1073-1123 - The Investiture Conflict
This period shows the organizing of Western Europe into one great Christian family. Whatever civilization and mental culture the nations acquired, they owed to the Church. She was the center of their unity, temporal and spiritual. We see the influence of the papacy producing marvelous results. It originated the Crusades, founded universites, developed jurisprudence, systematized scholastic and mystic theology, encouraged the growth of art, gave rise to national consciousness and to a true national poetry and diffused a spirit of Christian brotherliness. Priest, knight and citizen worked side by side; politics, science and art, and the whole of life generally, were permeated with religion. Men were filled with aspirations for holiness and for liberty, and of both these the Church was the best protector. The ruling principle was " Observe God's law and oppose all injustice." Hence the Church was in constant struggle with the imperial power, when it became the oppressor, instead of the protector, of men's rights and liberties. The strong insistence on the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal authority, was a duty constantly forced upon the Church by the peculiar circumstances of her position.
As Cardinal Hildebrand, Gregory VII (1073-1085) had held responsible positions under five popes; and upon the death of Alexander II, the unanimous voice of clergy and people called him to the papal throne. At the time of his election conditions were deplorable. The emperors had made good political use of their right of choosing bishops; and had been more careful to select men friendly to themselves than men who were spiritual minded and fit to govern the Church. From the first this invasion of ecclesiastical territory had been unfortunate; eventually, it became intolerable. The emperor took it on himself, not only to make his own arbitrary selection of bishops; but even to invest them with the insignia of their office, the ring and the crosier. This right of investiture enabled princes to force unworthy men, stained with simony and concubinage, upon the Church. As long as such arbitrary power lasted, no hope for reform could be entertained. Hence when Gregory commenced his great work of restoring the liberties of the Church and of reforming the clergy, it was at the right of investiture that he first struck. No one knew better than the pope what a gigantic struggle he would be obliged to undertake in order to free the Church from the evils that beset her.
Gregory began the attack at once and, in the very year of his accession, wrote to Henry IV (1056-1106), the dissolute emperor of Germany, advising him to amend his life. At the first Lenten Synod (1074), Gregory restored the ancient laws of the Church against simony and concubinage, and forbade the people to assist at the services of lawless clerics. Thus he made the people the co-executors of ecclesiastical law. The guilty clergy offered the most determined opposition. Bishops who undertook to force the decrees were threatened with death. Slander and hatred assailed the pope, but he, seeing that legislation did not suffice, determined to proceed to more drastic measures. The situation was critical, for simony was widespread. The majority of the bishops appointed by Henry were associated in the emperor's shameful deeds. Bishoprics had been sold to the highest bidders and the episcopal buyers then sold off the parishes to obtain the price. Gregory excommunicated Henry's simoniacal counselors, and published a law prohibiting lay investiture.
Victory over the Saxons made the emperor too arrogant to listen to the pope. Henry treated Gregory's laws with contempt, deposed bishops as he pleased, appropriated church goods and bestowed upon his concubines precious stones stolen from the churches. He assembled the venal bishops at Worms for the purposes of deposing the pope and announced the sentence of deposition in a letter addressed to "The False Monk Hildebrand."
Gregory resolved upon severer measures and, at the Lenten Synod of 1076, pronounced sentence of excommunication against the emperor. By this act, Henry, though not deposed, was, according to the Germanic law, rendered incompetent to govern. Even the friends of Henry now abandoned him. Gregory, solicitous for the emperor's temporal and spiritual welfare, prevailed upon the princes, then assembled at Tribur (1076), not to proceed as yet to elect a new sovereign.
Seeing that he could conciliate the pope more readily than the electors, Henry clad in a penitential garb, went in winter to Canossa, where the pope was then staying, and prayed to be absolved from the ban of excommunication (1077). After three-day's penance, absolution was given him. The scene at Canossa has been greatly exaggerated. True the winter was exceptionally cold, and Henry with his companions stood in the open air for three days; but during the night they retired to an inn, where food and drink was given them. Their penitential garb was worn over other clothing. Henry was not forced to do this; it was his own way of prevailing upon the pope to reinstate him and thus preventing the princes from electing another emperor. That the pope ordered Henry as an ordeal to receive the Holy Eucharist is a fable.
Soon afterwards Henry broke his promises and united with the enemies of the pope. Thereupon the princes declared him deposed and elected Rudolph, Duke of Suabia. The pope again excommunicated him, but Henry disregarded the act of the pope, and appointed an anti-pope, Clement III, thus causing a schism (1080). Among other outrages, the emperor besieged Rome, and set fire to St. Peter's. Gregory, having been rescued by Robert Guiscard, Duke of Normandy, went to Salerno, where he died in 1085. His last words were: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile." Gregory's character was truly great. He was noble, magnanimous and gentle, though inflexible when bent on doing good. John von Mueller says of him: "Gregory had the courage of a hero, the prudence of a senator, the zeal of a prophet."
The Pontificate of Gregory VII (1073-1085), gave a new and vigorous impulse to the progress of learning. Many cathedral and cloister schools were transformed into universities. These institutions of learning were established under the supervision of the popes who incorporated ecclesiastical benefices for their maintenance and conferred privileges upon professors and students, dispensing religious from the obligation to attend choir, and founding scholarships for poor students. The origin and maintenance of these institutions of learning was exclusively due to the clergy. These universities flourished while they were under the influence of the Church. Later on, when the State assumed control, they declined. The curriculum of studies embraced theology, philosophy, jurisprudence and medicine.
The reforming influence of monastic ideals was felt throughout the world. When excessive wealth, together with a disregard of the letter or the spirit of their rule, caused many of the early orders to decline, new congregations arose with primitive fervor and purity. Not a few excellent congregations were established on the rule of St. Benedict. Many other religious confraternities were established during this period. 1. The Premonstratensians, founded by St. Norbert at Premontre, near Rheims, converted the Wends. 2. The Beguines, and other associations of pious seculars, led a religious life and devoted themselves to the care of the sick. 3. The Trinitarians and others devoted themselves to the ransoming of Christian captives.
Some of the most important councils of the twelfth and thirteenth century were held by exiled pontiffs in or on the border of France. It was a French Pope (Urban II), who proclaimed the First Crusade in 1096 at the Council of Clermont, so that to France belongs this great enterprise symbolical of the awakening of Western Europe after the long night of the Dark Ages.
The schism originated by Henry lasted until the death of the anti-pope Clement. Henry died in 1106, without having been reconciled to the Church. His son and successor, Henry V (1106-1125), was even more troublesome than his father. He marched across the Alps and made Pope Paschal a prisoner.
Paschal II (1109-1118) continued the fight against lay investiture, and King Henry I of England, after a long struggle with Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, relinquished the right of investiture (1106, AD). After years of contention, the emperor, too, finally made a compromise with Pope Calixtus II, in the Concordat of Worms (1122). This concordat was ratified in 1123 by the Ninth Ecumenical Council (I Lateran), the first general council ever held in the West.
A few years later, under Innocent II (1130-1143), was held the Tenth Ecumenical Council (II Lateran) which published a sentence of excommunication against King Roger of Sicily for supporting the anti-pope Anacletus II, elected on the same day as Innocent II.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
