The history of the period begins
with a survey of the papacy as the controlling power of Western Christendom. It
embraces six stages: 1. The Hildebrandian popes, 1049–1073. 2. Gregory VII.,
1073–1085, or the assertion of the supreme authority of the papacy in human
affairs. 3. From Gregory’s death to the Concordat of Worms, 1122, or the
settlement of the controversy over investiture. 4. From the Concordat of Worms
to Innocent III., 1198. 5. The Pontificate of Innocent III., 1198–1216, or the
papacy at its height. 6. From Innocent III. to Boniface VIII., 1216–1294, or
the struggle of the papacy with Frederick II. and the restoration of peace
between the papacy and the empire.

The papacy had reached its
lowest stage of weakness and degeneracy when at Sutri in 1046, under the
influence of Henry III., two popes were deposed and a third was forced to
abdicate.3 But the worthless popes, who prostituted their office and outraged
the feelings of Christendom during the tenth and the first half of the eleventh
century, could not overthrow the papacy any more than idolatrous kings could
overthrow the Jewish monarchy, or wicked emperors the Roman Empire. In the
public opinion of Europe, the papacy was still a necessary institution
established by Christ in the primacy of Peter for the government and
administration of the church. There was nothing to take its place. It needed
only a radical reformation in its head, which would be followed by a
reformation of the members. Good men all over Europe anxiously desired and
hoped that Providence would intervene and rescue the chair of Peter from the
hands of thieves and robbers, and turn it once more into a blessing. The idea
of abolishing the papacy did not occur to the mind of the Christians of that
age as possible or desirable.

At last the providential man for
effecting this necessary reformation appeared in the person of Hildebrand, who
controlled five successive papal administrations for twenty-four years,
1049–1073, then occupied the papal chair himself for twelve years, 1073–1085,
and was followed by like-minded successors. He is one of the greatest, if not
the greatest, of popes, and one of the most remarkable men in history. He
excited in his age the highest admiration and the bitterest hatred. Opinions
about his principles and policy are still divided; but it is impossible to deny
his ability, energy, earnestness, and achievements.

Hildebrand was of humble and
obscure origin, but foreordained to be a prince of the Church. He was of small
stature, and hence called "Hildebrandellus" by his enemies, but a
giant in intellect and character. His figure was ungainly and his voice feeble;
but his eyes were bright and piercing, bespeaking penetration, a fiery spirit,
and restless activity. His early life is involved in obscurity. He only incidentally
alludes to it in his later Epistles, and loved to connect it with the
supernatural protection of St. Peter and the Holy Virgin. With a monkish
disregard of earthly relations, he never mentions his family. The year of his
birth is unknown. The veneration of friends and the malice of enemies
surrounded his youth with legends and lies. He was the son of a peasant or
goatherd, Bonizo, living near Soana, a village in the marshes of Tuscany, a few
miles from Orbitello. The oft-repeated tradition that he was the son of a
carpenter seems to have originated in the desire to draw a parallel between him
and Jesus of Nazareth. Of his mother we know nothing. His name points to
Lombard or German origin, and was explained by his contemporaries as hell-brand
or fire-brand.4 Odilo,
the abbot of Cluny, saw sparks of fire issuing from his raiment, and predicted
that, like John the Baptist, he would be "great in the sight of the
Lord."

He entered the Benedictine order
in the convent of St. Mary on the Aventine at Rome, of which his maternal uncle
was abbot. Here he had a magnificent view of the eternal city.5 Here he was educated with Romans of the higher families.6 The convent was under the influence of the reformatory spirit of
Cluny, and the home of its abbots on their pilgrimages to Rome. He exercised
himself in severe self-discipline, and in austerity and rigor he remained a
monk all his life. He cherished an enthusiastic veneration for the Virgin Mary.
The personal contemplation of the scandalous contentions of the three rival
popes and the fearful immorality in the capital of Christendom must have raised
in his earnest soul a deep disgust. He associated himself with the party which
prepared for a reformation of the hierarchy.

His sympathies were with his
teacher and friend, Gregory VI. This pope had himself bought the papal dignity
from, the wretched Benedict IX., but he did it for the benefit of the Church,
and voluntarily abdicated on the arrival of Henry III. at the Synod of Sutri,
1046. It is strange that Hildebrand, who abhorred simony, should begin his
public career in the service of a simonist; but he regarded Gregory as the only
legitimate pope among the three rivals, and followed him, as his chaplain, to
Germany into exile.

