History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0206/02067.txt

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part VI}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VII: History Of Ecclesiastical Power During The Middle Ages
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part VI

     Both parties in the concordat at Worms receded from so much of their
pretensions, that we might almost hesitate to determine which is to be
considered as victorious.  On the one hand, in restoring the freedom of
episcopal elections the emperors lost a prerogative of very long standing, and
almost necessary to the maintenance of authority over not the least turbulent
part of their subjects.  And though the form of investiture by the ring and
crosier seemed in itself of no importance, yet it had been in effect a
collateral security against the election of obnoxious persons. For the
emperors detaining the necessary part of the pontificals until they should
confer investiture, prevented a hasty consecration of the new bishop, after
which, the vacancy being legally filled, it would not be decent for them to
withhold the temporalities.  But then, on the other hand, they preserved by
the concordat their feudal sovereignty over the estates of the church, in
defiance of the language which had recently been held by its rulers.  Gregory
VII. had positively declared, in the Lateran council of 1080, that a bishop or
abbot receiving investiture from a layman should not be reckoned as a prelate.
^q The same doctrine had been maintained by all his successors, without any
limitation of their censures to the formality of the ring and crosier.  But
Calixtus II. himself had gone much further, and absolutely prohibited the
compelling ecclesiastics to render any service to laymen on account of their
benefices. ^r It is evident that such a general immunity from feudal
obligations for an order who possessed nearly half the lands in Europe struck
at the root of those institutions by which the fabric of society was
principally held together. This complete independency had been the aim of
Gregory's disciples; and by yielding to the continuance of lay investitures in
any shape Calixtus may, in this point of view, appear to have relinquished the
principal object of contention. ^s

[Footnote q: St. Marc, t. iv. p. 774.  A bishop of Placentia asserts that
prelates dishonored their order by putting their hands, which held the body
and blood of Christ, between those of the impure laymen.  p. 956. The same
expressions are used by others, and are levelled at the form of feudal homage,
which, according to the principles of that age, ought to have been as
obnoxious as investiture.]

[Footnote r: Id., pp. 1061, 1067.]

[Footnote s: Ranke observes that according to the concordat of Worms
predominant influence was yielded to the emperor in Germany and to the pope in
Italy; an agreement, however, which was not expressed with precision, and
which contained the germ of fresh disputes.  Hist. of Reform, i. 34.  But even
if this victory should be assigned to Rome in respect of Germany, it does not
seem equally clear as to England.  Lingard says of the agreement between Henry
I. and Paschal II., - "Upon the whole, the church gained little by this
compromise.  It might check, but did not abolish, the principal abuse.  If
Henry surrendered an unnecessary ceremony, he still retained the substance.
The right which he assumed of nominating bishops and abbots was left
unimpaired." Hist. of Engl., ii. 169.  But if this nomination by the crown was
so great an abuse, why did the popes concede it to Spain and France?  The real
truth is, that no mode of choosing bishops is altogether unexceptionable.
But, upon the whole, nomination by the crown is likely to work better than any
other, even for the religious good of the church.  As a means of preserving
the connection of the clergy with the state, it is almost indispensable.

     Schmidt observes, as to Germany, that the dispute about investitures was
not wholly to the advantage of the church; though she seemed to come out
successfully, yet it produced a hatred on the part of the laity, and, above
all, a determination in the princes and nobility to grant no more lands over
which their suzerainty was to be disputed.  iii. 269.  The emperors retained a
good deal - the regale, or possession of the temporalities during a vacancy;
the prerogative, on a disputed election, of investing whichever candidate they
pleased; above all, perhaps, the recognition of a great principle, that the
church was, as to its temporal estate, the subject of the civil magistrate.
The feudal element of society was so opposite to the ecclesiastical, that
whatever was gained by the former was so much subtracted from the efficacy of
the latter.  This left an importance to the imperial investiture after the
Calixtin concordat, which was not intended probably by the pope.  For the
words, as quoted by Schmidt (iii. 301), - Habeat imperatoria dignitas electum
liber; consecratum canonice regaliter per sceptrum sine pretio tamen investire
solenniter - imply nothing more than a formality.  The emperor is, as it were,
commanded to invest the bishop after consecration.  But in practice the
emperors always conferred the investiture before consecration. Schmidt, iv.
153.]

