One cannot but feel a descent from this high and visionary ground in the diction of the sentence that followed, a sentence not now heard for the first time, and which perhaps no one there felt, tremendous as its utterance was, to be the last word in this great quarrel.
"Therefore trusting to the judgment and to the mercy of G.o.d, and of the Holy Mother of G.o.d, and armed with your authority, I place under excommunication and I bind with the chains of anathema, Henry called King, and all his fellow sinners; and on the part of Almighty G.o.d, and of You, shutting him out henceforward from the kingdoms of Germany and of Italy, I take from him all royal power and dignity; I forbid any Christian to obey him as king; and I absolve from their sworn promises all those who have made, or may make, oaths of allegiance to him. May this Henry with his fellow sinners have no force in fight and obtain no victory in life!"
Having with like solemnity bestowed upon Rudolf the kingdom of Germany (Italy is not named) with all royal rights, the Pope thus concludes his address to the spiritual Heads in heaven of the Church on earth:
"Holy Fathers and Lords! let the whole world now know and understand that as you can bind and loose in heaven, you can also upon earth give and take away from each according to his merits, empires, kingdoms, princ.i.p.alities, duchies, marquisates, counties, and all possessions. You have often already taken from the perverse and the unworthy, patriarchal sees, primacies, archbishoprics, and bishoprics, in order to bestow them upon religious men. If you thus judge in things spiritual, with how much more power ought you not to do so in things secular! And if you judge the angels who are the masters of the proudest princes, what may you not do with the princes, their slaves! Let the kings and great ones of the earth know to-day how great you are, and what your power is; let them fear to neglect the ordinances of the Church! Accomplish quickly your judgment on Henry so that to the eyes of all it may be apparent that it falls upon him not by chance but by your power. Yet may his confusion turn to repentance, that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord."
Whether the ecstasy of his own rapt and abstract communion with the unseen, that subtle inspiration of an Invisible too clearly conceived for human weakness to sustain, had gone to Gregory"s head and drawn him into fuller expression of this extraordinary a.s.sertion and claim beyond all reason: or whether the long-determined theory of his life thus found complete development it is difficult to tell. These a.s.sumptions were, indeed, the simple and practical outcome of claims already made and responsibilities a.s.sumed: claims which had been already put feebly into operation by other Popes before. But they had never before been put into words so living or so solemn. Gregory himself had, hitherto, claimed only the right to judge, to arbitrate at the head of a National Diet. He had not himself, so far as we can see, a.s.sumed up to this moment the supposed rights of Peter, alone and uncontrolled. He had given England to William, but only on the warrant of the bond of Harold solemnly sworn before the altar. He had made legitimate the claims already established by conquest of Robert Guiscard and others of the Norman conquerors. But the standard set up in the Lateran Council of 1080 was of a far more imperative kind, and a.s.serted finally through Peter and Paul, his holy fathers and lords, an authority absolute and uncompromising such as made the brain reel.
This extraordinary address must have sent a mult.i.tude, many of them no doubt ordinary men with no lofty ideal like his own, back to their bishoprics and charges, swelling with a sense of spiritual grandeur and power such as no promotion could give, an inspiration which if it made here and there a high spirit thrill to the necessities of a great position, was at least as likely to make petty tyrants and oppressors of meaner men. The only saving clause in a charge so full of the elements of mischief, is that to the majority of ordinary minds it would contain very little personal meaning at all.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ISLAND ON TIBER.
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From this time nothing was possible but war to the death between Gregory and Henry, the deposed king, who was as little disposed to accept his deposition as any anathema was able to enforce it. We have already remarked on various occasions, and it is a dreadful coming down from the height of so striking a scene, and so many great words, to be obliged to repeat it: yet it is very evident that notwithstanding the terrible pictures we have had of the force of these anathemas, they made very little difference in the life of the world. There were always schismatic or rebellious priests enough to carry on, in defiance of the Pope, those visible ceremonies and offices of religion which are indispensable to the common order of life. There were, no doubt, great individual sufferings among the faithful, but the habits of ordinary existence could only have been interfered with had every bishop and every priest been loyal to the Pope, which was far from being the case.
