Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

duke Godfrey's support as even pope Stephen had been. Agnes willingly consented; and, guarded by Godfrey's soldiers, Gerard entered Rome early in 1059, and took possession of the Vatican without the least opposition.

NICHOLAS II. was the title which Gerard thenceforth assumed, and his brief pontificate was distinguished by some highly important events. Both in its ecclesiastical and its political relations, the papal power received large augmentation.

The reforming party in the church professed to aim at the re-establishment of primitive practice in all matters of discipline and order. It was on this ground that they advocated the enforcement of celibacy and the punishment of simony. The same principle would have led them to defend the election of the pope, and of bishops in general, by the suffrages of the people. We have seen, indeed, that when it suited their ends they actually pleaded this doctrine, and maintained the right of the Romans to elect their own pontiff without appealing to the emperor. But their real object was to establish the authority of the priesthood on an independent basis, removed from the interference of either the emperor on the one hand, or of the people on the other. The obtrusion of the latter had been most offensively felt in the steps lately taken by the populace at the instigation of the counts of Tusculum; and Hildebrand saw that the present occasion was highly favourable for the

commencement of a new line of policy, that should prevent such obtrusions for the future. Against the people he would certainly be supported by the strong arm of Godfrey, and the imperial court might just now be easily circumvented by guile.

A council was accordingly convened in the Lateran church, at which it was formally enacted that the election of the "bishop of the Roman universal church" should henceforth be vested with the five-and-thirty cardinal bishops and presbyters, who resided in the city and territory of Rome, and who composed the college of cardinals. Mention was indeed made in the canon both of the emperor and of the people, but in such terms as precluded either the one or the other from exercising any effectual control over the election. Whatever sentiments may have been held at the imperial court respecting this audacious procedure, no notice was taken of it at the time. The cha

racter of the empress Agnes was too timid, and the young emperor was altogether too immature, to allow of any resentment being discovered; and so the vast consequences which lay enfolded in this unjustifiable piece of policy were left to disclose themselves as the progress of events should open the way.

By a new alliance with the increasingly powerful Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke of Apulia, pope Nicholas also strengthened himself against any possible revolt of the people, and the principal occasion of such revolts was

soon afterwards removed, when Robert marched at the head of his warriors against the strongholds of those independent and turbulent nobles, who had so long disputed with the clergy and the emperor the right of nominating the popes. One by one these baronial castles were levelled with the ground, their owners killed in battle or driven into exile, and the undisputed sovereignty of central Italy was finally left in the hands of the supreme head of the church.

Whilst these political events tended to consolidate the power of the priesthood, Hildebrand zealously persevered in his labours at reforming the order itself, which process he well knew could alone give security to its new acquisitions. It was perfectly natural that the reforming party, insidious as were their real objects, should enlist on their side whatever of sincere piety yet existed in the nominal church. And it is gratifying to think that during the pontificate of Nicholas II. there were some, the motives of whose ardour in the cause of reformation are beyond suspicion. Such was Ariald, a priest of Milan, who raised his voice with invincible courage against the gross corruptions of the clergy in that city. He accused, and alas! he could justly accuse, the entire body of mercenary traffic in sacred things. Even the archbishop of Milan had purchased his office with a large sum of money.

The zeal and eloquence of Ariald soon created him a party, and the whole city of Milan was quickly divided into factions, and

engaged in a hot contest, the majority of the laity siding with Ariald, and the clergy indignantly denying, not the charges alleged against them, but the right of their accuser to interfere with their time-honoured customs. Both parties at length eagerly, and, as the sequel proves, rashly, invoked the decision of the pope. No request could have been more welcome to Hildebrand, who promptly embraced every opportunity of extending the authority of the Roman see over every other diocese. Legates were speedily sent, and a sweeping reformation was begun. All priests convicted of simony were obliged to do penance, and not a few were deprived of their livings.

But the true purpose of the reforming party was quickly discovered to be very different from what they so ostentatiously professed. This invitation of papal arbitration by the inhabitants of Milan was straightway interpreted by the Roman legates as a confession of papal supremacy, and the church of Milan, which had boasted of its independence, even from the days of the great Ambrose its primitive bishop, was to be henceforth enrolled among the subject churches of the Roman see.

Nicholas died in 1061, and the struggle between the secular and the ecclesiastical, the imperial and the papal parties, which had so long been approaching, now began in good earnest. The clouds had long been gathering blackness, and the tempest burst in fierce hurricanes upon both sides of the Alps.

It was an ill omen for the reforming party, that they did not scruple to employ any method of artifice or deceit. The principle that the end justifies the means had virtually become already the law of the Roman church. Pretending to seek reform, they really aimed at aggrandizement; and professing to be most pure, they secretly countenanced corruption of the worst kind. How could any real reformation be effected by men who themselves possessed so little of the spirit of their great Master, and who so utterly forgot that ministers especially are bound to show themselves "patterns of good works; in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned?"

CHAPTER III.

STRUGGLE OF THE POPES WITH THE EMPERORS
CAUTIOUSLY COMMENCED BY HILDEBRAND.

A.D. 1061-1073.

ANXIOUS, before proceeding to the election of a new pontiff, to ascertain how far they might presume on the forbearance of the German court, the papal party despatched thither a confidential presbyter, whose instructions were to obtain the consent of the empress regent to the election of a successor to Nicholas by the mere vote of the college of cardinals. But the empress, apprised now of the intentions of the party, had grown indignant at their audacity. She firmly refused to see the envoy, and finding

« AnteriorContinuar »