Part 12 (1/2)
Not content with creating against this prince a new Lombard league, Gregory, impatient to remove him from the midst of European affairs, summoned him to perform the vow which he had taken to go and combat the infidels in Palestine. Frederick embarked, but called back to Brundosium by illness, was excommunicated as a perjurer: he resumed his route, and for proceeding without absolution he was excommunicated anew. He arrives, he compels the sultan of Egypt to abandon Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Sidon to him, yet, because he treats with an infidel and signs a truce, he is a third time excommunicated. On returning to Europe, he found La Fouille invaded, Italy armed against the empire, and his own son drawn by the pontiff into rebellion and almost into parricide. He triumphed, nevertheless, over so many enemies, arrested and imprisoned his unnatural son, and above all took advantage of a sedition of the Romans against the pope. The Romans who had resumed under Honorius the love of independence, banished Gregory IX. who, compelled to negotiate with the emperor, consented to absolve him for a large sum of money. But Gregory, among other pretensions, claimed Sardinia as a domain of the Holy See. Frederick claimed it as a fief of the empire. Now follows a fourth excommunication, in which Gregory, by the authority of 'Father, Son and Holy Ghost,' the authority of the apostles and his own, anathematizes 'Frederick, late emperor,' looses from their oaths those who had sworn fidelity to him, and forbids them to recognize him as sovereign. This bull, sent to all monarchs, lords, and prelates of Christendom, was accompanied by a circular letter, which commands the publication of the anathema, to the sound of bells, throughout all the churches. Various writings of the Holy Father4 represent Frederick as one of the monarchs described in the Apocalypse; political and religious crimes of every species are imputed to this prince by him, even that of having termed Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, three impostors. Frederick stooped to reply to this torrent of accusation and insult; and that the apology should correspond with the accusation, he treated Gregory as Balaam, as Antichrist, the great dragon, the prince of darkness. By a special epistle5 to the king of France, Louis IX. or St. Louis the pope offered the empire to the brother of this monarch, Robert count of Artois, on condition that the French should make a crusade against Frederick. St. Louis replied, that he saw with astonishment a pope attempt to depose an emperor; that such a power belonged to a general council alone, and only on the plea of the acknowledged unworthiness of the sovereign; that Frederick on the contrary appeared irreproachable; that he had exposed himself to the dangers of war and of the sea, for the service of Jesus Christ, while Gregory, his implacable enemy, took advantage of his absence to plunder him of his States; that the pope, counting for nothing the rivers of blood which had flowed to satisfy his ambition or his vengeance, wished to subject the emperor, for the sole purpose of afterwards subjugating all the other sovereigns; that his offers proceeded less from a predilection for the French, than from inveterate hatred for Frederick; that he would, however, make inquiry as to the orthodoxy of this prince, and if he proved a heretic, would make the most implacable war against him, as in such case he would not fear doing with the pope himself. This epistle, without doubt, mingled errors of the grossest kind with the expression of the most generous resolutions. What! an a.s.sembly of priests possess the right of dethroning a sovereign! What! the religious opinions of a prince be a sufficient motive, with those who did not possess the same, to declare war against him! Yes, such were the indisputable results of those decretals from which the popes had compiled the public law of Christendom.
5 Concilior. vol. 11, p. 340, 346, 357.
6 Matt Paris, ann. 1239, p. 444.-Daniels, Hist, of France, vol. 3.
p. 210.-Bossuet Def. Cler. Gall. 1. 4. c. 6.
But the more deplorable this madness, the greater is the homage due to the prince, who, fettered by the bands of so many prejudices, could find in his own excellent heart a disinterestedness, a loyalty, and a courage, worthy of the happiest periods of history.
