No More Learning

From Vercelli Leo went by way of Burgundy and Lorraine to Germany,
only coming back to Rome for the Easter Council of 1051. He wished
to get the Emperor's support for a Norman campaign, but the advice of
Gebhard of Eichstädt (afterwards Victor II) swayed Henry against it.
Then later in the year he visited southern Italy, whither he had already
sent Cardinal Humbert and the Patriarch of Aquileia as legates. His
plans almost reached a Crusade; he wished for help both from Henry and
the Emperor Constantine IX (1042–1055); he had visions of a papal
supremacy which should extend to the long-severed East. Hence a cam-
paign against the Normans and negotiations with Constantinople were
combined. Benevento, whence the citizens had driven the Lombard
Princes, and which Leo now visited, was at Worms (autumn 1052) in a
later visit to Germany given to the Papacy in exchange for Bamberg.
Leo IX therefore, like many a Pope, has been called, though for services
further afield, the founder of the Temporal Power. On his return from
the south, Councils at Mantua (February 1053), where opposition to the
decrees for celibacy raised a Lombard riot, and at Rome (Easter) followed;
at the latter, the rights of the Patriarch of Grado over Venice and Istria
were confirmed, and to the see of Foroiulium (Udine), where the Patriarch
of Aquileia had taken refuge after the destruction of his city by the Lom-
bards, was now left only Lombard territory. These measures are to be
taken along with the Pope's Eastern plans, in the general policy and military
preparations for which Hildebrand had a share. But the host, like other
crusading forces, was strangely composed, and the battle of Civitate, which
was to have crowned everything, brought only disaster and disappoint-
ment. An honourable captivity with the Normans at Benevento made
warfare, against which Peter Damian raised a voice, impossible, but Leo


## p. 29 (#75) ##############################################

Work of Leo IX
29
could still carry on correspondence and negotiations. The story of the
papal embassy to Constantinople, whence help was expected more hope-
fully than from Germany, has been told elsewhere! The three legates,
Cardinal Humbert, Frederick of Lorraine, Cardinal and Chancellor, and
Peter, Bishop of Amalfi, had small success, and the breach between the
Churches of the East and of the West only became wider and more lasting.
Constantine IX had hoped by conquering the Normans to revive his
failing dominion over southern Italy, where the Catapan Argyrus was as
anti-Norman as Leo himself. But Michael Cerularius, Patriarch since
March 1043, had his own large views, carried into politics with much
ability, and a natural dislike of the now more strongly-urged Roman
claims. Constantinople for many centuries had jealously maintained its
independence of Rome; it knew nothing of the Forged Decretals, while
Canon Law, Church customs, and ritual were now taking separate paths
in East and West. Eastern Emperor and Eastern Patriarch thus had very
different interests and views about Leo's designs. The fortune of war
favoured the Patriarch, for Argyrus, like Leo, was routed in Italy
(February 1053), and the negotiations at Constantinople came to worse
than naught.
But the end of a great papal reign was near. Sick in heart and health,
Leo left Benevento (12 March 1054), slowly travelling to the Rome
where he had dwelt so little but which he tried to make so great. Before
his death be besought the Romans to keep from perjury, forbidden
marriages, and robbery of the Church; he absolved all whom he had
excommunicated; he prayed for the Church and for the conversion of
Benedict IX and his brothers, who had set up simony over nearly all the
world. Then (19 April 1054) he died.
There seems to us a contrast between the more political schemes of his
later and the reforming work of his earlier years. But to him they were
both part of the task to which he had been called. To breathe a new
spirit into the Church and to extend its power were both to make it more
effective in its duty. Even his warfare for the Church was merely
doing as Pope what had been part of his recognised duty as Bishop
of Toul. And his papal reign made a new departure. His conciliar and
legislative activity had been great, even if, amid the pressure of large
events and policies, it slackened, like that of Gregory VII, before the end.
He brought bishops more generally into varied touch with Rome. He
renewed the papal intercourse and growing control for many lands,
such as Hungary and England. He made Adalbert of Bremen (1053)
Papal Vicar for his Baltic lands, with power to form new sees, even
“ regibus invitis. " Much that he had begun was carried further by later
Popes, and great as it was in itself his pontificate was perhaps even
greater as an example and an inspiration. Under the influence of reform
in Germany, of his own training, his own piety, and his devotion to the
Supra, Vol. iv, pp. 255 sqq.
1
CH, I.


