This private control of
their income, and their surrender of a common life, began a long process
of decay.
their income, and their surrender of a common life, began a long process
of decay.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
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.
One attempt at reform of the secular clergy, which had special impor-
tance in England, needs notice. This was the institution of canons,
which has a long and varied history. The germ of the later chapter
appears at a very early date in cathedrals, certainly in the sixth century;
a staff of clergy was needed both for ordinary mission work and for dis-
tribution of alms. But poverty often, as with monasteries later on, led to
careless and disordered life. Chrodegang of Metz (ob. 766), the pious
founder of Gorze, near his city, and of Lorsch, set up, after a Benedictine
model, a rule for his cathedral clergy: there was to be a common life,
although private property was permitted; a synod under Louis the Pious
at Aix-la-Chapelle (817) elaborated it and it was widely applied. The
ideal was high, and although inspired by the asceticism which produced
monasticism, it paid regard to the special tasks of seculars; it infused
a new moral and intellectual life into the clergy at the centre of the
diocese, and education was specially cared for. So excellent an example
was soon copied by other large churches, and the system spread widely.
In its original form it was not destined to live long: decay began at
Cologne with the surrender of the common administration of funds;
Gunther, the archbishop, yielded to the wish for more individual free-
dom, and his successor Willibert in a synod (873) confirmed his changes? .
After this the institution of prebends (benefices assigned to a canon) grew,
and each canon held a prebend and lived apart.
This private control of
their income, and their surrender of a common life, began a long process
of decay. But variations of the original form, which itself had utilised
much older growths, appeared largely and widely in history. Brotherhood
and the sympathy of a common life furthered diligence and devotion.
In councils of the tenth and eleventh centuries, clerical celibacy and
simony are repeatedly spoken of. With few exceptions? , all well-wishers
of reform, whether lay or clerical, desired to enforce celibacy, although
1 At the Roman Council of 1059 Hildebrand spoke against the laxity of the
system, especially its permission of private property and its liberality as to fare
(Mabillon, ASB, and Hefele-Leclercq, pp. 1177-8, with references there). In 1074
Hildebrand, as Gregory VII, put out a Rule for canons (Hefele-Leclercq, v, p. 94 n. ,
Duchesne, Lib. Pont. 1, CLXVIIII); it was wrongly ascribed to Gregory IV. See Dom
Morin, R. Ben. 1901, XVIII, pp. 177-183. Hildebrand's Rule breaks off short in
the MS. , and the abbreviation can. for canonicorum led to its being attributed to
musical history (canendi).
2 Ulrich (Udalrich) of Augsburg (923-973) was, perhaps, an exception. So later on
was Cunibert of Turin, himself a celibate whose clerks reached a high standard of
life: he permitted them to marry, for which Peter Damian reproved him. Both
these prelates were earnest reformers. Damian tried to get Adelaide, Regent of
Piedmont and Savoy, to enforce his policy against Cunibert.
CH. I.
## p. 14 (#60) ##############################################
14
Rome
some thought circumstances compelled laxity in applying the law. Thus
in France the Council of Poitiers (1000) forbade priests and deacons to
live with women, under pain of degradation and excommunication. The
Council of Bourges (1031), while making the same decrees (repeated at
Limoges the same year), went further by ordering all sub-deacons to
promise at ordination to keep neither wife nor mistress. This promise
resembles the attempt of Guarino of Modena' a little earlier to refuse
benefices to any clerk who would not swear to observe celibacy. In Ger-
many the largely-attended Council of Augsburg (952) forbade marriage
to ecclesiastics, including sub-deacons; the reason assigned was their
handling the divine mysteries, and with German respect for Canon Law
appeal was made to the decrees of many councils in the past. Under
Henry III the prohibitions were better observed, not only through the
support of the Emperor, but because collections of Canons, especially
that by Burchard of Worms (Decretum, between 1008 and 1012), were
becoming known and gaining authority? The statement of principles,
especially from the past, as against the practice of the day was becoming
coherent. But the Papacy, which had so repeatedly declared for celibacy,
was not in a state to interfere authoritatively. Thus we come to the
question of reform at Rome. The movement for reform needed authority
and coherence, which were to be supplied from Rome. But first of all
Reform had to capture Rome itself.
At Rome a bad ecclesiastical atmosphere was darkened by political
troubles and not lightened by religious enthusiasm. There as elsewhere
local families were striving for local power; the nobility, with seats out-
side, was very disorderly and made the city itself tumultuous and unsafe.
