SECOND DIVISION. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN AND ROMAN CHURCH DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.198 (continued 2)

§ 78.9. The Conversion of the Saxons.―The first missionary attempts among the Saxons, who had forced their way from the north-west of Germany down to the neighbourhood of the Rhine, were made by two Anglo-Saxon monks, who were both called Ewald, the black or the white Ewald. A Saxon peasant received them hospitably, but so soon as he discovered their object, fell upon them with his household servants and slew them, A.D. 691. Boniface had many pious wishes about his heathen kinsfolk but did nothing for their conversion. The most that he did was to found the monastery of Fulda on the Saxon frontier as the rallying point for a future clerical raid upon Saxon paganism. For thirty years, however, this remained but a pious wish, till at last the sword of the most powerful of the Frankish kings took up the mission. The subjugation of the powerful as well as hostile Saxon people was with Charlemagne a political necessity. But lasting subjugation was impossible without conversion and conversion was impossible without subjugation; for the Saxons hated the religion of the Franks no less heartily than they did the Franks themselves. Alcuin with true magnanimity exerted all his influence with his royal friend against any use of force in conversion, but political necessity overcame the counsel of the much trusted friend. The Saxon war lasted for thirty-three years, A.D. 772-804. In the very first campaign the strongest Saxon fortress Eresburg was stormed and their most revered idol, the Erminsul, was destroyed. Frankish priests followed the Frankish arms and Christianized immediately the conquered districts. But as soon as Charlemagne’s army was engaged elsewhere, the Saxons proceeded to destroy again all Christian foundations. In the imperial diet at Paderborn in A.D. 777 they were obliged to swear that life and property would be forfeited by a new apostasy. But the most powerful of the Saxon princes, Wittekind, who had not appeared at the diet, organized a new revolt. The Frankish army sustained a fearful defeat at Mount Sunthal, all Christian priests were murdered, all churches were destroyed. Charlemagne took a dreadful revenge. At Verden he beheaded in one day 4,500 Saxons. After a new rebellion, a second diet at Paderborn in A.D. 785 prescribed for them horribly bloody laws. The least resistance against the precepts of the church was punished with death. Wittekind and Albion, the two most famous Saxon chiefs, acknowledged the vanity of further resistance. They were baptized in A.D. 785 and continued thenceforward faithful to the king and the church. But the rebellions of the rest of the Saxons were still continued. In A.D. 804 Charlemagne drove 10,000 Saxon families from their homes on the Elbe, and gave the country to the Obohites [Obotrites] that were subject to him. Now for the first time was a lasting peace secured. Charlemagne had founded eight bishoprics in Saxony, and under these bishops’ care throughout this blood-deluged country, no longer disturbed, a Christianity was developed as truly hearty and fresh as in any other part of Germany. One witness to this among others is afforded by the popular epic the Heliand (§ 89, 3).221

§ 79. The Slavs in German Countries.222

The sudden rush of the wild hordes of the Huns in the 5th century drove the Slavs to the south of the Danube and to the west of the Vistula. Again in the 6th century Slavic tribes forced their way westward under pressure from the Mongolian Avars who took possession of Dacia, Pannonia and Dalmatia. For the conversion of the Slavs in north-eastern Germany nothing was done; but much was attempted on behalf of the conversion of the southern Slavs and the Avars, who were specially under the care of the see of Salzburg.

§ 79.1. The Carantanians and Avars.―The Carantanian prince Boruth, in what is now called Carinthia, in A.D. 748 asked the help of the Bavarian duke Thassilo II. against the oppression of the Avars. His nephew Chatimar, who had received a Christian training in Bavaria, when in A.D. 753 he succeeded to the throne, introduced Christianity into his country. After the overthrow of Thassilo in A.D. 788, Carinthia came under Frankish rule, and Charlemagne extended his conquests over the Avars and Moravians. Bishop Arno of Salzburg, to whom metropolitan rights had been accorded, conducted a regular mission by Charlemagne’s orders for the conversion of these peoples. In A.D. 796, Tudun, the prince of the Avars, with a great band of his followers, received baptism, and vowed in A.D. 797 to turn the whole nation of the Avars to Christianity, and asked for Christian teachers. In the 9th century, however, the name of the Avars passed away from history.

§ 79.2. The Moravian Church.―In A.D. 855 Rastislaw, Grand Duke of Moravia, freed his country from the Frankish yoke and deprived the German bishops of all their influence. He asked Slavic missionaries from the Byzantine emperor. The brothers Cyril and Methodius (§ 73, 2, 3) who had already approved themselves as apostles of the Slavs, answered the call in A.D. 863. They introduced a liturgy and public worship in the language of the Slavs, and by preaching in the Slavic tongue they won their way to the hearts of the heathen people. But in spite of this encouraging success they found themselves, amid the political convulsions of the age, in a difficult position. Only by attachment to the pope could they reasonably expect to hold their ground. They accepted therefore an invitation of Nicholas I. in A.D. 867, but on their arrival in Rome they found that Hadrian II. had succeeded to the papal chair. Cyril remained in Rome and soon died, A.D. 869. Methodius swore fealty to the pope and was sent away as archbishop of Moravia. But now all the more were the German bishops hostile to him. They suspected his fidelity to the pope, charged him with heresy and inveighed against the Slavic liturgy which he had introduced. John VIII., rendered suspicious of him by these means, called upon him in strong terms in A.D. 879 to make answer for himself at Rome. Methodius obeyed and succeeded in completely vindicating himself. The pope confirmed him in his archiepiscopal rank and expressly permitted him to use the Slavic liturgy, enjoining, however, that by way of distinction the gospel should first be read in Latin and then rendered in a Slavic translation. The intrigues of the German clergy, however, continued and embittered the last days of the good and brave apostle of the Slavs. He died in A.D. 885. A general persecution now broke out against the Slavic priests and the metropolitan chair of Moravia remained vacant for fourteen years. John IX. restored it in A.D. 899. But in A.D. 908 the Moravian kingdom was overthrown. The Bohemians and Magyars shared the spoil between them.

§ 79.3. The Beginnings of Christianity in Bohemia.―On New Year’s day of A.D. 845 fourteen Bohemian lords appeared at Regensburg at the court of Louis of Germany and asked for baptism along with their followers. Of the motives and of the consequences of this step we know nothing. When Rastislaw raised the Moravian empire to such a height of glory the Bohemians connected themselves closely with Moravia. Rastislaw’s successor Swatopluc married a daughter of the Bohemian prince Borsivoi in A.D. 871. After that Methodius extended his missionary labours into Bohemia. Borsivoi himself and his wife, Ludmilla, were baptized by Methodius in A.D. 871. The sons of Borsivoi, also, Spitihnew, who died in A.D. 912 and Wratislaw, who died in A.D. 926, with the active support of their mother furthered the interests of the church in Bohemia.

§ 80. The Scandinavian Nations.223

The mission to the Frisians and Saxons called the attention of missionaries to the neighbouring Jutes and Danes. Wilibrord (§ 78, 3) in A.D. 696 carried the gospel across the Eider, and Charlemagne felt it necessary in order to maintain his authority over the Frisians and Saxons to extend his conquest and that of the church over the peninsula of Jutland to the sea coast. He could not, however, accomplish his design. Better prospects opened up before Louis the Pious. Threatened with expulsion through disputes about the succession, Harald the king of the Jutes sought the protection of the Franks. Consequently Ebo, archbishop of Rheims, crossed the Eider in A.D. 823 at the head of an imperial embassy and clothed with full authority from pope Paschalis I. He baptized also a number of Danes, and when, after a year’s absence, he returned home, he took with him several young Jutes to educate as teachers for their countrymen. But Harald was again hard pressed and concluded to break entirely with the national paganism. In A.D. 826 he took ship, with wife and child, accompanied by a stately retinue, and at Mainz, where Louis then held his court, received baptism with great pomp and ceremony. Soon after his return a young monk followed him from the monastery of Corbei on the Weser. Ansgar, the apostle of the north, had committed to him by Louis the hard and dangerous task of winning the Scandinavian nations for the church. Ansgar devoted his whole life to the accomplishment of this task, and in an incomparable manner fulfilled it, so far as indomitable perseverance, devotion and self-denial amid endless difficulties and perverse opposition could do it.