## p. 30 (#76) ##############################################

30
Reform under Leo IX
Church, he had shewn, as Bishop of Toul, a high conception of a bishop's
office. He brought the same to Rome, and with wider and more historic
responsibilities he formed a like conception for the Papacy. His friend
and almost pupil Hildebrand was wont', we are told, to dwell upon the
life of Leo, and the things which tended to the glory of the Roman
Church. One great thing above all he did in raising the College of
Cardinals, which succeeding Popes,and notably Stephen IX, carried further.
His very travels, and the councils away from Rome at which he presided,
brought home to men the place and jurisdiction of the Papacy which was
being taught then by the Canon Law. These councils were now attended
not only by bishops but also by abbots, in quickly increasing numbers;
first by such as those of Cluny and Monte Cassino, and then by others,
until at Rheims (1049) about fifty appeared and at Rome (1050) thirty-
two. Many abbots were now privileged to wear mitres and to ordain;
attendance at councils was thus natural. They formed a solid phalanx
of reformers, and the nucleus of a papal majority. Thus his pontificate
abounded in beginnings upon which future days were to build. He
brought the Papacy, after its time of degradation, and with the best
impulses of a new day, into a larger field of work and power.
Leo IX left his mark in many ways upon following reigns. The
central direction of the Western Church continues, although with some
fluctuations of policy and persons, while the improved organisation
enables us to see it in the documents now more carefully preserved. The
Chancery, upon which fell much work due to the new and wide-spread
activity of the Popes, was re-organised by him after the model of the im-
perial Chancery? . After his time the signatures of witnesses often appear,
and so we can see who were the chief advisers of the Pope; this we can con-
nect with the growing importance of the cardinals. Papal activities are
seen in the number of privileges to monasteries, and many documents shew
a diligent papal guardianship of clerical and monastic property. Rome
is kept closely in touch with many lands? , leading prelates are informed
of papal wishes and decrees. A continuity of policy and of care for
special districts can also be traced in series of letters, such as those to
Rheims.
Leo's reforming policy was carried on. Conciliar decrees upon clerical
celibacy were repeated, and simony, sometimes forbidden afresh, like
marriage, met with new punishment. The policy is much the same, and
it is still more directed by Rome. But one difference between him and
l
1 So Bruno of Segni, Vita Leonis IX, in Watterich, Vitae Pontificum, I, p. 97.
2 Privileges, grants or confirmation of rights to property or jurisdiction, took
under him a new form, and are distinguished from letters. See R. L. Poole,
Lectures on the History of the Papal Chancery and Imperial Influences on the Forms of
Papal Documents (Brit. Acad. vi). Sovereignty and control thus entered into a
new and larger field.
E. g. England under Edward the Confessor, Dalmatia, France.
3