It was at the conclusion of this Council that Gregory is said to have sent to Rudolf the famous imperial crown bearing the inscription
_Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rodolpho_,
of which Villemain makes the shabby remark that, "After having held the balance as uncertain, and denied the share he had in the election of Rudolf, now that it was confirmed by success Gregory VII. claimed it for himself and the Church."--a conclusion neither in consonance with the facts nor with the character of the man.
That Henry should receive this decision meekly was of course impossible. Once more he attempted to make reprisals in an a.s.sembly held at Brixen in the following June, when by means of the small number of thirty bishops, chiefly excommunicated persons, and, of course, in any case without any right to judge their superior, Gregory himself was once more deposed, excommunicated, and cut off from the communion of these ecclesiastics and their followings. In the sentence given by this paltry company, Gregory is accused of following the heresy of Berengarius, whose recantation had the year before been received at the Lateran: and also of being a necromancer and magician, and possessed by an evil spirit. These exquisite reasons are the chief of the allegations against him, and the princ.i.p.al ground upon which his deposition was justified. Guibert of Ravenna, long his enemy, and one of the excommunicated, was elected by the same incompetent tribunal as Pope in his place, naturally without any of the canonical requirements for such an election; though we are told that Henry laid violent hands on the bishop of Ostia whose privilege it was to officiate at the consecration of the Popes, and who was then in foreign parts acting as legate, in order to give some show of legality to the election. Guibert however, less scrupulous than the former intruder Cadalous, took at once the t.i.tle of Clement III. The great advantage of such a step, beside the sweetness of revenge, no doubt was that it practically annulled the papal interdict so far as the knowledge of the vulgar was concerned: for so long as there were priests to officiate, a bishop to preside, and a Pope to bless and to curse, how should the uninstructed people know that their country was under any fatal ban? To make such a universal excommunication possible the whole priesthood must have been subject and faithful to the one sole authority in the Church.
Unfortunately for the prestige of Gregory, Henry was much more successful in the following year in all his enterprises, and it was Rudolf, the friend and elected of the Pope, and not his adversary, who died after a battle which was not otherwise decisive. This event must have been a great blow and disappointment as well as an immediate and imminent danger. For some time, however, the ordinary course of life went on in Rome, and Gregory, by means of various negotiations, and also no doubt by reason of his own consciousness of the pressing need for a champion and supporter, made friends again with Robert Guiscard, exerting himself to settle the quarrels between him and his neighbours, and to win him thus by good offices to the papal side. To complete this renewal of friendship Gregory, though ailing, and amid all these tumults beginning to feel the weight of years, made a journey to Benevento, which belonged to the Holy See, and there met his former penitent and adversary, the brave and wily Norman. The interview between them took place in sight of a great crowd of the followers of both and the inhabitants of the whole region, a.s.sembled in mingled curiosity and reverence, to see so great a scene. The Norman, relieved of the excommunications under which he had lain for past offences, and endowed with the Pope"s approval and blessing, swore fealty and obedience to Gregory, promising henceforward to be the champion of Holy Church, protecting her property and her servants, keeping her counsel and acknowledging her authority.
"From this hour and for the future I will be faithful to the Holy Roman Church, and to the Apostolic See, and to you, my lord Gregory, the universal Pope. I will be your defender, and that of the Roman Church, aiding you according to my power to maintain, to occupy, and to defend the domains of St. Peter and his possessions, against all comers, reserving only the March of Fermo, of Salerno, and of Amalfi, concerning which no definite arrangement has yet been made."
