The primitive rule for
election
of bishops had been that it should be
made by clergy and people.
made by clergy and people.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
H.
V.
READE, M.
A.
, Sub-Warden and Tutor of
Keble College, Oxford.
Character of Ancient Philosophy
Philosophy and Theology
The medieval problems .
The Latin world
The Carolingian Renaissance
John the Scot
Character of Christendom
Medieval knowledge of Plato and Aristotle
The influence of Macrobius
Importance of dialectic.
The tenth century
Lanfranc
Peter Damian
The work of Anselm
Realism and Nominalism
780
781
782
783
784
ib.
788
789
790
ib.
791
792
ib.
ib.
794
Roscelin
796
## p. xlii (#44) ############################################
Contents
PAGE
796
800
803
805
ib.
The position of Abelard
Hugh of St Victor
Peter the Lombard
John of Damascus
John of Salisbury.
The new Aristotelian logic
The School of Chartres .
Intellectual progress in the twelfth century
The new Aristotle at Paris
Translations from Greek and from Arabic
Roger Bacon
Muslim influence
Fārābi and Avicenna
Algazel, Averroes, Avencebrol
Aristotelianism and the University of Paris
Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, and Averroism
Siger of Brabant
Opposition to Thomism
Philosophy and the Church
The relation of reason to faith
808
809
810
811
ib.
813
814
816
817
ib.
818
821
822
823
824
825
827
ib.
829
The final aim of medieval philosophy
Duns Scotus .
The coming revolutions in thought
## p. xliii (#45) ###########################################
xliii
LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
CHAPS.
PAGES
831-833
834_845
846-849
850_854
855–859
8604863
864-866
867-869
870–871
871
872-874
Abbreviations
General Bibliography for Volume V
I. The Reform of the Church
II and III. Gregory VII: Henry IV and Henry V
IV. The Normans in South Italy and Sicily
V. The Italian Cities till c. 1200
VI. Islām in Syria and Egypt, 750—1100
VII. The First Crusade
VIII. The Kingdom of Jerusalem
IX. The Effects of the Crusades upon Western
Europe
X. Germany, 1125—1152
XI and XIII. Italy and the Lombard League, 1125—1185
XII. Frederick Barbarossa and Germany
XIV. The Emperor Henry VI
XV and XVI. England and Normandy under the Norman
Kings
XVII.
England: Henry II
XVIII. France: Louis VI and Louis VII
XIX. The Communal Movement, especially in
875-877
878-881
.
882—884
.
885—894
895–900
901-902
.
France.
XX. The Monastic Orders
XXI. Roman and Canon Law in the Middle Ages
XXII. Medieval Schools to c. 1300
XXIII. Philosophy in the Middle Ages .
903—908
909—920
921-933
934-936
937-939
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF LEADING EVENTS
INDEX
940—946
947-1005
## p. xliv (#46) ############################################
xliv
LIST OF MAPS.
(See separate portfolio. )
48. Germany under Frederick Barbarossa, c. 1190.
Inset: Welf lands and duchies before 1159.
49. Italy under the Hohenstaufen.
50. Southern Italy and Sicily in the Twelfth Century.
51. Latin states in Syria.
Inset: The dominions of Saladin, and the Third Crusade.
52. Northern Italy in the Hohenstaufen period.
53. Teutonic penetration of Slav lands, and development of towns
in Eastern Germany to 1197.
54. England and Normandy, c. 1070.
55. The dominions of Henry II, Plantagenet.
56. Routes of the principal Crusades.
Inset: The neighbourhood of Antioch and Latiqiyah.
## p. 1 (#47) ###############################################
CHAPTER I.
THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH.
!
The early part of the eleventh, as well as the tenth, century is often
and rightly called a dark age for the Western Church. Everywhere we
find deep corruptions and varied abuses, which can easily be summed up
in broad generalisations and illustrated by striking examples. And they
seem, on a first survey, almost unrelieved by any gleams of spiritual light.
The comparative security of the Carolingian Age, which gave free scope
to individual enthusiasm and personal activity, had been followed by
wide and deep disunion, under which religion suffered no less than learning
and government. Beginning with the central imperial and monarchical
power, the social nerves and limbs fell slack; outside dangers, Northmen
and Saracens, furthered the inner decay. Communities and men alike
lost their sense of wider brotherhood, along with their former feeling of
security and strength. Hence came the decay in Church life. If it was
to be arrested, it could only be, not by isolated attacks upon varied
abuses, but by a general campaign waged upon principles and directed
by experience.
Yet condemnations of a particular age, like most historical generalisa-
tions, are often overdone? . This is the case here, too. There were to be
found, in regions far apart, many men of piety and self-devotion. Among
such reformers was Nilus (ob. 1005), who founded some monasteries in
Italy. Greek by descent, born at Rossano in Calabria, he was inspired
even in his early years by the Life of St Anthony (which so deeply
touched St Augustine) and so turned to a life of piety, penitence, and
self-sacrifice. His visions gained him followers, but his humble service to
others carried him into the world of human sympathy. Even when he was
a feeble man of eighty-eight he took the long journey to Rome to offer
himself as humble companion to Philagathus of Piacenza, whom Otto III
had imprisoned after cutting out his tongue and blinding him (998);
his brave and courageous reproof moved the youthful ruler, and this
accidental association has given Nilus a reputation which his whole less
dramatic life deserved. Through him and Romuald of Ravenna, who did
much in a small sphere for ascetic life, a fresh stream of Greek influence
was brought to strengthen Western monachism, which was growing into
an almost independent strength of its own. More widely influential was
* Many of the worst and unnameable evils belonged more to society at large
than to the Church alone. And, as they existed before the monastic reform, they
cannot be ascribed to it.
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
1
## p. 2 (#48) ###############################################
2
Richard of St Vannes. Ratherius
William of Dijon (ob. 1031), a German born in Italy, commended by his
father to the favour of Otto I, and by his mother to the care of the
Blessed Virgin. He was brought up in a cloister near Vercelli, but soon
came to look towards Cluny as his spiritual home, and in its abbot, Odilo,
he found a religious guide who sent him to the task of reform at Dijon,
whence his monastic reform spread in Burgundy, France, and Lorraine.
Everywhere his name, William supra regulam, was revered, and at
St Arnulf at Gorze, and St Aper at Toul, the spirit of Cluny was
diffused through him.
Richard of St Vannes near Verdun (ob. 1046) specially affected Lor-
raine, and his name, Richard of the Grace of God, shews the impression he
made in his day. Poppo, Abbot of Stablo in the diocese of Liège (1020-
1048), was a pupil of his, and through him the movement, favoured by
kings and utilised by bishops, reached Germany. In some cases, such men
had not to work in fields untilled. Gerard of Brogne, near Namur,
(ob. 959) and the earlier history of monastic reform must not be forgotten.
But while the earlier monastic revival was independent of the episcopate,
in the later part of the eleventh century monasticism and the episcopate
worked, on the whole, together. Better men among the bishops, and
through royal influence there were many such, rightly saw in the monastic
revival a force which made for righteousness. It was so at Liège, Cambrai,
Toul, and at Cologne, where a friend of Poppo, Pilgrim (1021-1036),
favoured Cluniacs and their followers. Thus in Germany, more perhaps
than elsewhere, reform gained strength.
The life and wandering of Ratherius (c. 887-974), no less than his
writings, illustrate the turmoil and degradation of the day ; born near
Liège, with a sound monastic training and in close touch with Bruno, the
excellent Archbishop of Cologne (953-965), his spiritual home was
Lorraine while his troubles arose mainly in Italy. From Lorraine he
followed Hilduin, afterwards Archbishop of Milan (931), to Italy (for the
revival in Lorraine threw its tendrils afar), and became Bishop of Verona
(931-939). Italian learning he found solely pagan in its scholarship;
ignorance abounded (his clergy reproached him for being ready to study
books all day); clerks did not even know their creed; at Vicenza many
of them were barely believers in the Christian God; morals were even
worse, clerks differed little from laity except in dress, the smiles or the
tears of courtesans ruled everything. The strife of politics prevented
reform and intensified disorder. The Italian wars of Otto I, Hugh, and
Berengar affected the fate of Ratherius; his episcopal rule was only
intermittent (931-939; 946-948; 961-968), and when for a time Bruno of
Cologne made him Bishop of Liège (953–955), he was faced through the
Count of Hainault by a rival, as at Verona, and found refuge at Lobbes.
He was specially anxious to force celibacy upon his Veronese clergy, some
married and many licentious; not all would come to a synod, and even
those who came defied him; some he cast into prison, a fate which once
## p. 3 (#49) ###############################################
Symptoms of reform
3
at least befell himself. With the ambition of a reformer, he lacked the
needed patience and wisdom; he toiled overmuch in the spirit of his
death-bed saying: “Trample under foot the salt which has lost its
savour. ” “He had not,” says Fleury, “the gift of making himself loved,"
and it is doubtful if he desired it. The vivid and tangled experiences of
his life, political and ecclesiastical, are depicted for us in his works and
give us the best, if the darkest, picture of his times.