§ 80.1. Ansgar or Anschar, the son of a Frankish nobleman, born A.D. 801, was educated in the monastery of Old Corbie in Picardy, and on the founding of New Corbie in A.D. 822 was made Superior of it. Even in very early youth he had dreams and visions which led him to look forward to the mission field and the crown of martyrdom. Accompanied by his noble-minded brother monk Autbert, who would not let his beloved friend go alone, Ansgar started in A.D. 826 on his first missionary journey. Harald had established his authority in the maritime provinces of Jutland, but he ventured not to push on into the interior. In this way the missionary efforts of the two friends were restricted. On the frontier of Schleswig, however, they founded a school, bought and educated Danish slave youths, redeemed Christian prisoners of war and preached throughout the country. But in the year following Harald was driven out and fled to the province of Rüstringen on the Weser, which Louis assigned to him for life. Also the two missionaries were obliged to follow him. Autbert died in the monastery of Corbie in A.D. 829, having retired again to it when seized with illness. Soon afterwards the emperor obtained information through ambassadors sent by the Swedish king Bjorn, that there were many isolated Christians in their land, some of them merchants, others prisoners of war, who had a great desire to be visited by Christian priests. Ansgar, with several companions, undertook this mission in A.D. 830. On the way they were plundered by Norse pirates. His companions spoke of returning home, but Ansgar would not be discouraged. King Bjorn received them in a very kindly manner. A little group of Christian prisoners gathered round them and heartily joined in worship. A school was erected, boys were bought and adults preached to. Several Swedes sought baptism, among them the governor of Birka, Herigar, who built at his own cost the first Christian church. After eighteen months Ansgar returned to the Frankish court in order to secure a solid basis for his mission. Louis thus perceived an opportunity of founding a bishopric for the Scandinavian Norsemen at Hamburg on the borders of Denmark. He appointed Ansgar bishop in A.D. 834, and assigned to him and the mission the revenues of the rich abbey of Turholt in Flanders. Ansgar obtained in Rome from Gregory IV. the support of a bull which recognised him as exclusively vicar apostolic over all the Norse. Then he built a cathedral at Hamburg, besides a monastery, bought again Danish boys to educate for the priesthood and sent new labourers among the Swedes, at whose head was the Frankish monk Gauzbert. But soon misfortunes from all sides showered down upon the poor bishop. His patron Louis died in A.D. 840, Harald apostatized from the faith, the Swedish missionaries were driven out by the pagans, the Norse rushed down on Hamburg and utterly destroyed city, church, monastery, and library. Moreover Charles the Bald took possession of the abbey of Turholt which according to the Treaty of Verdun in A.D. 843 had fallen to Flanders, in order to bestow it upon a favourite. Ansgar was now a homeless beggar. His clergy, when he had no longer support for them, left him. His mission school was broken up. His neighbour, bishop Leuterich of Bremen, with whom he sought shelter, inspired by despicable jealousy, turned him from his door. At last he got shelter from a nobleman’s widow who provided for him at her own expense a lodging at Ramslo, a country house near Hamburg. In A.D. 846 Leuterich died. Louis of Germany now gave to the homeless Apostle of the North a fixed habitation by appointing Ansgar to the vacant bishopric. The bishops of Cologne and Verden had divided between them the shattered fragments of the Hamburg bishopric. But at last pope Nicholas I. in A.D. 834 put an end to their selfish pretensions by uniting the two dioceses of Hamburg and Bremen into one, and conferring upon it metropolitan rights for the North. But meanwhile Ansgar notwithstanding all the neediness in which he himself lived had been working away uninterruptedly on behalf the Scandinavian mission. In Denmark the king was Eric whose court Ansgar repeatedly visited as ambassador of the German king. By Eric’s favour he had been enabled to found a church in Schleswig and to organize a mission stretching over the whole country. Eric did not venture himself to pass over to Christianity, and when pagan fanaticism broke out in open rebellion in A.D. 854, he fell in a battle against his nephew who headed the revolt. A boy, Eric II., perhaps grandson of the fallen Eric, mounted the throne. But the chief Jovi reigned in his name, a bitter foe of the Christians, who drove away all Christian priests and threatened every Christian in the land with death. Yet in A.D. 855 Eric II. emancipated himself from the regency of Jovi and granted toleration to the Christians. The work of conversion was now again carried on with new zeal and success.―All attempts, by means of new missionaries, to gather again the fragments of the mission in Sweden, broken up by Gauzbert’s expulsion, had hitherto proved vain. At last Ansgar himself started on his journey thitherward about A.D. 850. By rich presents and a splendid entertainment he won king Olaf’s favour. A popular assembly determined to abide by the decision of the sacred lot and this decided in favour of the adoption of Christianity. From that time the Swedish mission was carried on without check or hindrance under the direction of Erimbert, whom Ansgar left there. Ansgar died in A.D. 865. The most dearly cherished hope of his life, that he should be honoured with the crown of martyrdom, was not realized; but a life so full of toil, privation and trouble, sacrifice, patience and self-denial, was surely nobler than a martyr’s crown.224

§ 80.2. Ansgar’s Successor in the see of Hamburg-Bremen was Rimbert, his favourite scholar, his companion in almost all his journeys, who wrote an account of his master’s life and pronounced him a saint. He laboured according to his ability to follow in the steps of his teacher, especially in his care for the Scandinavian mission. But he was greatly hindered by the wild doings of the Danish and Norse pirates. This trouble reached its height after Rimbert’s death, and went so far that the archbishop of Cologne on the pretext that the Hamburg see had been extinguished was able to renew his claims upon Bremen.―Continuation, § 93.

§ 81. Christianity and Islam.225

From A.D. 665 the Byzantine rule in North Africa (§ 76, 3) was for a time narrowed and at last utterly overthrown by the Saracens from Egypt, with whom were joined the Berbers or Moors who had been converted to Islam. In A.D. 711, called in by a rebel, they also overthrew the Visigoth power in Spain (§ 76, 2). In less than five years the whole peninsula, as far as the mountain boundaries of the north, was in the hands of the Moors. Then they cast a covetous glance upon the fertile plains beyond the Pyrenees, but Charles Martel drove them back with fearful loss in the bloody battle of Poitiers in A.D. 732. The Franks were in this the saviours of Europe and of Christianity. In A.D. 750 the Ommaiadean dynasty at Damascus, whose lordship embraced also the Moors, were displaced by the Abbassidean, but a scion of the displaced family, Abderrhaman I., appeared in Spain and founded there an independent khalifate at Cordova in A.D. 756, which soon rose to an unexampled splendour. Also in Sicily the Moslem power obtained an entrance and endeavoured from that centre to maintain itself by constant raids upon the courts of Italy and Provence. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain and Sicily was first completely accomplished during the next period (§ 95).

§ 81.1. Islam in Spain.―The Spanish Christians under the Ommaiade rule were called Mozarabians, Arabi Mustaraba, i.e. Arabianized Arabs as distinguished from Arabs proper or Arabi Araba. They were in many places under less severe restrictions than the Oriental Christians under Saracen rule. Many Christian youths from the best families attended the flourishing Moorish schools, entered enthusiastically upon the study of the Arabic language and literature, pressed eagerly on to the service of the Court and Government, etc. But in opposition to such abandonment of the Christian and national conscience there was developed the contrary extreme of extravagant rigorism in obtrusive confessional courage and uncalled-for denunciation of the prophet. Christian fanaticism awakened Moslem fanaticism, which vented itself in a bloody persecution of the Christians in A.D. 850-859. The first martyr was a monk Perfectus. When asked his opinion about Mohammed he had pronounced him a false prophet, and was executed. The khalif of that period, Abderrhaman II., was no fanatic. He wished to stop the extravagant zeal of the Christians at its source, and made the metropolitan Recafrid of Seville issue an ecclesiastical prohibition of all blasphemy of the prophet. But this enactment only increased the fanaticism of the rigorists, at whose head stood the presbyter, subsequently archbishop, Eulogius of Cordova and his friend Paulus Alvarus (§ 90, 6). Eulogius himself, who kept hidden from her parents a converted Moorish maiden, and was on this account beheaded along with her in A.D. 859, was the last victim of the persecution.―The rule of the Arabs in Spain, however, was threatened from two sides. When Roderick’s government (§ 76, 2) had fallen before the arms of the Saracens in A.D. 711, Pelayo, a relation of his, with a small band of heroic followers, maintained Christian national independence in the inaccessible mountains of Asturia, and his son-in-law Alphonso the Catholic in the Cantabrian mountains on the Bay of Biscay. Alphonso subsequently united both parties, conquered Galicia and the Castilian mountain land, erecting on all sides the standard of the cross. His successors in innumerable battles against the infidels enlarged their territory till it reached the Douro. Of these Alphonso II., the Chaste, who died in A.D. 850, specially distinguished himself by his heroic courage and his patronage of learning. Oviedo was his capital. On the east too the Christian rule now again made advance.―Charlemagne in A.D. 778 conquered the country down to the Ebro. But a rebellion of the Saxons prevented him advancing further, and the freebooting Basques of the Pyrenees cut down his noblest heroes. Two subsequent campaigns in A.D. 800, 801, reduced all the country as far as the Ebro, henceforth called the Spanish March, under the power of the Franks.226

§ 81.2. Islam in Sicily.―A Byzantine military officer fled from punishment to Africa in A.D. 827 and returned with 10,000 Saracen troops which terribly devastated Sicily. Further migrations followed and in a few years all Sicily was under the rule of the Arabs, who made yearly devastating raids from thence upon the Italian coasts, venturing even to the very gates of Rome. In A.D. 880 they settled on the banks of the Garigliano, and put all central Italy under tribute, until at last in A.D. 916 the efforts of pope John X. were successful in driving them out. Spanish-Moorish pirates landed in A.D. 889 on the coasts of Provence, besieged the fortress of Fraxinetum, and plundered from this centre for a hundred years the Alpine districts and northern Italy. Their robber career in south Italy was most serious of all. It lasted for three centuries and was first brought to an end by the Norman invasion.―Continuation, § 95, 1.

II. THE HIERARCHY, THE CLERGY AND THE MONKS.

§ 82. The Papacy and the Carolingians.

The Christianizing of the German world was in great part accomplished without the help of Rome. Hence the German churches, even those that were Catholic, troubled themselves little at first about the papal chair. The Visigoth church in Spain was most completely estranged from it. The Saracen invasion of A.D. 711 cut off all possibility of intercourse with Rome. Even the free Christian states in Spain down to the 11th century had no connection with Rome. The Frankish churches, too, in Gaul as well as in Austrasia, throve and ran wild in their independence during the Merovingian age. On the other hand, the relation of the English Church to Rome was and continued to be very intimate. Numerous pilgrimages of Anglo-Saxons of higher and lower ranks were undertaken to the grave of the chief of the Apostles, and increased the dependence of the nation on the chair of St. Peter. For the support of these pilgrims and as a training school for English clergy, the Schola Saxonica was founded in the 8th century, and for its maintenance and that of the holy places in the city, on Peter’s day the 29th June was collected the so-called Peter’s pence, a penny for every house. Out of this sprang a standing impost on all the English people for the papal chair, which in the 13th century became a money tax upon the kings of England which Henry VIII. was the first to repudiate in A.D. 1532. The credit belongs to the Anglo-Saxons and especially to Boniface of not only delivering the rich sheaves of their missionary harvest into the granaries of Rome, but also of organizing the previously existing churches of the Frankish territories after the Romish method and rendering them obedient to the Roman see. Since then there has been such a regular intercourse between the pope and the Carolingian rulers that it absorbed almost completely the whole diplomatic activity of the Romish curia.

