. Stephen, on the 
 other hand, called Cyprian a false Christian and 
 a false apostle, refused to receive the messengers 
 of the bishop of Carthage, and excommunicated 
 the African bishops, when they still refused to 
 accept the Roman custom. It is impossible to 
 say what the result of the dispute would have 
 been, if the persecution of Valerian, to which 
 Cyprian fell a victim (September 14, 258), had 
 not diverted attention from it. As a typical 
 example of the opposition between the theories 
 later called papalistic and episcopalistic, this 
 episode has remained of permanent significance. 
 The question of the validity of heretical baptism 
 was not decided till the beginning of the fourth 
 century, in quite different circumstances, and 
 then in favour of the Roman view. 
 
 To questions of/ dogma, in the narrower sense, 
 the Roman bishops early gave their attention. 
 
The Beginnings 25 
 
 Not, indeed, that they were ever great theo- 
 logians, but from the beginning they felt them- 
 selves called upon to protect and preserve the 
 true faith. The words of Jesus to St. Peter, 
 recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke (xxii. 32), 
 " I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not," 
 contained, as ihey firmly believed, the guarantee 
 that the " gift of Grace," the « Charisma " of 
 truth, which aU bishops possessed as successors 
 of the apostles, was granted to them in a special 
 manner. Bishop Victor made a far-reaching use 
 of such a claim when he cut off the Roman 
 leather-worker Theodotus from fellowship with 
 the church, i.e., excommunicated him, because 
 of doctrinal differences. 
 
 An episode which occurred soon after the 
 middle of the third century, and which is 
 known as the "Dionysian Controversy," is full 
 of significance as regards the claims and 
 authority of the Roman bishop in questions 
 of belief. Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, a man 
 with theological and philosophical interests, had 
 used erroneous terms in defining more closely 
 the metaphysical relation of the Father and 
 the Son in the Godhead. His colleague, Bishop 
 Dionysius of Rome (261-272), heard of it and 
 decided — we should now say ex cathedra, i.e., in 
 virtue of his office — that it was best to leave 
 such subtleties undiscussed and to be content 
 
26 The Papacy 
 
 to Bpeak — in the words of the Creed — only of 
 God the Father, of Jesus Christ His Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost. The Bishop of Alexandria 
 submitted, and said that he had been misunder- 
 stood. About the same time also the Emperor 
 Aurelian settled a dispute between two parties 
 in the church of Antioch by adjudicating the 
 possession of the church building to those who 
 were agreed in doctrine with the Italian bishops 
 and, in particular, with the bishop of Rome. 
 
 The meagreness and fragmentary character of 
 tradition make it impossible to depict in striking 
 colours the position of the bishop of Rome about 
 the year 300. But we get the definite impression 
 that his opinion had unique weight in the 
 councils of the bishops. It is in the nature of 
 things that this applies primarily to his influence 
 in the West, where there was no other see that 
 could have had the slightest chance of competing 
 with the Roman in antiquity or in pureness of 
 tradition. Even Cyprian of Carthage never 
 forgot that Africa had received Christianity 
 from Rome. Yet there can be no question of • 
 a legal superiority of the Roman bishop even 
 over the Western bishops outside Italy. Only 
 over the Italian bishops had he ecclesiastical 
 authority, which meant that the right of conse- 
 crating and punishing them was admittedly his. 
 This right was not in any way confirmed at the 
 
The Beginnings 27 
 
 first General Council of Nicaea in the year 325, 
 but was accepted as existing and as a matter 
 of course. Beyond that, however, this synod 
 granted nothing to the bishop of Rome; and 
 when in later times the canon of the synod, 
 in which the prerogative of Home is alluded 
 to, was provided with the heading, " Ecclesia 
 romana semper habuit primatum " (" the Roman 
 church has always had the primacy,"), this is 
 only the first of the numerous falsifications that 
 accompany and support the continuous growth 
 of this primacy. It wiU cost many a hard 
 struggle yet to attain the ideal which imagina- 
 tion — or was it skilful calculation ? — projected 
 back into the past. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 TWO GREAT POPES 
 
 THE founding of Constantinople in the year 
 330, and the permanent removal of the 
 centre of gravity of the Imperial government 
 to the east of the huge Empire, brought great 
 advantages to the bishop of Rome. It is true 
 that the bishop of the new capital was an 
 inconvenient rival who had in view nothing 
 less than the seizing of the ecclesiastical 
 supremacy over the whole Bast by pushing 
 the leading bishops of Alexandria and Antioch 
 into the background. But while the bishop of 
 Constantinople became more and more a court 
 prelate, who had to set his sails according to 
 the wind if he wished to maintain his place, 
 the bishop of Rome was able, except for a few 
 fleeting disturbances, to consolidate his position 
 unhindered by the control of the secular arm. 
 And when, after the death of the Emperor 
 Theodosius, the two halves of the Empire were 
 
Two Great Popes 29 
 
 finally separated and an "Imperator" resided 
 once more in Italy, he was but a man of straw, 
 in face of whom the Pope, as we may now justly 
 call him, found no difficulty in maintaining his 
 independence. 
 
 That, however, would at best have given him 
 supremacy qyer the West. What he claimed as 
 successor of St. Peter was more than this — the 
 command, " Feed My sheep," covered the whole 
 of Christendom. And this claim also was 
 favoured by circumstances. Hardly had the 
 bishops, smiled iipon by imperial favour, been 
 permitted to exercise their office in full pub- 
 licity, when they broke out into heated religious 
 controversies. Over the Arian dispute, i.e,, the 
 quarrels as to the dogma of the consubstanti- 
 ality of God the Father and His Son, the Church 
 threatened to fall to pieces. Now her unity was 
 all-important to the imperial government, and, 
 in order to preserve it, Coustantine and his 
 successors brought the secular arm into play. 
 Many a saintly man, full of religious zeal, had 
 to go into exile because he would not give up 
 his convictions at the imperial command, and 
 the frequently ill-advised government was for 
 a long time in hurtful conflict with those 
 religious instincts which had the profoundest 
 hold on Christian truth. 
 
 For a time, too, the hand of the Emperor 
 
30 The Papacy 
 
 weighed heavily on the Roman bishop ; Liberius 
 had to spend several years (355-358) in far-off 
 Thrace, until he gave way and signed what 
 was laid before him. That, however, is but an 
 episode. Enshrined in the annals of history 
 there remains the decree with which, after 
 more than half a century of bitter disputes, the 
 Emperor Theodosius ended the religious con- 
 troversy by order of the State, the decree with 
 which Justinian and his jurists later prefaced 
 their code of civil law and in the opening of 
 which we read : " All the peoples over whom 
 we rule with mildness and clemency must, such 
 is our will, accept the religion transmitted by 
 the Divine apostle St. Peter to the Romans." 
 Bishop Damasus of Rome and Bishop Peter 
 of Alexandria are named as the authorities on 
 orthodox doctrine. The Alexandrian bishop 
 had soon to give place to him of Constanti- 
 nople, and the way remained clear for the 
 bishop of Rome. 
 
 It goes without saying that men of power- 
 ful personality were needed to achieve such 
 results and to make the most of them. Yet 
 Sylvester (314-335), probably the best known of 
 the Roman bishops of this period, was not so 
 great as legend has made him out to be : for 
 it is not true that he baptized the Emperor 
 Constantino, and the so-called "Donation of 
 
Two Great Popes 31 
 
 Gonstantine " ♦ is a forgery of the eighth 
 century, when it was important to impress the 
 Franks and the Byzantines. 
 
 A much raore important part was played 
 by Julius (341-352), the friend and protector of 
 Athanasius. To him, as successor of St. Peter, 
 the Synod qf Sardica granted the right of 
 forming a Court of Revision in cases where a 
 bishop, summoned before the court of his 
 peers, thought himself wronged by the sen- 
 tence. This right, it is true, was only recog- 
 nised at first to a limited extent. 
 
 One of the few non-Roman occupants of the 
 Apostolic See in the early centuries was the 
 Spaniard Damasus (366-384), a passionate man 
 who made his way to the episcopal throne 
 over corpses. He had the ear of the Emperor 
 to such an extent that he was able to make the 
 bold request that the Roman bishop might in 
 his own affairs be answerable to the imperial 
 jurisdiction only. He was also the originator 
 of the translation of the Bible by the learned 
 Jerome, which, as the Vulgate, has become 
 the standard version for the Church. His 
 
 * By the terms of the Donation Gonstantine gives to 
 Sylvester and his successors the sovereignty over the pro- 
 vinces of the Western Empire and imperial dignities and 
 privileges. Lest the secular government should cramp the 
 freedom of the spiritual, he removes the seat of the Empire 
 from Home to Constantinople. (Bee also pages 63-4.) (Trans.) 
 
32 The Papacy 
 
 successor, Siricius (384-398), who in his cir- 
 cular letters adopted quite the attitude of the 
 ecclesiastical law-giver towards the Spanish, 
 the African, and even the Gallic bishops, also 
 deserves special mention. 
 
 Nevertheless the Popes were only able to 
 make their way step by step, and often 
 enough at a wearisome pace. In Italy they 
 had to contend against the authority of the 
 bishops of Milan, Ravenna, and Aquileia, who 
 temporarily checked the influence of Rome in 
 the north of Italy and on the shores of the 
 Adriatic. The African bishops stiU had some 
 of the self-confidence of their great prede- 
 cessor Cyprian, and in the south of Gaul 
 many a hard struggle had to be fought before 
 the Roman See succeeded in gaining that recog- 
 nition the refusal of which was even then 
 considered an insult. In these and similar 
 complications Innocent I. (402-417) in par- 
 ticular proved himself a clear-sighted exponent 
 of papal policy. He is the greatest forerunner 
 of the first great Pope, Leo I. (440-46^). 
 
 In the palace of the Vatican, Raphael has 
 portrayed the following scene : Pope Leo, at 
 the head of an Imperial embassy, advances to 
 meet the King of the Huns, who threatens 
 Rome. In the sky above the Pope are 
 St. Peter and St. Paul with drawn swords. 
 
Two Great Popes 33 
 
 Sober consideration brings to our mind, in- 
 deed, other motives which induced Attila to 
 give up his marauding expedition; but to the 
 people Leo was their saviour from the Scourge 
 of God ; once more, after many centuries, 
 "pater patriae," the Father of the Fatherland. 
 And he actually was that. What mattered it 
 that an Emperor reigned beside him in Rome? 
 Valentinian III. was completely dependent on 
 the Pope, and made public avowal of his 
 dependence in the following decree : — 
 
 "Since that by reason of the merit of St. 
 Peter, who is chief of the company of the 
 bishops, the dignity of the city of Rome and 
 the decision of the holy Synod [i.e., that of 
 Nicsea, which really decided nothing of the 
 sort] the superiority of the see of Rome has 
 been established, let none henceforward dare 
 to question the authority of this see with 
 presumptuous claims : for then only will peace 
 continue throughout the Church when the 
 bishop of Rome is recognised by all as Lord 
 and Master. . . . Henceforth it shall not be 
 permitted to dispute over Church matters or 
 to oppose the orders of the Primate in Rome. 
 . . . What is ordered by the Apostolic See, by 
 virtue of its authority, shall be law to aU, so 
 that, if a bishop refuse compliance with the 
 judicial sentence of the Roman Primate, he 
 
 3 
 
34 The Papacy 
 
 shall be compelled by the provincial govern- 
 ment to appear before him. Thus in every 
 respect will that be observed which our august 
 ancestors have granted to the Koman Ghurch." 
 
 This decree had been called forth by the 
 opposition offered to the Pope by the Metro- 
 politan of Aries in the south of Gaul, who 
 had once again tried to vindicate his independ- 
 ence of idtramontane control. The Emperor, 
 whose pen had been guided by the Pope, even 
 let a sentence in the document stand to the 
 effect that the papal ordinances by which the 
 metropolitan districts in Gaul had been re- 
 arranged had not needed imperial sanction ; and 
 Leo gave the Bishop of Aries clearly to under- 
 stand that it was only thanks to his clemency 
 that he remained in office. The Metropolitan 
 of Thessalonica in lUyria, a district in which, 
 as a province belonging to the eastern half of 
 the Empire, the influence of Constantinople 
 was strong and decidedly anti-Boman, was 
 informed by the Pope that as his vicar he had 
 a share in the duties of his office, but not in 
 his power. 
 
 He would fain have adopted the same tone 
 towards the Eastern Empire itself; but here 
 his struggles for sovereignty met with invin- 
 cible obstacles. In the Eastern Churches the 
 unhappy strife over the mysteries of faith had 
 
Two Great Popes 35 
 
 not yet come to an end. This strife accorded 
 well both with the theologians' love of nice 
 distiactions and with the temporal ambitions 
 of the chief bishops, who, by mutual accusa- 
 tions of heresy, made life a burden to one 
 another. In 451 the Emperor convened a coun- 
 cil at Chalcedon, in order that some decision 
 might be arrived at. A letter from Leo to 
 the Patriarch of Constantinople served as 
 basis for this decision. In it the Pope, with- 
 out entering too much into theological difficul- 
 ties, had expounded in clear language the 
 doctrine of the intimate union of the Divine 
 and human natures in the one Person of 
 Christ. A damper, however, was immediately 
 put upon the Pope's consciousness of triumph 
 on the dogmatic question. To his great 
 chagrin the council perpetuated with a solemn 
 resolution the decision, arrived at several gene- 
 rations earlier in a synod at Constantinople, 
 that the privileges of the see of Old Rome 
 should indeed still be conceded to her by virtue 
 of her position as imperial city, but that 
 the see of New Borne should enjoy the same 
 privileges for the same reason, and should 
 have her place in the ecclesiastical order of 
 rank immediately below that of Old Borne. 
 In vain did Leo assert that there was a differ- 
 ence between temporal and spiritual order, 
 
36 The Papacy 
 
 and that the higher rank of a church could 
 only be founded on its apostolic origin. The 
 matter remained there, at least as regards the 
 Eastern Churches, which, with fewer and fewer 
 exceptions, rejected every interference of the 
 Pope in their affairs. 
 
 And yet the Pope acted wisely when, with 
 inalterable firmness, he based his primacy over 
 the nations on the Divine promise, quite 
 apart from all earthly considerations. Leo did 
 this in an especially emphatic way in a 
 sermon preached in his cathedral on the Feast 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul, June 29th. Here 
 we read : — 
 
 " Truly the whole world has a share in all holy 
 feasts, and the one true faith demands that that 
 which was done for the salvation of all shall 
 every wherg, be commemorated amidst common 
 j-ejoicing.^ But to-day's feast must be celebrated 
 with special and peculiar jubilation in this our 
 city. Where the chief of the apostles so glori- 
 ously ended their lives, there also must the day 
 of their martyrdom be celebrated with special 
 joy. For they are the men through whom thou, 
 O Rome, didst first receive the light of the gospel 
 of Christ. Through them hast thou, who wast 
 the teacher of error, become the disciple of truth. 
 They are thy holy fathers and true shepherds, 
 who established thee much better and more 
 
Two Great Popes 37 
 
 happUy in the membership of the heavenly 
 kingdom than those who by their toil laid the 
 first foundation of thy walls. He who gave thee 
 thy name disgraced thee by fratricide. But the 
 apostles have so magnified thee that, because of 
 Peter's Chair, thou art become the holy nation, 
 the chosen people [cf. 1 Peter ii. 9], the priestly 
 and royal city, the head of the world, and that 
 through the worship of God thou hast attained 
 a wider sway than thou didst of old through 
 thy worldly power. For although thou, rich in 
 victories, didst extend thy rule over land and 
 sea, yet thy toils in war brought less under 
 thy_; yoke than the Christian faith has made 
 tributary to thee." 
 
 Bightly indeed has admiring posterity given 
 the name of Great to Leo, who, in a time of 
 general unsettlement, inscribed Koman pride 
 and Christian* faith upon his banner with a tinist 
 in God that promised victory. 
 
 The successors of the great Pope carried on 
 his pretensions readily enough. Did not G«l- 
 asius I. (492-496) compare the relation of 
 temporal and spiritual power to that of the 
 sun and moon ? As the moon receives her 
 light from the sun, so the secular kingdom 
 receives all its brilliancy from the Papacy. But 
 power was lacking to give weight to such pre- 
 tensions by action. In the history of the Boman 
 
38 The Papacy 
 
 See we shall not seldom meet with such pa- 
 ralysis; but we shall also be able to observe that 
 as a rule it is connected with a state of general 
 unsettlement and transition. The century after 
 Leo marked the golden age of the Eastern 
 Empire, the culminating point of which was 
 reached in the person of the mighty Justinian 
 (527-565), who stood head and shoulders above 
 his contemporaries, in spite of the many 
 shadows that mar his career. The West, 
 however, was ruled by the barbarians, filled 
 with the exuberance of youth, who shattered 
 the organism of the Old World, but were as yet 
 without the wisdom and experience necessary 
 to build afresh on its ruins ; even the great 
 East Goth Theodoric did not succeed in pro- 
 ducing anything durable. In these wholly 
 changed times the Popes found their bearings 
 but slowly. Byzantium became their master. 
 The papal authority reached its lowest point 
 in the time of Vigilius (537-555), whom Theo- 
 dora, the courtesan on the imperial throne, put 
 into office. His subjection to Byzantium cost 
 him the hard-won confidence of the Western 
 Churches. At a time when the weakness of 
 the papal government was so notorious, it 
 makes a curious impression on one to read that 
 Pope Felix 11. (483) upbraided his rival in Con- 
 stantinople, previous to excommunicating him, 
 
Two Great Popes 39 
 
 and thus beginning a schism between the two 
 Churches that lasted for thirty-five years, with 
 the words of Jesus (Matt. xii. 30 ; Luke xi. 23) : 
 " He that is not with Me is against Me : and he 
 that gathereth not with Me scattereth." 
 
 But the evU times pass. The attention of 
 the Byzantines becomes fully absorbed by the 
 revolutions in the East, brought about first by 
 the Persians and then by the Arabs. The 
 German barbarians in the West begin to yield 
 to the influence of civilisation, and the Church 
 appears to them more and more as the power 
 which attends the destiny of nations with the 
 blessing of God — a power before which they 
 must bow the knee. But at the head of the 
 Church — so thought these peoples — stood the 
 Pope in Rome, who seemed to embody in his 
 person everything worthy of veneration that 
 the Old World had left to the New. Gregory 
 the Great (590-604) proved that they had not 
 looked to Rome in vain. 
 
 Historians not seldom dispute or entirely 
 deny the right of Gregory I. to the title of 
 " Great." However unjust that may be, it is 
 easy to understand that there should be some 
 hesitation in according to Gregory what is 
 universally and ungrudgingly granted to Leo. 
 Gregory was not cast in the imperious mould 
 of his great predecessor. It is hard to imagine 
 
40 The Papacy 
 
 Leo adopting that title of "servant of the 
 servants of Grod," which Gregory in proud 
 humility did not bear for show only, and which 
 all the Popes bore after him, even when they 
 showed no trace of his devout spirit. Gregory 
 can only be called Great because of his impor- 
 tance for the Church, which has commemorated 
 him from early times by the side of Ambrose, 
 Jerome, and Augustine as one of her four 
 great doctors. 
 
 A member of the Gens Anicia and therefore 
 of the old Roman nobility, to which, even in 
 the time of the Republic, the State had owed 
 high civil officials and successful commanders, 
 Gregory had reached in his worldly career 
 the highly honourable position of "praetor 
 urbanus," when he suddenly left the world and 
 joined the monks, of whom there were great 
 numbers in and around Rome since Benedict 
 of Nursia's reorganisation of monastic life (in 
 the first half of the sixth century). He spent 
 some fifteen years in good works, until the 
 Pope induced him, much against his wiU, to 
 devote himself once more to public life, this 
 time in the Church. For a while he held the 
 difficult and responsible office of papal repre- 
 sentative in Constantinople. After the death 
 of Pelagius II. he was raised to the papal chair 
 by the wish of both secular and ecclesiastical 
 authorities. 
 
Two Great Popes 41 
 
 That he had not spent his youth as an 
 administrator in vain was seen in his manage- 
 ment of *he property of the Roman Church. 
 Even at that time it was a matter of landed 
 property, of which the extent in Italy and the 
 neighbouring islands, on the coast of Dalmatia, 
 in the south q^ Gaul and the north of Africa 
 may be estimated at thousands of square miles, 
 and the revenue at millions of pounds in our 
 money. Gregory did not manage this "Patri- 
 monium Petri," this heritage of St. Peter, 
 as a sovereign — that right belonged to the 
 Byzantine Emperor — but as a skilful adminis- 
 trator, and, by his attention to every detail, 
 he laid the foundation of what was later called 
 the States of the Church or Papal States. But, 
 well as he understood these things, his soul was 
 not tied to them. In his heart of hearts he still 
 remained faithful to the object for which he had 
 formerly renounced the pomps and vanities of 
 this world — the service of Christ and the magni- 
 fying of His name among men. The first monk 
 to sit in Peter's Chair, he used for missionary 
 purposes the forces set free by Benedict. His 
 messengers went forth to England, to win new 
 countries for the preaching of the gospel, 
 naturally according to the Roman Catholic 
 form, which they and their chief regarded as 
 the only one that could bring salvation. Com- 
 
42 The Papacy 
 
 bining religious with political aims, he formed 
 new connexions in the territory of the Frankish 
 kings, renewed old ties in the Spanish Church, 
 now under the rule of the West Goths, and 
 peaceably and unostentatiously strengthened 
 on all sides the weakened authority of his 
 see. 
 
 At the same time he was ever mindful of his 
 duty to his Divine Master. He was the suc- 
 cessor of that apostle who had been commis- 
 sioned to feed the Christian flock. No one else 
 had received such a commission, least of all the 
 Bishop of Byzantium, who had so often to 
 sacrifice his duty as a Christian at the beck 
 of his earthly master. It seemed to the Pope 
 diabolical presumption on the part of this 
 patriarch that he should allow himself to be 
 styled, or, according to Gregory, should style 
 himself, the "ecumenical" patriarch, i.e., as 
 Gregory, perhaps wrongly, interpreted it, the 
 universal patriarch — in short, the chief patri- 
 arch. His protests died away unheard ; there 
 was no longer any inclination, across the water, 
 to listen to the Bishop of Rome. 
 
 The Church gives Gregory the title of Doctor, 
 and in truth he had a peculiar and conclusive 
 influence in the province of doctrine, in that he 
 sifted theological tradition for the West, and 
 completed the process of preserving what was 
 
Two Great Popes 43 
 
 of practical use to the Church, and of blunting 
 the edge of what was dangerous. Gregory was 
 only able to follow from afar the bold flight 
 of thought of Augustine (d. 430), whom he 
 honoured as his master ; but the giant stature 
 of the great African bishop reached far beyond 
 ordinary human standards, and the Church 
 could but be thankful to have in Gregory one 
 who extended the "Civitas Dei" even in these 
 matters. To say that the Pope stands at the 
 head of the Kingdom of God on earth was a 
 materialisation of the thought of Augustine, 
 but it accorded with actual facts. With this 
 was also naturally bound up an increase of the 
 importance of the Roman Church, represented 
 by the Pope, as the highest authority on doctrine. 
 Augustine, indeed, never stated as a principle 
 that "when Rome has spoken, the matter is 
 at an end " (" Roma locuta, causa finita "), 
 but certain expressions of his could be so 
 interpreted. 
 
 If we add to all this Gregory's services as 
 regards the instruction of the clergy, the further- 
 ance of Church life, the development of public 
 worship, and, last but not least. Church music, we 
 have grounds enough to pronounce one-sided the 
 opinion of Mommsen that he was only a " very 
 little great man." Gregory stands at the parting 
 of the ways, everything of value that had been 
 
44 The Papacy 
 
 evolved by the early Catholic Church goes over 
 with him as a recognised inheritance to the New 
 World of the Germanic and Romance peoples, 
 for whom it is reserved to utilise the treasure 
 in all directions. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE COMPACT WITH THE FRANKS 
 
 THE connexion with the Eastern Empire 
 was becoming looser and looser. Under 
 the sway of the Lombards imperial influence 
 in Italy had weakened from decade to decade 
 — not without the assistance of the Popes — 
 and the military stations had become fewer 
 and fewer. Pope Martin I. could venture to 
 incense his sovereign by ignoring the im- 
 perial right of confirming his election. It 
 must be added that the Emperor, through 
 his Exarch, soon seized the opportunity of 
 abducting the offender in the middle of the 
 night from the church of St. John Lateran, 
 and had him conveyed to Constantinople and 
 thence to the Black Sea, where he suffered a 
 painful death (655). The Popes of the seventh 
 century were not always happy in their hand- 
 ling of Church matters. One of them, Hono- 
 rius I. (625-638), was even laid under the 
 
 45 
 
46 The Papacy 
 
 ban of the Church as a heretic, after his 
 death, by a general council at Constantinople 
 (681), because, contrary to the custom of the 
 Roman See, he had gone too far on a question 
 of doctrine which had stirred up much feeling, 
 and had decided before there was anything 
 to decide. This is the oft-quoted show case 
 for papal non-infallibility, which on closer 
 examination proves to be merely a harmless 
 interlude. 
 
 Separation from Byzantium had become a 
 vital question, but there was no hope of 
 effecting it successfully as long as definite 
 support was lacking. From the Lombards, al- 
 though they had recently turned from Arianism 
 to Catholicism, there was but little to be 
 expected, since the important sees of Milan 
 and Aquileia, which since the time of Vigilius 
 had again become keen rivals of Bome, 
 were on friendly terms with the German 
 conquerors, who on their side continually 
 coveted the Patrimony of St. Peter. Rome 
 began then to look for help to the Frankish 
 kingdom, where she had had faithful adherents 
 since the time of Gregory. An opportunity of 
 testing this fidelity soon occurred. 
 
 Byzantium had once more become the scene 
 of fierce ecclesiastical controversies. The Em- 
 peror Leo m., the Isaurian, had roughly 
 
The Compact with the Franks 47 
 
 interfered with the religious life of numbers of 
 bigoted souls by forbidding image worship (726), 
 which in the Eastern Church had assumed the 
 character of idolatry far more than in the 
 West. Apart from this debasement of worship, 
 the veneration of images, as such, was un- 
 doubtedly of vital interest to the whole Church ; 
 and we can understand that Pope Gregory II. 
 (714-731) could not keep silence in face of the 
 hostile measures of the Isauriau. But the 
 tone which he adopts in writing to the 
 Emperor sounds strange to our ears. It is 
 no longer the subject speaking to his sovereign, 
 but an ecclesiastical prince conscious of his 
 power, who does not fear the authority of 
 the Emperor, and who is working towards a 
 breach. He censures Leo for meddling with 
 the dogmas of the Church and for attempting 
 to unite in his person the king and the priest. 
 He calls the Emperor a simpleton, a fool, at 
 whose head the school-children, who have 
 more sense than he, would throw their tablets. 
 Leo ordered his arrest, and the fate of Martin 
 threatened him ; but the troops refused to 
 obey orders. Shortly afterwards the Pope 
 died. His successor, another Gregory (731-741), 
 found himself in a position of exceptional diffi- 
 culty. The Lombard Liutprand was threatening 
 Borne, and he hourly expected to see the city 
 
48 The Papacy 
 
 attacked. In these circumstances he considered 
 it advisable to show his good-will by seeking 
 — this is the last instance of the practice — 
 confirmation of his election from the Emperor. 
 But in the very year of his accession he made, 
 at a Synod in Bome, a pronouncement in 
 which Leo could not fail to see an unmistakable 
 declaration of war, to the effect that whoso- 
 ever henceforth, contrary to the custom of 
 the Primitive Church, removed, destroyed, 
 desecrated or reviled the holy images, was to 
 be cut off from the Body and Blood of Christ 
 and from the fellowship of the one true 
 Church, The breach became a fact, and the 
 Pope owed it only to a combination of for- 
 tunate circumstances that the military demon- 
 stration immediately set on foot by the 
 Emperor came to nothing. 
 
 He could indeed have obtained help from 
 Liutprand. But then the Lombard would have 
 become the Pope's master, and his rule would 
 have been even heavier than that of the 
 Emperor, away in Constantinople. In this 
 emergency Gregory III. took a ^tep which, 
 though for the moment it was without result, 
 became later of great importance for the 
 world's history. Hp turned to Charles Martel. 
 He sent to the Frank the consecrated keys 
 of St. Peter's tomb, and entreated him, as 
 
The Compact with the Franks 49 
 
 he would be saved, to come and help him. 
 Charles did not come; it was not to his 
 interest to engage in a struggle with Liutprand, 
 who had just done him good service against 
 the Arabs. But the ice was broken, and a 
 few years later there came to pass what 
 Gregory III. had in vain tried to accomplish. 
 
 For about a century the power of the 
 Merovingian kings had been slowly decaying. 
 Taking advantage of this fact, the mayors of 
 the palace seized upon the reins of government. 
 Charles Martel, i.e., the Hammer, routed the 
 Arabs (in 732), but he also managed the 
 internal affairs of the kingdom. The bishops 
 having allowed themselves to be drawn into 
 the quarrels of the nobles, the Frankish Church 
 had fallen into a state of wild confusion. 
 Charles Martel did not exactly treat her with 
 tenderness. He has been tauch blamed for 
 seizing a large part of the property of the 
 cathedral churches, which pious gifts had 
 swelled to immense proportions, in order to 
 obtain a sufBciently large body of cavalry 
 against the Arabs. At the same time there 
 was really no question of iU-will towards the 
 Church and her spiritual mission, for Charles 
 showed that he could appreciate the latter' 
 by his behaviour to Boniface, whose missionary 
 and organising efforts in Hesse, Thuringia, and 
 
 4 
 
50 The Papacy 
 
 Bavaria he took under his powerful protection. 
 On the other hand, it was just the activity of 
 Boniface which made Charles and his suc- 
 cessors realise the importance of a firmly 
 united Church, fostering the gentler instincts 
 of the masses. That this organisation, also as 
 the result of Boniface's activity, was closely 
 linked to Rome did not trouble them, since 
 they looked upon their sovereignty over 
 the Church as a matter of course, and had 
 no reason to fear ultramontane influence. They 
 could appreciate and utilise the moral power 
 of Borne. 
 
 When, in 751, Pepin, the son of Charles 
 Martel, deposed the Merovingian King Childeric, 
 it was of the greatest importance to him to 
 have the blemish of illegality, which might 
 attach to his crown, removed. The mere 
 acclamations of his Franks could not efPect this 
 — supernatural confirmation was necessary. 
 This confirmation he found in the decision of 
 the Church, which stood in God's stead on 
 estrth. He therefore put this question to the 
 Pope : " Is it right, or not, that the kings of 
 the Franks should not possess the royal 
 authority?" "No," answered Pope Zacharias 
 (741-752), "it is not right." Now the crown 
 was free of stain. "By the grace of God" 
 (" Dei gratia ") Pepin styled himself. Here for 
 
The Compact with the Franks 51 
 
 the first time these words are used in connexion 
 with a king's crown ; hitherto it was only the 
 bishops who had been " by the grace of God," 
 and since the time of Israel and Judah no 
 ruler's head had been touched with the anoint- 
 ing oil. Boniface, the Pope's legate, anointed 
 the King of the Franks. 
 
 Perhaps the matter would have ended there 
 if, at the same time, [the papal throne had 
 not fallen into sore straits. The Lombard 
 Aistulf occupied Bavenna and demanded tribute 
 from Rome. Thereupon Stephen III. decided 
 to appeal once more to the Pranks. He crossed 
 the Alps in winter time and appeared at the 
 King's residence in Ponthieu, begging for 
 protection. The pious Pepin paid him the 
 honours which he deemed due to the successor 
 of St. Peter, and himself led the Pope's palfrey. 
 But he did more : he assured him of his 
 protection, and promised, if he were victorious, 
 to ensure his safety by putting at his dis- 
 disposal the territory won from the Lombards, 
 while he himself took the title of Patrician 
 of Home and therewith the position of protector 
 to the Pope. By way of thanks Stephen 
 anointed him again. Pepin kept his word, 
 and after a short war overthrew his opponent. 
 To the imperial envoys who came to demand 
 the restoration of the land to the Emperor 
 
52 The Papacy 
 
 he answered that it was for love of St. Peter 
 and to obtain forgiveness of his sins, not to 
 please men, that he had undertaken the war 
 against the Lombard chief, with whom, it 
 may be mentioned, he had — unlike his father 
 — not been on friendly terms. 
 
 Upon the alliance thus formed between the 
 Frankish king and the Pope hung all the 
 future. Everything depended on the mutual 
 relations of the two powers. Pepin had given 
 the Pope territory that legally belonged to 
 the Emperor, and it had thereby become clear 
 to all that the union with the East was finally 
 at an end. But that the Pope was now a 
 sovereign equal with himself did not occur 
 to the Frank, although he allowed him to 
 do as he pleased within the boundaries of 
 what we may henceforth rightly term the 
 "Papal States." The Pope knew this. At 
 the same time the advantages which accrued 
 to the Boman See at this turning-point in 
 the history of the world were very great. 
 The price paid for the removal of the Lombard 
 peril cannot indeed be called too high when 
 we reflect that the papal policy, built upon a 
 single, unalterable, firmly-rooted idea, has 
 always been, and has remained, as independent 
 of the men who have embodied it as the 
 policy of temporal states has been dependent 
 
The Compact with the Franks 53 
 
 on politicians. Rome could wait. With strong 
 personalities like Pepin and his great son, 
 caution was necessary. But a time was 
 coming when it would be possible for the 
 Pope to act otherwise, supported by the 
 enormous influence which as shepherd of souls 
 he exercised over the mind of Christendom. 
 
 For the rest, there was no shrinking from 
 very worldly means of increasing this influence. 
 The papal chancery, about the middle of the 
 eighth century, suffered from no excess of 
 conscientiousness. That, at the moment of 
 Rome's greatest need, advantage was taken 
 of "the days of darkness in the land of the 
 Franks" — in DdUinger's phrase — to fabricate a 
 letter in which St. Peter besought the kings 
 of the Franks, his adopted sons, to rescue 
 his city of Rome, appears to us as harmless 
 as the superstition of its recipients, who seem 
 to have been impressed by it. More serious 
 was the " Donation of Constantino," by means 
 of which an attempt was made to render that 
 of Pepin unnecessary. It was, indeed, an 
 extraordinarily bold proceeding to fabricate 
 a deed purporting to show that the Emperor 
 Constantino had made over to Pope Sylvester 
 his imperial palace, the city of Rome, and the 
 temporal dominion of the West, as well as 
 the ecclesiastical supremacy over the Eastern 
 
54 The Papacy 
 
 patriarchates, together with many other privi- 
 leges and titles. By this document Eome hoped 
 to put her pretensions on a solid foundation, 
 unassailable by either the Franks or the 
 Byzantines, but more especially, perhaps, the 
 latter. In the West at least, the forgery 
 attained its object, though the actual course 
 of events was hardly ever influenced by it. 
 
 Shortly after, the Papacy had to play the 
 part of the moon beside the sun which rose 
 upon the Western world in the person of Charle- 
 raagne (768-814). The "peaceful tyrant," as 
 Gustav Freytag calls him, had already pursued 
 his beneficent course for more than thirty 
 years, and had strengthened his position both 
 within and without his kingdom by gaining 
 the confidence of his subjects, when he found 
 himself confronted by the highest task that 
 could fall to the lot of a ruler — to renew 
 in his own person the old Roman imperial 
 dignity. This task, moreover, was set him by 
 the Pope. The coronation of Charles as 
 Emperor is an event that has caused much 
 discussion up to the present day as regards 
 cause and effect. One thing only is certain, 
 that the suggestion did not come from the 
 King. But that he knew nothing about it is, 
 on the face of it, really too improbable. He 
 certainly could not have produced off-hand 
 
The Compact with the Franks 55 
 
 the rich gifts which he distributed in St. Peter's 
 immediately after the ceremony. He had his 
 followers with him in Italy, and they at least 
 knew that the time was ripe for solemnly 
 setting the seal to the separation between 
 East and West which had long existed in fact. 
 The Pope, on Ijis side, had every reason not 
 to refuse his co-operation in the spectacle, 
 and it says much for his diplomatic skill that 
 he succeeded in playing the chief part. For the 
 rest, Leo III. (795-816), the successor of Hadrian 
 I. (772-795), who was a personal friend of 
 Charles, was a man of inferior character. Even 
 though the oath, with which two days before 
 the coronation, in the presence of the King, 
 the Pope had to clear himself from a charge 
 of grave offences against morality, does not 
 appear to merit the doubt so constantly thrown 
 upon it, he still remains too worldly and 
 unspiritual for us to resist the impression 
 that in this case, at any rate, an event of 
 world-wide importance was brought about by 
 a man unworthy of the task. 
 
 It has been said that the coronation did not 
 
 * 
 
 in reality come up to the epic greatness attri- 
 buted to it in contemporary accounts; that it 
 created no new relations and brought no new 
 forces into play. "It accomplished nothing, it 
 was but a sign." We may, however, well ask 
 
56 The Papacy 
 
 whether history does not need such signs, and 
 whether, as there have been men who drew on 
 the past for the benefit of the future without 
 giving the world anything really new, there 
 are not also events which continue to shine 
 like beacons in the memory of men even if the 
 source of their light has long been extinguished. 
 Karl Hase grasped this when he wrote: "By 
 his coronation Charlemagne gained nothing in 
 men or land that he did not already possess, 
 but the idea of a spiritual God-given empire 
 of the world — an idea which had been developing 
 since the days of the heathen Augustus and the 
 Christian Constantino — descended upon him, and 
 remained through the centuries a power in the 
 minds of nations, whenever it rested upon a 
 ruler who was great enough to understand it." 
 It has also been said that this Kingdom of 
 God under two monarchs, the one a warrior, 
 the other a priest, was, to say the least, a mis- 
 fortune for the German people. There is a 
 great deal of truth in this. The connexion 
 with the imperial throne and the journeys of 
 the Emperors to Italy for coronation brought 
 much misery to Germany; and from the dis- 
 sensions between Pope and Emperor there 
 came later much distress to the Empire and 
 to its Church. But this view, again, does not 
 take times and persons sufficiently into con- 
 
The Compact with the Franks 57 
 
 sideration. For Charlemagne, the Pope remained 
 what he had been before. He took it as 
 much for granted as did his father before him 
 that he, the King-Emperor, was also the 
 "Rector" of the Church. Had he not sat in 
 judgment on the Pope as on any other bishop 
 in the Empire, without any one taking excep- 
 tion ? That later " the Roman gang," as Luther 
 complained, " would assert and loudly proclaim 
 that the Pope had taken the holy Roman Empire 
 from the Greek Emperor and had given it to 
 the Germans, for which honour and favour he 
 justly deserved and required submission, thanks, 
 and every service at the hands of the Germans " 
 lay beyond all calculation at that time; and 
 the claim is based upon a historical fiction. 
 
 But in every historical fiction there is a grain 
 of truth to be found. At the coronation at 
 the imperial Diet at Aix-la-Chapelle in 813, 
 Charlemagne bade his son Louis take the crown 
 from the altar himself ; thereby revealing clearly 
 enough his conception of the imperial office. In 
 871, his great-grandson, Louis II., appealed to his 
 Divine right of office against the Greek Emperor, 
 arguing that he had been anointed Emperor by 
 the Pope, as in former times David had been 
 anointed king by Samuel after the rejection 
 of Saul. What had happened to produce such 
 a change of ideas? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 STOBMY TIMES 
 
 THE last of the great German kings sank 
 into the grave. Charlemagne had ruled 
 the Empire he had created with a strong arm, 
 but after his death centrifugal forces became 
 active. Louis the Pious or, as the French more 
 aptly call him, Louis the Debonair, who could 
 not control his own sons, was not the man to 
 extend the Empire. A clerical party began to 
 form itself among the nobility both ecclesias- 
 tical and secular, a party which no longer 
 looked to the Court as its source of inspiration, 
 but rather across the Alps to Kome. 
 
 Meanwhile events had not stood still in 
 Rome. There were increasing indications that 
 an independent papal policy once again existed, 
 and that the Pope no longer felt the weight of 
 a strong ruler's hand. The pontificate of Leo IV. 
 (847-855) is important because he gained the 
 goodwill of the Romans by building fortifi- 
 
 58 
 
Stormy Times 59 
 
 cations at the mouth of the Tiber and by 
 circumvallating the quarter round St. Peter's, 
 called after him the «' Leonine City." These 
 prudent measures obviated a repetition of the 
 state of panic produced in the city not long 
 before by the approach of a fleet of Saracen 
 pirates. An increase of self-assertion is also 
 shown by the fact that Leo was the first to 
 use in his documents the papal reckoning of 
 years beside the imperial reckoning. 
 