These last, and especially the town of Salerno, one of the cities _la piu bella e piu deliziosa_ of Italy, says old Muratori, had been recently taken by Guiscard from their Prince Gisolfo, a _protege_ and friend of the Pope, who excepts them in the same cautious manner from the sanction given to Robert"s other conquests. Gregory"s act of invest.i.ture is altogether a very cautious doc.u.ment:
I Gregory, Pope, invest you Duke Robert, with all the lands given you by my predecessors of holy memory, Nicolas and Alexander. As for the lands of Salerno, Amalfi and a portion of the March of Fermo, held by you unjustly, I suffer it patiently for the present, having confidence in G.o.d and in your honesty, and that you will conduct yourself in future for the honour of G.o.d and St. Peter in such a manner as becomes you, and as I may tolerate, without risking your soul or mine.
It is not likely that Gregory hoped so much from Guiscard"s probity as that he would give up that _citta deliziosa_, won by his bow and his spear. Nor was he then aware how his own name and all its a.s.sociations would remain in Salerno, its chief distinction throughout all the ages to come.
The life of Gregory had never been one of peace or tranquillity. He had been a fighting man all his days, but during a great part of them a successful one: the years which remained to him, however, were one long course of agitations, of turmoil, and of revolution. In 1081 Henry, scarcely successful by arms, but confident in the great discouragement of the rival party through the death of Rudolf, crossed the Alps again, and after defeating Matilda, ravaging her duchy and driving her to the shelter of Canossa, marched upon Rome. Guibert of Ravenna, the Anti-Pope, accompanied him with many bishops and priests of his party. On his first appearance before Rome, the energy of Gregory, and his expectation of some such event, had for once inspired the city to resistance, so that the royal army got no further than the "fields of Nero," outside the walls of the Leonine city to the north of St. Peter"s, by which side they had approached Rome. Henry had himself crowned emperor by his anti-pope in his tent, an act performed by the advice of his schismatic bishops, and to the great wonder, excitement, and interest of the surrounding people, overawed by that great t.i.tle which he had not as yet ventured to a.s.sume. This futile coronation was indeed an act with which he amused himself periodically during the following years from time to time. But the heats of summer and the fever of Rome soon drove the invaders back. In 1082 Henry returned to the attack, but still in vain. In 1083 he was more successful, and seized that portion of Rome called the Leonine city, which included St. Peter"s and the tombs of the Apostles, the great shrine which gave sanct.i.ty to the whole. The Pope, up to this time free, though continually threatened by his enemies, and still carrying on as best he could the universal affairs of the Church, was now forced to retire to St. Angelo. He was at this moment without defender or champion on any side. The brave Matilda, ever faithful, was shut up in impregnable Canossa. Guiscard, after having secured all that he wanted from Gregory, had gone off upon his own concerns, and was now struggling to make for himself a footing in Greece, indifferent to the Pope"s danger. The Romans, after the brief interval of inspiration which gave them courage to make a stand for the Pope and the integrity of their city, had fallen back into their usual weakness, dazzled by Henry"s t.i.tle of Emperor, and cowed by the presence of his Germans at their gates. They had never had any spirit of resistance, and it was scarcely to be expected of a corrupt and fickle population, accustomed for ages to be the toys of circ.u.mstance, that they should begin a n.o.bler career now. And there the Pope remained, shut up in that lonely stronghold, overlooking the noisy and busy streets which overflowed with foreign soldiers and the noise of arms, while in the Church of St. Peter close by, Guibert the mock Pope a.s.sembled a mock council to absolve the new Emperor from all the anathemas that had followed one another upon his head.