Nor should it be forgotten that some ecclesiastics did much for the
arts which their Church had so often fostered. Bernward of Hildesheim
(Bishop 992–1022), for instance, was not only a patron of Art, but, like
our English Dunstan, himself a skilled workman; in his personal piety
and generosity he was followed by his successor Godehard. Later monks
condemned this secular activity, and Peter Damian held Richard of
St Vannes, who like Poppo of Stablo was a great builder and adorner of
churches, condemned to a lengthy Purgatory for this offence. In France,
however, activity was shewn rather in the realm of thought, where
Gerbert's pupil, Fulbert Bishop of Chartres (ob. 1028), and Odo of Tournai
(ob. 1113) were pre-eminent; out of this activity, reviving older discussions,
arose the Berengarian controversy, in which not only Berengar himself,
but Lanfranc, of Bec and Canterbury, and Durand of Troarn (ob. 1088)
took part. The age was not wholly dead.
One foremost line of German growth was that of Canon Law, which
gave, as it were, a constitutional background to the attempts at reform,
drawn from the past and destined to mould the future. Here Burchard,
Bishop of Worms (1000–1025), was renowned, combining as he did
respect for authority systematised by the past with regard to the
circumstances of his day. Wazo, Bishop of Liège (1041–1048), the faith-
ful servant of Henry III, had much the same reputation, and his obiter
dicta were held as oracles.
Some reformers were bishops, but more of them were monastics—for
reform took mainly the monastic turn. Here and there, now and then,
could be found really religious houses, and their influence often spread
near and far. Yet it was difficult for such individuals or communities to
impress a world which was disorderly and insecure. But soon, as so often,
reforms, which were first to check and then to overcome the varied evils,
began to shape themselves. Sometimes the impulse came from single
personalities, sometimes from a school with kindred thoughts; sometimes
general resemblances are common, sometimes local peculiarities overpower
them. The tangled history only becomes a little easier to trace when it
is grouped around the simony which Sylvester II held to be the central
sin of the day. It must not be forgotten that Christian missions although
at work had only partly conquered many lands; abuses in the older
churches paralysed their growth, and the semi-paganism which was left
even percolated into the mother-lands.
Bohemian history illustrates something of this process. A bishopric
CH. ).
1-2
## p. 4 (#50) ###############################################
4
Instances of corruption: Jaromir of Prague
had been founded at Prague (c. 975) in which the Popes took special
interest, and indeed the Latin rite was used there from the outset. So
Bohemia looked towards the Papacy. But Willigis of Mayence had
consecrated St Adalbert to Prague (983), and so to claims of overlordship
by the German kings was now added a German claim to ecclesiastical
control over Christians who, as we are told, lived much as barbarians.
Then Břatislav of Bohemia, largely for political reasons, founded or
restored a lapsed Moravian see at Olmütz, over which he placed John, a
monk from near Prague, Severus of Prague being promised compensation
in Moravia. In 1068 Břatislav, for family and political reasons, made his
troublesome brother Jaromir Bishop of Prague, in the hope of rendering
him more amenable. But the only change in the disorderly prince was
that of taking the name of Gebhard. He, like Severus, strove for the
delayed compensation but took to more drastic means: he visited (1071)
his brother-bishop at Olmütz, and after a drunken revel mishandled his
slumbering host. John complained to Břatislav, who shed tears over his
brother's doings, and sent to Rome to place the burden of the unsavoury
quarrel upon Alexander II. His messenger spent a night at Ratisbon
on his road with a burgher friendly to Gebhard. Then, strangely enough,
he was stopped and robbed on his farther way and came back to tell his
tale. A second and larger embassy, headed by the Provost of St George
at Prague, an ecclesiastic so gifted as to speak both Latin and German,
was then sent, and reached Rome early in 1073. A letter from Břatislav,
weighted with two hundred marks, was presented to the Pope, and
probably read at the Lenten Synod. Legates were sent who, at Ratisbon,
were to investigate the case, but its settlement remained for Gregory VII.
It is a sordid story of evil ecclesiastics on a background of equally sordid
social and dynastic interests. And there were many like it.
The common corruption is better told us and easier to depict for
regulars than for seculars. In the districts most open to incursions, many
monasteries were harried or sorely afflicted. If the monks walled their
houses as protection against pirates or raiders, they only caused neigh-
bouring lords to desire them for fortresses. The spirit of the ascetic life,
already weakened by the civil employment of monks, seemed lost. The
synod of Trosly, near Soissons, called by Hervé of Rheims in 909, ascribed
the decay of regular life mainly to abbots, laymen, for the most part
unlearned, and also married, and so eager to alienate property for their
families. Lay lords and laymen generally were said to lack respect for
Church laws and even for morality itself; debauchery and sensuality were
common; patrons made heavy charges on appointments to their parish
churches. This legislation was a vigorous protest against the sins of the
day, and it is well to note that the very next year saw the foundation of
Cluny. The Rule was kept hardly anywhere; enclosure was forgotten, and
any attempt to enforce episcopal control over monasteries was useless when
bishops were so often themselves of careless or evil life. Attempts at
## p. 5 (#51) ###############################################
Farfa. Episcopal elections
5
improvement sometimes caused bloodshed: when the Abbot Erluin of
Lobbes, trying to enforce the Rule, expelled some malcontents, three of
them fell upon him, cut out his tongue, and blinded him.
The story of the great Italian monastery of Farfa is typical. It had
been favoured by Emperors and was scarcely excelled for splendour. Then
it was seized by the Saracens (before 915) and afterwards burnt by
Christian robbers. Its members were scattered to Rome, Rieti, and
Fermo; its lands were lost or wasted; there was no recognised abbot,
and after Abbot Peter died his successor Rimo lived with the Farfa colony
at Rome and there was poisoned. Then as the great nobles strove eagerly
for so useful a fortress, King Hugh supported a new abbot, Rafred, who
began to restore it: he settled in the neighbourhood 100 families from
Fermo and rebuilt the cloister. As far as was possible, the monks were
recalled and the monastic treasures restored. But there was little pretence
of theology or even piety; only the study of medicine was kept up, and
that included the useful knowledge of poisons, as abbot after abbot was
to learn. When Rafred was disposed of, one of his poisoners maintained
himself in the monastery by military force; the so-called monks lived
openly with concubines; worship on Sundays was the sole relic of older
habits, and at length even that was given up. One Campo, to whom King
Hugh had given the monastery in fief, enriched his seven daughters and
three sons out of its property. When some monks were sent from Rome
to restore religion, he sent them back. Then Alberic drove Campo out
by force, and installed as abbot one Dagobert, who maintained himself
for five tumultuous years until he, too, fell before the local skill in poison.
Adam of Lucca, who followed with the support of Alberic and John XII,
led much the life of Campo. Then Theobald of Spoleto made his own
brother Hubert abbot, but he was removed by John XII, and succeeded
by Leo, Abbot of Sant'Andrea at Soracte. But the task of ruling was
too hard for any man, and only force heavily applied could procure even
decency of life. If this was the sad state and tumultuous history of
monasteries, once homes of piety and peace, it can be guessed how, with
less to support them, parishes suffered and missions languished. Priests
succumbed and forgot their holy task. Their bishops, often worse than
themselves, neither cared nor attempted to rule or restrain them. For the
episcopate was ineffective and corrupt.
The primitive rule for election of bishops had been that it should be
made by clergy and people. To choose a fit person was essential, but the
Y
mode of choice was not defined. Soon the clergy of the cathedral, first
to learn of the vacancy and specially concerned about it, began to take a
leading part. They, the clergy of the neighbouring country, and the
laity, were separate bodies with different interests, and tended to draw
together and to act as groups. But the forces, which made for centralisa-
tion of all kinds in civil politics, worked in the ecclesiastical sphere as
well, and the cathedral clergy gained the leading part in elections, other
CB. I.
## p. 6 (#52) ###############################################
6
The Crown and episcopal elections
clerks dropping off, and later on leading abbots appearing. Among lay-
men a like process took place, and the populace, more particularly,
almost ceased to appear in the election. Thus, in place of election by
clergy and laity, we have a process in which the cathedral clergy, the lay
vassals of the see, and the leading nobles of the diocese, alone appear.
We can trace a varied growth, in which the elements most concerned and
most insistent eventually gained fixed and customary rights'.
But the more or less customary rights gained in this process were soon
encroached upon by the crown. The king had a special interest in the
bishops: they were his spiritual advisers, a function more or less important.