## p. 31 (#77) ##############################################

Victor II
31
his successors soon appears, and slowly grows. He had worked well with
the Emperor, but the new spirit breathed into the Papacy brought, with
a new self-consciousness, a wish for independence. This was natural, and
harmonised with the new feeling, intensified by Canon Law, that the
hierarchy of the Church should not be entangled with that of the State.
About the difficult application of this principle, views began to differ.
The papal reigns to which we pass shew us the gradual disentanglement
of these rival principles amid the clash of politics.
But Leo's successor was long in coming, and the exact course of
events is somewhat doubtful. Gebhard of Eichstädt had been a trusted
counsellor of Henry, he had thwarted the hopes of Leo for large help
against the Normans, and now at length he became Pope. The Em-
peror might well hesitate to part with such a friend, and the prospect
of the impoverished Papacy in difficult Italy was not enticing. Here as
in the case of Leo IX the real decision lay with Henry. Gebhard's
elevation was settled in the last months of 1054, and he was received and,
as Victor II, enthroned" hilariter” at Rome (13 April 1055).
The Norman victory, and another event, had altered affairs in Italy.
Boniface of Tuscany, whose power and policy were threatening to Pope
and Emperor alike, was assassinated on 6 May 1052, and his widow
Beatrice married (1054) the dangerous and ambitious Godfrey the
Bearded, the exiled Duke of Lorraine, who had been administering her
estates. Hence arose difficulties with Henry. He was needed in Italy;
in April he was in Verona, at Easter in Mantua. In spite of her defence
he put Beatrice and her only remaining child Matilda in prison. Godfrey
fied across the Alps, and his brother Frederick, lately returned from
Constantinople, took refuge at the fortress-monastery of Monte Cassino;
here (May-June 1057) he became abbot, after a short but fervid
monastic career entered upon under the influence of Desiderius. At
Whitsuntide (4 June 1055) Pope and Emperor were present at a council
in Florence. Before leaving Italy Henry gave to the Pope Spoleto and
Camerino, as well as making him Imperial Vicar in Italy. This may
throw light on Henry's choice of Gebhard and also his alleged pro-
mise to restore papal rights. But on 5 October 1056 the great Emperor
died. The removal of a strong hand brought new responsibilities to the
Pope, his old adviser and friend.
Victor II, like Leo, dwelt little in Rome; he left it at the end of 1055
and travelled slowly to Germany; he was by Henry's death-bed at
Botfeld, and he buried him at Spires. Then at Aix-la-Chapelle he
enthroned the young king Henry IV; his presence and experience were
valuable to the Empress Agnes, now Regent, and he was able to clear her
path and his own by a reconciliation with Godfrey, who was allowed to
take the place of Boniface. By Lent 1057 Victor was in Rome to hold
the usual council. Then he left the city for Monte Cassino to bring the
supra, Vol. II, pp. 298-9.
1 See
CH. I.


## p. 32 (#78) ##############################################

32
Stephen IX
stubborn monastery, which had elected an Abbot Peter without consult-
ing Pope or Emperor, into accord with the Papacy. The elevation of the
Cardinal-deacon Frederick to be its abbot and also Cardinal-priest of
St Chrysogonus (14 June) marked a reconciliation, significant ecclesi-
astically and politically. In July Monte Cassino was left for a journey
towards Rheims, where a great Council was to be held. But Victor's death
at Arezzo (28 July 1057) removed from the Empire a pillar of peace, and
left the Church without a head. In those days of stress, workers who
really faced their task rarely lived long. He was buried, not at Eichstädt
as he and his old subjects would have wished, but at Ravenna.
It is not so easy to sketch the character of Victor II as to record his
doings. As a young man he had been chosen bishop almost incidentally by
Henry III, who may have judged rightly his powers of steady service.
The Eichstädt chronicles tell us that as a young man he did nothing
puerile; it is also true that as an old man he did nothing great. But
neither as German bishop nor as Pope did he ever fail in diligence or
duty: his earlier reputation was gained rather as servant of the State
than as prelate of the Church; as Imperial Vicar he might have brought
peace to Italy as he had to Germany and its infant king. But death
prevented his settling the Norman difficulty; there is no reason to think
that he had forsaken his former view which had crossed that of Leo IX.
His dealings with Monte Cassino, always strongly anti-Norman, had
given him a new base upon which he could rely for peace as easily as for '
war. His work was sound but was not completed. He seems to us an
official of many merits, but confidence was the only thing he inspired. He
was no leader with policies and phrases ready; he was only a workman
who needed not to be ashamed.
On 2 August 1057, the festival of Pope Stephen I, Frederick of
Lorraine was elected Pope', and took the name of Stephen IX? . He was
in Rome when the news of Victor's death came, and was asked to suggest
a successor; he named Humbert, three Italian bishops, and Hildebrand.
Then, when asked to be Pope himself, he unwillingly accepted. He was no
imperialist like Victor, and he was, like the monks of his abbey, strongly
anti-Norman. Above all he was an ecclesiastic, heart and soul. Moreover,
he was freely elected at Rome; not until December was a deputation sent
to inform the German Court; there was no whisper of kingly recognition
and indeed there was no Emperor; he was elected, as a German chronicler
complains, rege ignorante, although the circumstances may account for
this.
The new Pope had been a canon at Liège. His riches, increased by
gifts at Constantinople, made him popular, but he was a monk of deep
1 He kept his abbacy as preceding Popes their sees. Victor Il's successor
Gunther was only elected to Eichstädt ou 20 August 1057.
2 Sometimes called Stephen X. See R. L. Poole, The Names and Numbers of
medieval Popes, EHR, XXXII, pp. 465 sqq. For our period, pp. 471-2.
1


