Volume 6 Part 32 (2/2)
[Footnote 11: Hume's History of England, vol. i. p. 419. The same writer has given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of cruelty perpetrated on the clergy by Geoffrey, the father of Henry II. ”When he was master of Normandy, the chapter of Seez presumed, without his consent, to proceed to the election of a bishop: upon which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es be brought him in a platter.” Of the pain and danger they might justly complain; yet since they had vowed chast.i.ty he deprived them of a superfluous treasure.]
Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence. But the long hostility of the mitre and the crown increased the numbers, and inflamed the pa.s.sions, of their enemies. The deadly factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, so fatal to Italy, could never be embraced with truth or constancy by the Romans, the subjects and adversaries both of the bishop and emperor; but their support was solicited by both parties, and they alternately displayed in their banners the keys of St. Peter and the German eagle. Gregory the Seventh, who may be adored or detested as the founder of the papal monarchy, was driven from Rome, and died in exile at Salerno. Six-and-thirty of his successors, [12] till their retreat to Avignon, maintained an unequal contest with the Romans: their age and dignity were often violated; and the churches, in the solemn rites of religion, were polluted with sedition and murder. A repet.i.tion [13]
of such capricious brutality, without connection or design, would be tedious and disgusting; and I shall content myself with some events of the twelfth century, which represent the state of the popes and the city. On Holy Thursday, while Paschal officiated before the altar, he was interrupted by the clamors of the mult.i.tude, who imperiously demanded the confirmation of a favorite magistrate. His silence exasperated their fury; his pious refusal to mingle the affairs of earth and heaven was encountered with menaces, and oaths, that he should be the cause and the witness of the public ruin. During the festival of Easter, while the bishop and the clergy, barefooted and in procession, visited the tombs of the martyrs, they were twice a.s.saulted, at the bridge of St. Angelo, and before the Capitol, with volleys of stones and darts. The houses of his adherents were levelled with the ground: Paschal escaped with difficulty and danger; he levied an army in the patrimony of St. Peter; and his last days were embittered by suffering and inflicting the calamities of civil war. The scenes that followed the election of his successor Gelasius the Second were still more scandalous to the church and city. Cencio Frangipani, [14] a potent and factious baron, burst into the a.s.sembly furious and in arms: the cardinals were stripped, beaten, and trampled under foot; and he seized, without pity or respect, the vicar of Christ by the throat. Gelasius was dragged by the hair along the ground, buffeted with blows, wounded with spurs, and bound with an iron chain in the house of his brutal tyrant. An insurrection of the people delivered their bishop: the rival families opposed the violence of the Frangipani; and Cencio, who sued for pardon, repented of the failure, rather than of the guilt, of his enterprise.
Not many days had elapsed, when the pope was again a.s.saulted at the altar. While his friends and enemies were engaged in a b.l.o.o.d.y contest, he escaped in his sacerdotal garments. In this unworthy flight, which excited the compa.s.sion of the Roman matrons, his attendants were scattered or unhorsed; and, in the fields behind the church of St.
Peter, his successor was found alone and half dead with fear and fatigue. Shaking the dust from his feet, the _apostle_ withdrew from a city in which his dignity was insulted and his person was endangered; and the vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in the involuntary confession, that one emperor was more tolerable than twenty. [15] These examples might suffice; but I cannot forget the sufferings of two pontiffs of the same age, the second and third of the name of Lucius.
The former, as he ascended in battle array to a.s.sault the Capitol, was struck on the temple by a stone, and expired in a few days. The latter was severely wounded in the person of his servants. In a civil commotion, several of his priests had been made prisoners; and the inhuman Romans, reserving one as a guide for his brethren, put out their eyes, crowned them with ludicrous mitres, mounted them on a.s.ses with their faces towards the tail, and extorted an oath, that, in this wretched condition, they should offer themselves as a lesson to the head of the church. Hope or fear, la.s.situde or remorse, the characters of the men, and the circ.u.mstances of the times, might sometimes obtain an interval of peace and obedience; and the pope was restored with joyful acclamations to the Lateran or Vatican, from whence he had been driven with threats and violence. But the root of mischief was deep and perennial; and a momentary calm was preceded and followed by such tempests as had almost sunk the bark of St. Peter. Rome continually presented the aspect of war and discord: the churches and palaces were fortified and a.s.saulted by the factions and families; and, after giving peace to Europe, Calistus the Second alone had resolution and power to prohibit the use of private arms in the metropolis. Among the nations who revered the apostolic throne, the tumults of Rome provoked a general indignation; and in a letter to his disciple Eugenius the Third, St.
Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit and zeal, has stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people. [16] ”Who is ignorant,” says the monk of Clairvaux, ”of the vanity and arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they vent their discontent in loud clamors, if your doors, or your counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have never learned the science of doing good. Odious to earth and heaven, impious to G.o.d, seditious among themselves, jealous of their neighbors, inhuman to strangers, they love no one, by no one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire fear, they live in base and continual apprehension.
They will not submit; they know not how to govern faithless to their superiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and alike impudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty in promise, poor in execution; adulation and calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts of their policy.” Surely this dark portrait is not colored by the pencil of Christian charity; [17] yet the features, however harsh or ugly, express a lively resemblance of the Roman of the twelfth century. [18]
[Footnote 12: From Leo IX. and Gregory VII. an authentic and contemporary series of the lives of the popes by the cardinal of Arragon, Pandulphus Pisa.n.u.s, Bernard Guido, &c., is inserted in the Italian Historians of Muratori, (tom. iii. P. i. p. 277--685,) and has been always before my eyes.]
[Footnote 13: The dates of years in the contents may throughout his this chapter be understood as tacit references to the Annals of Muratori, my ordinary and excellent guide. He uses, and indeed quotes, with the freedom of a master, his great collection of the Italian Historians, in xxviii. volumes; and as that treasure is in my library, I have thought it an amus.e.m.e.nt, if not a duty, to consult the originals.]
[Footnote 14: I cannot refrain from transcribing the high-colored words of Pandulphus Pisa.n.u.s, (p. 384.) Hoc audiens inimicus pacis atque turbator jam fatus Centius Fraj.a.pane, more draconis immanissimi sibilans, et ab imis pectoribus trahens longa suspiria, accinctus retro gladio sine more cucurrit, valvas ac fores confregit. Ecclesiam furibundus introiit, inde custode remoto papam per gulam accepit, distraxit pugnis calcibusque percussit, et tanquam brutum animal intra limen ecclesiae acriter calcaribus cruentavit; et latro tantum dominum per capillos et brachia, Jesu bono interim dormiente, detraxit, ad domum usque deduxit, inibi catenavit et inclusit.]
[Footnote 15: Ego coram Deo et Ecclesia dico, si unquam possibile esset, mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos, (Vit. Gelas. II. p. 398.)]
[Footnote 16: Quid tam notum seculis quam protervia et cervicositas Romanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui a.s.sueta, gens immitis et intractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi c.u.m non valet resistere, (de Considerat. l. iv. c. 2, p. 441.) The saint takes breath, and then begins again: Hi, invisi terrae et clo, utrique injecere ma.n.u.s, &c., (p.
443.)]
[Footnote 17: As a Roman citizen, Petrarch takes leave to observe, that Bernard, though a saint, was a man; that he might be provoked by resentment, and possibly repent of his hasty pa.s.sion, &c. (Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 330.)]
[Footnote 18: Baronius, in his index to the xiith volume of his Annals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of Romani _Catholici_ and _Schismatici_: to the former he applies all the good, to the latter all the evil, that is told of the city.]
