The Church and the Empire | Page 7

master's death. Not only did the new Pope, Leo IX, take this inflexible
advocate of the Church's claims as his chief adviser, but he surrounded
himself with reforming ecclesiastics from beyond the Alps. Thus

fortified he issued edicts against simoniacal and married clergy; but
finding that their literal fulfilment would have emptied all existing
offices, he was obliged to tone down his original threats and to allow
clergy guilty of simony to atone their fault by an ample penance. But
Leo's contribution to the building up of the papal power was his
personal appearance, not as a suppliant but as a judge, beyond the Alps.
Three times in his six years' rule he passed the confines of Rome and
Italy. On the first occasion he even held a Council at Rheims, despite
the unfriendly attitude of Henry I of France, whose efforts, moreover,
to keep the French bishops from attendance at the Council met with
signal failure. Here and elsewhere Pope Leo exercised all kinds of
powers, forcing bishops and abbots to clear themselves by oath from
charges of simony and other faults, and excommunicating and
degrading those who had offended. And while he reduced the hierarchy
to recognise the papal authority, he overawed the people by assuming
the central part in stately ceremonies such as the consecration of new
churches and the exaltation of relics of martyrs. All this was possible
because the Emperor Henry III supported him and welcomed him to a
Council at Mainz. Nor was it a matter of less importance that these
visits taught the people of Western Europe to regard the Papacy as the
embodiment of justice and the representative of a higher morality than
that maintained by the local Church.
[Sidenote: Effect of Henry III's death.]
Quite unwittingly Henry III's encouragement of Pope Leo's roving
propensities began the difficulties for his descendants. It is true he
nominated Leo's successor at the request of the clergy and people of
Rome; but Henry's death in 1056 left the German throne to a child of
six under the regency of a woman and a foreigner who found herself
faced by all the hostile forces hitherto kept under by the Emperor's
powerful arm. And when Henry's last Pope, Victor II, followed the
Emperor to the grave in less than a year, the removal of German
influence was complete. The effect was instantaneous. The first Pope
elected directly by the Romans was a German indeed by birth, but he
was the brother of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, who, driven from
Germany by Henry, had married the widowed Marchioness of Tuscany.

and was regarded by a small party as a possible King of Italy and
Emperor. Whatever danger there was in the schemes of the
Lotharingian brothers was nipped in the bud by the death of Pope
Stephen IX seven months after his election. Then it became apparent
that the removal of the Emperor's strong hand had freed not only the
upholders of ecclesiastical reform but also the old Roman factions. The
attempt was easily crushed, but it became clear to the reformers that the
papal election must be secured beyond all possibility of outside
interference. At Hildebrand's suggestion and with the approval of the
German Court, a Burgundian, who was Bishop of Florence, was elected
as Nicholas II. The very name was a challenge, for the first Nicholas
(858-67) was perhaps the Pope who up to that time had asserted the
highest claims for the See of Rome.
[Sidenote: Provision for papal election.]
The short pontificate of the new Nicholas was devoted largely to
measures for securing the freedom of papal elections from secular
interference. By a decree passed in a numerously attended Council at
the Pope's Lateran palace, a College or Corporation was formed of the
seven bishops of the sees in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome,
together with the priests of the various Roman parish churches and the
deacons attendant on them. To the members of this body was now
specially arrogated the term Cardinal, a name hitherto applicable to all
clergy ordained and appointed to a definite church. To all Roman
clergy outside this body and to the people there remained merely the
right of assent, and even this was destined to disappear. More important
historically was the merely verbal reservation of the imperial right of
confirmation, which was further made a matter of individual grant to
each Emperor who might seek it from the Pope. In view of the revived
influence of the local factions it was also laid down that, although
Rome and the Roman clergy had the first claim, yet the election might
lawfully take place anywhere and any one otherwise eligible might be
chosen; while the Pope so elected might exercise his authority even
before he had been enthroned.
[Sidenote: Papacy and Normans.]

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