The Crescentii, so long and so darkly connected with papal history, had
lands in the Sabina and around Farfa, and although with lessening
influence in the city itself they stood for the traditions of civic indepen-
dence, overshadowed, it is true, by the mostly distant power of the Saxon
Emperors. Nearer home they were confronted by the growing power of
the Counts of Tusculumº, to whose family Gregory, the naval prefect under
Otto III, had belonged; they naturally, although for their own purposes,
followed a German policy. Either of these houses might have founded
at Rome a feudal dynasty such as rose elsewhere, and each seemed at
times likely to do so. But in a city where Pope and Emperor were just
strong enough to check feudal growth, although not strong enough to
1 This tendency to enforce celibacy on seculars by an oath might have led to a
general policy, but was not followed. It was an obligation understood to be inherent
in the priestly office.
2 Burchard illustrates, on celibacy and lay interference, the conflict between old
canons and later customs. He copies the former, but accepts the latter, and allows
for them.
3 For a discussion of their genealogy see R. L. Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI
(reprinted from Proceedings of British Academy, vii), pp. 31 sqq.
## p. 15 (#61) ##############################################
Benedict VIII
15
impose continuous order, the disorderly stage, the almost anarchy, of
early feudalism lingered long.
When Sergius IV (1009-1012) “Boccaporco," son of a Roman shoe-
maker and Bishop of Albano, died soon after John Crescentius, the
rival houses produced rival Popes: Gregory, supported by the Crescentii,
and the Cardinal Theophylact, son of Gregory of Tusculum. Henry II of
Germany, hampered by opposition from Lombard nobles and faced by
King Arduin, had watched Italian politics from afar, and the disputed
election gave him an opening. Rome was divided. Theophylact had
seized the Lateran, but could not maintain himself there; Gregory fled,
even from Italy, and (Christmas 1012) appeared in Henry's court at
Pöhlde as a suppliant in papal robes. Henry cautiously promised
enquiry, but significantly took the papal crozier into his own keeping, just
as he might have done for a German bishopric. He had, however, partly
recognised Theophylact, and had indeed sent to gain from him a
confirmation of privileges for his beloved Bamberg': a decision in
Theophylact's favour was therefore natural. Henry soon appeared in
Italy (February 1013); his arrival put Arduin in the shade. Theophylact,
with the help of his family, had established himself, and it was he who,
as Benedict VIII, crowned Henry and Cunegunda (14 February 1014).
The royal pair were received by a solemn procession, and six bearded
and six beardless Senators bearing wands walked “mystically” before
them. The pious Emperor dedicated his former kingly crown to St Peter,
but the imperial orb bearing a cross was sent to Cluny. Benedict VIII
was supported now by the imperial arm, and in Germany his ecclesiastical
power was freely used; he and the Emperor worked together on lines of
Church reform, even if their motives differed.
Benedict VIII (1012-1024) proved an efficient administrator, faced by
the constant Saracen peril, and wisely kept on good terms with Henry II.
Although he was first of all a warrior and an administrator? , he also
appears, probably under the influence of the Emperor, as a Church
reformer. A Council was held at Pavia (1018), where the Pope made
an impressive speech, which, it is suggested, may have been the work of
Leo of Vercelli, on the evils of the day, denouncing specially clerical
1 For the foundation of Bamberg see Hefele-Leclercq, Les Conciles, iv, pp. 909
sqq. ; Hauck, op. cit. 111, p. 418; and Giesebrecht, Deutsche Kaiserzeit, 11, pp. 52 sqq.
The missionary importance, as well as the ecclesiastical interest, of the new see and
the disputes about it should be noted. For the Church policy of Henry II see
supra, Vol. mi, pp. 231 sqq.
? A more favourable view of him is summarised in Hefele-Leclercq, iv, p. 914.
So K. W. Nitzsch, Gesch. des deutschen Volkes, Leipsic, 1892, 1, pp. 392 sqq. , in the
same sense.
3 The date of this Council is disputed. 1022 was accepted until Giesebrecht
suggested 1018 (op. cit. 11, p. 188, and note 623–4). Also Hauck (who prefers 1022),
op. cit. III, p. 528, n. 2. The earlier date seems a little more probable. In Vol. ui
supra, p. 251, the date 1022 is accepted.
CA. 1.
## p. 16 (#62) ##############################################
16
The Emperor Henry II
concubinage and simony. His starting point was a wish to protect
Church property from alienation to priestly families, a consideration
likely to weigh with a statesmanlike administrator, although Henry II
might have had a more spiritual concern. By the decrees of the Council,
marriage and concubinage were forbidden to priests, deacons, and sub-
deacons, indeed to any clerk. Bishops not enforcing this were to be
deposed. The children of clerks were to be the property of the Church.
In the Council the initiative of the Pope seems to have been strong.