 Leo prepared the way for Nicholas I, (858-867) 
 from whom posterity has unjustly withheld 
 the title of Great. He was the first Pope to be 
 crowned, as far as we know. If Richard Bothe 
 saw in Louis the Pious the " startled con- 
 science" of his age, we, with even greater 
 justice, may call Nicholas the rebuking and 
 judging conscience of his time. When the 
 Emperor Charles the Bald complained of the 
 tone which the Pope found good to adopt, 
 Nicholas declared that, even if his rebuke were 
 for once unmerited, the King must submit to 
 it patiently, as Job submitted to the chastise- 
 ment of God; it would then have an inner 
 healing power. And the Emperor wrote to 
 him: "We are ever ready to obey the com- 
 mands of Your Holiness." The state of affairs 
 in the different kingdoms of the Carolingian 
 Empire was favourable to such pretensions. 
 
6o The Papacy 
 
 When Nicholas, in face of the wretched Lothair 
 of Lorraine, who was alarmed at his own im- 
 morality, maintained that a tyrant was not 
 worthy of the name of ruler, he had the hest 
 men on his side. If we honour Charlemagne 
 as the moral force of his time, we must admit 
 that Nicholas stepped into his place. "Feed 
 My sheep," the Lord had said to Peter ; Nicholas 
 was possessed by this great task ; but instead 
 of the shepherd's crook, he took the whip and 
 the scorpion in his hand. Abbot Regino of 
 Priim in the Eifel, a serious observer, wrote 
 after the Pope's death : " Since Gregory (the 
 Great) of blessed memory, there has been no 
 Pontiff like him. He issued his commands to 
 kings and tyrants as if he were lord of the 
 whole earth. To the bishops and priests who 
 walked blameless after God's commandments' 
 he showed himself a mild and gracious ruler, 
 but to those who turned from the right way 
 he appeared hard and terrible, so that it might 
 truly be said that in our day there was arisen 
 a new Blias in spirit and in power if not in 
 the flesh." 
 
 All, indeed, were not inclined to agree with 
 this opinion, least of all the greater archbishops. 
 Not only to the guilty consciences of the Bishops 
 of Cologne and Treves, the shield-bearers of 
 Lothair, was it insupportable ttiat Nicholas 
 
Stormy Times 6f 
 
 should "set himself up as the lord of all the 
 earth." A man so far above his contemporaries 
 in intellect as Hincmar, Archbishop of Bheims, 
 was also of the number of the Pope's passionate 
 opponents, although he stood by him in the 
 dispute with Lothair. But this is not to be 
 wondered at, wben we remember that Hincmar 
 was himself cut out for a Pope and was re- 
 lentless in asserting his superiority over the 
 Frankish bishops. On the other hand, the 
 bishops had for many years already been in- 
 clined to seek support from the Pope against 
 the increasingly autocratic rule of their metro- 
 politans. They thought also that in him they 
 woxild find the surest protection against the 
 encroachments of the temporal power. It did 
 not occur to them that if the Pope's arm waa 
 remote it could also reach far. 
 
 From this point of view we can understand 
 the great forgery which, since it has been recog- 
 nised as such, is usually called the collection of 
 the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. It was nothing 
 less than an attempt made in the West Frankish 
 Church, about the middle of the ninth century, 
 to effect a complete transformation of the canon 
 law, not by a systematic exposition but in such 
 a way that the innovations appeared in the 
 shape of forged papal circular letters (decretals), 
 dating from the time of Clement I. to that of 
 
62 The Papacy 
 
 Gregory II.* Borne had nothing whatever to 
 do with the forgery. But when Nicholas heard 
 of the Decretals, being like all despots but little 
 scrupulous as to ways and means, he seized 
 at once upon them and profited to the full by 
 the immense advantages they offered him. It 
 is true that when there was question of a judg- 
 ment in a lawsuit, in which one of Hincmar's 
 bishops had appealed against him to the Pope, 
 on the strength of the Decretals, Hincmar ob- 
 jected that the canon law knew nothing of 
 these letters ; but Nicholas had his answer 
 ready : " The Decretals of the Boman Pontiffs 
 are to be obeyed, even if they are not to be 
 found in the canon law." He boldly asserted 
 that these decrees had been preserved in the 
 archives of the Boman Church from early 
 times. He curtly declared Hincmar guilty of 
 
 * The purport of the decretals was to render the priesthood 
 inlmune from seoular control, and to exalt the Papacy. In- 
 fringements of the rights of the clergy were declared to be sins 
 against God's ordinance. Ecclesiastical causes were not to be 
 judged by lay comts; and laymen might not appear as wit- 
 nesses, or as accusers of the clergy. The validity of the official 
 acts and words of the clergy was asserted to depend in no way 
 on their personal character. The Pope was set forth as the 
 fountain of ecclesiastical authority and justice. No secular 
 power might call a council without his consent. No bishop 
 might be tried by his metropolitan only, but by a provincial 
 synod summoned by the Holy See. To the Pope every in- 
 ferior might appeal, and no verdict was final without his 
 sanction. (Tbans.) 
 
Stormy Times 63 
 
 disobedience if he did not accept his decision, 
 and threatened to depose him in case of refusal. 
 
 Nicholas had perhaps strung the bow too 
 tightly; in any case, like his great predecessor 
 in the fifth century, he had no successor who 
 could keep it at the same tension. But the 
 scenes which history, the great enchantress, 
 next brings before us are so absolutely different 
 that we might well imagine ourselves in another 
 world. About the year 900 general ruin threat- 
 ened the Christian civilisation of Western 
 Europe ; Normans, Slavs, Magyars, and Arabs 
 were all pressing forward, and the Empire of 
 Charlemagne was bleeding to death in civil and 
 foreign wars. The Papacy also fell from its 
 lofty position into the gulf of turbulence and 
 confusion. The revolutions in Bome and Italy 
 which bore now one, now another, warrior- 
 prince on to the crest of the wave, swept the 
 Papacy along also. German influence was a 
 thing of the past. Pope Formosus (891-«96), 
 who had helped Arnulf of Carinthia to win the 
 imperial crown, had to pay for this treasonable 
 act after his death. His successor caused his 
 body to be exhumed, sentenced by a synod, 
 and thrown naked into the Tiber, after the 
 finger used in blessing had been cut o£P. 
 
 This terrible deed introduces the period in 
 the history of the Papacy which is generally 
 
64 The Papacy 
 
 stigmatised as a pornocracy, or reign of 
 harlots. And certainly Theodora, who took the 
 name of Senatrix, and her daughters Theodora 
 the younger and Marozia, paid little heed to 
 morality. If, however, one takes up the positioi^ 
 — a very unspiritual one, it must be admitted — 
 that in men and women of supreme force of will 
 looseness of morals is almost inevitable, one 
 will rather be inclined to wonder at the magni- 
 ficent audacity with which these highly gifted 
 women used their great attractions to exploit 
 the Roman nobles and even to bring Popes to 
 their feet. Pope John XI. (931-936) was the 
 son of Marozia, and her grandson Octavian, 
 the son of the Margrave Alberic II. — who 
 as "Patrician, Senator, and Grand Consul of 
 Rome" ruled the State, and, the Popes being 
 ineffective, the Church also, for nearly a quarter 
 of a century — ascended the papal throne in 
 956 as John XII. — the first Pope, by the way, 
 who changed his name. 
 
 During the whole of this time the imperial 
 rights had been in abeyance. For their restora- 
 tion the first thing needed was the clearing 
 away of the debris of the Carolingian rSgime 
 and the laying of new foundations for the work 
 of reconstruction. Henry, the castle-builder, had 
 no time to cross the Alps. His great son, Otto I. 
 (936-973), was the first to take up again the 
 
Stormy Times 65 
 
 work of the first Emperor, but in a different 
 way. He was a man of much prayer, and saw 
 things in a supernatural light, to which Charle- 
 magne, with his clear, practical vision, had not 
 been susceptible. We may quite correctly speak 
 of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German 
 nation " that he'^stablished. The writers of the 
 period, who paint the atrocities at Rome in the 
 darkest colours, saw in Otto one who fulfilled 
 a divine mission, and he himself felt that he 
 was in some measure the representative of God. 
 If only for this reason, it was impossible for 
 him to permit any infringement of the supre- 
 macy of the Emperor when order was being 
 restored in Rome. It is true that, before his 
 coronation, he assured the Pope on oath that 
 he would promulgate no laws and make no 
 arrangements in Rome without consulting him. 
 But though it had been already implied in 
 this oath that the Emperor would also hold a 
 court of justice in Rome, only not without an 
 understanding with the immediate justiciary 
 (i.e., the Pope), no doubt whatever was left on 
 this point in the decree issued after the coro- 
 nation, in which Otto confirmed the donations 
 of Pepin and Charles to the Roman See. Most 
 important, however, is the provision in the deed 
 that thenceforth no Pope should be recognised 
 as such who had not taken, in the presence of 
 
 5 
 
66 The Papacy 
 
 the King's envoys, the solemn oath which Otto 
 dezaanded from Leo VIII., who was personally 
 instituted by him. 
 
 All this is hard to understand, unless it be 
 remembered that, before proceeding to Borne, 
 Otto had put the relations of the German Church 
 to the State upon a wholly new basis. In the 
 time of Louis the Pious and his sons, the bishops 
 had aimed at breaking free from that depen- 
 dence on the State which had weighed so heavily 
 upon them since the time of Charles Martel. 
 Otto's rule acted as a counterblast to these 
 aspirations, which had, moreover, been baffled 
 by the unfavourable conditions of the time. 
 The free election required by the Church's 
 canons did not exist in the eyes of the King. 
 When a bishopric fell vacant he chose a man 
 acceptable to himself. From his royal master 
 the new bishop received the Church property, 
 which was made over to him to administer. The 
 King gave him the ring and staff, emblems of 
 his office (this was later called investiture), and 
 asked little or nothing about his ecclesiastical 
 qualifications. 
 
 This state of things, which lasted for a century, 
 was bound, and the more so the longer it con- 
 tinued, to rouse the opposition of those who 
 took a serious view of the Church's functions. 
 The expression of this opposition came from the 
 
Stormy Times 67 
 
 monastery of Cluny and those other monastic 
 communities which were founded or influenced 
 by it. 
 
 In the year 910, when society was still in a 
 state of general disorganisation, William, Count 
 of Auvergne and Duke of Aquitaine, who had 
 inherited the estate of Oluniacum in Burgundy, 
 south of the modern Chalons, provided by will 
 for the establishment of a monastic community 
 there. The monastery was to be entirely inde- 
 pendent and subject to no outside authority, 
 whether secular or ecclesiastical. Even the 
 Pope's interference in the affairs of the monas- 
 tery was forbidden in respectful terms by the 
 charter. It lay far from the thought of the 
 pious duke, who was thus ministering to his 
 soul's welfare, that this modest foundation of 
 his would beconae the hearth from which the 
 holy fire of the freedom of the Church would 
 shortly blaze up to heaven. The great abbots 
 Majolus, Odilo, and Hugo, who for a century 
 and a half directed the destinies of Cluny, did 
 their utmost to fan this fire, and its hght soon 
 shone over every country. First, the dissolute 
 life of the monks had to be regenerated by 
 closely uniting under the headship of Cluny the 
 separate monasteries which showed themselves 
 amenable to reform. Then the Church was 
 wakened from her torpor, and her eyes opened 
 
68 The Papacy 
 
 to the chains with which the earthly powers 
 held her bound. New life was breathed into 
 the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. And gradually, 
 very gradually, there began to grow a desire to 
 become master of those same earthly powers and 
 to translate into fact the idea of the Kingdom 
 of God on earth which had once taken shape 
 in the mind of St. Augustine, that passionate 
 spirit who could grasp at once the earthly and 
 the heavenly, the idea that the Church is the 
 Kingdom of God. 
 
 The mighty growth of this idea is one of the 
 greatest spectacles to be seen in the history of 
 the Church. France is laid under its spell, 
 Lorraine serves as the bridge to Germany, it 
 presses forward across the Alps, it approaches 
 Bome, gains possession of the Papal See, and 
 seizes upon the throne of the world, embodied 
 in the mighty hierarchs whose aim is to compel 
 the rulers of the nations into their service. 
 
 In the meantime the Empire and the Papacy 
 had once more formed an almost mystical 
 alliance. The piety of Otto showed itself again 
 in his grandson Otto III. (983-1002), but in a 
 fantastic and distorted form. This romantic 
 youth, who took up his residence in Bome and 
 manifested by the magnificence of his court the 
 preference for Byzantine ways of living which 
 he had inherited from his Greek mother, grati- 
 
Stormy Times 69 
 
 fied his unbalanced religious aspirations by 
 severe penances, visited monastery after monas- 
 tery, and once even .thought of assuming the 
 monastic habit. Towards the Papacy he played 
 the part of ruler without seeing that he himself 
 was becoming more and more the tool of the 
 Pope. Pope Sylvester II. (999-1003), while still 
 Gerbert, Archbishop of Bheims, had won the 
 easily inflamed heart of the impetuous youth 
 by his many-sided culture and his sagacious 
 counsel. This distinguished man of letters, to 
 whom legend has imputed a league with the 
 devil, was also an extremely astute politician. 
 As archbishop he combated the Pseudo-Isidorig-n 
 canon-law, as Pope he begged for the blessing 
 of Cluny and gave his mind to the sub- 
 ordination of the State to the Church. At the 
 same time he nourished in his imperial admirer 
 the fantastic dream of an universal monarchy 
 and succeeded in keeping him to the end in the 
 Ulusion that he was leading while in reality he 
 was being led. 
 
 The reigns of the first Salic Emperors were 
 not favourable to the Popes' desire for inde- 
 pendence. Conrad II. and Henry III. held 
 firmly to the rights of the Crown, as they had 
 received them from Otto I. And yet things 
 were otherwise than under the Saxon emperors. 
 Cluny had not worked in vain. The bishops 
 
yo The Papacy 
 
 and abbots were still faithful to the King, but 
 they had learnt that a bishop or an abbot, 
 by reason of his Tocation, was different from 
 a duke or a count, and they began to feel that 
 their unconditional inclusion in the official order 
 of the Empire was a hindrance to their spiritual 
 mission. Henry III. (1039-56), who was other- 
 wise minded than his father, fully understood 
 this mission. Nor must it be overlooked that in 
 Agnes, the mother of Henry IV., he had married 
 a princess of the house of Aquitaine, in which 
 the idea associated with the name of Oluny was, 
 so to speak, hereditary. But when he checked 
 simony, i.e., the deeply rooted evil of exploiting 
 the gift of spiritual offices for material ends — 
 he did so by virtue of his rights as Emperor, 
 even when the Papacy was concerned. It was 
 by virtue of these rights that Henry, in the 
 splendid synod of Sutri, deposed two Popes 
 (1046) and forced the third to resign ; it was by 
 virtue of these rights that he made a German 
 prelate Pope, and, on his death shortly after, 
 yet another, so that the appointment to the 
 Papal Chair appeared more than ever to have 
 become the Emperor's concern. But when 
 Henry raised his cousin. Bishop Bruno of Toul, 
 to the Holy See, it so happened that his nominee 
 carried with him into his high office the ideas of 
 Oluny, in which he was entirely wrapped up, 
 
Stormy Times 71 
 
 and helped to prepare the overthrow of the 
 imperial rights. 
 
 Leo IX. (1049-54), the first Pope since 
 Nicholas I. to he numhered among the Saints of 
 the Church, made his entrance into Home in the 
 garb of a pUgrim. He would not enter upon his 
 office until he. had submitted himself to the 
 election of both clergy and laity, as the rule of 
 the Church required. He honestly used the few 
 years of his pontificate to restore the authority 
 of Rome over the nations. He took frequent 
 journeys, and at the synods he himself saw that 
 things went right. It was, however, the yearly 
 Lenten synod held in Rome which served him 
 as the means of showing to the whole Church 
 that in Peter's Chair also that spirit of reform 
 had become* active, which had long spoken to 
 Christendom through the abbots of Cluny. 
 For centuries the Church had been unaccus- 
 tomed to listen to the Pope in religious matters. 
 Even now all did not lend him a willing ear ; 
 but the change was at hand. 
 
 About the same time the union between the 
 Greek and Roman Churches, which had so often 
 been endangered and only patched up with 
 difficulty, came finally to an end. There had 
 been no question of any sort of common life 
 since the synod held in 692 in the great hall of 
 the Emperor's Palace in Constantinople, which 
 
72 The Papacy 
 
 had been convoked as an ecumenical synod, but 
 had not been recognised by Eome, and had given 
 sharp expression to the antagonism between the 
 two Churches as regards ritual and government. 
 Only once more was any action taken in 
 common. At Nicsea in 787 the seventh general 
 synod established the principles of the venera- 
 tion of images for the whole Church. When, 
 shortly after, the Western Church made 
 the addition to the third article of the Nicene 
 Creed that the Holy Ghost proceeded not only 
 from the Father — as the words ran till then — 
 but also from the Son, both the devout and the 
 mighty in the Greek Church took fright at such 
 heresy. When, moreover. Pope Nicholas took 
 advantage of his ascendency to interfere in the 
 internal affairs of the sister Church, the latter 
 bluntly refused (879) to admit the Roman claims. 
 Since then nearly two centuries had elapsed. 
 The situation had finally become intolerable. 
 Greatly against his will Leo IX. was forced to 
 carry out the judgment already pronounced 
 by the centuries. The patriarch Michael 
 Cserularius, availing himself of certain diplo- 
 matic obeisances which his imperial master, hard 
 beset by wars, had made to the Pope, had re- 
 newed in an intensified form the old reproaches 
 against Rome. The dissensions which resulted 
 from this could not be smoothed over. So it 
 
Stormy Times 73 
 
 came to pass that on July 16, 1054, the envoys 
 of Leo IX. laid the papal sentence of excom- 
 munication on the altar of the Church of St. 
 Sophia, and it has remained in force up to the 
 present day. When they returned to Rome 
 they found the Pope dead. 
 
 The Cardinal-l^shop Humbert, one of the most 
 trusted of the Pope's confidants, had been one of 
 the envoys. A few years after the incident in 
 Constantinople he published a treatise, " Against 
 the Simonists," in which the programme of the 
 Church reformers is expounded more clearly 
 than anywhere else. His interpretation of the 
 past is worthy of attention. Every disorder in 
 the Church is due to the Ottos, who wrested 
 the government from the Boman pontiffs. 
 They arrogated to themselves rights which 
 belong only to the " sacerdotium " (the priest- 
 hood), by investing clerics with the crosier. 
 Now simony rages in every country. Nor was 
 the judgment of God lacking. The Ottos barely 
 reached the third generation, and Henry II. 
 died childless. Humbert approves only of 
 Henry III. ; because he tried to root out 
 simony, he has gone to a better world. But 
 even Henry III.'s pious behaviour cannot alter 
 the fact that the Church has her own laws 
 as well as her own judges, viz., those she has 
 placed in authority. Only when these last 
 
74 The Papacy 
 
 neglect their duties should a temporal ruler 
 be called in to help. And the priestly order is 
 the highest: it is like the eyes in the human 
 head, while the lay power resembles the breast 
 and arms and must obey and defend the Church. 
 It is no mere coincidence that about the same 
 time the austere Peter Damiani, another 
 champion of high Church ideas, uses for the 
 first time the metaphor by which after him the 
 relation between Church and State is always 
 explained — the metaphor of the two swords. 
 " The kingship and the priesthood," writes 
 Damiani, " have each their respective provinces : 
 the king wields the weapons of this world, the 
 priest is girded with the sword of the Spirit, 
 i.e., God's Word," and : " Well is it when the 
 sword of the kingship is so allied with the 
 sword of the priesthood that the sword of the 
 priest mitigates the sharpness of the Emperor's 
 sword, and the Emperor's sword gives an edge 
 to that of the priest. Then will both be had in 
 great honour." 
 
 These thoughts also filled the mind of the 
 man who, long before he astonished the world 
 as Gregory VII., had the ruling of the Church. 
 Hildebrand had grown up in poor circumstances. 
 It is not known for certain where he was born. 
 He appears to have come in his early youth to 
 Borne and there to have been educated in a 
 
Stormy Times 75 
 
 monastery. It is still doubtful whether he ever 
 became a monk, though it is probable that he 
 did, and also that he was, if only for a short 
 time, at Cluny. Leo IX., with whom he entered 
 Rome, gave him an office in the administration 
 and he very soon gained great, even pre- 
 ponderating, inflii,ence. His hand is recognis- 
 able in all the papal elections after Leo's 
 death. It was he who induced Nicholas II. 
 (1059-61) to issue, at the Roman synod of 1059, 
 the decree which placed the election of the 
 Pope in the hands of the cardinals and reduced 
 the influence of the Emperor to practically 
 nothing. He guided the foreign policy of the 
 Holy See into new channels, he formed new 
 ties and prepared everything for the contest 
 which had become inevitable. 
 
 During the last few years the Papacy had 
 gained new allies in Italy. The Normans, 
 towards whom Leo IX. had made advances, 
 and who had for a short time held the Holy 
 Father prisoner, were brought over to the 
 papal camp by Robert Guiscard — it was Hilde- 
 brand who received the Duke's oath of fealty. 
 "In the defection of the Normans from the 
 German Empire it sustained one of its greatest 
 losses," writes Ranke, and " through the alliance 
 with them the Pope became Emperor in Southern 
 Italy." Godfrey of Lorraine took his duchy in 
 
76 The Papacy 
 
 fee from Alexander II. (1061-73), Gregory's 
 immediate predecessor, and in his step-daughter 
 Matilda, the great Countess of Tuscany, the Holy 
 See had a fervent adherent. But the Roman 
 statesmen took advantage, in a particularly skil- 
 ful vray, of the movement of the lower classes in 
 the republican cities of Northern Italy — called 
 "Pataria" from a street in Milan — with the 
 socialistic aims of which were associated the 
 catchwords against simony and the marriage 
 of priests. The less the Papacy was certain of 
 the higher clergy in Upper Italy, the more 
 important it was to procure definite support 
 from the party opposed to them. 
 
 The development of affairs in Germany 
 was particularly fortunate for the Papacy. 
 Henry III. had died on October 5, 1056, in his 
 thirty-ninth year. It is impossible to imagine 
 what would have happened if, instead of his 
 son, who was swayed in all directions by the 
 most varied influences, this great ruler had 
 been able to guide the destinies of Germany 
 for another generation. The ultramontane 
 attack would have encountered a steadier and 
 more intelligent opposition, and this opposition 
 would have been the more effective in that 
 Henry was capable of understanding the 
 legitimate claims of the Church. Now, just 
 at the critical moment when — for the first time 
 
Stormy Times 77 
 
 for centuries! — a papal party was beginning to 
 form itself again in Germany, there was no 
 one to give heed to events full of menace for 
 the future and with a firm hand to nip the 
 evil in the bud. Adalbert, the great Archbishop 
 of Bremen, who saw further than his colleagues, 
 fell a victim to Mie government of the nobles 
 at the court of the young king. We see the 
 Bishop of Constance, who had been invested 
 by Henry IV. himself with the ring and staff, 
 solemnly resigning his office because he had 
 stained it with simoi^y. And February, 1073, 
 brings the event that reveals for the first time 
 the acuteness of the impending conflict: two 
 candidates contend for the archiepiscopal see 
 of Milan ; the King is asked for his approval 
 of the papal candidate, and, when he refuses 
 it, Alexander takes a step of immeasurable 
 significance : he excommunicates the royal 
 councillors. A few weeks pass ; the Pope dies, 
 and the next day Gregory comes forward as 
 the absolute ruler of the Church. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 GREGORY VII. AND HIS SUCCESSORS 
 
 UNDER the title of « What belongs to the 
 Roman Pontiff," Cardinal Deusdedit, a 
 distinguished canonist of the time, put together 
 twenty-seven short propositions which were 
 included in the collection of Gregory VII.'s 
 State letters, and thus acquired an official 
 character. The claims contained in this so- 
 called "Dictatus Gregorii Papae" are based 
 on the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, but taken 
 together they exceed anything previously heard 
 of. The following are the main points: The 
 Pope has absolute power over the Church 
 — he alone can depose bishops or receive them 
 again into her communion, and that without 
 a synod being necessary ; he can translate a 
 bishop from one see to another, if it appears 
 necessary, and can appoint clergy to any 
 church at his good pleasure; no general synod 
 can be summoned except at his command ; his 
 
 78 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 79 
 
 legate has precedence of all the bishops, even 
 when he is of lower ecclesiastical rank, and 
 no canonical decision can be recognised with- 
 out his sanction ; all the more important law- 
 suits must be submitted to him ; he himself, 
 however, is to be judged of none. His abso- 
 lute superiority io all temporal authority is 
 also laid down — the Pope may depose the 
 Emperor; he may release subjects from their 
 oath of allegiance to " unrighteous " rulers ; 
 he may bear imperial insignia, and aU rulers 
 must kiss his feet. And over and above all 
 this rises the idea that a lawfully elected 
 Pope undoubtedly becomes a saint through 
 the merit of the blessed Peter, and that the 
 Boman Church — i.e., the Pope — has never 
 erred, and, as Scripture testifies, never can err. 
 That Gregory VII. was wholly possessed by 
 these notions, and that he strove with un- 
 wearied energy to translate them into fact, is 
 evident from all his public utterances, as well 
 as from all his actions. But he needed no 
 canon-law, genuine or forged. He drew from 
 his inmost being the conception of the life- 
 task which he held to be imposed upon him 
 by the chief of the apostles, who "with espe- 
 cial love had sheltered him from his child- 
 hood under his wings and cherished him in 
 his bosom." It is not without purpose that 
 
8o The Papacy 
 
 he always appeals to St. Peter, who " takes 
 his name from the strong rocks, who bursts 
 open the gates of hell and with iron strength 
 breaks in pieces and scatters all that opposes 
 him." In the name of the Apostle he fights for 
 the extension of the Divine righteousness on 
 earth, and to his last breath he clung to that 
 faith. He would keep the peace with all, 
 except those who raise their hand against 
 St. Peter. But that is just what the present 
 rulers do. Their government certainly has its 
 justification, but only so far as they them- 
 selves are servants of that righteousness which 
 is embodied in the Church. Fools are those 
 who say that a Roman pontiff may not ex- 
 communicate the Emperor. Does not every 
 man know that "kings and princes itook their 
 origin from those who, without knowledge of 
 God, prompted by the devil, the Prince of this 
 world, in blind passion and intolerable pride, 
 usurped the lordship over their fellows — 
 i.e., over mankind — with insolence, robbery, 
 treachery, and murder — in short, with almost 
 every kind of crime?" With their blood- 
 stained hands they present the sacred emblems 
 to those who administer the Sacrament. Is it 
 not a sacrilege that princes and nobles decide 
 who, in the name of Christ, shall feed His 
 flock — yea, that they even make a trade of 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 8i 
 
 it? And these pastors are themselves fast 
 bound in the chains of worldliness, they live 
 with wife and child, they, the priests of God, 
 who, free from all earthly cares, should live 
 only for their sacred work. 
 
 At the very first Lenten synod, held in Feb- 
 ruary, 1074, Gregory enjoined afresh the celi- 
 bacy of priests, and in the following year 
 added further the regulation that it was for- 
 bidden to hear Mass said by manied priests. 
 He met with fierce opposition. At a synod 
 at Erfurt, summoned by the Archbishop of 
 Mayence, there were tumultuous protests. The 
 Pope also set his face against lay investiture. 
 At the synod of 1075 he disallowed the right 
 of secular authorities to confer bishoprics, and 
 forbade all participation of the laity in the 
 bestowal of ecclesiastical offices. But he did 
 more: he once again excommunicated the Em- 
 peror's councillors. And he did all this in spite 
 of the fact that he was himself in a perilous 
 position. The good relations with the Nor- 
 mans had come to an end, the popular move- 
 ment in Northern Italy, which the Pope had 
 encouraged, had suffered many checks, the 
 upper clergy in Germany were opposed to him, 
 and the power of the Emperor seemed as 
 strong as ever. But this same power did not 
 stand the test applied to it. 
 
82 The Papacy 
 
 Henry IV. is one of those historical figures 
 that make a bad impression because they were 
 so entirely unsuccessful. The fault was his in 
 a lesser degree, ordy. Few kings confronted 
 with so responsible a task have been such 
 victims of circumstances as he ; and we feel, 
 again and again, how disastrous was the early 
 death of his father. WhUe Bonae was gather- 
 ing all her forces for a tremendous effort, the 
 royal authority in Germany was beginning to 
 weaken. The trend of the papal policy could 
 have been discerned by any one, however 
 short-sighted, from the events under Alex- 
 ander II., though truly there was little reason 
 to expect such a reckless onslaught as that 
 with which Gregory set to work. Least of all 
 was the young King, who had not yet con- 
 cerned himself with ecclesiastical politics, pre- 
 pared. Thus Gregory enjoyed all the advan- 
 tages of the attacking party. Further, he had 
 the special advantage of being able to use the 
 current gossip about the private life of the 
 King to show himself the upholder of law and 
 morality. He cared little for the arts of diplo- 
 macy. It is hard to think of anything less 
 politic than the private message to the King 
 with which he commenced hostilities in Decem- 
 ber, 1075. He exaggerated the gossip into a 
 crime, and threatened Henry with excommu- 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 83 
 
 nication. No wonder the King took such treat- 
 ment ill, especially as in the autumn he had 
 received a letter from the Pope, courteously- 
 expressed and sincerely meant, congratulating 
 him on his victory over the Saxons. That in 
 face of such an attack he coidd stiU rely upon 
 the clergy was * proved by the synod imme- 
 diately convened at Worms. It was a fortu- 
 nate coincidence for him that, in this assembly, 
 in any case ill-disposed towards Gregory, Car- 
 dinal Hugo Candidus, who had quarrelled with 
 the Pope, heaped the most serious charges 
 on Gregory, even to the dreadful suggestion 
 that the death of the last Pope lay at his 
 door. Brought forward by a man in a posi- 
 tion to know, such accusations did not fail to 
 make an impression, the more so that no one 
 paused to take into consideration the Cardinal's 
 animosity and dishonesty. 
 
 Thereupon the King put pressure on the 
 assembly, and naade each bishop sign a form 
 in which he renounced obedience to the Pope. 
 He himself sent the following haughty epistle 
 to Gregory : — 
 
 "Henry, King not by usurpation but by the 
 gracious dispensation of God, to Hildebrand, not 
 the Pope but a false monk. This greeting hast 
 thou deserved according to thine own confes- 
 sion, thou who hast spared no rank in the 
 
84 The Papacy 
 
 Church, giving not a blessing but a curse. The 
 rulers of Holy Church, archbishops, bishops, and 
 priests, the anointed of the Lord, hast thou 
 trodden underfoot like slaves, and thereby won 
 for thyself the favour of the populace. All this 
 have we borne with patience because we desired 
 to uphold the honour of the Holy See. But 
 thou hast taken our reverence for fear, hast 
 insolently rebelled against our royal dignity 
 conferred upon us by God, and hast threatened 
 to deprive us of it, as if we had received our 
 authority from thee, as if kingship and empire 
 lay in thy hands, and not in the hands of 
 God; though Christ, our Lord, raised us to the 
 kingly office, but not thee to the priestly office. 
 Thou hast risen by steps involving cunning, 
 bribery, and violence ; thou hast mounted the 
 throne of peace and from it hast destroyed 
 peace by arming inferiors against their 
 superiors, by teaching contempt of our bishops, 
 called of God, and by giving to the laity power 
 over priests. . . . Me too, who, unworthy among 
 the anointed, have been anointed ruler, hast 
 thou assailed, though the holy Fathers teach that 
 God alone can judge me, and that I can be 
 deposed for no crime but that, which God 
 forbid, of turning from the faith ... St. Peter, 
 the true Pope, exclaims : ' Pear God, honour the 
 king.' But because thou fearest not God, thou 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 85 
 
 honourest not His anointed. . . . Therefore 
 come down from thy place, loaded with the 
 curse of our hishops and condemned by our 
 judgment. Leave the apostolic throne which 
 thou hast usurped. Let another take St. Peter's 
 Chair, one who cloaks not his violence with 
 religion, but teaiches the true doctrine of Peter. 
 I, Henry, by the grace of God King, with all my 
 bishops, say unto thee, ' Down I down ! ' " 
 
 This step has been regarded with good reason 
 as an act of stupidity, to be explained, indeed, 
 by justifiable excitement and therefore to be 
 excused, but none the less fatal. When the 
 imperial envoys called upon the Pope, before 
 the assembled synod in the Lateran, to vacate 
 his see, there ensued a tremendous tumult, and 
 Gregory appears to have protected them at the 
 risk of his own life. Supported by the feeling 
 of the Roman clergy, which found an echo far 
 beyond the walls of Rome, he took immediate 
 action. He excommunicated Siegfried, Arch- 
 bishop of Mayence, who had presided at the 
 Synod of Worms ; he allowed the others who 
 had taken part in it a certain time for retracta- 
 tion ; finally, in the solemn form of a prayer to 
 the Apostle, his patron saint, he also excom- 
 municated and deposed the King : — 
 
 " Holy Peter, chief of the Apostles, incline, 
 I pray thee, thine ear to me, hear me, thy 
 
86 The Papacy 
 
 servant, whom thou hast nourished from child- 
 hood, and hast saved to this day out of the 
 hand of the enemies who have hated and still 
 hate me hecause I serve thee in truth. Thou 
 art my witness, and my Lady the mother of 
 God is witness, thy holy brother Paul also and 
 all the saints, that thy Holy Roman Church has 
 placed me at her head against my will, that 
 I counted it not robbery to ascend to thy chair, 
 and that rather would I end my days in foreign 
 lands than snatch at thy seat by worldly 
 intrigues. Of thy free grace, not because of 
 my works, did it please thee that the Christian 
 people entrusted to thy care should obey me as 
 thy delegate, and for thy sake has the power 
 been granted me to bind and to loose in heaven 
 and on earth. Being full of this confidence, for 
 the honour and protection of thy Church, in the 
 name of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost, by virtue of thy authority, 
 I deprive King Henry, son of the Emperor 
 Henry, who, with unexampled pride, has risen 
 against thy Church, of the government of the 
 whole Empire of Germany and Italy, I release 
 all Christians from the oath which they have 
 made, or yet, may make to him, and hereby 
 forbid any man to serve him as King. For it 
 is meet that whosoever strives to diminish the 
 honour of thy Church should himself lose the 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 87 
 
 honour which he seems to have. And because 
 he scorns to obey like a Christian, and returns 
 not to the Lord, whom he has renounced by 
 fellowship with the excommunicated, by divers 
 evil deeds, by despising my admonitions 
 administered for his salvation, and by sepa- 
 rating himself from the Church, I do bind him, 
 in thy name, with the bonds of anathema, that 
 the nations may know and confess that thou art 
 Peter, and that upon this rock the Son of the 
 living God has built His Church, and the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 We have given these documents almost in 
 their entirety because they are couched in 
 terms, needing no comment, such as had never 
 yet been heard of in history. That secular and 
 spiritual, kingship and priesthood must neces- 
 sarily come into sharp conflict on certain points 
 we have known since the time of Agamemnon, 
 and there are examples enough in the history of 
 the world to prove it. Centuries ago a Pope had 
 shown the Byzantine Emperor his proper place 
 when he dared to infringe upon the right of the 
 Church to self-government. But here there is 
 more at stake. It is no longer merely a ques- 
 tion of the wish to protect the Church from the 
 unjustifiable encroachments of an Otto I., how- 
 ever good his intentions towards her, or of the 
 pious efforts of the abbpts of Cluuy, however 
 
88 The Papacy 
 
 certain it is that they had their place in 
 Gregory's thoughts. It is rather the feeling 
 of omnipotence of one who knows himself to 
 be carrying out the command of a heavenly 
 Master. The sentence of excommunication 
 strikes a king ! Nay, more, much more — for 
 excommunication is an ecclesiastical weapon — 
 the king is deposed ! A thousand years lie 
 behind us. Out of the mists of the past the 
 Galilean fisherman rises up, and behind him 
 another, greater thah he ; the words " Feed My 
 sheep!" ring in our ears. 
 
 It was soon seen how incorrectly King Henry 
 had estimated his strength. At Whitsuntide, 
 when the King convened a new assembly at 
 Worms, hardly any one came ; a few weeks 
 later the same thing occurred again at Mayence. 
 One bishop after another forgot the form which 
 he had signed. The King was excommunicated. 
 Papal legates travelled about the country. 
 They stirred up feeUng against Henry among 
 the lay nobles, of whom the more important 
 had always been in opposition. Under these 
 conditions came on the Diet at Tribur in 
 the autumn of 1076. There, too, the legates 
 had been at work, and the result was that 
 the princes made the mortifying, humiliating 
 demand to their King that he should 
 obtain absolution within the next few months. 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 89 
 
 if he wished to remain sure of their 
 obedience. 
 
 In these straits Henry recovered his senses. 
 His crown hung in the balance. The son of 
 Henry III. was in danger of losing everything. 
 He hears that the revolted nobles are reckoning 
 on the Pope's crossing the Alps to judge Henry 
 on German soil. That must be prevented at 
 all costs. The sentence of excommunication is 
 his opponent's weapon. It must be wrested 
 from him. How hard it was for the man 
 who had been master of the Pope to go to 
 Canossa is not mentioned in any of the 
 accounts. On the other hand, the scene itself 
 has been described with abundance of detail. 
 We have no need of these details to realise 
 the tremendous import of the event. A king, 
 a German king, stands as a penitent, barefoot, 
 in a hair-shirt before the foreign priest ! 
 Whether he stood there for hours or for 
 days, it seems as if we could not efface the 
 stain that clings to the crown. 
 
 That it was a stain would have been felt 
 by none more keenly than by the King him- 
 self. We do not know how he came to make 
 up his mind to it, nor can we say positively 
 of any one of his advisers that he influenced 
 his actions in this time of stress. It is certain 
 that the resolution was good, was necessary. 
 
go The Papacy 
 
 Canossa was the catastrophe in the drama. 
 But the drama should be called not "Henry 
 IV.," but « Gregory VII.," and if it had a tragic 
 ending it was Gregory who had to atone for 
 it. He could not in the face of Countess 
 Matilda and the Abbot of Cluny, his supporters, 
 in the face of the Church, and above all in the 
 face of his own conscience and his conviction 
 that he stood in the Apostle's place, take upon 
 himself to refuse absolution to a penitent 
 sinner, were he Emperor or thrall. He gave 
 way therefore. He must have known that 
 in so doing he was giving away the game, 
 and indeed this is clear from the explanatory 
 letter which he sent to the German princes 
 immediately after the event. It does him. 
 credit that he allowed the priest in him to 
 conquer the statesman. He thus in his fashion 
 expiated the fact that, carried away by irre- 
 sistible forces, he had overstepped the limits 
 of the office for which he lived. But politically 
 he was the vanquished party. 
 
 Henry had assured Gregory on oath that he 
 would, within a time to be fixed by the Pope, 
 come to an agreement with the nobles in 
 accordance with the Pope's sentence or award. 
 Moreover, he had promised Gregory a safe- 
 conduct for a journey to Germany. Neither a 
 journey nor an agreement, however, came to 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 91 
 
 pass. Instead, the princes assembled at 
 Forchheim in the district of Bamberg, elected 
 in March, 1077 an anti-King in the person of 
 Rudolf, Duke of Swabia, without the parti- 
 cipation of the Pope, it would seem, though 
 his legates were present. But the opposition 
 which led to tliis action — a doubtful one from 
 every point of view — was ill-organised, and 
 the blow was not nearly as severe for Henry 
 as it would have been if he had still been ex- 
 communicated. Events now proved that the 
 King was much stronger than had been sup- 
 posed. Not only the greater part of the 
 nobility, but also the town population remained 
 faithful to him, and he could rely upon his 
 troops. In addition he was sure of the support 
 of the bishops in Upper Italy, who remained 
 steadily opposed to Gregory. 
 
 It is not necessary for our purpose to follow 
 the details of the political and military moves 
 and countermoves with which the next few 
 years were filled. But it is important to lay 
 stress upon the fact that Gregory more and 
 more lost command of the situation. He could 
 no longer hold in check, even in himself, the 
 spirits he had called up. Once more, at the 
 Lenten synod of 1080, he stringently enjoined 
 observance of the decrees -regarding simony 
 and lay investiture, and in this he was in the 
 
92 The Papacy 
 
 right. But when, again in the form of a solemn 
 invocation, though this time to both the chief 
 apostles, he excommunicated Henry anew, 
 deprived him of his kingdom because of his 
 disobedience, and handed it over to Rudolf; 
 and when he grounded this action on the 
 fact that the apostles, having the right to 
 bind and to loose in heaven, can here on earth 
 take empires, kingdoms, princedoms, duke- 
 doms, margraviates and earldoms, in fine all 
 secular property, from any person and grant 
 them to another according to merit, it may 
 weU be asked whom he could hope to convince. 
 The means actually at his disposal were in 
 sharp contrast to his pretensions. It is true 
 that he had won back Robert Guiscard, and 
 the great Countess who ruled Central Italy 
 and could hold Northern Italy in check remained 
 faithful to him. But that was not enough to 
 prevent Henry from declaring Gregory deposed 
 (at Brixen, in the summer of the same year) 
 and appointing an anti-Pope in the person of 
 the Archbishop of Ravenna, who took the 
 name of Clement III. Moreover Rudolf of 
 Swabia died of a wound received in battle, 
 and on the same day Matilda's troops were 
 beaten by the King's supporters. 
 