But they were largely used by him for other purposes. In Germany they
were given civil duties, which did not seem so alien to their office when
the general conception was that of one general Christian society inside
which churchman and layman worked for common Christian ends. To
gain their help and to raise them in comparison with the lay nobility, it
was worth while, quite apart from piety and religious reasons, to enrich
their sees, and even to heap secular offices upon them. Ecclesiastical
nobles were always a useful counterpoise to secular nobles; as a rule they
were better trained for official duties, the Church had reason to remember
gratefully past services rendered to it by kings, and it had always stood
for social unity and larger fields of administration. In France, where the
authority of the king did not cover a large territory', the greater vassals
gained the same power for their own lands. Popular election, even its
weakened form, tended to disappear. Ancient and repeated canons
might assert election by clergy and laity, but those of them who kept
their voice did so rather as surviving representatives of smaller classes
than as individuals. More and more the chapters alone appeared for the
clergy and the Church; more and more the king or a great feudal lord
came to appoint. By the middle of the eleventh century the old style of
election had disappeared in France, and the bishopric was treated
as a fief.
1
In Germany the bishops, although for the most part men of high
character, were often supporters of the crown and the mainstay of its
administration; when a bishop or a great abbot died, the chapter and
the great laymen of the diocese sent deputies to the court, and after a
consultation with them, in which they might or might not suggest a
choice, the king filled up the office. For England such evidence as we
have points to selection by the king, although his choice was declared in
1 The lapse of popular election was furthered by canon 13 of Laodicea (364? ),
which forbade election by a mob. The canon, which was sometimes held to forbid
any voice to the populace, was copied into Gallican codes and the Forged Decretals,
and had much effect. Leo I said: electio clericorum: expetitio plebis ; Stephen VI:
sacerdotum quippe est electio, et fidelis populi consensus.
2 The Capetians only disposed of Rheims, Sens, Tours, Bourges, and, until it
passed to Germany, Lyons.
## p. 7 (#53) ###############################################
Parishes
7
the Witan, where both laymen and churchmen were present. In all these
lands, the decisive voice, indeed the real appointment itself, lay with
the king; the part played by others was small and varying. To the
Church remained, however, the safeguard of consecration by the
metropolitan and bishops; to the diocese itself the local ceremony of
enthronement.
For parochial clergy and parishes the history is much the same. In the
central countries of Europe the missionary stage of the Church had long
passed away, although in newer lands varying traces, or more than traces,
of it remained. In most cases the cathedral church had been the mission
centre, and from it the Church had spread. Of the early stages we know
but little, but there were many churches, serving a parish, which the
landowner had built, and in such cases he usually appointed the parish
priest. The right of approval lay with the bishop, who gave the spiritual
charge. But more and more the office came to be treated as private pro-
perty, and in some cases was even bought and sold. The patron—for here
we come to the origin of patronage, a field tangled and not yet fully
worked—was the landowner, who looked on the parish priest as a vassal,
and on the church as a possession. For the parish as for the diocese distinct
and even hostile conceptions were thus at work. A fit person for the
spiritual work was needed; to see to this was the duty and indeed the
purpose of the Church. It could be best safeguarded by a choice from
above, and in early days a missionary bishop had seen to it. But when
a parish church was held to be private property, a totally new con-
ception came into conflict with the ecclesiastical conception. We have
a history which can be traced, although with some unsettled con-
troversy.
The legislation of the Eastern Empire, following that of Constantine
the Great, allowed churches to be private property, and forbade their
alienation, but it also safeguarded the claims of the Church to secure
the proper use of the building, and adequate provision for the priest
attached to it. Justinian (543) gave the founder of a church and his
successors the right to present a candidate for due examination by the
bishop.
In the West this was also recognised by a law of A. D. 398, and the
priest serving the church was, at least sometimes, chosen by the
parishioners. It was well to encourage private generosity, but it soon
became necessary to safeguard the control of the bishop, and Gelasius I
(492-496), an active legislator, restricted the rights of the founders of
1 In the early Christian Roman Empire, although private property in churches
was admitted, the restrictive rights of the bishop prevented any evil arising. For
the West the existing evidence is scantier than for the East. The origin of the
“private churches” (Eigenkirchen) and of appropriation is regarded by Stutz as
based on early Teutonic custom, by Imbart de la Tour as due to a process of
encroachment.
CH. I.
## p. 8 (#54) ###############################################
8
Early stages of lay patronage
churches and attempted to make papal consent necessary for consecration;
in this way the Pope might make sure of ample provision for the
maintenance of the Church. This clearly recognised the two opposed
rights, those of the Church and of the lay founder, but became a dead
letter. Legislation under Charles the Great also recognised the private
ownership: the Council of Frankfort (794) allowed churches built by
freemen to be given away or sold, but only on condition that they were
not destroyed and that worship was performed. The Council at Rome in
A. D. 826 had to deal as no uncommon case with churches which the
patrons had let fall into ruin; priests were to be placed there and main-
tained. The Synod of Trosly (909) condemned the charges levied by
laymen upon priests they appointed; tithes were to be exempted from
such rapacity. The elaboration with which (canon 5) relations of patrons
and parish priests are prescribed shews that great difficulties and abuses
had arisen. But the steady growth of feudalism, and the growing
inefficiency of bishops, intensified all these evils. From the ninth century
onward the leading principles become blurred. Prudentius of Troyes
(ob. 861) and Hincmar of Laon led a movement against these private
churches, insisting that at consecration they should be handed over to the
Church. Charles the Bald and the great canonist Hincmar of Rheims
took a different view; the latter wished to remove the abuses but to allow
the principle of private churches. Patronage in its later sense (the term
itself dates from the eighth century) was in an early stage of growth;
abuses were so rife that principles seemed likely to be lost. Simony grew
to an astonishing height, and it was only after a long struggle was over
that Alexander III (1159–1181) established a clear and coherent system,
which is the basis of Church law to-day.
When we come to the eleventh century, we find that in parish churches,
built by a landowner, the priest was usually appointed by him; thus the
right of property and local interests were recognised. But the actual
power of laymen combined with the carelessness of many bishops to make
encroachment easy; there was a tendency to treat all churches as on the
same footing, and the right of approving the appointment which belonged
to the bishop, and which was meant to secure spiritual efficiency, tended
to disappear. More and more parish churches were treated as merely
private property, and in many cases were bought and sold. The patron
treated the priest as his vassal and often levied charges upon him.
Moreover, open violence, not cloaked by any claim to right, was common.
There were parishes in which a bishop had built a church, either as
part of the original mission machinery of the Church or on lands be-
longing to the see. But sees were extensively robbed and some of these
churches too fell into lay hands. There were probably also cases in which
the parishioners themselves had elected their priest, but, with the growth
1 Writing to the Bishops of Lucania, Brutii, and Sicily. Jaffé-Löwenfeld,
Regesta, No. 636.
## p. 9 (#55) ###############################################
Royal encroachments on the Church
9
of feudal uniformity, here too the lay landowner came to nominate. The
tenth and eleventh centuries give us the final stage—of usurpation or
corruption-in which the principle of private ownership was supreme,
and
the spiritual considerations, typified by episcopal control, were lost,
almost or even utterly; and with lay ownership in a feudal age, simony,
the sale of property which was no longer regarded as belonging to a
religious administration, became almost the rule.
Where the king had the power to fill vacant bishoprics, simony was
easy and in a feudal age natural. Kings were in constant need of money,
and poverty was a hard task-master. Some of the German kings had
really cared for the Church, and saw to the appointment of fit men, but
others like Conrad II made gain of the transaction; it was only too easy
to pass from the ordinary gift, although some conscientious bishops
refused even that, to unblushing purchase. In France simony was
especially rife. Philip I (1060-1108) dismissed one candidate for a see
because his power was smaller than a rival's, but he gave the disappointed
clerk some words of cheer: “Let me make my profit out of him; then
you
can try to get him degraded for simony, and afterwards we can see about
satisfying you. ” Purchase of sees became a recognised thing: a tainted
bishop infected his flock and often sold ordinations; so the disease spread
until, as saddened reformers said, Simon Magus possessed the Church.
It must not be supposed that this result was reached without protest.
Old Church laws though forgotten could be appealed to, and councils
were the fitting place for protest, as bishops were the proper people to
make it. Unhappily, councils were becoming rarer and many bishops
were careless of their office. Nevertheless, at Ingelheim (948) laymen
were forbidden to instal a parish priest or to expel him without the
bishop's leave; at Augsburg (952) laymen were forbidden to expel a
priest from a church canonically committed to him or to replace him by
another. At the important Synod of Seligenstadt (1023) it was decreed
that no layman should give his church to any priest without the consent
of the bishop, to whom the candidate was to be sent for proof of age,
knowledge, and piety sufficient to qualify him for the charge of God's
people. The equally important Synod of Bourges (1031) decreed that no
layman should hold the land (feudum) of a priest in place of a priest, and
no layman ought to place a priest in a church, since the bishop alone
could bestow the cure of souls in every parish. The same synod, it may
be noted, forbade a bishop to receive fees for ordination, and also forbade
priests to charge fees for baptism, penance, or burial, although free gifts
were allowed'. In England laws betray the same evils: a fine was to be
Earlier councils also spoke of the same evil of lay encroachments: at Trosly
near Rheims (909), laymen were forbidden to use the tithes of their churches for
their dogs or concubines. The earlier and reforming Council of Mayence (888)
decreed that the founder of a church should entrust its possessions to the bishop.
