318 



POPE 



whence he anil his successors who adopted the 

 same policy are called Iconoclast* ( image-breakers ). 

 Gregory refused to obey his decree, and was upheld 

 by the Italians and the West generally. The 

 imperial governor in Italy, called the exarch, 

 sought to compel the pope to obey his master, and 

 the Italians rose in the pope's defence. The Lom- 

 liards took advantage of the confusion to conquer 

 the exarchate. They threatened the lands of the 

 church ; no help was to be had from the emperor; 

 Italy was virtually severed from the empire. In 

 his distress, Gregory III. (731-741) appealed for 

 help to the Catholic Franks. Twice Pepm brought 

 an army of Franks to the pope's relief, and routed 

 the Lombards ; he won back from them all that 

 bad belonged to the exarchate in Northern Italy, 

 and bestowed it on the Roman see (754). This 

 was the beginning of the temporal power of the 

 popes. In return Pepin accepted from the pope 

 the title of Patrician of the Romans, an acknow- 

 ledgment of his rights in Rome, and of his duty 

 as the defender of the church. He had already 

 received the papal sanction for the deposition of 

 the Prankish king and his own coronation ; the 

 pope's action in this matter formed a precedent not 

 forgotten by his successors. Pepin's son, Charles 

 (Charlemagne), again routed the I .milliards and 

 renewed his father's donation. At another visit he 

 declared Leo III. (795-816) guiltless of certain 

 crimes with which he was charged, and on Christ- 

 mas Day, 800, Leo crowned him emperor. It was 

 contrary to the feelings of the age that the church 

 should lack an imperial protector ; the breach with 

 the eastern empire was complete, and the imperial 

 throne at Constantinople was held to be occupied 

 unlawfully. While Leo had allowed his cause to 

 be judged by a temporal prince, and had accepted 

 him as master of Rome and emperor, he had 

 assumed as God's vicar the right to bestow the 

 imperial crown, which carried with it the lordship 

 of the world. 



During the struggles that preceded the break-up 

 of the Prankish empire the popes generally favoured 

 West (or Gaulish ) Franks, rather 



the princes of the 



than of the East (or German) Franks. 



The rise 



of separate nation- threw political power into the 

 hands of the great churchmen of tne new states. 

 The pontificate of Nicolas I. (858-867) was marked 

 liy the successful assertion of the authority of 

 Koine in correcting the vices of princes, and com- 

 pelling the submission of the most powerful prelates 

 of the Went, such as the Archbishop of Ravenna, 

 certain German bishops who upheld t heir king in 

 his evil ways, and even Hincmar of Rheims. His 

 chief weapon against the bishops was a series of 

 early decretals, now known to have been forgeries 

 not emanating from Rome. The lofty policy of 

 Nicolas was pursued, though with less success, by 

 Hadrian II. (867-872). Meanwhile a dispute 

 begun in the time of Nicolas was leading the 

 Greek Church towards schism. During the papacy 

 of John VIII. (872-882) the Saracens established 

 themselves in Southern Italy and threatened Rome, 

 and the courageous pope sought help on all sides 

 against them and his Christian enemies. The 

 anarchy in Italy which followed the extinction of 

 the Carolingian empire had the worst effects on 

 the papacy. Things were darkest in the lirst half 

 of the lOtli century. Competitors for power treated 

 the popes ax their tools, and elections to the papacy 

 were decided either by the nobles of Rome, or the 

 mob, or any foreign jM>wer which chanced to lie 

 master of the city. No reverence was iwid to the 

 papal office, and several of those raised to it were 

 men of fierce and unholy lives. Pressed by enemies, 

 John XII. sent for help to Otto the Great, king of 

 Germany, and, by crowning him emperor in 962, 

 revived the empire ; he acknowledged Otto as his 



sovereign, and the Romans swore to elect no pope 

 without the emperor's consent. Though Otto, his 

 sou, and his grandson did something towards 

 restoring to the papacy its proper dignity, the 

 attempt to regenerate it failed ; and, after the 

 death of Otto III., it was again degraded by fall- 

 ing under the control of the counU of Tusculnin. 



The emperor Henry III. regenerated the papacy 

 by releasing it from the control of the Koman 

 noliles, and conferring it on German cliurclinien of 

 high character. One of these, Leo IX. (104U-.V, i. 

 commanded the respect of Christendom by his 

 revival of ecclesiastical discipline. He was taken 

 prisoner when attempting to check the Norman 

 invaders of Italy, but the Normans reverenced 

 their captive, and after his death acknowledged 

 the pope as the feudal lord of their conquests, 

 Sicily anil Southern Italy. Under the guidance 

 of Hildebrand (see GREGORY VII.) the papacy 

 advanced rapidly in power and repute. Bv a 

 decree of Nicolas II. (1059-61) in 1059 the right 

 of election was vested in the cardinals After a 

 severe struggle clerical celibacy was enforced, and 

 the clergy thus separated from worldly ties be- 

 came devoted to the interests of their order and 

 its earthly head. Simony was strictly repressed. 

 A further advance was made when Gregory VII. 

 (1073-86) forbade churchmen to receive investi- 

 ture of their benefices from lay hands. This 

 touched the sovereignty of lay princes. He was 

 opposed by the Emperor Henry IV. (q.v.). The 

 principle at stake was the church's independence of 

 the lay power, its dependence on its own visible 

 head, anil its consequent salvation from feudal 

 bonds and abuses. Gregory asserted the highest 

 claims, and deposed the emperor, who made a 

 humiliating submission at Canossa in 1077. IVpe 

 and emperor each found support, the pope in the 

 discontent of the Germans and in the Normans. 

 War broke out, an antipope and rivals to the 

 emperor were set up. The straggle lasted lieyond 

 the lives of Gregory and Henry IV., and was 

 decided in 1122 by the Concordat of Worms, which, 

 though a compromise, was a substantial victory for 

 the papacy. During the straggle the Crusades 

 brought a vast increase of power to the pope, for 

 they made him the head of Christendom in arms 

 and the director of its forces. Though disturbed 

 for a few years by a schism, the result of Roman 

 faction, the reign of Innocent II. (1130-43) was a 

 time of greatness. The religious orders had from 

 the first rise of western monasticism been strong 

 upholders of the papacy, and each order as it was 

 founded laid its new-born zeal at the disposal of 

 Rome. Innocent gained much from the support of 

 St Bernard, hacked by all the strength of the 

 Cistercian order. Under Hadrian IV. (lir>4-59), 

 a native of St Albans, named Nicolas P.rakcspear, 

 the only Englishman who has been raised to the 

 papal chair, the papacy entered on a struggle uith 

 the Eni|K'ror Frederick I., who was determined fully 

 to enforce his imperial rights. In thcoiy pope and 

 emperor supplied each the complement of the other's 

 power, the one Ix'ing (Sod's vicegerent in spiritual, 

 the other in worldly things; but the limits dividing 

 their spheres of action were undclinablc, and when 

 IM>||I were strong they were almost forced into 

 hostility. Among the definite causes of dispute 



was the sovereignty of the pope over certain parts 

 of Italy which had" been bequeathed to the papacy 

 by the Countess Matilda of Tuscany (died 111.')). 



The popes were upheld by a league of the Lom- 

 bard citk-s, which carried on a long war with the 

 emperor; he was defeated, and in 1177 submitted 

 to Alexander III. 



The papal authority reached its greatest height 

 under Innocent III. (1198-1216), who ruled as the 

 head of a vast spiritual empire, founded on the 