He visited Worms, Spires,
Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, the old seats of the empire, and spent much time at
the court of Henry III., where he was very kindly treated. After the death of
Gregory at Cologne, 1048, Hildebrand went to Cluny, the nursery of a moral
reformation of monasticism. According to some reports, he had been there
before. He zealously gave himself to ascetic exercises and ecclesiastical
studies under the excellent abbot Hugo, and became prior of the convent. He
often said afterwards that he wished to spend his life in prayer and
contemplation within the walls of this sacred retreat.

But the election of Bishop Bruno
of Toul, the cousin of Emperor Henry III., to the papal chair, at the Diet of
Worms, brought him on the stage of public action. "Reluctantly," he
said, "I crossed the Alps; more reluctantly I returned to Rome." He
advised Bruno (either at Cluny or at Besancon) not to accept the triple crown
from the hands of the emperor, but to await canonical election by the clergy
and people of Rome. He thus clearly asserted, for the first time, his principle
of the supremacy of the Church over the State.

Bruno, accompanied by
Hildebrand, travelled to Rome as a pilgrim, entered the city barefoot, was
received with acclamations, canonically elected, and ascended the papal chair
on Feb. 12, 1049, as Leo IX.

From this time on, Hildebrand was the reigning spirit of
the papacy. He understood the art of ruling through others, and making them
feel that they ruled themselves. He used as his aide-de-camp Peter Damiani, the
severe monk and fearless censor of the immoralities of the age, who had
conquered the world within and helped him to conquer it without, in the crusade
against simony and concubinage, but died, 1072, a year before Hildebrand became
pope.8

§ 5. Hildebrand and Leo IX. 1049–1054.

The moral reformation of the papacy began with Hildebrand as
leader.9 He resumed the work of the emperor, Henry III., and carried it
forward in the interest of the hierarchy. He was appointed cardinal-subdeacon,
treasurer of the Roman Church, and abbot of St. Paul’s. He was repeatedly sent
as delegate to foreign countries, where he acquired an extensive knowledge of
affairs. He replenished the empty treasury and became wealthy himself through
the help of a baptized Jew, Benedictus Christianus, and his son Leo, who did a
prosperous banking business. But money was to him only a means for exalting the
Church. His great object was to reform the clergy by the destruction of two
well-nigh universal evils: simony (Acts 8:18), that is. the traffic in
ecclesiastical dignities, and Nicolaitism (Rev. 2:6, 15), or the concubinage of
the priests. In both respects he had the full sympathy of the new pope, and was
backed by the laws of the Church. The reformation was to be effected in the
regular way of synodical legislation under the personal direction of the pope.

Leo, accompanied by Hildebrand,
held several synods in Italy, France, and Germany. He was almost omnipresent in
the Church, and knew how to combine monastic simplicity with papal dignity and
splendor. He was believed to work miracles wherever he went, and to possess
magic powers over birds and beasts.

In his first synod, held in Rome
at Easter, 1049, simony was prohibited on pain of excommunication, including
the guilty bishops and the priests ordained by them. But it was found that a
strict prosecution would well-nigh deprive the churches, especially those of
Rome, of their shepherds. A penance of forty days was, therefore, substituted
for the deposition of priests. The same synod renewed the old prohibitions of
sexual intercourse of the clergy, and made the concubines of the Roman priests
servants of the Lateran palace. The almost forgotten duty of the tithe was
enjoined upon all Christians.

The reformatory synods of Pavia,
Rheims, and Mainz, held in the same year, legislated against the same vices, as
also against usury, marriage in forbidden degrees, the bearing of arms by the
clergy. They likewise revealed a frightful amount of simony and clerical
immorality. Several bishops were deposed.10 Archbishop Wido of Rheims narrowly escaped the same fate on a
charge of simony. On his return, Leo held synods in lower Italy and in Rome. He
made a second tour across the Alps in 1052, visiting Burgundy, Lorraine, and
Germany, and his friend the emperor. We find him at Regensburg, Bamberg, Mainz,
and Worms. Returning to Rome, he held in April, 1053, his fourth Easter Synod.
Besides the reform of the Church, the case of Berengar and the relation to the
Greek Church were topics of discussion in several of these synods. Berengar was
condemned, 1050, for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. It is
remarkable with what leniency Hildebrand treated Berengar and his eucharistic
doctrine, in spite of the papal condemnation; but he was not a learned
theologian. The negotiation with the Greek Church only ended in greater
separation.11

Leo surrounded himself with a
council of cardinals who supported him in his reform. Towards the close of his
pontificate, he acted inconsistently by taking up arms against the Normans in
defense of Church property. He was defeated and taken prisoner at Benevento,
but released again by granting them in the name of St. Peter their conquests in
Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. The Normans kissed his toe, and asked his
absolution and blessing. He incurred the censure of the strict reform party.
Damiani maintained that a clergyman dare not bear arms even in defense of the
property of the Church, but must oppose invincible patience to the fury of the
world, according to the example of Christ.