There was much discussion and debate in that strange a.s.sembly, in which every second man at least must have had in his secret heart a sense of sacrilege, over this subject. They did not apparently deny the legal weight of these anathemas, which they recognised as the root and origin of all the misfortunes that had followed; but they maintained a feeble contention that the proceedings of Gregory had been irregular, seeing that Henry had never had the opportunity of defending himself. Another of the pretensions attributed to the Roman Church by her enemies, and this time with truth, as it has indeed become part of her code--was, as appears, set up on this occasion for the first time, and by the schismatics. Gregory had forbidden the people to accept the sacraments from the hands of vicious or simoniacal priests. Guibert, called Clement III., and his fict.i.tious council declared with many learned quotations that the sacraments in themselves were all in all, and the administrators nothing; and that though given by a drunkard, an adulterer, or a murderer, the rites of the Church were equally effectual. It was however still more strange that in this a.s.sembly, made up of schismatics, many of them guilty of these very practices, a timid remonstrance should have been made against the very sins which had separated them from the rest of the Church and which Gregory had spent his life in combating. The Pope had not been successful either in abolishing simony or in maintaining celibacy and continence among the clergy, but he had roused a universal public opinion, a sentiment stronger than himself, which found a place even in the mind of his antagonist and rival in arms.
Thus the usurper timidly attacked with arguments either insignificant or morally dangerous the acts of the Pope--yet timidly echoed his doctrine: with the air throughout all of a pretender alarmed by the mere vicinity of an unfortunate but rightful monarch. Guibert had been bold enough before; he had the air now of a furtive intruder trembling lest in every chance sound he might hear the step of the true master returning to his desecrated house.
The next event in this curious struggle is more extraordinary still.
Henry himself, it is evident, must have been struck with the feeble character of this unauthorised a.s.sembly, notwithstanding that the new Pope was of his own making and the council held under his auspices; or perhaps he hoped to gain something by an appearance of candour and impartiality though so late in the day. At all events he proposed, immediately after the close of the fict.i.tious council, to the citizens and officials who still held the other portions of the city, in the name of Gregory--to withdraw his troops, to leave all roads to Rome free, and to submit his cause to another council presided over by Gregory and to which, as in ordinary cases, all the higher ranks of the clergy should be invited. It is impossible to conceive a more extraordinary contradiction of all that had gone before. The proposal, however, strange as it seems, was accepted and carried out. In November, 1083, this a.s.sembly was called together. Henry withdrew with his army towards Lombardy, the peaceful roads were all reopened, and bishops and abbots from all parts of Christendom hastened, no doubt trembling, yet excited, to Rome. Henry, notwithstanding his liberality of kind offers, exercised a considerable supervision over these travellers, for we hear that he stopped the deputies whom the German princes had sent to represent them, and also many distinguished prelates, two of whom had been specially attached to his mother Agnes, along with one of the legates of the Pope. The attempt to pack the a.s.sembly, or at least to weed it of its most remarkable members in this way was not, however, successful, and a large number of ecclesiastics were got together notwithstanding all the perils of the journey.
The meeting was a melancholy one, overshadowed by the hopelessness of a position in which all the right was on one side and all the power on the other. After three days" deliberation, which came to nothing, the Pope addressed--it was for the last time in Rome--his faithful counsellors. "He spoke with the tongue of an angel rather than of a man," bidding them to be firm and patient, to hold fast to the faith, and to quit themselves like men, however dark might be the days on which they had fallen. The entire convocation broke forth into tears as the old man concluded.
But Gregory would not be moved to any clemency towards his persecutor.
He yielded so far as not to repeat his anathema against him, excommunicating only those who by force or stratagem had turned back and detained any who were on their way to the Council. But he would not consent to crown Henry as emperor, which--notwithstanding his previous coronation in his tent by Guibert, and a still earlier one, it is said, at Brixen immediately after the appointment of the anti-pope--was what the rebellious monarch still desired; nor would he yield to the apparent compulsion of circ.u.mstances and make peace, without repentance on the part of Henry. No circ.u.mstances could coerce such a man. The fruitless council lasted but three days, and separated without making any change in the situation. The Romans, roused again perhaps by the brief s.n.a.t.c.h of freedom they had thus seemed to have, rose against Henry"s garrison and regained possession of the Leonine city which he had held: and thus every particular of the struggle was begun and repeated over again.