So, too, at Pavia (1018).
CH, I.
## p. 10 (#56) ##############################################
10
Evils in the episcopate. Simony
levied for making merchandise of a church', and again no man was to
bring a church into servitude nor unrighteously make merchandise of it,
nor turn out a church-thegn without the bishop's leave”.
It was significant that against abuses appeal was thus being made
to older decrees reiterated or enlarged by sporadic councils. And the
growth of religious revival in time resulted in a feeling of deeper
obligation to Canon Law, and a stronger sense of corporate life. But it
was the duty of the bishops to enforce upon their subjects the duty
of obedience. In doing this, they had often in the past been helped by
righteous kings and courageous Popes. But now for the needed reforms
to be effectively enforced it needed a sound episcopate, backed up by
conscientious kings and Popes. Only so could the inspiration of religion,
which was breathing in many quarters, become coherent in constitutional
action. When king and Pope in fellowship turned to reform, an
episcopate, aroused to a sense of duty, might become effective.
But the episcopate itself was corrupt, bad in itself, moving in a bad
social atmosphere, and largely used for regal politics. Two of the great
Lorraine reformers, William of Dijon (962-1031) and Richard of
St Vannes (ob. 1046), sharply criticised the prelates of their day: “They
were preachers who did not preach; they were shepherds who lived as
hirelings. ” Everywhere one could see glaring infamies.
glaring infamies. Guifred of
Cerdagne became Archbishop of Narbonne (1016-1079) when only ten
years old, 100,000 solidi being paid on his behalf. His episcopate was
disastrous: he sold nearly everything belonging to his cathedral and his
see; he oppressed his clergy but he provided for his family; for a
brother he bought the see of Urgel through the sale of the holy vessels
and plate throughout his diocese. In the Midi such abuses were specially
prevalent. In 1038 two viscounts sold the see of Albi, while it was
occupied, and confirmed the sale by a written contract. But even over
the Midi the reforming zeal of Halinard of Lyons had much effect;
Lyons belonged to Burgundy, and Burgundy under Conrad II became
German. Halinard had been Abbot of St Rémy at Dijon, and was a reformer
of the Cluniac type; at Rome, whither he made many pilgrimages, he
was well known and so popular that the Romans sought him as Pope on
the death of Damasus II. One bishop, of the ducal house of Gascony, is
said to have held eight sees which he disposed of by will. The tables of
the money-changers were not only brought into the temple, but grouped
round the altar itself. Gerbert (Sylvester II), who had seen many lands
and knew something of the past, spoke strongly against the many-headed
and elusive simony. A bishop might say, “I gave gold and I received the
episcopate; but yet I do not fear to receive it back if I behave as I should.
Laws of Northumbrian priests, chap. 20 (950). Johnson, English Canons,
p. 375.
2 Synod of Eanham (1009), chap. 9. Johnson, p. 485. The thriving of a ceorl
includes his possession of a church. Stubbs, Select Charters (ed. Davies), p. 88.
## p. 11 (#57) ##############################################
Clerical marriage
11
ניי
I ordain a priest and I receive gold; I make a deacon and I receive a
heap of silver. . . . Behold the gold which I gave I have once more un-
lessened in my purse.
Sylvester II held simony to be the greatest evil in the Church. Most
reformers, however, attacked the evil morals of the clergy, and their
attack was justified. But strict morality and asceticism went hand in
hand, and the complicated evils of the day gave fresh strength to the zeal
for monasticism and the demand for clerical celibacy. The spirit of
asceticism had in the past done much to deepen piety and the sense of
personal responsibility, even if teaching by strong example has its dangers
as well as successes. In the West more than in the East the conversion of
new races had been due to monks, and now the strength of reformation
lay in monasticism. The enforcement of clerical celibacy seemed an easy,
if not the only, remedy for the diseases of the day. In primitive times
married priests were common, even if we do not find cases of marriage
after ordination, but the reverence for virginity, enhanced by monasticism,
turned the stream of opinion against them. At Nicaea the assembled
Fathers, while forbidding a priest to have a woman, other than wife or
sister, living in his house, had refrained, largely because of the protest of
Paphnutius, from enforcing celibacy. But the Councils of Ancyra and
Neocaesarea (both in 314) had legislated on the point, although with
soine reserve. The former allowed deacons, who at ordination affirmed
their intention to marry, to do so, but otherwise they were degraded. The
latter decreed that a priest marrying after ordination should be degraded,
while a fornicator or adulterer should be more severely punished. The
Council of Elvira (c. 305), which dealt so generally and largely with
sexual sins, shut out from communion an adulterous bishop, priest, or
deacon; it ordered all bishops, priests, deacons, and other clerks, to
abstain from conjugal intercourse. This was the first general enactment
of the kind and it was Western. As time went on, the divergence between
the more conservative East and the newer West, with its changing condi-
tions and rules, became more marked. In the East things moved towards
its present rule, which allows priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, married
before ordination, to live freely with their wives (Quintisext in Trullo,
held 680, promulgated 691); bishops, however, were to live in separation
from their wives. Second marriages, which were always treated as a
different matter, were forbidden. The present rule is for parish priests to
be married, while bishops, chosen from regulars, are unmarried. The
West, on the other hand, moved, to begin with, first by legislation and
then, more slowly, by practice, towards uniform celibacy.
Councils at Carthage (390, 398, and 419), at Agde (506), Toledo
(531), and Orleans (538), enjoined strict continency upon married clerks
See Saltet, Les Réordinations, Paris, 1907—an excellent work—for the nature and
content of simony in the tenth and eleventh centuries, pp. 173sqq. ; he quotes Gerbert,
De informatione episcoporum, MPL, cxxxix, col. 174; Olleris, Op. Gerberti, p. 275.
CH. I.
## p. 12 (#58) ##############################################
12
Enforcement of clerical celibacy
from sub-deacons upwards. Siricius (384-398), by what is commonly
reckoned the first Decretal (385), and Innocent I (402–419) pronounced
strongly against clerical marriage. Henceforth succeeding Popes plainly
enunciated the Roman law. There was so much clerical immorality in
Africa, in spite of the great name and strict teaching of St Augustine,
and elsewhere, that the populace generally preferred a celibate clergy.
Ecclesiastical authorities took the same line, and Leo I extended the
strict law to sub-deacons. The Theodosian Code pronounced the children
of clergy illegitimate, and so the reformers of the tenth and eleventh
centuries could appeal to much support. Nevertheless, there were both
districts and periods in which custom accorded badly with the declared
law, and the confusion made by reformers between marriages they did not
accept and concubinage which opinion, no less than law, condemned
makes the evidence sometimes hard to interpret. St Boniface dealt
firmly with incontinent priests, and on the whole, although here popular
feeling was not with him, he was successful both in Austrasia and
Neustria. The eighth and ninth centuries saw the struggle between law
and custom continuing with varying fortune. Custom became laxer under
the later Carolingians than under Charlemagne, who had set for others a
standard he never dreamt of for himself; Hincmar, who was an advocate
of strictness, gives elaborate directions for proper procedure against
offending clerks, and it is clear that the clergy proved hard either to
convince or to rule. By the end of the ninth century, amid prevalent
disorder, clerical celibacy became less general, and the laws in its favour
were frequently and openly ignored. It was easy, as Pelagius II (578–
590), in giving dispensation for a special case, had confessed, to find
excuse in the laxity of the age. So too St Boniface had found it
necessary to restore offenders after penance, for otherwise there would be
none to say mass. Italy was the most difficult country to deal with, and
Ratherius of Verona says (966) that the enforcement of the laws, which
he not only accepted but strongly approved, would have left only boys in
the Church. It was, he held, a war of canons against custom. By about
the beginning of the eleventh century celibacy was uncommon, and the
laws enforcing it almost obsolete. But they began to gain greater force
as churchmen turned more to legal studies and as the pressure of abuses
grew stronger.
The tenth and eleventh centuries had special reason for enforcing
celibacy and disliking clerical families. Married priests, like laymen,
wished to enrich their children and strove to hand on their benefices
to them. Hereditary bishops, hereditary priests, were a danger': there
was much alienation of clerical property; thus the arguments urged so
repeatedly in favour of celibacy were reinforced. Bishops, and not only
1 Atto of Vercelli (from 945) links clerical marriage and alienation of church
property together, putting the latter as a cause of abuse. The case is well put by
Neander, vi, 187 (Eng. trans. ) and Fleury, Bk. lv, c. 55.
## p. 13 (#59) ##############################################
Secular canons
13
those who held secular jurisdiction, thought and acted as laymen, and
like laymen strove to found dynasties, firmly seated and richly endowed.