## p. 33 (#79) ##############################################

St Peter Damian
33
conviction. His short papacy leaves room for conjecture as to what with
longer days he might have done. There were rumours that he meant to
make Duke Godfrey Emperor, but he differed very widely from his more
secular-minded brother. Like his predecessors he did not stay long in
Rome; he soon left it for Monte Cassino, which he reached at the end of
November; he arranged for Desiderius to be abbot after his death, but
meanwhile to be sent on an embassy to Constantinople. The shadow of
death was already on the Pope, when in February 1058 he went to Rome.
Before this he had sent representatives, of whom Hildebrand was one, to
Gerinany, probably to announce his election. Now he resolved to meet
his brother, but before he set out he gathered together the cardinal-
bishops and other clergy of Rome with the burghers. He told them he
knew that after his death men would arise among them who lived for
themselves, who did not follow the canons but, though laymen, wished
to reach the papal throne. Then they took an oath not to depart from
the canons and not to assent to a breach of them by others. He also bound
them in case of his death to take no steps before Hildebrand's arrival.
Then he set out for Tuscany, but on 29 March 1058 died at Florence
where he was buried. Weakness and sickness had long been his lot; it was
needless to attribute his death to poison given by an emissary from Rome.
It is clear that Pope Stephen's thoughts were intent upon the Normans;
what support Hildebrand had gained from the Empress-regent we
do not know, and the Pope himself was eagerly awaiting his legate's
return. What further help and of what kind he was to gain from Duke
Godfrey was even more uncertain. A policy of peace, such as Victor II
had adopted, had more to recommend it than had one of war; Monte
Cassino was under papal control, and all the cards were in the papal
hand. The hurried fever of a dying man made for haste, but death was
even quicker. Stephen's papacy ended amid great possibilities.
But one thing was certain: any line taken would be towards the con-
tinued reform of the Church. Stephen had drawn more closely around
him able and determined reformers. Peter Damian he called to be
Cardinal-bishop of Ostia, a post from which that thorough monk recoiled.
He had been unwilling to pass from his beloved Fonte-Avellana to Ocri
where Leo IX had made him prior; the sins of the monks filled him with
horror, and now he shrank even more from the open world which did not
even profess the monastic rule. The Pope had to appeal to his obedience
and even to threaten excommunication. So Damian was consecrated at
Rome in November 1057, under pressure which he held to be almost
uncanonical. He was called from his diocese in 1059 to enforce the
programme of discipline at Ambrosian Milan; with him was to go the
active reformer Anselm, Bishop of Lucca. To their embassy we must
return later. It is enough to notice here that Milan was thus brought
into the papal sphere; Guido, its Archbishop, was ordered on 9 December
1057 to appear at the papal Court to discuss the situation.
3
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.