     The emperors were not the only sovereigns whose practice of investiture
excited the hostility of Rome, although they sustained the principal brunt of
the war.  A similar contest broke out under the pontificate of Paschal II.
with Henry I. of England; for the circumstances of which, as they contain
nothing peculiar, I refer to our own historians. It is remarkable that it
ended in a compromise not unlike that adjusted at Worms; the king renouncing
all sorts of investitures, while the pope consented that the bishop should do
homage for his temporalities.  This was exactly the custom of France, where an
investiture by the ring and crosier is said not to have prevailed; ^t and it
answered the main end of sovereigns by keeping up the feudal dependency of
ecclesiastical estates. But the kings of Castile were more fortunate than the
rest; discreetly yielding to the pride of Rome, they obtained what was
essential to their own authority, and have always possessed, by the concession
of Urban II., an absolute privilege of nomination to bishoprics in their
dominions. ^u An early evidence of that indifference of the popes towards the
real independence of national churches to which subsequent ages were to lend
abundant confirmation.

[Footnote t: Histoire du Droit public ecclesiastique Francois, p. 261.  I do
not fully rely on this authority.]

[Footnote u: F. Paul on Benefices, c. 24; Zurita, Anales de Aragon, t. iv. p.
305.  Fleury says that the kings of Spain nominate to bishoprics by virtue of
a particular indulgence, renewed by the pope for the life of each prince.
Institutions au Droit, t. i. p. 106.]

     When the emperors had surrendered their pretensions to interfere in
episcopal elections, the primitive mode of collecting the suffrages of clergy
and laity in conjunction, or at least of the clergy with the laity's assent
and ratification, ought naturally to have revived.  But in the twelfth century
neither the people, nor even the general body of the diocesan clergy, were
considered as worthy to exercise this function.  It soon devolved altogether
upon the chapters of cathedral churches. ^v The original of these may be
traced very high.  In the earliest ages we find a college of presbytery
consisting of the priests and deacons, assistants as a council of advice, or
even a kind of parliament, to their bishops. Parochial divisions, and fixed
ministers attached to them, were not established till a later period.  But the
canons, or cathedral clergy, acquired afterwards a more distinct character.
They were subjected by degrees to certain strict observances, little
differing, in fact, from those imposed on monastic orders.  They lived at a
common table, they slept in a common dormitory, their dress and diet were
regulated by peculiar laws.  But they were distinguished from monks by the
right of possessing individual property, which was afterwards extended to the
enjoyment of separate prebends or benefices.  These strict regulations,
chiefly imposed by Louis the Debonair, went into disuse through the relaxation
of discipline; nor were they ever effectually restored. Meantime the chapters
became extremely rich; and as they monopolized the privilege of electing
bishops, it became an object of ambition with noble families to obtain
canonries for their younger children, as the surest road to ecclesiastical
honors and opulence.  Contrary, therefore, to the general policy of the
church, persons of inferior birth have been rigidly excluded from these
foundations. ^w

[Footnote v: Fra Paolo (Treatise on Benefices, c. 24) says that between 1122
and 1145 it became a rule almost everywhere established that bishops should be
chosen by the chapter.  Schmidt, however, brings a few instances where the
consent of the nobility and other laics is expressed, though perhaps little
else than a matter of form.  Innocent II. seems to have been the first who
declared that whoever had the majority of the chapter in his favor should be
deemed duly elected; and this was confirmed by Otho IV. in the capitulation
upon his accession.  Hist. des Allemands, t. iv. p. 175.  Fleury thinks that
chapters had not an exclusive election till the end of the twelfth century.
The second Lateran council in 1139 represses their attempts to engross it.
Institutions au Droit Eccles., t. i. p. 100.]

[Footnote w: Schmidt, t. ii. pp. 224, 473; t. iii. p. 281.  Encyclopedie art.
Chanoine, F. Paul on Benefices, c. 16.  Fleury, 8me Discours sur l'Hist.
Eccles.]