Parish priests copied them on a humbler scale. Hence the denial of
ordination to sons of clerks is frequent in conciliar legislation.
Keble College, Oxford.
Character of Ancient Philosophy
Philosophy and Theology
The medieval problems .
The Latin world
The Carolingian Renaissance
John the Scot
Character of Christendom
Medieval knowledge of Plato and Aristotle
The influence of Macrobius
Importance of dialectic.
The tenth century
Lanfranc
Peter Damian
The work of Anselm
Realism and Nominalism
780
781
782
783
784
ib.
788
789
790
ib.
791
792
ib.
ib.
794
Roscelin
796
## p. xlii (#44) ############################################
Contents
PAGE
796
800
803
805
ib.
The position of Abelard
Hugh of St Victor
Peter the Lombard
John of Damascus
John of Salisbury.
The new Aristotelian logic
The School of Chartres .
Intellectual progress in the twelfth century
The new Aristotle at Paris
Translations from Greek and from Arabic
Roger Bacon
Muslim influence
Fārābi and Avicenna
Algazel, Averroes, Avencebrol
Aristotelianism and the University of Paris
Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, and Averroism
Siger of Brabant
Opposition to Thomism
Philosophy and the Church
The relation of reason to faith
808
809
810
811
ib.
813
814
816
817
ib.
818
821
822
823
824
825
827
ib.
829
The final aim of medieval philosophy
Duns Scotus .
The coming revolutions in thought
## p. xliii (#45) ###########################################
xliii
LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
CHAPS.
PAGES
831-833
834_845
846-849
850_854
855–859
8604863
864-866
867-869
870–871
871
872-874
Abbreviations
General Bibliography for Volume V
I. The Reform of the Church
II and III. Gregory VII: Henry IV and Henry V
IV. The Normans in South Italy and Sicily
V. The Italian Cities till c. 1200
VI. Islām in Syria and Egypt, 750—1100
VII. The First Crusade
VIII. The Kingdom of Jerusalem
IX. The Effects of the Crusades upon Western
Europe
X. Germany, 1125—1152
XI and XIII. Italy and the Lombard League, 1125—1185
XII. Frederick Barbarossa and Germany
XIV. The Emperor Henry VI
XV and XVI. England and Normandy under the Norman
Kings
XVII.
England: Henry II
XVIII. France: Louis VI and Louis VII
XIX. The Communal Movement, especially in
875-877
878-881
.
882—884
.
885—894
895–900
901-902
.
France.
XX. The Monastic Orders
XXI. Roman and Canon Law in the Middle Ages
XXII. Medieval Schools to c. 1300
XXIII. Philosophy in the Middle Ages .
903—908
909—920
921-933
934-936
937-939
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF LEADING EVENTS
INDEX
940—946
947-1005
## p. xliv (#46) ############################################
xliv
LIST OF MAPS.
(See separate portfolio. )
48. Germany under Frederick Barbarossa, c. 1190.
Inset: Welf lands and duchies before 1159.
49. Italy under the Hohenstaufen.
50. Southern Italy and Sicily in the Twelfth Century.
51. Latin states in Syria.
Inset: The dominions of Saladin, and the Third Crusade.
52. Northern Italy in the Hohenstaufen period.
53. Teutonic penetration of Slav lands, and development of towns
in Eastern Germany to 1197.
54. England and Normandy, c. 1070.
55. The dominions of Henry II, Plantagenet.
56. Routes of the principal Crusades.
Inset: The neighbourhood of Antioch and Latiqiyah.
## p. 1 (#47) ###############################################
CHAPTER I.
THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH.
!
The early part of the eleventh, as well as the tenth, century is often
and rightly called a dark age for the Western Church. Everywhere we
find deep corruptions and varied abuses, which can easily be summed up
in broad generalisations and illustrated by striking examples. And they
seem, on a first survey, almost unrelieved by any gleams of spiritual light.
The comparative security of the Carolingian Age, which gave free scope
to individual enthusiasm and personal activity, had been followed by
wide and deep disunion, under which religion suffered no less than learning
and government. Beginning with the central imperial and monarchical
power, the social nerves and limbs fell slack; outside dangers, Northmen
and Saracens, furthered the inner decay. Communities and men alike
lost their sense of wider brotherhood, along with their former feeling of
security and strength. Hence came the decay in Church life. If it was
to be arrested, it could only be, not by isolated attacks upon varied
abuses, but by a general campaign waged upon principles and directed
by experience.
Yet condemnations of a particular age, like most historical generalisa-
tions, are often overdone? . This is the case here, too. There were to be
found, in regions far apart, many men of piety and self-devotion. Among
such reformers was Nilus (ob. 1005), who founded some monasteries in
Italy. Greek by descent, born at Rossano in Calabria, he was inspired
even in his early years by the Life of St Anthony (which so deeply
touched St Augustine) and so turned to a life of piety, penitence, and
self-sacrifice. His visions gained him followers, but his humble service to
others carried him into the world of human sympathy. Even when he was
a feeble man of eighty-eight he took the long journey to Rome to offer
himself as humble companion to Philagathus of Piacenza, whom Otto III
had imprisoned after cutting out his tongue and blinding him (998);
his brave and courageous reproof moved the youthful ruler, and this
accidental association has given Nilus a reputation which his whole less
dramatic life deserved. Through him and Romuald of Ravenna, who did
much in a small sphere for ascetic life, a fresh stream of Greek influence
was brought to strengthen Western monachism, which was growing into
an almost independent strength of its own. More widely influential was
* Many of the worst and unnameable evils belonged more to society at large
than to the Church alone. And, as they existed before the monastic reform, they
cannot be ascribed to it.
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
1
## p. 2 (#48) ###############################################
2
Richard of St Vannes. Ratherius
William of Dijon (ob. 1031), a German born in Italy, commended by his
father to the favour of Otto I, and by his mother to the care of the
Blessed Virgin. He was brought up in a cloister near Vercelli, but soon
came to look towards Cluny as his spiritual home, and in its abbot, Odilo,
he found a religious guide who sent him to the task of reform at Dijon,
whence his monastic reform spread in Burgundy, France, and Lorraine.
Everywhere his name, William supra regulam, was revered, and at
St Arnulf at Gorze, and St Aper at Toul, the spirit of Cluny was
diffused through him.
Richard of St Vannes near Verdun (ob. 1046) specially affected Lor-
raine, and his name, Richard of the Grace of God, shews the impression he
made in his day. Poppo, Abbot of Stablo in the diocese of Liège (1020-
1048), was a pupil of his, and through him the movement, favoured by
kings and utilised by bishops, reached Germany. In some cases, such men
had not to work in fields untilled. Gerard of Brogne, near Namur,
(ob. 959) and the earlier history of monastic reform must not be forgotten.
But while the earlier monastic revival was independent of the episcopate,
in the later part of the eleventh century monasticism and the episcopate
worked, on the whole, together. Better men among the bishops, and
through royal influence there were many such, rightly saw in the monastic
revival a force which made for righteousness. It was so at Liège, Cambrai,
Toul, and at Cologne, where a friend of Poppo, Pilgrim (1021-1036),
favoured Cluniacs and their followers. Thus in Germany, more perhaps
than elsewhere, reform gained strength.
The life and wandering of Ratherius (c. 887-974), no less than his
writings, illustrate the turmoil and degradation of the day ; born near
Liège, with a sound monastic training and in close touch with Bruno, the
excellent Archbishop of Cologne (953-965), his spiritual home was
Lorraine while his troubles arose mainly in Italy. From Lorraine he
followed Hilduin, afterwards Archbishop of Milan (931), to Italy (for the
revival in Lorraine threw its tendrils afar), and became Bishop of Verona
(931-939). Italian learning he found solely pagan in its scholarship;
ignorance abounded (his clergy reproached him for being ready to study
books all day); clerks did not even know their creed; at Vicenza many
of them were barely believers in the Christian God; morals were even
worse, clerks differed little from laity except in dress, the smiles or the
tears of courtesans ruled everything. The strife of politics prevented
reform and intensified disorder. The Italian wars of Otto I, Hugh, and
Berengar affected the fate of Ratherius; his episcopal rule was only
intermittent (931-939; 946-948; 961-968), and when for a time Bruno of
Cologne made him Bishop of Liège (953–955), he was faced through the
Count of Hainault by a rival, as at Verona, and found refuge at Lobbes.
He was specially anxious to force celibacy upon his Veronese clergy, some
married and many licentious; not all would come to a synod, and even
those who came defied him; some he cast into prison, a fate which once
## p. 3 (#49) ###############################################
Symptoms of reform
3
at least befell himself. With the ambition of a reformer, he lacked the
needed patience and wisdom; he toiled overmuch in the spirit of his
death-bed saying: “Trample under foot the salt which has lost its
savour. ” “He had not,” says Fleury, “the gift of making himself loved,"
and it is doubtful if he desired it. The vivid and tangled experiences of
his life, political and ecclesiastical, are depicted for us in his works and
give us the best, if the darkest, picture of his times.