The Emperor gave the decrees the force of law, and a Council at Goslar
(1019) repeated them. Italy and Germany were working as one.
There was little difference between the ecclesiastical powers of Henry
in Italy and in Germany. He knew his strength and did not shrink
from using it. Before his imperial coronation he held a synod at Ravenna
(January 1014) where he practically decreed by the advice of the bishops;
for Ravenna he had named as archbishop his half-brother Arnold, who
was opposed by a popularly-supported rival Adalbert. This probably
canonical prelate was deposed, and after Henry's coronation a Roman
synod approved the judgment, although it did obtain for the victim the
compensation of a smaller see. Decrees against simonist ordinations and
the alienation through pledges of Church lands were also passed, and
published by the Emperor. A liturgical difference between Roman and
German use in the mass was even decided in favour of the latter. So
far did German influence prevail.
The reforming tendencies of the German Church found full expression
at the Synod of Seligenstadt (12 August 1023). In 1021 a young
imperial chaplain Aribo had been made Archbishop of Mayence; and he
aimed at giving the German Church not only a better spirit but a more
coherent discipline. In the preamble to the canons, Aribo states the aim
of himself and his suffragans, among whom was Burchard of Worms
(Bishop 1000–1025): it was to establish uniformity in worship, discipline,
and ecclesiastical morals. The twenty canons regulated fasting, some
points of clerical observance, observance of marriage, in which the
canonical and not the civil reckoning of degrees of kinship was to hold";
lay patrons were forbidden to fill vacancies without the approval and
assent of the bishop; no one was to go to Rome (i. e. for judgment)
without leave of his bishop, and no one subjected to penance was to go
to Rome in the hope of a lighter punishment. This legislation was
inspired by the reforming spirit of the German Church, due not only to
the saintly Emperor but to many ecclesiastics of all ranks, with whom
religion was a real thing; and for the furtherance of this the regulations
of the Church were to be obeyed. The Canon Law, now always including
the Forged Decretals, involved respect to papal authority, but Aribo
1 The civil law reckoned brothers and sisters as in the first degree; the canonical
law was now reckoning cousins-german as such.
## p. 17 (#63) ##############################################
Benedict IX
17
and his suffragans laid stress also upon the rights of metropolitans
and bishops in the national Church, which gave them not only
much power for good but the machinery for welding the nation to-
gether.
In June 1024 Benedict VIII died and was followed by his brother
Romanus the Senator, who became John XIX; his election, which was
tainted by bribery and force, was soon followed by the death of the
Emperor (13 July 1024). The new monarch, Conrad II, was supported
by the German adherents in Italy and especially by the Archbishop
Aribert of Milan, a city always important in imperial politics. Both he
and John XIX were ready to give Conrad the crowns which it was theirs
to bestow. So in 1026 he came to Italy; and he and his wife Gisela were
crowned in St Peter's (26 March 1027). Then, after passing to South
Italy, he slowly returned home, leaving John XIX to continue a papacy,
inglorious and void of reform, until his death in January 1032. Under
him old abuses revived, and so the state of things at Rome grew worse,
while in Germany, although Conrad II (1024-1039) was very different
from Henry II in Church affairs, the party of reform was gaining
strength.
With the election of Benedict IX, formerly Theophylact, son of
Alberic of Tusculum, brother of a younger Romanus the Consul, and
nephew of Benedict VIII and John XIX, papal history reached a crisis,
difficult enough in itself, and distorted, even at the time, by varying
accounts. According to the ordinary story, Benedict IX was only twelve
years old at his election, but as he grew older he grew also in debauchery,
until even the Romans, usually patient of papal scandal, became restive;
then at length the Emperor Henry III had to come to restore decency
and order at the centre of Western Christendom. But there is reason to
doubt something of the story. That Benedict was only twelve years
old
at his accession rests on the confused statement of Rodulf Glaber; there
is reason to suppose he was older. The description of his depravity
becomes more highly coloured as years go by and the controversies of
Pope and Emperor distort the past. But there is enough to shew that as
a man he was profligate and bad, as a Pope unworthy and ineffective.
It was, however, rather the events of his papacy, singular and significant,
than his character, that made the crisis. He was the last of a series of
what we may call dynastic Popes, rarely pious and often bad; after him
there comes a school of reformed and reformers.