     The object of Gregory VII., in attempting to redress those more flagrant
abuses which for two centuries had deformed the face of the Latin church, is
not incapable, perhaps, of vindication, though no sufficient apology can be
offered for the means he employed.  But the disinterested love of reformation,
to which candor might ascribe the contention against investitures, is belied
by the general tenor of his conduct, exhibiting an arrogance without parallel,
and an ambition that grasped at universal and unlimited monarchy.  He may be
called the common enemy of all sovereigns whose dignity as well as
independence mortified his infatuated pride. Thus we find him menacing Philip
I. of France, who had connived at the pillage of some Italian merchants and
pilgrims, not only with an interdict, but a sentence of deposition. ^x Thus
too he asserts, as a known historical fact, that the kingdom of Spain had
formerly belonged, by special right, to St. Peter; and by virtue of this
imprescriptible claim he grants to a certain Count de Rouci all territories
which he should reconquer from the Moors, to be held in fief from the Holy See
by a stipulated rent. ^y A similar pretension he makes to the kingdom of
Hungary, and bitterly reproaches its sovereign, Solomon, who had done homage
to the emperor, in derogation of St. Peter, his legitimate lord. ^z It was
convenient to treat this apostle as a great feudal suzerain, and the legal
principles of that age were dexterously applied to rivet more forcibly the
fetters of superstition. ^a

[Footnote x: St. Marc, t. iii. p. 628; Fleury, Hist. Eccles. t. xiii. pp. 281,
284.]

[Footnote y: The language he employs is worth quoting as a specimen of his
style; Non latere vos credimus, regnum Hispaniae ab antiquo juris sancti Petri
fuisse, et adhuc licet diu a paganis sit occupatum, lege tamen justitiae non
evacuata, nulli mortalium, sed soli apostolicae sedi ex aequo pertinere.  Quod
enim auctore Deo semel in proprietates ecclesiarum juste pervenerit, manente
Eo, ab usu quidem, sed ad earum jure, occasione transeuntis temporis, sine
legitima concessione divelli non poterit. Itaque comes Evalus de Roceio, cujus
famam apud vos haud obscuram esse putamus, terram illam ad honorem Sti. Petri
ingredi, et a paganorum manibus eripere cupiens, hanc concessionem ab
apostolica sede obtinuit, ut partem illam, unde paganos suo studio et adjuncto
sibi aliorum auxilio expellere possit, sub conditione inter nos factae
pactionis ex parte Sti. Petri possideret.  Labbe, Concilia, t. x. p. 10.
Three instances occur in the Corps Diplomatique of Dumont, where a Duke of
Dalmatia (t. i. p. 53), a Count of Provence (p. 58), and a Count of Barcelona
(ibid.), put themselves under the feudal superiority and protection of Gregory
VII. The motive was sufficiently obvious.]

[Footnote z: St. Marc, t. iii. pp. 624, 674; Schmidt, p. 73.]

[Footnote a: The character and policy of Gregory VII. are well discussed by
Schmidt, t. iii. p. 307.]

     While temporal sovereigns were opposing so inadequate a resistance to a
system of usurpation contrary to all precedent and to the common principles of
society, it was not to be expected that national churches should persevere in
opposing pretensions for which several ages had paved the way.  Gregory VII.
completed the destruction of their liberties.  The principles contained in the
decretals of Isidore, hostile as they were to ecclesiastical independence,
were set aside as insufficient to establish the absolute monarchy of Rome.  By
a constitution of Alexander II., during whose pontificate Hildebrand himself
was deemed the effectual pope, no bishop in the Catholic church was permitted
to exercise his functions, until he had received the confirmation of the Holy
See: ^b a provision of vast importance, through which, beyond perhaps any
other means, Rome has sustained, and still sustains, her temporal influence,
as well as her ecclesiastical supremacy.  The national churches, long abridged
of their liberties by gradual encroachments, now found themselves subject to
an undisguised and irresistible despotism.  Instead of affording protection to
bishops against their metropolitans, under an insidious pretence of which the
popes of the ninth century had subverted the authority of the latter, it
became the favorite policy of their successors to harass all prelates with
citations to Rome. ^c Gregory obliged the metropolitans to attend in person
for the pallium. ^d Bishops were summoned even from England and the northern
kingdoms to receive the commands of the spiritual monarch.  William the
Conqueror having made a difficulty about permitting his prelates to obey these
citations, Gregory, though in general on good terms with that prince, and
treating him with a deference which marks the effect of a firm character in
repressing the ebullitions of overbearing pride, ^e complains of this as a
persecution unheard of among pagans. ^f The great quarrel between Archbishop
Anselm and his two sovereigns, William Rufus and Henry I., was originally
founded upon a similar refusal to permit his departure for Rome.

[Footnote b: St. Marc, p. 460.]