§ 82.1. The Period of the Founding of the States of the Church.―From bequests and presents of ancient times the Roman chair succeeded to an immense landed property, Patrimonium S. Petri, which afforded it the means of greatly assuaging the distress of the inhabitants of Italy during the disturbances of the migrations of the peoples. There was naturally then no word of the exercise of sovereign rights. From the time of the restoration of the Byzantine exarchate in A.D. 567 (§ 76, 7) the political importance of the pope grew immensely; its continued existence was often dependent on the good will of the pope for whom generally indeed the idea of becoming the court patriarch of a Longobard-Roman emperor was not an enticing one. But the pope could not prevent the Longobard power (§ 76, 8) from gaining ground in the north as well as in the south of the peninsula. An important increase of influence, power and prestige was brought to the papal chair under Gregory II., A.D. 715-731, through the rebellions in northern and central Italy occasioned by the Byzantine iconoclastic disputes. Rome was in this way raised to a kind of political suzerainty not only over the Roman duchy but also over the rest of the exarchate in the north―Ravenna and the neighbouring cities together with Venice (§ 66, 1). Gregory III., A.D. 731-741, hard pressed by Luitprand the Longobard, thrice (A.D. 739, 740) applied for help to the Frank Charles Martel, who, closely bound in friendship with Luitprand, his ally against the Saracens, sent some clerics to Italy to secure a peaceful arrangement. Gregory’s successor Zacharias, A.D. 741-752, sanctioned by his apostolic judgment the setting aside of the Merovingian sham king Childeric III., whereupon Pepin the Short, in A.D. 752, assumed the royal title with the royal power which he had long possessed. The next elected pope called Stephen died before consecration, consequently his successor of the same name is usually designated Stephen II., A.D. 752-757. The Longobard Aistulf had in A.D. 751 conquered Ravenna and the cities connected with it. Pope Stephen II. sought help anew of the Frankish king and supported his petition by forwarding an autograph letter of the Apostle Peter, in which he exhorted the king of the Franks as his adopted son under peril of all the pains of hell to save Rome and the Roman church. He himself at Pepin’s invitation went to France. At Ponthion, where, in A.D. 754, the king greeted him, Pepin promised the pope to restore to Rome her former possessions and to give protection against further inroads of the Longobards; while the pope imparted to the king and his two sons Charles and Carloman the kingly anointing in the church of St. Dionysius or Denis in Paris. At Quiersy then Pepin took counsel with his sons and the nobles of his kingdom about the fulfilling of his promise, bound the Longobard king by oath in the year following after a successful campaign to surrender the cities, properties and privileges claimed by the pope, and assigned these in A.D. 755 as a present to St. Peter as their possessor from that time forth. But scarcely had he retired with his army when Aistulf not only refused all and any surrender, but broke in anew upon Roman territory, robbing and laying waste on every side. By a second campaign, however, in A.D. 756, Pepin compelled him actually to deliver over the required cities in the provinces of Rome and Ravenna the key of which he deposited with a deed of gift, no longer extant, on the grave of St. Peter; while the pope, transferring to Pepin the honorary title of Exarch of Ravenna, decorated him with the insignia of a Roman patrician. When the Byzantine envoys claimed Ravenna as their own property, Pepin answered that the Franks had not shed their blood for the Greeks but for St. Peter.―Aistulf’s death followed soon after this and amid the struggles for the succession to the throne one of the candidates, duke Desiderius of Tuscany, sought the powerful support of the pope and promised him in return the surrender of those cities of the eastern province of Ravenna which still remained in the hands of the Longobards. The pope obtained Pepin’s consent to this transaction, and Desiderius was made king. But neither Stephen nor his successor Paul I., A.D. 757-767, could get him completely to fulfil his promise, and new encroachments of the Longobards as well as new claims of the pope intensified the bad feeling between them, which the conciliation of Pepin, who died in A.D. 768 had not by any means overcome.227

§ 82.2. After the death of Paul I. the nobles forced one of their own order upon the Romans as pope under the name of Constantine II. Another party with Longobard help appointed a presbyter, Philip. The former maintained his ground for thirteen months, but was then overthrown by a clerical party and, with his eyes put out, was cast into the street. They now united in the choice of Stephen III., A.D. 768-772.―Desiderius wished greatly to form a marriage connection with the Frankish court, and found a zealous friend in Bertrada, the widow of Pepin. When Stephen heard of it his wrath was unbounded, and he gave unbridled expression to it in a letter which he sent to her sons Charlemagne and Carloman. Referring to the fact that the devil had already in Paradise by the persuasion of a woman overthrown the first man and with him the whole race, he characterized this plan as propria diabolica immissio, declared that any idea of a connection by marriage of the illustrious reigning family of the Franks with the fœtentissima Longobardorum gens, from which all vile infections proceed, was nothing short of madness, etc. Not peace and friendship, but only war and enmity with this robber of the patrimony of Peter would be becoming in the pious kings of the Franks. He laid down this his exhortation at the grave of Peter and performed over it a Mass. Whoever sets himself to act contrary to it, on him will fall the anathema and with the devil and all godless men he shall burn in everlasting flames; but whosoever is obedient to it, shall be partaker of eternal salvation and glory. Nevertheless Charles married Desiderata the daughter of Desiderius, and Gisela, Charles’ sister, married the son of Desiderius. But before a year had passed, in A.D. 771, he wearied of the Longobard wife and sent her home. Soon after this Carloman died. Charles seized upon the inheritance of his youthful nephews, who together with their mother found shelter with Desiderius. When Hadrian I., A.D. 772-795, refused to give the royal anointing to Carloman’s sons, Desiderius took from him a great part of the States of the Church and threatened Rome. But Charles hastened at the pope’s call to give him help, conquered Pavia, shut up king Desiderius in the monastery of Corbei, and joined Lombardy to the Frankish empire. Further information as to what passed between him and Hadrian at Rome in A.D. 774 is only to be got from the Vita Hadriani (§ 90, 6) written during the reign of Louis of France. It relates as follows: At the grave of Peter the pope earnestly exhorted him to fulfil at last completely the promise which his father Pepin I. with his own consent and that of the Frankish nobles gave to pope Stephen II. at Quiersy in A.D. 754. Charles after reading over the document referred to agreed to everything promised therein, and produced a new deed of gift after the style (ad instar) of the old, undertaking to transfer to the Roman church a territorial possession which, together with the assumed Promissio of Pepin described with geographical precision, embraced almost all Italy, excepting Lombardy but including Corsica, Venice and Istria. It is now quite inconceivable that Charles, let alone Pepin, should have given the pope such an immense territory which Pepin for a simple footing in A.D. 754, and Charles for at least three-fourths of it, must have first themselves conquered. Moreover this account of the matter is directly contradicted by the statement of all the witnesses of Pepin’s own times. On the part of the Franks the continuator of the Chronicler Fredégar, on the part of the Romans the biographer of Stephen II. in the Liber pontificalis and that pope himself in his letters to Pepin, all speak of the negociations between the king and the pope as having reference simply to Rome and Ravenna. And since all attempts to reconcile these contradictions by exegetical devices have failed, we can only regard this as a fiction designed to palm off upon Louis of France Rome’s own ambitious territorial scheme. All that Charlemagne did was to confirm and renew his father’s gifts, as Hadrian himself distinctly states: Amplius (=further, i.e. for time to come) confirmavit.―Moreover Pepin, and still more Charlemagne, would hardly have granted to the holy father by his gift absolute sovereignty over the States of the Church thus founded. By conferring the patriciate upon the two Frankish princes, the pope, indeed, himself acknowledged that the suzerainty now belonged to them which formerly the Byzantine emperor had exercised by his viceroy, the exarch of Ravenna. A more exact definition of these rights, however, may have been first given when Charles was crowned emperor, his imperial authority undoubtedly extending over the Papal States. The pope as a temporal prince was his vassal and must himself, like all citizens of Rome, take the oath of allegiance to the emperor. Judicial authority and the appointment of government officials belonged to him; but they were supervised and controlled by the Frankish ambassadors, Missi dominici, who heard appeals and complaints of all kinds and were authorized to give a final judgment.

§ 82.3. Charlemagne and Leo III.―Hadrian I. was succeeded by Leo III., A.D. 795-816. During a solemn procession in A.D. 799 he was murderously attacked by the nephews of his predecessor and severely beaten. Some of the bystanders declared that they had seen the bandits tear out his tongue and eyes. The legend vouched for by the pope himself was added that Peter by a miracle restored him both the next night. Leo meanwhile escaped from his tormentors and fled to Charlemagne. His opponents accused him before the king of perjury and adultery, and the hearing of witnesses seems to have confirmed the serious charges, for Alcuin hastened to burn the report which was given in to him on the subject. But the pope was honourably discharged and assumed again the chair of Peter under the protection of a Frankish guard. Next year Charles crossed the Alps with his army for a campaign against Benevento. He convened a Synod at Rome; but the bishops maintained that the pope, the head of all, can be judged of none; yet the pope with twelve sponsors swore an oath of purgation and prayed for his accusers. At the Christmas festival Charles went to the church of St. Peter. At the close of Mass the pope amid the applause of the people placed a beautiful golden crown upon his head (A.D. 800). The world is asked to believe that he did it by the immediate impulse of a divine inspiration; but it was the result of the negociations of years and the fulfilment of a promise by which the pope had purchased the king’s protection against his enemies. With the idea of the imperial power Charlemagne connected the idea of a theocratic Christian universal monarchy in the sense of Daniel’s prophecy. The Greeks had proved themselves unworthy of this position and so God had transferred it to the king of the Franks. As emperor, Charles stands at the head of all Christendom, and has only God and His law over him. He is the most obedient son, the most devoted servant of the church, so far as it is the vehicle and dispenser of salvation; but he is its supreme lord and ruler so far as it needs to adopt earthly forms and an earthly government. Church and state are two separate domains, which, however, on all sides limit and condition one another. Their uniting head they have in the person of the emperor. Hence on every hand Charles’ legislation enters the domain of the church, in respect of her constitution, worship and doctrine. On these matters he consults the bishops and synods, but he confirms, enlarges and modifies their decisions according to his own way of thinking, because for this he is personally answerable to God. In the pope he honours the successor of Peter and the spiritual head of the church; but, because the emperor stands over church and state, he is also ruler of the pope. The pope who gave him imperial consecration did it not by any power of his own immanent in the papacy, but by special divine impulse and authority. Hence the crowning of the emperor is only to be once received at the pope’s hand. This rank is henceforth hereditary in the house of Charles, and only the emperor can beget and nominate the new emperor. The unity of the empire is to be maintained under all circumstances, and hence, contrary to the Frankish custom of dividing the inheritance, younger sons are to receive only the subordinate rank of ruling princes.228