Conrad II differed much in Church matters from Henry II. It is true
that he kept the feasts of the Church with fitting regularity and splendour
and that he also was a “brother” of some monasteries. But his aims were
purely secular, and the former imperial regard for learning and piety was
not kept up. Some of his bishops, like Thietmar of Hildesheim, were
ignorant; others, like Reginhard of Liège and Ulrich of Basle, had
openly bought their sees, and not all of them, like Reginhard, sought
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
2
## p. 18 (#64) ##############################################
18
The Emperor Conrad II
absolution at Rome. Upon monasteries the king's hand was heavy:
he dealt very freely with their possessions, sometimes forcing them to give
lands as fiefs to his friends, sometimes even granting the royal abbeys
themselves as such. Thus the royal power worked harmfully or, at any
rate, not favourably for the Church', and bishops or abbots eager for
reform could no longer reckon upon kingly help. It is true that Poppo
of Stablo enjoyed royal favour, but other ecclesiastics who, like Aribo of
Mayence, had supported Conrad at his accession, received small en-
couragement. Conrad's marriage with Gisela trespassed on the Church's
rule of affinity, and the queen's interest in ecclesiastical appointments, by
which her friends and relatives gained, did not take away the reproach;
but she favoured reformers, especially the Cluniacs, whose influence in
Burgundy was useful.
A change in imperial policy then coincided with a change in Popes.
Benedict VIII may have been inspired by Henry II, but John XIX was
a tool of Conrad. For instance, he had to reverse a former decision,
by which the Patriarch of Grado had been made independent of his
brother of Aquileia. Poppo of Aquileia was a German and naturally an
adherent of Conrad; everyone knew why the decision was changed? .
It was even more significant that the Emperor spoke formally of the
decree of the faithful of the realm, “of the Pope John, of the venerable
patriarch Poppo, and others. ” It was thus made clear that, whether for
reform or otherwise, the Pope was regarded by the Emperor exactly as
were the higher German prelates. They were all in his realm and there-
fore in his hands. Here he anticipated a ruler otherwise very differently-
minded, Henry III.
2
Benedict IX could be treated with even less respect than John XIX.
It is true that he held synods (1036 and 1038), that he made the Roman
Bishop of Silva Candida bibliothecarius (or head of the Chancery) in
succession to Pilgrim of Cologne. But in 1038 he excommunicated
Aribert of Milan, who was giving trouble to Conrad. To the Emperor
he was so far acceptable, but in Rome where faction lingered on he had
trouble. Once (at a date uncertain the citizens tried to assassinate him
at the altar itself. Later (1044) a rebellion was more successful: he and
his brother were driven from the city, although they were able to hold
1 See supra, Vol. 111, p. 271.
2 The later incident, 1042, in which Poppo entered Grado by force, burning
and destroying churches and houses, slaughtering and ravaging, illustrates what
some bishops of the day were and did. The story of this revived quarrel between
Grado and Aquileia is well told by F. C. Hodgson, Early History of Venice, London,
1901, pp. 196-206 sqq. ; also supra, Vol. iv, pp. 407-8. The quarrel, which was
old ecclesiastically, had now a twofold connexion with Venetian and German politics.
3 On the difficult chronology of Benedict's pa pacy see R. L. Poole, Benedict IX
and Gregory VI (Proceedings of the British Academy, vı). For the chronology
of, and authorities for, the Italian journey of Henry III, Steindorff, Jahrbücher des
deutschen Reiches unter Heinrich III, 1, pp. 456-510.
## p. 19 (#65) ##############################################
Sylvester III and Gregory VI
19
the Trastevere. Then John, Bishop of Sabina, was elected Pope, taking
the name of Sylvester III. Again we hear of bribery, but as John's see
was in the territory of the Crescentii, we may suppose that this rival
house was concerned in this attack upon the Tusculans; in fifty days
the latter, helped by Count Gerard of Galeria, drove out Sylvester's
party, and he returned to his former see. Then afterwards Benedict
withdrew from the Papacy in favour of his godfather, John Gratian,
Archpriest of St John at the Latin Gate, who took the name of
Gregory VI. The new Pope belonged to the party of reform; he was a
man of high character, but his election had been stained by simony, for
Benedict, even if he were weary of his office and of the Romans, and
longed, according to Bonizo's curious tale, for marriage, had been bought
out by the promise of the income sent from England as Peter's Pence.
The change of Popes, however, was welcomed by the reformers, and
Peter Damian in particular hailed Gregory as the dove bearing the olive-
branch to the ark. Even more significant for the future was Gregory's
association with the young Hildebrand; both were probably connected
with the wealthy family of Benedict the Christian'. There was a
simplicity in Gregory's character which, in a bad society calling loudly for
reform, led him to do evil that good might come. For nearly two years
he remained Pope, but reform still tarried.
Attention has been too often concentrated on the profligacy of
Benedict IX, which in its more lurid colours shines so prominently in
later accounts. What is remarkable, however, is the corruption, not of
a single man, even of a single Pope, but of the whole Roman society.