Leo spent his remaining days in grief over his defeat.
He died at Rome, April 19, 1054, in his fifty-third year, after commending his
soul to God in a German prayer of humble resignation, and was buried near the
tomb of Gregory I. As he had begun the reformation of the Church, and miracles
were reported, he was enrolled in the Calendar of Saints. Desiderius,
afterwards Victor III., wrote, "All ecclesiastical interests were reformed
by Leo and in him a new light arose in the world."

§ 6. Victor II. and Stephen IX. (X.). 1055–1058.

Hildebrand was absent in France when Leo died, and hurried to
Rome. He could find no worthy successor in Italy, and was unwilling to assume
the burden of the papacy himself. He cast his eye upon Gebhard, bishop of
Eichstädt, the ablest, richest, and most influential prelate of Germany, who
was warmly devoted to the emperor. He proceeded at the head of a deputation,
appointed by the clergy and people, to the German court, and begged the emperor
to raise Gebhard to the papal chair. After long delay, Gebhard was elected at a
council in Regensburg, March, 1055, and consecrated in St. Peter’s at Rome,
April 13, as Victor II. He continued the synodical war against simony, but died
as early as July 28, 1057, at Arezzo, of a fever. He was the last of the German
popes.

The cardinal-abbot of Monte
Cassino was elected and consecrated as Stephen IX. (X.), Aug. 3, 1057, by the
clergy and people of Rome, without their consulting the German court; but he
died in the following year, March 29, 1058.

In the meantime a great change
had taken place in Germany. Henry III. died in the prime of manhood, Oct. 5,
1056, and left a widow as regent and a son of six years, the ill-fated Henry
IV. The long minority reign afforded a favorable opportunity for the reform
party to make the papacy independent of the imperial power, which Henry III.
had wisely exerted for the benefit of the Church, yet at the expense of her
freedom.

The Roman nobility, under the lead of the counts of
Tusculum, took advantage of Hildebrand’s absence in Germany to reassert its
former control of the papacy by electing Benedict X. (1058–1060). But this was
a brief intermezzo. On his return, Hildebrand, with the help of Duke Godfrey,
expelled the usurping pope, and secured, with the consent of the empress, the
election of Gerhard, bishop of Florence, a strong reformer, of ample learning
and irreproachable character, who assumed the name of Nicolas II. at his
consecration, Jan. 25, 1059. Benedict was deposed, submitted, and obtained
absolution. He was assigned a lodging in the church of St. Agnes, where he
lived for about twenty years.

§ 7. Nicolas II. and the Cardinals. 1059–1061.

The pontificate of Nicolas II. was thoroughly under the control of
Hildebrand, who became archdeacon and chancellor of the Roman Church in August
or September, 1059. His enemies said that he kept Nicolas like an ass in the
stable, feeding him to do his work. Peter Damiani calls him the lord of the
pope, and said that he would rather obey the lord of the pope than the
lord-pope himself.12 He also
grimly calls Hildebrand his "holy Satan,"13because he had sometimes to obey
him against his will, as when he desired to lay down his bishopric at Ostia and
retire to a convent, but was not permitted to do so. He disliked the worldly
splendor which Hildebrand began to assume in dress and mode of living, contrary
to his own ascetic principles.

Two important steps were made in
the progress of the hierarchy,—a change in the election of the pope, and an
alliance with the Normans for the temporal protection of the pope.

Nicolas convened a Lateran
Council in April, 1059, the largest held in Rome down to that time. It
consisted of a hundred and thirteen bishops and a multitude of clergymen; but
more than two-thirds of the prelates were Italians, the rest Burgundians and
Frenchmen. Germany was not represented at all. Berengar was forced at this
synod to submit to a formula of recantation (which he revoked on his return to
France). He calls the bishops "wild beasts," who would not listen to
his idea of a spiritual communion, and insisted on a Capernaitic manducation of
the body of Christ.14

