17. Chapter 15: The Church Makes Efforts to Free Itself, 1049-1058

CHAPTER 15 The Church Makes Efforts to Free Itself, 1049-1058

1. A Review of Four Stages in the Roman Church Before we go on with the story of the Church we should recall four things:

2. The Cluny Reformers Enlist the Aid of Emperor Henry III The Cluny movement aimed at a reform of the clergy, the monks, and the papacy. This reform move­ment spread far and wide. It reached into many monasteries in every country of western Europe. It stirred the hearts and minds not only of thousands of monks, priests, and bishops, but also of numerous laymen. In fact, it was a layman, the Duke of Aquitaine, who had founded the Cluny mon­astery.

It will be interesting to see how the Cluny reform movement gained control of the papacy, and then broke the bonds in which the Church was held by the Italian nobles (ch. 13, sec. 4). We shall discover, too, that this reform movement was only partly suc­cessful in its grim effort to break also the bonds in which the Church was held by the German em­perors (ch. 13, sec. 5). As you will remember, three men at one and the same time tried to occupy the papal throne. One of them was the wicked and utterly unworthy Benedict IX, who had sold his office for money. To make an end of this scandal, and to restore the papacy, the Cluny reformers now called in the help of the German emperor Henry III, the head of the Holy Roman Empire. This emperor was one of the thousands of laymen who had come under the spell of Cluny. He was a truly religious man. A synod held under his leadership deposed Sylvester III. It also compelled Gregory VI to resign, and ban­ished him to Germany. Another synod deposed Benedict IX. There was not room on the papal seat for three men at once.. Trying to sit on that chair at one and the same time, all three fell off. To get away from the Italian corruption in Rome, Henry then had a German bishop chosen as pope under the name of Clement II. This pope and also the next one died soon. Henry then ap­pointed his cousin Bruno, bishop of Toul, to be pope as Leo IX.

3. Pope Leo IX Frees the Church from Bondage to the Italian Nobles

Leo IX, who was pope from 1049 to 1054, was a leading supporter of Cluny. It was for this reason that the emperor had appointed him. He was full of reformatory zeal, and he got busy at once. The first thing he did was to bring about a great change in the college of cardinals. From early times there had been in Rome lead­ing or cardinal bishops, cardinal priests, and cardinal deacons. This threefold differentiation in the col­lege of cardinals has continued down to the present day. The car­dinals are the personal assistants and advisers of the pope. In many ways the college of cardinals is to the popes what the cabinet is to our presidents. When Leo IX became pope, he found that the college of cardinals was made up entirely of Romans. These cardinals represented the Roman noble families, who for so long had kicked the popes around like a football. They had controlled and corrupted the papacy for years, and were entirely out of sympathy with the Cluny reform movement. The new pope ap­pointed to the college of cardinals men who were in hearty accord with Cluny — men who hated the corruption in the Church and the papacy, and were sincerely desir­ous of bringing about a reform. Moreover, he chose the new cardi­nals from various parts of the Church. Thus he surrounded him­self with advisers whom he could trust, and who represented not merely the one church in Rome but all the churches throughout Chris­tian Europe. In many other ways the new pope vigorously promoted reform. He traveled through France and Germany, held synods, and every­where enforced papal authority. In all he did he had the cordial co­operation of Hugo, who was abbot of Cluny. There were three things on which he laid special stress. He forbade priests to marry, and to practise simony — the giving of the appointment to a church office, or the obtaining of the appoint­ment to a church office, for money. Leo also insisted that no one should obtain a church office with­out the choice of the clergy and people.

4. Pope Leo IX and the Schism be­tween East and West But Leo’s term as pope, which began so gloriously, had also its troublous side. You will remember that, although the eastern and the western parts of the Church had for a long time been drifting apart, they were up to this time still united. It was while Leo was pope that the two parts of the Church separated from each other. Pope Leo IX of Rome became involved in trouble with Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople. In 1054 he sent representatives to Constantinople with a letter, which they laid upon the high altar of the St. Sophia Church. In that letter Pope Leo IX excommuni­cated Cerularius. The patriarch in turn excommunicated the pope. That was the schism, or division, of the Church (mentioned in chap­ter 10), the division of the one Church into two — the Greek Eastern and the Latin Western Church.

You will recall (ch. 13, sec. 3) that the Normans made them­selves masters of southern Italy. Leo now claimed that territory as his possession, and went to war with the Normans. The army of the pope was utterly defeated, and the pope himself was made a pris­oner of war. Although he was soon released, he survived this misfor­tune only a short time. He died in the year of the Schism between East and West (1054). THE CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA, NOW A MOHAMMEDAN MOSQUE