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.
One attempt at reform of the secular clergy, which had special impor-
tance in England, needs notice. This was the institution of canons,
which has a long and varied history. The germ of the later chapter
appears at a very early date in cathedrals, certainly in the sixth century;
a staff of clergy was needed both for ordinary mission work and for dis-
tribution of alms. But poverty often, as with monasteries later on, led to
careless and disordered life. Chrodegang of Metz (ob. 766), the pious
founder of Gorze, near his city, and of Lorsch, set up, after a Benedictine
model, a rule for his cathedral clergy: there was to be a common life,
although private property was permitted; a synod under Louis the Pious
at Aix-la-Chapelle (817) elaborated it and it was widely applied. The
ideal was high, and although inspired by the asceticism which produced
monasticism, it paid regard to the special tasks of seculars; it infused
a new moral and intellectual life into the clergy at the centre of the
diocese, and education was specially cared for. So excellent an example
was soon copied by other large churches, and the system spread widely.
In its original form it was not destined to live long: decay began at
Cologne with the surrender of the common administration of funds;
Gunther, the archbishop, yielded to the wish for more individual free-
dom, and his successor Willibert in a synod (873) confirmed his changes? .
After this the institution of prebends (benefices assigned to a canon) grew,
and each canon held a prebend and lived apart.
This private control of
their income, and their surrender of a common life, began a long process
of decay. But variations of the original form, which itself had utilised
much older growths, appeared largely and widely in history. Brotherhood
and the sympathy of a common life furthered diligence and devotion.
In councils of the tenth and eleventh centuries, clerical celibacy and
simony are repeatedly spoken of. With few exceptions? , all well-wishers
of reform, whether lay or clerical, desired to enforce celibacy, although
1 At the Roman Council of 1059 Hildebrand spoke against the laxity of the
system, especially its permission of private property and its liberality as to fare
(Mabillon, ASB, and Hefele-Leclercq, pp. 1177-8, with references there). In 1074
Hildebrand, as Gregory VII, put out a Rule for canons (Hefele-Leclercq, v, p. 94 n. ,
Duchesne, Lib. Pont. 1, CLXVIIII); it was wrongly ascribed to Gregory IV. See Dom
Morin, R. Ben. 1901, XVIII, pp. 177-183. Hildebrand's Rule breaks off short in
the MS. , and the abbreviation can. for canonicorum led to its being attributed to
musical history (canendi).
2 Ulrich (Udalrich) of Augsburg (923-973) was, perhaps, an exception. So later on
was Cunibert of Turin, himself a celibate whose clerks reached a high standard of
life: he permitted them to marry, for which Peter Damian reproved him. Both
these prelates were earnest reformers. Damian tried to get Adelaide, Regent of
Piedmont and Savoy, to enforce his policy against Cunibert.
CH. I.
## p. 14 (#60) ##############################################
14
Rome
some thought circumstances compelled laxity in applying the law. Thus
in France the Council of Poitiers (1000) forbade priests and deacons to
live with women, under pain of degradation and excommunication. The
Council of Bourges (1031), while making the same decrees (repeated at
Limoges the same year), went further by ordering all sub-deacons to
promise at ordination to keep neither wife nor mistress. This promise
resembles the attempt of Guarino of Modena' a little earlier to refuse
benefices to any clerk who would not swear to observe celibacy. In Ger-
many the largely-attended Council of Augsburg (952) forbade marriage
to ecclesiastics, including sub-deacons; the reason assigned was their
handling the divine mysteries, and with German respect for Canon Law
appeal was made to the decrees of many councils in the past. Under
Henry III the prohibitions were better observed, not only through the
support of the Emperor, but because collections of Canons, especially
that by Burchard of Worms (Decretum, between 1008 and 1012), were
becoming known and gaining authority? The statement of principles,
especially from the past, as against the practice of the day was becoming
coherent. But the Papacy, which had so repeatedly declared for celibacy,
was not in a state to interfere authoritatively. Thus we come to the
question of reform at Rome. The movement for reform needed authority
and coherence, which were to be supplied from Rome. But first of all
Reform had to capture Rome itself.
At Rome a bad ecclesiastical atmosphere was darkened by political
troubles and not lightened by religious enthusiasm. There as elsewhere
local families were striving for local power; the nobility, with seats out-
side, was very disorderly and made the city itself tumultuous and unsafe.