Nor should it be forgotten that some ecclesiastics did much for the
arts which their Church had so often fostered. Bernward of Hildesheim
(Bishop 992–1022), for instance, was not only a patron of Art, but, like
our English Dunstan, himself a skilled workman; in his personal piety
and generosity he was followed by his successor Godehard. Later monks
condemned this secular activity, and Peter Damian held Richard of
St Vannes, who like Poppo of Stablo was a great builder and adorner of
churches, condemned to a lengthy Purgatory for this offence. In France,
however, activity was shewn rather in the realm of thought, where
Gerbert's pupil, Fulbert Bishop of Chartres (ob. 1028), and Odo of Tournai
(ob. 1113) were pre-eminent; out of this activity, reviving older discussions,
arose the Berengarian controversy, in which not only Berengar himself,
but Lanfranc, of Bec and Canterbury, and Durand of Troarn (ob. 1088)
took part. The age was not wholly dead.
One foremost line of German growth was that of Canon Law, which
gave, as it were, a constitutional background to the attempts at reform,
drawn from the past and destined to mould the future. Here Burchard,
Bishop of Worms (1000–1025), was renowned, combining as he did
respect for authority systematised by the past with regard to the
circumstances of his day. Wazo, Bishop of Liège (1041–1048), the faith-
ful servant of Henry III, had much the same reputation, and his obiter
dicta were held as oracles.
Some reformers were bishops, but more of them were monastics—for
reform took mainly the monastic turn. Here and there, now and then,
could be found really religious houses, and their influence often spread
near and far. Yet it was difficult for such individuals or communities to
impress a world which was disorderly and insecure. But soon, as so often,
reforms, which were first to check and then to overcome the varied evils,
began to shape themselves. Sometimes the impulse came from single
personalities, sometimes from a school with kindred thoughts; sometimes
general resemblances are common, sometimes local peculiarities overpower
them. The tangled history only becomes a little easier to trace when it
is grouped around the simony which Sylvester II held to be the central
sin of the day. It must not be forgotten that Christian missions although
at work had only partly conquered many lands; abuses in the older
churches paralysed their growth, and the semi-paganism which was left
even percolated into the mother-lands.
Bohemian history illustrates something of this process. A bishopric
CH. ).
1-2
## p. 4 (#50) ###############################################
4
Instances of corruption: Jaromir of Prague
had been founded at Prague (c. 975) in which the Popes took special
interest, and indeed the Latin rite was used there from the outset. So
Bohemia looked towards the Papacy. But Willigis of Mayence had
consecrated St Adalbert to Prague (983), and so to claims of overlordship
by the German kings was now added a German claim to ecclesiastical
control over Christians who, as we are told, lived much as barbarians.
Then Břatislav of Bohemia, largely for political reasons, founded or
restored a lapsed Moravian see at Olmütz, over which he placed John, a
monk from near Prague, Severus of Prague being promised compensation
in Moravia. In 1068 Břatislav, for family and political reasons, made his
troublesome brother Jaromir Bishop of Prague, in the hope of rendering
him more amenable. But the only change in the disorderly prince was
that of taking the name of Gebhard. He, like Severus, strove for the
delayed compensation but took to more drastic means: he visited (1071)
his brother-bishop at Olmütz, and after a drunken revel mishandled his
slumbering host. John complained to Břatislav, who shed tears over his
brother's doings, and sent to Rome to place the burden of the unsavoury
quarrel upon Alexander II. His messenger spent a night at Ratisbon
on his road with a burgher friendly to Gebhard. Then, strangely enough,
he was stopped and robbed on his farther way and came back to tell his
tale. A second and larger embassy, headed by the Provost of St George
at Prague, an ecclesiastic so gifted as to speak both Latin and German,
was then sent, and reached Rome early in 1073. A letter from Břatislav,
weighted with two hundred marks, was presented to the Pope, and
probably read at the Lenten Synod. Legates were sent who, at Ratisbon,
were to investigate the case, but its settlement remained for Gregory VII.
It is a sordid story of evil ecclesiastics on a background of equally sordid
social and dynastic interests. And there were many like it.
The common corruption is better told us and easier to depict for
regulars than for seculars. In the districts most open to incursions, many
monasteries were harried or sorely afflicted. If the monks walled their
houses as protection against pirates or raiders, they only caused neigh-
bouring lords to desire them for fortresses. The spirit of the ascetic life,
already weakened by the civil employment of monks, seemed lost. The
synod of Trosly, near Soissons, called by Hervé of Rheims in 909, ascribed
the decay of regular life mainly to abbots, laymen, for the most part
unlearned, and also married, and so eager to alienate property for their
families. Lay lords and laymen generally were said to lack respect for
Church laws and even for morality itself; debauchery and sensuality were
common; patrons made heavy charges on appointments to their parish
churches. This legislation was a vigorous protest against the sins of the
day, and it is well to note that the very next year saw the foundation of
Cluny. The Rule was kept hardly anywhere; enclosure was forgotten, and
any attempt to enforce episcopal control over monasteries was useless when
bishops were so often themselves of careless or evil life. Attempts at
## p. 5 (#51) ###############################################
Farfa. Episcopal elections
5
improvement sometimes caused bloodshed: when the Abbot Erluin of
Lobbes, trying to enforce the Rule, expelled some malcontents, three of
them fell upon him, cut out his tongue, and blinded him.
The story of the great Italian monastery of Farfa is typical. It had
been favoured by Emperors and was scarcely excelled for splendour. Then
it was seized by the Saracens (before 915) and afterwards burnt by
Christian robbers. Its members were scattered to Rome, Rieti, and
Fermo; its lands were lost or wasted; there was no recognised abbot,
and after Abbot Peter died his successor Rimo lived with the Farfa colony
at Rome and there was poisoned. Then as the great nobles strove eagerly
for so useful a fortress, King Hugh supported a new abbot, Rafred, who
began to restore it: he settled in the neighbourhood 100 families from
Fermo and rebuilt the cloister. As far as was possible, the monks were
recalled and the monastic treasures restored. But there was little pretence
of theology or even piety; only the study of medicine was kept up, and
that included the useful knowledge of poisons, as abbot after abbot was
to learn. When Rafred was disposed of, one of his poisoners maintained
himself in the monastery by military force; the so-called monks lived
openly with concubines; worship on Sundays was the sole relic of older
habits, and at length even that was given up. One Campo, to whom King
Hugh had given the monastery in fief, enriched his seven daughters and
three sons out of its property. When some monks were sent from Rome
to restore religion, he sent them back. Then Alberic drove Campo out
by force, and installed as abbot one Dagobert, who maintained himself
for five tumultuous years until he, too, fell before the local skill in poison.
Adam of Lucca, who followed with the support of Alberic and John XII,
led much the life of Campo. Then Theobald of Spoleto made his own
brother Hubert abbot, but he was removed by John XII, and succeeded
by Leo, Abbot of Sant'Andrea at Soracte. But the task of ruling was
too hard for any man, and only force heavily applied could procure even
decency of life. If this was the sad state and tumultuous history of
monasteries, once homes of piety and peace, it can be guessed how, with
less to support them, parishes suffered and missions languished. Priests
succumbed and forgot their holy task. Their bishops, often worse than
themselves, neither cared nor attempted to rule or restrain them. For the
episcopate was ineffective and corrupt.
The primitive rule for election of bishops had been that it should be
made by clergy and people. To choose a fit person was essential, but the
Y
mode of choice was not defined. Soon the clergy of the cathedral, first
to learn of the vacancy and specially concerned about it, began to take a
leading part. They, the clergy of the neighbouring country, and the
laity, were separate bodies with different interests, and tended to draw
together and to act as groups. But the forces, which made for centralisa-
tion of all kinds in civil politics, worked in the ecclesiastical sphere as
well, and the cathedral clergy gained the leading part in elections, other
CB. I.
## p. 6 (#52) ###############################################
6
The Crown and episcopal elections
clerks dropping off, and later on leading abbots appearing. Among lay-
men a like process took place, and the populace, more particularly,
almost ceased to appear in the election. Thus, in place of election by
clergy and laity, we have a process in which the cathedral clergy, the lay
vassals of the see, and the leading nobles of the diocese, alone appear.
We can trace a varied growth, in which the elements most concerned and
most insistent eventually gained fixed and customary rights'.
But the more or less customary rights gained in this process were soon
encroached upon by the crown. The king had a special interest in the
bishops: they were his spiritual advisers, a function more or less important.