## p. 34 (#80) ##############################################

34
Increase of Papal authority
At length in 1070 Peter Damian gained his release from Alexander II
so that he could return to his beloved penitential desert. But his cardinalate
he kept and his influence he never lost. As legate, however, he brought
his personal power into fresh fields: he was sent to difficult Milan in
1057; to France in 1063 to settle the dispute between Drogo of Macon
and the exempted Cluny; and as an old man of 62 to Germany in 1069
to handle the suggested divorce of Henry IV and Bertha. Each mission
was a triumph for his firmness or, as he would have preferred to say, for the
laws of the Church. The employment of legates to preside at councils
superseded the heroic attempts of Leo IX to do so in person; the
reverence owed to the Apostolic See was paid to its legates. So we have
Humbert's legateship to Benevento in 1051 and to Ravenna in 1053;
that of Hildebrand to France in 1055, when he not only, as Damian tells
us, deposed six bishops for simony but, as he himself told Desiderius, saw
the simonist Archbishop of Lyons smitten dumb as he strove to finish the
Gloria with the words “and to the Holy Ghost. ” With the same great aim,
Victor II named the Archbishops of Arles and Aix his permanent Vicars for
southern France. Leo IX solemnly placed a mitre on the head of Bardo of
Trèves to mark him as Primate of Gallia Belgica (12 March 1049), on
29 June 1049 gave Herman of Cologne the pallium and cross, on 6 January
1053 gave the pallium and mitre to Adalbert of Bremen as Papal Vicar for
the north, and on 18 October 1052 gave the pallium and the use of a special
mitre to the Archbishop of Mayence; on 25 April 1057 Victor confirmed
the privileges of Trèves, and gave the mitre and pallium to Ravenna.
The papal power was thus made more and more the mainspring of the
Church. Metropolitans became the channels of papal power. To the
Papacy men looked for authority, and from it they received honours
which symbolised authority. Grants of the pallium to other sees extended
the process, and other marks of honour, such as the white saddle-cloths
of Roman clerics, were given and prized. The eleventh century, like the
tenth, was one in which this varied taste for splendour, borrowed from
the past, was liberally indulged. The mitre, papal and episcopal, was
being more generally used and was altering in shape, and its growth
illustrates a curious side of our period? . Laymen shared the tastes of
1 The pallium was given from the fifth century to archbishops named as Vicars
of the Roman Patriarch. In the eighth century it was given to other metropolitans.
Originally it was an honorary decoration given by the Emperor, and then acquired
an ecclesiastical meaning. It was an age in which, as all evidence shews, decora-
tion and robes, splendid and symbolic, were valued and sought after; diplomatically
bestowed by the Popes they gratified the recipients and enhanced the papal power.
See for the eighth century the letters between Pope Zacharias and Boniface in
S. Bonifacii et Lulli Epistolae, MGH, Epp. Sel. 1 (ed. Tangl), pp. 80-205.
2 The mitre probably originated in the Phrygian cap, a secular sign of honour
supposed to be given to the Popes by the Donation of Constantine and worn ad
imitationem imperii. About the middle of the eleventh century it was used liturgic-
ally and not only in secular processions. The whole development, use, and inter-
pretation are interesting. See Sachsee, Tiara und Mitra der Päpste, ZKG, xxxiv,
pp. 481 sqq.
; Duchesne, Christian Worship (Engl. transl. ), p. 398.


## p. 35 (#81) ##############################################

Contested succession on Stephen IX's death
35
churchmen; Benzo's vivid picture of “the Roman senate” wearing head-
dresses akin to the mitre charmed the pencil of a medieval chronicler.
The death of Stephen IX gave the Roman nobles, restless if submissive
under imperial control and papal power, a wished-for chance. Empire
and Papacy were now somewhat out of touch, and other powers, Tuscan
and Norman, had arisen in Italy. Gerard, Count of Galeria, formed a
party with Tusculan and Crescentian help, burst into the city by night,
5 April 1058, and elected John Mincius, Cardinal-bishop of Velletri, as
Benedict X"; and money played its part in the election. The name was
significant, but the Pope himself, more feeble than perverse, had previously
been open to no reproach”; he had been made cardinal by Leo IX, and
on the death of Victor II had been suggested by Stephen himself as a
possible Pope. Reform had thus made great strides between Benedict IX
and Benedict X. Some of the cardinals were afar, Humbert in Florence,
and Hildebrand on his way from Germany', whither he had gone, a little
late, to announce the election of Stephen. But as a body they were now
more coherent, less purely Roman, and more ecclesiastical; they declared
against Benedict, threatening him with excommunication, and fled the
city. Then they gathered together in Tuscany and consulted at leisure
on another choice. In the end they settled on a Burgundian, Gerard
Bishop of Florence, a sound and not too self-willed prelate of excellent
repute, favoured by Duke Godfrey and not likely to take a line of his
own. Besides the help of Godfrey the approval of the Empress Agnes
was sought. Even in Rome itself there was a party against Benedict,
headed by Leo de Benedicto Christiano", a rich citizen, son of a Jewish
convert, influential in the Trastevere and in close touch with Hildebrand;
they sent a deputation to the Empress Agnes at Augsburg, pleading that
the election of Benedict had been due to force. As a result Duke Godfrey
was ordered to lead the cardinals' nominee to Rome. Gerard was elected
at Siena, probably in December 1058, by the cardinals, together with
high ecclesiastics and nobles, and chose the name of Nicholas II6. His old
see he kept until his death. Then an approach was made towards Rome;
a synod was held at Sutri. Leo de Benedicto opened the Trastevere
1 On the election and date see Hefele-Leclercq, iv, pp. 1133 sqq.
? The invective of Peter Damian against him judges after the election. For it
see Watterich, 1, pp. 204-5.
3 Less probably in Germany itself. But see Hefele-Leclercq, iv, p. 1134, note 2.
4 In war against Ancona he was helped by a papal excommunication of the
opposing citizens. Thus the Papacy was useful to him. Peter Damian did not
approve this action of the Pope (Ep. 1, 7). See Langen, 111, pp. 528–9.
5 From his son Peter his descendants were known as the Pierleoni. On him see
Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI, pp. 23 sqq. ; he was probably connected by
marriage with Hildebrand's mother.
6 For an election near 6 December (St Nicholas' Day), the choice of name was
natural. Martens wrongly assumes a reference to Nicholas I. A Pope chose his
own name, from the time of John XVI (983) whose baptismal name was Peter (see
Poole, EHR, XXXII, pp. 459 sqq. ).
CH. 1.
342