This extraordinary attempt, after all that had happened--after the council in which Henry had deposed Gregory, the council in St. Peter"s itself, held by the anti-pope, and all the abuse he had poured upon "the monk Hildebrand," as he had again and again styled the Pope--by permitting an a.s.sembly in which the insulted pontiff should be restored to all his authority and honours, to move Gregory to accept and crown him, is one of the most wonderful things in history. But the attempt was the last he ever made, as it was the most futile. After the one flash of energy with which Rome renewed the struggle, and another period of renewed attacks and withdrawals, Henry became master of the city, though never of the castle of St. Angelo where Gregory sat indomitable, relaxing not a jot of his determination and strong as ever in his refusal to withdraw, unless after full repentance, his curse from Henry. Various castles and fortified places continued to be held in the name of the Pope, both within and without the walls of the city: which fact throws a curious light upon its existing aspect: but these remnants of defence had little power to restrain the conqueror and his great army.
And then again Rome saw one of those sights which from age to age had become familiar to her, the triumph of arms and overwhelming force under the very eyes of the imprisoned ruler of the city. The Lateran Palace, so long deserted, awoke to receive a royal guest. The sober courts of the papal house blazed with splendid costumes and resounded with all the tumult of rejoicing and triumph. The first of the great ceremonies was the coronation of the Archbishop Guibert as Clement III., which took place in Pa.s.sion Week in the year 1084. Four months before Gregory had descended from his stronghold to hold the council in which Henry had still hoped to persuade or force him to complaisance, flinging Guibert lightly away; but the king"s hopes had failed and Guibert was again the temporary symbol of that spiritual power without which he could not maintain himself. On Easter Sunday following, three great processions again streamed over the bridge of St. Angelo under the eyes, it may be, of Gregory high on the battlements of his fortress, or at least penetrating to his seclusion with the shouts and cheers that marked their progress--the procession of the false Pope, that of the king, that of Bertha the king"s wife, whom it had required all the efforts of Gregory and his faithful bishops to preserve from a cruel divorce: she who had set her maids with baton and staff to beat the life half out of that false spouse and caitiff knight in his attempt to betray her. The world had triumphed over the Church, the powers of darkness over those of light, a false and treacherous despot, whose word even his own followers held as nothing, over the steadfast, pure, and high-minded priest, who, whatever we may think of his motives--and no judgment upon Gregory can ever be unanimous--had devoted his life to one high purpose and held by it through triumph and humiliation, unmoved and immovable. Gregory was as certain of his great position now, the Vicar of Christ commissioned to bind and to loose, to judge with impartiality and justice all men"s claims, to hold the balance of right and wrong all over the world, as he watched the gay processions pa.s.s, and heard the heralds sounding their trumpets and the anti-pope, the creature of Henry"s will, pa.s.sing by to give his master (for the third time) the much-longed-for imperial crown, as when he himself stood master within the battlements of Canossa and raised that suppliant king to the possibilities of empire from his feet.
It is a curious detail adding a touch to the irony which mingles with so many human triumphs and downfalls, that the actual imperial crown seems at one time at least to have been in Gregory"s keeping. During the abortive council, for which, for three days he had returned to the Lateran, he offered, though he refused to place it on his head, to give it up to Henry"s hands, letting it down with a cord from a window of St. Angelo. This offer, which could scarcely be other than ironical, seems to have been refused; but whether Gregory retained it in St. Angelo, or left it to be found in the Lateran treasury by the returning king, there is no information. If it was a fict.i.tious crown which was placed upon Henry"s head by the fict.i.tious Pope, the curious travesty would be complete. And history does not say even why the ceremony performed before by the same hands on the banks of the Tiber, should have dropped out of recollection as a thing that had not been.
During all this time nothing had been heard of Robert Guiscard who had so solemnly taken upon him the office of champion of the Holy See and knight of St. Peter. He had been about his own business, pursuing his conquests, eager to carve out new kingdoms for himself and his sons: but at last the Pope"s appeals became too strong to be resisted.