But they were largely used by him for other purposes. In Germany they
were given civil duties, which did not seem so alien to their office when
the general conception was that of one general Christian society inside
which churchman and layman worked for common Christian ends. To
gain their help and to raise them in comparison with the lay nobility, it
was worth while, quite apart from piety and religious reasons, to enrich
their sees, and even to heap secular offices upon them. Ecclesiastical
nobles were always a useful counterpoise to secular nobles; as a rule they
were better trained for official duties, the Church had reason to remember
gratefully past services rendered to it by kings, and it had always stood
for social unity and larger fields of administration. In France, where the
authority of the king did not cover a large territory', the greater vassals
gained the same power for their own lands. Popular election, even its
weakened form, tended to disappear. Ancient and repeated canons
might assert election by clergy and laity, but those of them who kept
their voice did so rather as surviving representatives of smaller classes
than as individuals. More and more the chapters alone appeared for the
clergy and the Church; more and more the king or a great feudal lord
came to appoint. By the middle of the eleventh century the old style of
election had disappeared in France, and the bishopric was treated
as a fief.
1
In Germany the bishops, although for the most part men of high
character, were often supporters of the crown and the mainstay of its
administration; when a bishop or a great abbot died, the chapter and
the great laymen of the diocese sent deputies to the court, and after a
consultation with them, in which they might or might not suggest a
choice, the king filled up the office. For England such evidence as we
have points to selection by the king, although his choice was declared in
1 The lapse of popular election was furthered by canon 13 of Laodicea (364? ),
which forbade election by a mob. The canon, which was sometimes held to forbid
any voice to the populace, was copied into Gallican codes and the Forged Decretals,
and had much effect. Leo I said: electio clericorum: expetitio plebis ; Stephen VI:
sacerdotum quippe est electio, et fidelis populi consensus.
2 The Capetians only disposed of Rheims, Sens, Tours, Bourges, and, until it
passed to Germany, Lyons.
## p. 7 (#53) ###############################################
Parishes
7
the Witan, where both laymen and churchmen were present. In all these
lands, the decisive voice, indeed the real appointment itself, lay with
the king; the part played by others was small and varying. To the
Church remained, however, the safeguard of consecration by the
metropolitan and bishops; to the diocese itself the local ceremony of
enthronement.
For parochial clergy and parishes the history is much the same. In the
central countries of Europe the missionary stage of the Church had long
passed away, although in newer lands varying traces, or more than traces,
of it remained. In most cases the cathedral church had been the mission
centre, and from it the Church had spread. Of the early stages we know
but little, but there were many churches, serving a parish, which the
landowner had built, and in such cases he usually appointed the parish
priest. The right of approval lay with the bishop, who gave the spiritual
charge. But more and more the office came to be treated as private pro-
perty, and in some cases was even bought and sold. The patron—for here
we come to the origin of patronage, a field tangled and not yet fully
worked—was the landowner, who looked on the parish priest as a vassal,
and on the church as a possession. For the parish as for the diocese distinct
and even hostile conceptions were thus at work. A fit person for the
spiritual work was needed; to see to this was the duty and indeed the
purpose of the Church. It could be best safeguarded by a choice from
above, and in early days a missionary bishop had seen to it. But when
a parish church was held to be private property, a totally new con-
ception came into conflict with the ecclesiastical conception. We have
a history which can be traced, although with some unsettled con-
troversy.
The legislation of the Eastern Empire, following that of Constantine
the Great, allowed churches to be private property, and forbade their
alienation, but it also safeguarded the claims of the Church to secure
the proper use of the building, and adequate provision for the priest
attached to it. Justinian (543) gave the founder of a church and his
successors the right to present a candidate for due examination by the
bishop.
In the West this was also recognised by a law of A. D. 398, and the
priest serving the church was, at least sometimes, chosen by the
parishioners. It was well to encourage private generosity, but it soon
became necessary to safeguard the control of the bishop, and Gelasius I
(492-496), an active legislator, restricted the rights of the founders of
1 In the early Christian Roman Empire, although private property in churches
was admitted, the restrictive rights of the bishop prevented any evil arising. For
the West the existing evidence is scantier than for the East. The origin of the
“private churches” (Eigenkirchen) and of appropriation is regarded by Stutz as
based on early Teutonic custom, by Imbart de la Tour as due to a process of
encroachment.
CH. I.
## p. 8 (#54) ###############################################
8
Early stages of lay patronage
churches and attempted to make papal consent necessary for consecration;
in this way the Pope might make sure of ample provision for the
maintenance of the Church. This clearly recognised the two opposed
rights, those of the Church and of the lay founder, but became a dead
letter. Legislation under Charles the Great also recognised the private
ownership: the Council of Frankfort (794) allowed churches built by
freemen to be given away or sold, but only on condition that they were
not destroyed and that worship was performed. The Council at Rome in
A. D. 826 had to deal as no uncommon case with churches which the
patrons had let fall into ruin; priests were to be placed there and main-
tained. The Synod of Trosly (909) condemned the charges levied by
laymen upon priests they appointed; tithes were to be exempted from
such rapacity. The elaboration with which (canon 5) relations of patrons
and parish priests are prescribed shews that great difficulties and abuses
had arisen. But the steady growth of feudalism, and the growing
inefficiency of bishops, intensified all these evils. From the ninth century
onward the leading principles become blurred. Prudentius of Troyes
(ob. 861) and Hincmar of Laon led a movement against these private
churches, insisting that at consecration they should be handed over to the
Church. Charles the Bald and the great canonist Hincmar of Rheims
took a different view; the latter wished to remove the abuses but to allow
the principle of private churches. Patronage in its later sense (the term
itself dates from the eighth century) was in an early stage of growth;
abuses were so rife that principles seemed likely to be lost. Simony grew
to an astonishing height, and it was only after a long struggle was over
that Alexander III (1159–1181) established a clear and coherent system,
which is the basis of Church law to-day.
When we come to the eleventh century, we find that in parish churches,
built by a landowner, the priest was usually appointed by him; thus the
right of property and local interests were recognised. But the actual
power of laymen combined with the carelessness of many bishops to make
encroachment easy; there was a tendency to treat all churches as on the
same footing, and the right of approving the appointment which belonged
to the bishop, and which was meant to secure spiritual efficiency, tended
to disappear. More and more parish churches were treated as merely
private property, and in many cases were bought and sold. The patron
treated the priest as his vassal and often levied charges upon him.
Moreover, open violence, not cloaked by any claim to right, was common.
There were parishes in which a bishop had built a church, either as
part of the original mission machinery of the Church or on lands be-
longing to the see. But sees were extensively robbed and some of these
churches too fell into lay hands. There were probably also cases in which
the parishioners themselves had elected their priest, but, with the growth
1 Writing to the Bishops of Lucania, Brutii, and Sicily. Jaffé-Löwenfeld,
Regesta, No. 636.
## p. 9 (#55) ###############################################
Royal encroachments on the Church
9
of feudal uniformity, here too the lay landowner came to nominate. The
tenth and eleventh centuries give us the final stage—of usurpation or
corruption-in which the principle of private ownership was supreme,
and
the spiritual considerations, typified by episcopal control, were lost,
almost or even utterly; and with lay ownership in a feudal age, simony,
the sale of property which was no longer regarded as belonging to a
religious administration, became almost the rule.
Where the king had the power to fill vacant bishoprics, simony was
easy and in a feudal age natural. Kings were in constant need of money,
and poverty was a hard task-master. Some of the German kings had
really cared for the Church, and saw to the appointment of fit men, but
others like Conrad II made gain of the transaction; it was only too easy
to pass from the ordinary gift, although some conscientious bishops
refused even that, to unblushing purchase. In France simony was
especially rife. Philip I (1060-1108) dismissed one candidate for a see
because his power was smaller than a rival's, but he gave the disappointed
clerk some words of cheer: “Let me make my profit out of him; then
you
can try to get him degraded for simony, and afterwards we can see about
satisfying you. ” Purchase of sees became a recognised thing: a tainted
bishop infected his flock and often sold ordinations; so the disease spread
until, as saddened reformers said, Simon Magus possessed the Church.
It must not be supposed that this result was reached without protest.
Old Church laws though forgotten could be appealed to, and councils
were the fitting place for protest, as bishops were the proper people to
make it. Unhappily, councils were becoming rarer and many bishops
were careless of their office. Nevertheless, at Ingelheim (948) laymen
were forbidden to instal a parish priest or to expel him without the
bishop's leave; at Augsburg (952) laymen were forbidden to expel a
priest from a church canonically committed to him or to replace him by
another. At the important Synod of Seligenstadt (1023) it was decreed
that no layman should give his church to any priest without the consent
of the bishop, to whom the candidate was to be sent for proof of age,
knowledge, and piety sufficient to qualify him for the charge of God's
people. The equally important Synod of Bourges (1031) decreed that no
layman should hold the land (feudum) of a priest in place of a priest, and
no layman ought to place a priest in a church, since the bishop alone
could bestow the cure of souls in every parish. The same synod, it may
be noted, forbade a bishop to receive fees for ordination, and also forbade
priests to charge fees for baptism, penance, or burial, although free gifts
were allowed'. In England laws betray the same evils: a fine was to be
Earlier councils also spoke of the same evil of lay encroachments: at Trosly
near Rheims (909), laymen were forbidden to use the tithes of their churches for
their dogs or concubines. The earlier and reforming Council of Mayence (888)
decreed that the founder of a church should entrust its possessions to the bishop.