## p. 36 (#82) ##############################################

36
Nicholas II
to them, and Benedict X fled for a few days to Passarano and thence
to Galeria, where for three months he was besieged by the Normans under
Richard of Aversa. Nicholas was enthroned on 24 January 1059; and
the captured Benedict was deposed, stripped of his vestments, and
imprisoned in the hospitium of the church of Sant' Agnese! His name
was long left in the papal lists, and he was not an anti-Pope in the ordinary
sense until Nicholas II was elected. The choice of Gerard had removed
the election of a Pope from the purely Roman sphere to one of wider
importance, and the alliance with the Normans, brought about by the
help of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, gave the Pope a support
independent of the Empire or Rome. In all these negotiations Hilde-
brand played a great parts. In the interval between his enthronement
and the Easter Council, Nicholas visited Spoleto, Farfa, and Osimo, and
at the last place on 6 March 1059 appointed Desiderius as cardinal.
In Italy, after the Easter Council at Rome, he held a Council at Melfi,
where decrees on clerical celibacy were repeated stringently, and the
famous peace was made with the Normans. Then he returned to Rome,
accompanied by a Norman army, and the papal sovereignty was enforced.
The Norman alliance, and the celebrated decree on papal elections, worked
together, and a new era began.
A great Council of 113 bishops was held on 14 April 1059 at the
Lateran”. Earlier decrees had broadly regulated the election of a Pope:
Stephen III (769) and Stephen IV (862–3) had anathematised anyone
contesting an election made by priests, prelates, and the whole clergy of
the Roman Church. Otto I had renewed the settlement of Lothar I (824),
by which the election was to be made by the whole clergy and nobility
of the whole Roman people, canonically and justly, but the elect was not
to be consecrated until he had taken the oath to the Emperor. The
normal canonical form was prescribed, but disorderly nobles, imperial
pressure, civic riots, and simony, had tampered with Rome even more than
other churches. The German Popes had brought reform but at the price
of ecclesiastical freedom.
The Election Decree of 1059 has come down to us in two forms, known
1 The final scene of his condemnation may belong to the winter of 1059 or the
Easter Council of 1060. For details see Meyer von Knonau, 1, pp. 177-8 and note 13.
2 On this point see Poole, Names and Numbers of Medieval Popes, EHR, xxxii,
pp. 465 and 473–4. Benedict's name has now disappeared from the official list.
3 Yet the views of Hauck, op. cit. ui, pp. 680–1 seem to me to go too far.
4 See infra, Chapter iv, pp. 174 sq.
5 A discussion of the literature with bibliography in Meyer von Knonau, Jahr-
bücher, 1, Excursus vii, pp. 678 sqq. ; Hefele-Leclercq, iv, p. 1139, note 2; Hauck,
op. cit. III, p. 683, note 4. Also A. Werminghoff, Verfassungsgeschichte der
deutschen Kirche im Mittelalter (in Aloys Meister, Grundriss der Geschichtswissen-
schaft); Langen, Geschichte der römischen Kirche, in, p. 503, note 3; J. v. Pfugk-
Harttung, Die Papstwahlen und das Kaisertum (1046–1328), in ZKG, XXVII, pp.
283 sqq.


