Northern
Italy in the Hohenstaufen period.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
William crowned
Siege of Exeter
Revolt of Edwin and Morkere
The harrying of the North
Revolt of Hereward
The Conqueror re-allots the soil of England
The evidence of Domesday Book
The rental of England in 1086
The Crown lands.
The ecclesiastical fiefs
The lay fiefs.
Classification and tenure of the fiefs
The quotas of military service
The under-tenants and the peasantry
William's anti-feudal measures
The King's Court.
Reform of the Church
Archbishop Lanfranc
William and the Papacy
Invasion of Scotland
Revolt of Maine
Peace with Anjou .
The rising of the Earls .
Robert Curthose
Arrest of Bishop Odo
The oath of Salisbury
The Conqueror's death
490
ib.
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
ib.
504
ib.
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
ib.
.
.
516
ib.
517
ib.
518
ib.
ib.
519
520
ib,
.
.
CHAPTER XVI.
ENGLAND, 1087–1154.
By the late WILLIAM John CORBETT, M. A.
Accession of William Rufus.
Revolt of Odo of Bayeux
Ranulf Flambard .
Mowbray's rebellion
Rufus invades Normandy
Rufus and Scotland : annexation of Cumberland
521
ib.
522
523
ib.
524
## p. xxxvi (#38) ###########################################
xxxvi
Contents
PAGE
Conquest of South Wales: the marcher lordships .
Anselm made primate
The Council of Rockingham .
Normandy mortgaged to Rufus
His death. Accession of Henry I
The coronation charter .
Henry's marriage.
Duke Robert invades England
Banishment of Robert of Bellême and William of Mortain
Battle of Tinchebrai
Anselm opposes Henry.
The Investiture compromise
Death of Anselm.
Robert of Salisbury organises the Exchequer
The itinerant justices
The Laga Eadwardi restated .
Henry and the baronage
The ports and portmen
The boroughs in 1086, and under Henry I
The battle of Brémule
The succession problem
Death of Henry 1: Stephen claims the throne
Stephen crowned : recognised by the Pope
The opposition to Stephen
Stephen in Normandy
Outbreak of civil war
Battle of the Standard
Arrest of the bishops
Matilda in England
Stephen creates earls
Stephen captured .
Matilda driven from London
Mandeville holds the balance
Matilda leaves England
Stephen and Eugenius III
Geoffrey conquers Normandy
Geoffrey succeeded by Henry of Anjou .
Stephen makes peace with Henry.
Stephen's death
Character of his reign
525
526
ib.
527
ib.
528
529
ib.
530
531
ib.
532
ib.
533
534
535
ib.
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
ib.
544
ib.
545
ib.
546
547
ib.
548
549
550
ib.
551
552
ib.
ib.
CHAPTER XVII.
ENGLAND: HENRY II.
By Mrs Doris M. STENTON, Lecturer in History at University
College, Reading
The kingdom secured
554
Wales and Scotland
556
Becket as Chancellor
557
Becket as Archbishop
ib.
The Constitutions of Clarendon
559
## p. xxxvii (#39) ##########################################
Contents
xxxvii
PAGE
The quarrel renewed
Becket's flight
The reconciliation
Becket's murder.
Ireland
Terms of Henry's absolution.
Reasons for the rebellion of 1173. -74
Balance of parties
First summer of rebellion
Second summer of rebellion
Its suppression
Henry's death
Twofold division of the reign
The Exchequer and the Barons of the Exchequer .
The justiciar
Chancellor, Treasurer, and curiales
The Sheriffs.
Local justiciars
Judicial experiments
Centralisation of justice
The Grand Assize
Procedure
The Possessory Assizes and Final Concords
The Carta of 1166
Conclusion
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
ib.
579
580
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
ib.
CHAPTER XVIII.
O
5
FRANCE: LOUIS VI AND LOUIS VII (1108—1180).
By Louis HALPHEN, Professor in the University of Bordeaux.
Louis VI
592
Anarchy in the royal domain
593
Struggle of Louis VI with the lesser barous
594
Subjugation of Thomas of Marle
595
Order re-established in the royal domain
596
Louis VI and the great fiefs .
597
The king's intervention in the Bourbonnais and Auvergne
598
The question of the succession to Flanders
599
Louis VI and the Anglo-Norman kingdom
601
Struggle with Henry I of England
602
Negotiations for peace
603
Death of Louis VI
604
The early years of Louis VII
605
Struggle with Count Theobald of Champagne
606
Conquest of Normandy by the Count of Anjou
607
Louis VII on crusade
Eleanor's divorce and re-marriage
609
Henry Plantagenet becomes King of England
610
Louis VII betroths his daughter to Henry the Younger
611
Henry II of England occupies the Norman Vexin.
612
Louis VII protects Becket
613
.
ib.
## p. xxxviii (#40) #########################################
xxxviii
Contents
Further progress of Henry II
Increase of royal power under Louis VII
Louis VII supports Pope Alexander III
The interview at St Jean-de-Losne
Failure of negotiations with the Emperor
Organisation of the central government
Suger, Abbot of St Denis
PAGE
614
615
617
618
619
620
622
CHAPTER XIX.