So, too, at Pavia (1018).
CH, I.
## p. 10 (#56) ##############################################
10
Evils in the episcopate. Simony
levied for making merchandise of a church', and again no man was to
bring a church into servitude nor unrighteously make merchandise of it,
nor turn out a church-thegn without the bishop's leave”.
It was significant that against abuses appeal was thus being made
to older decrees reiterated or enlarged by sporadic councils. And the
growth of religious revival in time resulted in a feeling of deeper
obligation to Canon Law, and a stronger sense of corporate life. But it
was the duty of the bishops to enforce upon their subjects the duty
of obedience. In doing this, they had often in the past been helped by
righteous kings and courageous Popes. But now for the needed reforms
to be effectively enforced it needed a sound episcopate, backed up by
conscientious kings and Popes. Only so could the inspiration of religion,
which was breathing in many quarters, become coherent in constitutional
action. When king and Pope in fellowship turned to reform, an
episcopate, aroused to a sense of duty, might become effective.
But the episcopate itself was corrupt, bad in itself, moving in a bad
social atmosphere, and largely used for regal politics. Two of the great
Lorraine reformers, William of Dijon (962-1031) and Richard of
St Vannes (ob. 1046), sharply criticised the prelates of their day: “They
were preachers who did not preach; they were shepherds who lived as
hirelings. ” Everywhere one could see glaring infamies.
glaring infamies. Guifred of
Cerdagne became Archbishop of Narbonne (1016-1079) when only ten
years old, 100,000 solidi being paid on his behalf. His episcopate was
disastrous: he sold nearly everything belonging to his cathedral and his
see; he oppressed his clergy but he provided for his family; for a
brother he bought the see of Urgel through the sale of the holy vessels
and plate throughout his diocese. In the Midi such abuses were specially
prevalent. In 1038 two viscounts sold the see of Albi, while it was
occupied, and confirmed the sale by a written contract. But even over
the Midi the reforming zeal of Halinard of Lyons had much effect;
Lyons belonged to Burgundy, and Burgundy under Conrad II became
German. Halinard had been Abbot of St Rémy at Dijon, and was a reformer
of the Cluniac type; at Rome, whither he made many pilgrimages, he
was well known and so popular that the Romans sought him as Pope on
the death of Damasus II. One bishop, of the ducal house of Gascony, is
said to have held eight sees which he disposed of by will. The tables of
the money-changers were not only brought into the temple, but grouped
round the altar itself. Gerbert (Sylvester II), who had seen many lands
and knew something of the past, spoke strongly against the many-headed
and elusive simony. A bishop might say, “I gave gold and I received the
episcopate; but yet I do not fear to receive it back if I behave as I should.
Laws of Northumbrian priests, chap. 20 (950). Johnson, English Canons,
p. 375.
2 Synod of Eanham (1009), chap. 9. Johnson, p. 485. The thriving of a ceorl
includes his possession of a church. Stubbs, Select Charters (ed. Davies), p. 88.
## p. 11 (#57) ##############################################
Clerical marriage
11
ניי
I ordain a priest and I receive gold; I make a deacon and I receive a
heap of silver. . . . Behold the gold which I gave I have once more un-
lessened in my purse.
Sylvester II held simony to be the greatest evil in the Church. Most
reformers, however, attacked the evil morals of the clergy, and their
attack was justified. But strict morality and asceticism went hand in
hand, and the complicated evils of the day gave fresh strength to the zeal
for monasticism and the demand for clerical celibacy. The spirit of
asceticism had in the past done much to deepen piety and the sense of
personal responsibility, even if teaching by strong example has its dangers
as well as successes. In the West more than in the East the conversion of
new races had been due to monks, and now the strength of reformation
lay in monasticism. The enforcement of clerical celibacy seemed an easy,
if not the only, remedy for the diseases of the day. In primitive times
married priests were common, even if we do not find cases of marriage
after ordination, but the reverence for virginity, enhanced by monasticism,
turned the stream of opinion against them. At Nicaea the assembled
Fathers, while forbidding a priest to have a woman, other than wife or
sister, living in his house, had refrained, largely because of the protest of
Paphnutius, from enforcing celibacy. But the Councils of Ancyra and
Neocaesarea (both in 314) had legislated on the point, although with
soine reserve. The former allowed deacons, who at ordination affirmed
their intention to marry, to do so, but otherwise they were degraded. The
latter decreed that a priest marrying after ordination should be degraded,
while a fornicator or adulterer should be more severely punished. The
Council of Elvira (c. 305), which dealt so generally and largely with
sexual sins, shut out from communion an adulterous bishop, priest, or
deacon; it ordered all bishops, priests, deacons, and other clerks, to
abstain from conjugal intercourse. This was the first general enactment
of the kind and it was Western. As time went on, the divergence between
the more conservative East and the newer West, with its changing condi-
tions and rules, became more marked. In the East things moved towards
its present rule, which allows priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, married
before ordination, to live freely with their wives (Quintisext in Trullo,
held 680, promulgated 691); bishops, however, were to live in separation
from their wives. Second marriages, which were always treated as a
different matter, were forbidden. The present rule is for parish priests to
be married, while bishops, chosen from regulars, are unmarried. The
West, on the other hand, moved, to begin with, first by legislation and
then, more slowly, by practice, towards uniform celibacy.
Councils at Carthage (390, 398, and 419), at Agde (506), Toledo
(531), and Orleans (538), enjoined strict continency upon married clerks
See Saltet, Les Réordinations, Paris, 1907—an excellent work—for the nature and
content of simony in the tenth and eleventh centuries, pp. 173sqq. ; he quotes Gerbert,
De informatione episcoporum, MPL, cxxxix, col. 174; Olleris, Op. Gerberti, p. 275.
CH. I.
## p. 12 (#58) ##############################################
12
Enforcement of clerical celibacy
from sub-deacons upwards. Siricius (384-398), by what is commonly
reckoned the first Decretal (385), and Innocent I (402–419) pronounced
strongly against clerical marriage. Henceforth succeeding Popes plainly
enunciated the Roman law. There was so much clerical immorality in
Africa, in spite of the great name and strict teaching of St Augustine,
and elsewhere, that the populace generally preferred a celibate clergy.
Ecclesiastical authorities took the same line, and Leo I extended the
strict law to sub-deacons. The Theodosian Code pronounced the children
of clergy illegitimate, and so the reformers of the tenth and eleventh
centuries could appeal to much support. Nevertheless, there were both
districts and periods in which custom accorded badly with the declared
law, and the confusion made by reformers between marriages they did not
accept and concubinage which opinion, no less than law, condemned
makes the evidence sometimes hard to interpret. St Boniface dealt
firmly with incontinent priests, and on the whole, although here popular
feeling was not with him, he was successful both in Austrasia and
Neustria. The eighth and ninth centuries saw the struggle between law
and custom continuing with varying fortune. Custom became laxer under
the later Carolingians than under Charlemagne, who had set for others a
standard he never dreamt of for himself; Hincmar, who was an advocate
of strictness, gives elaborate directions for proper procedure against
offending clerks, and it is clear that the clergy proved hard either to
convince or to rule. By the end of the ninth century, amid prevalent
disorder, clerical celibacy became less general, and the laws in its favour
were frequently and openly ignored. It was easy, as Pelagius II (578–
590), in giving dispensation for a special case, had confessed, to find
excuse in the laxity of the age. So too St Boniface had found it
necessary to restore offenders after penance, for otherwise there would be
none to say mass. Italy was the most difficult country to deal with, and
Ratherius of Verona says (966) that the enforcement of the laws, which
he not only accepted but strongly approved, would have left only boys in
the Church. It was, he held, a war of canons against custom. By about
the beginning of the eleventh century celibacy was uncommon, and the
laws enforcing it almost obsolete. But they began to gain greater force
as churchmen turned more to legal studies and as the pressure of abuses
grew stronger.
The tenth and eleventh centuries had special reason for enforcing
celibacy and disliking clerical families. Married priests, like laymen,
wished to enrich their children and strove to hand on their benefices
to them. Hereditary bishops, hereditary priests, were a danger': there
was much alienation of clerical property; thus the arguments urged so
repeatedly in favour of celibacy were reinforced. Bishops, and not only
1 Atto of Vercelli (from 945) links clerical marriage and alienation of church
property together, putting the latter as a cause of abuse. The case is well put by
Neander, vi, 187 (Eng. trans. ) and Fleury, Bk. lv, c. 55.
## p. 13 (#59) ##############################################
Secular canons
13
those who held secular jurisdiction, thought and acted as laymen, and
like laymen strove to found dynasties, firmly seated and richly endowed.
Parish priests copied them on a humbler scale. Hence the denial of
ordination to sons of clerks is frequent in conciliar legislation.