Henry, whose armies had doubtless not improved in force during the desultory warfare which must have affected more or less the consciences of many, and the hot summers, unwholesome for northerners, did not await the coming of this new and formidable foe. Matilda"s Tuscans were more easily overcome than Guiscard"s veterans of northern race. He called in his men from all the petty sieges which were wearing them out, and from that wall which he had forced the Romans with their own pitiful hands to build as a base of attacks against St.
Angelo, and withdrew in haste, leaving the terrified citizens whom he had won over to his party, as little apt to arms as their forefathers had been, and in the midst of a half-ruined city--the strong positions in which were still held by the friends of the Pope--to do what they could against the most dreaded troops of Christendom. The catastrophe was certain before it occurred. The resistance of the Romans to Robert Guiscard was little more than nominal, only enough to inflame the Normans and give the dreadful freedom of besiegers to their armed hordes. They delivered the Pontiff, but sacked the town which lay helpless in its ruins at their feet; not even the churches were spared, nor their right of sanctuary acknowledged as six hundred years before Attila had acknowledged it. And all the fault of the Pope, as who could wonder if the sufferers cried? It was he who had brought these savages upon them, as it was he who had exposed them before to the hostility of Henry. Gregory had scarcely come forth from his citadel and returned to his palace when Rome was filled with scenes of blood and carnage, such as recalled the invasions of Huns and Vandals. The flames of the burning city lighted up the skies as he came forth in sorrow, delivered from his bondage, but a sad and burdened man. The chroniclers tell us that he flung himself at the feet of Guiscard to beg him to spare the city, crying out that he was Pope for edification and not for ruin. And though his prayer was to some extent granted, there is little doubt that here at the last the heart of Gregory and his courage were broken, and that though his resolution was never shaken, his strength could bear little more. This was the greatest, as it was the most uncalled for, misfortune of his life.
He held a strange council in desolate Rome in the few days that followed, in which he repeated his anathema against Henry, Guibert, and all the clergy who were living in rebellion or in sin. But it would seem that even at such a moment the council was not unanimous and that the spirit of his followers was broken and cowed, and few could follow him in the steadfastness of his own unchangeable mind.
And when this tremulous and disturbed a.s.sembly was over, held in such extraordinary circ.u.mstances, fierce Normans, wild Saracens forming the guard of the Pontiff, fire and ruin, and the shrieks of victims still disturbing the once peaceful air--Gregory, sick at heart, turned his back upon the beloved city which he had laboured so hard to make once more mistress of the world. Perhaps he was not aware that he left Rome for ever; but the conditions of that last restoration had broken his heart. He to bring bloodshed and rapine! he who was Pope to build up and not to destroy! It was more than the man who had borne all things else could endure. No doubt it was a crowning triumph for Guiscard to lead away with him the rescued Pontiff, and pose before all the world as Gregory"s deliverer. The journey itself, however, was not without perils. The Campagna and all the wilder country beyond, about the Pontine marshes, was full of freebooting bands, Henry"s partisans, or calling themselves so, who hara.s.sed the march with guerilla attacks.
In one such flying combat a monk of Gregory"s own retinue was killed, and the Pope had to ride like the men-at-arms, now starting at daybreak, now travelling deep into the night. At Monte Ca.s.sino, in the great convent where his friend Desiderius, who was to be his successor reigned, there was a welcome pause, and he had time to refresh himself among his old friends, the true brethren and companions of his soul.
The legends of the monks--or was it the pity of the ages beginning already to awaken and rising to a great height of human compunction by the time the early historians began to write his story?--accord to him here that compensation of divine acknowledgment which the heart recognises as the only healing for such wounds. Some one among the monks of Monte Ca.s.sino saw a dove hovering over his head as he said ma.s.s. Perhaps this was merely a confusion with the legend of Gregory the Great, his predecessor, to whom that attribute belongs; perhaps some gentle brother whose heart ached with sympathy for the suffering Pope had glamour in his eyes and saw.