A far-reaching act of this
council was the transfer of the election of a pope to the
"cardinal-bishops" and "cardinal-clergy."15 At the pope’s death the initiative was to be taken by the
cardinal-bishops. In case they agreed they were to call in the cardinal-clergy.
In case of agreement between both these classes of functionaries they were to
present the candidate to the Roman clergy and people for ratification. The
stress thus laid upon the cardinal-bishops is a new thing, and it is evident
that the body of cardinals was accorded a place of importance and authority
such as it had not enjoyed before. Its corporate history may be said to begin
with these canons. The election of the pope was made its prerogative. The synod
further prescribed that the pope should be chosen from the body of Roman
clergy, provided a suitable candidate could be found among their number. In
usual cases, Rome was designated as the place of holding the election. The
cardinals, however, were granted liberty to hold it otherwheres. As for the
emperor, the language of the canons leaves it uncertain whether any part was
accorded to him in the ratification of the elected pope. His name is mentioned
with respect, but it would seem that all that was intended was that he should
receive due notification of the election of the new pontiff. The matter was,
therefore, taken entirely out of the emperor’s hands and lodged in the college
of cardinals.16 As Henry
was still young and not yet invested with the imperial dignity, it was a
favorable opportunity for the papal circle to secure the perpetual control of
the papal office for the Romans and the Roman clergy. With rare exceptions, as
in the case of the period of the Avignon exile, the election of the pope has
remained in the hands of the Romans ever since.

The alliance which Nicolas
entered into, 1059, with the Normans of Southern Italy, was the second act in
the long and notable part which they played in the history of the papacy. Early
in the eleventh century four brothers of the house of Hauteville, starting from
Normandy, began their adventurous career in Italy and Sicily. They were
welcomed as crusaders liberating the Christian population from the rule of the
Saracens and its threatened extension. The kingdom their arms established was
confirmed by the apostolic see, and under the original dynasty, and later under
the house of Anjou, had a larger influence on the destinies of the papacy for
three centuries than did Norman England and the successors of William the
Conqueror. Robert Guiscard, who had defeated the army of Leo IX., and held him
a prisoner for nine months, was confirmed by Nicolas as duke of Apulia and
Calabria. The duchy became a fief of Rome by an obligation to pay yearly twelve
dinars for every yoke of oxen and to defend the Holy See against attacks upon
its authority. Robert’s brother, Roger, d. 1101, began the conquest of Sicily
in earnest in 1060 by the seizure of Messina, and followed it up by the capture
of Palermo, 1071, and Syracuse, 1085. He was called Prince of Sicily and
perpetual legate of the Holy See. One of his successors, Roger II., 1105–1154,
was crowned king of Sicily at Palermo by the authority of the anti-pope
Anacletus II. A half century later the blood of this house became mingled with
the blood of the house of Hohenstaufen in the person of the great Frederick II.
In the prominent part they took we shall find these Norman princes now
supporting the plans of the papacy, now resisting them.

About the same time the Hautevilles and other
freebooting Normans were getting a foothold in Southern Italy, the Normans
under William the Conqueror, in 1066, were conquering England. To them England
owes her introduction into the family of European nations, and her national
isolation ceases.17

§ 8. The War against Clerical Marriage.

The same Lateran Council of 1059 passed severe laws against the
two heresies of simony and Nicolaitism. It threatened all priests who were
unwilling to give up their wives or concubines with the loss of their benefices
and the right of reading mass, and warned the laity against attending their
services. "No one," says the third of the thirteen canons,
"shall hear mass from a priest who to his certain knowledge keeps a
concubine or a subintroducta
mulier."

These severe measures led to
serious disturbances in Northern Italy, especially in the diocese of Milan,
where every ecclesiastical office from the lowest to the highest was for sale,
and where marriage or concubinage was common among priests of all grades, not
excluding the archbishop.18 Sacerdotal marriage was regarded as one of the liberties of the
church of St. Ambrose, which maintained a certain independence of Rome, and had
a numerous and wealthy clergy. The Milanese defended such marriage by Scripture
texts and by a fictitious decision of Ambrose, who, on the contrary, was an
enthusiast for celibacy. Candidates for holy orders, if unmarried, were asked
if they had strength to remain so; if not, they could be legally married; but
second marriages were forbidden, and the Levitical law as to the virginity of
the bride was observed. Those who remained single were objects of suspicion,
while those who brought up their families in the fear of God were respected and
eligible to the episcopate. Concubinage was regarded as a heinous offense and a
bar to promotion.19

But the Roman Church and the
Hildebrandian party reversed the case, and denounced sacerdotal marriage as
unlawful concubinage. The leader of this party in Lombardy was Anselm of Baggio
(west of Milan), a zealous and eloquent young priest, who afterwards became
bishop of Lucca and then pope (as Alexander II.). He attacked the immorality of
the clergy, and was supported by the lowest populace, contemptuously called
"Pataria" or "Patarines," i.e. "Ragbags."20 Violent and sanguinary tumults took place in the churches and
streets. Peter Damiani, a sincere enthusiast for ascestic holiness, was sent as
papal legate to Milan. He defended the Pataria at the risk of his life,
proclaimed the supremacy of the Roman see, and exacted a repudiation of all
heretical customs.