[Footnote c: Schmidt, t. iii. pp. 80, 322.]

[Footnote d: Id. t. iv. p. 170.]

[Footnote e: St. Marc, pp. 628, 788; Schmidt, t. iii. p. 82.]

[Footnote f: St. Marc, t. iv. p. 761; Collier, p. 253.]

     This perpetual control exercised by the popes over ecclesiastical, and in
some degree over temporal affairs, was maintained by means of their legates,
at once the ambassadors and the lieutenants of the Holy See. Previously to the
latter part of the tenth age these had been sent not frequently and upon
special occasions.  The legatine or vicarial commission had generally been
intrusted to some eminent metropolitan of the nation within which it was to be
exercised; as the Archbishop of Canterbury was perpetual legate in England.
But the special commissioners, or legates a latere, suspending the pope's
ordinary vicars, took upon themselves an unbounded authority over the national
churches, holding councils, promulgating canons, deposing bishops, and issuing
interdicts at their discretion.  They lived in splendor at the expense of the
bishops of the province.  This was the more galling to the hierarchy, because
simple deacons were often invested with this dignity, which set them above
primates.  As the sovereigns of France and England acquired more courage, they
considerably abridged this prerogative of the Holy See, and resisted the
entrance of any legates into their dominions without their consent. ^g

[Footnote g: De Marca, l. vi. c. 28, 30, 31.  Schmidt, t. ii. p. 498; t. iii.
pp. 312, 320.  Hist. du Droit Public Eccl. Francois, p. 250.  Fleury, 4me
Discours sur l'Hist. Eccles., c. 10.]

     From the time of Gregory VII. no pontiff thought of awaiting the
confirmation of the emperor, as in earlier ages, before he was installed in
the throne of St. Peter.  On the contrary, it was pretended that the emperor
was himself to be confirmed by the pope.  This had indeed been broached by
John VIII. two hundred years before Gregory. ^h It was still a doctrine not
calculated for general reception; but the popes availed themselves of every
opportunity which the temporizing policy, the negligence or bigotry of
sovereigns threw into their hands.  Lothaire coming to receive the imperial
crown at Rome, this circumstance was commemorated by a picture in the Lateran
palace, in which, and in two Latin verses subscribed, he was represented as
doing homage to the pope. ^i When Frederic Barbarossa came upon the same
occasion, he omitted to hold the stirrup of Adrian IV., who, in his turn,
refused to give him the usual kiss of peace; nor was the contest ended but by
the emperor's acquiescence, who was content to follow the precedents of his
predecessors.  The same Adrian, expostulating with Frederic upon some slight
grievance, reminded him of the imperial crown which he had conferred, and
declared his willingness to bestow, if possible, still greater benefits.  But
the phrase employed (majora beneficia) suggested the idea of a fief; and the
general insolence which pervaded Adrian's letter confirming this
interpretation, a ferment arose among the German princes, in a congress of
whom this letter was delivered.  "From whom then," one of the legates was rash
enough to say, "does the emperor hold his crown, except from the pope?" which
so irritated a prince of Wittelsbach, that he was with difficulty prevented
from cleaving the priest's head with his sabre. ^j Adrian IV. was the only
Englishman that ever sat in the papal chair.  It might, perhaps, pass for a
favor bestowed on his natural sovereign, when he granted to Henry II. the
kingdom of Ireland; yet the language of this donation, wherein he asserts all
islands to be the exclusive property of St. Peter, should not have had a very
pleasing sound to an insular monarch.

[Footnote h: Vide supra.  It appears manifest that the scheme of temporal
sovereignty was only suspended by the disorders of the Roman See in the tenth
century.  Peter Damian, a celebrated writer of the age of Hilderbrand, and his
friend, puts these words into the mouth of Jesus Christ, as addressed to Pope
Victor II.  Ego claves totius universalis ecclesise meae tuis manibus tradidi,
et super eam te mihi vicarium posui, quam proprii sanguinis effusione redemi.
Et si pauca sunt ista, etiam monarchias addidi: immo sublato rege de medio
totius Romani imperii vacantis tivi jura permisi.  Schmidt, t. iii. p. 78.]

[Footnote i: Rex venit ante fores, jurans prius urbis honores:
          Post homo fit papae, sumit quo dante coronam.
          Muratori, Annali, A.D. 1157.