Gregory continued his journey, drawn along in the army of Robert Guiscard as in a chariot, which began now to be, as he reached the south Italian sh.o.r.es, a chariot of triumph. All the towns and villages on the way came out to greet the Pope, to ask his blessing. The bishop of Salerno, with his clergy, came forth in solemn procession with shining robes and sacred standards to meet him. Neither Pope nor prince could have found a more exquisite retreat from the troubles of an evil world. The beautiful little city, half Saracenic, in all the glory of its cathedral still new and white and blooming with colour like a flower, sat on the edge of that loveliest coast, the sea like sapphire surging up in many lines of foam, the waves clapping their hands as in the Psalms, and above, the olive-mantled hills rising soft towards the bluest sky, with on every point a white village, a little church tower, the convent walls shining in the sun. It is still a region as near Paradise as human imagination can grasp, more fair than any scene we know. One wonders if the Pope"s heart had sufficient spring left in it to take some faint delight in that wonderful conjunction of earth and sea and sky. But such delights were not much thought of in his day, and it is very possible he might have felt it something like a sin to suffer his heart to go forth in any such carnal pleasure.
But at least something of his old energy came back when he was settled in this wonderful place of exile. He sent out his legates to the world, charged with letters to the faithful everywhere, to explain the position of affairs and to a.s.sert, as if now with his last breath, that it was because of his determination to purify the Church that all these conspiracies had risen against him--which was indeed, notwithstanding all the developments taken by the question, the absolute truth. For it was Gregory"s strongly conceived and faithfully held resolution to cleanse the Church from simony, to have its ministers and officers chosen for their worth and virtue, and power to guide and influence their flocks for good, and not because they had wealth to pay for their dignity and to maintain it, which was the beginning of the conflict. Henry who refused obedience and made a traffic of the holiest offices, and those degenerate and rebellious priests who continued to buy themselves into rich bishoprics and abbacies in defiance of every ecclesiastical law and penalty, were the original offenders, and ought before posterity at least to bear the brunt.
It is perhaps indiscreet to speak of an event largely affecting modern life in such words, but there is a whimsical resemblance which is apt to call forth a smile between the action of a large portion of the Church of Scotland fifty years ago, and the life struggle of Gregory.
In the former case it was the putting in of ministers to ecclesiastical benefices by lay authority, however veiled by supposed popular a.s.sent, which was believed to be an infringement of the divine rights of the Church, and of the headship of Christ, by a religious body perhaps more scornful and condemnatory than any other of everything connected with a Pope. It was not supposed in Scotland that the humble candidates for poor Scotch livings bought their advancement; but the principle was the same.
In the case of Gregory the positions thus bought and sold were of very great secular importance, carrying with them much wealth, power, and outward importance, which was not the case in the other; but in neither case were the candidates chosen canonically or for their suitableness to the charge, but from extraneous motives and in spite of the decisions of the Church. This was to destroy the headship of Peter, the authority of his representative, the rights of the sacred Spouse of Christ. Both claims were perfectly honest and true. But Gregory, as in opposition to a far greater grievance, and one which overspread all Christendom, was by far the more distinguished confessor, as he was the greater martyr of the Holy Cause.
For this was undoubtedly the first cause of all the sufferings of the Pontiff, the insults showered upon him, the wrongs he had to bear, the exile in which he died. The question has been settled against him, we believe, in every country, even the most deeply Christian. Scotland indeed has prevailed in having her own way, but that is because she has no important benefices, involving secular rank and privilege. No voice in England has ever been raised in defence of simony, but the _conge d"elire_ would have been as great an offence to Pope Gregory, and as much of a sin to Dr. Chalmers, as the purchase of an archbishopric in one case, or the placing of an unpopular preacher in another. The Pope"s claim of authority over both Church and world, though originally and fundamentally based upon his rights as the successor of Peter, developed out of this as the fruit out of the flower. From a religious point of view, and if we could secure that all Popes, candidates for ecclesiastical offices, and electors to the same, should be wise and good men, the position would be una.s.sailable; but as it is not so, the question seems scarcely worth risking a man"s living for, much less his life. But perhaps no man since, if it were not his successors in the popedom, had such strenuous reasons to spend his life for it as Gregory, as none has ever had a severer struggle.