This victory had great influence throughout Lombardy.
But the strife was renewed under the following pope and under Gregory VII., and
it was not till 1093 that Urban II. achieved a permanent triumph over
Nicolaitism at a great council at Piacenza.

§ 9. Alexander II. and the Schism of Cadalus. 1061–1073.

Pope Nicolas II. died July 27, 1061. The cardinals elected, in
some unknown place outside of Rome, Anselm, bishop of Lucca, Sept. 30, 1061. He
was conducted to Rome in the following night by Norman soldiers, and
consecrated, Oct. 1, as Alexander II. His first act was to administer the oath
of fealty to Richard, the Norman leader.

The anti-Hildebrandian party of
the Roman nobles, headed by Count Girard of Galeria (an excommunicated robber),
with the aid of the disaffected Lombard clergy, and the young emperor Henry
IV., elected Cadalus (or Cadalous), bishop of Parma, anti-pope. He was
consecrated Oct. 28, 1061, as Honorius II., and maintained a schism of ten
years. He had been repeatedly charged with simony, and had the sympathy and
support of the married or concubinary clergy and the simoniacal laity, who
hoped that his success would lead to a modification of discipline and
legalization of clerical marriage. The opposition thus became an organized
party, and liable to the charge of heresy, which was considered worse than
carnal sin. Damiani and Humbert defended the principle that a priest who is
guilty of simony or concubinage, and believes himself innocent, is more
criminal than he who knows himself to be guilty. Damiani hurled the fiercest
denunciation of a Hebrew prophet against the anti-pope. Cadalus entered Rome
with an armed force, and maintained himself in the castle of St. Angelo for two
years; but at length he sought safety in flight without a single follower, and
moved to Parma. He died in 1072. His party was broken up.

Alexander held a council at
Mantua, May 31, 1064, and was universally recognized as the legitimate pope;
while Cadalus was anathematized and disappeared from history.

During the pontificate of
Alexander, the war against simony and Nicolaitism went on under the lead of
Hildebrand and Damiani with varying success. The troubles in Lombardy were
renewed. Archbishop Wido of Milan sided with Cadalus and was excommunicated; he
apologized, did penance, and resumed office. After his death in 1071 the strife
broke out again with disgraceful scenes of violence. The Patarine party,
supported with gold by the pope, gained the ascendancy after the death of
Cadalus. The Normans repelled the Mohammedan aggression and won Southern Italy
and Sicily for the Church of Rome.

This good service had some
weight on the determination of Hildebrand to support the claim of William of
Normandy to the crown of England, which was a master-stroke of his policy; for
it brought that island into closer contact with Rome, and strengthened the
papal pretension to dispose of temporal thrones. William fought under a banner
blessed by the pope, and founded the Norman dynasty in England, 1066. The
conquest was concluded at Winchester by a solemn coronation through three papal
delegates, Easter, 1070.

But in Germany there arose a powerful opposition, not
indeed to the papacy, which was the common ground of all parties, but to the
Hildebrandian policy. This led to the conflict between Gregory VII. and Henry
IV. Alexander threatened Henry with excommunication in case he persisted in his
purpose to divorce his queen Bertha.

*Schaff, Philip, History of
the Christian Church, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1997.
The material has been carefully compared and corrected according to the
Eerdmans reproduction of the 1907 edition by Charles Scribner's sons, with
emendations by The Electronic Bible Society, Dallas, TX, 1998.

10 In deposing at the Synod of Rheims the abp. of St. Iago, who had
assumed the title apostolicus, Leo asserted in the strongest terms the
primacy of the Roman see, quod solus Romanae sedis pontifex universalis,
ecclesiae primas esset et apostolicus, Mansi, XIX. 738.

11 The controversy of Berengar is treated in vol. IV. 554 sqq.; the
Greek controversy, ibid. p. 318 sqq. On the synods during the
pontificate of Leo IX., see Jaffé, Reg., 529-549, Hefele, IV. 716-777,
and Mirbt, Quellen, 95 sq.

15 The canons are given in Mirbt, Quellen, 97 sqq. The two
classes of cardinals are called cardinales episcopi and cardinales clerici. Langen makes the
attempt to identify the latter with "the clergy of Rome," but without
sufficient reason. The clergy, clerus, as a special body, are distinctly mentioned in the
canons.