All the reputation of his exemplary piety was needed by Louis IX. to escape the anathemas of Gregory IX. and even the enterprises of the French bishops; for he repressed the bishops with firmness, whenever his understanding allowed him to perceive the abuses of their spiritual functions which they practised. They were seen, for the most trifling temporal interest, shut the churches, and suspend the administration of the sacraments. Experience had taught them the efficacy of these measures; they obtained by this species of pettishness the various objects of their desires. But a bishop of Beauvais, and an archbishop of Rouen, having employed this system with too little caution, and thinking proper to excommunicate some royal officers, St. Louis had their temporalities seized, and obtained from the pope a bull which forbade the interdiction of the royal chapels.:
”He had ”for a maxim, never to yield a blind respect to the ”orders of the ministers of the church, whom he ”knew to be subject to the intemperancies of pa.s.sion ”as well as other men.”
Thus does Daniel the historian express himself, the least suspected a.s.suredly that we can instance here. Joinville relates how the clergy complained bitterly of the little concern of civil officers for sentences of excommunication, and how Louis IX. expressed himself so decisively, on the necessity of ascertaining the justice of these sentences, that they abstained from urging the matter on him. This pious monarch one day caused the money levied for the Holy See to be seized, being unwilling it should be applied to the accomplishment of the ambitious projects of Gregory IX. The pontiff, to be revenged, annulled the election of Peter Chariot to the bishop.r.i.c.k of Noyou; this person was a natural and a legitimated son of Philip Augustus. Louis IX. was not to be shaken; he declared that no other person should possess this bishop.r.i.c.k. Gregory, though he exaggerated his pontifical power, though he protested, that G.o.d had confided to the pope the privileges of empire on earth as well as in heaven, confined himself to simple menaces; and France was indebted to her pious sovereign for a firmness, which he had still further occasion to manifest under the succeeding pontificates.
That of Gregory IX. more particularly memorable for the disputes with the emperor Frederick II., is so, likewise, for the publication of an ecclesiastical code compiled by Raymond de Pennafort the third general of the Dominicans. Since the decree of Gratian, decretals, and collections of decretals, had multiplied to that degree that one could scarcely see his way among them. Gregory had, to his own decisions, caused those of his predecessors from Eugenius III. to be added. There resulted from it a collection, of which the subjects are distributed into six books. A sorry verse6 which announces this distribution, maybe too faithfully translated and appreciated in the following:
Judges, judgments, the clergy, marriages, and crimes.
7 Judex, judicium, clerus, sponsalia, crimen.
The canonists cite this code under the name of 'The Decretals of Gregory IX.' or simply 'The Decretals,' and sometimes by the word 'extra,' that is, without the decree of Grattan; which decree had been for two centuries the sole source of ecclesiastical jurisprudence. As fruits of the vast correspondence of Alexander III., of Innocent III. and of Gregory IX., these five books are in every respect worthy to serve as a sequel to the decree: they have with it contributed to the propagation of maxims subversive of all government.
The election of Sinibald of Fiesque to the papacy, seemed to promise some years of peace between the priesthood and the empire: Sinibald had for a long time been connected by friends.h.i.+p with Frederick; but the cardinal friend became a pontiff enemy, even as the emperor had foretold. Innocent IV. the name of this pope, having placed on the absolution of Frederick, conditions which he would not accept, war was rekindled, and the pope, compelled to fly from Genoa, his country, came thence to solicit an asylum in France. Louis IX. consulted his barons, who maintained, that the court of Rome was always expensive to its guests, that a pope would obscure the royal dignity, and would form in the state another independent one.7 Rejected by the King of France, refused also by the King of Arragon, Innocent addressed himself to the English, whose reply was not more favourable. What! they say, have we not already simony and usury, wherefore then need a pope, who would come in person to devour the kingdom and our churches. Very well! cried the pontiff incensed at this triple affront; we must finish with Frederick; when we have crushed or tamed this great dragon, these petty serpents will not dare to raise their heads, and we shall crush them under our feet.8 To attain this object, he holds a general council at Lyons, a city which at that time belonged neither to France nor the emperor: the archbishops usurped to themselves the sovereignty in it, and maintained that it had ceased to be a fief of the empire.? There Frederick II.
was deposed:
”In virtue, says the pope, of the power to ”bind and to loose, which Jesus Christ has given ”us in the person of St Peter, we deprive the late ”emperor, Frederick, of all honor and dignity; we ”prohibit obedience to him, to consider him as em- ”peror or king, or to give aid or counsel to him, ”under the penalty of excommunication by the act ”alone.”