 Any one with a sense of the dramatic niiust 
 be strangely impressed by the sight of Gregory 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 93 
 
 standing unmoved by the storm which rages 
 around him, with the heavens now dark, now 
 fiercely illumined. The Eang remains excom- 
 municate, but he lays siege to Borne. Months, 
 years go by: he enters Rome; his Pope gives 
 him the imperial crown, but Gregory remains 
 intrenched in ^the Castle of St. Angelo, till 
 Robert Guiscard forces the imperial army to 
 withdraw, and takes the Pope with him to 
 Salerno. There Gregory died, May 25, 1085. 
 
 A writer at the beginning of the twelfth 
 century was the first to record the last words 
 of the Pope : " I loved righteousness, I hated 
 iniquity, therefore I die in exile." Whether 
 he said these words or not, they contain the 
 truth. The great antithesis " righteous " and 
 " unrighteous " which runs through the Scrip- 
 tures, especially the Old Testament (cf. e.g. 
 Ezek. xviii.), also determined Gregory's view 
 of the world. And righteousness is always in 
 the Church, iniquity in the State. It is not 
 only the encroachments of the secular power 
 that constitute its unrighteousness. When 
 Gregory spoke of the discord between the 
 Empire and the Apostolic See, he did not mean 
 a temporary difference, but a fundamental an- 
 tagonism of principle. The State has the 
 right to exist only in so far as it is subject 
 to the Holy See, and its righteousness consists 
 
94 The Papacy 
 
 in the fulfilment of the duties consequent on 
 this subjection, else it is sinful. Naturally 
 this applies to all states. In the spirit of this 
 theory Gregory required the oath of fealty 
 from William the Conqueror, and received it 
 frora many lesser rulers. That Spain belonged 
 to the Holy See was for him a matter of course ; 
 had not St. Paul worked there, and had not 
 both St. Peter and St. Paul sent bishops 
 thither ? It was also a self-evident consequence 
 that all legitimate rights ceased to exist when 
 the Holy See called upon subjects to rebel 
 against them. 
 
 In his influence over the minds' of men, 
 Gregory ranks with those who have greatly 
 stirred the world. It seemed as if men had 
 been asleep until he came. Boused from their 
 slumbers, they fell on one another in bitter 
 conflict. A whole literature grew out of this 
 strife: now the cry is Gregory, now Henry, 
 now the State, now the Church, now sin, now 
 righteousness. Seldom does a peace-maker 
 venture to raise his voice, and no one heeds it. 
 Only very gradually does it come to be recog- 
 nised that the power over earthly things which 
 Gregory had claimed in the name of the Church, 
 by no means guaranteed that freedom of the 
 Church from earthliness which was the common 
 aim of all reformers. Men bethought them- 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 95 
 
 selves once more that kingship and priesthood 
 were diverse in every respect. They remem- 
 bered also what had been the central point of 
 the antagonism. That the king should confer 
 office on a priest had been felt to be a sin 
 against the Holy Ghost. Yet, if the priest 
 desired to exevcise other than ecclesiastical 
 rights, he must allow the secular authority a 
 voice in his appointment. Therefore the priest 
 must either renounce all secular rights, the 
 " saecularia," and be content with the " spiri- 
 tualia," the exercise of his spiritual office, for 
 which he was answerable only to the Lord of 
 Hosts, or else, he must render to the Church 
 what belonged to the Church, and render to the 
 State what belonged to the State. The Church 
 gives the bishop the ring and staff, the signs 
 of his spiritual authority, thus investing, cloth- 
 ing him with his office ; the secular authority 
 may also give him the sceptre and receive his 
 oath of fealty in exchange. 
 
 The Cluniac monk Urban II., who after the 
 short rule of Victor II. (1085-87) was Pope for 
 twelve years (1088-99), showed no signs of 
 going back on the schemes and pretensions which 
 he had inherited from Gregory ; on the contrary, 
 he sought rather to outdo his model. But Pas- 
 chal II. (1099-1118) entered into the new ideas. 
 The first of the two alternatives, however, at 
 
96 The Papacy 
 
 once showed itself impracticable. When Paschal 
 made a mild attempt to induce the higher clergy 
 to give up their temporal possessions, in so far 
 as they were feudatory, his imprudence almost 
 cost him his throne. The other method seemed 
 all the more promising. It fell to the lot, not of 
 Paschal, but of his next successor but one, 
 Calixtus II. (1119-24), to carry the matter 
 through. In 1122 the remarkable arrangement 
 was made between him and Henry V., which is 
 known to history as the Concordat of Worms. 
 The following are the documents : " In the name 
 of the holy and indivisible Trinity, I, Henry, by 
 the grace of God Boman Emperor, for the love 
 of God transfer to the Holy Boman Church and 
 to the Lord Pope Calixtus, and, for the sake of 
 my salvation, to God and to His holy apostles 
 Peter and Paul and to the Holy Catholic Church, 
 all investiture with ring and staff, and I permit 
 ecclesiastical election and free consecration in 
 all the churches of my kingdom and Empire. 
 The possessions and the sovereign rights 
 [regalia] of St. Peter which have been taken 
 away since the beginning of this time of dispute 
 to the present day, under my father's rule or 
 mine, do I restore, so far as I possess them, to 
 the Holy Boman Church, and will, so far as I do 
 not possess them, conscientiously cause them to 
 be restored to her. The possessions also of all 
 
Gregory VII. and his Successors 97 
 
 the other Churches and lords and of all other 
 clergy and laity which in this time of confusion 
 have heen lost to their owners will I restore, so 
 far as I have them, conformably to justice and 
 the counsel of the princes, and, so far as I have 
 them not, I will conscientiously cause them to 
 be restored. I do also promise true peace to the 
 Lord Oalixtus and to the Holy Roman Church 
 and to all who are or have been on their side. 
 And when the Holy Roman Church requires my 
 support, I will faithfully help her, and when she 
 brings complaints to me I will see proper justice 
 done to her." 
 
 The Pope replies : — 
 
 "I, Calixtus, Bishop, servant of the servants 
 of God, swear to thee, my very dear son Henry, 
 by the grace of God, Roman Emperor, that the 
 election of the bishops and abbots in the German 
 Empire, in so far as they belong to the German 
 kingdom, shall take place in thy presence with- 
 out simony or force of any kind. If dissensions 
 should arise between the parties, thou shalt give 
 thine assent and support to the more reasonable 
 side, conformably to the advice of the metro- 
 politan and the other bishops of the province. 
 The man elected shall receive the rights of 
 sovereignty [regalia] from thee by means of the 
 sceptre and shall fulfil the duties incident there- 
 on. In the other parts of the Empire the con- 
 
 7 
 
98 The Papacy 
 
 secrated person [i.e., not the elected person] shall 
 receive the rights of sovereignty [regalia] within 
 six months by means of the sceptre, and shall 
 fulfil the duties which thus devolve upon him. 
 Excepted from this is all that belongs to the 
 Roman Church [i.e., to the Pope as temporal 
 sovereign]. If thou bringest a complaint before 
 me or requirest my support, I will give it to thee 
 conformably to the duties of my of&ce. Also I 
 do promise true peace to thee and to aU them 
 who in this dispute are or have been on thy 
 side." 
 
 The tone of this is indeed different from that 
 of the letters of Henry IV. and Gregory. And 
 yet it is not peace. The Concordat of Worms 
 was only a truce. Like all treaties it looked well 
 on paper ; in reality the points of disagreement 
 were too numerous for settlement. The Papacy 
 emerged from the investiture struggle a great 
 power, claiming one of the first places among 
 the political factors of the time. But its ambi- 
 tion was not satisfied : the great power wished 
 to become a world power. Nor was it only 
 ambition. When the idea that the Apostle 
 should rule the nations as well as the Church 
 had once taken form, it was not to be expected 
 that it would ever be forgotten. The heritage 
 of Gregory was not thrown away. 
 
.CHAPTER VII 
 
 AT THE SUMMIT OP POWBB 
 
 FOR the carrying on of wars and the making 
 of treaties, money and soldiers are needed. 
 Since the time of Gregory VII., the Papacy, with 
 unresting energy, has taken care to provide 
 itself with both. In the celibate clergy of all 
 countries it created a faithful and often blindly 
 devoted army, whose intelligence was kept 
 within the bounds necessary for obedience, 
 while a highly developed consciousness of 
 spiritual and secular power was awakened in 
 them by granting them privileges of all kinds. 
 At the second Lateran Council — the name is 
 given to the assemblies which grew out of the 
 Lenten synods held in Rome, and in which the 
 splendour of the old ecumenical councils was 
 revived — the principle of the inviolability of the 
 clergy on pain of excommunication was laid 
 down. That priests or monks should be cited 
 before a secular court of justice was condemned 
 
 99 
 
lOO The Papacy 
 
 as sacrilege. The freedom of the clergy from 
 secular charges and taxes was demanded, though 
 not immediately carried through. Finally the 
 abolition of lay investiture resulted in practice 
 in a great diminution of secular influence, how- 
 ever much energetic rulers might contend for 
 their rights or more than their rights. 
 
 The headquarters of this army were in Borne. 
 There the Pope had his court, his Curia (Lat. 
 curia, a court), as it became the custom to call 
 it after the middle of the eleventh century, in 
 spite of the opposition of many clergy of the old 
 school who considered it a degradation to apply 
 such a worldly expression to the Holy Boman 
 Church. There he formed his general stafp, the 
 Cardinals, i.e,, the bishops of his — ^in the local 
 sense — Boman province, and the priests and 
 deacons in whom he had special confidence. 
 From there he directed his army by means of 
 his legates, his ambassadors, to whom he handed 
 over his right to interfere with the ordinary 
 powers of the bishops. Thither, too, was to be 
 directed the flow of funds which the field- 
 marshal needed in order to live in princely 
 fashion and rule undisturbed. 
 
 He drew these funds only in part from the 
 property of the Boman Church, though it had 
 increased enorniously since the time of Gregory 
 the Great. Even with what he drew from his 
 
At the Summit of Power loi 
 
 own diocese in revenue and dues there was 
 hardly enough for the most necessary expenses. 
 An important source of income was the Peter's 
 Pence, the tribute to the Holy See instituted 
 by the English kings in the eleventh century, 
 and soon to be levied also from the northern 
 kingdoms and Hungary and the neighbouring 
 districts, while France, Spain, and Germany 
 refused to pay it. Further there were the 
 fees claimed by the Pope for the consecration 
 or confirmation of bishops or the conferring 
 of the "Pallium," the shoulder ornament of 
 archbishops, manufactured in Home. Finally 
 the exercise of jurisdiction as the highest 
 ecclesiastical court of appeal and the right 
 of dispensation from ecclesiastical laws brought 
 large sums of money to Bome, though the 
 increasing venality of the Roman authorities 
 on this point roused much indignation. As 
 early as the twelfth century the Oxford deacon, 
 Walter Map, gave expression to the general 
 feeling in the following lines : — 
 
 "When thou to Bome to journey makest bold. 
 Her judgment seeking, this in memory hold: 
 Bome sure will wrong thee if thou giv'st not gold ; 
 Justice and right at Bome for cash are sold." 
 
 With such ample provision Bome might 
 venture upon the struggle for the empire of 
 
I02 The Papacy 
 
 the world, and chance favoured the venture. 
 Since the eleventh century the longing for 
 the possession of the holy places in the East 
 and wrath at their being in the hands of 
 infidels had been growing stronger and stronger 
 in Western Christendom. The Popes succeeded 
 in organising the movement. Sylvester II. 
 had conceived the idea of a crusade, and 
 Gregory VII., before his breach with Henry IV., 
 had occupied himself energetically with it ; he 
 had once written to the King that he wished 
 to go himself to Palestine at the head of an 
 army. The plan first took definite shape under 
 Urban II. The part which the pious Hermit 
 of Amiens is said to have had in bringing 
 about the holy war has been reduced by sober 
 investigation to very modest proportions. The 
 Pope's share was therefore all the greater; 
 he inspired the cry of "Dieu le veut" at the 
 assembly at Clermont (1095), and gave the 
 right emphasis to the general enthusiasm by 
 his promise of plenary absolution to all 
 crusaders. Urban did not live to see the 
 conquest of Jerusalem, but the fortunate 
 conclusion of the war while it opened a new era 
 in European history also gave fresh prestige 
 to the papal see. 
 
 The twelfth century brought troublous times. 
 The Papacy became once more a plaything 
 
At the Summit of Power 103 
 
 in the hands of the Roman nobility, and 
 Innocent II. (1130-43) needed the help of 
 Lothair of Supplinburg to enable him to 
 return to Rome whence he had been driven by 
 the Pierleoni and their Pope Anacletus. But 
 it was a time of general fermentation, new 
 things were everywhere in the air, and those 
 at the head of the Church were as yet per- 
 plexed as to the course to pursue. In France 
 there was a revival of learning. The daring 
 Abelard explains to hundreds in his school 
 on the Mont Ste. Genevieve in Paris that 
 everything in the tradition of the Church is 
 not equally valuable ; he exasperates the great 
 monks like Norbert of Xanten and Bernard 
 of Clairvaux by his audacious criticism, but 
 the younger generation applauds him. In secret 
 conventicles the pious whisper to each other 
 that the whole Church system, worldly as it 
 has become, together with its head in Rome, 
 belongs to the devil. Fanatics go about 
 preaching resistance to ecclesiastical authority. 
 At the same time the Papacy itself is hit by 
 the attempt to set up a republic in Rome — 
 an extension of the struggle for independence 
 which had long been going on in secret in the 
 cities of Northern Italy. Pope Lucius II. (1144- 
 45) was killed by a stone thrown during the 
 street fighting that ravaged the holy city. But 
 
I04 The Papacy 
 
 a religious character was given to the democratic 
 plans of the leaders of the Roman citizens by 
 the idealism of Arnold of Breseia, the ascetic 
 of whom Bernard said, parodying Scripture: 
 " There came a man who ate not, neither 
 did he drink, but with the devil he thirsted 
 after the blood of souls." He became the 
 apostle of the masses, who cheered him when 
 he denied the right of the Pope and clergy to 
 temporal power and authority, though he 
 failed to inspire them with his stem con- 
 tempt of the world. 
 
 Meanwhile complications with Grermany were 
 again imminent. The family of the Hohen- 
 staufen had risen to power in circumstances 
 that put them under obligations to the Church. 
 Conrad III. (1138-52) owed to ecclesiastical 
 aid his victory over the Guelph candidate for 
 the throne. He did not interfere in the con- 
 fusion in Italy. Repeated invitations from 
 Rome to cross the Alps and receive the crown 
 at the hands of the people failed to move 
 him. Still less were the Romans successful 
 with his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa (1152- 
 90), whose imperial pride they wounded by 
 representing to him that he had been wrong 
 in neglecting to obtain the ratification of his 
 election from Rome, the mistress of the world, 
 the creator and mother of all the Emperors. 
 
At the Summit of Power 105 
 
 The answer to this ridiculous demand was 
 the treaty which Frederick concluded with 
 Pope Eugenius III. in 1153, in which he 
 promised to subdue the city. To carry out 
 this promise was the object of his first expedi- 
 tion to Rome. The result was the hanging 
 of Arnold of ^ Brescia, and the coronation of 
 Frederick as Emperor by Hadrian IV. 
 
 The relations between the Emperor and the 
 Pope did not long remain friendly. Hadrian 
 (1154-59), an Efnglishmau by birth, was cast 
 in a different mould from that of his pre- 
 decessor, who, influenced by the pious Abbot 
 of Clairvaux, could never have taken pleasure 
 in the exercise of temporal power. His reign 
 only lasted five years, but in this short time 
 he showed that he felt himself strong enough 
 to return to the traditions of Gregory VII. 
 Frederick, on the other hand, cherished the 
 idea of restoring the old early Christian Empire, 
 of which Justinian appeared to him the most 
 brilliant representative. Inspired by the code 
 of Justinian he had his imperial rights con- 
 firmed on the plain of Boncaglia. But in so 
 doing he had reckoned neither with the 
 increased independence of the cities of Northern 
 Italy nor with the augmented strength of the 
 Papacy. The former he succeeded in over- 
 throwing temporarily, only to suffer the most 
 
io6 The Papacy 
 
 crushing defeat later ; the latter opposed the 
 Emperor with the full force of its apostolic 
 claims, to which that generation had become 
 quite unaccustomed. 
 
 As was the case with Hildebrand under 
 Alexander II., Cardinal Roland, who as 
 Hadrian's successor took the name of Alexander 
 III. (1159-81), had become the leading spirit 
 of the papal government under his predecessor. 
 He was an eminent jurist who, when professor 
 at Bologna, had published one of the first 
 commentaries on the version of the canon 
 law known as the "Decretum Gratiani," com- 
 piled about the middle of the century by the 
 Camaldolite Gratian, and soon acknowledged 
 as the standard text-book. He also tried his 
 hand at theology in a manual on dogma, 
 written according to Abelard's method, though 
 not in his spirit. Hadrian entrusted the most 
 important missions to the Chancellor of the 
 Church. It was while on one of these that 
 the Cardinal handed the Emperor at the Diet 
 at BesanQon in 1157 that arrogant letter from 
 the Pope, which so angered Frederick that he 
 expelled the envoys forthwith. Thus when 
 Roland became Pope there was added to the 
 already inherent antagonism of Papacy and 
 Empire, the personal antagonism of Pope and 
 Emperor. Frederick immediately appointed a 
 
At the Summit of Power 107 
 
 rival to his enemy in the person of Victor IV., 
 succeeded by Paschal III. Alexander excom- 
 municated the Emperor and was successful 
 in obtaining the recognition of the kings of 
 France and England, whom Frederick had 
 already ofPended by his arrogant behaviour. 
 In France tlje Pope found refuge when the 
 enraged Emperor marched on Italy to chastise 
 his adversary. 
 
 It was a terrible blow to the Emperor when 
 the miasma of the Roman Campa^na attacked 
 and ravaged his hitherto victorious army. We 
 read with ever-fresh sympathy how more than 
 a dozen of Frederick's generals and statesmen 
 succumbed to the pestilence. Among them were 
 several bishops who had remained faithful to 
 him, and last of all his Chancellor, the Arch- 
 bishop of Cologne, after whom the first years of 
 Frederick's reign have been well called " the age 
 of Beinald of Dassel." It seemed now as if 
 fortune had utterly deserted him. The Lombard 
 cities founded Alessandria to be the stronghold 
 of the Italian opposition. Henry the Lion, by 
 ceasing to play a double game, was the cause of 
 his defeat at Legnano. Alexander's messengers 
 went through Germany and stirred up feeling 
 against Frederick, who by degrees became quite 
 crushed and bewildered by his reverses. The 
 scene which took place in St. Mark's Square, 
 
io8 The Papacy 
 
 Venice, in July, 1177, and which has been 
 immortalised in a great fresco in the Doges' 
 Palace, was a new and — to be truthful— a far 
 worse Ganossa, not because Frederick, when 
 absolved from the sentence of excommunication, 
 performed the customary act of homage by 
 kissing the Pope's toe, but because he did it 
 with the gnawing consciousness that he was 
 vanquished. His ideal had perished. 
 
 Alexander, on the other hand, issued from 
 this struggle more powerful than any of his 
 predecessors. His victory over the Emperor 
 was indeed but one, though the greatest, of his 
 successes. On the grave of the murdered 
 Archbishop of Canterbury the King of England 
 performed the penance imposed upon him by 
 the Pope. To the new Portuguese kingdom of 
 Alfonso I. Alexander gave his blessing, and in a 
 solemn Bull he rejected the claims of Castile and 
 Leon. The synod which he held in 1179 in 
 the Lateran was really an ecumenical council, 
 to which the few Eastern Christians who had 
 remained in communion with Eome sent re- 
 presentatives. 
 
 The power of the Papacy is now jiist below 
 its highest point. From Alexander III. to 
 Innocent III. (1198-1216), who, if not the 
 greatest, was at all events the most fortunate 
 pf all the Popes, there is but a step. Four 
 
At the Summit of Power 109 
 
 centuries have elapsed since Chariemagne took 
 the imperial crown in St. Peter's. Now the 
 successor of that Leo, who had to thank God 
 that he had escaped the judgment of the King, 
 had the German crown at his disposal, and 
 encountered no opposition when he asserted 
 that the Empire depended first and last on the 
 Holy Bee. He weighed against one another the 
 claims of Philip of Swabia, of Otho the Guelf, 
 and of the young Hohenstaufen, his ward, as if 
 he were discussing some scholastic theme, and 
 when Otho — ^to whom he gave the preference- 
 proved less amenable than the Pope had thought 
 he deposed and excommunicated him. It was 
 at his command that Frederick II., a boy of 
 seventeen, marched into Germany to carry out 
 the sentence, and in the Golden Bull of Eger 
 (1213) acknowledged all the spiritual and 
 temporal claims of the Pope with the assent 
 of the princes. 
 
 Innocent had declared that the Lord had 
 given to St. Peter the government, not only of 
 the Church, but also of the whole world, and 
 facts bore out this statement. The kings of 
 all lands had to bow before the Pope. He, not 
 Saucho, ruled Portugal ; Peter of Aragon received 
 his crown from him, as did the Prince of Bul- 
 garia also. When Philip Augustus of France 
 defied him he laid the whole country under an 
 
no The Papacy 
 
 interdict, and the church bells ceased to ring. 
 The English king, John "Lackland," publicly 
 acknowledged himself the Pope's vassal, and 
 took back the kingdom of which Innocent 
 had deprived him, in fee from him. Here 
 the Pope reached the limits of his power. 
 Innocent had tyrannised over this miserable 
 king, but in Magna Carta the English barons 
 laid the foundations of the English Constitution, 
 and the Roman Pontiff's protests were in vain. 
 
 The Pope's influence was equally important 
 in Eastern affairs. He combined the dream 
 of the great Emperor Henry VI. (1190-97)— 
 who had died prematurely — with the idea of 
 Gregory VIL, by preaching a new crusade. 
 Although it was not his intention that the great 
 enterprise should take the Byzantine capital 
 as its objective and not the Holy Land, the 
 creation of the Latin Empire at Constantinople 
 undoubtedly gave a special lustre to his reign. 
 The highest point of this reign and, at the same 
 time, the highest point of the development of 
 papal power in general was, however, the fourth 
 Lateran Council (1215), the greatest ecclesiastical 
 assembly that the world has ever seen. It was 
 attended not only by far more than a thousand 
 ecclesiastical delegates from East and West, 
 South and North, but also by envoys of the 
 temporal powers. Nor is this council memor- 
 
At the Summit of Power in 
 
 able only as a representative assembly. It set 
 the seal to much that the Church had long 
 wished to settle. At it the doctrine of transub- 
 stantiation received its official formulation, and 
 the regulations as to confession at Easter were 
 finally laid down. 
 
 In the preface to a collection of sermons 
 which he himself brought out, Innocent wrote : 
 — " So overwhelmed am I with business that 
 I cannot possibly do justice to every detail. 
 I meditate continually on heavenly things, but 
 am hardly allowed time to breathe. So much 
 am I taken up by others that I am almost a 
 stranger to myself." This confession must be 
 taken into consideration in judging the Pope, as 
 also the programme which he set forth in his 
 sermon on the day of his consecration. Govern- 
 ment and service, he says, complete each other. 
 The Pope's service is his personal duty, one that 
 he has in common with aU Christians ; to rule is 
 his prerogative as the Vicar of God. The man 
 who as Pope issued his commands to kings had, 
 when Cardinal-deacon, laid down in a special 
 treatise that the world was only worthy of 
 contempt, and had uttered a warning against 
 that pursuit of vanities which made the misery 
 of human life. As Pope he gave his attention 
 to the religious movements in which his time 
 was so rich. Heretics, indeed, were an abomina- 
 
112 The Papacy 
 
 tion to him ; he sent an armed force against the 
 Albigenses, and would have nothing to do even 
 with the devout Waldenses, because they 
 wished to reach God in an independent and 
 peculiar way. But he gladly authorised God- 
 fearing laymen who called upon the world to 
 repent, provided they pledged themselves not 
 to disregard the ordinances of the Church ; and 
 when Francis of Assisi, in whom he heard the 
 voice of the future, asked for his blessing, he 
 did not refuse to give it. It is worthy of note 
 that — on July 16, 1216 — Innocent, the most 
 brilliant of all successors of the Apostle, sank 
 to rest at Perugia, the very place in which the 
 gospel of poverty was then being preached with 
 new tongues. 
 
 At the Lateran Council a fresh crusade had 
 been decided upon. The troops were to embark 
 from Sicily in June, 1217, under the leadership 
 of the Emperor Frederick II. Innocent did not 
 live to see this plan carried out, nor did his 
 successor, Honorius III. (1216-27), witness its 
 fulfilment. The Emperor failed to keep the 
 promise he had made at his coronation at Aix- 
 la-Ohapelle. How did this come about? 
 
 In the centuries that we have been studying, 
 the Emperor and the Pope had often crossed 
 swords. But, up to Frederick II., the German 
 kings who were at war with the Papacy were 
 
At the Summit of Power 113 
 
 all filled with respect for it as an institution. 
 In the Pope they reverenced the successor of 
 St. Peter, only they did not wish to see him 
 encroach on their sphere of influence. In spite 
 of momentary ebullitions of wrath they saw in 
 the Church the mother of Christendom, and 
 to Christianity itself they clung with devout 
 faith. It was otherwise with Frederick II. ; his 
 attitude towards Christianity was that of a 
 sceptic, not a believer; he saw in the Church 
 not a mother but an intrusive inspectress, and 
 in the Pope he saw the convinced, or not always 
 even convinced, champion of all that hindered 
 the extension of true civilisation, the increase of 
 human culture and human knowledge. It was 
 not for nothing that he was born in Sicily, the 
 Paradise of mingled religions ; it was not 
 for nothing that he had imbibed a preference 
 for Arab ways of thinking and living. Philoso- 
 phers frequented his court, and natural science 
 was more to him than scholastic theology. It 
 was not that he avoided the great ultimate 
 questions that stir the human mind, but he 
 sought an answer acceptable to his reason, and 
 refused to let authority dictate what was pro- 
 fitable for his soul. 
 
 Once again we get the sharp clash of anta- 
 gonistic forces. Honorius, indeed, was nearly 
 made a fool of by Frederick ; but in Gregory IX. 
 
 8 
 
114 The Papacy 
 
 (1227-41), the nephew of Innocent, the Emperor 
 found an adversary of a different kind. Only a 
 few months after his accession he excommuni- 
 cated Frederick, who continued to find excuses 
 for putting off the burdensonae crusade, which 
 seemed to him to hinder more important busi- 
 ness. And then an unheard-of thing happened. 
 As if he took pleasure in the idea of setting the 
 Pope at defiance and of entering the Holy Land 
 while still under the Church's ban, Frederick at 
 once set sail and, without drawing his sword, 
 achieved what earlier crusaders had purchased 
 only at the cost of much blood or not at all. 
 The holy places were restored to the Christians. 
 The excommunicate Emperor, however, himself 
 took the crown of Jerusalem. He soon returned 
 to Europe, routed the Pope's troops, and forced 
 him to grant him absolution. Then he again 
 devoted himself to his Sicilian kingdom, and also 
 to the refractory cities of Lombardy. Ten years 
 passed, and again the Pope excommunicated the 
 Emperor, who replied with a defence which 
 resembled a challenge. The Pope then threw 
 off the last vestige of restraint and hurled at 
 Frederick reproaches which go beyond anything 
 that a Pope had hitherto dared to say to his 
 Emperor. He compared him with the Beast of 
 the Apocalypse ; he accused him of treachery to 
 the Church, of iU-using her adherents, of perjury 
 
At the Summit of Power 115 
 
 in regard to his earlier promises, and finally of 
 heresy and blasphemy: 
 
 "Since the Emperor asserts that he cannot 
 be excommunicated by us, the Vicar of Christ, 
 he himself shows how badly he thinks of the 
 other chief articles of the Christian faith. 
 But if any One should doubt that he has 
 entangled himself in his own words let him 
 listen to the convincing evidence of the truth. 
 This pestilent king asserts — ^we use his own 
 words — that the whole world has been deceived 
 by three impostors, Moses, Mahomet, and Christ, 
 of whom two died in honour^ but the third on 
 the cross. Further, he has dared loudly to 
 affirm (or rather to lie) that all are fools who 
 believe that God Almighty, the Creator of 
 heaven and earth, was born of a Virgin. He 
 bases this heresy on the erroneous idea that 
 none can be born without the previous union of 
 man and woman, and that man in general should 
 believe nothing that cannot be proved by the 
 nature of things and by reason." 
 
 Although the Pope could never prove his chief 
 accusation — the Emperor's saying about the 
 three impostors — and although he doubtless 
 committed himself dangerously by the careless- 
 ness with which he made the charge, in the 
 main his reproaches were justified. Frederick II. 
 was a heretic if there ever was one, and when 
 
ii6 The Papacy 
 
 the fugitive Innocent IV. (1243-54) declared in a 
 solemn apeech at the Council of Lyons in 1245, 
 that the Emperor had forfeited his throne, he 
 did what he must have felt himself called upon 
 to do hy virtue of his apostolic office. It is one 
 of the most important indications of the dis- 
 integration of the Church which was already 
 beginning, that the Emperor's friends remained 
 faithful to him until his death, in spite of the 
 fact that the curse not only of the Church but 
 also of Heaven seemed to rest upon him. 
 
 To return to Gregory IX. His reign, though 
 lacking in the outward splendour which makes 
 that of Innocent III. stand out in such brilliant 
 light, was a period of events of high importance 
 for the Church. He was the great patron of the 
 Mendicant Orders. It is true that Honorius III. 
 had already confirmed the Orders of the Domini- 
 cans (Preaching Friars), and the Franciscans 
 (Minorites, Friars Minor), but the Protector 
 of the Franciscans was Ugolino, Cardinal- 
 bishop of Ostia, the future Gregory IX. He 
 supplemented the mountain-moving faith of the 
 Saint of Assisi, whose best friend he was, with 
 the sagacity of the ecclesiastical prince, and 
 helped first and foremost to give to St. Francis's 
 ideal the form which made its efficacy in the 
 Church and in the world possible and assured. 
 He set the work of the Dominicans, who had 
 
At the Summit of Power 117 
 
 been founded to convert heretics, on a firm 
 foundation, by transferring to them, as in the 
 name of the Pope, the powers of inquisition, i.e., 
 investigation into heterodoxy, hitherto exercised 
 by the bishops (1232). 
 
 This measure is associated with blood, but it 
 was only th^ outcome of the charge of souls 
 given to the Apostle, and is based on Scripture. 
 The doctrine of the two swords which was first 
 heard of in the eleventh century, and to which 
 Bernard of Clairvaux gave its classical form, 
 had in the meantime been included among the 
 Pope's pretensions. Both swords, including the 
 secular one, belong to the Church ; for the Lord 
 (Matt. xxvi. 52) did not say to the disciple, " Put 
 thy sword away from thee," but " Put up again 
 thy sword into his place." The Church therefore 
 is not to discard the temporal sword, she is only 
 not to use it ; she has given the handling of it 
 to the secular arm, which has to use it in her 
 name, and therefore only in accordance with her 
 views. Does not Constantine's Donation prove, 
 as Gregory IX. wrote, that he to whom God has 
 given the direction of heavenly things, shall also 
 rule over earthly things? 
 
 The papal canon law that culminates in this 
 claim was oflScially put together for the first 
 time by Gregory (1234). When Raphael, at the 
 command of Julius II., decorated the hall in 
 
ii8 The Papacy 
 
 which the Pope's mandates were sealed, he 
 immortalised the granting of the canon and 
 the civil law in two pictures : on the left the 
 Emperor Justinian is handing the Roman code 
 to Tribonian, on the right Gregory IX. gives 
 his code to one of his jurists. What Gelasius, 
 in advance of his age, once said, what 
 Gregory VII. repeated to William of England, 
 appears to be coming true — the State receives 
 its light from the Papacy as the moon from the 
 sun. 
 
 One other thing is significant. Gregory IX. 
 gave to the rapidly developing science of 
 theology its noblest scene of action. In the 
 newly founded University of Paris, the consti- 
 tution of which the Pope settled in a Bull 
 (1231), the theologians were preponderant. 
 Here studied or taught the great luminaries 
 of Dominican and Franciscan scholasticism, 
 like Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, 
 Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas. It was 
 Thomas Aquinas who fixed the idea of the 
 world-rule of the Papacy from a theological 
 point of view. Before him theologians had at 
 best expressed themselves with reserve on the 
 doctrine of papal infallibility. Thomas gave it 
 a dogmatic basis on the strength of the Gre- 
 gorian canon law, and of a forgery which he 
 accepted as genuine, and which led him to 
 
At the Summit of Power 119 
 
 believe that the Fathers of the fourth and 
 fifth centuries had already supported the 
 doctrine. He also penned the proposition that 
 subjection to the Pope is necessary to salva- 
 tion. With that the utmost is said and the 
 highest point is reached. 
 
 Then Fate knocks at the door. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY AND THE PABLIA- 
 MENTARY GOVERNMENT OP THE CHUKCH 
 
 WHEN Innocent IV. heard in France of 
 the death of Frederick, he might well 
 have uttered a sigh of relief, for he was freed 
 from a powerful antagonist. He immediately 
 returned to Italy, passing through Northern 
 and Central Italy in triumph, but he did not 
 see his capital for several years. His position 
 was difficult. However much he may have 
 been convinced — to use his own words — that 
 the eternal King and Priest after the order 
 of Melchizedek had given him supreme power, 
 he would have been glad to receive help in 
 destroying the dragon-seed of the Hohen- 
 staufen. He first offered the crown of Sicily 
 to an English prince, who declined it with 
 thanks ; then to Charles of Anjou, but the 
 negotiations came to nothing. Manfred be- 
 came stronger and stronger, and Innocent 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 121 
 
 died. His successor, Alexander IV. (1254-61), 
 was not more fortunate. Urban IV. (1261-64:) 
 at last succeeded in prevailing upon Charles 
 to accept the crown. Whether for that reason 
 he may be reckoned among the Popes who 
 influenced history, may remain an open ques- 
 tion, for he was only carrying out the idea of 
 another. But the fact itself was of great 
 significance. In Frederick II. the destiny of 
 the world-empire had worked itself out ; other 
 powers now took its place. The coming of the 
 house of Anjou to Naples, and the strengthen- 
 ing of the French monarchy, marked a turning- 
 point in political history ; the centre of gravity 
 had shifted. But we may ask whether the 
 Papacy stood to gain by this. That Charles 
 of Anjou and his brother Saint Louis of 
 France were pious Christians and devout 
 adherents of the Roman Curia was only a 
 guarantee for the time being. Other times 
 might come — and they did come. 
 
 In ahy case, the state of the Church was 
 far from satisfactory to the Curia. The strict 
 or "spiritual" Franciscans were indignant at 
 the interference of the Popes with their 
 statutes, and at their attempts to wring from 
 the Order the utmost measure of fixed 
 abode that was compatible with their prin- 
 ciples. The beginning of this conflict goes 
 
132 The Papacy 
 
 back to the time of Gregory IX. It became 
 more acute under Innocent IV., and the dis- 
 putes of the last years of Frederick's reign 
 cannot be understood unless it is taken into 
 consideration. It is most interesting to observe 
 how the zealots begin to cast a halo round 
 the head of the unbelieving Emperor, as the 
 scourge of the worldly Papacy. When the 
 enemy of the Church lies in his grave, they 
 set their hopes on his return as judge. They 
 reckon that in the year 1260 the three 
 times and half a time spoken of in the Reve- 
 lation of St. John {xii. 14) will be fulfilled, 
 and they live in the belief that the end of all 
 things is at hand. They await the catastrophe 
 with feverish impatience, and stir up excite- 
 ment among the people. The critical year 
 arrives, no Frederick comes, the Chair of St. 
 Peter does not totter, but the world sees for 
 the first time the spectacle of those Flagel- 
 lants who pour forth from Perugia, the focus 
 of the Franciscan movement, over Lombardy, 
 before long to Rome, then over the Alps 
 into Provence and Germany, and as far as 
 Hungary and Poland. The excitenaent lasted 
 for several decades ; even then it did not really 
 die out, but only changed its form. 
 
 It was soon to be seen whether in this 
 altered condition of affairs the Papacy would 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 123 
 
 be able to maintain the claim to the empire 
 of the world, which it had disputed with the 
 Hohenstaufens, with varying fortune, but vic- 
 toriously on the whole. In 1294 Boniface YIU. 
 (1294-1303), who was the first to give the shape 
 of a crown to the papal mitre, became Pope. 
 Modern reseasch has attempted, not without 
 success, to remove the blackest shadows from 
 his portrait, which his embittered contempo- 
 raries painted in the darkest colours. But his 
 extravagance, bordering on mania, still re- 
 mains, as also his malicious delight in sarcasm 
 and mockery — certainly no sign of good 
 nature. It can be no mere accident that the 
 miserable shattering of his life-work lacks that 
 element of tragedy which gives so poignant an 
 interest to other great dramas in the world's 
 history. 
 
 And yet just such a drama was being played 
 between the Pope and the French King as was 
 played of old between Henry and Gregory. 
 But what was great in Gregory strikes us as 
 bizarre in Bonifaca He did not fight for an 
 ideal with the self-surrender of a heart filled 
 with strength from on high, for he lacked 
 any religious impulse, but held with crazy 
 obstinacy to the display which he had not the 
 means to keep up. Nor was Philip the Fair 
 made of very fine stuff. He was harshly 
 
124 T^^ Papacy 
 
 despotic and absolutely unscrupulous. But 
 what he won for himself and for his crown, 
 with all the egoism of a forceful tyrant, served 
 to help on progress in general. He was able 
 to impress on his nobles, and through them 
 on large sections of the people, a hatred of 
 clerical tutelage so deep that it never dis- 
 appeared. It was absurd that the Pope, pre- 
 suming on legal titles of a bygone age, should 
 wish to forbid the King to tax Church property 
 when the military reputation of the Crown 
 required it. We need only compare the 
 polemics of this period with those of the time 
 of Gregory, or consider the quiet assurance 
 with which the French Chancery made the 
 Pope's threatening letters look ridiculous, in 
 order to see on which side the victory would 
 lie. In the light of these facts, the famous — 
 not to say notorious — BuU "Unam Sanctam" 
 of November 18, 1302, loses its exciting cha- 
 racter. In this BuU, Boniface once more 
 summed up the claims of the spiritual power 
 to supremacy over the temporal power with 
 biting acrimony, as though he felt that it was 
 already too late. It contains nothing new for 
 us, and nothing characteristic of the Pope 
 except perhaps the little spiteful remark that 
 the Church can only have one head, not two, 
 for otherwise she would be a " monster." " Feed 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 125 
 
 My lambs," we hear once more; the prophet 
 Jeremiah is called to witness : " See, I have 
 this day set thee over the nations and over 
 the kingdoms " ; the Apostle Paul testifies : 
 "He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet 
 he himself is judged of no man." The theory 
 of the two swords is also spun out at length. 
 And, lest theology should fall short, the docu- 
 ment closes with the statement of Thomas 
 Aquinas, that obedience to the Pope is neces- 
 sary to salvation. 
 
 On his side Philip summoned the States 
 General. He caused the Pope to be solemnly 
 accused not only of ill-will towards France, 
 but also of personal crimes. Even the charge 
 of heresy was not lacking. Boniface, it was 
 alleged, did not believe in immortality, and 
 denied the reality of the transubstantiation 
 in the Eucharist. On the advice of excellent 
 canonists the Eang appealed — the first time 
 that this had occurred — to a general council 
 and to a future legitimate Pope. But he went 
 further. He caused his chancellor, William 
 de Nogaret, to arrest the Pope, who was at 
 Anagni preparing ban and interdict against 
 the sinful land and its King. Boniface suc- 
 ceeded in escaping, and in returning to Rome, 
 but succumbed a few weeks later (October 11, 
 1303), to the disease from which he had 
 
126 The Papacy 
 
 long been suffering. It is said that in an 
 attack of fever he beat his head against the 
 wall. 
 