This smaller question, however, though it is the fundamental one, has been almost forgotten in the struggle between the Pope and the Emperor--the sacred and the secular powers--which developed out of it.
The claim to decide not only who was to be archbishop but who was to be king, rose into an importance which dwarfed every other. This was not originated by Gregory, but it was by his means that it became the great question of the age, and rent the world in twain. The two great inst.i.tutions of the Papacy and the Empire had been or seemed to be an ideal method of governing the world, the one at the head of all spiritual concerns, the other commanding every secular power and all the progress of Christendom. Circ.u.mstances indeed, and the growth of independence and power in other nations, had circ.u.mscribed the sphere of the Empire, while the Papacy had grown in influence by the same means. But still the Empire was the head of the Christian world of nations, as the Pope was the head of those spiritual princedoms which had developed into so much importance. When the interests were so curiously mingled, it was certain that a collision must occur one time or another. There had been frequent jars, in days when the power of the Empire was too great for anything but a momentary resistance on the part of the Pope. But when the decisive moment came and the struggle became inevitable, Gregory--a man fully equal to the occasion--was there to meet it. His success, such as it was, was for later generations. To himself personally it brought the crown of tragedy only, without even any consciousness of victory gained.
The Pope lived not quite a year in Salerno. He died in that world of delight in the sweetness of the May, when all is doubly sweet by those flowery hills and along that radiant sh.o.r.e. Among his last words were these:--"My brethren, I make no account of my good works: my only confidence is that I have always loved justice and hated iniquity:--and for that I die in exile," he added before his end. In the silence and the gathering gloom one of his attendants cried out, "How can you say in exile, my lord, you who, the Vicar of Christ and of the apostles, have received all the nations for your inheritance, and the world for your domain?" With these words in his ears the Pope departed to that country which is the hope of every soul, where iniquity is not and justice reigns.
He died on the 25th May, 1085, not having yet attained his seventieth year. He had been Pope for twelve years only, and during that time had lived in continual danger, fighting always for the Church against the world. A suffering and a melancholy man, his life had none of those solaces which are given to the commonest and the poorest. His dearest friends were far from him: the hope of his life was lost: he thought no doubt that his standard fell with him, and that the labours of his life were lost also, and had come to nothing. But it was not so; Gregory VII. is still after these centuries one of the greatest Popes of Rome: and though time has wrought havoc with that great ideal of the Arbiter and universal Judge which never could have been made into practical reality, unless the world and the Church had been a.s.sured of a succession of the wisest and holiest of men--he yet secured for a time something like that tremendous position for a number of his successors, and created an opinion and sentiment throughout Christendom that the reforms on which he insisted ought to be, which is almost the nearest that humanity can come to universal reformation.
The Church which he left seemed shattered into a hundred fragments, and he died exiled and powerless; but yet he opened the greatest era of her existence to what has always been one of the wisest, and still remains one of the strongest inst.i.tutions in the world, against which, in spite of many errors and much tribulations, it has never been in the power of the gates of h.e.l.l to prevail.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE VILLA BORGHESE.]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] This personage is always called Cencio in the Italian records. He is supposed by some to have been of the family of the Crescenzi, of which name, as well as of Vincenzo, this is the diminutive.
[4] On this subject the records differ, some a.s.serting these letters to have been read at once on Roland"s removal, some that the sitting was adjourned after that wonderful incident.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TORTOISE.]
CHAPTER IV.