     There was a pretext for this artful line.  Lothaire had received the
estate of Matilda in fief from the pope, with a reversion to Henry the Proud,
his son-in-law.  Schmidt, p. 349.]

[Footnote j: Muratori, ubi supra.  Schmidt, t. iii. p. 393.]

     I shall not wait to comment on the support given to Becket by Alexander
III., which must be familiar to the English reader, nor on his speedy
canonization; a reward which the church has always held out to its most active
friends, and which may be compared to titles of nobility granted by a temporal
sovereign. ^k But the epoch when the spirit of papal usurpation was most
strikingly displayed was the pontificate of Innocent III.  [A. D. 1194-1216.]
In each of the three leading objects which Rome has pursued, independent
sovereignty, supremacy over the Christian church, control over the princes of
the earth, it was the fortune of this pontiff to conquer.  He realized, as we
have seen in another place, that fond hope of so many of his predecessors, a
dominion over Rome and the central parts of Italy.  During his pontificate
Constantinople was taken by the Latins; and however he might seem to regret a
diversion of the crusaders, which impeded the recovery of the Holy Land, he
exulted in the obedience of the new patriarch and the reunion of the Greek
church.  Never, perhaps, either before or since, was the great eastern schism
in so fair a way of being healed; even the kings of Bulgaria and of Armenia
acknowledged the supremacy of Innocent, and permitted his interference with
their ecclesiastical institutions.

[Footnote k: The first instance of a solemn papal canonization is that of St.
Udalric by John XVI. in 993.  However, the metropolitans continued to meddle
with this sort of apotheosis till the pontificate of Alexander III., who
reserved it, as a choice prerogative, to the Holy See.  Art de verifier les
Dates, t. i. p. 247 and p. 290.]

     The maxims of Gregory VII. were now matured by more than a hundred years,
and the right of trampling upon the necks of kings had been received, at least
among churchmen, as an inherent attribute of the papacy.  "As the sun and the
moon are placed in the firmament" (such is the language of Innocent), "the
greater as the light of the day, and the lesser of the night, thus are there
two powers in the church - the pontifical, which, as having the charge of
souls, is the greater; and the royal, which is the less, and to which the
bodies of men only are intrusted." ^l Intoxicated with these conceptions (if
we may apply such a word to successful ambition), he thought no quarrel of
princes beyond the sphere of his jurisdiction.  "Though I cannot judge of the
right to a fief," said Innocent to the kings of France and England, "yet it is
my province to judge where sin is committed, and my duty to prevent all public
scandals." Philip Augustus, who had at that time the worse in his war with
Richard, acquiesced in this sophism; the latter was more refractory till the
papal legate began to menace him with the rigor of the church. ^m But the King
of England, as well as his adversary, condescended to obtain temporary ends by
an impolitic submission to Rome. We have a letter from Innocent to the King of
Navarre, directing him, on pain of spiritual censures, to restore some castles
which he detained from Richard. ^n And the latter appears to have entertained
hopes of recovering his ransom paid to the Emperor and Duke of Austria through
the pope's interference. ^o By such blind sacrifices of the greater to the
less, of the future to the present, the sovereigns of Europe played
continually into the hands of their subtle enemy.

[Footnote l: Vita Innocentii Tertii in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Ital. t.
iii. pars i. p. 448.  This Life is written by a contemporary.  St. Marc, t. v.
p. 325.  Schmidt, t. iv. p. 227.]

[Footnote m: Philippus rex Franciae in manu ejus data fide promisit se ad
mandatum ipsius pacem vel treugas cum rege Angliae initurum.  Richardus autem
rex Angliae se difficilem ostendebat.  Sed cum idem legatus ei cepit rigorem
ecclesiasticum inteniare, saniori ductus consilio acquievit.  Vita Innocentii,
Tertii, t. iii. pars i. p. 503.]

[Footnote n: Innocentii Opera (Coloniae, 1574), p. 124.]

[Footnote o: Id. p. 134.  Innocent actually wrote some letters for this
purpose, but without any effect, nor was he probably at all solicitous about
it.  P. 139 and p. 141.  Nor had he interfered to procure Richard's release
from prison; though Eleanor wrote him a letter, in which she asks, "Has not
God given you the power to govern nations and kings?" Velly, Hist. de France,
t. iii. p. 382.]