The Crescentii, so long and so darkly connected with papal history, had
lands in the Sabina and around Farfa, and although with lessening
influence in the city itself they stood for the traditions of civic indepen-
dence, overshadowed, it is true, by the mostly distant power of the Saxon
Emperors. Nearer home they were confronted by the growing power of
the Counts of Tusculumº, to whose family Gregory, the naval prefect under
Otto III, had belonged; they naturally, although for their own purposes,
followed a German policy. Either of these houses might have founded
at Rome a feudal dynasty such as rose elsewhere, and each seemed at
times likely to do so. But in a city where Pope and Emperor were just
strong enough to check feudal growth, although not strong enough to
1 This tendency to enforce celibacy on seculars by an oath might have led to a
general policy, but was not followed. It was an obligation understood to be inherent
in the priestly office.
2 Burchard illustrates, on celibacy and lay interference, the conflict between old
canons and later customs. He copies the former, but accepts the latter, and allows
for them.
3 For a discussion of their genealogy see R. L. Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI
(reprinted from Proceedings of British Academy, vii), pp. 31 sqq.
## p. 15 (#61) ##############################################
Benedict VIII
15
impose continuous order, the disorderly stage, the almost anarchy, of
early feudalism lingered long.
When Sergius IV (1009-1012) “Boccaporco," son of a Roman shoe-
maker and Bishop of Albano, died soon after John Crescentius, the
rival houses produced rival Popes: Gregory, supported by the Crescentii,
and the Cardinal Theophylact, son of Gregory of Tusculum. Henry II of
Germany, hampered by opposition from Lombard nobles and faced by
King Arduin, had watched Italian politics from afar, and the disputed
election gave him an opening. Rome was divided. Theophylact had
seized the Lateran, but could not maintain himself there; Gregory fled,
even from Italy, and (Christmas 1012) appeared in Henry's court at
Pöhlde as a suppliant in papal robes. Henry cautiously promised
enquiry, but significantly took the papal crozier into his own keeping, just
as he might have done for a German bishopric. He had, however, partly
recognised Theophylact, and had indeed sent to gain from him a
confirmation of privileges for his beloved Bamberg': a decision in
Theophylact's favour was therefore natural. Henry soon appeared in
Italy (February 1013); his arrival put Arduin in the shade. Theophylact,
with the help of his family, had established himself, and it was he who,
as Benedict VIII, crowned Henry and Cunegunda (14 February 1014).
The royal pair were received by a solemn procession, and six bearded
and six beardless Senators bearing wands walked “mystically” before
them. The pious Emperor dedicated his former kingly crown to St Peter,
but the imperial orb bearing a cross was sent to Cluny. Benedict VIII
was supported now by the imperial arm, and in Germany his ecclesiastical
power was freely used; he and the Emperor worked together on lines of
Church reform, even if their motives differed.
Benedict VIII (1012-1024) proved an efficient administrator, faced by
the constant Saracen peril, and wisely kept on good terms with Henry II.
Although he was first of all a warrior and an administrator? , he also
appears, probably under the influence of the Emperor, as a Church
reformer. A Council was held at Pavia (1018), where the Pope made
an impressive speech, which, it is suggested, may have been the work of
Leo of Vercelli, on the evils of the day, denouncing specially clerical
1 For the foundation of Bamberg see Hefele-Leclercq, Les Conciles, iv, pp. 909
sqq. ; Hauck, op. cit. 111, p. 418; and Giesebrecht, Deutsche Kaiserzeit, 11, pp. 52 sqq.
The missionary importance, as well as the ecclesiastical interest, of the new see and
the disputes about it should be noted. For the Church policy of Henry II see
supra, Vol. mi, pp. 231 sqq.
? A more favourable view of him is summarised in Hefele-Leclercq, iv, p. 914.
So K. W. Nitzsch, Gesch. des deutschen Volkes, Leipsic, 1892, 1, pp. 392 sqq. , in the
same sense.
3 The date of this Council is disputed. 1022 was accepted until Giesebrecht
suggested 1018 (op. cit. 11, p. 188, and note 623–4). Also Hauck (who prefers 1022),
op. cit. III, p. 528, n. 2. The earlier date seems a little more probable. In Vol. ui
supra, p. 251, the date 1022 is accepted.
CA. 1.
## p. 16 (#62) ##############################################
16
The Emperor Henry II
concubinage and simony. His starting point was a wish to protect
Church property from alienation to priestly families, a consideration
likely to weigh with a statesmanlike administrator, although Henry II
might have had a more spiritual concern. By the decrees of the Council,
marriage and concubinage were forbidden to priests, deacons, and sub-
deacons, indeed to any clerk. Bishops not enforcing this were to be
deposed. The children of clerks were to be the property of the Church.
In the Council the initiative of the Pope seems to have been strong.