 We shall hardly be guilty of exaggeration if 
 we call the Bull " Unam Sanctam " the swan- 
 song of the supremacy of the spiritual power 
 in temporal affairs. Often again, it is true, was 
 it preached to the world, but it failed to find 
 the faith that alone could make it a living 
 force. And the great Emperors' dream of an 
 universal Christian monarchy was also at an 
 end. Dante, indeed, broke a lance for the 
 Empire as a divine institution, but even in him 
 we see clearly that the change is at hand, for 
 it is not from the Pope but from the people 
 that the Emperor receives his crown. 
 
 When we turn from the Bull to that remark- 
 able book to which its authors, the Paris scholars 
 Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, gave 
 the title of "Defensor Pacis" (''The Advocate 
 of Peace"), we can gauge the extent of the 
 change. In the first we have variations on a 
 theme suitable for any period, expressed in 
 hackneyed catchwords ; in the second a system 
 of thought, constructed, it is true, out of old 
 material, but set forth in a wholly new way. 
 Marsilius had read his Aristotle differently from 
 Thomas Aquinas. All political rights belong to 
 the people, their rulers are their delegates and 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 127 
 
 are answerable to them. They are therefore en- 
 trusted with extensive powers, and the Church 
 especially has no right to interfere. In so far 
 as she is the fellowship of the faithful she has 
 a divine and supernatural character, but she is 
 a spiritual institution with spiritual powers. 
 The priest opens the door to God ; he has no 
 right of judgment on earth, nor has the Pope 
 any such right, for his so-called power of office 
 rests on stolen titles. St. Peter was not above 
 the other apostles, and all bishops are successors 
 of the apostles. To them, therefore, in a general 
 council in which laymen are also called to take 
 part, it belongs to decide questions that are 
 purely questions of doctrine, and not to the 
 Pope. 
 
 When in 1326 these heretical notions were 
 introduced at the court of Louis of Bavaria — 
 who was at first filled with horror at them, 
 but finally accepted them with reservations, 
 impelled thereto by considerations of eccle- 
 siastical policy — Borne had already been without 
 a Pope for many years. The second successor 
 of Boniface, Clement V. (1305-14), had in 1309 
 transferred his court to Avignon, which belonged 
 to the King of Naples and was sold in 1348 to 
 the Curia, in whose possession it remained 
 until the French Bevolution. Clement was 
 wholly dependent on the King of France; the 
 
128 The Papacy 
 
 condemnation of the Templars (March 22, 1312), 
 for which all the machinery of a general council 
 was employed, was the worst result of this 
 dependence, and is hard to justify from an 
 ecclesiastical point of view. But all the Avignon 
 Popes were not underlings, least of aU John 
 XXII. (1316-34), who became Pope when quite 
 an old man, and only resigned the tiara, un- 
 willingly enough, at the age of ninety. The 
 papal pretensions with which he angered others 
 besides King Louis, the stubboriiness with which 
 he opposed the idealistic theories of the Fran- 
 ciscan zealots, and last, but not least, his theolo- 
 gical arbitrariness, procured him a whole host 
 of enemies in his lifetime and injured his 
 memory among future generations. But he 
 was decidedly above the average and, if nothing 
 else, was a living proof that the old ideas had 
 not yet lost all their efficacy. Indeed, the 
 Avignon Popes in general were much better 
 than their reputation, and their reputation 
 itself would be much better if the disparity 
 between their pretensions and their external 
 situation had not continually urged them to 
 doubtful actions. They needed money, and not 
 knowing how to get it honestly, they stole it. 
 As early as the reign of Innocent III. loud 
 protests had been raised against the greed of 
 the Curia. A French chronicler calls the Pope 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 129 
 
 the most insatiable of mortals, and Walther 
 von der Vogelweide raged in noble indignation 
 against the " Stock"* which the Pope had sent 
 into Germany to procure him money. The 
 great Pope's whole manner of living defended 
 him from the personal attacks which were 
 levelled at him* But if a man desires to rule 
 over kings and peoples he cannot do without 
 money. At Avignon in the " Babylonian 
 captivity'' there was indeed but little question 
 of ruling, but the thirst for power remained, 
 and prudent men would naturally think of the 
 future, which might bring better days. The 
 fatal thing, however, was that general interests 
 gave way more and more to personal ones and 
 to those family interests which may be summed 
 up in the word "Nepotism." Fatal also were 
 luxury and that corruption inevitably con- 
 nected with court-life, in which men are 
 dependent on the goodwill of a crowd of base 
 hirelings. It is difficult to know which to 
 admire most — the capacity shown for inventing 
 new taxes, the skill with which they were 
 collected, or the good-nature of those who paid 
 them. Hundreds of thousands of pounds thus 
 flowed to Avignon year in year out — occasional 
 dues for the consecration of bishops, the income 
 
 * Stock {OpferatocTc), the money-box in which the offerings 
 of the faithfvd are collected. 
 
 9 
 
130 The Papacy 
 
 of livings that were skilfully kept vacant, above 
 all the firstfruits (annats), i.e., the dues payable 
 to the Curia from the first year's revenues of 
 newly appointed bishops and abbots. Those 
 immediately liable to taxation naturally enough 
 took it out of their subjects, for they, too, were 
 rulers and wished to live up to their position. 
 So taxation increased and with it exasperation^ 
 This scandalous state of affairs became still 
 worse when, after the removal of Gregory XI. 
 to Rome (1377), and partly through the fault of 
 his impolitic successor, Urban VI. (1378-89), that 
 dual Papacy was created wf-hich lasted for a 
 generation. There was one Pope in Home and 
 another at Avignon. The people were divided 
 as to whom they should recognise, and the 
 revenues were divided also. Without any con- 
 sideration for religious feeling, Boniface IX. 
 (1389-1404) increased the taxes paid by the 
 countries that acknowledged him to the point 
 of extortion, knocked down vacant offices to 
 the highest bidders after he had taken the 
 money of those who bid less, and thus acquired 
 such large means that he became an ally whom 
 the King of Naples, harassed by France, could 
 not afford to despise. 
 
 But at the same time preparations were being 
 made in France to put an end to this unedifying 
 state of affairs. The University of Paris became 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 131 
 
 the centre of these efforts. Men like Henry of 
 Langenstein, Pierre d'Ailly, Jean Charlier de 
 Gerson, and Nicholas de CMmanges awakened 
 public opinion. King Charles VI., who at that 
 time had one of his lucid moments, gave his 
 approval in 1394 to an academic opinion that 
 suggested three -ways for doing away with the 
 schism — voluntary abdication by both Popes 
 and a fresh election, a court of arbitration, and 
 a general council. The two first ways did not 
 attain the aim in view. The suggestion of a 
 court of arbitration seems hardly to have been 
 considered, and neither of the Popes cared to 
 abdicate so long as he was not sure whether 
 his rival would do the same. When, then, after 
 the death of Clement of Avignon, the Cardinals, 
 in spite of their having repeatedly declared that 
 they would do everything to end the schism, 
 elected another Pope in the person of Benedict 
 XIII., the French Government lost patience. 
 It refused to recognise Benedict, but it had no 
 wish to accept the Roman Pope either, and for 
 several years the French Church was managed 
 by the State — a sort of State Catholicism which 
 proved impossible as a permanency. 
 
 Thus only the last of the three ways was left. 
 The demand for a general council was becoming 
 louder and louder and had long since passed the 
 borders of France. The time was ripe for 
 
132 The Papacy 
 
 reform. The progressives were no longer con- 
 tent merely to restore the single headship of 
 the Church in the person of one Pope only; 
 they wished to use this opportunity to put 
 the Papacy under the control of the Church. 
 " Reformatio ecclesise in capite et membris " — 
 the reform of the Church in head and members — 
 inasmuch as the corruption from above had 
 gone down lower and lower, became the oft- 
 repeated catchword. If England showed the 
 way, and if English ideas were adopted by the 
 French politicians, it was France that took 
 decisive action. Immense significance lay in 
 the fact that in May, 1408, the appointment 
 to benefices in the French Church and the 
 taxation of the clergy by the Pope were 
 declared illegal. This Gallicanism, or, to speak 
 more generally, the principle of the independ- 
 ence of national churches as regards Papal 
 influence, remained the order of the day in 
 discussions on Church politics. 
 
 The Council of Pisa, which met in March, 
 1409, was a new departure in the history of 
 church assemblies, inasmuch as not only cardinals 
 and patriarchs, bishops and abbots, as well as 
 envoys of the temiporal powers, but also the 
 representatives of theological and canonistic 
 learning, met together to deliberate. Academic 
 ideas dominated the assembly. They culnainated 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 133 
 
 in the thesis that the Church as represented by the 
 council had the right to impeach and depose an 
 unworthy Pope. This claim was actually made 
 good. It is true that the Popes did not appear 
 when cited, but they were condemned in their 
 absence, and on June 5th the people assembled 
 in the cathedral were informed that Peter de 
 Luna, otherwise known as Benedict XIII., and 
 Angelus Oorrarius, otherwise known as Gregory 
 XII., were deprived of their dignity, as schis- 
 matics, heretics, and perjurers, and that all 
 Christians were forbidden to obey them on pain 
 of excommunication. A new Pope was elected 
 in the person of Alexander V. Benedict and 
 Gregory, however, did not give up their position, 
 and as the countries not under French influence 
 did not withdraw their obedience from the 
 Popes whom they had previously acknowledged, 
 there resulted that state of affairs which has 
 been sarcastically called the "Papal Trinity." 
 Thus the resolutions of the Council of Pisa 
 had no effect. 
 
 The confusion seemed thus to have reached 
 its highest pitch, when personal considerations 
 increased it still further, and this time to an 
 intolerable degree. Alexander enjoyed his doubt- 
 ful position for a few months only. In May, 
 1410, he was succeeded by the man who was 
 suspected of having poisoned him. To attempt 
 
134 The Papacy 
 
 to whitewash John XXIII. would be a thank- 
 less task. " He had no conscience, but, instead, 
 so happy a temperament and a disposition so 
 cheerful — not to say childlike — that in the 
 midst of his misdeeds, the phantoms of which 
 in no way disturbed his slumbers, he woke up 
 each morning in better spirits than when he had 
 gone to bed." At the same time, the long list 
 of atrocities of which he was accused by the 
 Council of Constance must not blind us to the 
 fact that this John — ^perhaps not without reason 
 the last Pope of his name — was an unusually 
 talented and by no means insignificant man. 
 Under different conditions he might possibly 
 have accomplished great things. As matters 
 were, however, the result of his notorious 
 iniquities was to strengthen the opposition 
 against the Papacy all along the line and to 
 make it victorious. What the Council of Pisa 
 had failed to accomplish it became the task of 
 the Council of Constance to attempt once more. 
 Never before had a general council taken 
 place in a Grerman city. King Sigismund had 
 carried his point with John — whom he had 
 recognised shortly after his election — as to the 
 convocation of this assembly, and hoped to 
 obtain far-reaching results from it. Not only 
 were church questions of the widest range to 
 be settled, but political questions also: for 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 135 
 
 instance, the ending of the war between Eng- 
 land and France was a subject of serious con- 
 sideration. The event that lingers most in our 
 memory, the trial of Huss, was probably the 
 subject of least interest to the King and even 
 to the prelates and theologians. Indeed, the 
 ideas of church reform current among the 
 theologians in the council had no reference to 
 questions of dogma. It was quite natural to 
 them to condemn the memory of Wyclif, the 
 socialistic heretic, even apart from any question 
 of courtesy towards the English Government; 
 and it was self-evident that Huss must die, in 
 spite of the so often misunderstood letter of 
 safe-conduct, after he had once, for conscience 
 sake, acknowledged his acceptance of the Eng- 
 lishman's tenets. It was impossible to foresee 
 what political consequences would result from 
 the exasperation caused in Bohemia by the 
 burning of Huss, and even had they been 
 foreseen the decision would hardly have been 
 influenced thereby. 
 
 The central interest of this church parliament, 
 with its commissions, its party meetings, and 
 its plenary sittings, conducted in accordance 
 with standing orders quite different from those 
 hitherto customary, was the "reform of the 
 Church in head and members." We have only 
 to consider it in so far as it affected the " head." 
 
136 The Papacy 
 
 For the first few months John enjoyed all the 
 honours of a recognised Pope. At the first 
 public session of the council, on November 16, 
 1414, he presided, and he opened the second on 
 March 2, 1415, by celebrating High Mass. In 
 this very session, however, he had to read the 
 document in which he resigned his office, pro- 
 vided his rivals did the same. That he was in 
 earnest may reasonably be doubted, in spite of 
 his oaths and assurances. In any case, he fled 
 from Constance three weeks later, and from 
 Schaffhausen sent word to Sigismund that he 
 had no intention of abdicating. The council 
 almost fell to pieces over the subject ; but the 
 Emperor rode through the town and caused it 
 to be announced that every one must remain 
 till the reforms were completed. It became 
 necessary to declare solemnly in a public sitting 
 (April 6, 1415) that the council had the right 
 to continue to sit even without the Pope and 
 without prejudice to its authority. Then began 
 the trial of John, which ended with his deposi- 
 tion on May 29. A few months afterwards 
 Gregory XII. abdicated of his own accord, but 
 Benedict XIII. was not to be prevailed upon 
 to withdraw. Nothing remained but to isolate 
 him. Sigismund did not shrink from the long 
 journey necessary to persuade Spain to abandon 
 the Pope^ When the political position allowed 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 137 
 
 of it, Benedict also was formally deposed (July 
 26, 1417), and Martin V. (1417-31) was elected 
 Pope by the Conclave, in which not only 
 cardinals took part, but also delegates of the 
 nations represented at the council. 
 
 With remarkable skill the Pope broke up the 
 unity of the assembly by treating with each 
 nation separately, making a concordat with 
 each, and he thus rescued for the Papacy all 
 that could be rescued. Naturally, this could 
 not be done without substantial concessions : 
 the excesses of the papal fiscal and judicial 
 systems were reduced to tolerable dimensions. 
 Nevertheless, the Curia obtained what was 
 essential to it: the definite stipulation of cer- 
 tain important rights which would serve as a 
 starting-point for others when circumstances 
 became more favourable. Of real reform either 
 in " head " or " members " there was no question. 
 
 It is easy to understand that the reform party 
 were not satisfied with this result, and all the 
 less because the Pope and his court on their 
 return to Rome by no means kept within 
 reasonable limits, but provoked the earnest- 
 minded, as well as the Pharisees, by their 
 barefaced extortions. At that time the repre- 
 sentative of the Knights of the Teutonic Order in 
 Bome wrote to his superior: " Dear master, send 
 vae money, for at this court all friendship ceases 
 
138 The Papacy 
 
 when the cash is gone," and Canon Hemmerlin 
 of Zurich complained that "Benefices were sold 
 in Rome as publicly as pigs in the market." 
 Nor was it the misdeeds of the Curia only that 
 kept up the agitation, but the general condition 
 of the Church and the world. Before the elec- 
 tion of the new Pope at Constance a resolution 
 had been passed, couched in unctuous terms, to 
 the effect that such general assemblies should 
 take place regularly at certain fixed intervals, 
 and Martin had been bound over to this arrange- 
 ment. He kept, indeed, to the letter of it, but 
 the first assembly in Siena did nothing. Yielding 
 to the pressure of those who looked to parlia- 
 mentary deliberations for the solution of all 
 difficulties, he summoned a new council at BMe 
 in 1431, but died before it met. 
 
 The Council of B41e (1431-49) has been com- 
 pared with the great assemblies of the French 
 Revolution, and there are certainly many 
 points of resemblance. Anyhow, it meant the 
 uncompromising introduction of democratic 
 principles into the government of the Church 
 and the negation of all authority. Any cleric 
 was welcome as a member of the assembly, 
 if he had passed the easy test of the election 
 committee, and no one troubled about Pope or 
 cardinal, bishop or archbishop. There was a 
 time when the efforts of the council, as later 
 
The Babylonian Captivity 139 
 
 those of the French revolutionaries, were 
 approved of enthusiastically by all progressive 
 minds. This was during the years in which 
 reforms were seriously undertaken, and provi- 
 sions, expectatives, annats, and kindred eccle- 
 siastical excrescences were cut away, and in 
 which France *adopted the decrees of the Coun- 
 cil of BMe as the law of the State in the 
 " Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges " (1438), while 
 a German Imperial Diet recognised the reforms 
 in the "Acceptation of Mayence" (1439). Later 
 on, however, not only did those in authority 
 become alarmed, but many a man who thought 
 more of his advancement than of his princi- 
 ples, sought shelter with the leaders of Church 
 and State, though it vexed him to be unable 
 to dabble in revolution. Finally, when the 
 radicals and demagogues gained the upper 
 hand and a kind of Beign of Terror ensued — 
 only without the guillotine — the "Bale Fathers" 
 lost the last remnant of the sympathy which 
 they had inspired, and the hopes which had 
 been placed in church parliamentarianism died 
 away. 
 
 From the first, the council had given its close 
 attention to the Pope's affairs. It worked out 
 a kind of rule for him, and regulated his life 
 even in small details. In June, 1438, however, 
 it deposed Martin's successor, Eugenius lY. 
 
140 The Papacy 
 
 (1431-47), who was not disposed to dance to 
 their piping. It did him no harm, for there 
 was no possibility of carrying out the sen- 
 tence. Moreover, when the council passed the 
 decree it had degenerated into a sort of Rump 
 Parliament. As early as March, 1437, a strong 
 minority, headed by the ecclesiastical digni- 
 taries, who did not agree with this funda- 
 mental opposition to the Papacy, had left B41e, 
 and with them Eugenius was able to form a 
 rival council, first at Ferrara and afterwards 
 at Florence. This council is only noteworthy 
 for its not very successful negotiations towards 
 a union with the Greek Church. All things 
 considered, the last years of Bugenius's ponti- 
 ficate brought the turn of the tide. The 
 witches' cauldron ceases to boil, the bubbling 
 stops, the steam clears away, and we see once 
 more the old picture of a triumphant Papacy. 
 But this time the picture has a different 
 frame. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE POPES AS PATRONS OP THE FINE ABTS 
 
 ANEW era had just risen over Italy. As 
 early as the year 1300 a flush of dawn 
 had heralded it. Any one who has studied 
 Giotto's pictures, has been moved by the songs 
 of Jacopone and the great poem of Dante, 
 and has felt the influence of the architecture 
 of their time, can realise the importance for 
 early Italian art of the religious revival 
 brought about by the Saint of Assisi. When, 
 however, the heavenly orb rose high in the 
 sky and sent its rays over the whole land, it 
 was seen that yet other sources of light were 
 stored up within it : the wealth of the ancients 
 streamed out in dazzling brilliance; learning 
 and art awoke to new and independent life. 
 
 Immediately there was a division of minds. 
 To some men Christianity, in the light of this 
 sun, seemed of inferior value, something out 
 
 of date, if not a wandering from the true 
 
 141 
 
142 The Papacy 
 
 path. Back to the gods of Olympos was 
 their cry ; let Zeus be enthroned once more. 
 Back £tlso to the philosophy of Plato and the 
 other great minds which had been forgotten in 
 the monkish wisdom of the theologians. Others 
 judged differently. They sought to refine the 
 " holy treasure of Plato " like gold in the cru- 
 cible, to fit it, in a different setting, into the 
 crown of their religion, and thus to reconcile 
 the classic with the Christian spirit, which for 
 them also had become too narrow. All, how- 
 ever, were agreed that the world was not to 
 be looked upon as "a vale of tears, which 
 the Pope and the Emperor must guard till 
 the coming of Antichrist," but as the place 
 in which the Divine Spirit worked itself out, 
 preparing for mankind a glorious lot even on 
 earth. The consummation of this blessedness 
 was hoped for in other spheres, without the 
 conduct of life on earth being made dependent 
 upon it. In this garden of God there bloomed 
 Art, the most beautiful of all flowers. Almost 
 untouched by the intellectual conflict around 
 them, bathed in heavenly light, her disciples 
 wandered on soft paths like blessed spirits. 
 
 It is one of the most remarkable transfor- 
 mations in the history of the Church that 
 when the Papacy began slowly to recover 
 from its severe defeat it also took on the 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 143 
 
 new spirit of art and learning, and gained a 
 new right to the admiration of the faithful. 
 After a while, however, succumbing to the 
 sweetness of the temptation, it forgot for a 
 time its lofty apostolic mission under the magic 
 of the new forces. 
 
 Without suspecting to what a dangerous 
 height his successors would climb, Nicholas V. 
 (1447-55) stepped on to the giddy path. His 
 gentle spirit hovers over the devout frescoes 
 with which Fra Giovanni of Fiesole, the 
 Angelic, whom the Church reckons among her 
 beatified, decorated the papal bedchamber in 
 the Vatican. As a young man he had said, 
 " I would like to spend all my money on 
 books and buildings"; and as Pope he carried 
 out his wish. He was the real founder of the 
 Vatican library, which at his death contained 
 more than a thousand manuscripts and the 
 greatest number of books that any library 
 could boast. He summoned many distin- 
 guished scholars to Rome, and entrusted them 
 with literary work, especially with translations 
 from the Greek. Among them were men like 
 Laurentius Valla, who discovered the spurious- 
 ness of the Donation of Constantine and other 
 old ecclesiastical documents, and who would 
 have fallen a victim to the Inquisition if he 
 had not been supported by the Pope and pro- 
 
144 The Papacy 
 
 tected by the King of Naples. Nicholas not 
 only began to make Rome more habitable, 
 and supplied the town with water, but he 
 also conceived the gigantic plan for the re- 
 construction of the Leonine city, the Vatican 
 and St. Peter's, and thus gave the impulse to 
 the erection of monuments which were to 
 employ hundreds of artists and astonish the 
 world. He did all this from a proud convic- 
 tion that the capital of Christendom must 
 look what it was : " Only through the great- 
 ness of what they see can the weak be 
 strengthened in their faith." 
 
 It was the prelude to a magnificent spec- 
 tacle that grew more and more imposing from 
 act to act. 
 
 ^neas Silvius Piccolomini, who had given up 
 a frivolous life, and who, as Pope, took the 
 name of Pius II. (1458-64) not from Pius I., but 
 from the " plus " ^neas of Virgil, was himself 
 a many-sided man of letters. But he kept a 
 close watch over his purse so that the Humanists 
 complained that they did not get their due ; 
 and what he did do for art benefited his native 
 town of Siena rather than Rome. Paul II. 
 (1464-71) may not have been a "hater of 
 learning," as he has commonly been depicted; 
 but he was no enthusiast for it. Sixtus IV. (1471- 
 84) was the first really to add to the legacy 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 145 
 
 left by the Humanist Pope. It was he who 
 transferred the Vatican library to new rooms 
 and allowed free access to its treasures. He 
 encouraged the building of churches, and 
 went on with what Nicholas had planned and 
 suggested for the beautifying of the city. But 
 it was painting especially that benefited by the 
 favour of the Pope. Under him Melozzo da 
 Forli painted his Ascension, the lost beauty of 
 which is still to be seen in the wonderful 
 angels' heads, while Botticelli, Signorelli, Ghir- 
 landajo, Pinturicchio, and Perugino decorated 
 the walls of the chapel in the Vatican (called 
 Sistine after him) with those representations 
 of the history of Moses and the Saviour, the 
 Olympian calm of which stands out in such 
 solemn contrast to the Titanic figures of Michael 
 Angelo, their later rival in this place. 
 
 In spite, however, of all these great works, 
 Bome was not really the centre of intellectual 
 life at this period. Florence exercised the 
 greatest power of attraction. Cosimo, the great 
 merchant, and even more his grandson Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent, who ruled the Republic from 
 1469, won undying fame for their native city, 
 and at the same time added lustre to their 
 own house. In the Medici gardens the members 
 of the Platonic Academy engaged in briUiant 
 conversation on the writings of their master. 
 
 10 
 
146 The Papacy 
 
 It was th© Medici wbo gave employment to 
 skilful hands, and afforded an outlet for the 
 artistic conceptions which found immortal 
 expression in architecture, sculpture, and paint- 
 ing. But after the death of Lorenzo (1491) 
 and with the fall of his house (1494:) this 
 supremacy passed from Florence to Borne, 
 where it long remained. 
 
 The services of Innocent VIII. (1484-92) and 
 Alexander VI. (1492^1503) to the fine arts 
 were but insignificant, and one must be very 
 apologetically minded to mention them at all. 
 All the greater appeared the outburst under 
 Julius II. (1503-13). He was the Maecenas of 
 Bramante, Michael Angelo, and Baphael. It 
 was he who set tasks for these great men; 
 for him Bramante drew the plans of the 
 new cathedr&l of St. Peter ; for him Baphael 
 gave sensuous form to the intellectual life of 
 mankind at that period under the symbols of 
 theology, poetry, philosophy, and jurisprudence ; 
 at his command Michael Angelo painted the 
 ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and the Pope 
 would not let him go till he had completed 
 the work. On the other hand, Leo X. (1513-21), 
 the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who as 
 Cardinal Medici had made his vUla on the 
 Pincian Hill the social centre of the artists 
 and men of letters, wished only to enjoy 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 147 
 
 ijot to stimulate. Even Baphael's colour was 
 Uttle more to him tiban djscoratioa, and 
 Buonarotti's strong arm remained idle under 
 him. The easy elegance of the Humanists ^ 
 his court , tickled the Pope's refined intellect as 
 the exquisite dishes which came in extravagant 
 profusion to his tahle tickled his fastidious 
 palate. The patronage of this Medici Pope did 
 not raise art; on the contrary, it brought it 
 down from the height on which his prede- 
 cessor had placed it. 
 
 But we are not concerned with art only. 
 We can no longer suppress the question, What 
 did these Popes do for the Church ? The Lord 
 had bidden His Apostle feed His sheep, and all 
 the great Popes had acted according to this 
 charge. Has the voice been silenced? For 
 the answer to this question we must go back 
 once more to the time of the councils. 
 
 In the great struggle between parliamen- 
 tariauism and absolutism the former had been 
 vanquished. It is true that the ideas and 
 aims connected with it never disappeared from 
 the consciousness of the nations and their 
 churches, but they were soon pushed into the 
 background by the force of circumstances. 
 This was least the case in France, where the 
 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges remained in 
 force and with it also the indepeaidetuce of 
 
148 The Papacy 
 
 the national church in face of the Papacy, 
 episcopalism in face of papalism. But the 
 strengthening of the King's absolute power 
 after the end of the Hundred Years' War 
 with England resulted in the decline ©f papalism 
 being turned to the advantage of the crown; 
 the Church had only changed masters. This 
 was still more the case in England, where, 
 moreover, the Curia had ceased to count since 
 the second half of the fifteenth century. It 
 was otherwise in Germany. There the develop- 
 ment, as regards the influence of the Curia, 
 was in the opposite direction. When King 
 Albert II. and his Electors "accepted" the 
 B41e decisions at the Diet of Mayence, they 
 left no doubt that the wiU of the temporal 
 power came before that of the spiritual power. 
 But Frederick III., who in a reign of nearly 
 flfty-four years (1440-93) did more injury to 
 German interests than any other king, acted 
 very differently and in opposition to the 
 majority of the Electors. With the short- 
 sightedness of the finished egoist he cared only 
 for himself, and perhaps also for his dynasty ; 
 he allowed the Pope to buy from him a decla- 
 ration of obedience, and, as if that were not 
 enough, he let himself be continually tricked by 
 Eugenius and his agents, whose diplomacy did 
 not shrink from the most hazardous intrigues. 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 149 
 
 The result was the miserahle Concordat 
 concluded in Vienna (1448), not under Eugenius 
 but under Nicholas V., and made a law of 
 the Empire at Aschaffenburg (1449). It sur- 
 rendered all that had been achieved by the 
 councils, and gave a new basis of legality to 
 the abuses ofr reservations, expectatives, and 
 provisions. But the Curia did not keep even 
 to this. A new theory was invented and 
 put into practice, viz., that the nations were 
 bound by their treaties with the Pope, but 
 that he was not bound. Naturally the opposi- 
 tion to such a presumptuous claim never died 
 out, but it accomplished nothing. Archbishop 
 Diether, of Mayence, who objected to the 
 increased rate at which the Curia reckoned 
 the payment due on his taking office, and 
 who wished to obtain justice by force of arms, 
 was deposed by Pius II. and obliged to submit. 
 The full wretchedness of the situation, how- 
 ever, is revealed in the fact that in 1452 
 Frederick III. — the last German Emperor to 
 be crowned in Rome — received the crown by 
 favour of Pope Nicholas. 
 
 If the increased power of the Curia may be 
 inferred from these facts alone, it may well 
 be asked whether the Papacy realised and 
 acted up to the new ecclesiastical responsi- 
 bilities that arose out of this power. The 
 
150 The Papacy 
 
 question, even from the papalistic point of 
 vie'w, can only be answered in the negative. 
 It would be difficult to find a period in the 
 annals of papal history which, while outwardly 
 brilliant, was marked by so absolute a lack 
 of sympathy with church or even religious 
 interests, as that comprising the end of the 
 fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth 
 centuries. In the middle of the fifteenth 
 century the fall of Constantinople and the 
 irresistible advance of the Turks had reminded 
 Nicholas V. that the Pope as the protector 
 of Christendom was called upon to stir up 
 war against the infidel. His successors, Calixtus 
 III. and Pius II., were also in earnest with 
 their preaching of crusaldes, and Pius had even 
 had the intention of placing himself at the 
 head of the army that was to set sail from 
 Italy, when he was overtaken by death at 
 Ancona. This last gleam of idealism finally 
 flickered out. with the reign of Paul II., who 
 also failed to make any impression worthy 
 of mention in church politics. Under Sixtus IV. 
 the evil spirits once more stretched out their 
 hands towards the Chair of Peter. 
 
 Francesco della Rovere came of a family in 
 modest circumstances. Confided as a boy to 
 the care of the Franciscan Friars, his gifts soon 
 attracted the attention of his superiors. He 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts i^i 
 
 became popular as a professor in several Italian 
 universities, even gaining the esteem of the 
 Humanists, and was finally elected General 
 of his order. No one could have expected 
 that the worldliness, that was to reign for 
 half a century, would make its entrance into 
 the Curia under this man. But his sisters' 
 numerous children, who all migrated to Rome, 
 crowded round him and wrung one dignity 
 after another out of their unworldly uncle. His 
 efforts to raise his nephews and nieces to a posi- 
 tion that would put them on a level with other 
 noble families drew the Pope more and more 
 into the vortex of Italian territorial politics, 
 and even resulted in his entanglement in the 
 conspiracy of the Pazzi in Florence, to which 
 Lorenzo's brother Giuliano fell a victim. 
 
 Innocent VIII. owed his election as Pope 
 to the influence of Giuliano della Rovere, the 
 future Julius II., who was still obliged to curb 
 his ambition. Giambattista Cib6, of Genoa, 
 had not foreseen his destiny, and had spent 
 his youth in a very worldly fashion. The 
 malicious epigram that was made about him — 
 
 " Eight boys, eight girls the Pope in sinful love 
 Begat ; thus Borne him ' Father ' rightly calls " — 
 
 must indeed be discounted to a great extent; 
 the only two children known to be his were 
 
152 The Papacy 
 
 born before he became priest. Still it was an 
 extremely unedifying spectacle that the Pope 
 should give his son a splendid wedding feast 
 in the Vatican, the same Pope who later 
 kept* the pretenders to the Turkish throne 
 prisoners in the same palace, and allowed 
 himself to be highly paid for his services as 
 gaoler. Besides being deficient in higher 
 culture, Innocent had not the energy, and per- 
 haps not the desire, to check the evil that was 
 gaining ground in the Curia ; all the witnesses 
 are unanimous that bribery and corruption held 
 high revel under him. 
 
 This, however, is not the only reason why 
 his pontificate enjoys such a sorry fame. In 
 1484 Innocent issued the famous Witchcraft 
 Bull. Two German inquisitors, Heinrich 
 Kramers (Institoris) and Jacob Sprenger, had 
 addressed a complaint to Rome because their 
 efforts to hunt down wizards and witches and 
 bring them to justice had been opposed by the 
 people. They added to their appeal a list of 
 the chief demoniacal crimes. The Pope repro- 
 duced this statement in his Bull without 
 questioning it. It would be unjust to reproach 
 him for this ; why should not Innocent share 
 a belief held by thousands who were far wiser 
 than he? Nor can he be blamed for regard- 
 ing sorcery and witchcraft as. deserving of the 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 153 
 
 severest punishment, and still less for support- 
 ing his officials in his capacity of supreme 
 judge and safeguarding their authority. It 
 is obvious also that the BuU must not be looked 
 upon as an infallible doctrinal pronouncement — 
 there was no question of such a thing at the 
 time — nor may it be asserted that the Pope 
 raised ^belief in witchcraft to a dogma. At 
 the same time, this does not alter the fact 
 that this Bull, just because it represented the 
 unretracted judgment of the highest ecclesi- 
 astical tribunal, and because it led to the 
 compiling of the " Witches' Hammer " (" Malleus 
 maleficarum ") — the abominable handbook for 
 all trials for witchcraft during the next few 
 centuries — was in the last resort the cause 
 of terrible suffering, especially in Germany. 
 But to make the Papacy qu& Papacy responsible 
 for that is absurd. 
 
 As if Innocent had not filled up the cup, 
 the nephew of Calixtus III., Boderigo Borgia, 
 who had shamelessly bought the votes of his 
 supporters, now ascended the papal throne 
 under the name of Alexander VI. He had 
 become Cardinal under his uncle, and had all 
 the time led a life that set not only clerical but 
 all morality at defiance. As Pope also he gave 
 free rein to his sensuality. What does it matter 
 that the worst things imputed to him are at- 
 
154 The Papacy 
 
 tributable to exaggeratfou or^^— like his relations 
 with his daughter Lucrezia — to invention? 
 Even the believing Catholic historian has to 
 call in the help of Providence in order to under- 
 stand how the Church did not fall to pieces 
 under such a rule of infamy. Those who do 
 not adopt this attitude are content to remember 
 that even the Papacy could not escape the curse 
 of the " Herrenmenschentum " which sprang 
 from abandonment to the delights of culture 
 and absorption in the things of this world. It 
 is one of the bitterest ironies of history that 
 this vicegerent of God, who believed in nothing, 
 except perhaps the devil, with whom, according 
 to popular opinion, he had made a pact, should, 
 by virtue of his office, have excommunicated 
 Savonarola, the saintly Dominican who with 
 his strange prophetic voice called Florence back 
 from her frivolous enjoyment of life to piety 
 and grave morals. 
 
 Julius II. and Leo X. were also, in Nietzsche's 
 term, " Herrenmenschen " — a law unto them- 
 selves — and if art, like a sacrament, had not 
 stamped their pontificate with an ineffaceable 
 character, history would have judged them more 
 harshly. Here, again, we must distinguish 
 Giuliano della Rovere, the nephew of Sixtus IV., 
 was an extraordinary man in every respect. It 
 was no wonder that he, the most warlike of all 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 155 
 
 the Popes, who so often put his armour on 
 over his priest's dress, and was always eagerly- 
 revolving new plans, was looked upon by his 
 contemporaries as " terribile," i.e., as a " super- 
 man." He can no more be judged by the 
 standard of Christian morals than can any 
 other of the %reat spirits of the Renaissance, 
 and it were quite in vain to look for " religious 
 points of view " in him. Only when we forget 
 that Julius was Pope, do we get a correct idea 
 of the greatness of this "old lion with the 
 white mane," as Luther disrespectfully but appo- 
 sitely called him, and realise how far he towered 
 above his crowned contemporaries, the Emperor 
 Maximilian, Louis XII. of France, and others. 
 
 In the age of Machiavellianism it should 
 cause no surprise that his policy was perfidious. 
 He aimed higher than Alexander VI. and Csesar 
 Borgia, who played havoc with the nobility of 
 Italy, and laid hands upon one domain after 
 the other simply to increase the power of their 
 house. By overthrowing Csesar and adding his 
 spoils to the papal possessions Julius became 
 the founder of the modern States of the Church, 
 though he was unable to establish them on firm 
 foundations. With his diplomacy and his cam- 
 paigns he entered the field of international 
 politics. He was fighting for papal interests 
 ^hen he humbled proud Venice who, as Machia- 
 
156 The Papacy 
 
 velli said, wished to make the Pope her chaplain. 
 But he did not wish for the destruction of the 
 Republic as did his allies, the Kings of Germany 
 and France. On the contrary, it was in this 
 very struggle — ^for which he was obliged to call 
 in foreign help — that his honest hatred against 
 " Barbarian rule " came to a head. He gave 
 vent to this hatred shortly after by opposing 
 French influence in Northern Italy through his 
 alliance with Venice and the indispensable Spain. 
 It was not without good reason that Francis I., 
 then the Dauphin, said that he had had no 
 more powerful adversary than Julius II. : in 
 the vicissitudes of these wars, which sometimes 
 brought him. severe defeats and reduced him to 
 great straits, the Pope showed himself capable 
 of coping with the most difficult of situations. 
 
 He found himself in such a situation when 
 the Emperor Maximilian and King Louis tried 
 to drive him into a corner in Church matters. 
 They brought up again the almost forgotten 
 idea of a council, and caused an assembly to 
 be summoned at Pisa in May, 1511, by a few 
 cardinals who were devoted to their interests. 
 At this council arrangements for a war against 
 the Turks were to be concluded, and the reform 
 of the Church in ''head and members" was to 
 be taken in hand once more. When at mid- 
 summer the news came to Germany that the 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 157 
 
 Pope lay at the point of death, Maximilian 
 seriously considered whether he would not him- 
 self take the tiara and so unite the Empire and 
 the Papacy in one person. But Julius did not 
 die. On the contrary, he succeeded in inflicting 
 a signal defeat on his adversaries. In May, 
 1512, he opened the seventeenth ecumenical 
 (or the eighteenth if the Council of Constance 
 is counted) and fifth Lateran Council. Every- 
 thing united to make this assemhly triumphant. 
 It is true that only Italians were present, but 
 after a few months Julius obtained the recog- 
 nition of his council by the great powers, 
 including the Emperor. Thus Louis was iso- 
 lated,, and when the military events of the 
 summer had broken the political supremacy of 
 France in Italy, the way was clear for an 
 attempt to strike a decisive blow in ecclesias- 
 tical matters also. The Pope decided that the 
 abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction should 
 be solemnly proclaimed by the council. It was 
 in the preparatory sitting, that a speech was 
 made, in the presence of Julius, to the effect 
 that the Pope must be all in all " like a second 
 God on earth." A few weeks later, in the 
 night of the 20th-21st of February, 1513, he 
 surrendered to a Power mightier than he, 
 engrossed in ceaseless plans and vigorous action 
 to the very end. 
 
158 The Papacy 
 
 Nothing of the mature seriousness of Julius 
 is to be found in the Medici who succeeded him. 
 Leo X.'s philosophy of life is expressed in the 
 saying "Fortune protects those who are born to 
 great things." From a superficial point of view 
 he was right. He was lucky: he reaped what 
 his predecessor had sown. The brilliant success 
 that he obtained in the abandonment of the 
 Pragmatic Sanction by the French King himself, 
 and in the conclusion of the Concordat of 1516, 
 annulling all that had been achieved by the 
 reform movement for the French Church, was 
 due not to himself but to the fact that Francis 
 I., menaced by England, thought it advisable to 
 give way to the Pope. How short-sighted and 
 how little interested in Church affairs Leo was 
 is proved by the negotiations about the Con- 
 cordat, which left far greater freedom to the 
 Crown than the Pope pught to have allowed. 
 He was satisfied with Francis's recognition of 
 the council, which still continued to sit, and 
 which, with an express reference to the Bull 
 "Unam Sanctj^ftn," again gave expression in a 
 particularly high-sounding manner to the papal 
 claims to omnipotence. The Pope did not allow 
 his god-like security to be disturbed by the 
 storm which was brewing in Germany, and 
 which was to bend those pretensions like a reed 
 shaken by the wind. Even Boman Catholic 
 
Popes as Patrons of Fine Arts 159 
 
 historians do not deny the fact that Leo's pon- 
 tificate " was disastrous to the Papal See through 
 the wholesale surrender to worldly tendencies, 
 and to the dazzling new forms of civilisation, as 
 also through the withdrawal of Church interests 
 into the background." We must turn to Ger- 
 many in order to be able to gauge the whole 
 weight of the blame that rests upon Leo as the 
 successor of St. Peter. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE GERMAN REVOLUTION 
 
 FOB about a generation past Boman Catholic 
 historians have been at great pains to set 
 up against the dark and gloomy picture which 
 Protestant historians are wont to draw of the 
 German Church in the last half of the fifteenth 
 century and the beginning of the sixteenth, 
 another picture in which the bright colours 
 so predominate that it is often difficult to see 
 any dark background. Even when they are 
 willing to admit that all is not bright, they 
 are persuaded that Luther's Beformation is 
 the black spot that disfigures the picture. 
 This reformation is stigmatised as an insurrec- 
 tion, a revolution, which choked up the source 
 of good instead of helping it to flow, and 
 fouled the fountain instead of cleansing it, as 
 a sound reform would, from any impurities 
 that might be visible to keen eyes. There may 
 be a difference of opinion as to whether the 
 
 i6o 
 
The German Revolution i6i 
 
 keen eyes, without Luther, would ever have 
 been opened to the dangers of the Church, 
 but it is quite certain that the stoma which 
 after 1517 swept over Germany with elemental 
 violence, brought with it nothing of what had 
 hitherto been understood by the word "refor- 
 matio." It was a "rebellio," as Leo XIIL 
 rightly said in the Canisius Encyclical. Luther 
 raised the standard of revolt against the one 
 salvation-giving Church, and it would not be 
 in harmony with his spirit to gloss over the 
 fact. It is only on the question whether his 
 revolt was productive of good or evil that 
 opinions are divided, and wiU be divided to 
 eternity. 
 
