severe sentence, which filled a great part of Christendom with troubles and divisions, and involved pro vitâ tuâ mihi commissâ; et mihi tua gratia est potestas à Deo data ligandi atque solvendi in cœlo et in terrâ. Hâc itaque fiduciâ fretus pro Ecclesiæ tuæ honore et defensione, ex parte omnipotentis Dei Patris et Filii et Spiritûs Sancti, per tuam potestatem et auctoritatem, Henrico Regi Filio Henrici Imperatoris, qui contra tuam Ecclesiam inauditâ superbiâ insurrexit, totius Regni Teutonicorum, et Italiæ gubernacula contradico; et omnes Christianos à vinculo juramenti quod sibi fecere, vel facient, absolvo; ut nullus ei sicut Regi serviat, interdico. Dignum est enim, ut qui studet honorem Ecclesiæ tuæ imminuere, ipse honorem amittat quem videtur habere. Et quia sicut Christianus contemsit obedire, nec ad Dominum rediit quem dimisit, participando excommunicatis, meaque monita, quæ pro suâ salute sibi misi, te teste, spernendo seque ab Ecclesiâ tuâ, tentans eam scindere, separando, vinculo eum anathematis vice tuâ alligo, et sic eum ex fiduciâ tuâ alligo, ut sciant gentes, et comprobent quia tu es Petrus, et super tuam Petram Filius Dei Vivi ædificavit Ecclesiam suam, et portæ inferi non prevalebunt adversus eam." "Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, incline thine ears, we beseech thee, to us, and hear me, thy servant, whom thou hast nourished from mine infancy, and to the present day hast liberated from the hand of the unjust, who have hated and do hate me for my fidelity to thee. Thou art my witness, and so is my lady the mother of God, and blessed Paul thy brother, and all the saints, that thy Holy Roman church has advanced me against my will to the head of its government; and I have not thought it robbery to ascend to thy seat; and I would rather end my life in pilgri mage than take possession of thy place for the secular glory of the world. And, therefore, from thy favour, not of my works, I believe that it hath pleased, and doth please thee, that the Christian people specially committed to thee should obey me, specially for thy life committed to me; and thy favour to me is the power given by God of binding and loosing in heaven and in Germany in long and bloody wars, the emperor was reduced to such extremity, that he set out for Italy in the middle of winter, with his wife and son Conrad, an infant, in order to humble himself before the pope, who was then at Canosa, a place belonging to Godfrey and Mathilda.-After a journey attended with great fatigue and inconvenience, Henry alone was admitted within the outer gate, and given to understand that he had no favour to expect, until he should have fasted three days, standing from morning to evening barefooted earth. Relying, therefore, on thy faithfulness for the honour and defence of thy church, on the part of Almighty God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by thy power and authority I forbid the government of the whole kingdom of the Germans and of Italy to king Henry, the son of Henry the emperor, who hath risen up with unexampled pride against thy church; and I absolve all Christians from the oath of allegiance which they have made or shall make to him, that none may obey him as king. For it is proper that he who studies to lessen the honour of thy church should himself lose the honour which he appeareth to have. And because as a Christian, he hath despised obedience; neither hath returned to the Lord whom he hath forsaken in having fellowship with excommunicated persons, and in spurning my admonitions, which, thou being my witness, I sent him for his salvation, and also in separating himself from thy church, thereby endeavouring to make a schism; I, in thy stead, bind him with the bond of the anathema, and thus I bind him in fidelity to thee, that all the nations may know and acknowledge, that thou art Peter, and upon thy rock the Son of the living God hath built his church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Dumont's Corps Diplomatique, Tom. I. p. 53. The date of the instrument is A. D. 1076. among the snow, and then asked pardon of the Pope for the offences he had committed: This penance was literally performed; and on the fourth day, being the twenty-fifth day of January, (1077,) he was forgiven, and received absolution."* Here we have an evident instance of the power and great influence of the Popes in the eleventh century : but it was still further increased in the following century; for on the 23d of September 1122, the emperor Henry V. gave up all right of conferring the regalia by the ceremony of the ring and crosier, and that the chapters and communities should be at liberty to fill up their own vacancies. † The contest between the Pope and the emperors, which was terminated in 1122, was renewed by Frederic I. *See Modern Universal History, Vol. XXIX. p. 85. 66 + That part of the instrument which contains this concession is couched in the following words: Ego Heinricus Dei gratiâ Romanorum Imperator Augustus, pro amore Dei, et Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ, et Domini Papæ Callixti, et pro remedio animæ mex, dimitto Deo et Sanctis ejus Apostolis Petro et Paulo, sanctæque Catholicæ Ecclesiæ, omnem investituram per annulum et baculum, et concedo in omnibus Ecclesiis, quæ in Regno vel Imperio meo sunt, canonicam fieri electionem et liberam consecrationem." I Henry, by the grace of God, emperor and Augustus, for the love of God, and the Holy Roman church, and our Lord Callixtus the Pope, and for the salvation of my soul, I give up to God and his holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to the Holy catholic church, all right of investiture by the ring and crosier; and I grant a canonical election and free consecration to be made in all churches which are in the kingdom or my empire. Dumont, Tom. I. p. 66. surnamed Barbarossa; but after a long warfare, with various success, the emperor was obliged to sue for peace from the Pope; in consequence of which there was an interview between them at Venice in 1176, the account of which is as follows: "The emperor's arrival in that city being notified, he was waited upon by the doge, the patriarch, the bishop, the clergy, and the senate, who conducted him in their barge to St. Mark's, where the Pope and cardinals waited his coming. Frederic, when he approached" the Pope, "who was seated, bowed down with profound reverence, and kissed his feet; a condescension which brought tears into the eyes of the Pope, who clasped him in his arms, and gave him the kiss of peace; then, the emperor taking him by the hand, they entered the church together, where, mass being celebrated by the Pope himself, Frederic reconducted him to the door, still walking on his left hand, and held the stirrup while he mounted his mule." The custom which the Popes adopted of dating their acts according to the years of the emperor's reign, and impressing the imperial image on their coins, had disappeared in the time of Gregory VII. The domain of the church was subsequently augmented by the famous donation of the countess Matilda, who died in 1115, and had invested the Pope with the province known under the name of the patrimony of St. Peter, as well as the Marc of Ancona, the duchy of Spoleto, * * See Modern Universal History, Vol. XXIX, p. 134. * the Ferrarese, and the Bolognese. Now the præfecture of the city of Rome was given up to Pope Alexander III. by the peace concluded at Venice, in 1177; and the emperor Frederic I. and several emperors hesitated not to acknowledge the entire independence of the Popes, in renouncing formally every right of sovereignty which their predecessors had enjoyed over Rome and the ecclesiastical state. "The emperor Henry VI. son of Frederic Barbarossa, submitted to be crowned kneeling by the Pope; who, being seated in a magnificent chair, as soon as he had crowned him kicked the crown from his head again, to shew his right of taking away as well as conferring empire."+ From this time till the commencement of the fourteenth century the power of the Popes was considerably increased. The exorbitant power of the Popes was, at last, so confirmed by length of time that it seemed immoveable. The principal thing which contributed to the Pope's temporal grandeur was the "excessive superstition that enslaved the minds of the generality, together with the wretched ignorance and barbarity of the age, by which every spark of truth was stifled, as it were, in its very birth." In the thirteenth century the Popes "inculcated that pernicious maxim, That the bishop of *See Koch's Tableau des Revolutions, Tom. I. pp. 139, 140, and other historians. + Puffendorf's Introduction to the History of the Principal States of Europe, Vol. I. p. 351, Edit. Lond. 1764. |