The Emperor gave the decrees the force of law, and a Council at Goslar
(1019) repeated them. Italy and Germany were working as one.
There was little difference between the ecclesiastical powers of Henry
in Italy and in Germany. He knew his strength and did not shrink
from using it. Before his imperial coronation he held a synod at Ravenna
(January 1014) where he practically decreed by the advice of the bishops;
for Ravenna he had named as archbishop his half-brother Arnold, who
was opposed by a popularly-supported rival Adalbert. This probably
canonical prelate was deposed, and after Henry's coronation a Roman
synod approved the judgment, although it did obtain for the victim the
compensation of a smaller see. Decrees against simonist ordinations and
the alienation through pledges of Church lands were also passed, and
published by the Emperor. A liturgical difference between Roman and
German use in the mass was even decided in favour of the latter. So
far did German influence prevail.
The reforming tendencies of the German Church found full expression
at the Synod of Seligenstadt (12 August 1023). In 1021 a young
imperial chaplain Aribo had been made Archbishop of Mayence; and he
aimed at giving the German Church not only a better spirit but a more
coherent discipline. In the preamble to the canons, Aribo states the aim
of himself and his suffragans, among whom was Burchard of Worms
(Bishop 1000–1025): it was to establish uniformity in worship, discipline,
and ecclesiastical morals. The twenty canons regulated fasting, some
points of clerical observance, observance of marriage, in which the
canonical and not the civil reckoning of degrees of kinship was to hold";
lay patrons were forbidden to fill vacancies without the approval and
assent of the bishop; no one was to go to Rome (i. e. for judgment)
without leave of his bishop, and no one subjected to penance was to go
to Rome in the hope of a lighter punishment. This legislation was
inspired by the reforming spirit of the German Church, due not only to
the saintly Emperor but to many ecclesiastics of all ranks, with whom
religion was a real thing; and for the furtherance of this the regulations
of the Church were to be obeyed. The Canon Law, now always including
the Forged Decretals, involved respect to papal authority, but Aribo
1 The civil law reckoned brothers and sisters as in the first degree; the canonical
law was now reckoning cousins-german as such.
## p. 17 (#63) ##############################################
Benedict IX
17
and his suffragans laid stress also upon the rights of metropolitans
and bishops in the national Church, which gave them not only
much power for good but the machinery for welding the nation to-
gether.
In June 1024 Benedict VIII died and was followed by his brother
Romanus the Senator, who became John XIX; his election, which was
tainted by bribery and force, was soon followed by the death of the
Emperor (13 July 1024). The new monarch, Conrad II, was supported
by the German adherents in Italy and especially by the Archbishop
Aribert of Milan, a city always important in imperial politics. Both he
and John XIX were ready to give Conrad the crowns which it was theirs
to bestow. So in 1026 he came to Italy; and he and his wife Gisela were
crowned in St Peter's (26 March 1027). Then, after passing to South
Italy, he slowly returned home, leaving John XIX to continue a papacy,
inglorious and void of reform, until his death in January 1032. Under
him old abuses revived, and so the state of things at Rome grew worse,
while in Germany, although Conrad II (1024-1039) was very different
from Henry II in Church affairs, the party of reform was gaining
strength.
With the election of Benedict IX, formerly Theophylact, son of
Alberic of Tusculum, brother of a younger Romanus the Consul, and
nephew of Benedict VIII and John XIX, papal history reached a crisis,
difficult enough in itself, and distorted, even at the time, by varying
accounts. According to the ordinary story, Benedict IX was only twelve
years old at his election, but as he grew older he grew also in debauchery,
until even the Romans, usually patient of papal scandal, became restive;
then at length the Emperor Henry III had to come to restore decency
and order at the centre of Western Christendom. But there is reason to
doubt something of the story. That Benedict was only twelve years
old
at his accession rests on the confused statement of Rodulf Glaber; there
is reason to suppose he was older. The description of his depravity
becomes more highly coloured as years go by and the controversies of
Pope and Emperor distort the past. But there is enough to shew that as
a man he was profligate and bad, as a Pope unworthy and ineffective.
It was, however, rather the events of his papacy, singular and significant,
than his character, that made the crisis. He was the last of a series of
what we may call dynastic Popes, rarely pious and often bad; after him
there comes a school of reformed and reformers.