 There is, however, another question on which 
 we can pass judgment. Even those who still 
 look upon the Roman Catholic Church as the 
 mother of the faithful cannot, if they have any 
 feeling for the lessons of history, shut their 
 eyes to the fact that, at this critical moment 
 when it was more than ever a question of " to 
 be or not to be," the appointed leaders were 
 weighed and found wanting. Let us imagine 
 a tribunal composed of all the great Popes of 
 many centuries : would it not, if the Popes 
 with whom we have just been dealing had 
 appeared before it, have been forced to convict 
 them of high treason? 
 
 11 
 
1 62 The Papacy 
 
 We admire the fidelity with which the Ger- 
 mans clung to their Church, but we can also 
 understand the wrath that filled the noblest 
 in the land in face of the yearly increasing 
 ruthlessness of the papal system of bleeding 
 the country. It has been said, with good 
 reason : " The haggling that was carried on in 
 Rome over every kind of benefice reminds one, 
 in its variety and openness, of the behaviour 
 of men in a busy exchange." From the nume- 
 rous examples afforded by the "presentation" 
 to ecclesiastical positions, from the highest to 
 the lowest, we select the best known. At the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century the see of 
 Mayence became vacant three times in ten 
 years. Each time the vacancy was filled some 
 14,000 ducats had to be paid to Rome as 
 confirmation dues — i.e., £15,000, at least, in 
 English money. When, in 1514, Albert of 
 Brandenburg was confirmed in his appoint- 
 ment as Archbishop of Mayence and Magde- 
 burg, and Administrator of Halberstadt, an 
 additional charge of 10,000 ducats was de- 
 manded for the holding, illegal in itself, 
 of the last-mentioned office together with the 
 see of Mayence. Thus altogether about 
 £25,000 was demanded. Nor was that all. It 
 was the Curia, as has now been proved, which 
 proposed to the Archbishop to cede to him 
 
The German Revolution 163 
 
 the sale, in his dioceses, of the indulgences for 
 the finishing of St. Peter's, in order to enable 
 him to pay off the debt of 29,000 florins which 
 he had contracted with the Fuggers, the largest 
 German bank and international business house, 
 on the understanding that the net profits were 
 equally divided between Borne and himself. 
 Non-Catholics can remain indifferent to the 
 dispute as to whether this affair is to be 
 described as simony or not, in the canonical 
 sense; it was, in any case, as Pastor honestly 
 admits, " an extremely discreditable business 
 on both sides." 
 
 If only it had not been a question of in- 
 dulgences! Those who have any understand- 
 ing of mediaeval piety can appreciate the fact 
 that the faithful believed fervently that they 
 could obtain remission of punishment, both in 
 this world and in the next, by good works of 
 all kinds. That gifts of money should take 
 the place of these good works was a con- 
 venience that was easy to understand so long as 
 people knew that their money was helping on 
 a good cause — the fitting out of a crusade, for 
 instance. But that was by no means the case 
 now; as a matter of fact the money drawn 
 from the ever-increasing number of indul- 
 gences merely went to the insatiable Bofnan 
 Curia. This was so well known that among 
 
164 The Papacy 
 
 the "grievances of the German nation" which 
 were discussed by the Diets this financial 
 dependence was long a standing subject of 
 deliberation. To this was added the know- 
 ledge of the complete indifference with which 
 the Popes regarded religion and Church alike. 
 Numberless men thought like Hutten, who 
 wrote : — 
 
 " The tradesman Julius cheats the credulous world : 
 He locks up heav'n, which he possesses not. 
 Sell what is thine, Julius ! Shameless 'tis 
 To sell to others what thou lack'st the most." 
 
 Under Leo things became still worse. The 
 extravagance of the Medici Pope, who threw 
 away with both hands what his more prudent 
 predecessor had collected, was boundless. The 
 preparations for the wedding of one of his 
 nephews cost, it is said, hundreds of thousands 
 of pounds ! 
 
 Luther was indeed right when he said in his 
 eighty-first thesis that the barefaced sale of 
 indulgences made it difficult even for the learned 
 to uphold the reverence due to the Pope against 
 his detractors, and still more against the keen 
 objections of the laity. Whatever might be 
 thought of the indulgence, the question could 
 not but be asked (Thesis 86): "Why does the 
 Pope, whose means are to-day much larger than 
 
The German Revolution 165 
 
 those of the richest merchant-prince, not btiild 
 at least this one cathedral to St. Peter with 
 his own money rather than with that of the 
 faithful poor?" Those in Rome who knew the 
 state of affairs in Germany were agreed that 
 the bow must snap if it were bent further. 
 Jerome Alexander, perhaps the shrewdest of 
 all, told the Pope as early as 1516 that thousands 
 in Germany were only waiting the word to cry 
 out against Borne. 
 
 Leo did not care. He went hunting, amused 
 himself with music, attended very unclerical 
 plays and delighted in rich banquets, boisterous 
 company, and doubtful jests. He did not for a 
 moment realise the tremendous seriousness of 
 what he himself called "monks' squabbles." 
 What a world of diflPerence between Luther and 
 Leo 1 The one, sprung from the soil of Thuringia, 
 conservative to the core, severs himself, step 
 by step, gasping, with bleeding heart, from the 
 Church to which he is bound by a thousand 
 threads of belief and nationality ; he breaks the 
 yoke; erect, carrying his head high, the hero 
 stands there, no saint, a heretic if ever there 
 was one, and yet a man of childlike piety. The 
 other, the son of lighthearted Florence, 
 pampered and weakened from his youth by 
 luxurious pleasures and humanistic trifling, the 
 vicegerent of God, who is yet reported to have 
 
1 66 The Papacy 
 
 said, "It is known on all sides how well the 
 fable of Christ has served us and ours." How 
 naive must Luther's sensibilities have been 
 when, in the autumn of 1520, with all he knew 
 and after all his experience, he felt himeelf 
 called upon to appeal to this Pope's conscience 
 "simply out of honest anxiety and as in duty 
 bound." 
 
 If further proof were needed of the complete 
 indifference with which German affairs were 
 treated by Borne, a glance at Luther's trial 
 would be sufficient. The interview which 
 Cardinal Cajetan had with Luther in October, 
 1518, on the occasion of the Diet at Augsburg, 
 left no doubt as to what was to be expected 
 from this " brute with the deep eyes and strange 
 fantasies." In November Luther appealed to 
 a general council. At Leipsic in the summer 
 of 1519 he defended the thesis that the primacy 
 of the Roman Church depended only on the 
 "ice-like decrees of the Popes," while the text 
 of Scripture and the authenticated history of 
 more than a thousand years were against it. 
 But the year 1519 passed without any serious 
 action being taken against him. It was not till 
 Dr. Eck, Luther's able and learned opponent — 
 who looked upon him as a "heathen and a 
 publican" after the Leipsic disputation — came 
 to Home and with his intimate knowledge of 
 
The German Revolution 167 
 
 the dangerous state of German a£Fairs insisted 
 on energetic measures, that the matter was 
 taken in hand. And even then the Bull in 
 which Luther was threatened with excom- 
 munication — the same that he consigned to the 
 flames on December 10, 1520 — ^was the result of 
 a compromise 
 
 It is true that the Curia could not do what 
 it wished. It was too much mixed up with 
 political intrigues to be able to act on definite 
 principles. The necessity for considering the 
 feelings of Frederick the Wise, the Elector of 
 Saxony, was especially hampering. The first 
 half of the year 1519 was taken up with the 
 great question as to who should succeed Maxi* 
 milian as Emperor, and for a time Frederick 
 was the candidate supported by the Curia. The 
 state of feeling in Germany also made it very 
 doubtful whether Luther could be arraigned 
 before a Roman court. However, for one who 
 is interested in history from the point of view 
 of the idea of the Papacy, aU that is beside the 
 mark. The Catholic historian is right when he 
 speaks of the " inexcusable levity " of the Pope, 
 who, "when Luther's case was before the Diet of 
 Worms and numerous monks who sympathised 
 with the Wittenberg professor were preparing 
 to break their vows and marry, caused flippant 
 plays in which this subject was represented — 
 
1 68 The Papacy 
 
 nay, almost glorified— to be acted before him." 
 During the Carnival there had been a continual 
 round of festivities at the Castle of Sant' Angelo, 
 and business was quite put on one side. At this 
 very time the Bull issued on January 30th was 
 made public in Germany — the Bull by which 
 Luther and his followers were finally cut off 
 from the Church. It is no wonder that Hutten 
 wrote to Leo, " Thou must set bounds to thine 
 insolence and put a curb on these childish, 
 mischievous Bulls." 
 
 In the Brief that accompanied the Bull the 
 nuncios were exhorted to take energetic 
 measures "against all stiff-necked Lutherans, 
 even if they are clad in electoral dignity." 
 Aleander, to whom this command applied in 
 the first place, welcomed it, but, being an 
 intelligent man, he must have questioned its 
 practicability. The reports which he sent to 
 Rome from Worms, and which are among the 
 most interesting documents of the early Re- 
 formation period, are expressed in unmistakable 
 terms. For Aleander, the struggle between 
 Henry and Gregory was, compared with the 
 present one, but "violets and roses" ("viole e 
 rose "), mere child's play. He is sure of it ; nine- 
 tenths of Germany are ghouting " Luther I " and 
 the remaining tenth at least -" Death to the 
 Curia!" That is naturally not due to pure 
 
The German Revolution 169 
 
 enthusiasm for Luther's religious views, even 
 on the part of the clergy. " All these are by no 
 means moved because they have understood 
 much of the principles of Luther's doctrine — ^for 
 it is only his diatribes and Hutten's satires that 
 make any impression on them — but, being 
 already exasperated against the Roman Church, 
 they entangle their faith in the passions which 
 embitter them against Borne, and let it be 
 swallowed up in their hatred." The man who 
 wrote this knew that it was a question of war 
 to the bitter end. He must also have gnashed 
 his teeth at the thought that the first battle had 
 been lost and in consequence the prospect of 
 victory had become doubtful. 
 
 Leo died on December 1, 1521, before he had 
 completed his forty-sixth year. The election of 
 his successor, Hadrian VI. (1522-23), was due to 
 embarrassment on the part of the Cardinals; 
 the course of the Conclave gave cause for fear 
 that they would not agree on an Italian. For 
 this reason the Bishop of Tortosa, who was not 
 present, was elected. He was a Dutchman by 
 birth, who in his youth had been professor of 
 philosophy and theology at Louvain, and then 
 tutor to the future Emperor, Charles. When 
 Charles went to Germany in 1520 he left 
 Hadrian — who did not, as usual, change his 
 name when he became Pope — as his regent in 
 
170 The Papacy 
 
 Spain. It may reasonably be doubted whether 
 the Cardinals had a clear conception of the 
 import of their decision. Hadrian, the last 
 non-Italian in the Apostle's Chair, was the exact 
 opposite of his predecessor in every respect. 
 Always serious-minded and almost ponderous, 
 he regarded it as his mission to make an end 
 of the misdoings of the Curia and' to attempt 
 a real reform in the Church itself. It was only, 
 he said, in order to restore the degraded Bride 
 of Christ to her purity that he had bowed his 
 neck beneath the yoke of the papal dignity. 
 The stress he laid on the religious element in 
 the doctrine of indulgences made Oajetan fear 
 lest the authority of the papal see might suffer. 
 If we can imagine for a moment Hadrian as the 
 successor of Julius II., he would indeed have 
 been a Pope after Luther's own heart. It is 
 true that Hadrian had already shown, when 
 professor at Louvain, that he was quite averse 
 to any doctrinal innovations, and since then 
 Luther had changed. Hadrian felt the greatest 
 hatred for the heretic, the "carnal man," who 
 " ceaselessly indulged in wine and drunkenness " 
 and "wished to introduce the unrestrained life 
 of wild beasts." 
 
 For all his good-will he accomplished nothing. 
 In Home the opposition of his courtiers frus- 
 trated every attempt at reform, while in Ger- 
 
The German Revolution 171 
 
 many, those who had the ear and heart of the 
 people were not to be satisfied by such reforms 
 as the Pope had in mind and as Eck proposed 
 in several memorials with special reference to 
 German affairs. With a success unparalleled in 
 those early days of printing, the words of the 
 true reformer, flew through the land " as if the 
 angels themselves were messengers." Hadrian's 
 elaborate brief to the estates of the German 
 realm, summoning them to the fight against 
 the "poison of heresy" and prophesying that 
 the fate of Dathan and Abiram, Ananias and 
 Sapphira, Priscillian and Vigilantius would over- 
 take the "apostate monk," spoke to deaf ears. 
 Far from being infiuenced by it, the Diet of 
 Nuremberg decided, in January, 1523, that 
 nothing was to be taught in the Empire but 
 the true, pure, unalloyed gospel. There was 
 absolutely no thought of carrying out the 
 Edict of Worms. 
 
 Hadrian died in September of the same year, 
 and was succeeded by Giulio Medici, the cousin 
 of Leo X., under the name of Clement YII. 
 (1523-34). A man of great gifts, equally well 
 versed in natural science and the humanities, he 
 seemed peculiarly fitted to take the helm at 
 this dangerous time. Unfortunately, not only 
 was he unable to make himself master of the 
 complicated situation, but the measures he took 
 
172 The Papacy 
 
 contributed to make it worse. At a time when 
 the Church revolution in Germany should have 
 occupied his whole attention, he threw himself 
 into a politico-military undertaking for which 
 he lacked the necessary resources. He wished 
 to drive the Spaniards, whose influence he 
 himself had helped to increase under Leo, out 
 of Italy. The result was that he was besieged 
 in the Castle of Sant' Angelo and compelled to 
 witness the plundering of Rome, the worst that 
 the Eternal City had experienced since the days 
 of the Vandals. And at the same time he had 
 quarrelled with the Emperor, whose support was 
 indispensable to him in the German question. 
 This unfortunate state of things drove him into 
 the arms of Francis I. of France, and the under- 
 standing between the French king and the 
 Landgrave Philip of Hesse very nearly forced 
 the Pope into a political alliance with the 
 Protestant prince, whose attitude in the 
 religious question he attacked most bitterly. 
 
 The most cursory glance at these matters is 
 sufficient to show on what a dangerous incline 
 the papal policy was proceeding. The entrance 
 into secular affairs had been its ruin, and 
 Clement only involved it still further. He 
 showed no understanding of the religious ques- 
 tion. " To root out the poisonous growth with 
 fire and sword" seemed to him the last word 
 
The German Revolution 173 
 
 of wisdom ; and the best advice he could give 
 Charles V. through his legates at the Diet of 
 Augsburg was that the Emperor should confine 
 his attention to the sovereigns, from whom he 
 could squeeze a large sum of money, which, 
 indeed, was absolutely necessary to fight the 
 Turks. In this way he lost ground in Germany 
 year by year. A few months before his death 
 Wurtemberg also went over to the Protestants, 
 whose unconditional submission had long been 
 out of the question. 
 
 Added to that came the secession of England. 
 In June, 1534, Henry VIII., in a royal edict, 
 abolished the papal supremacy over England, 
 and on November 9th — a few weeks after 
 Clement's death — ^he had his edict confirmed 
 by Parliament. The cause of this far-reaching 
 step was the Pope's refusal to grant Henry a 
 divorce from Katharine of Aragon, the aunt 
 of Charles V. About this vexed question the 
 most animated negotiations had been going 
 on for years between the courts of England 
 and Rome. The shifty behaviour of the Pope 
 had certainly contributed much to incense the 
 King. We know now for certain that the 
 legate Campeggio, when he came to England 
 in 1528 on a special mission, was empowered 
 to make great advances, whereas Clement, on 
 the other hand, was continually prevented from 
 
174 The Papacy 
 
 coming to a decision by consideration for the 
 Emperor. It would not have been difficult for 
 him to put canonical considerations on one side 
 if he had really wished, and he can hardly have 
 had any religious scruples. Yet it may be 
 asked whether he would have gained anything 
 permanently by acceding to Henry's wishes. 
 All that is known of the political and eccle- 
 siastical history of England at that period 
 points to the fact that the time was ripe for 
 shaking off the Boman yoke. As a matter of 
 fact, in spite of all the clerical reactions, there 
 has never been any serious prospect of restoring 
 the papal rule in England. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Emperor, yielding to the 
 pressure of the Protestants, had, at and after 
 the Diet of Augsburg, thrown out the sugges- 
 tion that the religious question should be 
 decided by a council, and at a meeting with 
 the Pope had strongly insisted on this point. 
 Clement firmly rejected this attempt at con- 
 ciliation, and his opposition to it is easy to 
 understand if we remember what a renewal 
 of the efforts of the fifteenth-century councils 
 would have meant for the Curia; for Charles 
 naturally took it for granted that the council 
 would not sit, like those of the Lateran, in 
 dependence on the Pope. But the Emperor 
 did not cease to demand a settlement of the 
 
The German Revolution 175 
 
 religious difficulty, and found more encourage- 
 ment from Clement's successor. 
 
 Paul III. (Alexander Famese, 1534-49) showed 
 his inclination towards a policy of conciliation 
 in his choice of advisers. Among them Gasparo 
 Contarini, the Venetian Councillor, ambassador 
 of the Republic to Charles V. and afterwards 
 to the papal court, had the greatest influence 
 for a time. Paul made him while still a lay- 
 man a member of the Sacred College. He was 
 a gentle, peaceably-minded man, of unimpeach- 
 able integrity, who for years had fought, both 
 by his words and his writings, for reform — i.e., 
 for the remedying of the evils in the Church 
 and Curia — and who unreservedly supported the 
 attempts at an understanding with the opposing 
 party. Such an understanding could not but be 
 regarded as hopeless from the start. 
 
 With Luther of course it was out of the 
 question ; in his Schmalkaldic Articles he was 
 again hotly attacking the Pope, who "had 
 usurped his vain, devilish business with false, 
 wicked, blasphemous, usurped power, to the 
 ruin of the entire holy Church of Christ " ; 
 but there was hope with those who thought 
 like Melancthon : " I, Philip Melancthon, con- 
 sider these articles also right and Christian. 
 But concerning the Pope, I hold that, if he 
 will allow the gospel, we should, for the sake 
 
176 The Papacy 
 
 of peace and the common unity of those 
 Christians who are under him and will be in 
 the future, admit his customary superiority 
 over the bishops, ' jure humano ' (by human 
 right)." Contarini prevailed upon the Pope to 
 . summon a council at Mantua, to which the 
 Protestants were invited ; when this plan failed 
 he was the life and soul of the negotiations 
 for union that took place after 1540. In the 
 most important of these, the discussion on 
 reUgious matters at Eegensburg (1541), he took 
 part. He even thought that he could formu- 
 late the doctrine of Justification in terms 
 equally acceptable to Catholics and Protes- 
 tants; but in this he overstepped the limits 
 of what seemed tolerable to others who had 
 long since found themselves unable to share 
 his optimism in judging the situation. 
 
 Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, the leader of the 
 intransigeants of the Curia, was the very oppo- 
 site of Contarini ; passionate in his emotions 
 and impetuous in his actions, stern towards 
 himself and towards others, he had, first as 
 Bishop of Theate (Chieti) in the Abruzzi, then 
 as Archbishop of Brindisi, already striven to 
 effect the most rigorous reform of Church 
 life ; he was the founder of the Theatines, 
 that severely ascetic order of regular clergy, 
 numerically small but efficient and influential, 
 
The German Revolution 177 
 
 which was mostly recruited from among the 
 higher nobility. Contarini, whose knowledge 
 of human nature was not equal to his gene- 
 rosity, helped CarafFa to enter the Sacred 
 College, which he had vainly tried to do \mder 
 Clement VII. He was then already more than 
 sixty, yet hisr future still lay before him. His 
 programme turned on two points : first, war 
 to the knife against heresy, in accordance with 
 the maxim, "Heretics remain heretics, and 
 must be treated as such " ; second, the revival 
 and reorganisation of the forces with which 
 the Church had won her victories in the Middle 
 Ages. He caused the Roman Inquisition to be 
 founded (1542), he suggested the creation of 
 the Index of forbidden books (1548), he sup- 
 ported the efforts made to drive out all easy- 
 going Humanism. No diplomatist, but a man 
 of reactionary principles, he allowed no worldly 
 considerations to influence his actions. 
 
 It was not to be expected that such a man 
 would be interested in the still eagerly dis- 
 cussed idea of calling a general council. As 
 a matter of fact, he kept completely in the 
 background when the proposal was carried out, 
 and, in December, 1545, that great assembly 
 was opened at Trent, the decisions of which 
 mark a new era in the development of the 
 Catholic Church. When Paul III. died, in 
 
 12 
 
178 The Papacy 
 
 November, 1549, Del Monte, the President of 
 the council, was elected Pope after some 
 delay. He occupied St. Peter's Chair for five 
 years, under the name of Julius III. In obe- 
 dience to the Emperor's wish he admitted 
 Protestant theologians to the council, which 
 had been reopened after an interval of four 
 years. Caraffa had no influence over him, but 
 all the same his time had come. He had 
 nearly been victorious in the Conclave which, 
 in order to escape from a difficult situation, 
 elected Marcellus II. (Marcello Cervini) after 
 the death of Julius. On the death of Mar- 
 cellus, twenty-tw:p days later, he attained his 
 desire, when close upon seventy-nine years of 
 age. He had -not lifted a finger to become 
 Pope; his election was such a surprise, not 
 only to the Cardinals, but also to himself, that 
 he was convinced that the Popes were appointed 
 by God. 
 
 The few years of the pontificate of Paul IV. 
 (1555-59) were of great importance, not on 
 account of outward successes — on the contrary, 
 the Pope's narrow-minded hatred of Spain and 
 all that was Spanish plunged the Curia into 
 great difficulties — ^but because the spirit of the 
 counter-Reformation is stamped upon them 
 with remarkable sharpness. Paul is said not 
 to have missed a single sitting of the Holy 
 
The German Revolution 179 
 
 Office, the court that judged heretics. He 
 watched with inexorable sternness over the 
 execution of the sentences, and did not spare 
 even clergy of high dignity if their orthodoxy 
 appeared doubtful to him. The Index of for- 
 bidden books published by him made book- 
 sellers tremUe for their trade. But the whole 
 force of his vehemence revealed itself in the 
 Bull in which he laid down the rules for de- 
 posing and punishing rulers who were here- 
 tics or friendly to heretics, and even con- 
 sidered the possibility of deposing a Pope who 
 in the earlier days of his priestly career had 
 entertained heretical ideas. He prohibited all 
 translations of the Bible into the vulgar tongue. 
 He never forgave King Ferdinand for helping 
 to conclude the religious peace of Augsburg 
 (1555), which he looked upon as an insult to the 
 Church. At the same time the octogenarian 
 devoted himself with feverish impatience to 
 reform. The clergy and ritual were to be re- 
 organised, art and learning were to be made 
 wholly subservient to the Church. Throughout 
 he asserted his sovereign independence ; he ex- 
 pected nothing from the council, and for that 
 reason did not summon it again. He was the 
 best-hated man in Rome; in his eyes even the 
 Jesuits failed to find favour, and yet the future 
 lay with them. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FRESH TROOPS 
 
 WHILE, after the Protest at Spires, the 
 defection of Germany from Rome was 
 making irresistible progress, several young men, 
 mostly Spaniards, who were studying in Paris, 
 formed a religious society with the idea of 
 working, by God's grace, for their own salva- 
 tion and that of their fellow-men. The Basque 
 Inigo (Ignatius) Lopez de Recalde, called 
 Loyola after the castle in which he was born, 
 who was considerably older than the others 
 and intellectually superior to them aU, became 
 their leader. After a troubled youth this brave 
 officer had become a fervent votary of the 
 Blessed Virgin and her Son ; to them and to 
 the Church he dedicated his life. Though the 
 young men had wished originally to work 
 among the infidels in Palestine, Ignatius soon 
 saw that other methods of attaining their end 
 were better suited to the conditions of the age. 
 
 l8o 
 
Fresh Troops i8i 
 
 He and his friends, therefore, who had mean- 
 while completed their studies and had met 
 again on Italian soU, added to the three 
 customary monastic vows a fourth, viz., to 
 fight under the standard of the Cross, to serve 
 only the Lord of Heaven and the Roman 
 Pontiff, His Representative on earth. Whatever 
 the Pope commanded them for the saving of 
 souls and the spreading of the faith, and into 
 whatever countries he might send them, they 
 would consider themselves bound to obey as 
 far as lay in their power without hesitation 
 or excuses. The "Company of Jesus" was 
 the name which Ignatius, in obedience to God's 
 declared will, as he himself said, gave to the 
 little community that set itself to conquer 
 the world afresh for the Catholic Church. The 
 name of Jesuits, by which they became known, 
 was one which they themselves disliked. 
 
 Rightly recognising the priceless value of 
 the support which the Papacy might receive 
 from these fresh troops, Paul III. confirmed 
 the Order of the Society of Jesus on September 
 27, 1540. Julius III. considerably increased 
 their privileges. The Jesuits were granted 
 the rights of the Mendicant Orders and of the 
 secular clergy, and, together with their goods, 
 were exempted from all secular jurisdiction 
 and taxation. They were therefore subject 
 
1 82 The Papacy 
 
 to no one but their own superiors and the 
 Pope. They were given the right of exercising 
 all priestly functions even during an interdict, 
 of absolving from all penances and sins, of 
 commuting the vows of the laity into other 
 good works, of dispensing themselves from 
 fasts, from keeping the canonical hours and 
 from using the breviary, as well as of acquir- 
 ing churches and estates everywhere and of 
 founding conventual houses. Moreover, their 
 General, who was appointed for life, was given, 
 besides extensive powers over the members 
 of the Order, the right of sending them any- 
 where on any kind of scission, of appointing 
 them as teachers of theology in any place, and 
 of conferring academic degrees upon them. 
 The Order has shown itself grateful and kept 
 its vows ; it has worked steadfastly to lay 
 the Catholic world unconditionally at the feet 
 of the Pope as the absolute and infallible 
 master of Christendom. 
 
 The hatred of Paul IV. for the Spaniards 
 had a disturbing influence on his relations 
 with the Jesuits. When a Jesuit writer stated 
 that the Pope had so furthered the cause of 
 the Order that he might almost be looked 
 upon as its founder, this was at best only a 
 self-delusion on the part of that pious man. 
 In point of fact Ignatius did not succeed in 
 
Fresh Troops 183 
 
 gaining the confidence of the Pope, but he 
 never departed from his dutiful attitude to 
 him. The Pope doubted even the orthodoxy 
 of Ignatius — whose extravagant mysticism for 
 a time rendered him suspect to the Inquisition — 
 and as a politician he did not trust him the 
 width of the«road. He even withdrew pecuniary 
 support from the Order and thereby placed 
 Ignatius in great difficulties. Yet even Paul 
 could not do without the Fathers ; and when 
 he needed a particularly capable legate he 
 sent the Jesuit Salmeron, while the chant of 
 infallibility that Lainez, the successor of 
 Ignatius, was constantly raising, sounded 
 gratefully in his ear. 
 
 How valuable to the Papacy the support 
 of the Society was to become was seen when 
 Pius IV. (Medici, sprung from a plebeian 
 Milanese family unrelated to the Florentine 
 Medici, 1559-65) again summoned the council 
 to meet once more at Trent (January 18, 
 1562— December 4, 1563). Even in the first 
 sittings under Paul III. Lainez and Salmeron 
 had taken part by order of the Pope ; they 
 had modestly taken their places among the 
 ■■lesser" theologians; but Salmeron, a good 
 speaker and well versed in theology, distin- 
 guished himself even then, for the wording 
 of the doctrine of Justification accepted by 
 
184 The Papacy 
 
 the council was his. The second session under 
 JuUus saw the two Jesuits again in their 
 place, but they had little opportunity of 
 distinguishing themselves. The third session, 
 however, made up for this. In the interval 
 Lainez had become General of his Order 
 and Salmeron had gained high reputation 
 as a theologian and writer. Outwardly 
 their demeanour was as modest as ever ; 
 Lainez contented himself with the last 
 place of those reserved for the heads of 
 Orders, knowing, it is true, that he thus had 
 the advantage of being able to speak last in 
 the debate. He urged his views with incom- 
 parable dialectical skill, and what he said was 
 always calculated to promote the triumph of 
 the papal claim to universal power over the 
 Church. But above all he kept on presenting 
 in ever-fresh forms the idea that definitions 
 in matters of faith must come from the Holy 
 See, and the infallibility of the councils is but 
 an emanation from the infallibility of the Pope. 
 The Pope, thanks largely to these efforts of 
 the Jesuits, remained master of the council, 
 the decrees of which he confirmed in a special 
 Bull. In accordance with a resolution of the 
 council he gave to the ecclesiastical censorship 
 of books the form which, with small variations, 
 it kept down to the time of Leo XIII. But 
 
Fresh Troops 185 
 
 above all he formulated the vow which thence- 
 forth every one holding office in the Church 
 had to take, the " Professio fidei tridentina." 
 In this confession of faith the vow of obedience 
 to thp Pope as successor of St. Peter and Vicar 
 of Christ on earth was included, and the clergy 
 were thus fettered more firmly than ever to 
 the papalistic idea. 
 
 This idea itself took a specially high flight 
 in the years following the Council. The reign 
 of Pius IV. was only one of transition. Pius 
 V. (Michaele Ghislieri, a Dominican, 1566-72) 
 was called to continue his work. What we 
 know of his life and piety makes it easy to 
 understand why he was canonised. As Pope 
 he remained the monk in whose eyes religious 
 things came before all else, who continued in 
 prayer for hours at a time, who took part 
 in processions barefoot and bareheaded, who 
 counted worldly honour and earthly posses- 
 sions as nothing, who did not lift a finger to 
 advance his relations, and looked upon the 
 scandalous goings-on in Borne as an abomina- 
 tion in the Holy Place. That the blood of 
 heretics is on his halo need not perplex the 
 Church, for this blood was shed for the greater 
 glory of God and of His holy will. 
 
 Pius V. did much for the Church. It was 
 under him that the resolutions of the Council 
 
1 86 The Papacy 
 
 of Trent were first carried out in their entirety : 
 at his command was issued the Roman Cate- 
 chism, which became this religious handbook 
 for the Catholic clergy of all lands; he caused 
 the Roman breviary and missal to be published, 
 and thus gave an uniform foundation both to 
 public worship and to private devotion. But 
 his heart — if we may speak of a heart in con- 
 nection with things that so sorely wound our 
 humane feelings — was really in the persecution 
 of heretics. It was not for nothing that, 
 before he became Pope, he had served the 
 Inquisition for many years in various positions, 
 and finally as Head of the Holy Office in Rome. 
 His burning hatred of heretics consumed all 
 else in him. As Pope also he waged a pitiless 
 war against them wherever his secular arm 
 could reach them. The last remnants not only 
 of the reform movement in Rome and Italy, 
 but also of the more liberal Catholicism, were 
 rooted out by him. Under him died Pietro 
 Carnesecchi ; under him Bartolommeo Carranza, 
 a Dominican like himself and Archbishop of 
 Toledo, languished in the dungeons of the 
 Inquisition. It was on apostate England, how- 
 ever, that Pius poured out all the vials of hia 
 wrath. The thought of the Catholics who had 
 been di'iven thence never left him ; he said 
 once that he would willingly shed his life-blood 
 
Fresh Troops 187 
 
 for them. He took vengeance by the thunder- 
 bolt of excommunication with which he thought 
 to strike the maiden queen — a bastard in his 
 eyes. "We might well think ourselves back in 
 the Middle Ages when we read the words 
 with which the Pope uttered his sentence of 
 deposition on* the " sham queen " and freed her 
 subjects from thteir oath of allegiance. The 
 suspicion has even clung to him that he was 
 no stranger to the attempts on Elizabeth's 
 life. Undoubtedly he would have thought it 
 a good work, if some one had made away with 
 the heretic who, for him, personified the opposi- 
 tion to God and His gospel. But Pius is not less 
 holy in the opinion of the Church because he 
 gave way to such thoughts. 
 
 For us, however, who are not discussing 
 holiness and unholiness, but are rather en- 
 deavouring to trace the working out of an 
 idea, there is something else of more import- 
 ance. The necessity for checking heresy brought 
 the Papacy once more face to face with its 
 apostolic mission. The command, "Feed My 
 sheep," still sounded, with the same inflexi- 
 bility as a thousand or fifteen hundred years 
 ago. Pius V. devoted himself with disinter- 
 ested faithfulness to this work and did not 
 shrink from giving the sharpest provocation 
 when there was question of asserting this idea. 
 
1 88 The Papacy 
 
 He added the Protestant heresy to the Bull 
 " In Coena Domini " (i.e., " at the Supper of the 
 Lord"), the list, which had been drawn up 
 centuries before, of all that was banned by the 
 Holy See, and once more ordered it to be read 
 aloud on Maundy Thursday, to remind princes 
 and people afresh of their dependence on the 
 Pope alone, in things both temporal and 
 spiritual. 
 
 It cannot be denied that for a time things 
 looked as if the idea of the Papacy were 
 destined to a new birth. The community of 
 interests out of which grew at that time a 
 definite Catholic policy of which the Pope 
 seemed to be the natural leader, made the 
 Powers look more than ever to Borne. Under 
 the successors of Pius V., who continued his 
 policy, Gregory XIII. (Ugone Buoncampagni, 
 1573-85), Sixtus V. (Felice Peretti, 1585-90), and 
 — after two Popes of no importance^— Clement 
 VIII. (Ippolito Aldobrandini, 1592-1605), not 
 only did the threads of the ecclesiastical 
 counter-Reformation .meet in Home, but Rome's 
 influence is to be seen in all public State affairs. 
 How eagerly did the Curia take part in those 
 plans for the invasion of England which reached 
 their culminating point in the Armada and 
 came to an end with its destruction ! How 
 busily did it interfere in the complications in 
 
Fresh Troops 189 
 
 France under Charles IX., Henry III., and 
 Henry IV I His influence over the Powers 
 of Southern Europe enabled Pius V. to stir 
 up Christian feeling against the Turks, and 
 Sixtus V. cotdd dream of the possibility of 
 conquering Egypt. 
 
 Yet we shotild be quite in the wrong if we 
 assumed that, for the Powers, community of 
 interests gave rise to any idea of dependence 
 on the Papal See in the sense of the apostolic 
 watchword once more taken up by Pius V. 
 The hereditary devotion of the German and 
 Spanish Hapsburgs proved this as little as 
 the feigned submissiveness of Henry IV. when 
 on his conversion to Catholicism (1595) he made 
 his ambassadors accept in his stead the absolv- 
 ing blow of the papal rod. In reality this 
 devotion very quickly came to an end even in 
 Spain, and the French King never had any 
 intention of directing his policy otherwise than 
 in accordance with his own judgment and 
 interests. Even Clement VIII. was obliged to 
 fall back on the policy of " Do ut des," which 
 was certainly a lapse from the ideal, but at 
 the same time was the only way of attaining 
 anything definite. Gregory XIII. had a medal 
 struck to celebrate the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew (1572), Clement VIII, did not dare 
 to oppose the Edict of Nantes (1598). He had 
 
I go The Papacy 
 
 to come to terms with the King, for he needed 
 his help ; it was thanks to him that he suc- 
 ceeded in incorporating Ferrara — the Duchy 
 of the House of Este — in the States of the 
 Church. 
 
 The care of the States of the Church became 
 an increasingly important point in the papal 
 programme. The temporal power proved more 
 and naore dangerous for the representative of 
 St. Peter, for the administration of the States 
 cost much time and money, and always con- 
 tained the germ of misunderstandings with the 
 other rulers in Italy. For the historian of the 
 Papal States or of Rome under the Popes this 
 period offers a wide field. Pius V. had already 
 tried to rescue the States from the decay to 
 which they seemed doomed, but the Draconian 
 and doctrinaire measures of the unworldly 
 Inquisitor did more harm than good. Gregory 
 XIII. — the same who won undying fame by 
 his reform of the Calendar — did his best, but 
 he was powerless against the brigandage that 
 grew more daring than ever under the protec- 
 tion of the nobility, while money was always 
 lacking for the public buildings and improve- 
 ments which he began. There was no epoch- 
 making Pope till Sixtus V. In his youth Felice 
 Peretti had been a swineherd, then he went 
 to the Franciscans, and since he had taken 
 
Fresh Troops 191 
 
 Borne by storm in 1552 with his Lenten sermons 
 he had been the darling of Ghislieri, who 
 shortly after became Pius V. He ruled like a 
 prince after the heart of Machiavelli, though 
 a prince not of the Renaissance, but of the 
 counter-Reformation. The people regarded him 
 with awe. They credited him, like Alexander 
 YI., with having made a compact with the Evil 
 One, and destroyed his statue after his death. 
 He watched over the public order with cruel 
 severity and alrely succeeded in mastering the 
 brigands. His brilliant and much-admired 
 financial policy, which he placed under the 
 protection of the Virgin and SS. Peter and Paul, 
 filled his coffers, though he dipped freely into 
 them to carry out great plans in great style. 
 Rome owes him various agricultural improve- 
 ments, especially the first steps towards drain- 
 ing the Pontine marshes, and the great water 
 supply, the Aqua Felice, which had to be 
 brought into the city from the Alban hills. Nor 
 was Art idle under him, though the spirit of 
 Sixtus lY., whose name he had taken, did not 
 rest upon this Pope, still less that of Julius II. 
 or Leo X. The obelisk in St. Peter's Square, 
 surmounted by a cross, is a standing monument 
 of the pseudo-improvement of the antique by 
 a misunderstood Christianity. 
 There remains one more question, the most 
 
192 The Papacy 
 
 important of all : What did these Popes do for 
 the counter-Reformation itself ? But this ques- 
 tion is inseparably connected with another: 
 What was their attitude to the Jesuits? The 
 Order was not founded to fight against Pro- 
 testantism ; but, as things were, this necessarily 
 became before long their most important task. 
 The unshaken tenacity with which the first 
 generations of the Order devoted themselves 
 to it cannot be sufficiently admired. They saw 
 at once that no success could be hoped for 
 without a thoroughgoing change for the better 
 within the Church itself, and, with a zeal that 
 feared no obstacles, they set to work to bring 
 about this change. The average ecclesiastic 
 looked on with unfavourable eyes; the Jesuits 
 attacked what was rotten too violently and 
 broke too decidedly with ordinary routine 
 Christianity not to meet with opposition. Their 
 boundless belief in articles of faith which en- 
 lightened Catholics had long allowed to drop, 
 the unyieldingness with which they insisted on 
 blind obedience to the Church and her Head, 
 made them very unpopular at first, especially 
 with ecclesiastical politicians. On the other 
 hand they were loved by the people, whose 
 childlike minds they exactly understood, to 
 whose consciences they appealed without 
 laying too heavy a burden upon them^ whom 
 
Fresh Troops 193 
 
 they delighted by the imaginative richness of 
 their worship and whose simple piety they fed 
 with new and ingenious devices. The crown of 
 their labours, however, was the capture of the 
 schools and thereby of the power of influencing 
 the coming generation. 
 
 Rome remained their centre, the Pope their 
 chief protector. One of the most fruitful 
 suggestions of Ignatius was the foundation of 
 those clerical seminaries in Rome, where 
 Catholic youths from countries which were 
 either non-Catholic or threatening to become 
 so, were educated, in order that later on they 
 might work with absolute self-surrender to 
 diffuse in their own lands the ideas imbibed 
 in Rome. The model of these colleges was the 
 Collegium Germanicum "with its red coats, 
 founded by Ignatius and reorganised by 
 Gregory XIII. Gregory also transformed the 
 Collegium Romanum, which likewise owed its 
 inception to Ignatius, into the " Gregorian 
 University," and it is still to-day the nursery 
 of the Jesuit ultramontane spirit. Indeed, he 
 had a hand in all the scholastic enterprises of 
 the Jesuits. 
 