§ 82.4. Louis the Pious and the Popes of his Time.―Charlemagne’s weaker son Louis the Pious, A.D. 814-840, was not in a position to carry out the work his father had begun. But pious as Louis was, he was yet as little inclined as his immediate successor to give up the imperial suzerainty over the city and chair of St. Peter. The popes were most expressly required before receiving papal consecration to obtain imperial confirmation of their election. Leo’s successor Stephen IV., A.D. 816-817, seems indeed to have evaded it, yet still he let the Romans take the oath of fealty to the emperor, and unasked submitted to make a journey over the Alps in order to get over the anomaly of an emperor without the consecration of Peter’s hand. An agreement come to on that occasion, A.D. 816, between emperor and pope has not been preserved. A few days after his return the pope died. The newly-elected Paschalis I., A.D. 817-824, also indeed mounted the papal chair without imperial confirmation, but apologized by an embassy on the ground that he had been unwillingly obliged to act so, and praying for a continuation of the agreement made with his predecessor, to which the emperor consented. Indeed, according to a diploma of A.D. 817, extant only in a transcript, bearing the name of Louis, the king was to bestow upon the papal chair, besides what Pepin and Charlemagne had given, Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, and many estates in Calabria and Naples. There was also an undertaking that only after having been consecrated should any newly-elected pope interchange friendly greetings with the emperor. All copies of this document can be traced back to a collection of imperial grants to the Romish church of the 11th century. At its basis there lay probably a genuine document, but it has been variously altered in the interests of the high church party.―Some years later, after he had decoyed to France and blinded his illegitimate nephew Bernard, who had as reigning prince in Italy rebelled against the law of succession passed in A.D. 817, Louis sent his son Lothair into Italy to quiet the tumults there, and the pope availed himself of this opportunity to crown the prince already crowned by his father as co-emperor. But scarcely had Lothair got over the Alps again when two of the most distinguished and zealous of the Frankish partisans were in A.D. 823 blinded and beheaded in the papal palace. Before the imperial commission the pope took an oath of purgation, to which 34 bishops and 5 presbyters joined with him in swearing, but bluntly refused to deliver up the perpetrator of the deed. As the pope died soon afterwards, Lothair was sent a second time to Rome, in order to enforce once and for all upon his successor Eugenius II., A.D. 824-827, the observance of imperial rights. The result of their conference was the so-called Constitutio Romano, by which the election of the pope (§ 46, 11) was taken from the common people and given to the clergy and nobles, but the consecration was made dependent on the emperor’s confirmation and an oath of homage from the newly-elected pope (A.D. 824). Nevertheless his successor Valentine was elected and consecrated without any reference to the constitution. He died, however, after six months, and now the Frankish party came forward so energetically that the new pope Gregory IV., A.D. 827-844, was obliged to submit in all particulars to the requirements of the law. But soon after political troubles arose in the Frankish kingdom which could not fail to contribute to the endeavours of the papacy after emancipation. From his weak preference for his younger son, Charles the Bald, born of a second marriage, Louis was led in A.D. 829 to set aside the law of succession he himself had issued in A.D. 817. The sons thus disinherited rebelled with the assistance of the most distinguished Frankish prelates, at whose head was Wala, abbot of Old Corbie, cousin of Charlemagne, and the bishops Agobard of Lyons, Ebo of Rheims, etc., as assertors of the unity of the empire. Also pope Gregory IV., whose predecessors had sanctioned the law of succession now set aside, was won over and was taken across the Alps by Lothair to strengthen his cause by the weight of his apostolic authority. The pope threatened with the ban those bishops who remained true to the old emperor and had obeyed his summons to attend the diet. But they answered the pope that he had no authority in the empire of the Franks, and that if he did not quietly take himself over the Alps again they would excommunicate him. He was inclined to yield, but Wala’s counsel restrained him. He answered the bishops earnestly and moderately, and, as a last attempt at conciliation, went himself personally to the camp of the emperor, but was unable to effect anything. But next morning Louis had no army; during the night most of his soldiers had passed over to the camp of his enemy. The emperor now had to surrender himself prisoner to his son Lothair, then at a diet at Compiègne in A.D. 833, to do humble penance in church and to resign the government. His penitent son, Louis the German, however, set him free in A.D. 834. A severe judgment was now passed upon the confederate prelates at the Diedenhosen in A.D. 835. But the brothers continued constantly at war with one another, and Louis the Pious did not live to see the end of it.

§ 82.5. The Sons of Louis the Pious and the Popes of their Days.―The Treaty of Verdun, A.D. 843, put an end to the bitter war between the sons of Louis the Pious, and made of the western empire three independent groups of states under Lothair, Louis the German and Charles the Bald. Lothair I., who got the title of Emperor with Italy and a strip of land between Neustria and Austrasia, died in A.D. 855. Of his sons, Louis II. inherited Italy with title of Emperor, Lothair II. the province called after him Lotharingia, Lotharii regnum, and Charles Burgundy and Provence. Lothair and Charles died in A.D. 869 soon after one another without heirs, and before the emperor Louis II. could lay his hands upon their territories they were seized by the uncle. By the treaty of Mersen, A.D. 870, Charles took the Romanic, and Louis the German took the German portions. Thus was completed the partition of the Carolingian empire into three parts distinguished as homogeneous groups of states by language and nationality: Germany, France and Italy.―Gregory IV. had survived the overthrow of the universal monarchy of Charlemagne. His successor, Sergius II., A.D. 844-847, did not observe the obligations devolving on him by the Constitutio Romana. But Lothair I. was not inclined to let pass this slight to his imperial authority. His son Louis was sent into Italy with a powerful army, and obliged the pope and the Romans to take the oaths of fealty to his father with the promise not again to consecrate a pope before they had the emperor’s consent. But the next pope Leo IV., A.D. 847-855, was also consecrated without it, but excused himself from the circumstances of the age, the pressure of the Saracens, while making humble professions of most dutiful obedience. His successor Benedict III., A.D. 855-858, did not regard the imperial consent as necessary, and the anti-pope set up by the French party could not maintain his position.

§ 82.6. The Legend of the Female Pope Joanna.―Between Leo IV. and Benedict III. is inserted an old legend of the pontificate of a woman, the so-called female pope Joanna: A maiden from Mainz went in man’s clothes with her lover to Athens, obtained there great learning, then appeared at Rome as Joannes Anglicus, was elected pope, but having become pregnant by one of her chamberlains, was seized with labour pains in the midst of a solemn procession and died soon after, having been pope under the name of John VIII. for two years, five months and four days. This story was widely credited from the 13th to the 17th century, but its want of historical foundation is proved by the following facts:

The immediate succession of Benedict III. to Leo. IV. has contemporary testimony from the Annales Bertiniani of A.D. 855, also from a letter of Hincmar to Nicholas I., Benedict’s successor, as well as the inscription “Benedict” and “Lothair,” on a Roman denarius of the same year.

Neither Photius nor Michael Cærularius, who certainly would not have failed to make a handle of such a papal scandal (§ 67), know anything of the matter.

The first certain trace of the existence of such a legend is found about A.D. 1230 in Stephen of Bourbon, yet there indeed the words are added: Ut dicitur in chronicis; but he makes the female pope mount St. Peter’s chair only about A.D. 1100, knows neither her name nor her native country, and describes the catastrophe of her overthrow differently from the legend current in later times.

On the other hand, the existence of her biography in the Liber pontificalis between that of Leo IV. and that of Benedict III., was regarded down to the 17th century as the oldest and indeed almost contemporary witness to the historicity of the female pope. It is wanting, however, in the oldest and best MSS. and must therefore be considered a later interpolation. This also applies to the reference made thereto by Marianus Sectus (d. A.D. 1086), Sigbert of Semblours (d. A.D. 1113), Otto of Friesingen (d. A.D. 1158), and Godfrey of Viterbo (about A.D. 1190). Even in the oldest MSS. of the Chronicle of the Roman penitentiary Martinus Polonus (d. A.D. 1278) we read nothing of the female pope; yet the story must soon have been inserted there, for Tolomeo of Lucca about A.D. 1312 affirms in his Church History, that all writers whom he had read, with the single exception of Martin, made Benedict III. follow immediately after Leo IV. Perhaps Martin himself in a second enlarged edition of his chronicle had inserted a biography of the female pope, which he might do with the less hesitation if it was true that the pope of his own time John XX., A.D. 1276-1277, thought it wrong not to count the female pope and so styled himself John XXI. From that time all chroniclers of the Middle Ages without the slightest expression of doubt repeated the legend in essentially the same way as Martin’s chronicle and the Liber pontificalis report it. The Reformed theologian, David Blondel, in A.D. 1649, performed a service to the Catholic church by his elaborate critical treatment of the legend which destroyed all belief in its historicity. After this, however, it was again vindicated by Spanheim (Opp. ii. 577) and Kist; and even Hase regards it as still conceivable that the church which has affirmed the existence of things that never were, may have denied the existence of things that were, if the knowledge of it might prove hazardous to the interests of the papacy.

The origin and gradual development of the legend, about the middle of the 12th century and certainly in Rome, may be most simply explained with Döllinger from a combination of the following data.

From the time of Paschalis II. in A.D. 1099 it was customary for the new pope in the solemn Lateran procession when having his entrance on office attested to sit upon two old chairs standing in the Lateran with pierced seats, which probably came from an old Roman bath. But the popular wit of the Romans suggested another reason for the pierced seats. The chairs were thus pierced in order that before the consecration a deacon might satisfy himself of the manhood of the new pope; for, it would be added by and by, a woman in disguise was once made pope, etc.