Conrad II differed much in Church matters from Henry II. It is true
that he kept the feasts of the Church with fitting regularity and splendour
and that he also was a “brother” of some monasteries. But his aims were
purely secular, and the former imperial regard for learning and piety was
not kept up. Some of his bishops, like Thietmar of Hildesheim, were
ignorant; others, like Reginhard of Liège and Ulrich of Basle, had
openly bought their sees, and not all of them, like Reginhard, sought
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
2
## p. 18 (#64) ##############################################
18
The Emperor Conrad II
absolution at Rome. Upon monasteries the king's hand was heavy:
he dealt very freely with their possessions, sometimes forcing them to give
lands as fiefs to his friends, sometimes even granting the royal abbeys
themselves as such. Thus the royal power worked harmfully or, at any
rate, not favourably for the Church', and bishops or abbots eager for
reform could no longer reckon upon kingly help. It is true that Poppo
of Stablo enjoyed royal favour, but other ecclesiastics who, like Aribo of
Mayence, had supported Conrad at his accession, received small en-
couragement. Conrad's marriage with Gisela trespassed on the Church's
rule of affinity, and the queen's interest in ecclesiastical appointments, by
which her friends and relatives gained, did not take away the reproach;
but she favoured reformers, especially the Cluniacs, whose influence in
Burgundy was useful.
A change in imperial policy then coincided with a change in Popes.
Benedict VIII may have been inspired by Henry II, but John XIX was
a tool of Conrad. For instance, he had to reverse a former decision,
by which the Patriarch of Grado had been made independent of his
brother of Aquileia. Poppo of Aquileia was a German and naturally an
adherent of Conrad; everyone knew why the decision was changed? .
It was even more significant that the Emperor spoke formally of the
decree of the faithful of the realm, “of the Pope John, of the venerable
patriarch Poppo, and others. ” It was thus made clear that, whether for
reform or otherwise, the Pope was regarded by the Emperor exactly as
were the higher German prelates. They were all in his realm and there-
fore in his hands. Here he anticipated a ruler otherwise very differently-
minded, Henry III.
2
Benedict IX could be treated with even less respect than John XIX.
It is true that he held synods (1036 and 1038), that he made the Roman
Bishop of Silva Candida bibliothecarius (or head of the Chancery) in
succession to Pilgrim of Cologne. But in 1038 he excommunicated
Aribert of Milan, who was giving trouble to Conrad. To the Emperor
he was so far acceptable, but in Rome where faction lingered on he had
trouble. Once (at a date uncertain the citizens tried to assassinate him
at the altar itself. Later (1044) a rebellion was more successful: he and
his brother were driven from the city, although they were able to hold
1 See supra, Vol. 111, p. 271.
2 The later incident, 1042, in which Poppo entered Grado by force, burning
and destroying churches and houses, slaughtering and ravaging, illustrates what
some bishops of the day were and did. The story of this revived quarrel between
Grado and Aquileia is well told by F. C. Hodgson, Early History of Venice, London,
1901, pp. 196-206 sqq. ; also supra, Vol. iv, pp. 407-8. The quarrel, which was
old ecclesiastically, had now a twofold connexion with Venetian and German politics.
3 On the difficult chronology of Benedict's pa pacy see R. L. Poole, Benedict IX
and Gregory VI (Proceedings of the British Academy, vı). For the chronology
of, and authorities for, the Italian journey of Henry III, Steindorff, Jahrbücher des
deutschen Reiches unter Heinrich III, 1, pp. 456-510.
## p. 19 (#65) ##############################################
Sylvester III and Gregory VI
19
the Trastevere. Then John, Bishop of Sabina, was elected Pope, taking
the name of Sylvester III. Again we hear of bribery, but as John's see
was in the territory of the Crescentii, we may suppose that this rival
house was concerned in this attack upon the Tusculans; in fifty days
the latter, helped by Count Gerard of Galeria, drove out Sylvester's
party, and he returned to his former see. Then afterwards Benedict
withdrew from the Papacy in favour of his godfather, John Gratian,
Archpriest of St John at the Latin Gate, who took the name of
Gregory VI. The new Pope belonged to the party of reform; he was a
man of high character, but his election had been stained by simony, for
Benedict, even if he were weary of his office and of the Romans, and
longed, according to Bonizo's curious tale, for marriage, had been bought
out by the promise of the income sent from England as Peter's Pence.
The change of Popes, however, was welcomed by the reformers, and
Peter Damian in particular hailed Gregory as the dove bearing the olive-
branch to the ark. Even more significant for the future was Gregory's
association with the young Hildebrand; both were probably connected
with the wealthy family of Benedict the Christian'. There was a
simplicity in Gregory's character which, in a bad society calling loudly for
reform, led him to do evil that good might come. For nearly two years
he remained Pope, but reform still tarried.
Attention has been too often concentrated on the profligacy of
Benedict IX, which in its more lurid colours shines so prominently in
later accounts. What is remarkable, however, is the corruption, not of
a single man, even of a single Pope, but of the whole Roman society.