 As the Order was ruled at that time by a 
 weak General whom Gregory himself had forced 
 upon it, it is easy to understand that papal 
 influence became greater than was consistent 
 
 13 
 
194 The Papacy 
 
 with the ideas of its founder. Claudio Aqua- 
 viva, whose Generalship (1582-1605) marks the 
 highest point of the first period in the develop- 
 ment of the Order, restored the independence 
 that, with all due submission to papal authority, 
 was essential to it. This was the more difi&cult 
 to accomplish in that the long existing anta- 
 gonism to the Dominicans became an open 
 hostility at this time, and the Dominicans in 
 conjunction with the Spanish Government did 
 their best to stir up mistrust against the 
 Jesuits. 
 
 Apart from this they had a hard battle to 
 fight under the despotic Sixtus V. The Pope 
 considered it an act of high treason that the 
 Jesuit Bellarmine should twist the theory of 
 the universal dominion of. the Papacy, which 
 had been set forth by Pius V. and appeared 
 self-evident to his successors, into the view that 
 spiritual power alone belonged directly and 
 immediately to the Pope as Pope, while tem- 
 poral power, though of the most exalted kind, 
 only belonged to him indirectly, just because 
 of his spiritual power. He did not see that it 
 was only a question of an extraordinarily skilful 
 manoeuvre which led to the same goal by a 
 roundabout road without contradicting too 
 flatly the modern conception of the State, and 
 that in practice no Jesuit would ever think of 
 
Fresh Troops 195 
 
 distinguishing between "direct" and "indirect." 
 Clement YIII. soon learnt to appreciate the 
 Order again. In the political intrigues that 
 almost entirely filled his time the Jesuits proved 
 themselves astute accomplices, never at a loss 
 in their choice of means, always able to inter- 
 pret custom £tnd law in accordance with their 
 highest ends. There was soon nothing of im- 
 portance in which they did not play a leading 
 part; by their adroit attitude at court and 
 their methods in the confessional, so skil- 
 fully calculated to suit the weaknesses of the 
 great, they were able to keep themselves in 
 power. 
 
 Pope Paul V. (Camillo Borghese, 1605-21), 
 who put Copernicus on the Index and governed 
 the Church on the principles of Sixtus Y., leant 
 throughout on the Jesuits and supported them 
 in dif&culties. The bitterness of his feud with 
 Venice, in which he resorted to the mediaeval 
 weapons of ban and interdict, was largely due 
 to the fact that the Republic had driven out 
 the Jesuits and the Pope was anxious to compel 
 their return. Just at that time they were 
 engaged in spreading everywhere, with their 
 seductive dialectic, the dangerous doctrine of 
 the subordination of the temporal to the 
 spiritual power, of princes to the Pope. Tre- 
 mendous excitement was aroused by their 
 
196 The Papacy 
 
 theories. The Spaniard Mariana's "De Rege," 
 in which the lawfuhiess of killing tyrants was 
 illustrated by the example of Clement, the 
 assassin of Henry III. of France, was burnt 
 by the hangman when Bavaillac's murder of 
 Henry IV. in 1610 seemed to prove whither 
 such views must lead. The same fate befell 
 Suarez' " Defence of the Catholic Faith," which 
 was aimed at James I. of England, and in which 
 the Roman Catholic subjects of the king were 
 incited to rebel against the Government. 
 Paul V. recognised his own spirit in these 
 theories and defended them warmly and even 
 officially. He forbade the English Roman 
 Catholics to take the oath of allegiance and 
 said that the Lord of Hosts had judged the 
 reprobate French King. 
 
 The Jesuits' greatest triumphs, however, were 
 under Gregory XV. (Alessandro Ludovisio, 1621- 
 23) — or perhaps it would be more correct to 
 say under Ludovico Ludovisio. He it was who 
 ruled in the name of the decrepit old Pope his 
 uncle, and he had been brought up by the 
 Jesuits. Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier, 
 the great missionary, were canonised at this 
 time, and, what was most important, the 
 Congregation of the Propaganda, the centre 
 of Roman Catholic missions to the heathen, was 
 founded. Also, as if to illustrate in the most 
 
Fresh Troops 197 
 
 drastic way Rome's claim to be the mistress 
 of all culture and learning, Maximilian of 
 Bavaria gave over the Heidelberg library, 
 which he had captured, to the Pope, who had 
 it placed in the Vatican under the name of 
 " Bibliotheca Palatina," 
 
 Without tlie Jesuits the Papacy could cer- 
 tainly not have become once more a great 
 power in the eyes of the nations, and yet 
 Sixtus V. was inspired by the right feeling 
 when he found himself unable to conquer his 
 dislike to the Order. If we reflect upon the 
 idea of the Papacy and upon the great men 
 who embodied it, we feel loath to leave this 
 Pope. He is the last for centuries who is really 
 interesting. Not the least reason for this is 
 that the Jesuits secured the chief part in 
 guiding the destinies of the Church. The Black 
 Pope gradually takes his place beside the white 
 one, or, to use another metaphor, the Pope 
 becomes more and more like the king in a game 
 of chess. It is of course the soldier's first duty 
 to protect the king, but the king has a very 
 limited power of moving and he is only allowed 
 to take part in the battle so long as he does 
 not endanger the victory. The Pope remains 
 the representative of Christ to whom the Jesuits 
 have sworn to be faithful even unto death, but 
 their General is the leader, and the " Company 
 
1 98 The Papacy 
 
 of Jesus" is the guard. Will it be possible 
 to avoid friction with such an arrangement, 
 and will military subordination stand the 
 test? 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 DEFEATS 
 
 NO one can dispute the fact that the Popes 
 of the counter-Reformation took their 
 office as shepherds of souls seriously, often 
 almost too seriously. We only realise what 
 that means when we turn from Gregory XV. 
 to Urban VIII. (Matteo Barberini, 1623-44), who 
 reigned longer than any Pope since the time 
 of Hadrian I. and Leo III. We breathe quite 
 a different air. We feel as if we were in 
 Florence or some other Italian princely court ; 
 the thought that we have to do with a Pope 
 is the last that occurs to us. Urban VIII. 
 busied himself with cannon and soldiers ; he 
 fitted up the rooms of the Vatican library as 
 an armoury. In contrast to the pious exercises 
 of his predecessors he composed verses and 
 sought after wealth and splendour for his 
 family, which he had raised to princely rank. 
 Men used to say later of the bees in the 
 
 199 
 
200 The Papacy 
 
 Barberini coat-of-arms that it was no wonder 
 they were fat, for they had had their fill of 
 honey for more than twenty years. The papal 
 foreign policy changed also. The Emperor 
 Ferdinand 11. could never persuade Urban 
 to look upon the Thirty Tears' War as a 
 religious war, though he himself waged it as 
 such. Urban's anti-Hapsburg interests even 
 led him to sympathise with Gustavus 
 Adolphus, and it was indignantly said at the 
 Curia that the King of Sweden showed more 
 zeal for Lutheranism than the Holy Father for 
 the one true faith. In these circumstances it 
 might seem strange that this Pope should 
 have given the Bull "In Coena Domini" its 
 final form, if we did not know that he was as 
 proud of his position as any of his prede- 
 cessors, though more from a personal point of 
 view than as the successor of St. Peter. In 
 the history of intellectual development he has 
 no good name, for it was under him that 
 the trial of Galileo took place. 
 
 His reign was not a happy introduction to 
 the next hundred years. Viewed as a whole, 
 they form no glorious page in the history of the 
 Idea of the Papacy and of those who embodied 
 it. We meet with neither great thoughts nor 
 powerful personalities. It makes little differ- 
 ence whether the Popes are called Innocent or 
 
Defeats 201 
 
 Alexander, Clement or Benedict. An excep- 
 tion might perhaps be made in favour of 
 Innocent XI, (1676-89), who at least created 
 a definite impression, though it cost him his 
 position as head of Catholic Christendom. The 
 fact that he was Pope did not prevent him 
 from giving his blessing to William of Orange, 
 in the hope that his expedition to England 
 would embarrass his hated foe Louis XIY. 
 Banke rightly draws attention to the fact 
 that Rome was the centre of an alliance 
 which had the aim and result of freeing 
 Protestanism in Western Europe from the 
 last and greatest danger that threatened it, 
 and of permanently gaining the English throne 
 for that form of belief. The spirit of the 
 counter-Reformation had died out. 
 
 Generally speaking, we may say that the 
 Popes were of no account in international 
 politics. No one heeded the touching lamen- 
 tation with which Innocent X. (1644-55) 
 bemoaned the "serious hurt done to the 
 Catholic religion and the papal rights" by 
 the Peace of Westphalia. It was quite in vain 
 that Clement XI. (1700-21) stigmatised the 
 raising of the Elector of Brandenburg to the 
 throne of Prussia as a "shameless crime 
 against religion" degrading the sacredness of 
 the royal dignity. No one took any notice 
 
202 The Papacy 
 
 when the same Clement insisted that his 
 Nuncios should be admitted to the negotiations 
 for the Peace of Utrecht. The Holy See was 
 bereft of Sicily, Sardinia, and soon after Parma 
 and Piacenza, in spite of the Pope's protests; 
 Austria and the Boiirbons opposed him; the 
 claims of Naples, which would fain have 
 abolished all ecclesiastical privileges, not to 
 speak of the Pope's, became peculiarly burden- 
 some. In the year 1737 the Venetian Ambas- 
 sador in Rome wrote to his Government : " I 
 cannot deny that there is something unnatural 
 in the sight of all the Catholic Governments 
 in such disagreement with the Boman Court 
 that no reconciliation can be imagined Which 
 would not vitally injure this Court. Whether 
 it be due to greater enlightenment, as many 
 say, or to the spirit of oppression of the weak, 
 it is certain that the rulers are rapidly advanc- 
 ing towards depriving the See of Bome of all 
 its temporal rights." 
 
 If this was true in secular politics, it was 
 hardly less so in ecclesiastical. Here, too, the 
 Pope's influence was everywhere on the wane. 
 France especially was a source of di:^ulty. 
 Louis XIV., the Most Christian King, had 
 indeed Jesuit directors, and Mme. de Maintenon, 
 a zealous proselytiser, was continually stirring 
 him up against heretics. Nevertheless he was 
 
Defeats 203 
 
 always at war with the Curia. It was opposi- 
 tion to the Curia and not a fit of ecclesiastical 
 liberalism that made him give his sanction to 
 the Galilean ideas with which the French 
 clergy were still imbued, and issue a royal 
 edict (1682) to the effect that not only had 
 the Pope no power in civil miatters but also 
 .his spiritual authority was subordinate to that 
 of the general councils, and even in matters 
 of faith his decision without the assent of the 
 Church was not inalterable. Innocent XI. 
 caused the four articles in which the declara- 
 tion of these " GaUican liberties " (" Libert^s de 
 r^glise gallicane") was formulated to be burnt 
 by the hangman, and Innocent XII. had the 
 satisfaction of seeing the bishops obliged "to 
 throw themselves at the feet of His Holiness 
 and to confess their unspeakable grief" at 
 having accepted the articles. Louis had left 
 them in the lurch as soon as a temporary 
 better understanding with the Curia made him 
 think it advisable. If the articles were not 
 formally withdrawn, there was no further talk 
 for the time being of a GaUican Church in- 
 dependent of Home. 
 
 The French clergy gave the Curia constant 
 trouble on another point also. The second half 
 of the seventeenth century was filled with the 
 so-called Jansenist disputes, i.e., with the move- 
 
204 The Papacy 
 
 ment started by the Dutch theologian Cornelius 
 Jansenius, or, to be more precise, by his book on 
 the theology of St. Augustine, published after 
 his death (1640). In this work the doctrines of 
 the absolute corruption of human nature, of the 
 bondage of the human wiU, of the irresistible 
 action of Divine grace, and of predestination, 
 were expounded in the words and in the spirit 
 of the great Father. At a time when the 
 Jesuits were teaching very much the opposite, 
 this revival of an inward piety that did not 
 shrink from sounding the depths of religion 
 could not fail to make a deep impression. A 
 number of learned men, who were also able 
 writers and closely connected with the Cistercian 
 convent of Port Royal des Champs, near Paris, 
 and with its pious Abbess Ang^lique Amauld, 
 banded themselves together to propagate these 
 serious ideas in opposition to the superficiality 
 of Jesuit morals and religion. They even took 
 the aggressive. It was Jansenism that inspired 
 the celebrated " Lettres provinciales " (1661), in 
 which the mathematician Blaise Pascal piUoried 
 Jesuitism before the educated world. 
 
 But the Jesuits were under the protection of 
 the Holy See. In 1642 they had procured fronx 
 Urban VIII. a Bull censuring the " Augustinus 
 Redivivus," though only in general terms. 
 Innocent X. condemned as heretical (1653) a 
 
Defeats 205 
 
 number of propositions drawn from Jansenius's 
 book, and when the Jansenists contended 
 that these propositions did not express their 
 opinions, Alexander VII. (1656) ruled that they 
 did. This encroachment of the doctrinal 
 authority of the Pope — who did not seem 
 called upon *to decide a simple matter of fact 
 — aroused widespread indignation. As things 
 turned out, the Curia under Clement IX. 
 (1668) condescended to retract on this point, 
 though it maintained the condemnation of the 
 propositions. It seemed almost as if the dispute 
 were ended by this compromise, when the 
 publication of a New Testament with Jansenistic 
 notes by the Oratorian Paschasius Quesnel 
 stirred it up afresh. The book soon obtained 
 a large circulation, and as at the same time a 
 critical edition of St. Augustine's works issued 
 by the Benedictines proved that Jansenius was 
 right in claiming that his ideas were Augus- 
 tinian, the result was a further strengthening 
 of the feeling against the Jesuits and the Curia. 
 The Jesuits then induced Clement XI. to issue 
 the. Constitution " Unigenitus " (1713), in which 
 a hundred and one propositions from Quesnel's 
 New Testament were condemned, because sus- 
 ceptible of Jansenistic interpretation. The 
 French clergy were divided into " Consti- 
 tutionalists " and " anti • Constitutionalists." 
 
2o6 The Papacy 
 
 Finally the Curia succeeded, by granting the 
 much desired cardinal's hat to the ministers 
 of Louis XV., in obtaining the recognition of 
 the Bull as a law of the realm. 
 
 This was the last success gained by the Curia 
 — or by the Jesuits — for a long season. The 
 Society of Jesus was on the high-road to power 
 when their long-maintained caution deserted 
 them and they became over-confident. Com- 
 plaints of their theatrical method of education, 
 of the superficiality of their teaching, and of 
 the unscrupulousness of their morality grew 
 louder and louder. Moreover, great indignation 
 was aroused by the ease with which the Jesuit 
 missionaries accommodated themselves to 
 heathen customs, and especially by the com- 
 mercial spirit that characterised their under- 
 takings. Finally, they ruined their cause with 
 the Pope by their refractoriness in India and 
 China to the papal decrees. 
 
 Benedict XIV. (Prospero Lambertini, 1740-58), 
 who had most to suffer from this insubor- 
 dination, had thought, towards the end of his 
 life, of reforming the Order by force. He was, 
 indeed, a wonderful Pope. It has been well said 
 that with him the spirit of enlightenment took 
 possession of the Papal See ; though, of course, 
 not in an anti-ecclesiastical form. Benedict 
 showed an understanding for the needs of his 
 
Defeats 207 
 
 time in so far as they were consistent with the 
 traditions of his apostolic office. As sovereign 
 he looked after the welfare of his subjects, 
 he encouraged agriculture and industries and 
 reduced the burden of taxation. Himself a 
 man of letters, he regularly frequented the 
 society of scholars, enlarged the Vatican library, 
 and founded academies of Archaeology and 
 Church History. As head of the Church he cut 
 down much that had grown rank under the 
 Jesuits, and interested himself in the education 
 of the clergy. In politics he was moderate ; he 
 showed an accommodating spirit as regards the 
 limits of the spiritual and temporal spheres of 
 power, and succeeded in maintaining peaceable 
 relations even with the Protestant rulers. 
 Frederick the Great spoke of him with marked 
 respect, and even if there was irony in Voltaire's 
 dedication of his " Mahomet " to the Pope, the 
 very fact of the dedication proves that attention 
 was paid to Benedict by the advanced men of 
 his day. If we add that the Pope, while leading 
 an irreproachable life, was a cheerful and 
 amiable companion — many of his witticisms 
 sound somewhat strange in the mouth of the 
 representative of St. Peter — we get a picture 
 that is almost unique in the history of the 
 Popes. " Though all truth," is one of his sayings, 
 " is locked up in my breast I must confess that 
 I cannot find the key to it." 
 
2o8 The Papacy 
 
 We can understand that such a Pope was not 
 after the Jesuits' own heart. They exerted all 
 their influence in the Sacred College when 
 Benedict's successor was to be elected, and 
 Clement XIII. (Carlo Rezzonico, 1758-69) was 
 a mere creature of the Order. No reforms 
 were to be expected from him ; when Louis XV. 
 tried to obtain one from Eicci, the General of 
 the Jesuits, he made the famous reply : " Sint 
 ut sunt aut non sint " (" As they are or not at 
 all"). Then the temporal powers began the 
 fight on their own account. In Portugal the 
 despotic minister Pombal took advantage of an 
 attempt against the King's life — ^fathered on the 
 Jesuits without demonstrable justification — to 
 drive the Order from the country (1759). In 
 France the bankruptcy of the firm of La Valette 
 in Martinique — financed by the Jesuits — and the 
 ensuing scandal and trial made them impossible 
 (1764). The remaining Bourbon States — Spain, 
 Parma, Naples — and also Milan and Venice, 
 followed suit. Clement tried to protect the 
 Order by inflicting the Interdict on its perse- 
 cutors, but in vain. He complained in powerless 
 wrath that " the Vicar of Christ was treated 
 like the lowest of mortals." 
 
 His successor was the last Clement, for he 
 would indeed be a bold man who should take 
 the name after him. Clement XIV. (Lorenzo 
 
Defeats 209 
 
 Ganganelli (1769-74), who was elected after 
 a long Conclave, had heen the candidate of the 
 Bourbon courts. Like a prudent man, who had 
 said once, " I sleep quietly because I know that 
 my thoughts sleep with me," and who, as the 
 French ambassador opined, always appeared to 
 be on the side of the person to whom he was 
 speaking, he had made no definite promises; but 
 his remark that a Pope could break up the 
 Order, in spite of the Jesuits' assertion to the 
 contrary, might be considered sufficient guar- 
 antee. However, he waited four years before 
 making up his mind, under increasing pressure, 
 to this momentous step. On July 21, 1773, he 
 signed the Brief "Dominus ac redemptor noster" 
 ("Our Lord and Saviour"), which was made 
 public on August 16th. An attentive study of 
 this carefully drawn up document, remarkable 
 for its length, shows that there is no question 
 of a condemnation of the Order on principle. 
 On the contrary, the alleged ground for the 
 dissolution of the Order was that it no longer 
 produced the rich fruits and the great benefits 
 which had been expected at its foundation and 
 which it had really produced in its early days. 
 Attention was drawn to the divisions it had 
 caused in the various States and even in the 
 Church, to the teaching of its members, which 
 was dangerous to sound faith and good morals, 
 
 14 
 
210 The Papacy 
 
 and to their unspiritual greed after worldly 
 possessions. It was stated to be impossible 
 for the Church to attain true and lasting peace 
 as long as the Society of Jesus remained in 
 existence. 
 
 From the Catholic point of view it can always 
 be truly objected against this Brief that, in 
 spite of its show of absolute papal authority, it 
 was but a measure of convenience ; the reasons 
 alleged justify only a censure and not the 
 dissolution of the Order, The non-Catholic 
 who is interested in the history of the papal 
 idea must on no account leave out of con- 
 sideration the fact that the dissolution of 
 the Order was directly opposed to the interests 
 of the Papacy. That the precariousness of 
 the measure did not make itself felt, as must 
 have been the case in normal circumstances, 
 was due to the French Revolution, which swept 
 like a tidal wave over the whole Catholic 
 world and even submerged the Barque of Peter. 
 No steersman, however skilful — not even the 
 must astute Jesuit — could have saved it from 
 this disaster. 
 
 The vacancy after Clement's death lasted for 
 more than four months. Pius VI. (Angelo 
 Braschi, 1775-99) could not be elected till he 
 had reassured the Bourbon courts on the 
 Jesuit question. If he could have had his way 
 
Defeats 211 
 
 he would have instantly withdrawn his pre- 
 decessor's edict. However, he had to content 
 himself with granting a semi-official protec- 
 tion, so to speak, to the dispersed Order. 
 Besides, his attention was absorbed by the 
 dangerous turn which Church affairs had taken 
 in Germany and Austria. 
 
 The German Church had been for nearly 
 two centuries under the influence and finally 
 under the domination of Jesuitism, but about 
 the middle of the eighteenth century a reac- 
 tion set in. It soon attained formidable pro- 
 portions, aided as it was by the so-called 
 " Enlightenment " in philosophy, literature, and 
 history. This liberal Catholicism was strongly 
 represented at the courts of the great bishops 
 and archbishops, who, by appointing liberal- 
 minded professors to their seminaries, ensured 
 that the clergy should be made acquainted 
 with the advance of learning. The natural 
 result was a weakening of that antagonism 
 to Protestantism which the Jesuits had made 
 so acute, and the gradual emancipation of 
 the Protestant subjects even of the spiritual 
 princes. A still more important consequence 
 was a lessening of papal authority : episcopa- 
 listic ideas sprang up everywhere, and beside 
 Gallicanism we find clearly expressed the 
 "natural rights" theories of men like Hugo 
 
212 The Papacy 
 
 Grotius and Pufendorf, and the doctrine of 
 the omnipotence of the State. 
 
 The last-mentioned ideas are to be found in 
 a concentrated form in a work on the "State 
 of the Church and, the Legitimate Power of 
 the Eoman Pontiff," written in Latin by the 
 suffragan bishop of Treves, Nicholas Ton Hon- 
 theim, and published under the pseudonjnn of 
 Justinus Febronius, in 1763. The author indi- 
 cates on the title-page the object of the book, 
 viz., the reunion of the different confessions, 
 and for the attainment of this object he recom- 
 mends a return to the constitution of the 
 Primitive Church. This was, indeed, a Utopia, 
 but Febronius supported it by an exposition 
 based on wide reading in Dutch, French, and 
 German, and made a very impressive defence 
 of the episcopalistic system. The eager recep- 
 tion of the book was immediately noted by 
 the Curia, and in 1764 it was already on the 
 Index. Clement XIII. endeavoured, without 
 result, to make Joachim Philip of Treves take 
 measures against his suffragan. Clement XIV. 
 was engrossed by the Jesuit question, but 
 Pius VI. took up the matter again, and in 
 1778 Clement Wenzel of Treves, influenced by 
 ex-Jesuits, obliged the almost octogenarian 
 author to retract. 
 But the matter was by no means ended by 
 
Defeats 213 
 
 Hontheim's submission. On the contraiy, it 
 was soon seen that the Febronius affair was 
 likely to have after-effects on ecclesiastical 
 politics that would be very unpleasant for the 
 Curia. In the year 1785 Pius VI., by agree- 
 ment with Charles Theodore of Bavaria, estab- 
 lished a nunciature at Munich. Bavaria, which 
 was then very scattered, including, besides Old 
 Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate, the Pala- 
 tinate proper also, and the Duchies of Berg 
 and Jiilich, had no independent bishop of its 
 own, but was under the ecclesiastical sway of 
 sovereign bishops like those of Cologne and 
 Salzburg. This measure, therefore, was as 
 comprehensible as the fact that the bishops 
 expected from it a curtailment of their privi- 
 leges, since the Nuncio, if he were on good 
 terms with the Government, could easily usurp 
 the jurisdiction himself. The Archbishops of 
 Mayence, Treves, Cologne, and Salzburg there- 
 fore made the Nuncio question an opportu- 
 nity for testing and defining the rights of the 
 Pope. In the so-called " Punctation " of Ems 
 (1786) they reduced the primacy of the Pope, 
 as Febronius had done, to what it had been 
 during the early centuries of Christianity, and 
 demanded the complete independence of the 
 bishops under the protection of the Emperor, 
 in all questions affecting the national Churches. 
 
214 The Papacy 
 
 It is impossible not to sympathise with 
 these demands. Had they been made good, Tri- 
 dentine Catholicism would have been rooted 
 out. In view of all the enlightenment shown 
 in the government of the spiritual princes, 
 we would fain dismiss the doubt whether they 
 were really in earnest in their attempt to 
 shake off the yoke of Rome. Unfortunately, 
 however, it is only too evident that they were 
 inspired to a great extent by selfish considera- 
 tions, and we are justified in asking whether 
 the result would not have been merely a 
 change of masters for the Church. The lesser 
 bishops who kept apart, if only because they 
 had not been invited to do otherwise, were 
 not, perhaps, wholly wrong when, like the 
 Frankish bishops in the time of the Pseudo- 
 Isidore, they preferred the rule of Home to 
 that of their powerful colleagues. In any case 
 it all came to nothing. The Archbishop of 
 Mayence, desiring from the Curia the confirma- 
 tion of a coadjutor who was indispensable 
 to him for political reasons, very soon with- 
 drew, and the whole thing went to pieces in 
 consequence. Pius had an easy victory. The 
 archbishops submitted unconditionally to his 
 Brief of simple condemnation of their attempt 
 (1789). Then came the storm of the Revolu- 
 tion, and, when it had swept past, the 
 
Defeats 215 
 
 sovereign spiritual princes were gone, and with 
 them the plan of forming a German national 
 Church. 
 
 The Emperor Joseph II. had held out to the 
 archbishops the prospect of his " entire co- 
 operation and support to the fullest extent 
 of his imperial duty as Defender of the 
 Church." In reality he did nothing, because 
 from the standpoint of his belief in the abso- 
 lutism of the State he regarded any inde- 
 pendent Church government as harmful. In 
 continuation of the reforms begun under 
 Maria Theresa, the Emperor had turned the 
 Austrian Church upside down, and, completely 
 withdrawing it from Roman influence, had 
 subordinated it to the State. He had also 
 taken into his own hands the regulation of 
 the education of the clergy, of divine service, 
 and of monastic life. However excellent this 
 legislation was in certain points — it included 
 the Charter of Tolerance for the Protestants 
 (1781) — it had yet one fundamental defect: it 
 showed no understanding for the Church as 
 set apart to nourish and carry on the reli- 
 gious life of the nation, and it therefore 
 wounded religious feeling. But it was taken 
 in hand with great energy, and seemed likely 
 to meet with success. 
 
 The Pope, highly disturbed, decided, in order 
 
2i6 The Papacy 
 
 to avert misfortune, upon an unusual step. 
 He journeyed to Vienna, and there experi- 
 enced the bitterest disappointment. Though 
 Joseph at least kept up appearances towards 
 the Holy Father, his minister, Count Kaunitz, 
 did not consider even that necessary, and 
 abruptly declined any negotiation with the 
 Pope. Completely unsuccessful, Pius returned 
 across the Alps, and it was but small conso- 
 lation to him that the faithful, more because 
 of the unusual sight of a Pope than out of reli- 
 gious feeling, accorded him many an ovation, 
 both at Vienna and on his journey. Relations 
 between the Emperor and the Pope became 
 so strained that Pius, in naive misunderstand- 
 ing of the real situation, uttered threats of 
 excommunication; his letter was returned to 
 him with the request that he would punish 
 the insolent man who had dared to write it 
 in the Pope's name. It was gratifying for him 
 that the Emperor's reforms in Belgium, which 
 at that time belonged to Austria, and was a 
 lost province in any case, were a miserable 
 fiasco. But, on the other hand, Leopold, Grand 
 Duke of Tuscany by virtue of the Austrian 
 secundogeniture, supported by his metropoli- 
 tan, Scipione Ricci, who took a warm interest 
 in Church affairs, dealt quite as ruthlessly 
 with the papal prerogatives as his imperial 
 
Defeats 217 
 
 brother, whose edicts he maintained when he 
 succeeded him on the throne. 
 
 Yet what was all this compared with the 
 great sorrow that came to the Church and 
 her Head from France, the emancipated daugh- 
 ter? The sound that had been growing ever 
 louder and shriller in the ears of the Pope 
 since the opening of the new era in 1789, was 
 the cry, raised years before by Voltaire and 
 now repeated by thousands and thousands: 
 " ]^crasez I'inf^me ! " It was the Church that 
 they meant, at first only as the clerical organi- 
 sation which had been vowed to destruction 
 because of the moral corruption of the high 
 and the superstition of the low, but soon the 
 religion of the Church was attacked, and finally 
 Christianity itself. To begin with, the Pope 
 kept silence ou the Civil Constitution of the 
 Clergy passed by the National Assembly in 
 July, 1790, and signed by the King under com- 
 pulsion in August. But when the number of 
 the clergy who refused to swear allegiance to 
 the new constitution increased, and tens of 
 thousands preferred to go into exile rather 
 than bow to the revolutionary rule, Pius ful- 
 filled his duty as Vicar of Christ and suc- 
 cessor of the apostles : he condemned the 
 Constitution. The Paris mob burned the Pope 
 "in effigie" and his Encyclical "in natura," 
 
2i8 The Papacy 
 
 and the National Assembly seized Avignon, 
 which had belonged to the Papacy since the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 And now events crowded thick and fast. 
 The refusal of the Pope to allow the emblem 
 of the new Republic to be pubhcly displayed 
 in his capital, even by the French embassy, 
 the popular tumult to which a secretary of this 
 embassy fell a victim, and many other things, 
 embittered the political relations between 
 France and the Holy See. Then the Pope 
 joined the First Coalition of the Powers 
 against France, and this at last gave Bonaparte 
 the welcome opportunity of advancing on Borne. 
 Negotiations and attempts at conciliation cost 
 only money, land, and men; by the Peace of 
 Tolentino (1797) Avignon was finally, and 
 Bologna, Ferrara, and Bomagna were tempo- 
 rarily, lost to the Papacy. New tumults in 
 Home led to the declaration of the Bepublic 
 in February, 1798. The sick old Pope was 
 dragged away to the Dauphin^, where on 
 August 29, 1799, he died. Thus the century 
 ended with the severest defeat. The temporal 
 power of the Church seemed at an end, the 
 rock of Peter was tottering, and the words 
 " Feed My sheep " were drowned in the storm 
 of the Bevolution. 
 
•CHAPTER XIII 
 
 REOONSTBUCTION 
 
 IN a report of the Bavarian Government 
 at Innsbruck to the ministry in Munich, 
 made in 1808, it is stated that " amid constant 
 struggles against the secular power and the 
 spirit of the century the Papacy in its present 
 form is advancing to its fall," and that "a 
 division of the two powers which should rule 
 over the citizens of a State is no longer 
 conceivable, but that everything points to the 
 most complete concentration of the supreme 
 power." The course of events in the time of 
 Napoleon seemed to justify this view. 
 
 It is true that the First Consul did not oppose 
 the return to Rome of the new Pope, Pius VII. 
 (Barnabk Luigi, Count Chiaramonti, March 13, 
 1800, to August 20, 1823), who had just been 
 elected at Venice, and that he showed him 
 much consideration both in the negotiations 
 regarding the reorganisation of the French 
 
 219 
 
220 The Papacy 
 
 Church and on later occasions. This was of 
 course not due to religious veneration nor 
 even to personal regard for him, but solely 
 to reasons of policy ; so long as the " little 
 coronation bottle," as Lafayette put it, "had 
 not been broken over his head" Bonaparte 
 needed the Pope. Hardly had Napoleon become 
 Emperor and — a little later — King of Italy, 
 when he changed his tone. He used the 
 squabble which now arose as a pretext for 
 declaring Rome an imperial city (May, 1809), 
 for uniting the rest of the States of the Church 
 with France, and for causing the Pope, who 
 excommunicated the authors of and partici- 
 pators in this act of sacrilege, to be seized in 
 the night of the 5th and 6th of July and taken 
 to Savona, near Genoa. 
 
 As Pius continued to oppose the eccle- 
 siastical measures of the Emperor, he was 
 compelled in May, 1812, to cross the Alps like 
 his predecessor. He was so ill that the last 
 sacraments were administered; but even that 
 made no difference in the rough way in 
 which he was treated. Arrived at Fontaine- 
 bleau, he agreed, under great pressure, in 
 January, 1813, to terms that menaced the 
 sovereignty of the Papal See, only to retract 
 them a few weeks later, tortured with the 
 keenest remorse. Meanwhile the great turn- 
 
Reconstruction 221 
 
 in Xapoleon's fortunes had begun. The reverses 
 of 1813 obliged the Emperor to adopt a more 
 conciliatory tone towards the Pope. In March, 
 1814, Pius, who was then again at Savona, was 
 released, and on May 29th he re-entered Rome. 
 The people greeted him with shouts of joy: 
 life under the Pope's rule was easy, and no 
 one wept over the fall of the French, who, 
 in spite of the short time they had been in 
 possession, had brought many noteworthy 
 improvements in government, coupled, indeed, 
 with no small burden of taxation. 
 
 The rapid recovery of the Papacy from its 
 unparalleled defeat will always remain an 
 astonishing fact. If, with Banke, we look 
 upon the period of the Restoration as a 
 reaction of Germany and the North against 
 the revolutionised Romance nations, it is not 
 very clear how the Papacy could hope for 
 special advantages from this reaction. But 
 the solidarity of throne and altar which is to 
 be traced at that time behind every measure 
 for the restoration of what had been destroyed 
 or shaken, had a determining influence on the 
 relations of the States with Rome. In fact, 
 the diplomats of the Vienna Congress showed 
 themselves imbued with unlimited respect for 
 the oldest and most legitimate of monarchies — 
 for as such they regarded the Roman See. 
 
222 The Papacy 
 
 The Papacy was therefore once more firmly- 
 established, the States of the Church being 
 restored to it by the Act of Confederation of 
 June 8, 1815, though without the toAvn of 
 Avignon and with some small concessions to 
 Austria. 
 
 Pius alone would have been unable to do 
 much with the gift. He cannot be better 
 described than in the words of Napoleon: 
 " He is a lamb, truly a good creature, an angel 
 of goodness." His horizon was narrow in both 
 religious and worldly matters, but not so 
 narrow that he could not gauge the value of 
 a faithful servant. The confidence which, in 
 spite of all attacks, he reposed to the day of 
 his death in the Marquis Brcole Consalvi, to 
 whom he"^ owed his election and whom he 
 immediately made a cardinal and his Secretary 
 of State, was not only rather touching from 
 a human point of view, but was also noteworthy 
 historically on account of the exceptional 
 importance of that minister. Consalvi stands 
 in the front rank of the diplomatists of the 
 Reaction as much by his qualities as a states- 
 man as by his successes. Quite at the beginning 
 of the reign of Pius he had concluded with 
 the French Republic the Concordat (1801) which 
 restored the Catholic Church in France, and 
 at the same time made her completely 
 
Reconstruction 223 
 
 subordinate to the Pope by abandoning the 
 principles of Gallicanism. As Nuncio in Vienna 
 he had looked after the interests of the Curia 
 and had been successful in his efforts, to 
 restore the state of affairs of the pre-Revolution 
 period by concluding Concordats with the 
 Catholic Powers in which all aspirations after 
 the creation of a national Church were repressed. 
 Where, however, as in the Protestant parts 
 of Germany, wholly new conditions were 
 created by the secularisation (1803) of the 
 spiritual princedoms, he managed to obtain 
 the greatest possible advantage for the Church. 
 At the same time he endeavoured to improve 
 the economic condition of the papal territories 
 entrusted to his care by a system of administra- 
 tion approaching as nearly as possible to the 
 modern conception of the State. He failed, 
 however, to prove that this last remnant of 
 the temporal power of the Pope was anything 
 but an anomaly among the other States. 
 
 Still, however highly we may rate Consalvi's 
 work, the sway over the minds of men which 
 the Papacy had lost during the Revolutionary 
 period was not to be won back by good 
 administrative methods. Other forces were 
 needed for that. The restoration of the 
 Society of Jesus was perhaps the most im- 
 portant act of the reign of Pius VII. The 
 
224 The Papacy 
 
 Pope had hardly settled down again in Rome 
 when by the brief " Sollicitudo omnium ecclesi- 
 arum" ("the care for aU the churches") of 
 August 7, 1814, he revoked the decree con- 
 demning the Society which his predecessor, 
 Clement XIV. " of happy memory," had issued. 
 Like him, he made his. ordinance binding for 
 all time, declaring, moreover, any attempt to 
 alter it null and void. In contrast with 
 Clement, Pius speaks of the great results 
 obtained by the Order, and says that he would 
 be guilty of a grave crime if he were to 
 reject the aid of the strong and experienced 
 mariners who volunteer to rescue the Barque 
 of Peter from the winds and waves. From 
 his point of view he was undoubtedly righti 
 and those in power shared it to a great 
 extent. The following remarks of Victor 
 Emmanuel I., who re-admitted the Jesuits as 
 early as 1815, have been handed down to us. 
 " I am persuaded that the Jesuits are alone 
 able to defy a revolution. As I am resolved 
 to use my last man and my last coin to 
 crush the Revolution, it follows that I give the 
 Jesuits liberty of action in my territories." 
 
 Nor was it only the rulers' and the states- 
 men's fear of the Revolution that cleared 
 the way for Jesuitism and papalism; almost 
 more important was the change in the atti- 
 
Reconstruction 225 
 
 tude of poets and thinkers. From the begin- 
 ning, the French and German Romanticists 
 had seen in the Revolution the working of that 
 force which always desires evil and does good. 
 According to Saint-Martin it had expelled the 
 contagium frogi mankind, in which contagium 
 he certainly included the Church and Crown. 
 For Novalis anarchy was the condition that 
 produced Religion, who, after the destruction 
 of everything positive, raises her glorious head 
 as a new founder of the world. Thinkers 
 came more and more to see, with him, salvation 
 in an "enduring Church, gathering into her 
 lap all souls that thirst after spiritual things, 
 and once more pouring forth abundant bless- 
 ings on the nations." Novalis prophesied in 
 his time that the Society of Jesus, " which now 
 (1800) slumbers wretchedly on the borders of 
 Europe, will spread thence with new power 
 over its old home " ; he held in readiness the 
 bolt of excommunication which the Popes of 
 the nineteenth century have repeatedly hurled 
 against progressive philosophy and science. 
 
 Papalism soon found a classical exponent in 
 literature. It fell to the lot of Count Joseph 
 de Maistre, who was closely connected with 
 the Jesuits, to show the world in his book 
 "Du Pape" (1819), what it possessed in the 
 Pope and how salvation was only to be 
 
 15 
 
226 The Papacy 
 
 hoped for from Rome. De Maistre is an 
 absolutist to the core ; a govemment that is 
 not a monarchy, and, if a monarchy, not a 
 despotism, is no government; that is as true 
 of temporal as of spiritual governments, of 
 kings as of the Pope. But secular sovereignty 
 has an inherent limitation; it has not the 
 promise of righteousness, though it strives 
 to rule righteously. Self-help is, in face of 
 this, impossible — revolution out of the ques- 
 tion. The infallible Pope, who as Vicar of 
 Christ is inherently righteous, is the true medi- 
 ator between prince and people, and princes 
 have no reason to oppose his interference, for 
 it is only great offences that call forth the 
 censure of the Pope. The echo which these 
 statements found in Germany is best shown 
 by the words of the editor of the translation 
 set on foot by Friedrich August Schlegel : 
 " Without the Pope there can be no Chris- 
 tianity, and the order of society is inevitably 
 injured in its most vital part." In Italy Carlo 
 Fea again asserted that the Pope was above 
 kings even in secular matters. It is signifi- 
 cant that the prudent Consalvi refused the 
 Imprimatur to Fea's work. 
 