THE COMMUNAL MOVEMENT, ESPECIALLY IN FRANCE.
By Miss ELEANOR CONSTANCE LODGE, M. A. , Lady Margaret Hall,
Oxford, Principal of Westfield College in the University
of London.
of
У I reune
General definition of Commune
Communes jurées
Consulates
Villes de bourgeoisie
Bastides and Villes-neuves
Rural communities
Roman influence
Germanic influence
Royal influence
Ecclesiastical influence .
The Crusades
Commercial influence
Growth through struggle
Peaceful development
Economic progress
Serfdom and the towns .
The lords and the towns
The influence of geography
The influence of wealth and prosperity .
International character of the movement
German and Italian towns
Independent growth of the communes
Affiliation of communes
Communal groups
Rural communes
Common property as a bond of union
Common rights and duties
The colonges of Alsace.
Valley communes of the Pyrenees
General conclusions
624
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
652
653
ib.
654
656
## p. xxxix (#41) ###########################################
Contents
xxxix
CHAPTER XX.
THE MONASTIC ORDERS.
By ALEXANDER HAMILTON THOMPSON, M. A. , F. S. A. , St John's
College, Cambridge, Professor of Medieval History in the
University of Leeds.
The Rule of St Benedict
St Benedict of Aniane :
The Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, 817
Carolingian monasticism
Foundation of Cluny
Odo of Cluny
The Cluniac and kindred movements
Odilo of Cluny
Cluny and the Papacy
Influence of Cluny on monasticism
The Order of Camaldoli
La Cava, Vallombrosa, and Grandmont.
St Bruno and the Grande-Chartreuse
The Carthusian Order
Fontevrault
Foundation of the Cistercian Order
The Charter of Charity .
The Cistercian Constitution
Cistercian lay-brothers .
Growth of Cistercianism
Canons regular
Augustinian Canons
- The Premonstratensian Order
· Double monasteries
- The Order of Sempringham
-Military Orders and Orders of canons
Orders and Congregations
The Fourth Lateran Council, 1215
Monasticism in the thirteenth century
Tauses of the decline of discipline
Later Orders in Italy
The Benedictine Constitutions, 1336 and 1339
State of learning in monasteries
Evidence of visitation documents
The later days of monasticism
Development of the congregational system
The Congregation of Windesheim .
Fifteenth-century attempts at reform
The Reformation and monasticism
PAGE
658
659
660
661
ib.
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
678
679
680
681
682
ib.
.
683
685
ib.
687
688
ib.
689
691
692
693
694
695
696
"
I
## p. xl (#42) ##############################################
Contents
CHAPTER XXI.
ROMAN AND CANON LAW IN THE MIDDLE AGES,
By Harold Dexter HAZELTINE, Litt. D. , F. B. A. , Downing
Professor of the Laws of England, Cambridge,
.
Origins in antiquity
Periods of Roman legal history
Ius civile and Ius gentium
Spread of Roman Law in ancient times .
Survival of non-Roman laws.
Legal characteristics of the Middle Ages
Diffusion of Roman legal texts
Differences between Civil and Canon Law
Eastern and Western Canon Law .
Ius antiquum and Ius novum
Eastern collections of canons
Western collections of canons
The False Decretals
Canonical collections before Gratian
Gratian's Decretum
The Corpus iuris canonici
Eastern and Western legal history
Roman and Canon Law in the East
Juristic studies
The 'Ekloyń .
The Basilics.
Graeco-Roman Law
Greek Canon Law .
Leges romanae and leges barbarorum
Alaric's Breviary
Lex Romana Burgundionum
Edictum Theoderici
Lex Romana canonice compta
The Germanic codes
Burgundian and Visigothic codes
The Frankish Capitularies
German and Roman legal foundations
Roman Law in Italy
Roman influence on Lombard Law
Ecclesiastical influence on secular law
Legal studies in the West
The Italian law-schools.
Rise of the Bolognese school.
Manuscripts of Justinian's law-books
The Glossators
The Commentators
Bartolus of Sassoferrato
Influence of humanism on legal studies .
Study and teaching of Canon Law.
Roman and Canon Law in Spain
PAGE
697
698
700
701
702
703
704
705
ib.
706
708
709
710
712
713
714
715
716
717
ib.
718
719
720
721
ib.
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
738
740
741
742
743
## p. xli (#43) #############################################
Contents
xli
Roman and Canon Law in France.
Legal growth in Germany
Switzerland and the Netherlands
Roman and Canon Law in England
Conclusion
PAGE
748
752
755
756
762
CHAPTER XXII.
MEDIEVAL SCHOOLS TO c. 1300.
By Miss MARGARET DEANESLY, M. A. , Bishop Fraser Lecturer in
History in the University of Manchester, late Mary Bateson
Fellow, Newnham College, Cambridge.
Schools of rhetoric
765
Clerkship and the tonsure
767
Child lectors .
768
Episcopal schools
769
The Dark Ages
770
Early Frankish schools .
771
Early monastic schools .
772
Charlemagne's palace school
773
Alcuin .
774
Theodulf of Orleans
Post-Carolingian episcopal schools
776
Chartres
778
External monastic schools
779
ib.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PHILOSOPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
.
By W. 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.