## p. 37 (#83) ##############################################

Election Decree of 1059
37
as imperial and papal respectively. The latter is now generally accepted,
and the former is held to have been falsified by Guibert, then Imperial
Chancellor for Italy and afterwards Archbishop of Ravenna and anti-Pope
as Clement III'. The business of election was, in the first place, to be
treated of by the cardinal-bishops. Then they were to call in firstly the
cardinal-clerics, and secondly the rest of the Roman clergy and the people.
To prevent simony, the cardinal-bishops, taking the place of a metro-
politan, were to superintend the election, the others falling in after them.
The elect should be taken from the Roman Church, if a suitable candidate
were found; if not, from another Church. The honour due to Henry, at
present king and as it is hoped future Emperor, was reserved as conceded
to him, and to such of his successors as should have obtained in person
the same right from the apostolic throne. If a pure, sincere, and volun-
tary election could not be held in Rome, the cardinal-bishops with the
clergy and catholic laity, even if few, might hold the election where they
were gathered together. If the enthronement had to be postponed by
reason of war or other evil, the Pope-elect might exercise his powers as
if fully Pope. Anyone elected, consecrated, or enthroned contrary to this
decree was to be anathematised.
The imperial form differed from the papal form summarised above in
giving the Emperor a place with the cardinals as a body in leading the
election; it does not diftinguish the cardinal-bishops from the others,
and it does not mention the rest of the clergy or the people. If an election
were not possible in Rome, it might be held where the electors chose, in
agreement with the king. The differences lie rather in the way in which
the king is brought into the election than in the reservation of the im-
perial rights, which is much the same in both forms, and the cardinal-
bishops are not given the rights of a metropolitan; and the imperial
form mentions the mediation of Guibert, Chancellor of Italy and im-
perial representative. The changes seem to be made less on general
principles than to suit a special case, and if due to Guibert this is what
we might expect.
The decree was not strictly kept, but the place given to the cardinals,
who were now growing into a College, was significant for the future. Its
details had reference to the past election; judged by its standard, the
election of Nicholas was correct and that of Benedict was not. But it
laid stress on the special place of the Papacy, and in the papal form at
1 The papal form (from the Vatican MS. 1994) in MGH, Constitutiones, 1. pp.
539 sqq. , Watterich, 1, p. 229, and Mirbt, p. 140. The imperial form in MGH,
Constitutiones, 1, pp. 542 sq. and Mirbt, p. 141, note 2. Both forms conveniently in
Bernheim, Quellen zur Geschichte des Investiturstreites, 1, pp. 12 sqq. , followed by the
announcements to Christendom at large, to the West Franks, and to the Pro-
vince of Amalfi. These agree more closely with the papal form. The papal form
was preserved by the Canonists and in the Conciliar collections. For the later
falsification by Guibert see Watterich, 1, p. 233, note 1. The papal form agrees with
Peter Damian's comment.
сн. І.


## p. 38 (#84) ##############################################

38
Simoniacal ordinations
any rate it threw aside all imperial influence before assent to the accom-
plished act. It remained to be seen whether this freedom could be
maintained.
Other matters were also dealt with in the Council. Berengar appeared
and made a profession of faith dictated by Cardinal Humbert. The
regulation of the papal election was announced as a matter of European
importance, as indeed it now was, and here the cardinal-bishops are
mentioned expressly; the decree on celibacy was strict, and for those clerks
who obediently observed chastity the common canonical life was enforced.
In this detail we have a trace of the discussion already mentioned". No
clerk or priest was to obtain a church either gratis or for money through
laymen. No one was to hear a mass said by an unchaste priest: the
precedent of this canon was to be followed later under Alexander II and
Gregory VII. Laymen were not to judge or expel from their churches
clerks of any rank. The boldness of this canon may be compared with a
more hesitating grant in 1057 to the clergy of Lucca that none of them
should be taken to secular judgment. The fuller treatment of simonist
ordinations and simony of all kinds belongs to the synods of 1060 and
1061? The upshot of conciliar activity under Nicholas II was to crystal-
lise the former campaign for celibacy into definite decisions, backed by
the whole power of the Papacy and the Curia. What had before been
tentative was now fixed. Opinion was consolidated, and policy was cen-
tralised, not only about celibacy but also about simonists. If those who
had been ordained by simonists in the past were allowed to keep their
orders and their offices, thus conforming to the policy of Peter Damian
at Milan, it was lest the Church should be left without pastors. But
for the future there was to be no hesitation, and the correspondence of
the Popes with Gervais of Rheims (a see carefully watched as in pre-
vious reigns) illustrates the carrying out of the policy.
The Council at Rome (1060) decreed that for the future anyone or-
dained without payment by a simonist bishop should remain in his order
if he was open to no other charge; this decision was made not on principle
but from pity, as the number affected was so great. It was not to be taken
as precedent by following Popes; for the future, however, anyone ordained
by a bishop whom he knew to be a simonist should be deposed, as should
the bishop also. Thus a long-standing difficulty was for the time disposed
of. Reforming councils in France at Vienne and Tours, held under the
legate Cardinal Stephen, made stringent decrees against simony, marriage
1 See supra, p. 13 and note 1.
2 Hefele-Leclercq, iv, p. 1169. See also for canons of 1060 Bernheim, Quellen,
pp. 22 sq.
3 Jaffé-Löwenfeld, Reg. , passim (some 20 letters].
4 For the views of Nicholas on reordination see Saltet, Les Réordinations,
pp. 198–9, and A. Fliche, Les Prégrégoriens, Paris, 1916, p. 246. Decision on the
crucial point was avoided.