     Though I am not aware that any pope before Innocent III. had thus
announced himself as the general arbiter of differences and conservator of the
peace throughout Christendom, yet the scheme had been already formed, and the
public mind was in some degree prepared to admit it.  Gerohus, a writer who
lived early in the twelfth century, published a theory of perpetual
pacification, as feasible certainly as some that have been planned in later
times.  All disputes among princes were to be referred to the pope.  If either
party refused to obey the sentence of Rome, he was to be excommunicated and
deposed.  Every Christian sovereign was to attack the refractory delinquent
under pain of a similar forfeiture. ^p A project of this nature had not only a
magnificence flattering to the ambition of the church, but was calculated to
impose upon benevolent minds, sickened by the cupidity and oppression of
princes.  No control but that of religion appeared sufficient to restrain the
abuses of society; while its salutary influence had already been displayed
both in the Truce of God, ^* which put the first check on the custom of
private war, and more recently in the protection afforded to crusaders against
all aggression during the continuance of their engagement.  But reasonings
from the excesses of liberty in favor of arbitrary government, or from the
calamities of national wars in favor of universal monarchy, involve the tacit
fallacy, that perfect, or at least superior, wisdom and virtue will be found
in the restraining power.  The experience of Europe was not such as to
authorize so candid an expectation in behalf of the Roman See.

[Footnote p: Schmidt, t. iv. p. 232.]

[Footnote *: A suspension of private wars, introduced by the church in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries.]

     There were certainly some instances, where the temporal supremacy of
Innocent III., however usurped, may appear to have been exerted beneficially.
He directs one of his legates to compel the observance of peace between the
kings of Castile and Portugal, if necessary, by excommunication and interdict.
^q He enjoins the King of Aragon to restore his coin, which he had lately
debased, and of which great complaint had arisen in his kingdom. ^r Nor do I
question his sincerity in these, or in any other cases of interference with
civil government.  A great mind, such as Innocent III. undoubtedly possessed,
though prone to sacrifice every other object to ambition, can never be
indifferent to the beauty of social order and the happiness of mankind.  But,
if we may judge by the correspondence of this remarkable person, his foremost
gratification was the display of unbounded power.  His letters, especially to
ecclesiastics, are full of unprovoked rudeness.  As impetuous as Gregory VII.,
he is unwilling to owe anything to favor; he seems to anticipate denial; heats
himself into anger as he proceeds, and, where he commences with solicitation,
seldom concludes without a menace. ^s An extensive learning in ecclesiastical
law, a close observation of whatever was passing in the world, an unwearied
diligence, sustained his fearless ambition. ^t With such a temper, and with
such advantages, he was formidable beyond all his predecessors, and perhaps
beyond all his successors.  On every side the thunder of Rome broke over the
heads of princes.  A certain Swero is excommunicated for usurping the crown of
Norway.  A legate, in passing through Hungary, is detained by the king:
Innocent writes in tolerably mild terms to this potentate, but fails not to
intimate that he might be compelled to prevent his son's accession to the
throne.  The King of Leon had married his cousin, a Princess of Castile.
Innocent subjects the kingdom to an interdict.  When the clergy of Leon
petition him to remove it, because, when they ceased to perform their
functions, the laity paid no tithes, and listened to heretical teachers when
orthodox mouths were mute, he consented that divine service with closed doors,
but not the rites of burial, might be performed. ^u The king at length gave
way, and sent back his wife.  But a more illustrious victory of the same kind
was obtained over Philip Augustus, who, having repudiated Isemburga of
Denmark, had contracted another marriage.  The conduct of the king, though not
without the usual excuse of those times, nearness of blood, was justly
condemned; and Innocent did not hesitate to visit his sins upon the people by
a general interdict.  This, after a short demur from some bishops, was
enforced throughout France; the dead lay unburied, and the living were cut off
from the offices of religion, till Philip, thus subdued, took back his
divorced wife.  The submission of such a prince, not feebly superstitious,
like his predecessor Robert, nor vexed with seditions, like the Emperor Henry
IV., but brave, firm, and victorious, is perhaps the proudest trophy in the
scutcheon of Rome.  Compared with this, the subsequent triumph of Innocent
over the pusillanimous John seems cheaply gained, though the surrender of a
powerful kingdom into the vassalage of the pope may strike us as a proof of
stupendous baseness on one side, and audacity on the other. ^v Yet, under this
very pontificate, it was not unparalleled. Peter II. King of Aragon received
at Rome the belt of knighthood and the royal crown from the hands of Innocent
III.; he took an oath of perpetual fealty and obedience to him and his
successors; he surrendered his kingdom, and accepted it again to be held by an
annual tribute, in return for the protection of the Apostolic See. ^w This
strange conversion of kingdoms into spiritual fiefs was intended as the price
of security from ambitious neighbors, and may be deemed analogous to the
change of allodial into feudal, or more strictly, to that of lay into
ecclesiastical tenure, which was frequent during the turbulence of the darker
ages.