In a street of Rome was found a statue in white robes with a child and an enigmatical inscription, the letter P six times repeated which some read: Parce pater patrum papissæ prodere partum, others: Papa pater patrum peperit papissa papellum; so that this statue was supposed to represent the female pope with her child.

Further the papal processions between the Lateran and the Vatican at a point where the direct way was too narrow were wont to diverge into another wider street; this was done, it was now said, because at this place the catastrophe referred to had befallen the female pope.

That the name Joannes was given to the female pope is easily explained from the frequency of this name among the popes. In A.D. 1024 it had been already held by nineteen. And that she who had brought such a disgrace upon the papacy should have been described as a native of the German city of Mainz, is explained from national antipathy entertained by the Italians for everything German.

Finally, the most difficult part of the problem, why this episode should have been inserted just between Leo IV. and Benedict III., may perhaps find satisfactory solution in the supposition that the legend may have been first introduced as an appendix to a codex of the Liber ponficalis which closed with the biography of Leo IV.229

§ 82.7. Nicholas I. and Hadrian II.―The successor of Benedict III., Nicholas I., A.D. 858-867, was chosen with the personal concurrence of the emperor Louis II. then in Rome. This pope was undoubtedly the greatest of all the popes between Gregory I. and Gregory VII. He was a man of inflexible determination, clear insight and subtle intellect, who, favoured by the political movement of the age, supported by public opinion which regarded him as a second Elijah, and finally backed up in his endeavours after papal supremacy by the Isidorian collection of decretals just now brought forward (§ 87, 2), could give prestige and glory to the struggle for law, truth and discipline. Among the many battles of his life none brought him more credit and renown than that with Lothair II. of Lothringia. That he might marry his mistress Waldrade, Lothair accused his wife Thielberga of committing incest before her marriage with her brother, abbot Hucbert, and of having obtained abortion to conceal her wickedness. Before a civil tribunal she was in A.D. 858 acquitted by submitting to a divine ordeal, the boiling caldron ordeal which a servant undertook for her. But Lothair treated her so badly that at last, in order simply to be rid of her tormentors, she confessed herself guilty of the crime charged against her before a Synod at Aachen in A.D. 859 attended by the two Lothringian metropolitans Günther of Cologne and Thietgaut of Treves, and expressed the wish that she should atone for her sins in a cloister. But soon she regretted this step and fled to Charles the Bald in Neustria. A second Synod at Aachen in A.D. 860 now declared the marriage with Thielberga null, and Lothair formally married Waldrade. Meanwhile the Neustria metropolitan Hincmar of Rheims had published an opinion in respect of civil and ecclesiastical law (De divortio Lotharii) wholly favourable to the ill-used queen, and she herself had referred the matter to the pope. Nicholas sent two Italian bishops, one of whom was Rhodoald of Porto (§ 67, 1), to Lothringia to investigate the affair. These took bribes and decided at the Synod of Metz in A.D. 863 in favour of the king. But Nicholas annulled the decisions of the Council, excommunicated his legates and deposed the two Lothringian metropolitans who had vainly trusted to the omnipotence of Lothringian gold in Rome. Thirsting for revenge they incited the emperor Louis II., Lothair’s brother, against the pope. He besieged Rome, but came to an understanding with the pope through his wife’s mediation. Lothair, detested by his subjects, threatened with war by his uncles Louis of Germany and Charles the Bald as champions of the childless Thielberga, repented and besought the pope for grace and protection from the ambitious designs of his uncles. Nicholas now sent a legate, Arsenius, across the Alps, who acting as plenipotentiary in all three kingdoms, obliged Lothair to take back Thielberga and put away Waldrade. But she flung herself upon him and in her arms Lothair soon forgot the promise to which he had sworn. At the same time he reconciled himself to his uncles whose zeal had somewhat cooled in presence of the lordly conduct of the papal legate. Thielberga now herself sought divorce from the pope. But Nicholas continued firmly to insist upon his demands. His successor Hadrian II., A.D. 867-872, an old man of seventy-five years, could only gradually emancipate himself from the imperial party which had elected him and taken him under its protection. He received back again the two excommunicated metropolitans, without, however, restoring them to their offices, released Waldrade from church discipline, and always put off granting Thielberga’s reiterated request for divorce. Lothair now went himself to Rome, took a solemn oath that he had no carnal intercourse with Waldrade since the restoration of his wife, and received the sacrament from the pope’s hand. Full of hope that he would get success in his object he started for home, but died at Piacenza of a violent fever in A.D. 869. When dead the uncles pounced upon the kingdom. Hadrian used all his influence in favour of the emperor, the legitimate heir, and threatened his opponents with excommunication. But Hincmar of Rheims composed a state paper by order of his king, in which he told the pope that the opinion of France was that he should not interfere with things about which he knew nothing. The pope was obliged to let this insult pass unrevenged. In a dispute of his own Hincmar succeeded in giving the pope a second rebuff (§ 83, 2).230

§ 82.8. John VIII. and his Successors.―His successor John VIII., A.D. 872-882, was more successful than Hadrian in bringing the Carolingian king to kneel at his footstool. In the art of intrigue and in the perfidy, hypocrisy and unconscionableness required therefor, he was, however, greatly superior. He succeeded almost completely in freeing the papal chair from the imperial authority. But he did so only to make it a playball of the wildest party interests around his own hearth. To his account mainly must be laid the unfathomable degradation and debasement of the papacy during the 10th century. When the emperor Louis II. died in A.D. 875, Louis the German, as elder and full brother of his father, ought to have been his heir. But the pope wished to show the world that the papal favour could make a gift of the imperial crown to whomsoever it chose. Accepting his invitation, Charles the Bald appeared in Rome and was crowned by the pope on Christmas Day, A.D. 875. But he had to pay dearly for the papal favour, by formally renouncing all claims to the rights of superior over the States of the Church, allow for the future absolute freedom in the election of popes, and accept a papal representative and clerical primate for all France and Germany. But not altogether satisfied with this, the pope made the new emperor submit himself to a formal act of election by the Lombards of Pavia, and in order to secure the approval of his own nobles to his proceedings he even agreed to give them the right of election. The Neustrian clergy, however, with Hincmar at their head, offered a vigorous resistance and at the first Synod at Pontion in A.D. 876 there were violent altercations. The shameful compromise satisfied neither pope nor emperor. In Rome a wild party faction gained ground against the pope, and the Saracens pressed further and further into Italy. From the emperor, who knew not how to keep back the advances of the Normans in his own country, no help could be expected. Yet he made hasty preparations, purchased a dishonourable peace from the Normans, and crossed the Alps. But new troubles at home imperiously called him back, and at the foot of Mount Cenis in A.D. 877, he died in a miserable hut of poison administered by his physician, a Jew. The pope got into yet greater straits and made his position worse by further intrigues. Also his negotiations with Byzantium in A.D. 879 involved him in yet more serious troubles (§ 67, 1). He died in A.D. 882, apparently by the hand of an assassin. A year before his death Charles the Fat, the youngest son of Louis the German, had been crowned emperor, and he, the least capable of all the Carolingian line, by the choice of the Neustrian nobles, united once more all the Frankish empire under his weak sceptre. Marinus, the successor of John VIII., died after a single year’s pontificate. So was it, too, with Hadrian III. And now the Romans, without paying any heed to the impotent wrath of the emperor, elected and consecrated Stephen V., A.D. 885-891, as their pope. In A.D. 857 the German nobles at last put an end to the despicable rule of the fat Charles by passing an act of formal deposition. They chose in his place Arnulf of Carinthia, a natural son of Charles’ brother Carloman. Pope Formosus, A.D. 891-896, called him to his assistance in A.D. 894, and crowned him emperor. But he could not hold his ground in Italy and the opposition emperor Lambert, a Longobard, had possession of the field. Formosus died soon after Arnulf’s withdrawal. Boniface VI., who died after fifteen days, was succeeded by Stephen VI. in A.D. 896. This man, infected by Italian fanaticism, had the body of Formosus, who had favoured the Germans, lifted from the grave, shamefully abused and then thrown into the Tiber. The three following popes reigned only a few weeks or months, and were either murdered or driven away. John IX., A.D. 898-900, in order to pacify the German party, honoured again the memory of Formosus.―Arnulf’s tenure of the empire, however, had only been a short vain dream; but in Germany during a trying period he wielded the sceptre with power and dignity. When he died in A.D. 899, the German nobles elected his seven-year-old son, Louis the Child. He died in A.D. 911, and with him the dynasty of the Carolingians in Germany became extinct. In France this line continued to exist in pitiable impotence down to the death of Louis V. in A.D. 987.―Continuation, § 96.

§ 82.9. The Papacy and the Nationalities.231―From the time of Charlemagne the policy of the French kings was to establish bishoprics on the frontiers of their territories for Christianizing the neighbouring heathen countries, and thereby securing their conquest, or, if this had been already won, confirming it. The first part of this purpose the popes could only approve and further, but just as decidedly they opposed the second. There must be a reference to the chair of Peter, that the pope may maintain and preserve as head of the universal church the rights of nationalities. Each country won to Christianity should be received into the organism of the church with its national position unimpaired, and so under the spiritual fatherhood of the pope there would be established a Christian family of states, of which each member occupies a position of perfect equality with the others. In this way the interests of humanity, and at the same time, the selfish interests of papal policy, were secured. This policy was therefore directed to the emancipating as soon as possible the newly founded national churches from the supremacy of the German clergy and giving them an independent national church organization under bishops and archbishops of their own.

§ 83. The Rank of Metropolitan.232

The position of metropolitan was not regarded with equal favour in the German church and in the German state. Amid the variety of races the metropolitans represented the unity of the national church, as the pope did that of the universal church, while at the same time as an estate of the empire they exercised great influence on civil administration and foreign policy. The reigning princes recognised in the unity of the ecclesiastical administration of the country a support and security for the political unity and therefore opposed the partition of the national church into several metropolitanates, or, where the larger extension of the empire required several archbishoprics, wished rather to give the ablest of these the rank and authority of a primate. The popes on the other hand endeavoured to give each of the larger countries at least two or three metropolitans, and to prevent as far as possible the appointment of a national church primate; for in the unity of the national church they perceived the danger of such a prelate sooner or later giving way to the desire to emancipate himself from Rome and secure for himself the position of an independent patriarch.