8 Velly, vol. iv. p. 306, 307.
? Matt. Paris, p. 600.
4 While Innocent was at Lyons, some prebends of the church of this city became vacant, and he attempted to bestow them, in the plenitude of his authority, on foreigners, his relatives; but the people, and even the clergy of Lyons, resisted him to his face, and compelled him to relinquish this undertaking.
To annihilate the house of Swabia had been for a long time the most ardent wish of the popes, especially of Innocent IV.; but he proclaimed almost fruitlessly, a crusade against Frederick: real crusades occupied them at the time, that is, expeditions into the East, and the fugitive Innocent IV. did not inherit the omnipotence of Innocent III.. The low clergy itself no longer adored the pontifical decrees: a curate of Paris, announcing to his paris.h.i.+oners that which deposed Frederick, addressed them in these remarkable words;:
”I am igno- ”rant my very dear brethren, of the motives of this ”anathema, I only know, that there exists between ”the pope and the emperor great differences, and an ”implacable hatred; which of them is right I can- ”not inform you: but I excommunicate as far as ”in me lies, him who is wrong, and I absolve him ”who is aggrieved in his privileges.”
This is the most sensible sermon which, to our knowledge, has been preached in the 17th century. St. Louis, who censured more loudly than the curate the deposition of Frederick, went to Cluni, and drew the pope there also, whom he would not suffer to enter farther into the kingdom.
Their first conferences remain secret; and all that can be said of them is, that the obstinate pontiff was deaf to the pacific counsel of the sainted king. But history4 has handed down to us a little more of the details of a second interview, which took place the following year, at Cluni also, between Innocent and Louis.:
”The Holy- ”land is in danger, said the king; and no hope ex- ”ists of delivering it without the help of the emperor ”who holds so many ports, isles, and coasts under ”his authority. Most Holy Father, accept his ”promises, I beseech you in my own name, and ”in the name of the thousands of faithful pil- ”grims, in the name of the universal church: ”open the arms to him who seeks for mercy: ”it is the gospel which commands you to do ”so; imitate the goodness of him whose vicar you ”are.”
The pope 'bridling up,' says Fleury,4 persisted in his refusal. Thus these two personages, we may say, exchanged their provinces; it was the monarch who a.s.sumed the charitable language of the gospel, it was the priest who preserved the inflexible att.i.tude of presumptuous power. At the same period, we behold a sultan of Egypt, Melie-Saleh, giving lessons of probity to the successor of St. Peter. Pressed by Innocent IV. to abandon, contrary to the faith of treaties, the interests of Frederick, Melie-Saleh replied:
”Your envoy has spoken to us about Jesus ”Christ, with whom we are better acquainted than ”you are, and whom we more worthily honour.- ”You pretend that peace between all nations is the ”object of your desires; we do not desire it less ”than you. But there exists between us and the ”emperor of the West, an alliance, a reciprocal ”friends.h.i.+p, which commenced with the reign of the ”sultan our father, whom may G.o.d receive to glory: ”we shall therefore, conclude no treaty unknown to ”Frederick, or contrary to his interests.”
4 Matt. Paris, p. 697. Velly's Hist, of France, vol. iv. p. 469.-La Chaise's Hist, of St Louis, p. 449.
4 Hist. Eccles. 1. 83. n. 40.
However, after useless attempts at reconciliation, and various vicissitudes of success and misfortune, Frederick died in 1250, probably strangled, as they say, by his son, Manfred. On receiving this news, Innocent IV. invites the heavens and the earth to rejoice; these are the very words of a letter which he wrote to the prelates, lords, and people of the kingdom of Sicily. He terms Frederick the son of Satan.4
4 Hist. Eccles. 1. 83, n. 25-26.