5. The Cluny Reformers Face a Di­lemma

Emperor Henry III appointed another German to succeed Leo IX. This man took the name of Victor II. He was pope for only two years, from 1055 to 1057. In 1056 Henry III died unexpectedly. Vic­tor II was an adherent of the Cluny reform party, but at the same time he had been very much devoted to Emperor Henry III. At the time of the emperor’s death his son was a boy of only six. Vic­tor brought about the acceptance of this boy as successor to the im­perial throne under the regency of his empress mother, Agnes. The Cluny reform party now saw itself placed before a dilemma. It had succeeded in breaking the bonds in which the papacy had been held by the Roman nobles. But it had been able to do so only with the help of the German em­peror. In reality the papacy had only exchanged masters. In the place of the Church’s bondage to the Roman nobles had come its bondage to the German emperors. For the time being the Cluny re­formers had tolerated the imperial bondage for two reasons. (1) It seemed to be the only way to break the bonds in which the Ital­ian nobles had held the papacy. (2) They much preferred the im­perial bonds. The popes had been the dupes of the constant strife of the Italian nobles among each other. Those nobles had pushed the popes around, corrupted the papacy, and disgraced the Church. Emperor Henry III had, it is true, dominated the papacy as com­pletely as the Roman nobles had done before him. But the latter had been bitterly hostile to reform, whereas the emperor had promoted it.

Now, however, the Holy Roman Empire had at its head the em­press mother Agnes as regent. She was weak. Her strong husband, Henry III, was dead. Her son, who one day would ascend the German imperial throne as Henry IV, was as yet only a little six-year-old boy. The Cluny reformers believed that circumstances were now fa­vorable for breaking also the im­perial bonds.

6. Pope Stephen IX Side-steps an Opportunity for Reform The reform party was now in control also in Rome. And a new pope, Stephen IX, was chosen by the Roman clergy under the lead­ership of the Cluny reformers, without imperial dictation or in­fluence. The mother regent, Agnes, was not even consulted.

Stephen himself was a strong reformer. He declared that ap­pointment to church office, in order to be official and valid, must be made by the Church, not by lay­men. He expressed very firmly his disapproval of la investiture. (In­vestiture was the giving to a man who was elected bishop a ring and a staff as symbols of his office. When a layman -- a man who had not the authority of the Church ­gave someone these symbols and made him bishop, the act was called lay investiture.) The power of the German em­peror rested, as we have seen (ch. 13, sec. 5), upon his right to ap­point and invest bishops favorable to him. If the right of appoint­ment and investiture should be taken away from the emperor, his power would be greatly weakened. It could not be expected that the emperor would give up this right without offering strong opposition. If the pope should try to carry out the policy he had announced, it would surely result in a great con­flict between pope and emperor.

Pope Stephen IX was a brother of Godfrey, duke of Lorraine. This Godfrey was married to Beatrice, countess of Tuscany. That made him the most powerful noble in northern Italy. And Godfrey was an enemy of the imperial family.

Here indeed was a situation loaded with dynamite: a pope who on principle was opposed to the appointment and investiture of bishops by the emperor: and to spur him on to put his principles into practice, his influential brother, Duke Godfrey, an enemy of the emperor. The dynamite failed to explode. The pope did not bring the impend­ing conflict to an issue. He was afraid to do so. Instead he asked the regent mother, the empress Agnes, to give her approval of his occupancy of the papal throne. He obtained her approval, but almost immediately thereafter he died.

7. Hildebrand Becomes the Power Behind the Papal Throne

Upon the death of Pope Stephen IX a situation of great difficulty arose for the Cluny reform party. The Roman nobles tried to regain their power over the papacy. Only a week after the death of Stephen they elected one of their own num­ber pope with the title of Benedict X. Benedict had also been the name of the infamous pope who had been the last man the Roman nobles had put into the papal office (ch. 13, sec. 6), and who had been deposed by Emperor Henry III (ch. 15, sec. 2). The reform cardinals (ch. 15, sec. 3) had to leave Rome and seek safety in flight. The outlook for the Cluny party was very dark. It looked as if the conditions that had prevailed in the tenth century and in the days of Benedict IX might return. But help came in an unexpected way.

Leo IX, before he had even be­gun his rule as, pope, did some­thing which no one noticed partic­ularly at the time, and to which the pope himself did not attach any unusual significance. No one could have known its importance at the time. When Pope Gregory VI was ban­ished to Germany, he was accom­panied into exile by a young man named Hildebrand. When Leo, having been appointed pope by the emperor Henry III (sec. 3), jour­neyed to Rome to occupy the papal throne, he took this Hildebrand back with him from Germany to Rome, made him sub-deacon, and put him in charge of the financial affairs of the papacy. It was this Hildebrand who, in this black hour when all seemed lost, stepped into the breach and saved the day.

First of all he looked around for a man who, as a sympathizer with the Cluny movement, would in his opinion make a good pope. He picked the Bishop of Florence as his candidate. Next he lined up the Duke of Tuscany and a part of the people of Rome to back his candidate. However, he succeeded in interesting only a minority of the people. But a representative of this minority party succeeded in gaining the consent of the re­gent empress Agnes to the election of Hildebrand’s candidate.

Then Hildebrand rallied the re­form cardinals, who had fled. They chose the Florentine bishop, Hilde­brand’s candidate, as pope. The new pope assumed the title of Nicholas II. The soldiers of Duke Godfrey of Tuscany made Nicholas master of Rome, and established him firmly upon the papal throne. But from now on the real power behind that throne was Hilde­brand