§ 83.1. The Position of Metropolitans in General.―As representing the unity of the national churches the interests of the metropolitans were bound up with those of the ruling princes. They were the most vigorous supporters of their policy, and generally got in return the prince’s hearty support. This coalition of the metropolitans and the civil power, however, threatened the subordinate clergy with abject servitude, and drove them to champion the interests of the pope. Through pressure of circumstances, a widespread conspiracy of bishops and abbots was formed during the last years of Louis the Pious to emancipate the clergy and especially the episcopate from the dominion of the state and the metropolitans and to place them immediately under the papal jurisdiction. They founded upon the Isidorian decretals as showing their rights in the earliest times (§ 87, 2). Their endeavour met indeed powerful opposition, but the statements of the Pseudo-Isidore had now obtained the validity of canon law.

§ 83.2. Hincmar of Rheims.―Among the French prelates after the restoration of the order of metropolitans by Boniface the first place was held by the occupant of the see of Rheims. It reached the summit of its glory under Hincmar of Rheims, A.D. 845-882, the ablest of all the ecclesiastical leaders of France. His life consists of an uninterrupted series of battles of the most varied kind. The first fight in which he engaged was the predestination controversy of Gottschalk (§ 91, 5). But his strength did not lie in dogmatics but in church government. And here, every inch a metropolitan, he has fought the most glorious battles of his life and affirmed, against the assumptions of popes and emancipation efforts of bishops, the autonomy of reigning princes, the freedom and independence of national churches, and the jurisdiction of metropolitans. Of this sort was his contest with bishop Rothad of Soissons. Hincmar had deposed him in A.D. 861 for insubordination. Rothad appealed to pope Nicholas I. on the ground of the Sardican Canon (§ 46, 3), which, however, had never been accepted in the Frankish Empire. He had at the same time referred the pope to the Isidorian decretals. Thus supported, Nicholas after a hard struggle had Rothad reinstated in A.D. 865. The insolent defiance of his own nephew, Hincmar, bishop of Laon, led the archbishop into another obstinate fight. Here too the Isidorian decretals played a prominent part. Hadrian II. in A.D. 869 took the side of the nephew, but the metropolitan gained the victory, and the nephew, who defied the king as well as the metropolitan and moreover had entered into treasonable communication with the German court, ended his course by being deprived of his eyes by the king. Down to A.D. 875 Hincmar was inflexibly true to the king as a pillar of his policy and his throne. But when Charles the Bald in that year paid down as purchase price for the imperial throne, not only the autonomy of the empire but also the freedom of the French church and the rights of the metropolitans, he was obliged now to turn his weapons against him. Hincmar died in A.D. 882 in flight before the Normans. With him the glory of the French archbishopric sank into its grave. The pseudo-Isidorian party had triumphed, the bishops were emancipated from the government of the princes of their country, but instead of this were often surrendered to the rude caprice of secular nobles.

§ 83.3. Metropolitans in other lands.―The English princes in the interests of the political unity of the Heptarchy for a long time withstood the endeavours of the popes to place a rival alongside of the archbishop of Canterbury. The action and reaction of these opposing interests were particularly strong in the time of Wilfrid (§ 78, 3), whom the Roman party had appointed archbishop of York. Wilfrid was driven away and died in A.D. 709 after an eventful life, without succeeding in taking possession of the place to which he had been appointed. At last, however, the pope reached his end. In A.D. 735 a Northumbrian prince obtained a pallium, and after that the see of York got an undisputed place alongside that of Canterbury.―In Northern Italy there were metropolitan sees at Ravenna, Milan and Aquileia which still made their old claims to self-government (§ 46, 1). Sergius, the prelate of Ravenna, about A.D. 760, thought it would be well out of the ruins of the exarchate to found an ecclesiastical state after the model of that of Rome. There was often opposition there to the Roman supremacy. On this account the violent archbishop John of Ravenna, who was also a defrauder of the church, suffered the most complete humiliation from Nicholas I. in A.D. 861, in spite of the emperor’s protection. The force of public opinion compelled the emperor to abandon his protégé when excommunicated by the pope. But during the pontificate of John VIII., Ausbert, prelate of Milan (died A.D. 882), who kept true to the German party, could defy papal anathema and deposition. His successor, however, again acknowledged the papal supremacy.―In Germany, since the time of Charlemagne, new metropolitan sees had been created at Salzburg, Cologne, Treves and Hamburg-Bremen. Mainz, however, still claimed the primacy and represented the unity of the German church. The Isidorian forgery availed not here as in the land of its birth to stop the contention of the archbishop. The German metropolitanate to the advantage of the empire maintained its rights untouched for centuries. Among the primates of Mainz the most important by far was Hatto I., A.D. 891-913. Even under Arnulf (died A.D. 899), whose most trusted adviser he was, he exercised a wide as well as wholesome influence on the administration of the empire. It was still greater under Louis the Child (died A.D. 911) whom he raised to the throne and for whom he acted as regent. Conrad I. (§ 96, 1) also owed to him his election as king of the Germans. In the internal affairs of the German church, he directed and adjusted, organized and ruled in this time of general upheaval with wonderful insight, wisdom and energy, most conspicuously, and that too against papal assumptions, at the great national synod of Tribur in A.D. 895. The primate regarded it as a political axiom, that, in order to conserve and advance the unity of the empire, the particularism of the several races and the struggles of their chiefs and princes for independence should be crushed. Owing to the consistency and energy with which he carried out his idea, he did indeed make many enemies. The stories of insidious perfidy and bloody violence which have attached themselves to his memory are to all appearance due to their calumnious hatred. His sudden death probably gave rise to the legend that the devil fetched him away and cast him into the mouth of Etna. To him, and not to the much less important Hatto II., who died in A.D. 970, is the other equally baseless legend of the Mäusethurm near Bingen to be referred.―Continuation, § 97, 2.

§ 84. The Clergy in General.233

The bishops subject to the archbishop were called diocesan bishops, or, as voting members of the Provincial Synod, suffragan bishops. The canonical election of bishops by the people and clergy was completely done away with in the German national church. Kings without opposition filled vacant bishoprics according to their own choice. Louis the Pious at the Synod of Aachen, in A.D. 817, restored canonical election by people and clergy, subject to the emperor’s confirmation, but his successors paid no attention to the law. Deposition was usually carried out by the Provincial and National Synods. The investiture of bishops with pastoral staff and marriage ring by the reigning prince is occasionally met with even in the Merovingian age and became general after the development of the benefice system in the 9th century. Out of the institution of bishops without dioceses, Episcopi regionarii, originally intended for missionary service, arose in all probability the institution of Chorepiscopi which flourished especially in France during the 8th and 9th centuries. With the old Chorepiscopi (§ 34, 2; § 45) they have nothing in common beyond the name. They were subordinate assistants of the diocesan bishops, whose convenience, unspirituality and often absence on state affairs demanded such substitutes. But by their arbitrary conduct and refractoriness they often gave great trouble to those bishops who had any care for their flock. A Synod at Paris, therefore, in A.D. 849, withdrew all authority from them. From that time they gradually sank out of view. The inferior clergy, taken generally from the serfs, stood mostly in slavish dependence on the bishop and often had not the barest necessaries of culture. Their appointment lay with the bishop, yet the founder of a church and his successors frequently retained the right of patronage in choosing their own officiating clergymen.234 Especially in the later Merovingian and earlier Carolingian periods, the Frankish clergy, superior and inferior, had become terribly corrupt. Boniface was the first to reintroduce some sort of discipline (§ 78, 5) and Charlemagne’s powerful government contributed in an extraordinary measure to the ennobling of the clergy. Yet the corruption was too general and too great to be altogether eradicated. Louis the Pious, therefore, in A.D. 816, extended to the whole kingdom a reformation which Chrodegang of Metz had introduced fifty years previously among his own clergy, by which means discipline and order were again improved for some decades. But in the troublous times of the last Carolingians everything went again into confusion and decay. Exemption from civil jurisdiction was accorded the clergy during this period only to this extent, that the secular courts could not proceed against a clergyman without the advice of the bishop, and the bishop himself was subject only to the jurisdiction of the king and the Provincial Synod.

§ 84.1. The Superior Clergy.―In the German states from the earliest times the superior clergy constituted a spiritual aristocracy which by means of their higher culture won a more influential position in civil life than the secular nobles. In all important affairs of state the bishops were the advisers of the king; they were almost exclusively employed on embassies; on all commissions there were clerical members and always one half of the Missi dominici were clerics. This nearness to the person of the king and their importance in civil life made them rank as one of the estates of the realm. The Frankish idea of immunity, in consequence of which by royal gift along with the rights of territorial lords there were handed over to the new proprietors also the princely right of levying taxes and administering justice, brought to them secular as well as spiritual jurisdiction over a great part of the land. As the court of the Frankish king was moved from place to place, he required a special court, chapel, with a numerous court-clergy, at the head of which was an Arch-chaplain, usually the most distinguished prelate in the land. The names Capella and Capellani were originally applied only to court chapels and court chaplains, and were derived from the fact that in the chapel was kept the Cappa or coat of Martin of Tours as a precious relic and the national palladium of France. The court clergy formed the nursery for future bishops of the realm. In addition to the ring and staff as episcopal insignia we find in the Carolingian age the bishop’s cap, consisting of two long sheets of tin or pasteboard running up to a peak, covered with silk of the same colour as the dress used in celebrating mass, generally richly ornamented with gold and precious stones, called by the old pagan name Infula or Mitra.235

§ 84.2. The Inferior Clergy.―The enormous expansion of episcopal dioceses rendered a new arrangement of the inferior clergy indispensable. The extension churches in towns and the country churches which previously had been served by the clergy of the cathedral church, obtained a regular clergy of their own. As these churches were always dedicated to a saint they were called Tituli, and the clergy appointed to officiate in them, Intitulati, Incardinati, Cardinales. Thus originated the idea of Parochia, παροικία and of Parochus or parish priest,236 who, because the cura animarum was committed to him was also called Curate, as in the French curé. Over about ten parishes was placed an Archipresbyter ruralis who was called Decanus, Dean. As the right of administering baptism belonged originally to him exclusively, his church was called Ecclesia baptisimalis; his diocese, Christianitas or Plebs; he himself also, Plebanus. A further arrangement was first introduced in the 8th century by Heddo of Strasburg [Strassburg], who gave to each of the deans in his diocese seven archdeacons, præpositi, provosts. Besides the parish churches there were many chapels or oratories where divine service was conducted only at certain times by the neighbouring parish clergy or chaplains appointed for that purpose. To this class also belong the domestic chapels in episcopal residences or on the estates of noblemen which were served by special domestic or castle chaplains. The latter indeed had in addition the duty of feeding the dogs, waiting at table and taking charge of the lady’s pony. Notwithstanding repeated reinforcement of the old law: Ne quis vage ordinetur, there was still a great number of so-called Clericis vagis, mostly vagabonds and idlers, who, ordained by unprincipled bishops for a reward, roamed over the country like clerical pedlars.

