Papacy

Other Conflicts.

This great triumph was not the only success gained by Alexander III. over lay sovereigns. The con flict of the priesthood with the kingdoms and nations that were tending to aggrandize themselves by transcending the religious limits of the mediaeval theocracy took place in another theatre. The affair of Thomas Becket (q.v.) involved the papacy in a quarrel with the powerful monarchy of the Angevins, whose rep resentative, Henry II., was master of England and of half of France. Alexander's diplomatic skill and moral authority, rein forced by the Capetian alliance and the revulsion of feeling caused by the murder of Becket, enabled him to force the despotic Henry to yield, and even to do penance at the tomb of the martyr. Unfortunately for the papacy, the successors of Alexander III. lacked vigour, and their pontificates were too brief to allow them to pursue a strong policy against the Germanic imperialism. Never were the leaders of the Church in such jeopardy as during the reign of Barbarossa's son, Henry VI. This vigorous despot, whose ambitions were not all chimerical, had succeeded where his predecessors, including Frederick, had failed. His marriage with the heiress of the old Norman kings had made him master of Sicily and the duchy of Apulia and Calabria, and he succeeded in conquering and retaining almost all the remainder of the peninsula. The Norman kingdom, which had conquered Sicily and south ern Italy at the end of the i 1 th century, was almost as grave a source of anxiety to the popes of this period. Not only was its very existence an obstacle to the spread of their temporal power in the peninsula, but it frequently acted in concert with the pope's enemies and thwarted the papal policy. The attempts of Honorius II. (1128) and Innocent II. (1139) to wrest Apulia and Calabria from King Roger II., and Adrian IV.'s war with William I. (1156), were one and all unsuccessful; and the papacy had to content itself with the vassalage and tribute of the Normans, and allowed them to organize the ecclesiastical government of their domains in their own fashion, to limit the right of appeal to Rome, and to curtail the power of the Roman legates. At this period, moreover, the "Norman question" was intimately con nected with the "Eastern question." The Norman adventurers in possession of Palermo and Naples perpetually tended to look for their aggrandizement to the Byzantine empire. In the interests of their temporal dominion, the 12th-century popes could not suffer an Italian power to dominate on the other side of the Adriatic and instal itself at Constantinople. This contingency explains the vacillating and illogical character of the papal diplomacy with regard to the Byzantine problem, and, inter alia, the opposition of Eugenius III. in 115o to Roger II.'s projected crusade, directed towards the conquest of the Greek state.

As regards its temporal aims on Italy, the most inconvenient and tenacious, if not the most dangerous, adversary of the 12th century papacy was the Roman commune. Since the middle of the i 2th century the party of municipal autonomy and, indeed, the whole of the European middle classes, who wished to shake off the feudal yoke and secure independence, had been ranged against the successor of St. Peter. The first symptoms of resist ance were exhibited under Innocent II. (1142), who was unable to stem the growing revolution or prevent the establishment of a Roman senate sitting in the Capitol. The strength of classical reminiscence and the instinct of liberty were reinforced by the support given to communal aspirations by the porlular agitator and dangerous tribune, Arnold of Brescia (q.v.), whose theories arrived at an opportune moment to encourage the revolted com mons. He denied the power of clerks to possess fiefs, and allowed them only religious authority and tithes. The successors of Inno cent II. were even less successful in maintaining their supremacy

in Rome. Lucius II., when called upon to renounce all his regalian rights, fell mortally wounded in an attempt to drive the autonomists by force from the Capitol (1145). Under Eugenius III. the Romans sacked and destroyed the houses of the clerks and cardinals, besieged St. Peter's and the Lateran, and massacred the pilgrims. The pope was forced to fly with the Sacred College, to escape the necessity of recognizing the commune, and thus left the field free to Arnold of Brescia (1145). On his return to Rome, Eugenius had to treat with his rebel subjects and to acknowledge the senate they had elected, and he was unable to procure the expulsion of the agitator. The more energetic Adrian IV. refused to truckle to the municipality, placed it under an interdict (1155), and allied himself with Frederick Barbarossa to quell an insurrection which respected the rights of emperors no more than the rights of popes. From the moment that Arnold of Brescia, absorbed in his chimerical project of reviving the ancient Roman republic, disregarded the imperial power and neglected to shelter himself behind the German in his conflict with the priesthood, his failure was certain and his fate foredoomed. He was hanged and burned, probably in pur suance of the secret agreement between the pope and the emperor; and Adrian IV. was reconciled with the Romans (1156). The commune, however, subsisted, and was on several occasions strong enough to eject the masters who were distasteful to it. Unfor tunately for Alexander III. the Roman question was complicated during his pontificate with the desperate struggle with the empire. The populace of the Tiber welcomed and expelled him with equal enthusiasm, and when his body was brought back from exile, the mob went before the cortege and threw mud and stones upon the funeral litter. All obeyed the pontiff of Rome—save Rome itself. Lucius III., who was pope for four years (i181-1185), remained in Rome four months, while Urban III. and Gregory VIII. never entered the city. At length the two parties grew weary of this state of revolution, and a regime of conciliation, the fruit of mutual concessions, was established under Clement III. By the act of '188, the fundamental charter of the Roman commune, the people recognized the supremacy of the pope over the senate and the town, while the pope on his part sanctioned the legal existence of the commune and of its government and assemblies.

Development of Centralized Organization.—Although among other obstacles, the popes of the 12th century had experi enced some difficulty in subduing the inhabitants of the city, which was the seat and centre of the Christian world, their monarchy did not cease to gain in authority, solidity and prestige, and the work of centralization, which was gradually making them mas ters of the whole ecclesiastical organism, was accomplished steadily and without serious interruption. If Rome expelled them, they always found a sure refuge in France, where Alexander III. carried on his government for several years; and the whole of Europe acknowledged their immense power. Under Honorius II. the custom prevailed of substituting legates a latere, simple priests or deacons of the Curia, for the regionary dele gates, who had grown too independent ; and that excellent instru ment of rule, the Roman legate, carried the papal will into the remotest courts of Europe. The episcopate and the great monastic prelacies continued to lose their independence, as was shown by Honorius II. deputing a cardinal to Monte Cassino to elect an abbot of his choosing. The progress of the Roman power was especially manifested under Innocent II., who had triumphed over the schism, and was supported by the empire and by Bernard of Clairvaux, the first moral authority of his time.