## p. 39 (#85) ##############################################

Milan
39
of priests, and alienation of church property or tithes under legal form.
Abbot Hugh of Cluny did the same at Avignon and Toulouse! . But
it was now more a matter of enforcing decrees already made than issuing
new. In Italy some bishops found it difficult to publish reforming decrees,
and in some cases did so with risk of violence.
It has been noted as strange that in such a remarkable reign we hear
little about the character of the Pope himself. The predominance of the
cardinals partly explains it: Humbert, Peter Damian, and Hildebrand
(now archdeacon) were not always in accord, and it was for Nicholas to
balance conflicting views and policies. He was the president of the
College rather than its director. Like other Popes Nicholas kept his old
bishopric, and like them too he was often absent from Rome, which was
not without its drawbacks, as the English bishops, robbed by the Count
of Galeria, found out. But we breathe an air of greater largeness in his
Papacy, and things seem on a larger scale.
Nicholas died suddenly near Florence on 27 July 1061, returning from
an expedition in southern Italy. The Election Decree was to be tested.
The Norman alliance, and still more the Election Decree, had affected
the delicate relations of Pope and Emperor? During the minority of
Henry IV, matters had been allowed to slide, and when attention was at
length given to them the barometer registered a change of atmosphere.
So great was the irritation in Germany that the name of Nicholas was
left out in intercessions at mass; legates from Rome met with bad re-
ceptions.
Meanwhile events in Milan' had taken a decisive turn for papal and
ecclesiastical history. In position, in wealth, in traditions, both political
and ecclesiastical, the city of St Ambrose was a rival of Rome, and
hitherto it had proudly kept its independence. Aribert's opposition to
the Emperor Conrad had shewn the power of the archbishop; and if an
enemy to the Empire were to rule there, imperial influence would be
weakened. This Henry III understood. On Aribert's death in 1045
Guido was appointed. Class distinctions were strongly marked, and the
new archbishop belonged not to the barons but to the vavassors; in
strength and in reputation he was undistinguished, and Bonizo with his
usual exaggeration calls him “vir illiteratus et concubinatus et symonia-
cus,” but concubinage he was not guilty of. He was not the man for a
difficult post, still less the man to lead reform. He valued more the
traditions of St Ambrose as a rival of Rome than as a teacher of
1 For France, Langen, in, pp. 524–5. R. Lehmann, Forschungen zur Geschichte
Abtes Hugo I von Cluny, Göttingen, 1869, pp. 88-9. Hefele-Leclercq, iv, pp. 1199 sqq.
Nicholas was, as Langen has noted, specially interested in France, as a Burgundian
might be. It may be mentioned that in later years his enemies spread a rumour
that his birth was irregular.
? See Meyer von Knonau, Jahrbücher, 1, Excursus viii, pp. 684 sqq. Hefele-
Leclercq, iv, pp. 1209 sqq. Hauck, op. cit. , pp. 700-1, especially note 5.
3 For Milan cf. infra, Chapter v, pp.