§ 84.3. Compulsory Celibacy was stoutly resisted by the German clergy. The inferior clergy were mostly married. At ordination they were ordered indeed to separate from their wives and to abstain from marital intercourse, but the promise was rarely fulfilled. Among the unmarried clergy, fornication, adultery and unnatural lust were prevalent. A bishop, Ulrich of Augsburg, addressed to Nicholas I. a philippic against the law of celibacy with fearless exposures of its evil consequences. The moral condition of the clergy was generally speaking shockingly low. Legacy hunting, forging of documents, simony and chaffering for benefices were carried on in a shameless way. The lordly habits of the bishops consisted in hunting, going about with dogs and falcons, and in wild drunken revels. In the 7th century it was the peculiar pleasure of the Frankish bishops in wild scenes of blood that induced them to take part in the wars, and led to their being afterwards obliged to fit out contingents for the field at the cost of their ecclesiastical revenues. Pepin, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious passed stringent laws against these warlike habits of churchmen; but the later Carolingians not only tolerated but actually encouraged them.

§ 84.4. Canonical life.―Augustine’s institution of a monasterii Clericorum (§ 45, 1) was often imitated in later times. But bishop Chrodegang of Metz, who died in A.D. 766, gave it for the first time, about A.D. 760, a fixed and permanent form. His rule or Canon is closely connected with the monastic rule of St. Benedict (§ 85), with the omission of the vow of poverty. He built a commodious residence Domus, monasterium (comp. Germ. words Dom and Münster), in which all the clergy of his cathedral church were obliged to live, pray, work, eat and sleep under the constant and strict supervision of the bishop or his archdeacon. This was the Vita canonica. After morning devotions all the members of the establishment gathered together in the hall where the bishop or provost read to them a chapter from the Bible, most frequently from Leviticus, from the rule or from the fathers, and added thereto the necessary explanations and exhortations. The hall was therefore called the Chapter House; then the name Chapter237 was given to the whole body gathered together there. The Colleges238 were a subsequent development of the chapter in non-episcopal city churches, with a provost or deacon at their head. Louis the Pious allowed Chrodegang’s rule to be revived and generalized by the deacon Amalarius of Metz, and at the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817 enforced it for the whole kingdom. It is known as Regula Aquisgranensis. But soon after the Canons endeavoured to emancipate themselves more and more from the burdensome yoke of episcopal control. Gunther of Cologne (§ 82, 7) who, though deposed by the pope, retained his official position, was obliged to purchase the support of his chapter by a bargain in accordance with which a great part of the ecclesiastical revenues of the chapter were placed at their own full disposal as Prebends or Benefices. And what this one chapter gained for itself was afterwards contended for by others.239―Continuation, § 97, 3.

§ 85. Monasticism.240

While from the 5th century one rush of migrating peoples was rapidly followed by another, the monkish orders fell into decay, barbarism and corruption. They would scarcely have survived this period of commotion, at least would not have proved the great blessing that they have been to the German west, had not the spirit of ancient Rome with its practical turn, its appreciation of law and order and its organizing talent, given them at the right time, what they hitherto wanted, a rule answering to the requirements and circumstances of the age, and by means of it firm footing, unity, order and legal form. This task was accomplished by Benedict of Nursia (d. A.D. 543), the patriarch of Western Monasticism. The rule, which he prescribed in A.D. 529 to the monks of the monastery of Monte Cassino in Campania founded by him, was not unduly ascetic, combined strict discipline with a certain degree of mildness and indulgence, estimated the needs of human nature as well as the circumstances of the times, and was, in short, adaptable and practical. From the rule of Cassiodorus (§ 47, 23) Benedict’s disciples borrowed that zeal for scholarly studies about which their master had given no directions, and Gregory the Great inspired the order with enthusiasm for missionary labours. Thus the Benedictine order obtained its full consecration to its calling of worldwide significance. Soon spreading over all the West, being introduced into France by Maurus in A.D. 543, it nobly fulfilled its vocation by cultivating the soil and the mind, by clearing the forests, bringing in waste lands, zealously preaching the gospel, rooting out superstition and paganism, educating the young, fostering and restoring literature, science and art. The barbarous age, however, which saw the overthrow of the Merovingians and the rise of the Carolingians, exerted a deteriorating influence also on the Benedictines. But Charlemagne restored strict discipline, and assigned to the monasteries the task of erecting schools and prosecuting scholarly studies. By authority of Louis the Pious and by order of the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817, Benedict of Aniane undertook a reformation and re-organization of all the monkish systems throughout the empire. At the head of a commission appointed for that purpose he visited all the Frankish monasteries, and compelled them to organize themselves after his improved Benedictine Rule.

§ 85.1. The one source of information regarding the life of Benedict of Nursia is the miracle-laden record of the miracle-loving pope Gregory the Great in the second book of his Dialogues. Benedict’s Rule comprises 73 chapters. The first principle of the monastic life is obedience to the Abbot, as representative of Christ. The choice of abbot lies with the brothers. Of serving brothers the rule knows nothing. The chief occupation is agriculture. Idleness is strictly forbidden. Charge of the kitchen and reading at table are duties performed by all the monks in turn week about. Divine service begins at 3 a.m. and is rendered regularly through all the seven hours (§ 56, 2). Two meals a day are partaken of and each monk has daily half a bottle of wine. Flesh meat is given only to the sick and weak. At table and after the Completorium or last hour of prayer, no word was allowed to be spoken. All the brothers slept in a common dormitory, each in a separate bed, but completely dressed and girded, so as to be ready at call for matins. The discipline was strict and reasonable; first private, then public rebuke, then penal fasting, corporal punishment, and finally excommunication. Hospitality and attention to the poor were enjoined on all monasteries. Reception was preceded by a year’s novitiate. The vow included Stabilitas loci, Conversio morum (poverty and chastity) and Obedientia. The Oblati were a special kind of novices, i.e. children who in their early youth were placed in the monastery by their parents. They were educated in the monastic schools and were not allowed to go back to the world.

§ 85.2. Benedict of Aniane (A.D. 821) was originally called Witiza and was the son of a Visigoth count. He had served as a soldier under Charlemagne. In attempting to save his brother he was himself almost drowned. His ambition was now directed to an ascetic life, in which his personal performances were most remarkable. On the river Anianus in Languedoc he founded in A.D. 779 the monastery of Aniane. He was the indispensable and all-powerful counsellor of Louis the Pious. In order to have him always near him, Louis founded for him the monastery of Inda or the Cornelius-Münster near Aachen. In the interests of his cloister reform he published in A.D. 817 a Codex regulorum in which he collected all the monastic rules previously known.

§ 85.3. The rule of the elder Benedict made no reference to Nunneries; but his sister Scholastica is regarded as the founder of the order of female Benedictines. Another form of female asceticism was developed after the model of the canonical life of the secular clergy in the institution of canonesses. The rule, which Louis the Pious at Aachen in A.D. 816 allowed them to draw up for themselves, is distinctly milder than that of the nuns. The ladies’ orders gradually became places of resort for the unmarried daughters of the nobles. The canonical age for taking the nun’s vows was twenty-five. The novitiate lasted three years. Besides the propria professio the paterna devotio was also regarded as binding. In regard to dress the adoption of the veil was the main thing; but in addition they wore the wreath as a symbol of virginity and the ring as token of spiritual marriage. At this time the cutting of the hair was only a punishment for unchaste nuns. The honourable position of the wife among the Germans secured special respect for the abbess, and obtained for the most famous nunneries exemption, civil prerogatives and proprietary, even princely rights. The frequent appearance of Double-Cloisters where monks and nuns, naturally in separate dwellings, under a common rule either of an abbess as often in England, or of an abbot, was also peculiarly German.

§ 85.4. The Greater Monasteries, formed as they were of a vast number of separate buildings for agriculture, cattle rearing, handicraft and arts of all kinds, for elementary teaching, for higher education, for hospitable entertainment, caring for the sick, etc., came by and by to attain the proportions of little towns. Frequently they were the centre around which cities were raised. The monastery of Vivarium in Calabria, Cassiodorus’ foundation, inspired Western monasticism with an enthusiasm for scholarly studies. The regulations of Monte Cassino were extended to all monasteries of the West. Columbanus’ monastery of Bobbio rooted out paganism and Arianism in northern Italy. The monasteries of Iona in Scotland and Bangor in Ireland gained high repute in the struggle of the Celtic church against the Roman. The English monastery of Wearmouth was a famous school of science. In France St. Denys near Paris and Old Corbei in Picardy gained a high reputation. In South Germany St. Gall, Reichenau, Lorsch and Hirschau, in Central Germany Fulda, Hersfeld and Fritzlar, and in North Germany New Corbei, a branch from Old Corbei, were main centres of Christian culture.