[Footnote q: Innocent.  Opera, p. 146.]

[Footnote r: p. 378.]

[Footnote s: Innocent.  Opera, pp. 31, 73, 76, &c., &c.]

[Footnote t: The following instance may illustrate the character of this pope,
and his spirit of governing the whole world, as much as those of a more public
nature.  He writes to the chapter of Pisa that one Rubens, a citizen of that
place, had complained to him, that, having mortgaged a house and garden for
two hundred and fifty-two pounds, on condition that he might redeem it before
a fixed day, within which time he had been unavoidably prevented from raising
the money, the creditor had now refused to accept it; and directs them to
inquire into the facts, and, if they prove truly stated, to compel the
creditor by spiritual censures to restore the premises, reckoning their rent
during the time of his mortgage as part of the debt, and to receive the
remainder.  Id. t. ii. p. 17.  It must be admitted that Innocent III.
discouraged in general those vexatious and dilatory appeals from inferior
ecclesiastical tribunals to the court of Rome, which had gained ground before
his time, and especially in the pontificate of Alexander III.]

[Footnote u: Innocent.  Opera, t. ii. p. 411.  Vita Innocent III.]

[Footnote v: The stipulated annual payment of 1,000 marks was seldom made by
the kings of England: but one is almost ashamed that it should ever have been
so.  Henry III. paid it occasionally when he had any object to attain, and
even Edward I. for some years; the latest payment on record is in the
seventeenth of his reign.  After a long discontinuance, it was demanded in the
fortieth of Edward III. (1366), but the parliament unanimously declared that
John had no right to subject the kingdom to a superior without their consent;
which put an end forever to the applications.  Prynne's Constitutions, vol.
iii.]

[Footnote w: Zurita, Anales de Aragon, t. i. f. 91.  This was not forgotten
toward the latter part of the same century, when Peter III. was engaged in the
Sicilian war, and served as a pretence for the pope's sentence of
deprivation.]

     I have mentioned already that among the new pretensions advanced by the
Roman See was that of confirming the election of an emperor.  It had however
been asserted rather incidentally than in a peremptory manner. But the
doubtful elections of Philip and Otho after the death of Henry VI. gave
Innocent III. an opportunity of maintaining more positively this pretended
right.  In a decretal epistle addressed to the Duke of Zahringen, the object
of which is to direct him to transfer his allegiance from Philip to the other
competitor, Innocent, after stating the mode in which a regular election ought
to be made, declares the pope's immediate authority to examine, confirm,
anoint, crown, and consecrate the elect emperor, provided he shall be worthy;
or to reject him if rendered unfit by great crimes, such as sacrilege, heresy,
perjury, or persecution of the church; in default of election, to supply the
vacancy; or, in the event of equal suffrages, to bestow the empire upon any
person at his discretion. ^x The princes of Germany were not much influenced
by this hardy assumption, which manifests the temper of Innocent III. and of
his court, rather than their power.  But Otho IV. at his coronation by the
pope signed a capitulation, which cut off several privileges enjoyed by the
emperors, even since the concordat of Calixtus, in respect of episcopal
elections and investitures. ^y

[Footnote x: Decretal. l. i. tit. 6, c. 34, commonly cited Venerabilem. The
rubric or synopsis of this epistle asserts the pope's right electum
imperatorem examinare, approbare et inungere, consecrare et coronare, si est
dignus; vel rejicere si est indignus, ut quia sacrilegus, excommunicatus,
tyrannus, fatuus et haereticus, paganus, perjurus, vel ecclesiae persecutor.
Et electoribus nolentibus eligere, papa supplet. Et data paritate, vocum
eligentium, nec accedente majore concordia, papa potest gratificari cui vult.
The epistle itself is, if possible, more strongly expressed.]

[Footnote y: Schmidt, t. iv. pp. 149, 175.]