 After the death of Pius, Consalvi's part was 
 played out. With Leo XII. (Annibale della 
 Genga, September 28, 1823 to February 10, 1829) 
 
Reconstruction 227 
 
 the party of the "Zelanti" {i.e., zealots, in- 
 transigeants) came into power — the party 
 which had always heen irritated by the rule 
 of the " liberal " or, better perhaps, oppor- 
 tunist Secretary of State. Fea's book was now 
 printed, and the Dominican Anfossi's views on 
 secularisation, which Consalvi had likewise 
 kept back, also saw the light. This indicated 
 the programme of the party, as did also the 
 first Encyclical of Leo (April 5, 1824). This 
 letter condemned not only the Bible Societies 
 already stigmatised by Pius VII. (June 4, 1816) 
 as a "horrible invention that undermined the 
 foundations of religion," but also "Tolerantism" 
 or " Indifferentism," i.e., the doctrine that men 
 might join any religious sect without prejudice 
 to their salvation. Leo was, it is true, wise 
 enough to have himself initiated into the 
 secrets of statecraft by the dying Consalvi, 
 but neither he nor his advisers were capable 
 of carrying on what the great Cardinal had 
 begun. So the openings sUted up, a govern- 
 ment of reckless reaction replaced a skilful 
 and prudent administration, and the more the 
 liberal movement began to make itself felt, 
 the tighter the reins were drawn. The Pope 
 ruled in frivolous Rome with a harshness that 
 recalled Calvin. "Other Popes also," says 
 Banke, who was then searching for documents 
 
228 The Papacy 
 
 in Borne, "have made themselves hated, but 
 they always had a few followers. Leo XII. 
 was hated by all, from the prince to the 
 beggar ; no one was friendly to him." And 
 when he died in the midst of the Carnival 
 festivities popular wit expressed itself thus: 
 " The Holy Father inflicted three ills upon us — 
 he accepted the crown, he lived long, and, by 
 his death, he spoilt the Carnival." 
 
 The election of Pius VIII. (Francesco Xaverio 
 Castiglioni, March 31, 1829 to November 30, 1830) 
 was the result of a compromise with Austria 
 and France. This good man, who in his senti- 
 mental scrupulosity hesitated to confer the 
 title of Doctor of the Church on St. Bernard 
 of Clairvaux, because he also belonged to the 
 Castiglioni (Chatillon) family, did not reign 
 long enough to make an impression. His suc- 
 cessor, Gregory XVI. (Bartolommeo Cappellari, 
 February 2, 1831 to June 1, 1846), however, was 
 a hierarch of the old school, who tried to do 
 honour to the famous men who had borne his 
 name. He was born well back in the eigh- 
 teenth century (1765), and had, at the age of 
 eighteen, entered the strict Order of the Ca- 
 maldolites. In the same year in which the 
 imprisoned Pius VI. ended his sorrowful life, 
 Cappellari, then called Father Mauro, wrote 
 a book in honour of the " Triumph of the 
 
Reconstruction 229 
 
 Church and the Holy See over the attacks of 
 Innovators." In 1823 he became General of 
 his Order; in 1826 Prefect of the Propaganda. 
 What he had written as a young man he en- 
 deavoured to realise as Pontiff. He was a 
 man of no inconsiderable ability, and was said 
 to be learned not only in scholastic philosophy 
 but also in science and history. It is perhaps 
 due to his great interest in geometry that 
 the names of Copernicus and Galileo were 
 removed from the Index in his reign. But he 
 was also the sworn foe of everything modern. 
 To the great joy of artists and all romantically 
 inclined Catholics and Protestants, he resolved 
 that his Rome should remain the city of 
 ancient and mediaeval times — the Borne that 
 ever conquered the world afresh with her in- 
 comparable attractions. Other countries might 
 be cut up by railway lines; they were not 
 tolerated in the States of the Church any more 
 than lighting by gas. In the government re- 
 action boldly raised its head. All critics are 
 unanimous that the rule of the Secretary of 
 State, Lambruschini, was gradually leading to 
 utter ruin. Gregory himself seems to have had 
 a feeling that things could not go on as they 
 were. He is said to have declared : " The civil 
 administration of the Roman States needs a 
 great reform, but I was too old when they 
 
230 The Papacy 
 
 elected me Pope ; I did not expect to live so 
 long, and had not the courage to begin the 
 work. For he who begins must also carry it 
 through." 
 
 No signs of such weakness were visible in the 
 old Pope's government of the Church in general; 
 on the contrary Gregory's numerous Encyclicals 
 and Briefs breathe the unbending spirit of the 
 successor of St. Peter who is fuUy conscious 
 of his high office. It is true that we do not 
 know how far his pen was guided by the 
 Jesuits, who had a new Aquaviva at that time 
 in the person of the Dutchman, John Philip 
 van Eoothaan (1829-53). In any case the ponti- 
 ficate of Gregory shows an increase of Jesuit 
 influence all along the line. The Pastoral 
 Letter of August 15, 1832, is a manifesto of 
 this influence. With its condemnation of 
 liberty of conscience and of the press, it is 
 perhaps the most important, at all events the 
 most characteristic, precursor of the Encyclical 
 and Syllabus of 1864. Under Jesuit influence 
 ultramontanism once mox'e stretched out its 
 claws towards Germany. At that time the 
 light of Wessenberg and Spiegel, of Hermes 
 and Baader went out, and that of Droste and 
 Dunin, Gorres and Jarcke shone brightly forth. 
 New stars pointed the way across the Alps to 
 Rome, where the Collegium Germanicum — 
 
Reconstruction 231 
 
 re-established in 1818 — received a yearly in- 
 creasing number of red-coated pupils, and where 
 Giovanni Perrone taught the standard papal 
 theology in the Gregorian University, restored 
 to the Jesuits in 1824. The year 1835, in 
 which Gregory XVI. condemned the writings of 
 Georg Hermes, professor at Bonn, as those of 
 a " teacher of error," was an " annus nefastus, 
 a year of misfortune for Catholic theology in 
 Germany. 
 
 Had the Bourbons remained in power in 
 France the success of the Bomanist movement 
 would have been even more rapid. The Con- 
 cordat of 1801 was on the high-road to giving 
 place to that of 1516, and to the abandonment 
 of the last remains of the Gallican Articles. The 
 Jesuits were everywhere active. Then came 
 the July Revolution, and with it a new wave 
 of disaster for the Society. With a heavy heart 
 Gregory found himself obliged to advise the 
 General to dissolve the French division of the 
 Order. He also had to see the Abb^ Lamennais, 
 who had been convinced by the study of De 
 Maistre that in the Pope was summed up the 
 collective intelligence of humanity, and who 
 was to have received a cardinal's hat in recog- 
 nition thereof, advance, under the influence of 
 the Revolution and the Bourgeois monarchy, to 
 such radical views as left at last no room for 
 
232 The Papacy 
 
 either Pope or Church. On the other hand 
 Lamennais' pupil, the Dominican Lacordaire, 
 became a new advocate of papalism. But the 
 distrustful Curia soon took offence at the burn- 
 ing eloquence with which he preached, froni the 
 pulpit of Notre Dame, the reconciliation of 
 Romanism with the principles of modern cul- 
 ture. Satisfaction at the increasingly visible 
 advance of the Jesuits in Belgium and Ireland, 
 however, afforded some compensation for this, 
 while the spread of Roman Catholicism in 
 England, where it had been given free 
 play since the Act of Emancipation of 1829, 
 awakened bold hopes in Rome. 
 
 During all this time the revolutionary move- 
 ment had been smouldering in Italy. It was 
 not only directed against the reactionary native 
 Governments, but aspired also to free Italy 
 from the foreign domination of Austria. At 
 first it was the much persecuted Carbonari (char- 
 coal-burners, so called because of their secret 
 rites), and, after the middle of the thirties, the 
 " Young Italy " of Giuseppe Mazzini, that strove 
 for the " Risorgimento " (resurrection), with the 
 motto of "Unity, Freedom, Independence." 
 Though these men saw no hope except in the 
 complete abolition of the papal rule, others 
 hoped for a happy future from the reform of 
 the Papacy and its reconciliation with the 
 
Reconstruction 233 
 
 modern spirit. In the midst of an ever-increas- 
 ing circle of like-minded men the refined and 
 sensitive Antonio Bosmini worked towards his 
 ideal of cleansing the Church, of raising the 
 priesthood, and inaugurating a religious Papacy, 
 to which he would certainly have given the 
 leadership even in secular affairs. With all 
 the enthusiasm of the dreamer, Yincenzo 
 Gioberti publicly advocated a confederacy of 
 Italian States with the Pope at its head as 
 Doge and Gonfaloniere, the arbitrator and 
 peacemaker for all Europe, the teacher and 
 educator of the world, the spiritual father of 
 the human race. As a sober politician Cesare 
 Balbo tried to reduce this dream to what he 
 considered possible, recommending a Lombard 
 Confederation with Sardinia at its head; but 
 he also only looked upon Sardinia as the sword, 
 the heart of Italy was the Pope. 
 
 There came a time when these " hopes of 
 Italy" seemed likely to be fulfilled — the first 
 years of the pontificate of Pius IX. (June 16, 
 1846 to February 7, 1878). Giovanni Maria, of 
 the noble family of the Mastai-Ferretti, bom 
 on May 13, 1792, at Sinigaglia, had made his 
 way rapidly: under Leo XII., who loved him 
 for his amiability, he was made Archbishop of 
 Spoleto, in 1832 he became Bishop of Imola, in 
 1840 Cardinal. As no one wished for a Pope 
 
234 The Papacy 
 
 belonging to the " fossilised " party of Gregory, 
 or for an avowed champion of liberty, Mastai, 
 who was pliant and eloquent, and who could 
 be relied upon to make reforms without going 
 too fast, seemed very suitable. As a matter of 
 fact the new Pope showed himself ready to 
 adopt liberal ideas, though the reactionary 
 followers of Gregory in the Sacred College 
 gave him no peace ; in March, 1848, he made 
 offers of a kind of constitution, and the people 
 were jubilant. But the enthusiasm died away 
 very quickly when Pius, instead of putting him- 
 self at the head of the national movement 
 after Charles Albert of Sardinia's declaration 
 of war against Austria, announced in an 
 Encyclical on April 29, 1848, that he could not 
 fight against a Catholic Power. His popularity 
 was immediately at an end. The Mazzinists 
 gained the upper hand in Home, the noble- 
 mined Pellegrino Bossi, who was familiar with 
 the ideas of Gioberti and Kosmini, and who had 
 been made a minister by the Pope in September, 
 fell a victim to the knife of a revolutionist on 
 Novetaber 15th, as he was going to a sitting 
 of the Chamber. Pius himself was hard pressed 
 in the Quirinal; the bullets even fell into his 
 anteroom. On November 24th he fled secretly to 
 Gaeta in the Neapolitan territory The Republic 
 was proclaimed in Borne on February 9, 1849. 
 
Reconstruction 235 
 
 Meanwhile the Austrians had succeeded in 
 suppressing the rising in North Italy. The 
 victories of Radetzky at Custozza (July 25, 1848) 
 and Novara (March 23, 1849) led to the abdica- 
 tion of Charles Albert ; Lombardy and Venetia 
 were reunited to Austria. This and the aversion 
 of the Powers to a centralised republic stood 
 the Pope, who had called Austria, France, Spain, 
 and Naples to his help, in good stead. France 
 was entrusted with armed intervention; Marshal 
 Oudinot defeated Garibaldi, and on July 14th 
 the papal Government was restored. Pius did 
 not return to Rome till April 12, 1850 ; his heart 
 was hardened against liberalism. 
 
 Pious but superstitious, ignorant though not 
 untalented, he seemed predestined to be the 
 tool of the Jesuits. For many years the Order 
 had put forth all its energies to secure through- 
 out Catholic Christendom the acceptance of the 
 doctrine of the universal episcopate and infalli- 
 bility of the Pope. "Before 1848," writes the 
 Old Catholic von Schulte, who can speak from 
 his own experience, "the Pope was only men- 
 tioned in schools when absolutely necessary. 
 Before 1848 I never heard a sermon about the 
 States of the Church or anything similar. But 
 since 1848 more sermons have been preached 
 about them in many places than about the 
 gospel." In England, where since 1853 an 
 
236 The Papacy 
 
 organised hierarchy once more existed, people 
 began to talk about " devotion to the Pope." 
 " The sovereign Pontiff," said the Oratorian 
 Faber in a sermon, " is the third visible presence 
 of Jesus Christ among us, the visible shadow 
 that proceeds from the invisible Head of the 
 Church in the Blessed Sacrament." The Latin 
 countries went even further than Germany and 
 England. It is enough to recall what occurred 
 in France and the language of the agitator 
 Louis Veuillot, whose journal, the Univers, 
 became the mouthpiece of ultramontane aspira- 
 tions. Peculiar zeal was shown by the Jesuits, 
 under the leadership after 1853 of the Belgian 
 Pierre Jean Beckx, the "black Pope." The 
 Civiltd, Cattolica, founded in Naples in 1850 
 and shortly after transferred to Bome, became 
 the principal organ of their new journalism, 
 intended for the laity as well as the clergy. 
 This paper soon won the special favour of the 
 Pope, who found in it sentences like the follow- 
 ing: "When the Pope thinks, it is God who 
 thinks in him." 
 
 The solemn proclamation by the Pope, in 
 St. Peter's on December 8, 1854, of the dogma 
 of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin 
 Mary, i.e., the definition as an article of faith 
 of the doctrine that Mary was conceived without 
 inheriting the guilt of Adam or any sinful 
 
Reconstruction 237 
 
 tendency whatever, marked an important ad- 
 vance in the triumphant march of papalism. 
 The Pope, who from his youth had been a 
 fervent worshipper of the Mother of God, may 
 well have regarded this proclamation as a 
 peculiarly important duty. To those who con- 
 ducted afiFaits in the Quirinal and the Vatican 
 it was at least equally important as a feeler 
 for what the Catholic world would accept from 
 the Pope unsupported by a coimcil. The Jesuit 
 Schrader rightly says : " The independent defini- 
 tion of a dogma includes at the same time, not 
 indeed explicitly and formally, but none the less 
 undoubtedly and positively, another dogmatic 
 decision, viz., that of the disputed question 
 whether the Pope is in his own person infallible 
 in matters of faith, or whether he can claim 
 this infallibility only at the head of a council." 
 As a matter of fact the Catholic world had 
 already been so skilfully prepared that no oppo- 
 sition worth mentioning was made, and thus 
 the justice of the second claim was tacitly 
 acknowledged. 
 
 The well-known Encyclical "Quanta cura" 
 (" With what care ") of December 8, 1864, comes 
 under the same head. It contains variations 
 of what had already been said in previous 
 Encyclicals of Gregory XVI. and of Pius himself, 
 with a strong emphasis on the theory that 
 
238 The Papacy 
 
 obedience is due to the judgments and decisions 
 of the Holy See not only in matters of faith 
 and morals but also in questions of law and 
 discipline, since refusal to yield such obedience 
 is contrary to the Catholic doctrine "of the 
 power divinely granted to the Roman Pope by 
 the Lord Christ Himself to tend, to guide, and 
 to rule the whole Church." In order to prevent 
 all doubt as to the particular applications of 
 this principle a "statement of the chief errors 
 of our time" was added to the Encyclical. In 
 the eighty clauses — carefully grouped into ten 
 sections — of this document — which has become 
 famous under its Latin designation of "Syllabus" 
 — ^all the achievements of modern times in the 
 direction of freedom of religion and conscience 
 are passed in review, and the statement cul- 
 minates in the condemnation of the following 
 proposition : " The Roman Pope can and ought 
 to reconcile and adapt himself to progress, to 
 liberalism, and to modern culture." The whole 
 significance of this Syllabus can only be rightly 
 appreciated when it is read in the light of the 
 numerous Jesuit publications of the time. 
 
 The theory that "the abolition of the tem- 
 poral power of the Holy See will conduce in 
 the highest degree to the freedom and welfare 
 of the Church" is also among the errors con- 
 demned by this document, which proves how 
 
Reconstruction 239 
 
 strong was the Pope's self-confidence. This very 
 question was becoming ripe for decision, though 
 not in the sense of Pius. 
 
 While still at GaSta the Pope had appointed 
 as Secretary of State Giacomo Antonelli, a man 
 who belonged to a family of doubtful reputation 
 in Sonnino* a haunt of robbers, and was not 
 burdened with many scruples. Antonelli had 
 been at the head of the March Ministry and had 
 resigned with his colleages when Pius refused 
 to ally himself with Sardinia. He understood 
 the signs of the times and followed his papal 
 master into the reactionary camp. The govern- 
 ment of the Papal States was now in his hands, 
 and he only allowed the Pope to see the work- 
 ing of it when he pleased. His system of police 
 and his dishonest administration increased the 
 revolutionary feeling, the strength of which was 
 also augmented by the course of events in 
 Italy. 
 
 The progress of Nemesis is easy to follow. 
 The war of France and Sardinia against Austria 
 follows the alliance between Victor Emmanuel 
 and Napoleon III. arranged by Count Cavour at 
 Plombi^res. In a few months Lombardy is lost 
 to the Empire, the plan — considered as late as 
 the Peace of Ziirioh (November 10, 1859) — of an 
 Italian confederation with the Pope at its head 
 has been thrown overboard; the Sardinian 
 
24-0 The Papacy 
 
 troops enter Tuscany, Parma, and, greeted by 
 the shouts of the insurgent population, Ro- 
 magna; Garibaldi's volunteers break up the 
 kingdom of Naples, and Victor Emmanuel is 
 proclaimed King of Italy (March 17, 1861). The 
 Pope-King ("il papa re") sees his possessions 
 reduced to a third of what they were, and is 
 not even sure of keeping that. It is discussed 
 in numerous pamphlets whether it were not 
 better to end his rule altogether. How, asks 
 Lagueronni^re, can the head of the Church, 
 who excommunicates heretics, and the head of 
 a State, whose duty is to uphold freedom of 
 conscience, be one and the same person? Let 
 the Pope be guaranteed the possession of Rome 
 and the heritage of St. Peter, give him a con- 
 siderable sum for his expenses of ceremonial 
 and defence, so that he may stand free as the 
 head of two hundred million Catholics, but take 
 from him the temporal sovereignty. Others 
 advise him to leave Rome and take up his 
 residence at Avignon, Malta, Bamberg, or even 
 Jerusalem. Others again stiU dream of reforms 
 or adopt Cavour's idea of a free Church in a 
 free State. 
 
 All this Pius heeds not. Failing temporal 
 help, perhaps Heaven will favour him. At 
 Whitsuntide, 1862, he assembles his Cardinals 
 and hundreds of his bishops for a meeting 
 
Reconstruction 241 
 
 of protest; they declare imanimously that the 
 Pope's temporal power may not be touched. 
 The Pope canonises the twenty-six martys who 
 perished in the great persecution in Japan 
 (1597), and in his address to the Cardinals 
 declares that he hopes thereby to gain new 
 intercessors "with God. France and Italy re- 
 main unmoved. Napoleon presses his protec- 
 tion on the Pope and French troops occupy 
 Rome, which is threatened by Garibaldi. In 
 the Convention of September, 1864, the Em- 
 peror tells Victor Emmanuel that he is ready 
 to withdraw his men within two years, if the 
 King will protect the Holy City. The Pope 
 is not consulted. Then the Austro-Prussian 
 War breaks out. Austria is crushed, Italy, the 
 ally of Prussia, gains Venice, Garibaldi again 
 advances against Kome and is once more driven 
 back with the aid of the French. But the star 
 of France too grows dim. The German victories 
 in the summer of 1870 free Italy from the 
 necessity of considering the Emperor, and on 
 September 20th the red white and green flag 
 waves on the Capitol. In the plebiscite of 
 October 2nd only a few voices are raised 
 against the incorporation of Rome with Italy, 
 and on June 2, 1871, the King is able to enter 
 his new capital. By that time the Guarantee 
 Law had already been passed (May 13th), allowing 
 
 16 
 
242 The Papacy 
 
 the Pope complete freedom in the exercise of 
 his spiritual authority, a generous civil list, 
 and the entire disposal of the Vatican, the 
 Lateran, and Castel Gandolfo on the lake of 
 Albano. For Pius the law did not exist; he 
 preferred to play the part of the prisoner in 
 the Vatican. 
 
 At the very time, however, when the papal 
 kingdom came to an end, the Vatican itself 
 had been the scene of the greatest ecclesiastical 
 triumph. Two days before the publication of 
 the Encyclical "Quanta cura" Pius had giv€» 
 his Cardinals the first intimation that he in- 
 tended to use the extraordinary means of a 
 general council to meet the extraordinary 
 needs of the Church. It is a disputed question 
 who suggested this to him, and possibly he 
 thought of it himself. But for one who re- 
 members the utterances of the Civiltitb 
 CattoUca there can be no doubt that, although 
 no particular subject for discussion was men- 
 tioned, the " extraordinary needs " meant only 
 the establishment as a dogma of the universal 
 episcopate of the Pope and of his infallibility — 
 in the sense of the Encyclical and the Syllabus. 
 The announcement of a council caused general 
 surprise and evoked the most varied expressions 
 of opinion. It was also soon seen that the 
 party in favour of infallibility must be pre- 
 
Reconstruction 243 
 
 pared for great opposition : in England, France 
 and not least in Germany, where DOllinger took 
 the lead, numerous writers set to work to warn 
 men against the enormity that Rome was 
 planning. 
 
 In the Bull "^terni Patris Unigenitus " 
 ("The only begotten [son] of the Eternal 
 Father"), which on St. Peter and St. Paul's 
 Day, 1868, summoned the council for December 
 8, 1869, nothing was said, naturally enough, 
 of any such desire to formulate a dogma. 
 Allusion was only made in general terms to 
 what " in these troublous times was to be 
 carefully tested and established with a view 
 to the honour of God and the safety of the 
 faith, the beauty of divine worship and the 
 eternal salvation of mankind, the discipline 
 and education of the secular and regular clergy, 
 the observance of the laws of the Church 
 and the improvement of morals, the education 
 of the young, the peace and unity of all." As 
 " the chief pastor endowed with the supreme 
 power" the Pope felt it his duty to make the 
 summoning of the council known to schismatics 
 and heretics. So the Protestants also had the 
 honour of being exhorted in a special letter 
 " to consider seriously whether they were on 
 the road pointed out to us by Christ the 
 Lord, and to beg the Lord of Mercy to 
 
244 The Papacy 
 
 bring them back into the bosom of the holy 
 mother." 
 
 "Everything was ready, nothing was lacking," 
 writes Perrone in his pamphlet on the definition 
 of infallibility. And yet there are many still 
 living who remember what tremendous efforts 
 were needed to smother the fierce opposition 
 that broke out in the council, when it became 
 evident after a few weeks at ' what the Pope 
 and his paladins were aiming. It must not 
 be forgotten that this opposition came from 
 the most intellectual of the bishops, and that 
 behind these bishops stood the Catholics of all 
 the leading countries from the intellectual point 
 of view. On the other hand, it was mockingly 
 said of the Spaniards that they could be talked 
 into believing that the Blessed Trinity consisted 
 of four Persons ; and the hundreds of Italians 
 were pledged to papalism from the beginning. 
 The fact that every bishop had the right of 
 voting made it unnecessary to weigh the import- 
 ance of individual votes. The struggle lasted for 
 months. The position of the opposition became 
 critical ; they could no longer avoid seeing that 
 they were in conflict with the personal wish 
 of the Pope, who now said openly that he 
 regarded tradition as embodied in himself. 
 We must not overlook the highly creditable 
 fact that the bishops persisted in their opposi- 
 
Reconstruction 245 
 
 tion to the very end; Eetteler's prostration 
 at the Pope's feet will always remain a memor- 
 able episode. No one who knows what Roman 
 Catholicism is would expect Roman Catholic 
 bishops to throw their " non placet " in the face 
 of the Holy Father in a matter that concerned 
 him so neatly. They acted not only correctly 
 but from conviction, when they took their 
 leave before the decisive sitting. 
 
 On July 18, 1870, the day before France 
 declared war on Prussia, Pius proclaimed in 
 the Constitution "Pastor ^ternus" ("The 
 Eternal Shepherd") that his doctrinal decisions 
 were infallible, and that he himself was the 
 absolute master of the Church. Five hundred 
 and thirty-five prelates assisted at the solemn 
 act» only two unknown bishops daring to vote 
 against it. The Constitution deals in four 
 chapters with the primacy of the Apostle Peter, 
 then with the continuation of the primacy 
 in the bishops of Rome; it establishes the 
 nature of the Primate's power over the Church 
 as being regular and direct without detracting 
 from episcopal rights, and finally treats of 
 the Pope's authority on questions of dogma. 
 The crucial passage runs as follows : — 
 
 " In faithful adherence to the tradition 
 received from the beginning of the Christian 
 faith, to the glory of God our Saviour, for the 
 
246 The Papacy 
 
 exaltation of the Catholic religion, and for the 
 salvation of the Christian peoples, with the 
 assent of the Sacred Council, we teach and 
 declare as a dogma revealed by God: that the 
 Boman Pontiff, when he speaks "ex cathedra" — 
 i.e., when, in the discharge of his ofSce as 
 pastor and teacher of all Christians, by virtue 
 of his supreme apostolic anthority, he defines 
 a doctrine touching faith or morals to be held 
 by the Universal Church — is, in virtue of the 
 divine assistance promised to him in St. Peter, 
 endowed with that infallibility with which the 
 divine Redeemer wiUed that His Church should 
 be provided in defining doctrine touching faith 
 or morals; and that therefore such definitions 
 of the Boman Pontiff are of themselves, and 
 not because of the assent of the Church, 
 irreversible. And if any man, which Grod for- 
 bid, should presume to oppose this our defini- 
 tion, let him be accursed." 
 
 It must be noted in this definition that only 
 such of the Pope's decisions " ex cathedra " are 
 to count as infallible as have reference to faith 
 and morals, and then only when they apply to 
 the whole Church, with an anathema against 
 those who disagree. It follows that the pro- 
 gramme supported by the Jesuits and clearly 
 enunciated by the Pope in the Encyclical of 
 1864 was only partially carried out. The 
 
Reconstruction 247 
 
 Encyclical had termed opposition to papal 
 decisions in questions of law and discipline a 
 sin and prejudicial to the Catholic faith, and 
 these very questions had been treated in great 
 detail in the Syllabus. An article in the 
 Civiltd, CattoUca not long before the meeting 
 of the council had mentioned as a probable 
 subject for discussion the adoption of the 
 Syllabus as an article of faith, and this plaji 
 had been approved by the Curia. The failure 
 to carry out this scheme — a failure that has 
 not been remedied to this day — Cleaves a dis- 
 tinct gap in the system that was in other 
 respects so brilliantly successful at the council. 
 The Vatican Constitution indeed quotes the 
 words, "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep," and 
 deduces therefrom the transmission of the 
 "rights of the chief Pastor and Master over 
 the whole flock " to St. Peter and his successors. 
 But the articles of the Constitution always 
 keep within the limits of spiritual power, and 
 inferences in the sense of the mediaeval papal 
 theories can only be made from them in a 
 round-about way through Bellarmine's doctrine 
 of the indirect power of the Pope in secular 
 affairs. Indirect inferences, however, lend them- 
 selves but ill to dogmatisation. If we consider 
 finally that a few weeks after the definition 
 of the Pope's infallibility and universal epis- 
 
248 The Papacy 
 
 copate the Italian papal kingship was carried 
 to its grave, it is not too much to assert that 
 the Vatican decrees form the most effectual 
 barrier against the pa;^al pretensions to tem- 
 poral authority. Yet " Feed My sheep " remains 
 the watchword. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE FUTUBE IN THE LIGHT OP THE PRESENT 
 
 WITH the glorification of Pius IX. in the 
 Vatican and the entrance of Victor 
 Emmanuel into the Quirinal, the history of the 
 Papacy comes to an end. What follows belongs 
 not to the past but to the present. If, for this 
 reason, we cannot describe it historically, there 
 is nothing to prevent our considering it criti- 
 cally. Nay, this is even necessary, if the axiom 
 that we study history in order to learn from it 
 is to be respected in this instance. Nor shall 
 we be forbidden to cast an inquiring glance 
 into the future. 
 
 Such an examination shows us first of all 
 the great increase in power and consideration 
 gained by the Papacy since 1870. It must be 
 borne in mind that not till then did the genera- 
 tion which received its education in the middle 
 of the nineteenth century come to full maturity. 
 Only then did the papalistic views — a reaction 
 
 »49 
 
250 The Papacy 
 
 from the progressive and revolutionary ideas of 
 the early part of the century — which had been 
 implanted in the mind of Roman Catholic youth 
 as a precious possession and had developed there, 
 come to expression. The best proof of this 
 is the way in which the different countries 
 received the Vatican decrees. They met, indeed, 
 with strong opposition that in many cases 
 developed into insubordination ; but even the 
 Old Catholic movement has kept within such 
 narrow limits that it cannot be said to have 
 done Soman Catholicism any injury worth 
 mentioning. 
 
 In Germany especially there has been such 
 a revival of Romanism as had not been wit- 
 nessed since the days of the counter-Reforma- 
 tion. To this revival was due the formation 
 of the " Centre " party which once more revived 
 the Prusso-German Church controversy, the 
 "Kulturkampf" ("Culture Struggle"), as it is 
 called — a name that does not seem to describe 
 it at all and yet expresses the whole point of 
 the conflict. It may be doubted whether Bis- 
 marck was always right in his treatment of 
 questions affecting the internal affairs of the 
 Church. But there is no possible doubt that 
 every sentence of his great fighting speeches 
 bears witness to his profound understanding of 
 the real aim of the party inspired hy papalism. 
 
The Future 251 
 
 the party which he described in one of his 
 striking expressions as a breaching-battery 
 against the State. He also showed a thorough 
 understanding of the Papacy, when he termed 
 it "a political power that has interfered with 
 the greatest resolution and success in the affairs 
 of this worlfl, that aims at such interference 
 and has made it part of its programme." In 
 his speech in the debate in the Prussian 
 Upper House on the Falk Laws, March 10, 
 1873, he explained in a masterly fashion 
 "the immemorial struggle between the royal 
 power and the priesthood," and illustrated it 
 by the relations between Empire and Papacy 
 in the Middle Ages. Every one, he then con- 
 tended, who has even a superficial insight into 
 history must know from ofiScial documents 
 quoted and criticised times without number 
 that this struggle must be judged like any 
 other: "it has its alliances, its treaties, its 
 pauses, its truces." It will nevertheless remain 
 a dark spot in the history of the new Empire 
 that its founder was obliged to make use of 
 his historical knowledge by showing considera- 
 tion for the Catholic party, whose support a 
 change of domestic circumstances had made 
 indispensable. Even Bismarck had to make 
 peace with the Pope. 
 In his Oanossa speech of May 14, 1872, the 
 
252 The Papacy 
 
 Iron Chancellor attributed the necessity for 
 maintaining diplomatic relations with the 
 papal see to the difficult situation of the 
 Empire owing to "the influence, so unusually 
 wide for a foreign sovereign," which "the 
 Head of the Catholic Church exercised in 
 Germany." The behaviour of Pius IX., who 
 disregarded the most elementary principles 
 of statesmanlike courtesy, was not calculated 
 to make these relations easier ; nor was his 
 refusal to accept Count von Hohenlohe as 
 Prussian Ambassador at the Curia, nor his 
 arrogant letter of August 7, 1873, to the 
 Emperor William, in which he made the bold 
 assertion that all baptized persons belonged 
 in some measure to the Pope, or finally the 
 interference with the laws of the State, based 
 on his apostolic office of Chief Pastor, which 
 he permitted himself when he declared the 
 Prussian " Kampf " laws invalid in the Ency- 
 clical "Quod nunquam" ("What never") of 
 February 5, 1875. Only after the death of 
 Pius on February 7, 1878 — the first Pope who 
 reigned for more than the traditional twenty- 
 five years of St. Peter — was there a possibility 
 of new developments. 
 
 Leo XIII. (Grioacchino Vincenzo Count Pecci, 
 born March 2, 1810, at Carpiueto, near Anagni) 
 was elected Pope on February 20, 1878. He 
 
The Future 253 
 
 had not been one of his predecessor's favourites, 
 and it was not till 1876, after the death of 
 Antonelli, who had been his enemy from the 
 beginning, that the Cardinal was called to 
 Rome from the little see of Perugia. Pecoi 
 had been one of the first pupils of the Collegium 
 Bomanum in* its new Jesuit period and had 
 followed the advice of Father Boothaau in 
 forming his little library. He was a great 
 reader: Thomas Aquinas rejoiced his heart 
 and soon also Pope Benedict XIV., from reading 
 whose works he first got the idea that it 
 was impossible to overcome the modem world 
 without entering into its thoughts. His ideal 
 of ecclesiastical policy he found in Leo XII., 
 whose name he had taken. He learned to 
 adapt himself to circumstances : when Perugia 
 became incorporated in the kingdom of Italy, 
 Pecci succeeded in keeping on good terms 
 with the new Governmient. His election to 
 the Papacy proved the best that could be 
 imagined. He was granted a quarter of a 
 century in which to make brilliant use, as Head 
 of the Church, of his unusual diplomatic ability, 
 his remarkable skill in administration, and his 
 width of outlook. 
 
 The numerous Encyclicals, in which the Pope 
 gave his directions to the Catholic world, bear 
 witness to the universality with which he 
 
254 
 
 The Papacy 
 
 handled and discussed every subject in any way 
 connected with his apostolic office: — 
 
 The Dangers of Socialism, 
 The Iiabour Question, 
 and Christian Democracy. 
 
 " Quod apostolici," December 
 28, 1878. 
 
 " Berum novarum," May 16, 
 1891. 
 
 " Graves de communi," Janu- 
 ary 18, 1901. 
 
 The Source of Civil Authority, 
 
 The Christian State, 
 
 Freedom and Law, 
 and The Duties of Chnstian 
 Citizens. 
 
 "Diuturnum lUud," June 29, 
 
 1881. 
 " Immortale Dei," November 
 
 1, 1885. 
 "Libertas," June 20, 1888. 
 " SapientisB ChristiansB," 
 
 January 10, 1890. 
 
 The Bevival of Learning, 
 The Study of the Scriptures, 
 and Beligious Education. 
 
 "iBterni Patris," August 4, 
 
 1879. 
 " Providentissimus Deus," 
 
 November 18, 1893. 
 " Militantis eoolesise," August 
 
 1, 1897. 
 
 The Divine Bedeemer, 
 
 The Holy Ghost, 
 and The Sacrament of the 
 Altar. 
 
 " Tametsi futura," November 
 
 1, 1900. 
 " Divinum iUud," May 9, 1897- 
 "Mirse oaritatis," May 28, 
 
 1902. 
 
 Missions, " Sancta Dei," December 8, 
 
 1880. 
 and The Missionaries Cyril "Grande munus," September 
 and Methodius. 80, 1880. 
 
The Future 255 
 
 The Church as the Mother of " Insorutabili Dei," April 21, 
 
 Civilisation, 1878. 
 
 The Unity of the Ohuroh, " Satis oognitum," June 29, 
 
 1896. 
 and Community of Faith. "Fresdara gratulationis," 
 
 June 20, 1894. 
 
 Christian Marriage " Arcanum illud," February 
 
 10; 1880. 
 and Christian Life. " Exeunte jam," Deownber 
 
 25, 1888. 
 
 In additisn to these, there were his utterances 
 on the cult of the Virgin, the Bosary, the 
 Sacred Heart, and other matters connected 
 with Catholic worship and societies, and, finally, 
 numerous letters to the bishops and the 
 faithful of the various countries. All these 
 subjects are treated with wonderful sureness of 
 touch, and such felicity of expression that the 
 writings are a pleasure to read. It is true 
 that, even with a magnifying glass, it would 
 be impossible to find any novelty of thought. 
 But who would think of looking for that in 
 the public utterances of a man who made it 
 his boast that he carried on the oldest of tra- 
 ditions ? If any one imagines that Leo could 
 have differed from his predecessors' views on 
 any essential point, he has read the history of 
 the Papacy to no purpose. 
 
 Something there is, certainly, in the oft- 
 
256 The Papacy 
 
 repeated title of "the Pope of peace." Leo 
 was much more careful than his predecessors 
 — in this he resembled Consalvi — to take un- 
 favourable circumstances into consideration, 
 to eliminate the impossible from his plans, 
 and by careful calculation to attain the possible. 
 He announced his programme in a letter to 
 Nina, his Secretary of State, who in August, 
 1878, took the place of the prematurely 
 deceased Franchi : it was a question of making 
 a place for ' the Church and the Pope in the 
 midst of modern society, of destroying preju- 
 dices against the Church and silencing the 
 accusations against her. Such a programme 
 implied no small amount of self-denial and 
 much adaptability to circumstances. Leo 
 proved that he had these qualities in a high 
 degree. Sweet words flowed like honey from 
 his lips. His masterpiece was the Encyclical 
 " Praeclara gratulationis " of June 20, 1894, 
 in which he offered " greeting and peace in 
 the Lord to all rulers and nations of the earth," 
 in the fulness of his gratitude for the demonstra- 
 tions and good wishes recently showered upon 
 him on the occasion of his sacerdotal jubilee. 
 As " Vicar of the Almighty here on earth " 
 the Pope pours out the same love on all and 
 has but one wish — that the time may not be 
 far distant when the words of Jesus in His 
 
The Future 257 
 
 high-priestly prayer will be fulfilled: "I pray 
 that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, 
 art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may 
 be one in Us," and when the promise will 
 come true that "there shall be one fold and 
 one shepherd." In a truly paternal manner he 
 exercises even' now this office of pastor. His 
 pen is " dipped in goodwill, love, and yearning." 
 Are not the Protestants, like the Eastern 
 Catholics, but erring sheep? To these words 
 of peace the Greek Patriarch turned a deaf 
 ear, and harshly accused the Roman Church of 
 arrogance, because she persisted in her innova- 
 tions and stood in the way of the reunion of 
 the Churches. Moreover the Protestants were 
 not likely to forget that the same Pope in 
 the Encyclical "Sancta Dei" (December 3, 
 1880) had termed the Evangelical missionaries 
 "messengers of the Prince of Darkness." 
 
 It was Leo's endeavour to convince the 
 different Governments of the necessity of joint 
 action on the part of Church and State, and 
 he continually impressed on the peoples the 
 necessity of obedience to the powers ordained 
 of God, especially in the Encyclical " Diuturnum 
 illud" (June 29, 1881), in which he set forth 
 with dazzling sophistry the divine origin of 
 the State. A careful reader will not be de- 
 ceived by it : every line breathes the conviction 
 
 17 
 
258 The Papacy 
 
 that the Church is supreme over the State, 
 in accordance with the oft-misused principle 
 that "we ought to obey God rather than 
 men." How far Leo extended the limits of 
 obedience to the Church, especially to the 
 Holy See, is seen clearly enough in the 
 Encyclical "Sapientise Christianse" (January 
 10, 1890), which treats of the duties of Christian 
 citizens. At the same time it is indisputable 
 that the Pope was in earnest in his efforts 
 to reassure the States as to the encroachments 
 of the Churdi. 
 
 As regards Italy his position was peculiarly 
 difficult. It was out of the question for a 
 Pope who had grown up under Leo XII. and 
 Gregory XVI., and had passed the best years 
 of his manhood under Pius IX., to accept the 
 new position of the Papacy created by the 
 monarchy, and especially by the Law of 
 Guarantees. Granted his point of view, it is 
 worthy of all honour that Leo thought of 
 forming an Italian Confederation, on Gioberti's 
 plan, which he himself would have joined as 
 the sovereign of Rome and Central Italy. 
 Finding no support for this scheme either in 
 Italy or abroad, he had to content himself with 
 preparing for some future change in opinion by 
 strengthening the organisation of the cleigy and 
 continuing to work upon the mind of the laity. 
 
The Future 259 
 
 After Italy, Germany at first claimed his 
 special attention. Paradoxical as it may sound, 
 it is none the less true that Leo genuinely 
 admired the German Empire and its great 
 statesman, for the good reason that there, 
 under Protestant auspices, something was 
 being achieved, politically and socially, from 
 which even a Pope might learn, and from 
 which Leo actually did learn. The good 
 wishes for Germany's power and greatness 
 that he expressed so warmly and so eloquently 
 in his letter to Bismarck of 1885, in which 
 he thanked him for giving him the office 
 of arbitrator in the Caroline Islands question, 
 and which he followed up by conferring the 
 Order of Christ on the heretical Chancellor, 
 sprang from honest conviction. The adjust- 
 ment of the dispute on Church politics was 
 also really due to him, and it cannot be said 
 of the peace concluded in 1887, that it 
 endangered the interests of the Empire. Per- 
 sonal goodwill also inspired the exhortation 
 to the German Catholics to maintain a 
 friendly attitude towards the Govermnent on 
 the Septennate question (January 21, 1887). 
 This the "Centre" party regarded as an 
 encroachment of the Pope's, while Leo tried 
 to justify his interference by the bold 
 argument that moral and religious considera- 
 
26o The Papacy 
 
 tions were bound up with the matter in 
 question. 
 