§ 85.5. In its new Western form also monasticism was still without the clerical character. But there was an ever-increasing tendency to draw the monastic and the clerical institutions more and more closely together. By means of celibacy and the introduction of the canonical life (§ 84, 4) the clergy came to have the monkish character, and on the other hand, most of the monks, in the first instance for monastic and mission services, took clerical orders. By and by monks sought appointments as curates (§ 84, 2), and thus rivalries arose between them and the clergy. The monasteries were wholly under the jurisdiction of the bishops in whose diocese they lay. The exemptions of this period were limited to security for the free election of the abbot, independent administration of property and gratuitous performance of consecrations by the bishop. In the Frankish empire, however, abbots were ordinarily appointed to vacancies by the court, and rich abbeys were also often bestowed upon distinguished noblemen in commendam, i.e., for temporary administration with the enjoyment of their revenues, or even to court and military officers as a reward for special services. Such lay abbots or abbacomites often stayed in the monasteries for months with their families, their huntsmen and their soldiers, and made them the scene of their drinking bouts, their field sports and their military exercises. The kings retained the richest abbacies to themselves or gave them to their sons and daughters, wives and concubines.

§ 85.6. The Stylites (§ 44, 6) on account of the climate, could gain no footing, though attempts were indeed made, e.g. by Wulflaich (§ 78, 3). In place of them we find male and female recluses, Reclusi (Inclusi) and Reclusæ, who shut themselves up in cells which they never quitted. Hermits of the Woods, unfettered by any rules, found great favour among the Germans. Their national melancholic temperament inclining them to solitude, their strong love of nature, their passionate delight in roaming unchecked through woods and mountains, contributed to make such a mode of life attractive. It was during the 6th century that this craze for hermit life reached its height in Germany, and its main seat was in Auvergne with its wild mountains, glens and gorges. But as the cell of the saint was often in later times developed into a monastery on account of the crowds of disciples that gathered round, the hermit life gradually passed over into a regulated cœnobite life. In Switzerland Meinard, son of a count of Zollern, was a hermit of this sort. In A.D. 861 he had been murdered by two robbers, and this was afterwards discovered, the legend says, by means of two ravens feeding upon the body of the murdered man. His cell in later times grew into the beautiful Benedictine abbey of Maria-Einsiedeln with its miracle-working image of the mother of God, which at this day is visited by more than a hundred thousand pilgrims yearly.

§ 86. The Property of Churches and Monasteries.

The inalienableness of church property being regarded as the first principle of its administration, it grew by enormous strides from year to year through donations and legacies, At the end of the 7th century there was in Gaul fully a third of the whole territory in the possession of the churches and monasteries, while the national exchequer was quite exhausted. In this emergency Charles Martel founded the benefice system, for which he also converted into money the abundant possessions of the church. His sons, however, Carloman and Pepin the Short, in consideration of the reorganization of the Frankish church effected by Boniface (§ 78, 5), sought to avert the impoverishment of many churches and cloisters by a partial restitution so far as the neediness of the times would allow. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious did still more in this direction, so that partly by these means, partly by the continued donations of rich people, church property soon acquired its earlier proportions. Thus, e.g., the monastery of Luxeuil had in the 9th century an estate with 15,000 farm-houses upon it.―The administration of the property of churches and monasteries lay in the hands of the bishops and abbots. For defending and maintaining secular and legal rights there were ecclesiastical and monastic advocates, Advocati ecclesiæ. This institution, however, often degenerated into an agency for oppressing the peasants and plundering the property of their clients; for many advocates assumed arbitrary powers and dealt with the property of the church and its proceeds just as they chose.

§ 86.1. The Revenues of Churches and Monasteries.―The main sources of their growing wealth were donations and legacies. Princes often made bequests of enormous magnitude and rich people in private life vied with them. Occasions were never wanting; restoration from sickness, escape from danger, the birth of a child, etc., regularly won for the church whose patron saint had been helpful, some valuable present. The clergy also used all means in their power to encourage this prevailing readiness to bestow presents; and to this must in great measure be traced the beginnings of the forging of deeds. A peculiar form for bequeathing a gift was that of the Precaria, according to which the giver retained to himself for his lifetime the use of the goods which he gifted. Church property was farther greatly increased by the personal possessions of the clergy and the monks, which at the death of the former and at the conversio of the latter usually became part of the revenue of the church or cloister to which their owners belonged. Besides the proceeds of its own estates the church drew the tithes of all property and incomes of parishioners, the claim being enforced as a jus divinum by a reference to the Mosaic legislation and made a law of the empire by the injunction of Charlemagne. On the other hand the clergy were forbidden to exact payment for discharge of official duties, so called stole-dues, because they were performed by the priest dressed in the stola. The cathedral church was entitled to an annual tax, Honor cathedræ, levied upon all the churches of the diocese. The inferior clergy, on the other hand, often arrogated to themselves the right in accordance with a bad custom of grasping by violent plunder the possessions of their deceased bishop, Spolium.241

§ 86.2. The Benefice System.―In consequence of the vast gifts of the Merovingians to the churches and their ministrants, when Charles Martel assumed the government, the sources of crown revenue that hitherto seemed inexhaustible were almost completely dried up, while this prince, in order to deliver the country from the Saracens and in order to maintain his rule over against the innumerable petty tyrants who threatened to dismember the empire, required a yet fuller treasury than any of his predecessors. Out of these circumstances grew the Benefice System. The soldiers who had served the nation and princes had been as before rewarded by grants of lands. These, however, were no longer given as hereditary possessions but only for the lifetime of the receiver (Beneficium), and for this he was under obligation to supply a proportionate contingent for military service. When the crown lands had been well nigh exhausted, Charles Martel did not hesitate to lay claim to the church property. His son Carloman at the first Austrasian national Synod in A.D. 742 (§ 78, 5) promised to restore the church property that had thus been alienated, but had soon to confess his inability to perform his promise. At the second Austrasian Synod at Lestines in A.D. 743 he therefore limited the immediate restitution to the most pressing cases of notoriously poor and needy churches and monasteries. He was driven to this by the absolutely needful claims of the civil and military departments. But the claim of the church to get back the property was secured by the beneficiary giving a Precarial letter and by the payment of an annual tax of a solidus for every farm house on the estate. The king also promised the full restoration on the death of the beneficiary, with express retention, however, of the right, if the needs of the times required it, to lease out again the vacant precariæ. Even Pepin at the Neustrian national Synod at Soissons in A.D. 744 granted similar concessions, but yet in the execution of them did not go so far as his brother. In A.D. 751 he caused a descriptio et divisio, i.e. an inventory of church property with an exact fixing of the limits of its various titles to be made.242―The annual tax referred to was transformed by Charlemagne into a second tithe, the so-called Nonæ. But even after the partial restitution effected by the descendants of Pepin there still remained upon the restored property the beneficial burdens that had been laid upon it, especially the obligation to supply and equip a certain number of soldiers, and this was thence transferred to the whole property of the church.―The benefice system, originating in the pressure of circumstances, continued to spread more and more, and formed the foundation of the entire social and civil organization of the Middle Ages.243

§ 87. Ecclesiastical Legislation.

The construction of ecclesiastical legislation for the German empire was at first wholly the work of the Synods. The popes exerted scarcely any influence upon it, but all the more powerfully was felt the influence of the kings. They summoned the Synods, laid down to them the subjects to be discussed, and confirmed according to their own judgment their decisions. From the time that the Frankish bishoprics were filled by native Franks the independent life of the Synods was quenched, and ecclesiastical affairs were arranged at the national assemblies in which the bishops also took part as territorial nobles. The great national Synods, too, at which Boniface’s reorganization of the church in accordance with Roman ecclesiastical law as carried (§ 78, 5) were Concilia mixta of this kind; and even under Charlemagne and Louis of France these were still prevalent. Charles, however, made their proceedings more orderly by grouping the nobles into three ranks as bishops, abbots and counts. Under the Pepin dynasty alongside of the synodal we have the royal decrees, arranged in separate chapters, and hence the ordinances are called Capitularia. Purely ecclesiastical Synods in later times again gained a footing and were particularly numerous in the times of Hincmar.

§ 87.1. Older Collections of Ecclesiastical Law.―Gregory II. furnished Boniface with a Codex canonum, undoubtedly the Dionysiaca (§ 43, 3), and Hadrian II. presented Charlemagne with one which was solemnly received at the National Synod of Aachen in A.D. 802. There was in Spain a new collection which was erroneously attributed to bishop Isidore of Seville, who to distinguish him from the Frankish Pseudo-Isidore is designated the genuine Isidore, or more correctly as Hispana. This collection in form attaches itself to Dionysiaca. In the 9th century it was introduced among the Franks, and here gave contents and name to the Pseudo-Isidorian collection. In close connection with this masterpiece of forgery stands the collection of laws by Benedictus Levita of Mainz, which was indeed called a collection of capitularies, but was gathered mainly from documents of ecclesiastical legislation, genuine and spurious. A collection of true and genuine capitularies was made in A.D. 827 by Ansegis, Abbot of Fontenelles. Benedict’s collection was included in it as 5th, 6th, and 7th books. Besides these large collections many bishops prepared epitomized collections for the use of their own dioceses, of which several are extant under the name of Capitula Episcoporum. Decidedly in the interest of the Pseudo-Isidore are the Capitula Angilramni, composed and subscribed by bishop Angilramnus of Metz (d. A.D. 791). The dates and contents of the three first-named collections were determined in the interest of the Pseudo-Isidorian, and are still a matter of controversy. Benedict, according to his own credible statement, undertook his work at the command of the archbishop Otgar, of Mainz, for the archives of Mainz, but completed and published it probably in France only after Otgar’s death, which occurred in A.D. 847. But while in earlier times it was generally believed that Benedict had used the Pseudo-Isidore, Hinschius has become convinced that the author of the capitula is identical with the Pseudo-Isidore, and from Benedict’s capitularies has unravelled first the composition of the capitula and then that of the decretals.244