The Jews had rejected the Christ when he appeared among them in a plebeian character; and the Romans might plead their ignorance of his vicar when he a.s.sumed the pomp and pride of a temporal sovereign. In the busy age of the crusades, some sparks of curiosity and reason were rekindled in the Western world: the heresy of Bulgaria, the Paulician sect, was successfully transplanted into the soil of Italy and France; the Gnostic visions were mingled with the simplicity of the gospel; and the enemies of the clergy reconciled their pa.s.sions with their conscience, the desire of freedom with the profession of piety. [19] The trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of Brescia, [20]
whose promotion in the church was confined to the lowest rank, and who wore the monastic habit rather as a garb of poverty than as a uniform of obedience. His adversaries could not deny the wit and eloquence which they severely felt; they confess with reluctance the specious purity of his morals; and his errors were recommended to the public by a mixture of important and beneficial truths. In his theological studies, he had been the disciple of the famous and unfortunate Abelard, [21] who was likewise involved in the suspicion of heresy: but the lover of Eloisa was of a soft and flexible nature; and his ecclesiastic judges were edified and disarmed by the humility of his repentance. From this master, Arnold most probably imbibed some metaphysical definitions of the Trinity, repugnant to the taste of the times: his ideas of baptism and the eucharist are loosely censured; but a political heresy was the source of his fame and misfortunes. He presumed to quote the declaration of Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world: he boldly maintained, that the sword and the sceptre were intrusted to the civil magistrate; that temporal honors and possessions were lawfully vested in secular persons; that the abbots, the bishops, and the pope himself, must renounce either their state or their salvation; and that after the loss of their revenues, the voluntary t.i.thes and oblations of the faithful would suffice, not indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life in the exercise of spiritual labors. During a short time, the preacher was revered as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia against her bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous lessons. But the favor of the people is less permanent than the resentment of the priest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been condemned by Innocent the Second, [22] in the general council of the Lateran, the magistrates themselves were urged by prejudice and fear to execute the sentence of the church. Italy could no longer afford a refuge; and the disciple of Abelard escaped beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and hospitable shelter in Zurich, now the first of the Swiss cantons. From a Roman station, [23] a royal villa, a chapter of n.o.ble virgins, Zurich had gradually increased to a free and flouris.h.i.+ng city; where the appeals of the Milanese were sometimes tried by the Imperial commissaries. [24] In an age less ripe for reformation, the precursor of Zuinglius was heard with applause: a brave and simple people imbibed, and long retained, the color of his opinions; and his art, or merit, seduced the bishop of Constance, and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, the interest of their master and their order. Their tardy zeal was quickened by the fierce exhortations of St. Bernard; [25] and the enemy of the church was driven by persecution to the desperate measures of erecting his standard in Rome itself, in the face of the successor of St. Peter.
[Footnote 19: The heresies of the xiith century may be found in Mosheim, (Inst.i.tut. Hist. Eccles. p. 419--427,) who entertains a favorable opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the vth volume I have described the sect of the Paulicians, and followed their migration from Armenia to Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France.]
[Footnote 20: The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are drawn by Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. l. vii. c. 31, de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 27, l. ii. c. 21,) and in the iiid book of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gunthur, who flourished A.D. 1200, in the monastery of Paris near Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimae aetatis, tom. iii.
p. 174, 175.) The long pa.s.sage that relates to Arnold is produced by Guilliman, (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 108.) *
Note: Compare Franke, Arnold von Brescia und seine Zeit. Zurich, 1828.--M.]
[Footnote 21: The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing, with much levity and learning, the articles of Abelard, Foulkes, Heloise, in his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard and St. Bernard, of scholastic and positive divinity, is well understood by Mosheim, (Inst.i.tut. Hist. Eccles. p. 412--415.)]
[Footnote 22: ----d.a.m.natus ab illo Praesule, qui numeros vet.i.tum contingere nostros Nomen ad _innocua_ ducit laudabile vita.
We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who turns the unpoetical name of Innocent II. into a compliment.]
[Footnote 23: A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been found at Zurich, (D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaul, p. 642--644;) but it is without sufficient warrant, that the city and canton have usurped, and even monopolized, the names of Tigurum and Pagus Tigurinus.]
[Footnote 24: Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 106) recapitulates the donation (A.D. 833) of the emperor Lewis the Pious to his daughter the abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram Turegum in ducatu Alamanniae in pago Durgaugensi, with villages, woods, meadows, waters, slaves, churches, &c.; a n.o.ble gift. Charles the Bald gave the jus monetae, the city was walled under Otho I., and the line of the bishop of Frisingen, n.o.bile Turegum multarum copia rerum, is repeated with pleasure by the antiquaries of Zurich.]
[Footnote 25: Bernard, Epistol. cxcv. tom. i. p. 187--190. Amidst his invectives he drops a precious acknowledgment, qui, utinam quam sanae esset doctrinae quam districtae est vitae. He owns that Arnold would be a valuable acquisition for the church.]
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.--Part II.
<script>