 The limits set to the papal power by the 
 Vatican decree were a hindrance in dealing 
 with the French Catholics also. From the 
 beginning, Leo had thought to gain the con- 
 fidence of the Govex'nment by unreservedly 
 acknowledging the Republic as the divinely 
 ordained form of government for present-day 
 France, and the maintenance of this confidence 
 became the capital point of his policy when 
 the rapprochement of Italy and Germany in 
 the Triple Alliance of 1883 barred his way to 
 success. But he had no luck: the earnest 
 Catholics, headed by the clergy, refused to 
 take the field for the Republic and remained 
 refractory, although Leo and the faithful 
 Lavigerie continued their conciliatory efforts 
 undismayed. An even severer blow came to 
 the Pope from the superstition of these 
 Catholics — a superstition which he certainly 
 shared — when Leo Taxil audaciously made the 
 term "synagogue of Satan," which the Pope 
 had applied to the Freemasons, the theme 
 of a clever literary hoax, reviving all the 
 devilment of bygone times, and thoroughly 
 befooling Pope and Church for more than a 
 decade. 
 
 It was also not without anxiety that Leo 
 
The Future a6i 
 
 followed the mighty growth of Catholicism in 
 North America. He was not unaware that 
 the constitution of the United States, so 
 absolutely unlike that of any European coun- 
 try, put the separation of Church and State 
 on quite a different footing from that to 
 which he was accustomed, and he was there- 
 fore ready to listen to the suggestions of the 
 bishops. But the danger of a withdrawal of 
 the Catholic Church in America from the 
 centre in Borne appeared to him greater 
 than the advantages to be expected from 
 independence of government, and an eager 
 interest in modern ideas, and he therefore 
 condemned the so-called Americanism (Janu- 
 ary 22, 1899). 
 
 The attitude of Leo to the American question 
 showed with special clearness that even so 
 sagacious and far-seeing a Pope as he, was 
 unable to adapt himself to the requirements 
 of a new age. But the same was true on all 
 sides. In spite of his honest attempts, the Pope 
 could not free himself of the old idea that the 
 Church must keep men in leading-strings ; the 
 best proof of this is his Encyclical on the Labour 
 Question ( " Rerum novarum," May 15, 1891) 
 Men of learning cherish his memory because 
 he "opened the treasures of his archives with 
 a liberality that has seldom been equalled 
 
262 The Papacy 
 
 and never surpassed, wisely recognising that 
 nothing can serve the Church so well as the 
 whole truth." But in his Encyclical on the 
 philosophy of St. Thomas ("^terni Patris," 
 August 4, 1878), Leo commanded that "the 
 golden wisdom" of Aquinas "should again be 
 taught and spread as widely as possible, for 
 the defence and adornment of Catholic doctrine, 
 for the good of society, and for the growth of 
 all the sciences." AU his writings exhale the 
 atmosphere of the Middle Ages ; it was only in 
 that air that the Pope could breathe freely, 
 the climate of modem times was too bracing 
 for him. 
 
 The peculiar fascination of the aged Pope's per- 
 sonality might well give rise to an exaggerated 
 estimate of his historical importance. Hundreds 
 of thousands of men, religious and irreligious, 
 believers and unbelievers, have carried away 
 ineffaceable impressions of his kindly eyes and 
 his winning smile from the time of his Jubilees 
 which, as so often happens with old men, 
 acted on him like an elixir. The sight of this 
 delicate white-robed form being borne through 
 a crowd hoarse with cheering or bowed in 
 prayer, might well call to the mind of some 
 who "languished in error far from the Bride 
 of Christ," or who were even "tainted with 
 the pestilential miasma of unbelief," the words ; 
 
The Future 363 
 
 " My sheep hear My voice " ; or these again : 
 "Other sheep I have, which are not of this 
 fold: them also I must bring and they shall 
 hear My voice; and there shall be one fold 
 and one shepherd." We must read Leo's 
 most comprehensive Encyclical, the great dis- 
 sertation on ^he unity of the Church (" Satis 
 cognitum," June 29, 1896), quietly to ourselves, 
 if we would realise the full meaning that these 
 words of Christ in St. John's Gospel had for 
 him, who believed himself to be the divinely 
 ordained Vicar of Christ and the successor of 
 His chief apostle. 
 
 At the present time much is being said and 
 written about the future of the Papacy. The 
 contradiction between the idea and its realisa- 
 tion in the world, is too evident for some 
 attempt not to be made at adjustment. A 
 distinction is often drawn between the spiritual, 
 the political, and the royal Papacy; the royal 
 Papacy, it is said, has disappeared, the political 
 Papacy is doomed to decay, and only of the 
 spiritual Papacy is it prophesied that it will 
 continue. Yet we may ask whether this dis- 
 tinction does not divide what is really in- 
 divisible, and whether the Pope has not a 
 three-fold office like the Christ of Protestant 
 dogma. That the temporal power of the Pope 
 is at an end, is admitted even by thoughtful 
 
264 The Papacy 
 
 Catholics. But it does not necessarily follow 
 that an end has come to that idea of the papal 
 kingdom to which the temporal power was but 
 an appendage, developed in the course of its 
 history. For the Papacy, religion and politics 
 are indissolubly united. That Pius the Good 
 has succeeded Leo the Wise is no proof to the 
 contrary. The spirits of the great Popes still 
 walk the world to-day, and they will continue 
 to walk as long as there is a Roman Catholic 
 Church. Of this Church, in continuation of the 
 passage we quoted in the introduction, Macaulay 
 wrote : — 
 
 "She saw the commencement of all the 
 governments and of all the ecclesiastical estab- 
 lishments that now exist in the world; and 
 we feel no assurance that she is not destined 
 to see the end of them all. She was great and 
 respected before the Saxon had set foot on 
 Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, 
 when Grecian eloquence still flourished in 
 Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in 
 the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist 
 in undiminished vigour when some traveller 
 from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a 
 vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch 
 of Lojadon Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. 
 Paul's." 
 
 This prophecy of the unending future of the 
 
The Future 265 
 
 Church and of the Papacy — so inseparably 
 bound up with her destiny — is remarkable for 
 more than mere brilliancy of language. Its 
 explanation is to be found in the imperative 
 craving of the human soul to see and grasp 
 amid the flux of history one thing at least, 
 that is firm, enduring, eternal. Therein lies its 
 significance, since history is the outcome of 
 human souls and their needs. And yet, at 
 the same time, the idea is only a result of 
 our human point of view. Macaulay and all 
 those who judge as he does, whether influenced 
 by religious or merely by romantic feelings, 
 take in their short-sighted view the strongest 
 thing yet known to mankind for something 
 eternal. But even in the period of history 
 which we know, what are two thousand years ? 
 Once more we look back into the past. We 
 have watched the Church come into being and 
 with her the Papacy. There was a time when 
 neither the one nor the other existed. That 
 was the time when Jesus walked in Galilee 
 with His disciples, and Peter answered in the 
 name of all : " Thou art the Christ of God" (St. 
 Luke ix. 20). Jesus did not then think of either 
 Church or Papacy, but rather that the Son of 
 Man must suffer many things. He told his 
 disciples a parable concerning all those who 
 count upon abiding existence and a never- 
 
266 The Papacy 
 
 failing future in this world — the parable of 
 the rich man. The ground had brought forth 
 plentifully, and he pulled down his barns and 
 built greater, and said to his soul : " Soul, thou 
 hast much goods laid up for many years; 
 take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. 
 But God said unto him. Thou fool, this night 
 thy soul shall be required of thee : then whose 
 shall those things be which thou hast pro- 
 vided ? " This is a prophecy which is eternally 
 and universally true. It will be fulfilled even 
 in the Papacy. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 THEBE is no oomprehenBive modem history of the Papacy. 
 The last attempt at one in four volumes by the Old Catholic 
 Josef Langen — QeacMchte der rbrrmehen Kirche (Bonn, 
 1881-1898) — only goes as far as Innocent III. General sur- 
 veys are given in : W. Wattenbach, OescMahte dea rorrmchen 
 Pafpsttums, Vortrage (2nd impression, Berlin, 1876) ; Ign. v. 
 Dijllinger, Daa Pwpsttum (a revised version of Janus, Der 
 Pofpst wnd daa Konisil), edited, after the author's death, by 
 J. Friedrioh (Munich, 1892) ; B. Schwemer, Pa^attmn imd 
 Eaiserimn (Stuttgart, 1899). Detailed accounts of certain 
 periods are to be found in: Leop. v. Banke, Die romischen 
 P&pate in den lettsten vier Jahrhtmderten* (10th edition, 
 Leipzig, 1900, 8 vols.) ; Ludw. Pastor, OeaeMchte der Palate 
 aeit dem Auagang dea Mitielaltera \ (Freiburg, 1899-1906, 
 4 vols, at present published, going up to Leo X.) ; Fr. Nielsen, 
 QescMohte des Papattwma im 19. Jahrkwndert | (trans, from the 
 Danish, 2nd edition, Gotha, 1880, 2 parts) ; A. J. NUmberger, 
 ZurKirchengescMchtedea 19. Jahrhwnderta (Mainz, 1897-1900, 
 3 vols.). The connection of the Papacy with the city of Bome 
 is especially considered in F. Gregorovius, QeaoMchte der 
 Stadt Eom im Mittelalter^ (5th edition, Stuttgart, 1903, 
 
 * The Hiatory of the Popea dm/rimg the laat Fov/r Oentwdea. 
 English translation by Mrs. Foster, revised by G. B. Dennis 
 (London, 1908, 3 vols.). 
 
 t The Hiatory of the Popea from the Cloae of the Middle 
 Agea. English translation edited by F. I. Antrobus and 
 B. F. Kerr (London, 1891, &o. ; 7 vols, now published). 
 
 J The Hiatory of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century. 
 Translated into English under the direction of A. J. Mason 
 (London, 1906, 2 vols.). 
 
 § Hiatory of the City of Bome in the Middle Agea. Trans- 
 lated into English from the fourth German edition by Mrs. 
 G. W. Hamilton (2nd edition, Loudon, 1900, &c. In progress).* 
 
 267 
 
268 Bibliography 
 
 8 vols.) ; Alf. von Beumout, GescMcMe der Stadt Bom 
 (Berlin, 1867, &o., 3 vols.) ; Hartmann Grisar, GesoMehte Boms 
 VMd der Papste vm Mittelalter (Freiburg, 1898 ff, 1 vol. at 
 present issued). A history of the Papal States has been 
 written by M. Broach (Gotha, 1880-1882, 2 vols.). From a 
 polemical point of view, Daa Papsttwm in seiner sozial- 
 kultv/rellen WirksawJceit (4th edition, Leipzig, 1902, 2 vols.), 
 by Paul Count von Hoensbroeoh, is important. Two other 
 German works may also be mentioned : Albert Hauck, 
 KirchengescMohte Deutsehlands (Leipzig. 4 vols, at present 
 issued : vol. i., 4th edition, 1904 ; vol. ii., 2nd edition, 1900 ; 
 vol. iii., 3rd and 4th editions, 1906 ; vol. iv., 1903) ; Johannes 
 HaUer, Pa^sttwrn imdKvfchenreform (BerUn, 1903). The subject 
 is treated in an original manner by Baldassare Labanca, II 
 pa/pato. Sua origine, sue lotte e vioende, suo a/venire (Turin, 
 1905 ; the last part has been translated into German by 
 M. Sell, Tubingen, 1906, under the title of Die ZuJcvmft des 
 Papsttwms). A selection of the most important papal monu- 
 ments in the original has been brought out by'Mirbt, Quellen 
 nwr GescMcMe des Papsttwma und des rondschen Katho- 
 limismus (2nd edition, Tubingen, 1901), and a Stattstik der 
 Papste by Prince Z. V. Lobkovitz (Freiburg, 190S). 
 
 [To these may be added the following well-known English 
 works : H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, 
 including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas 
 V. (9 vols.) ; J. Bryce, The Holy Soman Empire ; 
 M. Creighton, A History of the Papacy from the Great 
 Schism to the Saole of Bome {1378-152r) (6 vols.) ; W. 
 Barry, The Papal Mona/rchy from St. Gregory the Great to 
 Boniface VIII. (590-1303); Cardinal Wiseman, Bec'ollections 
 of Fov/r Popes {PiMsVIL, Leo XII.,Pius VIII., Gregory XVI.), 
 and of Bome in their. Times; also the Cambridge Modern 
 History, especially the volumes on The Benvdssa/nce, The 
 Beformation, The Wars of Beligion, The Thirty Years Wa/r, 
 The Age of Loms XIV., Napoleon, The Bestoration, and The 
 Growth of NaOonaKties. — Translatoks.] 
 
LIST OF THE ROMAN PONTIFFS. 
 
 (As in the Registers of the Roman Church.) 
 ST. PETER, PRINCE OF THE APOSTLES, 41-65-67. 
 
 Linus. 
 
 • 
 
 A.D. 67 
 
 Anastasius I. a.d 
 
 .398 
 
 Vitalian. a.d 
 
 .657 
 
 Cletus. 
 
 79 
 
 Innocent I. 
 
 402 
 
 Deusdedit II. 
 
 672 
 
 Clement I. 
 
 91 
 
 Zosimus. 
 
 417 
 
 Donus I. 
 
 676 
 
 Evaristus. 
 
 100 
 
 Boniface I. 
 
 418 
 
 Agatho. 
 
 678 
 
 Alexander 1. 
 
 109 
 
 Coelestine I. 
 
 422 
 
 LeoH. 
 
 682 
 
 Sixtus I. 
 
 119 
 
 Sixtus III. 
 
 432 
 
 Benedict II. 
 
 684 
 
 Telesphorus. 
 
 128 
 
 Leo I. (the Gt.) 
 
 440 
 
 John V. 
 
 685 
 
 Hyginus. 
 
 138 
 
 Hilary. 
 
 461 
 
 Conon. 
 
 686 
 
 Pius I. 
 
 142 
 
 Simplicius. 
 
 468 
 
 Sergius I. 
 
 687 
 
 Anicetus. 
 
 IS7 
 
 Felix III. 
 
 483 
 
 John VI. 
 
 701 
 
 Soter. 
 
 168 
 
 Gelasius I. 
 
 492 
 
 John VII. 
 
 70s 
 
 Eleutherius. 
 
 177 
 
 Anastasius II. 
 
 496 
 
 Sisinnius. 
 
 708 
 
 Victor I. 
 
 190 
 
 Symmachus. 
 
 498 
 
 Constantine I. 
 
 708 
 
 Zephyrinus. 
 Callistus I. 
 
 202 
 
 Hormisdas. 
 
 S14 
 
 Gregory II. 
 
 71S 
 
 2l8 
 
 John I. 
 
 523 
 
 Gregory III, 
 
 731 
 
 Urban L 
 
 222 
 
 Felix IV. 
 
 526 
 
 Zachary. 
 
 741 
 
 Fontian. 
 
 230 
 
 Boniface II. 
 
 53° 
 
 Stephen Ill.f 
 
 752 
 
 Anterus. 
 
 23s 
 
 John II. 
 
 532 
 
 Paul L 
 
 757 
 
 Fabian. 
 
 236 
 
 Agapitus. 
 
 535 
 
 Constantine II. 
 
 
 Cornelius. 
 
 251 
 
 Silverius. 
 
 536 
 
 Stephen IV. 
 Hadrian I. 
 
 768 
 
 Lucius I. 
 
 253 
 
 Vigilius. 
 
 537 
 
 771 
 
 Stephen I. 
 
 254 
 
 Pelagius I. 
 
 555 
 
 Leo III. 
 
 795 
 
 Sixtus IL 
 
 257 
 
 John III. 
 
 560 
 
 Stephen V. 
 
 816 
 
 Dionysius. 
 
 259 
 
 Benedict I. 
 
 574 
 
 Paschal I. 
 
 817 
 
 Felix I. 
 
 269 
 
 Pelagius 11. 
 
 578 
 
 Eugene II. 
 
 824 
 
 Eutychian. 
 
 275 
 
 Gregory I. (the 
 
 
 Valentine. 
 
 827 
 
 Caius. 
 
 283 
 
 Great). 
 
 590 
 
 Gregory IV. 
 
 827 
 
 Marcellinus. 
 
 296 
 
 Sabinian. 
 
 604 
 
 Sergius II. 
 
 844 
 
 Marcellus I. 
 
 307 
 
 Boni&ice III, 
 
 607 
 
 Leo IV. 
 
 847 
 
 Eusebius 
 
 309 
 
 Boniface IV. 
 
 608 
 
 Benedict III. 
 
 8?S 
 
 Melchiades. 
 
 310 
 
 Deusdedit I. 
 
 615 
 
 Nicholas I. (the 858 
 
 Silvester 1. 
 
 3H 
 
 Bonil^ce V. 
 
 619 
 
 Hadrian II, [Gt,) 867 
 
 Mark. 
 
 336 
 
 Honorius I. 
 
 625 
 
 John VIII. 
 
 872 
 
 Julius I. 
 
 337 
 
 Severinus. 
 
 640 
 
 Marinus I. 
 
 882 
 
 Liberius. 
 
 352 
 
 John IV. 
 
 640 
 
 Hadrian III, 
 
 884 
 
 Felix IL' 
 
 
 Theodore I. 
 
 642 
 
 Stephen VI. 
 
 88s 
 
 Damasus I. 
 
 366 
 
 Martin I. 
 
 649 
 
 Formosus. 
 
 891 
 
 Siricius. 
 
 384 
 
 Eugene I. 
 
 655 
 
 Boni&ce VI. 
 
 896 
 
 * Pope during exile of Liberius. 
 
 t Stepb. II, (75t) died before cootecr. 
 
 a69 
 
LIST OP THE ROMAN PONTIFFS 
 
 stephenvn.A.D.8961 
 
 Coelestinell.A.D 
 
 "43 
 
 Nicholas V. A.D 
 
 1447 
 
 Romanus. 
 
 897 
 
 Luchis II. 
 
 "44 
 
 Callistus III. 
 
 '455 
 
 Theodore II. 
 
 897 
 
 Eugene III. 
 
 "45 
 
 Pius II. 
 
 1458 
 
 ohnlX. 
 
 898 
 
 Anastasius IV. 
 
 "S3 
 
 Paul II. 
 
 1464 
 
 Benedict IV. 
 
 900 
 
 Hadrian IV. 
 
 "54 
 
 Sixtus IV. 
 
 1471 
 
 LeoV. 
 
 903 
 
 Alexander III. 
 
 "59 
 
 Innocent VIII. 
 
 1484 
 
 Christopher. 
 
 903 
 
 Lucius III. 
 
 1181 
 
 Alexander VI. 
 
 1492 
 
 Sergius III. 
 
 904 
 
 Urban III. 
 
 "85 
 
 Pius III. 
 
 1503 
 
 Anastasius III. 
 
 911 
 
 Gregory VIII. 
 
 "87 
 
 JuUus II. 
 
 1503 
 
 Lando. 
 
 913 
 
 Clement III. 
 
 1 187 
 
 LeoX. 
 
 1513 
 
 John X. 
 
 914 
 
 Coelestine III. 
 
 1191 
 
 Hadrian VI. 
 
 1522 
 
 Leo VI. 
 
 928 
 
 Innocent III. 
 
 1198 
 
 Clement VII. 
 
 1523 
 
 Stephen VIII. 
 
 929 
 
 Honorius III. 
 
 1216 
 
 Paul III. 
 
 1534 
 
 John XI. 
 
 931 
 
 Gregory IX. 
 
 1227 
 
 Julius III. 
 
 1550 
 
 Leo VII. 
 
 936 
 
 Coelestine IV. 
 
 1241 
 
 Marcellus II. 
 
 1555 
 
 Stephen IX. 
 
 939 
 
 Innocent IV. 
 
 1243 
 
 Paul IV. 
 
 1555 
 
 Marinus II.' 
 
 943 
 
 Alexander IV. 
 
 1254 
 
 Pius IV. 
 
 1559 
 
 Agapitus II. 
 
 946 
 
 Urban IV. 
 
 1261 
 
 Pius V. 
 
 1566 
 
 John XII. 
 
 955 
 
 Clement IV. 
 
 1265 
 
 Gregory XIII. 
 
 157a 
 
 Leo VIII. 
 
 963 
 
 Gregory X. 
 
 1271 
 
 Sixtus V. 
 
 1585 
 
 Benedict V. 
 
 964 
 
 Innocent V. 
 
 1276 
 
 Urban VIL 
 
 1590 
 
 John XIII. 
 
 965 
 
 Hadrian V. 
 
 1276 
 
 Gregory XIV. 
 
 1590 
 
 Benedict VI. 
 
 973 
 
 JohnXX.{XXI.) 1276 
 
 Innocent IX. 
 
 1591 
 
 Benedict VII. 
 
 974 
 
 Nicholas III. 
 
 1277 
 
 Clement VIII. 
 
 1592 
 
 John XIV. 
 John XV. 
 
 983 
 
 Martin IV.* 
 
 1281 
 
 Leo XI. 
 
 1605 
 
 98s 
 
 Honorius IV. 
 
 128s 
 
 Paul V. 
 
 1605 
 
 Gregory V. 
 
 996 
 
 Nicholas IV. 
 
 1288 
 
 Gregory XV. 
 
 1621 
 
 Silvester II. 
 
 999 
 
 Coelestine V. 
 
 1294 
 
 Urban VIII. 
 
 1623 
 
 John XVII.+ 
 John XVIII. 
 
 1003 
 
 Boniface VIII. IT 1294 
 
 Innocent X. 
 
 1644 
 
 1003 
 
 Benedict XI. 
 
 1303 
 
 Alexander VII. 
 
 1655 
 
 Sergius IV. 
 
 1009 
 
 Clement V. 
 
 1305 
 
 Clement IX. 
 
 1667 
 
 Benedict VIII. 
 
 1012 
 
 John XXII. 
 
 1316 
 
 Clement X. 
 
 1670 
 
 ohn XIX. 
 
 1024 
 
 Benedict XII. 
 
 1334 
 
 Innocent XI. 
 
 1676 
 
 'Benedict IX. 
 
 1033 
 
 Clement VI. 
 
 1342 
 
 Alexander VIII 
 
 [.1689 
 
 Gregory VI. 
 
 1045 
 
 Innocent VI. 
 
 J352 
 
 Innocent XII. 
 
 1691 
 
 Clement II. 
 
 1046 
 
 Urban V. 
 
 1362 
 
 Clement XI. 
 
 1700 
 
 Damasus II. 
 
 1048 
 
 Gregory XI. 
 
 1370 
 
 Innocent XIII. 
 
 1721 
 
 Leo IX. 
 
 1049 
 
 Urban VI. 
 
 1378 
 
 Benedict XIII. 
 
 1724 
 
 Victor II. 
 
 105s 
 
 Clement VII. 
 
 
 Clement XII. 
 
 1730 
 
 Stephen X. 
 
 1057 
 
 (Avignon). 
 
 1378 
 
 Benedict XIV. 
 
 1740 
 
 Nicholas II.} 
 
 1059 
 
 Benedict XIII. 
 
 
 Clement XIII. 
 
 1758 
 
 Alexander II. 
 
 1061 
 
 (Avignon). 
 
 1394 
 
 Clement XIV. 
 
 1769 
 
 Gregory VII. 
 
 1073 
 
 Boniface IX. 
 
 1389 
 
 Pius VI. 
 
 1775 
 
 Victor III. 
 
 1086 
 
 Innocent VII. 
 
 1404 
 
 Pius VII. 
 
 1800 
 
 Urban II. 
 
 1088 
 
 Gregory XII. 
 
 1406 
 
 Leo XII. 
 
 1823 
 
 Paschal II. 
 
 1099 
 
 Alexander V. 
 
 1409 
 
 Pius VIII. 
 
 1829 
 
 Gelasius II. 
 
 1118 
 
 John XXIII. 
 Martin V. 
 
 1410 
 
 Gregory XVL 
 
 1831 
 
 Callistus II. 
 
 1119 
 
 1417 
 
 Pius IX. 
 
 1846 
 
 HonoriusII. 
 
 1 124 
 
 Eugene IV. 
 
 1431 
 
 Leo XIII. 
 
 1878 
 
 Innocent II. 
 
 1 130 
 
 
 
 Pius X. 
 
 1903 
 
 * Marinus I., II., were also called (Martinu^ Martin II., III. 
 
 t John XVI. (q<)7) Antlpope. t Benedict X. (1058), Antipope. 
 
 V Boniface VII. (974), Antipope. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abelabd, 103 
 
 Acceptation of Mayeuce, 1S9 
 
 Adalbert, Archbishop, 77 
 
 Advocate of Peace {see Defen- 
 sor Pacis) 
 
 Aetemi Patrie Unigeniiua, 248 
 
 d'Ailly, Pierre, 180 
 
 AiBtulf, 61 
 
 Aleamder, 168 
 
 Albert II., 148 
 
 Albertus Magnus, 118 
 
 Alexander II., 76-7 
 III., 106-8 
 IV., 121 
 v., 188 
 
 VI., 158-4, 205 
 of Hales, 118 
 Jerome, 165 
 
 Alfonso I. of Portugal, 108 
 
 America, Catholicism in North, 
 260-1 
 
 Anaoletus, 108 
 
 AnfoBsi, 227 
 
 Angelo, Michael, 146 
 
 Anicetus, 19 
 
 Antonelli, Giacomo, 239, 263 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 118-9, 126 
 
 Aquavava, Olaudio, 194 
 
 Armada, Spanish, 188 
 Arnold of Brescia, 104-5 
 Art in Borne, 144-7 
 Augsburg, Diet of, 166, 173-4 
 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 43 
 Augttatimis Bedivivus, 204 
 Aurelian, Emperor, 26 
 Auvergne (see William, Count 
 
 of) 
 Avignon, Papal residence at, 
 
 127-88 
 
 Balbo, Cesare, 238 
 BMe, Council of, 188-9 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, 104 
 Barberini, Matteo, 199 
 Beckx, Pierre Jean, 236 
 Bellsirmine, 194 
 Benedict XIII., 181-3, 186 
 
 „ XIV., 206-8, 258 
 Bernard of Clairraux, 108, 105, 
 
 117, 228 
 <■ Bibliotheca Palatina," 197 
 Bismarck, 250-2 
 Bonaventura, 118 
 Boniface VIII., 128-6 
 
 „ IX., 180-1 
 
 271 
 
272 
 
 Index 
 
 Books, Index of Forbidden, 
 
 177, 179 
 Borghese (see Paul V.) 
 Borgia, Lucrezia, 154 
 Borgia, Boderigo (see Alexander 
 
 II.) 
 Brandenburg, Elector of, 201 
 Bruno, Bishop, 70 
 Byzantium and the Papacy, 
 
 46-7 
 
 O^EULAEius, Michael, 72 
 
 Cajetan, Cardinal, 166, 170 
 
 Calixtus I., 19-20 
 „ II., 96-8 
 „ III., 150-3 
 
 Campeggio, Cardinal, 173 
 
 Candidus, Cardinal, 83 
 
 CappeUari (see Mauro) 
 
 Caraflfa, Giovanni Pietro, 176-7 
 
 Camesecchi, Pietro, 186 
 
 Carranza, Bartolommeo, 186 
 
 Catechism, Boman, 186 
 
 Oavour, Count, 289 
 
 Celibacy of Priests, 81 
 
 Chalcedon, Council of, 35 
 
 Charlemagne, 54-7 
 
 Charles Albert of Sardinia, 
 284-5 
 ,, of Anjou, 120-1 
 ,, Theodore of Bavaria, 
 
 213 
 „ v.. Emperor, 173-4 
 „ VI. of^France, 131 
 
 Cwilta GattoKca, 236, 242, 
 247 
 
 Clairvaux (see Bernard, Abbot 
 of) 
 
 XJlemangee, Nicholas de, 131 
 Clement I., 15 
 III., 92 
 
 v., 127-31 
 VII., 171-3 
 VIII., 188, 195 
 IX., 205 
 XI., 201-2 
 Xni., 208, 212 
 XIV., 208-9, 212 
 Clement Wenzel of Treves, 212 
 Clermont, Assembly at, 102 
 Collegium Bomanum, 193, 
 
 230-1 
 Confession at Easter, 111 
 Congregation of the Propaganda, 
 
 196 
 Conrad III., 104 
 Consalvi, Marquis Eroole, 222-3 
 Constance, Council of, 134 
 Constantine, Donation of, 31, 
 
 53-4, 117, 143 
 Constantinople, Founding of, 
 
 28 
 Contarini, Gasparo, 75-6 
 Copernicus, 229 
 Cornelius, Bishop, 21 
 Crusades, the, 102, 114 
 Curia, the, 100 
 
 Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, 
 22-6 
 
 Damasus, Bishop, 30-1 
 Damiani, Peter, 74 
 Decius, Emperor, 21 
 Deoretum QraUa/m, 106 
 Defence of the Catholic Faith 
 Suarez's, 196 
 
Index 
 
 273 
 
 Defensor Pacis, 126-7 
 De Bege, Mariana's, 196 
 Deusdedit, Cardinal, 78 
 Diether, Archbishop, 149 
 Dionysian Controversy, the, 
 
 25-8 
 Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, 14 
 Bollinger, 243 
 Dom/inus ac redem^or noster, 
 
 209-10 
 Dual Popes, 130-2 
 Du Pape, de Maistre's, 225-6 
 
 EcK, Dr., 166 
 
 Encyclicals of Leo XIII,, 264-8, 
 
 261-2 
 Erfurt, Synod at, 81 
 Eugenius III., 105 
 
 IV., 189-40 
 
 Fabbb, 286 
 FaJk Laws, 251 
 Fea, Carlo, 226-7 
 Febronius, JustinuB, 212-3 
 Felix IL, 38 
 Ferdinand II., 260 
 Firmilian, Bishop, 24 
 Forchheim, Assembly at, 91 
 Forli, Melozzo da, 145 
 FormoBus, Pope, p8 
 Fra Angelico, 143' 
 Francis I. of France, 172 
 
 „ Xavier, 196 
 Franciscans, Order of, 116, 121- 
 
 22 
 Franco-Prussian War, 355-7, 
 
 405 
 
 Frederick L, 105-8 
 
 II., 109, 112-5 
 in., 148-9 
 „ the Wise, 167 
 Freemasons, 260 
 Freytag, Gustav, 54 
 Funds and taxes, 100-1 
 
 Galileo, 200, 229 
 
 Gallioan liberties, 203 
 
 Garibaldi, 235, 241 
 
 GelasiuB I., 37 
 
 Gerson, Jean Oharlier de, 
 
 130-1 
 Gioberti, Vinceazo, 233 
 Godfrey of Lorraine, 76 
 Golden Bull of Eger, 109 
 Gregory I., 39-43 
 
 „ IL, 47 
 
 „ III., 47-9 
 
 „ VII., 74, 78-95 
 
 „ IX., n3-8 
 
 „ XI., 130 
 
 „ XII., 133-6, 188-90 
 
 „ XV., 196, 228-9, 237 
 GrotiuB, Hugo, 211-2 
 Guisoard, Bobert, 75, 92-3 
 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, 
 200 
 
 Hadeian IV., 105-6 
 VI., 169-71 
 Hase, Karl, 56 
 Hemmerlin, Canon, 137 
 Henry III., 70, 76 
 
 „ IV., 70, 76-7, 82-90, 
 189, 196 
 
 18 
 
274 
 
 Index 
 
 Henry V., 96-8 
 
 „ VIII., 173 
 Hermes, Georg, 231 
 Hermit of Amiens, 102 
 Hesse, Philip, Landgrave of, 172 
 HUdebrand (see Gregory VII.) 
 Hincmar, Archbishop, 61-3 
 Hippolytus, Bishop, 20 
 Hohenlohe, Count von, 252 
 Honorius I., 45-6 
 
 III., 112-3, 116 
 Hontheim, Nicholas von, 212-3 
 Hugo, Abbot, 67 
 Humbert, Cardinal-Bishop, 73 
 Huss, John, 135 
 
 loNATins, Bishop of Antioch, 14 
 „ de Becalde (see 
 Loyola) 
 Index of Forbidden Books, 
 
 177-9 
 Indulgences, 162-4 
 Infallibility of doctrinal deci- 
 sions, 245-7 
 Influence, political and secular, 
 
 201-3 
 Innocent I., 32 
 
 II., 100 
 III., 10&-12 
 IV., 116, 120 
 VIII., 146, 151-2 
 „ X., 201, 204 
 „ XL, 201 
 Inquisition, founding of Roman, 
 
 177 
 Investitures struggle, 81 ff. 
 IrensBus, Bishop of Lyons, 17 
 Italian Bevolution, 232-4 
 
 Jansbnisi disputes, 208-5 
 Jesuitism, 181-5, 192-8, 205-11, 
 
 224, 230-1, 235 
 Joachim Philip of Treves, 212 
 John, King of England, 110 
 
 „ XL, 64 
 
 „ XII., 64 
 
 „ XXIL, 128 
 
 „ XXIIL, 133-6 
 
 ,, of Jandun, 126 
 Joseph II., 215-6 
 Julius, I., 31 
 
 „ IL, 117, 146, 151, 154-7 
 
 „ IIL, 178, 181 
 Justinian, 38, 118 
 
 Kaunitz, Count, 216 
 Ketteler, 245 
 Kramers, Heinrich, 152 
 " Kulturkampf," 250 
 
 Lacordaibe, 232 
 Lagueroimi&re, 240 
 Lainez, 181 
 Lambrusohini, 229 
 Lamennais, Abb6, 231-2 
 Langenstein, Henry of, 130 
 Lateran Councils, 99, 108-12, 
 
 157 
 Lavigerie, 260 
 Lenten Synods, 81, 91 
 Leo L, 32-7 
 
 „ IIL, 46, 55 
 
 „ IV., 58-9 
 
 „ VIIL, 66 
 
 „ IX., 71-2, 75 
 
 „ X., 146-7, 164, 158-9 
 
Index 
 
 275 
 
 Leo XII., 226, 228 
 
 „ XIII., 161, 164^, 169, 252- 
 
 68 
 Jjeopold of Tuscany, 216 
 Lettres provimciales, 204 
 LiberiuB, Bishop of Borne, 80 
 Liutprand, 47-9 
 Lombards, the, 45-2,71 51-2 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, 145- 
 
 146 
 Lothair of Lorraine, 60 
 
 ,, Supplenburg, 103 
 
 Louis I., 58 
 
 „ XIV., 201-2 
 Louis, Saint, of France, 121 
 
 „ of Bavaria, 127-8 
 Loyola, 180, 196 
 Lucius II., 103 
 Luther, Martin, 165-9 
 Lyons, Council of, 116 
 
 Maoaulay, 7, 264 
 Maintenon, Mdme. de, 202 
 Maistre, Count Joseph de, 225- 
 
 226 
 Majolus, Abbot, 67 
 Malleus Maleficarum, 153 
 Manfred, 120 
 Mantua, Council at, 176 
 Map, "Walter, 101 
 Marcellus II., 178 
 Mariana, 196 
 Marozia, 64 
 MarsUius of Padua, 126 
 Martel, Charles, 48-50 
 Martin I., 45 
 
 „ v., 136-9 
 MatUda of Tuscany, 76, 92 
 
 Manro, Father, 228-9 
 Maximilian, Emperor, 166-7 
 Mazziai, 282 
 Medici, The, 145-6 
 Mendicant Orders, 116 
 Money-collecting, 128-80 
 Mommsen, 43 
 
 Nantes, Edict of, 189 
 Napoleon I., 219-22 
 
 III., 239, 241 
 Nepotism, 129 
 
 Niceea, Councils of, 27, 33, 72 
 Nicholas I., 59-68 
 
 v., 143-4, 149-50 
 Nma, 266 
 
 Nogaret, William de, 126 
 Norbert of Xanten, 103 
 Normans, Belations of the 
 Papacy with, 81 
 
 OcTAViAN, " Patrician," 64 
 Odilo, Abbot, 67 
 Otto I., 64-5 
 
 „ IIL, 68-9 
 Oudinot, Marshal, 285 
 
 " Pallium " fees, 101 
 " Papal Trinity," 188 
 Pascal, Blaise, 204 
 Paschal Controversy, 18-9 
 Paschal II., 95-6, 107 
 Pastor Mtemus, 245 
 Paul, St., 17 
 Paul II., 144, 150 
 „ in., 175-7, 181 
 
276 
 
 Index 
 
 Paul IV., 178-9, 182-3 
 
 „ v., 195-6 
 Pelagius II., 40 
 Pepin, 50-2 
 
 Perrone, Giovanni, 231, 244 
 Peter, St., 9-11, 16-7, 23-5 
 Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, 30 
 Peter's Pence, 101 
 Philip the Fair, 128-6 
 Pisa, Counoils at, 182-B, 156-9 
 Pius II., 144, 150 
 
 „ IV., 183 
 
 „ v., 185-8, 194 
 
 „ VI., 210, 212-6 
 
 „ VII., 219-24, 227 
 
 „ VIII., 228 
 
 „ IX., 8, 223-48, 252 
 
 „ X.,264 
 PlombiSres, Alliance of Victor 
 
 Emmanuel and Napoleon III. 
 at, 239 
 Polycarp, 18-9 
 Portugal, Kingdom of, 108 
 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 
 
 138, 147, 167-8 
 Propaganda, Congregation of 
 
 the, 196 
 Pseudo-Isidorian Deoretals,61-2 
 Pufendorf, 212 
 
 Quanta Cii/ra, 237 
 Quesnel, Paschasius, 205 
 Quod minquam, 252 
 
 Badeizky, 235 
 Eanke, 7, 75, 221, 227 
 Raphael, 117-8 
 
 Bavailkc, 196 
 
 Becalde, Lopez de {see Loyola) 
 Beformation, 160 £F 
 Begensburg, Council' at, 176 
 Begino, Abbot, 60 
 Beinald of Dassel, 107 
 Bisorgimento, ItaUan, 232-4 
 Boland, Cardinal (see Alexander 
 
 III.) 
 Bome, Synod at, 48, 75 
 Boneaglia, Plain of, 105 
 Boothaan, 230, 253 
 Bosmini, Antonio, 238 
 Bossi, Pellegrino, 234 
 Bothe, Bichard, 59 
 Eovere, Francesco della, 150-1 
 
 „ Giuliano della {see Julius 
 
 II.) 
 Budolf of Swabia, 91-2 
 
 St. Babtholomew, Massacre of, 
 
 189 
 Saint-Martin, 225 
 Salmeron, 183 
 Sardioa, Synod of, 31 
 Sohlegel, Friedrich August, 226 
 Sohulte, 235 
 Senatrix of Bome (Theodora), 
 
 64 
 Septimius Severus, Emperor, 
 
 20 
 Sicily, 112, 120 
 Siegfried, Archbishop of Ma- 
 
 yence, 81, 85 
 Sigismimd, King, 134-6 
 Simonists, Humbert's treatise 
 
 against, 73 
 Siricius, Bishop of Bome, 32 
 
Index 
 
 277 
 
 Bixtus II., 21 
 
 „ IV., 144-6, 150 
 
 „ v., 188, 190-1, 194, 197 
 Society of Jesus, 181 
 Soter, Bishop, 14-S 
 Spires, Protest at, 180 
 Sprenger, Jacob, 152 
 States of the Church, 1^0 
 Stephen I., 21-2 
 
 „ III., 51 
 Suarez, 196 
 Sutri, Synod at, 70 
 Swords, Doctrine of two, 117 
 Sylvester I., 30 
 „ II., 69 
 " Synagogue of Satan," 260 
 
 Taxation, 128-30 
 
 Taxil, Leo, 260 
 
 Templars, Condemnation of the, 
 
 128 
 Theodosius, 28-30 
 Theodora, 64 
 Theodotus, 25 
 Thessalonioa, Attitude of, to 
 
 Borne, 34 
 Thirty Years' War, 200 
 Tolerance, Joseph II.'s Charter 
 
 of, 215 
 Transubstantiation, Doctrine of, 
 
 111 
 Trent, Council of, 183, 185 
 Tribur, Diet at, 88 
 Triple Alliance, 260 
 
 Unam Sanotum, Bull, 124, 126, 
 158 
 
 Umgenitus Constitution, 205 
 Univers, 236 
 Urban II., 95, 102 
 
 „ IV., 121 
 
 „ VI., 130 
 
 „ VIII., 199-201 
 
 La Valbttb, 208 
 Valla, LaurentiuB, 148-4 
 Valentinian III., 33-5 
 Venice, Meeting of Alexander 
 
 III. and Frederick Barba- 
 
 rossa at, 107-8 
 Veuillot, Louis, 236 
 Victor I., 19, 25 
 
 „ IL, 95 
 
 „ IV., 107 
 Victor Emmanuel I., 224, 239-41 
 Vienna, Concordat concluded 
 
 at, 149 
 Vigilius, Pope, 38 
 Vogelweide, Walther von der, 
 
 129 
 
 Westphalia, Peace of, 201 
 WUUam of Auvergne, 67 
 
 „ „ Orange, 201 
 Witches Homvmer, 153 
 Worms, Concordat of, 96-8 
 
 „ Diet of, 167-8 
 WycUf, John, 135 
 
 Zacharias, Pope, 50 
 Zelanti, 227 
 Zephyrinus, Bishop, 19 
 Zurich, Peace of, 289